My Lost and Found Life (11 page)

“Hello, Ashley.”

“Do I know you?” I raised my eyebrows.

“No,” he said, giving me a brilliant smile. “Your mother kept a photo of you on her desk. You're as pretty as your picture.”

I stared at him. “You worked with my mother?”

“I'm Curtis Davidson. I'm sure she's mentioned me. We need to talk.”

I groaned. “Listen, Curtis Davidson. I don't have the money, and I don't know where it is. We don't have anything to talk about. You're wasting your time trying to bully me.”

“I don't want to bully you, and I don't want to talk about the money. I've been eager to have a conversation with you for some time. There are some things we need to discuss.”

Our eyes locked. “What?” I said. “What things?”

Before he could answer, a hefty woman with a sleeping baby strapped to her chest stopped next to him and waved an espresso maker in my face.

“How much do you want for this?” she asked.

“The price is marked,” I snarled, moving it out of my face
and pointing to the sticker on the bottom. Then I flashed Davidson a challenging look. “Maybe this gentleman needs an espresso maker.”

“Well!” she huffed, jerking it back indignantly. Her baby woke up and started to cry.

Ignoring her, Davidson pulled a business card out of his pocket and pressed it into my hand. I studied it. In elegant, embossed letters it said,
Curtis Davidson III, Partner, Warren Simmons & Co
.

“Give me a call, Ashley. We really need to talk. I've written my private cell phone number on the back.”

He walked away down the drive as I stared after him.

• • •

Sunday was less busy than Saturday, but several people returned to buy what they had passed up the day before. By the time we called it quits on Sunday, I had managed to earn a total of $3,500. Of course, it was a pittance compared to the original cost ofwhat we sold. Still, knowing I had more than $3,000 in my purse was the only thing that eased the pain of seeing our beautiful furniture being hauled away to other people's homes. Late Sunday I watched as an ecstatic couple with a young daughter heaved my white wicker bedroom furniture into the bed of their pickup. Again, I had to fight back tears. It used to take a lot to make me cry, but circumstances had changed me into a river oftears. As I watched our belongings disappear, my whole body felt tired and my arms and legs were so heavy that I could barely lift them. In my stomach was an uncomfortable feeling close to panic. What was I going to do now?

• • •

After the garage sale was over, Nicole and I collapsed atop some pillows on the living room floor. As I began telling her about the mystery man from my mother's office, the unlocked front door opened and Tattie walked in.

“Hey!” I said, too tired to get up. “You missed my really big sale.” Though we had talked on the phone, I had seen Tattie only once since she had been released.

“I don't exactly have the money to buy stuff anyway,” Tattie said. “I hope you got rich.” She plopped down next to us and pulled out a joint. “Anyone got a match?”

I pointed toward the matches on the mantel.

“Uh, should you be doing that?” Nicole asked. “Aren't you out on bail or something?”

“Yeah, so what?” Tattie said challengingly. “Are there cops hiding in the bushes?”

I thought it better not to mention that there might be. Instead I asked, “How are you getting around these days without your car?”

“I have to beg for rides,” she admitted, making a face. “Anyway, I don't have a license now, so getting my car back wouldn't help me right now.
She
dropped me off.”

Tattie always referred to her mother as She, short for She-Devil. Not for the first time, I considered the irony of our three mothers. I wanted desperately to see mine, Nicole wanted to get away from hers, and Tattie hoped her mother would fall down a mine shaft.

“No driver's license! What are you going to do?” Nicole asked. Being without transportation was like slow death in the suburbs.

“It's just one of my many problems at the moment,” she said coolly.

“What about the rest—the pills and all that?” I asked.

“I still have to appear before the judge, but I'll probably get probation—first-time offender and so on. I only had enough for personal consumption, not sale. My lawyer says I need to fix my appearance, you know, take out the nose ring and stuff, and appear contrite when I'm in court. You'll have to teach me how to fake being sweet, Nicole.”

Nicole squirmed uncomfortably.

“Hey,” I said, in a warning fashion. “She doesn't have to fake it. She is.”

“Sorry,” Tattie retorted, not sounding very sorry at all.

“That's okay, I understand,” Nic murmured.

Changing the subject, I asked, “Got any bright ideas for me, Tattie? I have to find a job, pronto.”

“A job! From the look of things around here, you should be worrying more about where you're going to live. I'd offer to let you bunk in with me, but She isn't too happy with me right now.”

“No problem, I'll figure something out,” I said hastily. No way did I want to live in her dirty house or deal with her mother.

“I wish you were still going to Boston with me.” Nicole sounded worried. “Are you sure you can't get a student loan or something?”

“It's too late. I checked online. Right now, they're taking financial aid applications for
next
fall, a year from now.” I shook my head in dismay. “The only thing I can do is find a job and an apartment here.”

“But you should be going to college,” Nicole argued. “You're really, really smart. You had a four-point-oh. And look at the way you read all the time.”

“I'll get there. I just need to get things under control first. Hopefully, my mom will show up. Maybe I'll be able to join you at BU for spring semester.”

Tattie snorted, no doubt at the absurdity of anyone wanting to go to school, and took a long drag off her joint.

“What are you going to do this fall, Miss Tatiana?” I said.

“As little as possible.” She rolled over on her back and stared at the ceiling. “My lawyer and my mother are pressuring me to go to rehab. That sounds really dreary. What I'd like to do is take off and go to Europe. I hear you can get really good shit in Amsterdam.”

“That's not a very long-term goal. Don't you ever think about the future?” Nicole asked with genuine curiosity.

“Nope,” said Tattie. “Life is short, so live it up while you can. It's all shit anyway.”

We both were silent at that, Nicole because she didn't believe that, and me because I hoped it wasn't true.

• • •

I foolishly allowed Nic to persuade me to spend that night at her house. Nicole's brothers were sprawled on the living room floor in front of the TV, but there was no sign of Cindy.

Upstairs, Nicole flopped down on her bed and gave an exaggerated sigh. “I'm so tired, I don't even feel like undressing.”

I grabbed one of her pillows, tossed it on the carpet, and parked my butt on top of it, elevating my legs on the edge of a chair. “Ah, this feels good,” I said, inhaling and exhaling a few times to release the tension in my body.

I looked over at Nicole as she lay stretched out on the bed, her eyes closed. For the first time in a long time, I really looked at her.

“How do you do it?” I asked. “How do you manage to never have any mean or evil thoughts about anyone?”

Her eyes popped open. “Who says I never have any evil thoughts? I have plenty—especially when my mother is nagging me. I'm such a big disappointment to her. I can't be the Miss Popular center of attention she wants me to be. She wants me to be like you, and I can't do it. Sometimes when she's going on and on at me, I tune out what she's saying and stare at a particular part of her body, like her neck. I concentrate, willing her to feel pain there, a pinch or twinge, anything. But it never works. So much for the power of the mind. The only way I'll ever be able to have my own life is by getting away from here.” She reached up and began nervously twirling and tugging on a lock of hair.

“Relax, it's only a few weeks away,” I said. “And stop pulling your hair! You'll go bald.”

Nicole instantly dropped her right hand. “I don't know. I'm not so sure that I should go to Boston now that you can't. I don't want to leave you here by yourself. I think I should stay and go to San Francisco State.”

“What
are
you thinking? Just because my life is totally screwed up, you want to ruin your life too? That's really dumb.”

Tears welled up in her eyes.

“Listen, I have a shitload ofproblems right now, and there's nothing you can do about them. You can't bring my mother back, you can't give me a job or a place to live. How does it help me if we're both miserable? For years you've been dreaming ofgoing to school on the East Coast and getting away from Cindy. You'd have to be crazy to throw that away now.”

She sniffed and I handed her a tissue from the bedside table.

“Look, I'd love to have you here, holding my hand. I admit, I'm scared about facing all this alone. Everything is totally screwed up right now, but I'll be fine, honest. My mother will come back, and we'll figure everything out.”

She didn't look up, just swiped at her eyes with the tissue.

“Come on, I'm tough as old boots, you know that. It's Ashley against the world,” I said. “Who are you betting on?”

She finally looked up and gave me a wan smile. “You, you dope. I'm betting on you.”

“OK, then,” I said, rearranging the pillows against the bed to prop myself up. “You need to toughen up and start thinking about number one for a change. Otherwise, you're going to go through life as a victim with a capital
V.
Everyone takes advantage of you, even me. Of course, you know I do it for your own good.”

I heard her giggle at that.

“But not everyone has your best interests at heart. You've got to learn to take care of yourself. You can be a good person without turning into Saint Nicole.”

She started to say something, but I wasn't finished.

“I want you to start being selfish. Yeah, once a day you have to be selfish and do something that's good for you, and to hell with everyone else. For one thing, when you get to BU and meet your new roommate, take the best bed in the room instead of saying, ‘Oh, go ahead, I don't care. You choose first.' For once, put Nicole first. Do you hear me?”

She was grinning now. “I hear you.”

• • •

The next morning, I declined Nic's offer of breakfast and ducked into the shower while she trooped downstairs to mix and mingle with her family over their cereal bowls. When I finally drifted down the stairs, I could hear Cindy and Nicole talking in the kitchen. I hovered on the stairs, listening.

“I don't see why not,” Nicole was pleading. “It's not as if anyone will be using my room while I'm away. She wouldn't be in anyone's way, and I'm sure her mother will be back or she'll have found a place by the time I come home at Christmas.”

“You're not listening to me, Nicole. I will not have that girl living in my house and sponging off me. She and her larcenous mother have made their beds, and they have to lie in them. Like mother, like daughter.”

“That's so unfair. Ashley isn't responsible for all this.”

“Excuse me if I disagree, but I think there are some chickens coming home to roost here. She's always been the queen bee, with her great sense of entitlement. I'm surprised that you don't see the opportunity in this, Nicole. This is your chance. You've spent your whole life in her shadow, playing
second banana while she becomes homecoming queen or gets the lead in the play. You're just as pretty and just as smart. Now is your chance to shine and show everyone you're the real winner.”

“I can't believe you said that. I'm not in a contest with Ashley. I know she can be a little full of herself sometimes, but she has a good heart, and we're like sisters. I've never wanted the same things as her. Why can't you ever understand that? All you ever think about is what you want—you don't care what I want.”

I had never heard Nicole stand up to her mother like that before, and I wanted to cheer for her. I settled for accidentally-on-purpose dropping my bag and letting it roll down the stairs with a clatter. All conversation in the kitchen stopped abruptly.

“Good morning,” I said brightly as I stepped into their peachy pink kitchen. “Thanks for the bed last night, Cindy. I have to get going now.”

Cindy nodded curtly and turned her back on me, while Nicole followed me out to my car.

“I'm sorry about my mother, Ash,” she said.

“Forget it. I wouldn't have stayed here anyway. She's never liked me, and she's never going to,” I said, and then added indignantly, “I am
not
full of myself.”

She smiled. “Oh, no, not you. Never.”

As I got into my car, she held the door. “What's next?”

I paused for a moment, thinking it over. “The number one item on my list ought to be finding a job. But I'm curious about my mother's lover-boy boss. I'd like to know what his
story is. I think he knows a lot about my mother, maybe even where she is.”

“Are you sure you know what you're doing?”

“Nope,” I admitted. “But I'm doing it anyway.”

Nicole watched me, her eyes wide with apprehension, as I started my car and drove away.

Monday morning I dialed the cell phone number Curtis Davidson had given me.

“Ashley, I'm so glad you called.” His voice was warm, like we were old pals. “Can we get together tomorrow? Somewhere discreet so we can speak candidly.”

Yeah, let's be candid, I thought. “Why not today?” I asked.