When We Were Friends (44 page)

“I have to tell you about Alex. Please, Lainey, just give me a few minutes; there are things you have to understand about him, and then you can figure out what to do.”

Molly was crying in the backseat, probably hungry and scared and needing a diaper change. “Tell my mother I’m coming,” I said, and then hung up, pulled the car to the shoulder and climbed into the backseat to be with her.

Posy was sitting on the front porch, waiting for me. She stood when I got out of the car, and I left Molly in the backseat with a bottle as I approached the house.

“Coffee?” she said, nodding at a carafe and mug on the table.

I ignored this. “Where’s Star?”

“She’s not up yet, I don’t think. Please, just sit a minute, okay? A minute isn’t going to hurt.”

I glanced at the house. Where was Alex now? I had to find a way to get Star packed and out the door without seeing him. I couldn’t stand to see him. I narowed my eyes. “Alex asked you to talk to me and convince me he’s not such a bad guy?”

“He told me what happened, but no. He’s going to let you do whatever you have to do, leave, call the cops, whatever. Because he’s
not
a bad guy, and he loves you.”

“Screw that,” I said and then, with no warning, my knees gave way and my butt hit the top porch step with a thump.

“Lainey!” She knelt beside me. “Look, I could tell you a trillion stories that show what kind of a person he is. Like how I acted toward
him after our dad and Camelia died, and the way he forgave me for it over and over again. How he took care of Mom, trying to help her through all her bouts of depression and craziness, even when she called him every name in the book.”

“How touching,” I said. “What a prince.”

She raised her head to look out over the yard. “There’s so much I could say to convince you who he is, but the thing you need to know is I’ve never heard him say he was in love before. Even when he told me about Sydney a couple years ago, he never used the word ‘love.’ They had this rocky relationship ever since it first started, where he’d break up with her and she’d lure him back with all this
poor me
crap. And the kind of person Alex is, I’m sure he wanted to heal her; that was part of the allure. But he never said he loved her. Whereas with you, that was the first thing he said when he told me what was going on, that he was in love with you. I wanted you out of here, still do if I’m being honest, to keep Alex safe if the cops ever find out you have Jacqueline. But I never would’ve turned you in because I know it would’ve killed him if anything happened to you.”

“Oh please,” I said, my voice unsteady. “Don’t even bother. Didn’t I tell you I’m not stupid? I’m not going to the cops, okay? So Alex has nothing to worry about.”

“Just listen, would you? When I called to say I was coming to visit, he told me the whole story. I guess he was scared I’d recognize Jacqueline and start questioning you. I told him he should just turn you in, take the reward money and run, and he exploded at me. Told me how amazing and talented and smart and kind you were, and that all this time he’d wanted to tell you to run away, to take Jacqueline and get away from him. He hated himself for not being strong enough to tell you to leave, but he kept thinking he’d be able to find some way of keeping you and Jacqueline safe here. He said he’d let you go if there was no other choice, but he also couldn’t stand to lose you.”

Amazing
, I thought,
talented. Smart. Kind
. I stared out over the garden, my eyes and nose filling with tears. “No,” I said and then I hugged my knees.

Posy set a hand on my back, then pulled it away. “I’m going to get Alex, okay?” she said. “Okay? Please just stay here and talk to him.”

I listened to her walk inside the house, then pressed my eyes hard against my knees, playing those words over and over inside my head as if that might help me to believe.
Amazing. Talented. Smart. Kind
. The words like physical objects I wanted to hold and study.

And then, footsteps on the porch. For a minute he stood unmoving, and then he sank to the porch floor beside me. I didn’t look up, didn’t move. Neither of us spoke.

Until, out of the corner of my eye, I saw him hunch forward to grip the edge of the top step. I turned to watch him and he glanced at me, then away. “I don’t know what to do,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “I have no idea what to say.”

I hesitated, every inch of my skin prickling as if in warning. And then, slowly, I shifted onto my knees so I could wrap an arm around his shoulders.

“Lainey?” he whispered, then gripped at my sleeves and buried his face against my neck. And I held him, feeling suddenly so small. Both of us children, lost and scarred and scared, and trying to hold on.

The five of us sat in the living room, Molly on Star’s lap gripping onto the ends of her hair, Alex sitting stiffly beside me as we tried to figure out what to do. Alex and I hadn’t spoken since coming inside. Every so often he’d glance over at me and I’d look quickly away, not sure how to react. Still processing everything in my mind, and coming up only with twists and tangles.

“So,” Star said, “it’s time to have a little chat with Sydney.” She seemed bizarrely calm, cheerful even. Maybe it was the relief of not having to keep secrets. Or maybe it was because she’d always sensed there were even bigger secrets in this house, and was better able to face the devils she knew. Or maybe it was what I’d been noticing over the past few weeks, ever since Alex had disappeared. That she was growing stronger, able to face life straight on in a way she hadn’t since my father died.

Even her reaction to Alex was surprising. There was no anger at what he’d done, only a sort of bewilderment that seemed to have morphed now into amusement. “We’re all acting in a play!” she’d told Alex. “I thought Lainey was the lead, but it’s actually you!”

Now she nodded slowly to herself, like she was agreeing with some inner conversation, and then she said, “We’ll bring her here.”

“How’s that going to help anything?” I said. “Unless I strangle her
and then throw her in the river. Which, I have to say, I honestly might do if I see her.”

“Remember what I’ve taught you,” Star said, “that when you’re trying to figure out what to do, always look at the ending first. Assume the best possible ending, and work backward to figure out how you might get there. If this is a play, then maybe we’ll all live happily ever after.”

“That’s the lamest reasoning I’ve ever heard.” I looked from Alex to Posy, needing them to back me up. I didn’t know how I could stand to see Sydney without carrying out the aforementioned strangling and throwing. But they just looked questioningly at Star, as if they respected her seniority and would trust whatever she might come up with. “What if she steals Molly away and then tries to work this scheme with somebody else?” Or, and this was my real fear, what if she managed to seduce Alex again? He might think it wasn’t possible, but I knew Sydney’s power. After all, hadn’t she seduced me?

“I want to talk to her,” Star said. “The thing we all have to realize is that she
is
still a human being.”

“Only in the sense that Kim Jong Il is a human being.” I turned to Alex. “I don’t get why you’re not saying anything! You seriously think we can just be nice to her and she’ll suddenly feel bad and turn herself in?”

Alex hesitated, glancing from Star to me before he said, “I don’t feel like I have any kind of right to suggest anything. But … she
does
feel bad. Which maybe is hard to believe, but she was constantly questioning what she was doing to you, and what it was doing to Jacqueline being away from her.”

I looked over at Molly, feeling an unexpected sense of mourning. What would it be like to see Sydney with her? Already Molly’s name had changed in conversation. Already she was someone else’s daughter. “
Jacqueline’s
a hundred times better off without Sydney. And you really think Sydney gives a damn about me? She was going to have me thrown in jail! Because of money!”

“She’s confused. She doesn’t have any sense of self-worth,
Lainey, and having money makes her feel worth something. Being able to give Jacqueline a better life than she had makes her feel worth something. And having men fall in love with her, I guess.”

Star eyed him a moment, then said, “Before this all started, the day she came to our house with Molly, she told me a little about how David treated her. Or didn’t treat her, actually. He was always traveling, and even when he wasn’t he usually didn’t make it home in time for dinner. She said he used to do things like surprise her with jaunts to Paris or diamond earrings or Jimmy Choos. But I guess that stopped as soon as they got married. She called herself the trophy wife, which maybe she was.”

“And I was the one who started buying her gifts,” Alex said. “The only thing wrong with me is I wasn’t rich.” His voice was flat. I studied his face. How did he feel about her now? He hadn’t put his feelings into words, and I didn’t really want him to unless he was going to say he despised her with every ounce of his being. He was angry at her, sure, maybe hurt. But he’d been with her for years, and they’d had a child. How could you share that much history with someone and not love them?

I turned to Star. “So what’s your plan, exactly? Tell her if she confesses she’ll get tons of attention in jail?”

“Let’s just say there are parts of her I can identify with. She wants to be understood, everybody does, and there’s things about her I understand maybe better than either of you. I can tell her what I’ve been through, and show her what I learned from it and help her figure out what she really needs from life. How this isn’t the way to go about getting it.”

“What you’ve been through?” I said.

“I said I’d tell
her
, not that I’d tell you. It’s nothing you really need to know.”

“You seriously think just talking to her’s going to work? Why don’t we just, I don’t know, do what they do in crime shows and drug busts, set up a tape recorder and get her to talk about what she did?”

“Because then the authorities would have to know you and Lainey
and Alex were involved,” Posy said. “That’s what you’re thinking, right?”

This was the first thing Posy had said throughout the whole conversation, and she actually sounded like she was enjoying herself. Maybe because this felt to her like some kind of logic puzzle. Maybe because this was a kick of excitement in her otherwise boring life, or maybe it was just the idea of revenge. Whatever the reason, her eyes were wide and bright, her voice animated. “Even though you have reasons behind what you guys did, it was still breaking the law, and you’d still have to pay for it. Jacqueline too, because if you all were arrested she’d be thrown in foster care. Whereas this way, if you could get Sydney to turn herself in, she could refuse to tell them where Jacqueline is now.”

“I think asking her to turn herself in is a little too much to expect,” Star said. “And maybe we can tape the conversation in case this doesn’t work. But you’re right, it’d end badly for all of us if the authorities found out the truth. So I can try and convince her to just disappear, and everybody would just assume she ran away with the baby.”

“Jacqueline would be a fugitive here for the rest of her life,” Posy said. “That’ll make her much more interesting.”

“God, Posy,” Alex said. “How can you act like this is a joke?”

Posy looked instantly chagrined. “I’m sorry. I just keep thinking What’s the worst that could happen? If this talking-to doesn’t work, you’ll all still be in the same situation you’re in now.”

Alex glared at her, but didn’t even bother to respond. We all knew full well what might happen, even Posy who somehow thought she could lighten the atmosphere by pretending she did not. The chances of being able to reason with Sydney were slim, and if we brought her up here, the consequences of failing were too terrifying to say out loud.

There was an uncomfortable silence, which I finally broke by standing and reaching for Molly. The consequences for her were the most terrifying of all. “So,” I said, as calmly as I could manage, “now I guess we just have to wait for her to call.”

•   •   •

Which she did, three hours later. And hearing her voice, it was all I could do not to throw the phone across the room to make it go away. I steeled my shoulders, forcing myself to breathe and keep my tone, if not exactly friendly, at least composed. “Listen,” I said to her, “I’m not going to Montana after all, at least not yet. But I know how much you want to see Jacqueline, and I guess it wasn’t fair of me not to tell you where we are. I’m in New Hampshire, it should only be about a seven-hour drive.”

“You want me to come there?” I could almost hear the neurons in her brain firing. Alex had told me she’d called several times over the past week, pleading with him to spend time with her if she came up north. Each time he’d refused, which explained why Sydney had first told me she was coming to see me, and then had changed her mind. Had she thought there was a chance, once Alex saw her in person, that he might realize he still loved her? She was, after all, irresistible in her own mind.