Between Friends (11 page)

“Shut up, Ali,” he said, “just shut up.”

He’d never told me to shut up. Ever. I was so stunned by his outburst that I just sat there, staring out at the pines rushing by the windows as we moved farther into the darkness of Golden Gate, the road narrowing, the black stretches between streetlights growing longer.

How had I not been the mother to his child that he’d wanted?

No, my entire existence hadn’t revolved around every breath she’d taken once she’d turned eight, nine, ten. What else was I supposed to do? Children grow up, they become independent. I’d certainly been more involved than many other parents.

The more I looked for a reason, the more I couldn’t find one, and the angrier I became at Benny, nearly forgetting that I was angry at Letty and that we were out driving around in the middle of the night arguing because of her. Finally I couldn’t stay silent any longer.

“You know, that was completely uncalled for,” I said, the words stark in the quiet.

Benny just sighed.

“What was I supposed to do, Benny? Let my parents sell the store?”

“You could have,” he said.

“You can’t be serious.”

“You could have. You didn’t want to.”

“Why are we talking about this now?” I asked, desperate to get to the core of how this was all my fault.

“Because our daughter is out of control, and you didn’t know it. And now you want another.”

“Oh, it was strictly my job to keep track of her? You’re the one who said she could stay at Emily’s tonight.”

“You’re her mother,” he said, as if pointing out the obvious.

“And you’re her father. Why are you suddenly absolved of any responsibility?”

“My entire life is responsibility, Ali. I have the responsibility for our bills, for the maintenance on the house, all on top of being responsible for the safety of the people in this county. I thought you at least had Letty covered.”

“Oh, wow, that
is
a lot of responsibility. What the hell is it you think I’ve been doing all these years? Getting my hair done? I’ve worked just as hard as you, I’ve made just as much money, and sometimes more. And I take care of everything inside the house, everything. I had no idea your life was so hard, Benny. How
do
you stand it?”

He leaned his head against his window, and he sighed again, and I looked over at him and saw a tear sliding down the side of his nose, and he said, so quietly as to be nearly a whisper: “I don’t know.”

I didn’t know where to look. I stared at him for another moment, then looked down at my feet, up at the sun visor, at the handle on my door. My eyes couldn’t stop moving, but my lips couldn’t start. I couldn’t begin to form a coherent sentence in my mind, much less allow it out of my mouth.

Neither of us spoke again on the drive to the party. Benny got through the snarl of cars at the head of the street by showing his badge, and when we pulled in behind a row of patrol cars, he said, “Stay here,” and got out.

I looked around at the sad scene and wondered what would happen to the parents. If they were present, they’d probably been arrested. If they were out of town, I quailed at the phone call they would be getting and at the condition of their house when they returned.

Benny’s command to stay in the truck meant little. After the things he’d said, I wasn’t particularly inclined to listen to him. In fact, I wanted to make sure that he, and I, knew that I was still my own person. My daughter was somewhere in this mess of flashing red and blue, and I was going to find her.

Benny strode purposely toward the house, but I stayed outside, trying to not miss anything. And then I heard the panicked cry of “Mom!” Surely I was the only one there who could rightfully answer to that, and within a moment I’d found her, locked in the back of a police car.

She looked awfully, heartbreakingly young. And for a breathless moment, I believed Benny’s accusations: I was, indeed, a terrible mother.

She knew she was so dead.

She was so stupid, and so dead.

So.

Dead.

Seth got away, but they had his car, so she figured they’d probably be able to trace that. A bunch of kids got away, the ones smart enough to run on foot. Some tried to take off across the empty lots in their cars. That was a big mistake. Where did they think they were going to come out? The cops just blocked off the street and caught every single one of them.

She should have run, too. She just couldn’t. She couldn’t run from the cops. She froze instead. Besides, she had all her stuff in there, her school ID and everything in her purse. And then it would just be worse.

She’d told the cops who came into the bedroom that her dad was a cop. She thought, stupidly, that they’d just let her go. Instead they asked her name and got on the radio.

The neighbors had all come out to their driveways to watch the fun, and a little boy, like, eight, wearing camouflage pajamas, stood beside the cop car and stared in at her. She tried to ignore him, but he wouldn’t go away, and she finally smacked the window with her hand and made him jump. But he still didn’t go away.

A helicopter showed up, an actual helicopter, like it was a murder scene or something. Oh, she was so dead. Why wasn’t she at Emily’s? Jean had promised Emily a new bedroom for her birthday, and there were paint chips taped to the walls, and pieces of fabric hanging over the curtain rod, and masking tape on the floor where a queen bed would replace the bunk beds.

She closed her eyes and could practically see Emily and Jainie sleeping in the beds.

The back of the car stank. She wasn’t supposed to be there. She had no idea what would happen when her dad got there. Maybe he’d tell them to arrest her, just to teach her a lesson. The way he’d been acting lately, it wouldn’t surprise her. But she was even more scared of what he’d find when he went to get her things.

See . . . there was stuff in the bedroom where her things were. Especially, well, especially there were condoms. There were a couple in their wrappers on the floor beside the bed.

And there was one that was . . . unwrapped. It was on the floor, too. They didn’t use it. They tried, but it didn’t work. She didn’t know, something didn’t work, she didn’t know why, but it wasn’t . . . going anywhere. They’d tried it without one and that worked, and he promised he’d pull out and he did.

It was all very weird. It didn’t feel like she thought it would. She knew it was going to hurt, but she didn’t realize it was a hurt like that. It wasn’t, like, a good hurt, the way she thought it was supposed to be.

They say it’s better the second time, but she just didn’t see how that got mixed up with feeling good. It was really just, sort of, nothing. Just pushing at her. And she wished she’d gone to Emily’s. And she prayed, just prayed and prayed that nobody would see the condoms.

She watched out the opposite window of where the neighbor kid stood and saw her dad’s truck pull up.
Oh God, oh God, let this not be happening
, she thought. There was just no turning back from this.

But he got out, looked around; it was definitely her father, and it was definitely happening. He didn’t see her in the backseat, and she watched him wander around, talk to a couple of cops, show his badge. He took off in the direction of the house, she guessed to find the cop that had called her in.

And then, because her life always just got worse and worse, she saw the passenger door of the truck open and her mom got out. And at first it was even worse than seeing her dad, but then all she wanted was to see her. She slapped her hand against the back window and yelled, “Mom, Mom! Mom! I’m here! Mom!”

Her mom swiveled her head around and finally saw her. She came running and pressed her hands against the window.

“It’s okay, baby, it’s okay, I’m here. It’s going to be all right,” she yelled in at her.

She didn’t have to yell, Letty could hear her okay, but it sounded good, and she laid her forehead against the window while her mom turned around with her hands still pressed against it, like she’d found Letty at a sale and wasn’t going to take her hands off until the salesman got there.

And here he came, the cop who’d stuck her in here. Her dad wasn’t with him, but her mom talked at him, and he finally opened the door.

And then her dad was there. He had the overnight bag and purse in one hand, and he stopped when he saw her. He didn’t say anything, he just stared. She’d never seen his face like that before. Then he came over and opened the door to the truck, shoving her things in the back.

“Get in,” he said. Her mom didn’t say anything to him. She just nodded.

“Come on,” she said to Letty. “Hop up.”

That was when Letty really started crying.

“Get in the truck,” her dad said, only he said it through his teeth, and she scrambled up. Her mom got in and closed the door, and they watched without speaking as her dad and the cop who’d put her in his car talked.

Dad looked back once, and Letty flinched. She reached out for her mom’s hand, and for a second she didn’t think she was going to take it.

“Oh, honey, what were you thinking?” she asked.

“I’m sorry,” Letty whispered. And she really, really was.

Keith, my flight instructor when I was a teenager, did have a plane available for the afternoon, and he said he’d have it fueled up and ready to go for me as long as I promised to meet him for lunch next week so we could catch up. That was a promise easily made.

Ali didn’t call as she’d said she would, but I imagined it had been a tough night. When I arrived at the store, I was surprised to see Letty first, sullenly straightening music scores. She barely looked up at me when I initially opened the door, but then she did a double take, and such relief washed across her face that I thought things must have been even worse than I thought.

“Aunt Cora,” she cried and ran to me, launching herself at me in a way she hadn’t since she was eight. She was also heavier than she was at eight, and I stumbled backward when I caught her.

“Hey there, Letitia Makani, how’s it going?”

I ran my hand over the top of her head, amazed at how straight girls could get their hair these days. With a start, I realized she had my hair, fine and silky under my palm, and wondered how on earth she managed no frizz in southwest Florida.

She groaned and pulled back. I let her go reluctantly.

“You know?” she asked.

I nodded. “I know enough.” I looked for Ali, but there was only a couple looking at guitars in the store. “Where’s your mom?”

“She went to pick up lunch,” she said.

“Well, I haven’t talked to her today yet, so tell me what happened. Was it really bad?”

She nodded and bit her lip, and I felt a surge of sympathy when I saw her eyes fill with tears.

“Come on,” I said, keeping my voice low, mindful of the customers. I steered her toward the counter and grabbed a tissue from the box there.

She sat on one stool, and I sat on the other and we watched the man fit a guitar to the woman he was with, adjusting the neck up toward her shoulder, stepping back to see how she looked. Letty blew her nose and took a deep breath. I’d sat on this stool hundreds of times, Ali on the one Letty now occupied, talking in hushed tones about one teen angst or another.

It was familiar and sweet, and I felt oddly proud and excited to be sitting here now, with this child going through the same things. It should have been all about her and how upset she was, but it was about me too, being someone she could turn to.

The man put the guitar back, and they left the store. Letty called out “Good-bye, thanks” as they left, and then turned to me, her face miserable.

“I’m grounded, of course, for life. And Dad went all through my room and went through my drawers, and he took my phone and my purse, and notes, and . . . other stuff.” Her face flushed bright red, something I’d never been able to control either. I wondered what else they’d found.