by Dylan Allen
But, I did. I slept with him until a blood test showed I was pregnant. And then, we set a date. My grandfather called me the morning the announcement was made and invited me to lunch.
It was a knife in my heart when he had a stroke an hour after he called me. It left him paralyzed and robbed him of his speech. But the die was cast. We’d signed a prenuptial agreement, I was pregnant. There was no turning back.
I smiled through every fitting, every thinly veiled insult from his mother, and did what I knew my grandfather’s love was conditioned on. I never complained or hinted at my unhappiness.
Until the week before our wedding when he announced that we would be living in Paris. In a house we would share with his fork-tongued mother.
It was the drop that made the well of rage inside me overflow. I threatened to call off the wedding. I’d sobbed and screamed and drained that emotional well dry and did my duty.
Marcel jokes that he pulled off the heist of the century getting me down the aisle. Everyone laughs but me. It’s no joke at all I gave him everything he wanted in a bid to regain my grandfather’s trust and affection and never knew if I’d been successful.
That phone call inviting me over was the last time I heard his voice. I like to think I saw approval in his eyes, but my banishment from employment at Wilde World still stands.
And yesterday, we laid him to rest. Burying my grandfather without making amends is something I’ll never recover from. This trip home, the first since my wedding, has aggravated a lot of old wounds. Somehow, the glutton for punishment in me decided that meeting Matty for lunch would be a good idea.
It’s the first time we’ve seen each other since the day we all got fired.
Jack married her college sweetheart and moved to California and we haven’t been in touch since.
Matty stayed in Houston, but I know she’s struggled to find work. Nerves, excitement, and hope lighten my stomach as I stop at the valet stand.
“Welcome to Ruggles on the Green, Mrs. Landel.” The young man who opens my door, leans down. I return his obliging smile and accept the hand he’s offering and let him help me from the car. After a whole year of marriage, I’m still getting used to my last name and the deference it brings.
I follow the hostess through the restaurant and stop every few feet to respond to greetings from people I don’t know.
By the time I reach the table where Matty is already waiting, I’m desperate for a familiar face and give a giddy wave when we make eye contact.
Her less than lackluster smile, is more of a grimace and dashes my hopes that I’ll be able to relax with her.
She looks different. It’s not just the close crop of curly hair that’s replaced her ever present box braids. She looks…older and tired
“So, how’s married life?” she asks as soon as I sit down. Her voice is expectant and snide.
“It’s fine, thanks. How are you.”
She ignores me and nods at the waiter who drops menus off and picks one up, opening it so that it completely obscures her face “So, have you told your husband about Weston?”
Her question catches me off guard and I frown at the back of the menu.
“No, of course not. And can you put the menu down?”
After a long-suffering sigh, she closes it, and eyes me with disdain.
“Well, as selective as your memory has become, I couldn’t be sure if you’d forgotten the promise we made. You certainly forgot that we were supposed to be “sisters” when you sold us out.”
I can’t hide my shock, but quickly school my expression. With a pleasant smile in place, I lean close enough so that she can hear my harsh whisper.
“I sold you out? You lied to me for months.”
Her expression remains completely emotionless. But her fingers curl to form fists on the tabletop and her chest heaves with several deep breaths.
“You know what? I’m gonna go.” She puts her menu down and stands up in one smooth movement. Without another word, she turns and strides away.
I’m stunned and by the time I’ve managed to collect myself and stand to follow her, she’s already at the door. I ignore the people who call after me, I don’t think about the gossip that will surely follow, and I storm out the door after her.
She’s standing at the valet stand, handing over her keys. I step into her line of sight and cross my arms. She looks over my shoulder as if I’m not even there.
“Why are you leaving?” I snap.
She shrugs, still not looking at me. “I’m tired.”
“You asked to meet for lunch. I just got here. We haven’t seen each other for almost two years. I’m married. I have a baby. We’ve missed so much…. don’t you want to catch up?”
She laughs and finally deigns to meet my gaze. Her dark gaze is blazing with anger that belies the careless smile on her face.
“Yeah, sorry my unemployment check didn’t stretch far enough to allow me to attend your fancy ass wedding. Oops sorry, I forgot you didn’t invite me.”
“I couldn’t, Matty. You know that.” I search her face for a hint of the friend I love, the one who loves me too. From the flat lifeless dark eyes, to the scorn that curls her lips, there’s nothing of her here.
“Well, while you were getting married, I was just trying to figure out how to stay alive.”
“I was doing the same, Matty.”
Her indifferent mask cracks and her eyes flare anger, grief, and damning disappointment. “No, you weren’t. You turned your back on everything you swore you believed in to protect your precious family.”
“That’s not true,” I take an involuntary step back.
“Yes, it is, you didn’t even try to help her,” she bellows, her control gone, tears stream down her face.
A cough from beside us draws my eyes to the group of people watching us with voyeuristic relish.
I grab her arm and pull her away from the waiting area and into a covered walkway leading to a parking garage. I stop and whirl to face her mutinous glare. “I paid her legal fees; I wrote to the parole board. What else could I do?” I remind her.
She yanks free of my grasp and puts a hand on each of my shoulders and shakes me. “Do you hear yourself? She told you she thought one of the men who raped her was on your family’s payroll.”
I shoves her hands off and glare at her. “And I told her that was impossible. No one who worked at Wilde World could do that and you know it. Which one of your colleagues did you believe was a john?”
“We left her in that house. We started a blog instead of speaking on her behalf. We owed her more than that. But your perfect grandfather and his company couldn’t possibly have done anything wrong.”
“It’s not just his company. It’s my family’s.” I remind her.
“What about Rebecca’s family, Regan? What about the fact that she didn’t have powerful friends to turn for help? Oh wait, she did. And you told her to go fuck herself.”
Her jab sticks in my craw because after what they did, I’m not the one who should be on the defensive here.
“If it wasn’t for my grandfather, you would have gone to jail!” I remind her none too gently.
She rolls her eyes. “You know what I think? I think that you know that if we’d kept digging, he’d be the one in jail. I think he knew that they were organizing entertainment for the other pervs who work for him and he didn’t mind sacrificing his granddaughter to cover it up.”
“I love you, Matty. But that is bullshit. You know what it did to my life.” I say, my voice hoarse and thick with guilt and clogged by my unshed, angry tears.
She is completely unmoved by my anguish. “If you had any balls, you’d take all those papers your grandfather’s people stole when they raided our office. If they didn’t destroy them already. If you would just look at them, you’d see what we did. And you’ll feel like shit that you didn’t help her.”
“I knew she was wrong. And, it’s my family,” to my shame my voice breaks, but I can’t help it.
“Your family turned their backs on you. And you still defend them.” She points a finger in my face, her anger building with each word. “You had the power to make a difference. Instead you used their pain to make your disgusting poverty porn and when you got bored you moved on.”
I rear back. “Matilda, how can you say that? You know how untrue that is. We all went through hell and we all wanted to do something with our pain.” I stare at her, fully expecting remorse and apology to be the next expressions I see on her face. Instead, her scowl deepens.
“A hell you led us to. All because you were so caught up in your little fantasy of rebellion, you didn’t notice he was pimp. And then, you stabbed your friends in the back, you put on your cloak of respectability and got on with your life.”
Matty’s words are heavy hands flying, full strength, through the air intent on total destruction. They wound all the tender places I’d left unprotected around her. Because I thought she was my friend. How wrong I was.
For a moment, we stare at each other.
I’m reminded of that moment in Thelma and Louise, where they sat with trouble on their rear and a cliff to nowhere at their front. When her chin tilts upward and her eyes harden, I know that just like the infamous duo in the movie, she’s decided that there’s no going back. She hits the gas and drives our friendship right off a cliff.
“When it came time for you to put some actual skin in the game, you chickened out so you could save your grandfather. Because deep down, you know what he is.” Her eyes glitter with the kind of satisfaction that comes from the relief of a burden carried for far too long.
The depth of the malice in her voice steals my breath. The absolute gall of it, though, floods my veins with ice cold contempt.
I straighten my spine and let my hands uncurl from the tight fists that formed while I listened to her speak. I put my pain away. I will not give her the satisfaction of seeing me unravel.
We face each other, twin thunderclouds. High pressure, full beyond bursting, and spitting down lighting and thunder like it’s all we were born to do.
“You are right about one thing. My grandfather did shape me. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have had anyone.” I jab a finger sharply at her. “And yes, I married Marcel to get back in his good graces, but it was also, at the time, what I wanted.”
“Because it was going to make him happy,” she charges.
I stiffen at the intonation of her word. “Why is it wrong for me to want to make my grandfather happy? Because he’s a man? He was the only person in the whole world who hasn’t ever let me down. Can’t say that about any of the women in my life.” I say with a pointed look of my own.
She flushes and looks like she might want to say something. But I don’t let her.
“I know I failed you. But I was trying to help. Because I love you, Matty. But what you just said … I’ll never forgive.” My voice is even and steady, but there is no mistaking the rage behind them. I feel incandescent with it and if my words were flames borne of it, they would be hot enough to flay the skin off her bones.
I see a flash of remorse in her eyes before she lifts her chin upward defiantly. “Well, at least we’re finally on the same page.”
I can’t hide my regret; I’m nearly drowning in it. I wish things had been different.
At one point in my life, she’d been my best friend.
But now, all of that is done. Friendships live and die by the choices we make. She’s made hers and now, I’m finally making mine.
Without another word, I turn and walk back to the valet stand, get in my car and drive away.
8 Years Later
CABO SAN JOSE, MEXICO
Femme Fatale
Stone
I glance around the packed shuttle with dismay. On my way to town I’d been alone. I don’t mind people, but this kind of proximity to a bunch of sweaty, sand covered strangers is less than ideal. Especially because whatever the opposite of resting bitch face is, I have it.
On planes, in grocery stores, and even at funerals, people look at me and decide that I’m the person they’re going to unburden themselves with.
So, even though the sun was setting by the time the shuttle pulled up, the crowd of people waiting to board with me meant that I’d need my sunglasses to continue to act as my small talk deterrent.
It’s rude, I know. And normally, I’d just close my eyes and pretend to sleep during the thirty-minute ride back, but I don’t know when I’ll be back here again, and I want to see this city at night.
I came into town planning to get my business sorted with plenty of time left to sightsee. San Jose, the other side of Los Cabos, is not as rarified as San Lucas is – and definitely more my speed.
It’s where my friend Pedro told me I could find someone to help me plan a multi-day excursion on the Baja Peninsula.
The first part of my day went off without a hitch. But instead of sightseeing, I spent hours listening to my ex-girlfriend curse at me as she left my apartment with a box full of things she kept there. After that I was on the phone with locksmiths, utility and security companies, and all of the other places where we had joint accounts.
Then, my brother called to tell me that he’d forgotten to get his passport renewed. So, I found an expedited service for him and made sure it would be there before he left for Mexico on Friday morning.
By the time I was done, the alarm I’d sent to remind me that the last shuttle back to the resort was leaving in twenty minutes had gone off.
Now, a fat, glowing moon sits low on the horizon taking the sky from light blue to shades of deep indigo and violet.
As the dark transforms the sky, it also transforms the city.
The produce markets and street vendors selling tourist friendly relics that were omnipresent on my way through San Jose this morning are gone. In their place are musicians, magicians, soothsayers and doomsday prophets. A line snakes around the corner from a food stall that’s selling parcels of piping hot bread stuffed with strips of meat, tomatoes, onions, and a red sauce that runs unchecked down the fingers of the happy people stuffing their faces with it.
The sliding windows of the vehicle are open, and the cool Pacific breeze carries the mouthwatering aroma of it all. My stomach grumbles and I wish I’d at least had a chance to eat.
If I didn’t have a call with my boss in an hour, I’d get off right now and worry about how I’d get back to the resort, later.
I’m here for my brother’s wedding. Well, his first wedding. He’s having another wedding in Houston complete with church, and a huge party in a few months.
I’ll be starting my three-month stint as part of a medical staff on site at a refugee camp on the border of Colombia and Venezuela in a month and can’t get away.
So, his fiancé, Confidence, decided to have this surprise beachside ceremony, because she knew how it was important to Hayes that all his brothers be there when he says, “I do.” As much as I hate resorts and weddings, there was no way I’d miss it.
When I went to add the date to my calendar, it coincided with a lunar event I added months ago. One of the best places to see it, according to my astronomy sources. The Baja Peninsula.
I was ten years old when I stopped believing in luck. But every once in a while, there’s an alignment of moments and events so perfectly timed that there’s no other explanation.
The stars aligned on this trip and I’ve got a really good feeling about it. Besides getting to see my favorite planet, the excursion I planned is the stuff of my adrenaline junkie heart’s dreams. I’ve got four days packed with things that make my heart race just to think about.
“Is this your first time here?” The woman next to me asks and I stifle a groan. I was doing so well. Resigned to my fate and raised better than to ignore anyone who speaks to me, I respond.
“In Baja, yes,” I say conversationally, but briefly. I don’t smile or even make eye contact.
I pray that she’ll take a hint. My prayers
fall on deaf ears.
“Where are you staying at the resort? We’re up in the hills. We’re here for our anniversary, and I told him,” she jerks a thumb at the man on her right. “I wanted five stars and nothing less. Didn’t I honey?” She slaps the arm of the man next to her.
“Sure did, honey.” He gives me an apologetic smile and pats his wife’s knee less out of affection and more in warning.
She pushes it away and turns until her back is to him.
“I’m Carol and this is my husband, Ron, we’re from Oklahoma” she says and sticks her hand out. I give up trying to pretend I’m sleeping and shake her hand.
“Hi, I’m Paul, from Texas,” I say, using my middle name the way I do to make reservations, or order coffee, or anything that requires someone to write down or repeat my name back to me.
“That’s our daughter Bailey and her son, Emmet.” She points down the row at a young woman with a small toddler on her lap.
“That’s Eric, he’s Emmet’s’ father,” she says with a small frown before she sits back.
The man she’s gesturing to is staring straight ahead like his life depends on it. He doesn’t say a word or look in our direction. His ticking jaw is the only indication that he heard her.
“They’re just friends.” Carol conspiratorial whispers aren't remotely discreet.
“We didn’t bring her up like that. Don’t get me wrong, we love the baby,” she says baby like it’s a bad word. “We would have liked her to get married first, of course, but kids these days do things their own way. In my day, a man like you wouldn’t be all alone on a shuttle, Are you single?”
“Mother, stop!” Bailey snaps.
“Why? Look at him.” She gestures at me with a wave of her hand. Her husband’s groan is one of long suffering.
“Honey, please,” he pets her arm.
Carol is undeterred. She leans over him and points a finger at her daughter, “If I was your age and single, I wouldn’t need my mother to make a move for me.”