When We Were Friends (45 page)

Had it ever occurred to her that Alex might fall in love with me?

Well of course not. It wouldn’t have. She saw me as the doughy, homely, spiritless girl she’d known. The way I’d seen myself.

“I thought you said Alex’s sister had figured out who Jacqueline is,” she said.

“Turns out I was wrong, she doesn’t even suspect there’s anything going on. She has a kind of … interesting personality, and I just was misreading what she was trying to say.”

Sydney was quiet a full minute before she said, “I could see Jacqueline. In seven hours I could be there to see her.” Her voice was hushed with awe.

“So you’re coming? I know Jacqueline wants to see you too.”

“How can you tell?”

Idiot
, I thought. “Just … you can see it in her face sometimes. This kind of sadness, and I can tell she’s thinking about you.”

“Lainey, oh God that’s awful.” She paused. “I hate myself for doing that to her. What if it scars her for the rest of her life?”

“Yeah,” I said with as little sarcasm as I could manage, “I’m sure knowing what you’ve done must really suck for you.”

Five minutes later, Alex’s cell phone rang. I heard him talking from the kitchen, his soothing tones reassuring Sydney that everything would be fine. And then his voice dropped so low I couldn’t hear. I paced to the window, trying not to care. Trying not to think of this as “intimate whispering,” but just whispering, meant to convince Sydney they still shared secrets.

When he was done, Alex joined me at the window. He stood silently beside me looking out at the encroaching twilight, and I hesitated, then reached for his hand.

It felt like a first touch, this tentative hand-holding. It felt simple, even though it was obviously anything but. His fingers tightened around mine and we stood there, unspeaking, watching the moon rise over the trees.

Alex and Posy left for the park early the next day, dawdling while they waited for my call. Star spent most of her morning upstairs meditating, doubtless pleading for assistance from the universe, while I tried to distract myself by playing with Molly as if this were just an ordinary day.

I shuffled slowly backward through the living room, holding Molly’s hands. She beamed at me as she walked forward, calling exclamations,
Ah! Ah! Ah!
cheering herself on. I wished I could tell her what was coming, give her some warning. What would it mean to her, seeing Sydney again? Would she recognize her as the mother she’d been missing? The mother who’d abandoned her? Or … the woman who’d burned her skin? Actually, it had been so long that maybe she wouldn’t recognize her at all. That was really what I hoped for, that
she’d look at Sydney with the same benign amusement with which she looked at every new acquaintance.
Why’re you making such a fuss?
she’d think.

I reached the wall, and the two of us turned and started back across the room. This was our midday exercise routine, usually practiced until she got bored, yanked her hands from mine and crawled away. But today I urged her on even after she started to protest. And why? What the hell was I trying to prove? That Molly and I had shared more than Sydney ever would?

“You can do it,” I said again and then, hoping she might not notice, I slipped my index fingers from her fists. She looked up at me, slightly stunned, shuffled a leg forward and then another and another, wobbled and then fell back on her butt.

“You did it,” I whispered. “Oh Molly, you were walking!” Without warning my eyes filled. Molly raised her chin with a certain aplomb,
Don’t be so patronizing!
and then she used my arm to pull herself back onto her feet. Just as I heard a car pull into the drive.

I froze, staring at Molly, then quickly stood, lifted her and walked to the window. I held Molly tight against my chest as I watched the door to the black Acura open. Saw Sydney emerge, look up at us, and smile.

I opened the front door, watching Sydney approach. Seeing her, Molly suddenly tensed in my arms, then cried out and reached toward Sydney and I felt my heart shredding into jagged strips.

Sydney made a sobbing sound and pulled Molly from me, burying her face against her neck. And I stepped backward into the house, every one of my muscle cells fighting the reflex to snatch her away.

Sydney extended an arm to me. Did she really expect me to hug her? She stepped closer and ringed her arm over my shoulders. Yes, apparently she did.

“Thank God,” she murmured, “thank God …”

What was she thanking God for? That Molly was alive? That I hadn’t pulled out a gun as she stepped from the car? Maybe it was just being with Molly and me, the familiarity after having been on the road, a momentary sense of settling. I backed away, inadvertently reaching between her and Molly and pulling, but then felt the resistance, Sydney pulling back.

I dropped my arms, and the first thing that came from my mouth was, “You’re going to have to leave.”

She stared at me over Molly’s shoulder.

“It’s not safe here; somebody’s going to recognize you and then they’ll recognize Molly.”

She took a step back, and I noticed for the first time how bedraggled she looked, how un-Sydney-like. Her hair had gotten too long, hanging in her eyes, and there was an inch at her roots the color of dead leaves, before the strawberry blonde started. Her eyes were bruised and her shirt was untucked, a stain on her sleeve. “I know I can’t stay in this house,” she said. “But I’ll stay somewhere nearby. I’m not leaving her again.”

I watched her, unspeaking. If Star’s plan worked, she’d be leaving on her own. If not, well then Molly would be taken from all of us. Star was wearing a tape recorder, an old-fashioned gizmo Alex used for dictation while gathering thoughts for articles and reviews. We hoped not to have to use it.

“Why’re you looking at me like that?” she said. “There’s no reason for me to leave here; I can’t stand to leave. I mean look at her! She’s grown like five pounds since I left, and I’m not going to miss any more time.”

“You can stay at a motel,” I said. “I’ll bring her to visit every day for as long as you’re here.” How was my voice so firm when inside I felt like screaming? Molly turned to look at me, then reached her hand toward me and I felt my eyes start to sting. I turned back to the house. “Come inside,” I said. “I’ll get you a drink and we’ll figure out what to do.”

I led Sydney to the kitchen. She peered into the living room, the powder room, up the stairs. “So this is where you’ve been living all this time? I tried to picture it in my head, and this definitely wasn’t what I came up with.”

I watched her face, suddenly seeing it all through new eyes. Water stains on the wood floor, rust on the stove, burn and knife marks on the butcher-block counters; how hadn’t I noticed? Was any of this as charming as I’d always thought, or was it just shabby? She must’ve pictured it for years, constructed an image out of whatever Alex had told her. If she’d seen the truth of it, would she have felt differently about him? “I’ll make some coffee,” I said, “or tea, or Alex has chicory if you want to try it.”

“Is he here?” she asked nonchalantly. “Alex?”

My shoulders tensed. “He’s out with his sister on a walk, they won’t be back till late. I suggested it, because I didn’t want them to see you.”

“Right.” She gazed into the middle distance, then said, “I guess that makes sense.” She sat at the kitchen table, holding Molly on her lap. “You got anything alcoholic?”

I opened the refrigerator and pulled out the jug of last night’s Chardonnay to show her. Sydney stared at the jug, then said, “That’s all you have?”

My mouth twitched. “The Dom Pérignon’s in the wine cellar,” I said. “But if you want I’ll ring Withers to go fetch it.”

She watched my face blankly, then said, “Fine, it’s fine. Thanks.”

I opened the cupboard, wishing a wineglass might suddenly appear. But Alex always served wine out of jelly jars. I pulled two from the cupboard, uncapped the jug and filled them, resisting the urge to swig straight from the bottle. I pushed one toward her. “I’m going up to tell Star you’re here. Back in a minute.”

Star was sitting on the bed, her hands clasped between her knees, the blinds drawn and the room dark as it had been in her first days here. “I know,” she said before I could speak. “I saw the car.”

I sat next to her, set my hand on hers.

“It’s okay, I’m completely psyched up for this,” Star said, sounding decidedly unpsyched up. “It should be a really healing conversation, for both of us.”

I turned to look at her, then squeezed her knee. “You want to come downstairs? We’re drinking wine.”

“I’ll wait till you bring her up here; I’d need some kind of excuse to get her alone. Just send her up when you’re ready, tell her I wanted to say hi.”

“Yeah,” I said, “it’s probably best if you don’t see this anyway. I’m thinking of getting her drunk, waiting till she passes out and then stabbing her with a wooden stake.” Really, I was only half kidding.

Downstairs, Sydney was standing to pour herself another glass of wine, Molly on her hip. And seeing them together was a shock all
over again, the casualness with which Sydney held her, the ease with which Molly allowed herself to be held.

Of course Molly was always comfortable with strangers; it was probably why she’d never shown fear after Sydney had left her with me. Much as I’d wanted to convince myself it was a sign of destiny, that her ease around me showed we were meant to be together, it was possible she would’ve been that way with anyone.

I sat across from Sydney without speaking, lifted my wine and finished it in three quick gulps, then let her refill the glass. “So I’ll draw you a map to the motel,” I said. This was the just-in-case motel, the spot where, if need be, we’d send the cops to find her.

“And you’ll bring Jacqueline to see me?”

“I’ll bring her,” I said, then, “What’re your plans, Sydney? How long are you planning to stay?”

“I don’t know. I’m not exactly sure yet.” Molly made a noise of protest, stretching both arms to the floor, and Sydney set her down, watching admiringly as she scrambled across the kitchen. “There’s still a few things I’m waiting for, but I want to be with her as much as possible while I wait.”

“What do you mean there’s things you’re waiting for? Things like what?”

She hesitated and then, looking into my eyes, she said, “Just things that have to happen. I want to see how things play out with the McGraths.”

She was here to see if she could change Alex’s mind, get him to turn me in. She was planning how best to seduce him. I found myself briefly considering which of Alex’s cleaning supplies might dissolve quickly and easily into her drink. “And if you get those things,” I said, “then what? What’re your long-term plans?” I was both curious how big a lie she’d tell and hoping to make her feel as uncomfortable as possible. So worried about herself and her situation that her will would start teetering, making it that much easier for Star to topple it.

Sydney gave a tight smile. She reached into her back pocket, pulled out a driver’s license and passport, and shoved them across the table.

“I’ll be going around named after a dead woman. The guy who made up the documents needed to find somebody who died recently and was around my age, so we could use her social security number.”

“A passport?”

“Yeah,” she said. “That’s a just-in-case thing. I’d rather not leave the country if I can help it.”

“With Jacqueline? Are you planning to take her?”

Sydney pulled out another passport, smiling over at Molly who had opened one of the cabinets and was now banging her hand against a pot lid. “You’re going to have yet another identity. You’ll be confused in the beginning, won’t you! Having all these different names.”

Was she planning to take Molly if she couldn’t get Alex to change his mind? I looked down at Molly, who lifted the pot lid to her mouth, tasted it and then held it toward me, beaming. I willed myself to stay silent with every ounce of my strength. But that she’d casually assume she could just flee the country with Molly, take away this girl she’d hurt, as if she had every right to it, this released the fury I’d bottled inside me. I tried to force myself to breathe, still the dizzying heat in my head because I knew I couldn’t let myself explode. Knew I should send Sydney up to Star’s room or that, if I didn’t have the composure to talk rationally, I should just storm wordlessly out of the house, but I couldn’t stop myself. “Did you burn her back?” I said coldly. “Tell me the truth. Did you light a cigarette and burn her?”

Sydney widened her eyes. “What? You mean Jacqueline?”

“You bitch,” I whispered. “I can see it in your face. It was you!”

“What are you talking about? Are you kidding? Of course it wasn’t me!”

“She must’ve been screaming while you burned her,” I said as I rose to my feet. “But you did it again, and then again!” I slammed my hand against the table. “How could you do it, Sydney? She’s a baby!”

“Lainey, I didn’t. It was David!”

“For freaking money!” I threw myself at her, a blackness obscurring
my vision as I knocked her from the chair and punched her in the jaw. “You bitch!” She lay there limply, whimpering but letting me attack, not even lifting her arms to protect her face, so I punched at her again, my knuckles stinging. “You bitch, how could you!”