Between Friends (29 page)

Jean pulled into the driveway of Letty’s house and asked if she wanted her or Emily to come in, but she shook her head and left them in the car. She grabbed a few things as quickly as she could, not worrying about what she jammed in her bag. Most of her regular stuff was still at Aunt Cora’s anyway, but she didn’t want to tell Jean to take her over there and have her know all about how they weren’t staying at home.

Her room was still a mess from her dad tearing it apart the night of the party. She remembered thinking that nothing was ever going to be the same again. And now she knew she’d been right, and knew, suddenly, that no matter how grown-up she had felt, she had been acting like a spoiled brat for a long time. Shame flooded her, and she wished she could stay and clean up the mess, throw away all the stupid, childish things and make it all clean, so he would see that she’d changed when he got home.

She was surprised there wasn’t dust layered across it all. It seemed like it had happened so long ago. When he came to the school and sat with her in the library, it was almost like it had never happened to begin with.

She wondered if that was how it was, how people, families, still loved each other even after fights, even after being so positive that nothing would ever be the same again. Maybe that was how it would be with Emily. Maybe they would be just like Aunt Cora and Mom, and they’d look back at the time they weren’t as close as just some little thing that was in the past.

She threw her bag over her shoulder and hurried into her parents’ bedroom. Her dad was usually pretty neat, but he hadn’t done much since they’d been staying at Aunt Cora’s. He’d left a load of clean laundry in a pile on the bed, a little wisp of dryer sheet puffing out the side like a surrender flag.

She shook one of his big T-shirts out of the pile and stuffed it in the bag, then grabbed another one, just in case her mom might want one, too.

When she got back in the car, Jean was all businesslike, telling her what they’d be having for dinner. She was relieved that they’d figured it all out without her. She didn’t feel like making any decisions, or having the whole
What do you want? I don’t care, what do you want?
conversation. When Jean pulled into their drive, she held her hand on her arm for a minute while Emily got out.

“I’m going to leave you girls here while I go shopping,” she said, her voice real serious. Letty thought she was going to warn her to not do anything stupid or something, but instead she just said, “If you need me, call my cell phone and I’ll be home in seconds, okay? If your mom calls, or you remember something that you need, or you just feel upset, you call me.”

“Okay,” she said, surprised.

“And don’t let Emily upset you. She’s feeling a little . . . sensitive about your friendship. She thinks she hasn’t been very nice to you recently, and it’s making her feel especially badly about this. She’ll be fine. You just worry about you right now.”

She got out and waved, then followed Emily through the open door, wondering why all the adults around her suddenly seemed so much more like they were
there
.

Shutting the door cut off all the sunlight, and the house was dim and quiet. Emily held her hand out.

“You want me to take your bag?” she asked, formal suddenly, like Letty hadn’t been staying over at her house since they were six years old.

“No, I’m fine,” she said, heading up the stairs.

“My room’s done,” Emily said as they turned down her hallway. “I think you’ll like it.”

Letty couldn’t help the “Wow” that escaped her lips when she stepped into Emily’s room. No matter how childish she might have thought Emily could act sometimes, this was no little kid’s room. It was beautiful, with a big bed instead of the bunk beds, and some sort of yellowy-gold finish on the walls that made them glow, and vines had been painted up the corners and across the ceiling in big crisscrosses.

Her bag slipped off her shoulder and thudded to the floor as she turned around. Emily giggled with her hand over her mouth.

“I know,” she said. “Come look at the bathroom!”

Her bathroom was just as jaw-dropping as her bedroom. It looked like everything was new, and she had a big tub with jets and a separate shower.

And they were friends again, just like they always had been, just like that.

In the end Letty decided to tell her everything, all of it. Of course Emily already knew about her parents having to go pick her up at the party, but she told her all the other things, too, about having sex, and going to Venice, and the roommate, and Aunt Cora and her mom coming to pick her up.

Emily listened in awe, her mouth hanging open at all the right places, and then she came back to what Letty knew she would, what they’d been talking about in hushed voices for years.

“How, well, how was it? Did it hurt?”

And she told her the truth. By the time she finished, Emily was sitting up staring at her, looking kind of panicked.

“But Letty, aren’t you afraid you might be pregnant?”

Letty laughed, lightly, not trying to make her feel bad, but just feeling a lot more grown-up than her, or trying to anyway. Because of course she was scared. She’d have been scared even if Seth had been wrapped head to toe in a condom.

“It’s fine, Emily,” she said, not feeling as certain as she sounded. It had been almost three weeks. She’d never tracked her period before, but it seemed like she should probably be having cramps by now. She hadn’t been worried, hadn’t really even thought about it with everything else that had been going on, but now, with Emily looking so concerned, she was definitely starting to worry.

“But—”

Letty’s cell phone rang, interrupting Emily, and she scrambled to find it in the soft folds of the comforter under her legs.

“Mom?”

“Hi, honey. Are you okay?”

“No. I mean, yeah, we’re back at Em’s—and her mom went to pick up dinner—but what’s going on?”

She heard her take a deep breath. “We still don’t know what happened, but your dad is having three bullets removed.”

“Three?” she repeated, feeling sick to her stomach. “You said he was only shot once.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Well, where was he shot?”

“Twice in the arm, once in the neck.”

“The neck?” She cast a quick glance at Emily, who was still sitting up and turned toward her.

“Yes, and that’s the one they’re worried about most, of course. He’s still in surgery, and they’re trying hard to get all the pieces out. One of the bullets in his arm went right through, so that’s a good thing. The other two broke apart.”

She said all of it in a rush, but she couldn’t quite get to the end without her voice breaking.

“Letty, now listen, it’s going to be fine. I’m not worried at all, okay? Things could have been a lot worse, and I know how strong your dad is. They’re just going to get the fragments out, and he’ll be bossing everyone around by tonight.”

“Will you come get me?”

“I promise that as soon as he’s out of surgery and awake, I’ll come get you.”

“No matter what time?”

“No matter what time.”

It didn’t make her feel any better.

Drew came back into the room and shrugged his shoulders. If a shrug could be called elegant, Drew’s would be. Every bit of him was elegant, graceful, and fluid. He navigated through rooms like water, flowing around hard edges, coming to rest gently. I could watch him just moving about his apartment for hours. We’d never discussed it, but I imagined that his grace came from years of avoiding injury, every bump, cut, and bruise reason for concern.

Had he been a match, I still wouldn’t have allowed him to donate. Not yet, anyway. I was not so convinced of my altruism when things progressed to a certain point. I knew it hurt him, hurt his sense of chivalry somehow, to see me lying there and not be able to help.

It pained Ali, too; I knew that. But the difference was that with Drew I never knew when that pain might end our relationship; with Ali no such fear existed any longer. Drew had once, during one of our final arguments, said that he was less important to me than Ali was. Now, with both of them here, I knew he was right.

It was wonderful to see him, I
wanted
to see him . . . but I didn’t need him. I did need Ali in my life. And Letty.

When Ali had been gone long enough that we began to wonder what had happened, he’d gone looking for her, casting a glance behind him as if it might be the last time he saw me. There’s nothing like someone else’s fear to put your own in perspective, and I felt a sense of calm begin to steal over me as the door closed and softly clicked.

I looked down at my lumpy, bandaged arm, and thought that I could handle whatever was coming. My life was going to change, yes, change dramatically, but hadn’t it always? Was change not perhaps the one constant in my life? Had I not prided myself on it, perhaps even lorded it over Ali and Benny—always slightly smug in their quiet, secure lives—a bit?

I might have even lectured Ali on embracing change a few times. Talk about smug.

When Drew returned with his shrug I felt stronger than I had in weeks and patted the bed beside me. He cradled me, not the way we used to as lovers, the full-fledged, shoulders-to-shins, wound about each other’s limbs like the roots of a banyan tree, but still, I felt held, and I felt safe and even, yes, lucky that he was here, was still my friend.

“Couldn’t find her?” I murmured.

“I checked the cafeteria, the waiting rooms on this floor, everywhere I could think of.”

“She’s probably just giving us time—” I started, but was interrupted by the lost lady herself opening the door. My smile died on my lips when she looked at me. It had been almost two hours since I had seen her, but it could have been twenty years for the difference. Her face was pale and haggard, and she looked as if she might fall over at any moment.

“Ali?” I asked, my voice wavering. It never crossed my mind that there was something wrong with Ali. I thought only of myself—that I was much worse off than they were telling me.

“Hey,” she said, sounding faint, a weak echo of herself. “Everything okay here?”

Drew and I looked at each other, our usual telepathy as strong as ever, both knowing that whatever she said next was going to change things.

“I don’t know,” I said cautiously. “Is it?”

She just looked confused for a moment, annoyed even.

“Ali? What’s going on?” I demanded. “Just tell me. What did they say? Did something go wrong?”

“What? No, no, it’s not that at all.
You’re
fine. It’s Benny.”

She said Benny’s name with an inflection of wonder, as if she did not believe that she was mouthing that particular combination of words.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, as Drew and I instantly dislodged from each other and struggled to sit upright at the same time.

“He’s been shot. He was shot and now he’s in surgery. They’re trying to get the bullet fragments out.”