Between Friends (23 page)

“What makes you say that?” I asked, trying to ascertain what exactly she had heard.

“I heard you talking after dinner last night,” she said, then fell silent, waiting for me to fill her in.

“If your father and I decide to add to our family, we will discuss it with you together at an appropriate time,” I said.

“Well—I don’t think you should,” Letty said, the words coming quickly, defiantly, as if she had stored them up for a moment when she felt brave enough to say them.

“Why is that?” I asked, truly curious.

“Mom, I mean . . .” Letty’s eyebrows pinched together and she leaned forward, pulling her knees up and wrapping her arms around them.

“What, Letty? You obviously have something to say about this.”

“Okay, well, you had all those problems and all those miscarriages and then you had me, and all those articles, you know? You always talked about how hard it was, losing all those babies, and how it was so hard on you and Dad, and how grateful you were that you finally had me. And then you even did it again and it didn’t work and—you know, Aunt Cora is happy to not even have one baby. Why aren’t you happy anymore with just me?”

I started to speak, but Letty was determined to have her say.

“And you’re too old, and if you did get pregnant and had a baby you’re going to do the same thing to it that you did to me, and I just don’t think it’s fair.”

“You don’t think it was fair? What did I do to you?” I asked.

“God, Mom, everywhere I went everyone knew all about me. All my friends knew everything, about me being conceived and everything about you, and how you didn’t have good eggs, and their mothers would all ask me questions and, it was just, really . . .”

“Embarrassing?”

“Yeah, it was totally embarrassing, for, like, ever. And even, you know, all the stories, and the stuff on your wall, it’s all still there, and so even now, even when I’m fifteen, if people come over to the house they see all that stuff, and I just don’t think you should have another baby if it’s, like, this whole big thing that lasts for years and years. And it would be even worse now because the baby would also have to grow up with you and Dad so much older than all its friends’ parents and it would just be another thing making it a freak.”

“Letty, my God, did you think you were a freak?”

I pressed my hand over my heart, suddenly unable to breathe.

“Well, yeah, I was. It’s not like you guys just did it and had me and people who needed to know, knew. You had to tell the whole world about it. I mean, I’m sorry, but it’s weird to be, like, seven years old and be talking to my friends’ moms about sperm.”

“But we were so happy,” I said, leaning forward, taking her hands in mine. “Don’t you understand? We were so, so happy to have you. Of course we wanted to tell the whole world. You were a miracle, Letty, a perfect, beautiful little miracle.”

Letty shrugged and looked away.

“Well, isn’t one miracle enough?”

She might have gone too far. Her mom just stared at her, like she didn’t even know who she was. And she still didn’t know what Seth had said. She should have asked about that first.

“Mom?”

Her mother just shook her head and pressed her lips together.

“Mom, what did Seth say?”

She knew it might just get her angry again, but she had to ask. It took her mom a minute to change gears, and Letty could tell she was still distracted. She answered, but it was like she was across the room; her voice sounded faraway, sad.

“Oh. Okay. Well, it sounds as though he’s in trouble. He didn’t say he was arrested, but they’re holding him until they can find his parents. From what he said, that’s not going to happen.”

“He’s in jail?” Letty asked, surprised, but not completely shocked.

“I didn’t say that. It sounded to me like they were holding him to turn over to his parents.”

“But, Mom, his dad didn’t even want him in the house. He won’t do anything. Mom, we have to do something,” she pleaded, panicking at the thought of him in jail, or wherever he was being held.

“Oh, honey, there’s nothing we can do,” her mom said.

“Call Dad,” she said, realizing how crazy it was. Her dad, especially in the mood he’d been in lately, would sooner hit Seth than help him. “He’s a cop, he can make them let him go.”

“Letty!”

“Mom,” she begged. “Please, we have to do something. They could, they could keep him until he’s eighteen if nobody does anything, couldn’t they?”

“I don’t know. I guess it depends on what happened, Letty, I just don’t know enough about it. Luckily, for me and for her, I haven’t had to pick
my
child up from jail.”

Letty knew it was supposed to make her feel ashamed, and she did, but it didn’t change the fact that Seth was in trouble.

“You must have an idea about what he did to get picked up,” her mother said.

Letty didn’t say anything for a minute.

“Letty? This isn’t the time to get silent on me. Now, you found it easy enough to express your thoughts a moment ago. So let’s have it.”

Letty looked down at her hands, one holding the other, the tiny turquoise ring her father had given her when she was little now relegated to her pinkie finger. It was now really too tight on even that, and she began twisting it off as she spoke, avoiding her mom’s gaze.

“I think he might sell some pot once in a while,” she finally admitted. “He’s not, you know, a dealer or anything. I think he was just trying to make some money so he could afford his car.”

“Oh, Letty, are you serious?”

“But if
he’d
been doing anything, then they would have arrested him, right? So I think his stupid cousin is the one who did something, and Seth was just with him, you know? Mom, please, you have to help me.”

“Letty, he’s safe, okay? He’s safe for the night, and I’m not going to call your father, explain all of this to him, and then expect him to do something for the boy who slept with his daughter, persuaded her to run away with him, and is possibly a pot dealer. Think that’s really a good idea?”

“No,” she whispered.

“All right.” Her mother sighed, rubbing her forehead and getting up off the bed. “You need to get to sleep. I
am
going to call your father to pick you up and take you to school in the morning.”

“Why?” Letty asked.

“I have something important to take care of with Cora, and I can’t leave you here by yourself.”

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing for you to worry about. Cora is going to have a small medical procedure. It’s not a big deal, but I want to take her and be there if she needs anything.”

“What do you mean? What’s wrong with her?”

“There’s nothing wrong with her, it’s just a small, personal thing.”

That meant woman stuff. Or cosmetic stuff. She was probably going to have Botox or something. Letty was disappointed. She’d thought Aunt Cora would be one of those women who refused to do stuff like that.

“I’m not going to tell your dad about any of this tonight, so you just act like you went to school today and everything is fine, understood? I’ll talk to him about it when things have calmed down a little.”

Letty stared up at her. “I—won’t he be mad that I pretended nothing happened?”

Her father had always been big on a lie of omission still being a big, fat lie.

“I imagine he will, but I’ll take care of that. He won’t be mad at
you
.”

That was a first. They were always,
always
, together against her.

She got under the covers, and her mother bent down and kissed her on the forehead before she turned out the light and left, leaving the door cracked a little bit. Aunt Cora’s guest bed was bigger than hers at home, and the pillow was soft. Her hair was still a little damp from the shower, and it felt cool against her cheek. She closed her eyes, realizing how happy she was to be here, falling safely asleep, rather than in Venice, fighting off Jimmy’s roommate.

She was fine being fifteen that night.

I was out of the shower and waiting on the sofa when Ali finally came out of Letty’s room. She looked shell-shocked, and I poured her a glass of wine; she drank half of it in a couple of quick swallows, placing it back on the coffee table hard enough to make us both jump.

“Sorry,” she said, checking the glass and the table for damage.

“It’s fine,” I said. “Everything okay in there?”

She looked at me, her eyes wide, disbelief stamped on her face.

“Cora,” she said, speaking slowly, “I have no idea who that person is. Who is that kid? Because I barely recognize her. When did this happen?”

“I guess around the same time we grew up? Fifteen? Sound familiar?”

She leaned back into the sofa. “Oh, Cora, were we that young at fifteen, though? We were more mature, weren’t we? Tell me we were.”

“If you say so.”

Ali sipped on her wine. “So, I need to call Benny, I’ll have him pick her up for school, we’ll get you checked in and settled, and then I guess I’m going to have to talk to him about all of this.”

“What about Letty? What do you want to tell her about me?” I asked. I understood the need to figure out the best way to tell her not only what was happening, but what her interest in it might be. I’d hoped we wouldn’t have to do it so quickly, but here it was, upon us.

Ali held her glass of wine against her forehead for a moment, rolling it back and forth, cooling herself. “I guess Benny and I will talk to her after school,” she said. “I think I’d just like to tell her about you first, okay?”

“What will you tell her about getting blood drawn for the tests?”

“I’ll think about that. From what you said, if she has it, she has it and there’s nothing that knowing any sooner will gain us?”

I shook my head. “No, I’m sorry. Of course if she does carry it, she’ll want to know for her own children—”

Ali laughed. “Oh, God, tell me that’s a long way off. This is as much as I can stand for ten years or so.”

“Well, that could be one way.”

“What?”

“If she’s sexually active, you need to get her to the doctor.”

“Cora, I am not ready for this,” she said.

“I know, but apparently she is. Or, I guess it doesn’t matter if she is or not, she’s there. So you take her to the doctor for her first exam, get to have all the talks, birth control, STD prevention, all the fun stuff. Maybe
they
could draw blood and order the tests. She’ll never know what she’s being tested for, and if she’s negative, she’ll never have to worry about it.”

Ali was nodding. “It might work. What about Benny, though? I don’t see any reason to tell him that she’s no longer a virgin, do you? I don’t think that’s need-to-know information—God, this is so weird.”

“Which part?” I asked. It had all been weird for me for months, though with my access surgery in less than ten hours it was becoming more real every moment.

“You spend the first part of their lives as a unit, you know? I never kept anything from Benny about Letty, and I know he never kept anything from me. Even if we told her it was a secret, we told each other. But now, it’s like I’m moving a little more toward Letty being allowed to keep some things from Benny, for everyone’s good. Does he really need to know that she’s had sex? I wouldn’t have wanted my father to know, and I don’t see any reason why he should have.”

I hardly knew what to say. After all, I’d never had a father to know whether I’d had sex. And Barbara had never had to deal with a co-parent of any kind. Who knows what my biological mother would have thought? If I hadn’t been having sex by fifteen, she probably would have wondered what was wrong with me. It wasn’t a dilemma I’d ever had to consider, or even thought I might have to consider. And so I hadn’t.

“I don’t know, Ali,” I said, but she gave a sharp laugh, and I realized she wasn’t finished.