When We Were Friends (21 page)

“It’s no big deal.” He shrugged. “Molly woke me up around four this morning, and we snuck downstairs and played for a while, waiting for you to get up. But when you didn’t, I left you a note and went out.” He nodded at the door, a piece of paper taped to it.

I stared at the XOX, blinked, then turned back to him. “Molly woke up and I slept through it?”

“She was screaming, actually, rattling the walls. For almost an hour, before I started to get worried you’d run out on us or … I don’t know, died or something, so I came in to check.”

“I’m a heavy sleeper,” I said, then shook my head. “Sorry, after the week I’ve had, I guess my brain rebelled and entered a semivegetative state. I don’t think I’ve ever slept that long in my life.”

“Don’t be sorry, we had fun. Didn’t we, Moll? You’d be amazed how many games can be played with a ring of keys.”

“Very creative of you.”

“I thought so too.” He twisted the top of the carafe, and filled the mugs. “You ever try chicory? If you hate it I can make a pot of regular coffee, I have both, but this is what I usually drink. A neighbor of mine, Roy, he cultivates chicory roots and roasts them, so I started drinking it when I needed a break from my caffeine addiction. Took some getting used to, but I’ve started to like it. Apparently it cleans out the blood, or maybe that’s just something Roy told me to get me past my first impression.” He handed me a mug. “See what you think.”

The chicory was different from what I’d expected, chocolaty, in an ultra-sour way. Not horrible, but not all that good either. I could imagine it cleaning out my blood, like Drano. “Mmmm,” I said, so as not to be rude.

He gave a quick laugh. “Like I said, it takes some getting used to. It’s better with food. You going to eat?”

“I wasn’t sure this was all for me. Aren’t you eating? Or …” I picked up the fork and held it toward him. “Did you want to share?”

“No, I ate a couple hours ago. I made that for you.”

“Wow. This is enough to feed about ten of me, but thanks.” I scooped a forkful of eggs into my mouth. They were delicious, peppery and buttery but still light. I’d always thought an egg was an egg was an egg, but these tasted like something different altogether, the Dom Pérignon of eggs. I rolled my eyes in a faux-swoon. “These are incredible.”

“Told you I could cook,” he said. “The eggs are farm-grown, which makes a difference, and the whipping technique makes them fluffy.”

“ ‘Whipping technique’ sounds vaguely pornographic. I’m picturing you using a leather tassel. Perhaps wearing a thong.” And then
I stopped short, vaguely amused at myself. Well look at that. I knew how to be flirtatious. After thirty-six years, I still had the capacity to amaze myself. I smiled and held the mug to my nose, let the steam flush my face. “So how’d you end up here in a place where you can get farm-grown eggs? Were you born here?”

“No, I lived in Pennsylvania most of my life, and then I was in New York for a few years.” He shrugged. “Went to Columbia and I majored in English, which left me completely unqualified for anything except majoring in English.”

“Well I majored in art history,” I said, “which basically qualified me to visit museums.”

“I’ve always wanted to learn how to do museums right. I usually just walk around feeling stupid, wondering why I’m not enjoying looking at paintings of colored squares and soup cans. Besides, you ended up using your degree, right?”

“My last project involved painting beans,” I said, “so not really.”

“At least you knew what you were good at. Me, I just bummed around for a while wondering what I wanted to be when I grew up. I decided to stay in the city because I thought I liked it, mainly because I was only twenty-two at the time, so I had no idea what I really liked. I spent a few months waiting tables along with the deluded wannabe actor-models, and then a friend taught me how to cook and I started catering and party planning.”

A friend. I pictured her, maybe the woman on his bookcase, leaning over him to display her boobs while she showed him her egg-whipping technique.

“But it turned out I couldn’t deal with super-rich people and their dinner party obsessions. Like they wanted me taking the temperature of ice baths for white wine. I mean, they’re ice baths! They’re cold! And one lady had me measuring the distance between each plate and glass and piece of silverware with a caliper, to make sure it was all symmetrical.”

“Awesome,” I said. “Not just a perfect party, it’s an
anally
perfect party.”

“Exactly, and being the least anal person I know, I kept wanting to
tell them to get a real life. So when the urge got overwhelming, I realized my choices were to commit homicide or figure out how to get away from it. Which is when I started writing. I got in on the bottom floor of blogging, back when blogs were still called online journals and people had this voyeuristic fascination with them. My journal was called
Things I Like.
” He smiled. “Except I put exclamation points after each word because … I was in my twenties. So it was called
Things! I! Like!
and I was writing about basically everything that made me happy.”

Alex reached for Molly, who had slumped forward on the bed over the top of the stuffed bunny, like she was attempting to touch her toes. “Recipes,” he said, setting her on his lap, “movies, books, shampoo, and I guess people thought it was useful because suddenly companies were sending me on vacations to review their hotels, or giving me a year’s supply of veggie hot dogs in the hopes I’d tell the world they didn’t taste like salty rubber. And then I wrote a book that got picked up on proposal, which is when I gave up catering for good, and I never looked back.”

“You have a book! I never met a real author before.” I grinned. “Except for this one lady. I did a mural for her bedroom, and she tried to give me a copy of her self-published poetry as partial payment. It was called
Your Love Tastes like Saccharine
, and the first poem was called, no lie, ‘Sugar Free Gives Me the Runs.’ ”

Alex laughed. “Well that’s a lot more creative than mine. It’s called
A Hundred Books That Will Change Your Life
, and I ended up getting about a thousand letters from people who told me how ashamed I should be for not mentioning the Bible. But it did okay enough to get me out of the city, and into a mortgage in a place that felt as far away from that life as possible. I was here with my parents on vacation, back when I was ten or eleven, and I remembered how great it was waking up to the sound of wind through the trees. Being out in the middle of nowhere you can completely forget about the rest of the world, just live in the moment.”

I wondered suddenly what there might be about Alex that I didn’t know. I’d definitely sensed a sadness about him that surfaced at odd
times, when I mentioned motherhood for example, sometimes even when he held Molly. What was there in “the rest of the world” that he was trying to forget?

“So I moved here and pretty soon after, people who liked the book started hiring me to write book reviews, and that became my job.”

“Very impressive. Now I feel humbled in your presence.”

He shrugged. “Not all that impressive. It’s nowhere near as impressive, to cite a random example, as escaping an abusive husband to become a single mother.”

I felt my face flush. “Right. Yeah, thanks.” I tore off a hunk of toast and was about to stuff it into my mouth when the cell phone in my purse rang—my phone, not Alex’s. I dropped the toast and dove for it.

“I’ll bring Molly downstairs and let you talk,” Alex said, standing with Molly in his arms. “And I’ll make you up a pot of coffee since I see you’re not a chicory fan.”

I smiled thanks and glanced at the number. The call was from home. I flipped the phone open. “Ma?”

Alex bowed shallowly and backed from the room.

“Lainey!”

“Oh Ma, thank God. You okay?”

“I’m feeling much better, thank you.” Her voice was tight, formal. “Cops gave me a scare though, what the hell were you thinking?”

“What do you think I was thinking? That you were sick or dead or I don’t know what. Why didn’t you answer the phone?”

“I was out. At the ABC, I needed some whiskey. You forgot to get me whiskey.”

“You were at the liquor store all night? You don’t leave the house for two decades, and what gets you out is the need for whiskey.”

“Shameful, but true.”

“Jesus, Ma, how stupid do you think I am?”

She was quiet a minute, then said, “Guess you’re not reading the papers. They arrested David McGrath yesterday morning.”

I widened my eyes. “What?”

“Right before I talked to you the other day I heard how Sydney had
given them a name, and I was sure she’d told them about you. That the cops were coming any minute to question me and haul me away, so how do you think it felt for me when they started pounding on the door last night? But it turns out she told them David had the baby when she disappeared. Aren’t you watching the news? The story’s been everywhere, even on Katie Couric.”

“There’s actually no TV here.” Alex had told me the idea of installing a dish, infusing his brain with trashy satellite waves, just seemed like the total opposite of what life in New Hampshire was supposed to be. I’d thought that was commendable, very Thoreauesque. And also, as it turned out, very convenient. “So that was her plan? To get him arrested?”

“Maybe not originally, but when the cops confronted her with the mall surveillance tapes she changed her story. Said she’d left Jacqueline at David’s that morning, just set her sleeping into her crib. That she’d been sure David had heard her come in and knew Jacqueline was there, and since she wanted to avoid him she’d just left. Which is smart, I guess, because even David can’t know for sure that’s not true, might think somebody stole her from the bedroom. But she told the cops that when David called Saturday to ask where Jacqueline was, from the tone of his voice she was suddenly terrified that he’d done something to her. She said she’d lied about the kidnapping because she was scared of David, and then she told them about Molly’s cigarette burns. She had photos of them, conveniently.”

I shook my head. “And they believed her? Nobody can prove she never dropped Molly at his house?”

“Except us, I guess.” Her voice trailed off, and then she said, “I’d say she’s assuming an awful lot from you here. How easy would it be for you to turn her in?”

“But she knows I wouldn’t.” I clutched the phone receiver. “She knows me well enough to realize I wouldn’t care if David McGrath’s in jail for something he didn’t do. I’m pretty much glad about it.”

“Actually he’s in jail for something he did do. They got a search warrant for his home and they found happiness, of the white-powdered
variety, in his bedroom. So now they have him in for minor drug possession, which I guess was enough to make them believe Sydney was telling the truth.”

I shook my head slowly. “What about the note I left at Six of Swords?”

“They think he wrote it, I guess. That he gave the baby to one of his many lady friends, or somebody he paid to go on the run with her, take care of her until he could join them. That’s one theory, but the other’s that he hurt her.”

“Hurt her? You mean … they think he might’ve killed her?”

“Then left the note in some kind of half-assed attempt to make people think it was a kidnapping.”

I shook my head blankly.

“So that’s the story,” Star said. “Son of a bitch snorts cocaine and abuses his kid, and Sydney Beaumont cries crocodile tears and there you are caught in the middle of it. Guess I got a tad upset about it all, but I’m better now.”

I sank onto the bed, my chest tight with a sudden realization. “Ma, do you know what this means? This means she wants me to keep Molly, right? So they accuse David McGrath of murder? In order to save Molly from him, she sent her away forever.”

“Oh Lainey, sweetie, I know what you’re thinking, but don’t go there. My guess is she got them to issue a warrant knowing exactly what they’d find in his bedroom, and she thought that might be enough to win custody. Who knows, but she’s obviously not altogether in her right mind whatever she’s pulling, because how’s she going to get herself out of this?”

“What should I do, Ma? I don’t know what to do now.”

“Where are you? Still in West Virginia?”

“I don’t know if I should even tell you. In case you’re interrogated or something.”

“You’re staying with somebody, right? That’s what the cards told me, a masculine, imperial sort of presence.”

“Well I don’t know about imperial but yeah, I’m staying with a
man named Alex, just for a few days. A really nice guy.” I shook my head. “Which is a total understatement. He’s one of the most incredible people I ever met.”

“I knew it,” Star said softly. “I knew there was some kind of guardian spirit watching over you to make sure you’d be safe.”

“A guardian spirit? Okay, yeah, we’ll go with that. But obviously I can’t stay here. I have to come home.”

“You what? Molly’s face is all over the headlines here, so how long’s it going to take before somebody recognizes her?”

“I thought you said the story was on the national news. Why would I be any safer here than there?” I thought of everyone who’d seen us in the past few days—Muriel, the mother in the playground, people at various rest stops and parking lots. I should’ve been more careful, kept my head down and covered Molly’s face because if they tried, the police could probably follow our tracks like perfectly placed breadcrumbs.

“Well the photos they’re showing don’t look like the girl you have. What with the new hair, and they’ve got her wearing red velvet Christmas dresses and Baby Dior, looking completely out of sorts. At least wherever you are they don’t have any reason to suspect she’s not your daughter, but here I’m sure everybody’s trying to play detective, scrutinizing other people’s babies. Plus, too many people here know you, and don’t you think they’d consider it strange if you were suddenly with child?”

“I guess I’m going to have to take that chance, right? What else am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t get it.” Star’s voice was rising. “Why would you come home? You going to give Sydney a talking-to? Apologize to the child-abusing junkie? What?”