The Best of Enemies (40 page)

I’d suggested we rent a plane and I could take us to Little Cayman myself.
I’ve kept my license current by logging hours each time I’m back in the States.
However, Kitty wasn’t on board with this plan.
At all.

“Your aggressive driving scares me enough.
There’s no way I’m leaving the ground with you.
No flipping way.”

“Your loss,” I reply, because if anyone
should
feel the need for speed, it’s her.

“I’ll live.”

“I hope you don’t mind my pointing it out, but you seem out of sorts.
What’s going on?”
I ask.
Our collective experience has been so positive that I don’t understand the sudden mood change.

“I just can’t believe the first time I’m using my passport is with
you
.
No offense.
I’ve been dying for a trip to the Caymans since Kord was in kindergarten.
With my husband.
I don’t want to eat fruit naked on a private beach with
you
.”

“Not on my personal Top Ten list, either,” I reply.
“On the bright side—now you’ll have been here and when you and Ken come back, you’ll be a pro.”

“Little.
Flipping.
Comfort.”

“You’re not enjoying a moment of this?
Because we can go back to our rooms.”
We’re sitting outdoors at the Ritz-Carlton (the only last-minute reservation I could snag), sipping frozen piña coladas on the terrace of Bar Jack, a spot chosen not only for the name, but also because it boasts the best view on all of Grand Cayman.
The sun’s a small melon ball on the horizon, while the rest of the sky has exploded in shades of fuchsia streaked with tangerine and gold.
The daytime aquamarine-colored sea is now lilac in the reflected twilight.

“I might want to stay a few more minutes,” she admits.

Our dinners arrive and we dive in, having had little time to consume anything that wasn’t Diet Coke over the past few days.
So fresh.
There’s a cessation of conversation as we polish off two orders of crispy crab fritters, piquant with lime aioli, and coconut shrimp, topped with tangy mango salsa.
Then I tuck into the Mahi tacos and Kitty practically inhales her lobster roll and double order of sweet potato fries.

When the waiter clears Kitty’s empty plate, she tells him, “That was terrible.
I want to send it back.”

“Hey,” I say.
“You made a joke.
You must be rallying.”

Kitty’s smile fades.
“Gallows humor.
You realize we have to call Betsy.
How’s that going to go?
‘We have good news and bad news.
The good news is your husband isn’t dead.
The bad news is, neither is his girlfriend.’”

“‘P.S.
he’s stolen a boatload of money,’” I add.
I’m really starting to sound like Kitty, aren’t I?
“I’ll call her when we go back to our rooms.”

Kitty says, “You don’t have to do that.
She and I are closer—I’ll take care of it.”

“Yes, but we’re much older friends, so it’s on me.”

“I feel like it should be me,” Kitty says, a little louder this time.

“And I feel like it should not be you,” I say, raising my own volume as well.
“Wait.
Stop.
We’re breaking this pattern once and for all.
We’ll do it together.
At least our being on speaking terms will soften the blow.”

“Shall we shake on it?”
Instead of offering her hand, she shimmies in her seat and I laugh out loud.

“I completely forgot about that,” I say.
Literally shaking on it was our first of many running jokes once upon a time.
“I wish we hadn’t wasted all those years.”

Kitty nods.
“Me, too.
But you wouldn’t talk to me and everything spiraled from there.”

“No,
you
wouldn’t talk to me,” I said.

“Wrong.
I only stopped talking to you after you stopped talking to me that day in the food court,” she replies.

“Is it possible we were both in the wrong?”
I say.

“Never,” she replies with a wink.

“Did you just wink at me, Kitty Carricoe?”

“I admit to nothing.”

“Then Kelly trained you well.”
We both sit quietly for a minute.
“Now what?
Shall we settle up and go call her?”

“Definitely.
I want to check in with the kids before it’s too late, too.”

I sign for the bill before we adjourn to my room.
Side by side, I punch the number into Skype.
When Sars answers on her end, Kitty grabs my hand in a show of support.

I say, “Hey, Sars.
We need to talk.”

•   •   •

We have to decompress after we brief Sars, and catch up with our respective families, so we meet on the beach an hour later.
She tells me Kassie and the boys say hello and we have a quick laugh about how this was not the moonlight Cayman stroll Kitty had been dreaming about for so long.
But the night’s too warm and clear to not make do.

As for Betsy?
“That was
not
the reaction I expected,” Kitty says.
“I thought Breakup Betsy would come out, full of fury and ready to crack some skulls together.”

The waves gently ebb and flow as we walk.
“My expectation was for a mix of sorrow and relief.
She was almost . . .
detached?
Is that how you’d describe it?”

“She
has
to be in shock.
That’s the only explanation for why she was so robotic.
Are you surprised she wants to be here when we confront him?”

“A little.
Likely, she’s gathering her resources now, either placing calls to the SEC or bringing in private security to accompany her.”

“Makes sense.
What time are we meeting her plane at the Little Cayman airfield again?”

“Nine thirty.
Ingrid and Trip are landing at ten fifteen, so that gives us enough time to stage ourselves where they’re staying.”

“Are you going to be able to sleep tonight?”

“Not a wink,” I admit.
“But imagine how poor Sars feels.”

“Betrayal sucks.”

We walk north, the ocean to our left.
We can see the lights on the incoming boats—I wonder if one of them is Trip’s.

Kitty kicks up little puffs of sand as she walks.
Then she says, “So . . .
in the spirit of full disclosure, I should tell you something.
Do you remember the summer of 1995?”

“I’m not senile—of course I remember.
After freshman year.
I had an internship at the
Trib
.
What a terrible summer—all those people died in the heat because they lived in bad neighborhoods and were afraid to open their windows.
I tagged along with a couple of the reporters covering the aftermath.
Awful.”

Kitty stops.
“Can you find the buzzkill aspect on any topic?”

“My entire career points to ‘yes,’” I reply.

“Noted.
Do you remember Bobby at all that summer?”

“Again, not senile.
Why do you ask, Kitty?”

“Remember all those times he said he was ‘cat sitting’?”

“Yeah, and he was gone all the time that summer.
I rarely saw him.”

“Think about it.”

Then I understand.
“No!”

I can see her trying to hide her grin.
“Yes.
We ran into each other over Memorial Day and had a fab time together.
And it went from there.”

“Are we Jordans all catnip for you?
Have you hooked up with my father?
Try not to fall in love with me, okay?”
I say none of this unkindly.

“No promises,” she replies.
We walk a little farther.
“Are you okay with that?”

I admit, “At the time, I’d have murdered you both.
In cold blood.
In retrospect, I can see how you’d have been good for each other.
You were so high-strung and he was so . . .
high.
What happened?
Why’d you break up?”

“He felt like he was being too disloyal to you, so it was just a summer thing.”

Oh.
Poor Bobby.
“Congratulations, you just broke my heart.
I remember him going back to USC in a funk at the end of the summer and it finally makes sense why.”

“Super, glad it’s straightened out,” Kitty says in a businesslike manner.
“Are you finally going to tell me about Sean?”

Now it’s my turn to stop.
I’m not going to deny anything.
“You knew?
I mean, other than the morning you jumped to a massive conclusion?
I never had him over after that.
And we weren’t guilty that day—you have to believe me.
We were not innocent, per se, but not guilty by any stretch.”

“Jack, I know everything that happens under my roof—you think I didn’t develop those skills elsewhere first?”

“Did Sars rat me out?”
I ask.

“No, probably for the same reason she didn’t mention my fling with Bobby.
She didn’t want to drive a bigger wedge between us.”

“God bless Sars.”

“Amen,
Betsy
.”

She shoves me gently and I shove her back.

I say, “So how did you . . .”

“The Acqua di Parma Colonia is how I figured it out.
Every other frat guy was dousing himself in Polo or Hugo Boss at the time, while Sean exclusively wore the cologne he first found in Italy.
You smelled like him all the time.
Thank you for not throwing it in my face back then, BTW.”

“And you as well with Bobby.”

“How long did you guys date?”

“Off and on until about 2003.”

“Whoa!
That long?”

“Yes.
He came to Chicago for his residency at Northwestern and he wanted to get married.
I wasn’t ready, I freaked out, I went to Iraq.
We tried the long distance thing.
Didn’t work.
Game over.”

“You’re an idiot, Jack Jordan.
No offense.
He was a catch.”

“Well aware.
I’ve been beating myself up about him since Shock and Awe.
He said he’d wait, and he did.
Thing is, I found life covering the front line easier to manage than being at home with my thoughts, especially when my mother tried to rejoin the picture.
Out in the field, I’m all about basic needs.
There’s no place for navel-gazing.
At home, I worried all the time I might turn into her, or have to deal with her, and that I’d somehow screw up Sean’s life, too, but I was safe from all of that in Iraq.
So I kept finding reasons to stay.”

“I wish I’d hit her harder,” Kitty mumbles.
“Go on.”

“When it became clear I wasn’t returning to live in Chicago, I ended it.
I couldn’t keep stringing him along.
Then, a few years ago I was in a convoy and the reporter in the Land Rover ahead of me was killed.
If I hadn’t gone back for my canteen, I would have been the one in the lead vehicle.
I’d witnessed life and death before, but never from such a vantage point.
Everything I hadn’t dealt with came to the surface and I thought, ‘What the hell am I waiting for with Sean?’
But I was too late.
He was marrying someone else.
She’s a buyer for Saks.
She
shops
for a living.
Given the choice, Sean ultimately opted for a
girl
.”

Kitty grabs me by my shoulders, with a force that surprises me.
“How many times do I have to tell you to sign up for Facebook?
If you did, you’d know his relationship status.
He must be divorced now, because I just read an article about him in
Chicago Magazine
.
He was voted one of Chicago’s Most Eligible Bachelors.
Do you understand?
He’s single.
Jack, he’s
single
.”