Seeing Julia (5 page)

“You need to just stay away from her, Jake.” I try to smile through the edges of my drugged state, as Kimberley takes her familiar protective stance over me. I attempt to follow her heated lecture about not getting involved with me. She’s been put through enough, I hear Kimberley warn. The man has no idea what he’s in for; being on Kimberley’s bad side was not a good thing. I want to hear more, but I lose the fight for consciousness with the remnants of the narcotic still running through me.

≈ ≈

I open my eyes and take in the unfamiliar room and its pungent smell of antiseptic and rubber. I lie in a single bed that is slightly raised. The bedside stand holds a phone with a Lenox Hill Hospital label on the receiver. I look over at the window and note the vertical blinds are half open, providing a glimpse at a daylight world on the other side just as Stephanie comes in.

Our blonde version of a living Barbie sails into the room as if she’s on ice skates. One minute she’s across the room and the next she’s right at my bedside, pulling up a chair next to my bed and taking my hand and giving me a forced smile. Worry lines mar her beautiful face.

Kimberley and I share Stephanie as our best friend. For five years, the three of us lived together, during our UCLA days with Bobby and again, in Manhattan after Bobby’s death, until I married Evan early last January. Then, Stephanie married Christian last summer.

Evan.
I’m brought back to my reality in an instant. I am here and my husband is dead. I glance at Stephanie as tears stream down my face.

“Julia,” she says now. The soothing way she says my name serves as some kind of benediction that things are going to be okay without the perfunctory announcement. It causes me to cry even more. I try to smile through the tears, but fail. Things are so far from being okay.

“Where am I? How did I get here?”

“You’re at Lenox Hill. Do you remember what happened?”

The distant memory of being picked up and put on a stretcher rushes forward. The memories of the potent aroma of rubbing alcohol mixed with the sterile scent of medications, the sensation of high speed, the inquisition of bright lights and all these frantic voices flood my mind. Bits and pieces of the puzzle come back to me. I remember taking the pills. I remember being in the hotel room. I remember the cold shower. I remember Jacob Winston.
Oh. I remember.
The guilt of kissing Evan’s best friend Jacob Winston and the grief of being Evan’s widow take turns with me, penetrating my soul. An intense need for Stephanie’s continual approval and self-dignity has me answering “no”. Stephanie looks at me in earnest. I think she wants to believe the lie I’ve told, but cannot quite reconcile my answer with what she actually knows to be true. “No, I don’t remember.”

She nods, as if she’s made the decision for herself and plunges forward. “You’re suffering from…an overdose, Julia. Jake Winston found you and brought you here. You almost died. You would have died, if he hadn’t been there.” Fury erupts from her. Her anger is unusual. Stephanie is the serene one, the peacemaker among us, but today, on this day, she is livid, so irate that she doesn’t seem to know what to do. I watch her slide from my bedside and begin pacing the room.

I cringe, inwardly preparing for the onslaught of judgment before I say, “I was sad. I didn’t know how many pills I took.” I don’t quite believe what I’m saying and note it’s having little impact on Stephanie’s belief systems either. She continues her back and forth ritual.

“You took
six
times the dosage. Any more pills and you would have—” Her voice falters. “If he hadn’t been there…” I’ve never seen her get this upset before, especially with me.

“Oh. I just wanted—” I cannot come up with a lie to explain the pills.

“What, Julia? Were you trying to kill yourself? We’ve been so scared.” Stephanie sits down again and takes my hands in hers. The anger has worn her out. The diplomat is not used to the draining edge of such strong emotion. “We know it’s hard, almost unbearable, but Julia.” She stops for a moment and then, starts again, “We love you so much and if something had happened.” She starts to cry. “What about Reid? He needs you, Julia.”

I have not really considered my seven-month-old son, not since the day Evan died. The grief just took me. I have not been able to really look at Reid for fear I would glimpse too much of Evan’s face in his features and literally break down. My son serves as a constant reminder of all that I’ve lost. Grief has had its way with me, breaking me apart. “I’m not…good for him.”

“Don’t say that. It’s not true. You’re the best mother, the best. We love you.”

Her voice holds such conviction. I want to believe her.

For a single moment, I’m thankful I’m still here among the living and Reid’s mother. Then, the moment is gone. How will I live without Evan? And, I’m not good for Reid, not now. The grief travels through all of me. I think of Jacob Winston and feel the edges of shame. I keep making mistakes. I can’t reconcile all these competing thoughts. “I’m not good.”

Stephanie holds my face between her hands. “Yes,
you are
.”

Her arms come around me and I attempt to hug her back. The IV line gets in the way. I struggle with hugging her. Stephanie and Kimberley have never experienced the grief of this world as I have. I love and resent them at the same time for this reason alone. But I am bound. I am bound to these people who love me; and now, to a life without Evan. I am bound. I am here, saved by Jacob Winston. I am here and Evan is gone. I cry these endless tears of profound sorrow. I am here and Evan is gone.
Gone.

≈ ≈

Hours later, Stephanie disappears in search of better coffee and some decent food for all of us, while Kimberley sits at the end of my hospital bed in an unfamiliar jogging suit I’ve never seen. Kimberley Powers does not jog. The sportiness of the navy blue outfit bewilders me. She’s barely wearing make-up and her long mane of dark mahogany hair is in disarray. All anomalies.

“You didn’t have to stay the night,” I say in a mollified tone.

This comment, alone, seems to fuel her aggravation. She slides off the bed and comes to stand right in front of me with her arms crossed, leaning over me. I physically shrink away from her scrutiny.

“I’ve been here for two nights, Snow White. You’ve been out of it for two days with the stuff you took.” Her eyes fill with tears and she moves away from me, suddenly intent on looking out the window at the dreary landscape of Manhattan in December. She sighs and comes back to me. “Spill it,” she commands. “I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s going on. You can start with the continual delivery of flowers from one Mr. Jacob Winston all the way from London. Why is he doing that? If I didn’t know better, I’d say—” Kimberley stops and takes an uneven breath. Then, she leans over me and tucks a stray strand of my hair behind one ear and starts again. “I’ve let you down. I’m sorry. I know you’ve dealt with grief before with Bobby, with your parents, but I should have seen it. What it was doing to you.”

“I messed up,” I say dully. “I took too many pain killers. I drank too much and I…I just wanted the pain to go away. Lecherous Uncle Joe propositioned me and Jake. . . .” My voice falters over saying his name. “I said and did…some things I shouldn’t have.” I struggle with my confession. Kimberley is watching me intently now. Her radar is up and engaged.

“Like what?”

“Like I know his idea of a serious relationship involved two consecutive fucks with the same girl,” I say this with such profound distress that Kimberley starts to laugh.

I feel this release deep inside of me. She understands me. I return a wry smile. “I left the bar; upset and took some more pills. Truly, I just wanted the pain inside of me to go away. He caught up with me on the elevator. Then, everything fell out of my purse. He found the vial of pills and put them in his jacket. I don’t know why, but I remember asking him about why he never did anything with Evan and me. It was always just the two of them. Skiing, hiking whatever. Never all of three of us.”

“Did he tell you why that was?”

“He started talking about London being a place he could start over.”

“Start over? Why?”

“I don’t know. Then, I started talking about starting over. How I had done it too many times before. I told him not again. I remember him getting this strange look on his face. Almost haunted. He looked sad. Then he was holding me and he felt like Evan. And we were kissing and it almost led to more.” I give Kimberley this mortified look. She looks momentarily stunned at my confession. Then, she gets this huge grin on her amazingly gorgeous face even sans make-up. “It was so
wrong
. I can’t believe I almost did that. Oh God, I’m a terrible person.” I catch my lower lip between my teeth to keep it from trembling and avoid her intense appraisal. “I can’t believe I almost did such a thing.”

“Almost did what? Making out with a guy is not wrong,” she says in her thou-shall-not-be-judged-by-me voice. This absolution comes from the most promiscuous girl I know. I bestow her with a withering look.

“Okay. You marry Gregoire; you have a child with him.” I watch an unfamiliar blush steal over her face. “Almost a year later, he dies and ten days after that, you’re making out with Gregoire’s best friend. How do you feel about yourself, now?”

“You lost me at the marrying Gregoire part,” Kimberley says with this silly grin.

“Fuck you,” I say with a modicum of affection and frustration.

“Funny,” Kimberley retorts and rolls her eyes. She grips my hands in hers. “Julia, you cannot get hung up on the Jacob Winston thing. I want you to forget about it.
Really.
You were in a weak moment. So you
kissed
the guy. You did something reckless
for you;
and, let’s face it, completely out of character. But, you don’t have to berate yourself over it. You loved Evan, we all know that, but I refuse to participate in a discussion where sexual foreplay is considered an immoral act. I’m not a priest. So stop this guilt tripping, right now.”

“You’re not a priest,” I say in a mocking tone.

“I’ve
done
a priest, but I’m not one.” She gives me the all-famous-Kimberley sly secret smile—the one she saves for getting out of tickets with policemen or with bartenders when she fails to bring her ID. I actually start to laugh at the triumphant look on her face she’s giving me. Then she comes over and hugs me. “Don’t take it the wrong way when I tell you I’m proud of you.”

“God, Kimberley,
why
would you say that?” She pulls away and looks at me intently.

“You’re
living
, Julia. You want to. Maybe, this is a new beginning.”

“What? I get to take over the famous Kimberley promiscuity record setting? You’re retiring?”

“I just might,” she says with airy wave of her hand in my general direction.

I choose to ignore her get-out-of-jail-free speech. “So anyway, to finish my story, before the whole sexual exploration of the Catholic Church was revealed. I started feeling really weird and got sick. The white knight threw me into a cold shower and apparently called an ambulance. The end.”

“If he hadn’t been there,” she says with reverence. “God, Julia, he saved your life,”

I give her an exasperated look. “You just
told
me, five minutes ago, to forget about him.”

“I told you to forget about the guilt of almost doing him.” She just laughs, when I blush. “Not the parade of flowers from him over the past three days.” I don’t miss her speculative look. I can almost see the wheels turning in Kimberley’s head.

“I don’t intend to ever see him again.” I give her a little shrug for emphasis.

“Sure.”

“I don’t know why he’s sending the flowers. I guess he feels bad about what almost transpired and the things we said to each other.”

“Like what?”

“I think he thought I might have married Evan for his money.” I grimace. “But I’m pretty sure my literal breakdown changed his mind. I cried a lot.
Too much
. We talked about some weird stuff. Bobby. But I don’t remember why.” I turn away from her concentrated gaze. Kimberley has a way of knowing my innermost secrets, sometimes, even before I do.

“You talked about Bobby?” Kimberley asks in surprise.

I never talk about Bobby. It’s an unwritten rule among all of us. Never speak of Julia’s dead loved ones, especially Bobby. And now Evan.

“A little,” I say defensive now. Kimberley stares at me. I become more uneasy. “Enough about Jacob Winston,” I say in a firm this-subject-is-now-closed voice.

“Thank God, he was there, Julia. What were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t. The grief over Evan was consuming me.”

Kimberley stops pacing and comes back over the bed and grips my hand. “Promise me you’ll never do anything like this ever again.”