Where We Belong (28 page)

She laughs, then grows silent again before saying, “So I wanted to ask you a question? Get your opinion on something? It’s about Belinda. My best friend.”

“Okay?” I say, waiting.

I can hear her take a deep breath before slowly continuing. “So we were shopping for prom dresses. Me, my sister, and her. With my mom. Charlotte and I found our dresses that were only, like, one-fifty. They were on sale—half price.”

“That’s a great deal,” I nervously interject.

“Yeah. That part was good … But Belinda … She fell in love with this really fancy one with rhinestones and stuff. It was crazy expensive. Four hundred dollars. I know that’s not a lot to you, but it’s a lot to us. And Belinda definitely can’t afford that.”

I cringe at the word “us,” and feel a fresh wave of shame over the Barneys trip as Kirby continues, “She has a single mom and kind of a deadbeat dad and she never saves her money. So it might as well have been a million dollars, ya know?”

“Yeah,” I say, trying to follow the point of her story. “So did she get another one?”

“No,” Kirby says. “She … got that one.”

“How? Did she put it on a credit card?”

“Noo,”
she says as if I’m being obtuse.

When I don’t instantly reply, she sighs and says, “She
stole
it, Marian. She put it right in her bag and walked out with it. Right into broad daylight.”

I sit on my bed and shake my head, feeling oddly naïve, as if we’ve just reversed roles, and wonder how I didn’t see this one coming. I think of my fast-girl acquaintances in high school who shoplifted for sport. Most of them could afford anything yet they got off on the adrenaline rush.

“Did you see her do it?” I ask, hoping she wasn’t an accomplice or otherwise involved.

“No. Not in the act. I just saw the dress in the car. In her bag. After the fact.”

“Did you ask her about it?”

“No. I just pretended I didn’t see it. We both sort of pretended … Do you think I should, like, confront her about it?” Kirby says, as if prompting me to give her advice.

“Definitely,” I say. It feels like my first truly decisive parenting decision and something of a defining moment.

“What should I say?”

“Tell her you know she took the dress and that you think it’s wrong. Tell her she should take it back. She can even drop it off at the store anonymously. In a bag. There’s no need to turn herself in. Just get the dress back to the store. Surely there are other dresses she can afford…”

Kirby is silent, as if looking for potential pitfalls with my advice. Sure enough, she says, “That’s never gonna happen. Belinda wants what she wants. I saw the look on her face in the car. She’s only going to be pissed at me if I say something…” Her voice trails off.

I hesitate, then ask if she talked to her parents about the situation.

“Hell, no,” she says, as I feel simultaneously flattered and overwhelmed by the responsibility. “I didn’t tell anyone. Could I get in trouble? Did I do anything against the law?”

“I don’t think so,” I say. “Not if you didn’t help her take it … But I still think you should encourage her to return it. For her sake.”

“Shit,” she says.

“I know this sucks, Kirb. It’s hard.”

I can hear her breathing on the phone, as if digesting everything.

“Just talk to her … Tell her how you feel. Be as open and honest as you can.”

As I say the words, I realize that this has been my shortcoming—and that I want better for Kirby.

“I also think maybe you should talk to your parents,” I say.

“Hell, no. I can’t. They already have an issue with Belinda. Plus, they’d probably turn her in. They’re totally black-and-white about everything,” she says.

“Yeah. Some people are like that,” I say, thinking of Peter’s approach: Do the right thing and tell the truth at any cost, even when it’s not convenient, even if it means hurting others. Then again, maybe there’s more to be said for loyalty to a friend, to protecting those you love. Is that what I did, in part, when I lied to Conrad? And kept a secret from my dad? From Peter? Or was I only trying to protect myself? I am beginning to realize how few answers I have, and just how difficult it is to be a parent. To be in any
real
relationship.

“Just try to follow your heart,” I say, knowing how simplistic, even trite it sounds, but that it guided one of the most difficult decisions I ever made—to have her. “Whenever I’ve followed my heart, I haven’t been sorry. And when I haven’t…”

I don’t finish my sentence, but I feel the weight of it on the phone, both of us silently filling in the blanks. Filling in the past eighteen years of my life. All the secrets and lies. I had my reasons, of course. My rationalizations and justifications. But deep down, I think I always knew that what I was doing was wrong. And now I know that it might finally be time to fix things.

“Does that help at all?” I ask, hopeful that I’m giving the right advice.

“Yes,” she says. “It does help. Thank you, Marian.”

“You’re welcome, Kirby,” I say, wishing I had something more to tell her. Wishing that things were as easy as I was making them sound.

21

kirby

After school,
I find Belinda in her kitchen, making strawberry Jell-O as she watches
Days of Our Lives
. She barely looks up, she is so used to me walking into her house without knocking.

“Hey!” I say, masking my queasiness with a big smile.

She shushes me, pointing to the ancient television set on the counter while she stirs the thin liquid with a wooden spoon. I glance at the screen and ask her what’s happening on the show.

Without removing her eyes from the set, she replies in rapid-fire monotone. “Taylor just confronted EJ. Asked if he’s responsible for Arianna’s death.”

I nod, momentarily taken in by the drama I only cursorily follow—until I remember that we are living our own little soap opera. A second later, a commercial for carpet cleaner breaks her trance.

“What’s up?” she says.

“Nothing much,” I lie, picking up the empty box of Jell-O and reading the nutritional facts. “Holy shit. Only ten calories per serving?”

“I know, right?” she says. “I’ve lost four pounds since last week. Straight Jell-O diet.”

“Huh,” I say, searching for a lead-in. “Why are you dieting? You look great.”

“Just want a flatter tummy,” she says, patting her midsection. “So that when Jake sees me without my Spanx—”

“So you found a dress?” I interrupt, the question sounding as awkward as I feel.

She picks up the remote, aims it at the television and aggressively mutes it before resuming her stirring. “Come off it, Kirb,” she says.

“What?” I say, wide-eyed, as if
I’m
the guilty party who needs to feign innocence.

“You
know
I found a dress,” she says, making air quotes around the word “found.”

I stare at her as blankly as I can, waiting for her full confession. When it doesn’t come, I fire off a lame retort. “
You
come off it.”

She rolls her eyes.

“You stole the dress,” I say.

“So?” she says.

“So?”
I say. “What do you mean
so
?”

“So I stole the dress.” She shrugs, licks the spoon, and nods her approval, as if she’s just cooked an amazing sauce rather than added water to a powder mix.

“Well, it’s …
wrong,
” I say, cringing at how self-righteous I sound, but unsure how else to say it.

“No shit it’s
wrong,
” she says. “But it’s, like, one dress. Do you know how much that place marks shit up? I bet they got that thing from China for forty bucks.”

I stare at her. I’ve always known that it’s impossible to argue with Belinda, not because she’s particularly good at it, but because she’s so
bad
at it—that there is no common ground to work from. She simply sees the world the way she wants to see it and no amount of logic can change her mind. Yet I still flounder about, looking for another angle. “C’mon, Belinda,” I say. “It’s not worth it. What if you get busted this close to graduation? Look what happened to Louie for putting Alka-Seltzer in the pool. He’s not going to graduate now—”

She shakes her head and says, “There’s nothing the school can do to me. Even if I got arrested—they can’t do shit because it happened outside of school.”

“You can get kicked out of school for a felony,” I say.

Belinda shakes her head. “It’s not a felony. It’s a misdemeanor.”

“What, did you do research or something?” I ask. “Was it premeditated?”

“No—it wasn’t premeditated,” she says. “I would have paid for it if they weren’t asking such a stupid price.”

I say her name again, but she unmutes the television before her show even resumes, as if to make a point about just how boring she finds the conversation. More tedious than the long list of possible side effects being rattled off in a Zoloft commercial.

I can feel frustration verging on anger as I speak as loudly as I can without yelling. “Belinda,” I sputter. “C’mon. Please just return the dress. Please.”

She gives me an amused look, then imitates me in the same prim voice she uses to mock Sister Viola, the least respected teacher in our school. “Do you hear yourself? Since when did you get so high-and-mighty?”

Before I can reply, she offers a theory. “Is that snob Marian rubbing off on you?”

The statement doesn’t even make sense, yet it still enrages me enough to throw out an ultimatum—my first
ever
in our friendship. “Return it or I’m not going to prom with you.” As soon as the words are out, I want to take them back. But it’s too late.

She shrugs. “That’s fine, Kirby. I don’t need you. I have a hot date. And a four-hundred-dollar dress that I got for
free
…”

“Wow. Okay, then,” I say. “I’m out.”

“Bye,” Belinda says with utter, cold indifference. I’ve watched her turn on the meanness many times over the years, but she has never treated me this way.

I start to leave, but then stop and say, “And FYI … Marian isn’t a snob. She’s one of the coolest people I know.”

“Well, it’s too bad you didn’t get any of her cool genes,” she says.

I pretend not to hear her, but can’t help repeating her words in my head the whole four blocks home. And even worse, I can’t help believing them just a little.

*   *   *

Later that afternoon, I call Marian and give her the report. She answers right away, city noises in the background.

“What’re you doing?” I say.

She says she’s on the way to get a quick bite, then headed back to the office. “Did you talk to Belinda?” she asks.

I say yes and give her the update, minus the final closing insults. “So looks like I’m not going to prom.”

“Well. I’m sorry it didn’t go better,” she says. “Maybe she’ll come around.”

“I don’t think so,” I say, the seriousness of what happened starting to sink in. It’s not really that I’ll be missing prom, that dream was too short-lived to mean much, but the fact that I really could have lost my best friend. “Did you ever get in a fight this big with a friend?” I ask Marian.

She tells me no, but that she has lost any meaningful touch with her best friend from high school. “We never had a fight, but we just grew apart.”

“Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know. A lot of reasons … But mostly because I wasn’t truthful with her…”

“About me?” I guess.

She hesitates, then says yes. “I think it’s so much better to handle things the way you did. You were straight with her.”

“Yeah. Except now she hates me.”

“She doesn’t hate you. Just give it some time … Maybe you could write her a little note that says although you disagree with what she’s doing, you still love her and hope she has a wonderful time at prom.”

“What should I tell Philip?”

“Most boys don’t care that much about prom,” she says. “You can make it up to him.”

“Yeah,” I say, and then suddenly, I can’t stand it another second. I have to tell her. “So I looked for him,” I announce, cringing as I await her reply.

“Looked for who?” she says, predictably.

“For Conrad,” I say. “Ever since I left. I’ve searched everywhere. On Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, even high school reunion Web sites.”

“And?” she asks, sounding worried.

“And nothing. I thought I was close with the only Conrad Knight on Facebook—the profile photo was blank—but I waited a week for him to respond to my friend request and it wasn’t him.”

I pause, then continue in a rush, “I was just wondering how you would feel about helping me … you know … find him. Maybe giving me some leads at least? The names of some of his old friends?”

“Kirby,” she starts, but I interrupt her.

“It’s totally fine if you don’t want to. I get it completely. And I’m totally cool—”

“Kirby,” she says again more forcefully.

“What?” I ask, holding my breath, waiting, mentally regrouping about what my next step will be, without her.

“I already found him,” she says.

I freeze in the shadows of my room. “You did? When?” I ask, my heart racing.

“Last night actually.”

“Where is he?” I say.

“He’s still in Chicago. In the city. About thirty minutes from where we grew up. I have his address and phone number right here,” she says.

“How did you find him?” I say.

“He was listed in the white pages. He lives in Lincoln Park,” she says.

I shake my head, wondering how I forgot to do the easiest, most straightforward search of them all: look in the freakin’ phone book.

“Are you sure it’s the right Conrad Knight?” I ask, now pacing again, my feet cold on the hardwood floors.

“Yes,” she says.

“How?”

“Well. I … I called the number. From my office. And his voice is the same.”

“Did you talk to him?” I ask excitedly.

“No,” she says. “I got his voice mail. But I didn’t leave a message.”

“Oh,” I say, part of me relieved. The last thing I want is for her to somehow screw this up for me. Have him decide that he wants nothing to do with either of us because of the way she treated him. It has to be perfectly planned. Or a total surprise visit.