Knitting Under the Influence (30 page)

“See?” Kathleen said. “So that proves, you know, that you're special. And wonderful. But it's still… I mean … I can't—” She took a deep breath. “Time's up, I guess. That's all.”

“Ah,” he said. “Time's up.” He still hadn't moved.

Sari nudged Lucy on the arm and gestured with her head toward the door. “Excuse us,” she said and pulled Lucy out of the kitchen, leaving the other two frozen in position behind them, Kathleen holding the ring toward Kevin and Kevin sitting there, not taking it.

“She said she wanted us to stay with her,” Lucy said when they were out of earshot. She set her mug down on a side table they were passing. “Why are we leaving?”

“Because Kevin deserves some privacy right now. He doesn't need us rubbernecking while his hopes are being crushed.”

“Oh, sure,” Lucy said. “Now you're all concerned about him.

But last night, when I was the one defending him—”

“We did the right thing. But that doesn't mean we get to watch. Come on—” Sari led her toward the back of the house. “Let's go say goodbye to the beach.”

“If you hadn't talked her out of marrying him, all this could have been ours,” Lucy said as they stepped out onto the deck and looked around. It was a perfectly glorious morning. But then it was probably always a perfectly glorious morning there.

“You're assuming we'd have been invited.”

“Well, for sure we won't
now,”
Lucy said. “How much do you think he hates us?”

“Kevin?” Sari said. “I don't think he's the hating type.”

“I was right all along. I said he was too nice for Kathleen.”

“That's sort of true. But nice isn't everything, Luce. I mean, you don't want a guy to be mean, but you do want him to be—”

“What?”

“Something more than just nice,” Sari said and turned her back on the ocean.

They made a pretty sober group on the flight back. For once, no one felt much like talking. Sari had brought her laptop, so she worked. Lucy watched the movie and knit—her circular needles were plastic, so the airline allowed them onboard. Sari and Kathleen had brought metal needles, which they'd had to check.

Kathleen put her seat back as far as it would go and closed her eyes—either she was asleep or just thinking, and, either way, the others felt they should leave her in peace.

Lucy was the only one with a car at the airport, so she drove the other two home. They dropped off Kathleen first. Kathleen pulled her suitcase out of the trunk and turned to face her friends, who had gotten out of the car to say goodbye.

“You okay?” Lucy said.

“I’m fine.”

“You want us to come in for a while?” Sari asked.

“Nah,” Kathleen said. “I’m really okay. And—no offense, guys—but we've had a lot of togetherness lately.”

“She's breaking up with
us
now,” Lucy said to Sari. “We've created a monster.” They all hugged and said goodbye and then Lucy drove Sari home.

II

T
he next day, Sari was back at work, where the usual craziness made her feel within minutes like she'd never been away, never sat on a beach or relaxed in her life.

Late in the morning, she walked a mother and son to the front door of the clinic and said goodbye to them. As she walked back into the building, she heard shrieking coming from the hallway. New kids always screamed a lot until they got the idea that there were better ways of communicating, and everyone who worked at the clinic learned to tune out the noise. But the kid let out a particularly loud scream, impossible to ignore, so Sari grinned at Shayda, who was working at the front desk.

“Wow. Good lungs on that one.”

Shayda looked up from the textbook she was highlighting. “You should know. It's Zachary Smith.”

“You're kidding.” Sari could feel the smile freeze on her face. “That's weird—he had pretty much stopped tantruming weeks ago.”

“Maybe with
you …
But Christopher said the kid's had a tough time accepting the switch in therapists.”

“Oh,” Sari said.

Shayda snapped the cap back on her highlighter. “Christopher's thinking maybe they should start taking him in another entrance or do something else to break the routine, so he'll stop expecting to find you here when he comes. But I don't know—I think maybe it's good for Zack to learn to accept change. He'll come around.”

“Yeah,” Sari said, but now that she knew it was Zack and he was crying for
her,
the shrieks she had barely noticed a minute ago tore at her heart.

Or maybe it was the guilt.

She wanted to run back to see Zack, to give him a hug and let him know that she still loved him. But she knew she couldn't do that—it would only make him think that screaming for her worked, and next time he would scream even louder and longer and be even more crushed if she didn't come. And Christopher would kill her.

She couldn't go back there, but it hurt not to.

She sighed and looked down at the file she was holding, for the family she had just seen. She had work to do. She plucked a pen off of the desk and sat down in one of the chairs in the waiting area to jot down some notes on the session. The screams got louder and sounded more like sobbing. She gritted her teeth and tried to concentrate on the papers in front of her.

She heard someone enter the room. Shayda said, “Rough in there?”

“He was clinging to me, and Christopher thought it would be better if I left.” Jason Smith's voice. Sari looked up at the sound, and he spotted her. “Well,” he said. “So you do still work here.”

“Hi.” She managed a casual smile. “How's Zack doing?”

“Can't you hear for yourself?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Sounds like he's having a bad day. It happens with all the kids from time to time.”

He came over to where she was sitting. Shayda was watching them from the desk, her eyes round with curiosity—she probably knew that Sari had asked to be taken off the family, had probably already speculated with the others about why.

“He never had a problem before.” Jason was standing right over Sari now, looking down at her. “Or have you already forgotten what he's like? He's crying because you're not there, Sari. He's done it every session since you dropped him. He goes into the room and he looks around for you and he even says your name sometimes—did you know he could say your name? Because I didn't—and then he starts screaming for you.”

She stared down at the file in front of her, not seeing it. “Kids get used to certain routines—”

“That's bullshit,” Jason said. “It's bullshit and you know it. He thought you were his friend and then one day you just disappeared and you never even said goodbye to him.”

Sari darted a look at Shayda, whose mouth had fallen wide open. “I know it happened fast, but I just thought—”

“I don't care what you thought. And right now I don't even care that you jerked me around and dropped me flat and made me feel like an idiot for ever—” He waved his hand with an angry noise of dismissal. “But to stop working with Zack, with no reason or explanation—man, that was
cold.
You're supposed to want to help kids, not break their hearts. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“You don't understand,” she said. “I couldn't do it. Not anymore.”

“Why not?”

She just shrugged and wouldn't look at him.

He squatted down so his face, his eyes, were at her level. “Was it because of me? I
asked
you if it was okay—everything I did, every time I—” He banged his fist against the side of the sofa—not near her, but it made her jump anyway. “Do you think I would have done anything that might end up hurting Zack? Or you, for that matter? What do you think I am?”

“It wasn't because of that.” Sari wished Shayda wasn't watching. They were speaking in low voices, but Shayda could probably still hear a lot. “You don't understand—”

“I know I don't understand!” he said, his voice rising. “That's my whole point.
I don't understand.
Why would someone like you want to hurt a kid?”

“I don't know!” Sari said with a rush of anger that was a relief, since it blew away the guilt. “You tell me! Why did
you
want to?”

“Excuse me?” he said.

“No,” she said. “I won't.”

He rocked back onto his ankles. “What are you talking about?”

She leaned forward. “Why did you torture my brother on a daily basis? Why did you and your friends make fun of him and shove him around and make him scared to go to his own school? Why did you have to make me ashamed of him—of my own brother, who never did
anything
to hurt me—until I couldn't even stand the sight of him?” Her voice broke on the last word, so she stopped, but she fought the tears and glared at him.

“Your brother?” he repeated.

“My brother. Charlie. I’ve told you about him. He has autism, just like Zack. And just like Zack, he could have had a shot at a better life, only unlike Zack he didn't get it. Instead, he got to be treated like shit, called a retard, have his lunch stolen and his pants pulled down in public. All thanks to you and your friends.”

“Me? What are you talking about? I never did anything like that.”

“Oh, please!” She curled her hands into fists on her knees, almost giddy with the relief of being the one on the attack now. She didn't even care if Shayda heard them. “I remember you, Jason.
You,
strutting around in your team uniforms, laughing with your friends, acting like you were hot shit because you could knock something out of the hands of a kid who couldn't even defend himself. And then I saw you again here, and I was supposed to help your kid. And I actually tried to. I tried to help your kid because he deserved it even if you didn't, but I couldn't take it anymore. Charlie's got
nothing
in his life and your kid will be fine, and it's not fair. It's just not fair.”

“You're wrong,” Jason said. His face had softened, lost its anger—exchanged it for bewilderment. “You're wrong, Sari. I’m sorry if kids were mean to your brother, but it wasn't me. I saw stuff like that happening sometimes, but I wasn't the one doing it.”

“Right,” Sari said. Her fingernails were digging into her palms, but the pain felt good. “It was always someone else. That's how people do things like that—they do it in a group and then no one takes the blame for it. There was always a bunch of you around whenever anything bad happened. I always got there too late to see who'd done it, too late to stop it—but you were there laughing at him. I
saw
you. I saw you there laughing at him. I can still see you laughing at him.”

He shook his head, but not in denial. More like he was trying to clear it. “Maybe I laughed. I don't know. If I did, God knows it wasn't because I actually thought anything like that was funny. But I was—” He shook his head again. “It was
high school,
Sari. It was scary and miserable and mean and you did what everyone else was doing because if you didn't they'd turn on you next. It was all about saving yourself.”

“You think that excuses it? I went to the same school, you know, and
I
didn't torture anyone.”

“Well, good for you.” He rose abruptly to his feet. “Good for you, Sari. You weren't mean at all to anyone back in high school.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked down at her.“No, you just waited another ten years or so before you decided to ruin an autsistic kid's life.”

“I’ve spent the last six years of my life helping these kids,” she said.

“Five minutes ago, my kid was screaming because they wouldn't let him see you,” Jason said. “I may have been a jerk in high school, but I know I never made your brother—or anyone else—scream like that.” And he turned on his heel, crossed the room, kicked open the front door to the clinic, and was gone.

There was silence.

After a moment, Shayda came over to where Sari sat, unmoving, on the sofa. “Do you need me to get Ellen or anything?” she asked.

Sari stared at her blankly. “Ellen?”

“Yeah. Is everything okay? I mean, what just happened here?”

“I’m not sure,” Sari said.

The last thing she wanted was to see Ellen or anyone else for that matter, but she still had several clients to see before the end of the day, so she couldn't just vanish. She was able to swear Shayda to secrecy, though, by telling her she'd been stupid enough to get a little bit involved with Zack's dad before realizing she needed to call it off and that he was kind of upset about the breakup. She made a big show of how she was too embarrassed to have anyone else at the clinic know how dumb she'd been.

“He's really good-looking,” Shayda said, clearly thrilled by the whiff of scandal. “I don't blame you.”

Sari didn't trust herself to reply to that, so she just reminded Shayda not to tell anyone and then excused herself.

III

H
ey,” Kathleen said, early that evening, poking her head into the office in the back of Sam's apartment. “Can I talk to you?”

Sam was sitting at his desk. He jumped at the sound of her voice and turned. “Jesus. Don't sneak up on me like that.”

“I knocked at the kitchen for a while and you didn't answer, so I just came in.”

“I’ve got to remember to keep that door locked.”

“You want me to go?”

He got up from his desk with a sigh. “No, now that you're here, I might as well take a break.” He rubbed his eyes. “I’m supposed to stop every half hour, according to my ophthalmologist—if I stare at the computer too long, I get headaches. One of these days, she's going to admit that we're dealing with a malignant brain tumor.” He moved past her. “I could use a cup of tea. You?”

“Sure,” she said and followed him back into the kitchen.

He picked up the teakettle and carried it over to the sink. “Where have you been lately?” he said, as he ran the filtered water into it. “I haven't seen you around.”

“Hawaii. Why don't you use the insta-hot? It's faster.”

“Water that's actually boiling makes better tea.” He turned the faucet off. “What were you doing in Hawaii?”

She hesitated for a moment then said, “Breaking up with Kevin Porter.”

He set the kettle on the stove. “You picked a nice place to do it.” He turned on the burner, then moved to the cupboard and got out two cups and two saucers. He arranged them on the counter so the handles on the cups were facing in the exact same direction. “Darjeeling or Earl Grey?”

Kathleen waved her hand impatiently. “Do you really think I know the difference?”

He smiled and shook his head and plucked out two teabags from a jar on the counter.

“So,” Kathleen said, after another moment of silence, “it's ended. Me and Kevin Porter.”

“So you already said. And more grammatically. How did he take it?”

“He's fine, I think.” She hoped no one—especially not Sam—would ever find out that she had agreed to marry Kevin right before breaking up with him. Sari and Lucy knew, but they didn't count.

Sam gave her a hard look. “Are you saying that because you really think so, Kathleen, or because you don't want to feel guilty?”

She smiled sheepishly. “Both.”

The kettle whistled. Sam took a blue-and-white pot holder out of a drawer and carefully wrapped it around the teakettle's handle, then poured the water into the cups. Steam rose up in puffs around his hand. He had boiled exactly the right amount of water for two cups. “I’ve got to admit I’m surprised.” He put the kettle back on the stove and the pot holder back in its drawer before turning to her again. “Just a few weeks ago, you told me you were going to marry Kevin and live off his fortune for the rest of your life.”

“I never said I was definitely going to do that—I just said it was an interesting possibility.”

“One that you seemed very invested in pursuing. What happened?”

“Nothing happened.” She shifted, pressing the flat of her back against the counter. “I guess I just got bored.”

“What happened to the young woman with plans and forethought? The one who wasn't going to be like her mother and throw her life away on some loser? The budding philanthropist?”

“They got bored, too.”

“I see.” He dunked the two teabags, then got a clean mug out of the cupboard and deposited the used teabags inside. He put that mug in the sink. “Do you want milk or sugar?”

“Sugar. A lot.”

“Are you sure you wouldn't just prefer a tea-flavored cup of sugar?

“Are you offering?”

“Sit down, Kathleen.” She sat while he doctored the tea and then he joined her at the table and slid a cup and saucer across to her.

She picked up the cup and put it to her lips. “Fuck,” she said, dropping it down onto the saucer with a clatter. “It's really hot.” She put her fingers to her burned lip.

“Brilliant,” Sam said. “You watched me boil and pour the water with your own eyes, but you had to burn yourself to realize it was hot?”

“Whatever.”

“Try thinking before you do things, Kathleen. You'll get hurt a lot less.”

“But will I have as much fun?” And suddenly—crazily—she thought of leaning forward and kissing him. And immediately rejected the idea. Kiss Sam? Who was stern and disapproving and usually annoyed with her? The thought was both untenable and exciting—tempting the way the idea of setting off the fire alarm on a school corridor is tempting and not something you'd ever actually do.

Distracted by the thought, she took another sip of tea and immediately scorched her lips again, but this time suppressedthe curse that rose to her tongue, so Sam wouldn't know she had been stupid not once but twice.

Sam was stirring his tea slowly with a spoon. “You said you wanted to talk to me about something. Was it just to tell me about Kevin?”

She brought herself back to the conversation. “Sort of. It's connected. I wanted to let you know that I’m quitting my job. Since you helped me get it. It's not that I hate it or anything, but it's kind of not that exciting and—”

“And you've already used up and discarded the boss's son, so what's the point?”

“Shut up.”

He didn't. “Jackson has two more sons, you know. There's no reason to quit yet. They're married, of course, but I think you and I both know that marriages aren't necessarily permanent. You could even argue that the extra obstacle will make it a more exciting challenge, couldn't you?” She didn't answer, just glared at him, so he shrugged and went on, still stirring his tea. “Actually, I think you made a mistake going after Kevin in the first place, Kathleen. His brothers are bigger players than he'll ever be.”

“I didn't go after him. It wasn't like that.”

He stopped stirring and looked across the table at her, his eyes flat and unreadable. “Oh, please. You can tell anyone else that. But not me.”

She couldn't meet his look. “All right,” she said after a moment. “Maybe it
was
like that.” She poked, defeated, at the handle on her teacup.

He resumed his mocking tone. “So are you hoping I’ll find you another job? Because I’ll have to put some thought into it.” He placed the spoon carefully on the saucer, to the side of his teacup. “Do you care how handsome the son of the boss is at your next office? Or is it enough for him just to be roughly the right age? I can't promise Kevin-quality looks and broad shoulders every time, you know. Come to think of it, does it even have to be a son? Or could it be, say, a nephew? Or a daughter?”

“Sorry not to laugh,” Kathleen said, “but you're not actually being funny. I just thought you should know I was quitting, that's all. Since you got me the job. Which I
am
grateful for, whether you care or not.”

“You never took that job seriously.”

“Come on, Sam. I was pouring coffee and stapling papers most of the time. How seriously could anyone take that?”

“That's all you're qualified to do.” He took a careful sip of his tea and lowered the cup. “So what's the next job going to be?”

“I haven't decided yet. But I’m not going to rush into anything this time. I’m going to sit down and really think about what's right for me, how it's going to work out in the long run. Not just grab at the first thing that comes along.”

“You've really matured since I met you, Kathleen, you know that?”

“Shut up,” she said. She pushed her cup away. “I’m going to go watch TV.”

“Mine, I assume.”

“Well,
I
don't have one.”

“Can't you find somewhere else to watch?”

“Not without putting on shoes. I’ll be quiet, I promise.”

“All right,” he said. “But don't bother me. I have a lot of work to do.”

“I won't.” She stood and picked up her cup of tea.

“That doesn't leave this room.”

“I know. I was going to put it in the sink.”

“Bullshit,” he said. “You've never once cleaned up a dish around here.”

“You see?” she said. “I
have
grown. So there.” And she put her cup and saucer in the sink.

But she was lying. She had picked it up to take into the other room.