Enemies and Playmates (12 page)

Lauren clenched her jaw to keep from telling Kevin exactly what she thought of him. She turned back to Stephen, shook him slightly. “Stephen, listen to me,” she said. “Dad’s not going to send you away. Mom would never let him.”

“I should’ve killed the prick a long time ago,” Stephen said. “He deserves to die. Fucker.”

Lauren gently took the whiskey bottle from Stephen’s hand. “Come home with me and we’ll work this out. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

Lauren glanced back at Kevin, hoping he might actually step in and offer some support. But he was slumped back in the chair, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. He’d either passed out or fallen asleep. Either way, he was useless. She sighed and turned back to Stephen. Taking his hand, she said, “Mom and I need you.”

He coughed up a small amount of liquid that trickled down his chin and spilled onto his shirt. His eyes rolled back. His body went slack.

By the time the ambulance arrived, he’d stopped breathing. While the paramedics rushed him to the hospital, his heart stopped twice. Fifteen minutes after arriving at the emergency room, Stephen was pronounced dead.

***

Shock set in the moment the doctors stopped working on Stephen. The word dead refused to settle in Lauren’s mind. She didn’t believe them. She kept squeezing Stephen’s hand, begging him to wake up. She wasn’t aware that she had screamed or that tears streamed down her face. She refused to leave his side and couldn’t wrap her mind around the questions the doctor was asking.

Kara arrived at the hospital, ghostly white and trembling. Lauren didn’t remember calling her, though she knew she must have. They were given time alone with Stephen in the little space separated only by curtains in the midst of the noisy emergency room.

Hours or minutes passed before they were ushered into a private room with leather chairs where a nurse offered them water or coffee and two police officers sat looking at them through sympathetic eyes. The officers asked questions but the words made no sense. Her brother was dead. She’d been right there with him. She’d watched him die.

Alex was led into the room. The door closed behind him. The room suddenly got small as her father sucked up all the air around them. He was wearing a bright red tie. A charcoal silk suit he’d had hand made in Italy. Black Salvatore Ferragamo shoes. His gold Submariner Rolex watch. Perfect hair, clean shave.

Absurd to arrive here looking so put together. Stephen was lying cold and dead in this place with white sheets and gray machines while Alex’s bright red tie mocked them all. Lauren considered ripping that tie off him but then she was remembering the smell of stale whiskey and vomit and the dead stare of Stephen’s eyes.

Alex spoke quietly with the police. Kara held her face in her hands and sobbed. Lauren realized someone had spoken her name. Her father and both officers were looking at her expectantly. She hadn’t been listening. Wasn’t listening now. How absurd that her father should look so alive. Not a single tear. Not a shred of emotion. A bright red tie while Stephen’s body turned forever cold.

Alex used his cell phone to make a call. Stephen’s name and bits of conversation floated through Lauren’s mind. Something about the press, no leaks. Kara’s sobs grew louder and Lauren drifted off again. She was vaguely aware of the young police officer sitting across from her, looking sullen and uncomfortable. The older one stood stiff by her father.

Soon Alex led them from the room, away from the fluorescent lights and out to the parking lot. Sunlight glistened off the pavement. It wasn’t right to leave Stephen in that place, growing colder and all alone.

They climbed into Alex’s Mercedes. Lauren’s own car was here somewhere. She’d followed the ambulance. Hours ago. Or days. Maybe minutes. She didn’t have the energy to drive herself home or even look for her car in the crowded lot. So she sat in the backseat while her father drove. The sun was shining. Traffic moved all around them. Life went on.

“Why?” Lauren asked. For the life of her, she had no idea why she would need to lie about the way her brother died. Wasn’t it enough that he was dead?

“I don’t want it known that my son was a drug addict,” Alex said. “That type of publicity could ruin me. At the very least, it would make my life difficult.”

Kara sobbed into a tissue. Lauren stared. The tie was hideous. And Stephen was dead.

11

Stephen’s death made the afternoon paper. Her paper. Two paragraphs on the third page. Stephen Covington, age seventeen. Fell asleep while driving his Corvette. Son of Alex Covington, superhero to humanity.

Lauren tossed the paper on the table in disgust. The article didn’t actually say those words, though it may as well have. Two pathetic lines about Stephen. His manner of death a lie. The rest of the article was about her father, his standing in the community, his accomplishments, his awards.

Is that all Stephen’s life amounted to? A footnote in the life of Alex Covington.

As the news circulated, the phone calls began. Lauren answered the first dozen. Her father’s acquaintances, people who worked for him, her coworkers, a couple of reporters. She accepted condolences and resisted the urge to shout the truth. By late afternoon, unable to take anymore, she stopped answering and let the machine take over.

Captain Barnes was with her father in the den. Her mother had been given a sedative and had gone up to her room not long after they’d gotten home. Lauren hadn’t seen her since.

Somehow Lauren’s car made it into the driveway. She hadn’t noticed anyone dropping it off, didn’t remember giving anyone her keys. She found her purse on the side table by the stairs. Her keys sat beside it. She rummaged inside and retrieved her cell phone. Two missed calls. One from Carrie, one from Gina. She needed to call her friends, just not yet.

Lauren trudged up the stairs with the intent of washing her face. Stephen’s open door drew her close. She couldn’t bring herself to step into his room, so she simply leaned against the doorframe. Everything looked the same. But everything had changed.

She forgot about washing her face, went into her room, and collapsed on her bed. She was enveloped in a haze, the day’s events almost too unreal for her to grasp. When her cell phone rang, she was startled to find it in her hand. The read-out on the caller ID brought her more comfort than she could have expected.

The image of Stephen gurgling on the couch while she waited for the ambulance brought a sob to her throat. “I was with him,” she said.

“Yes.” Lauren was surprised at how quickly the answer came. She hadn’t realized how desperate she was to talk about Stephen. To tell the real story. To be with Jesse. She choked back a sob and said, “Can we meet somewhere later?”

Lauren had no sooner disconnected the call when her phone rang again. Carrie’s number blinked at her. Of course Carrie had to be frantic. It wasn’t fair to avoid her calls. But talking was so difficult, especially when most of what people believed was lies.

Lauren answered, her voice weary even to her own ears. Carrie’s voice brought on another deluge of tears. They cried together for a few moments. Lauren sidestepped Carrie’s questions, finally telling her friend that she was too wiped out to talk about it.

***

Lauren had managed to get herself safely to Jesse’s apartment building and was now standing in front of his door. She realized the implications of turning to a man she’d only known a few weeks, rather than her two best childhood friends. But while she’d known Gina and Carrie most of her life, she often felt like the outsider, the one who tagged along on the tail of their friendship. She’d never totally trusted either of them with her emotions. That was through no fault of either of her friends. Maybe they’d simply known each other too long. It was too hard to go back and undo all the lies.

Lauren trusted Jesse. The reality of that scared her. She’d never let her guard down so completely with anyone. She was always herself with him as she believed he was with her. His honesty made it easy for her to be honest with him, as well as with herself. The word love rolled around behind her consciousness but she refused to acknowledge it.

She swiped at a tear before lightly knocking. The door opened almost immediately. Jesse wrapped Lauren in his arms and pulled her close. He pushed the door closed with his foot and led her to the couch. He said nothing as he held her trembling in his arms. She rested her head against his chest, felt his heart thumping, and let the tears fall.

After a few moments, Jesse reached for the box of tissues he’d placed by the couch. He continued to hold her close while he gently wiped the tears from her cheeks. Then he waited patiently for her to compose herself.

“Stephen overdosed.” Lauren blurted the words out as fresh tears filled her eyes. “I called the ambulance but they couldn’t save him.”

Lauren grabbed another tissue. She sucked in a deep breath, then filled Jesse in on everything from the argument Stephen had with her parents the previous evening to that claustrophobic room in the hospital where her father had calmly stood there in his red tie and changed the facts of his son’s death.

Jesse listened without interruption. His only response was the tightening of his muscles. Not quite meeting his eyes, Lauren said, “I should have gone after him last night.”

“My father hated Stephen because he was different,” Lauren said. “Stephen wasn’t my father’s idea of what a man should be. He could never have lived up to what my father wanted or expected. Stephen knew that. He was never allowed to forget.”

“How did your mom feel?” Jesse asked.

“She tried to make it up to Stephen. She probably even gave in to him a little too much.” Lauren finally met Jesse’s eyes. The emotion there almost brought her to tears once again. She said, “I used to think Stephen was a tough guy and that the things my father said didn’t bother him. I was so wrong.”