The Best of Enemies

by Jen Lancaster

  The flash and subsequent crack of the gun is so sudden that we assume there’s been a misfire. When we see Trip writhing on the ground, the extent to which Betsy means business becomes evident. He’s alive, but if he’s to stay that way, we have to stop the blood flow. Jack rips off her Jungle Jane safari shirt, leaving her in a tank top. She tosses the blouse to Ingrid. “Elevate his head and apply pressure to the wound, now!”

  With the calm countenance of a serial killer, Betsy says, “You will not ruin everything for me again.”

  “When did you start to hate us, Sars? If you’re going to shoot us, you at least owe us an explanation,” Jack says, trying to mirror Betsy’s eerie calm. “What did I do?”

  “You had to be the best at everything you tried. ‘Ooh, looky-here, Jack Jordan got the highest grade on the essay again.’”

  “But I was words, you were math—that’s what we always said,” Jack says.

  “The IMF thought my old essay about a single world currency was brilliant. They didn’t give a fuck if every single word was spelled right. Let me ask you something—do you know how hard it is for a woman to gain traction in such a male-centric business? No, you don’t, because you were basically a boy! Never even occurred to you that you couldn’t achieve something because of your gender. Everything has always been so easy for you. ‘Look at me, I’m so pretty I don’t have to wear makeup. I don’t even need a head of hair to be stunning. All the boys in the neighborhood fight to have me on their team.’ I had to work ten times as hard as you ever did and I never got half your credit.”

  “You can resent me, but Kitty hasn’t done anything wrong,” Jack says.

  “She stole Teddy from me!” Betsy shouts, pointing at Kitty with her free hand.

  “Sars, he was gay,” Jack reasons, trying to talk her down.

  Clearly, Betsy’s not well and probably hasn’t been in a long time, at the very least since she lost her folks. She did start to withdraw after that. I feel like a terrible friend for not having noticed her break from reality. And yet she’s the one waving a gun at us, so I’m the injured party here. More so Trip, but still.

  “She made him that way!” she howls, pointing at me.

  “Now that’s just offensive on all counts,” I say. “Science has shown that homosexuality—”

  “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Betsy begins to sob. “I have always been a second thought to everyone and I’m sick of it! None of you ever put me first! Even my parents took in every damn stray kid in the neighborhood instead of focusing on me. With him, it was, ‘Boohoo, I need your help, Sabby, I fucked up the company.’ As for you two? ‘Oh, Betsy, I have to have a baby and a whole new life without you. You’ll be fine in New York alone.’ Or, ‘I’m off to a war zone, Sars, because how much I love my perfect boyfriend scares me!’ What about me? Why don’t any of you ever consider what I need?”

  Betsy is going more and more off the rails, waving her gun wildly as she gestures at each of us. “When you two met, you were instant best friends. You were going to shut me out. I was irrelevant. When I saw the opportunity to push you apart, I took it. So heart-warming how you both wanted to talk to the other one after your fight, to find a place of forgiveness and understanding, but I wasn’t having it.”

  Ingrid’s still across from us, on the ground attending to Trip. He’s conscious, but barely.

  Jack says, “So you lied all these years in order to perpetually pit us against each other. What I don’t understand is why not use all your ammunition? Why didn’t you tell me about Bobby and Kitty? Or tell her about Sean and me?”

  Flecks of spittle fly out of Betsy’s mouth as she rages. “To keep you needing me! Secrets are power! But now you’re the best of friends with your road trips and your inside jokes and I’m going to be left behind again. Everyone has to stop taking what’s mine, starting with my fucking name. I am Sarabeth Octavia, God damn it, and I am done here. On your knees, Jordan; as my oldest friend, you’re first.”

  We are not dying on this beach right here, right now, at the hands of a woman who’s come unhinged. I am going home to my children. That’s nonnegotiable. The cheating dentist I married is not about to raise my family in my house. We have to take Betsy down before anyone else gets hurt.

  “I’m not kneeling. You can look me in the eyes here. Kitty, run! The keys are in the Jeep. Go get help for Trip. I can take Sars,” Jack says. “Save yourself!”

  “Aw, Jack Jordan, ever the hero, putting her new bestie’s life above her own,” Betsy singsongs.

  I never stood up after my knees buckled. When Betsy advances in front of me in order to go point blank with Jack, Jack and I lock eyes. I pray that she understands what I’m about to say, since it comes from the integral moment during Top Gun when Tom Cruise flies upside-down over the Russian MiG.

  “Inverted!”

  I grab the heels on Betsy’s shoes and yank them toward me with all my might. She loses her balance and begins to topple forward. In the split second that she starts to fall, Jack leaps up and out to the side. Were Jack to have not understood I was about to turn Betsy upside-down, she’d have naturally gotten low instead of going high, and the bullet would be lodged in her liver, not in the banyan tree behind her.

  I hop on Betsy’s legs to hold her down and Jack pounces on her back. The three of us struggle to regain possession of the gun, which is a few inches away from any of our grasps.

  “Jack, grab the gun. I can’t reach!” I cry. She and I are both strong, but Betsy’s powered by The Crazy and she’s putting up one hell of a fight. Betsy is a bucking bull beneath us, writhing all over the sand, and I can barely keep my hold on her thrashing legs.

  “It’s too far!” Jack replies.

  Betsy’s right limb comes free from my grip and she knocks me back by kicking me in the shoulder. I think I hear something snap and I can grasp her with only my right hand, as fireworks of pain erupt from my neck down to my wrist. Betsy wrests an arm free and throws a handful of sand in Jack’s face, blinding her.

  “I can’t see!” Jack shouts.

  Even though we’re both trying to hold her, Betsy begins to rise up beneath us, like Godzilla coming out of the ocean, her insanity-fueled adrenaline allowing her to bat us off of her like so many hapless Japanese villagers. Betsy lunges for and finally reaches the gun’s grip and that’s when I know it’s over. “Jack, I’m so sorry!” I cry.

  “You last thoughts are of that bitch?” Betsy says. “Oh, I’m going to enjoy this.”

  I hear her cock the gun and I squeeze my eyes shut, not wanting to witness what comes next.

  A metallic clang rings out, followed by a heavy thud, and then the whole universe is silent for a solid five seconds.

  I open my eyes to see Jack scrambling to brush the sand out of her eyes. Other than what will surely be scratched retinas, she appears to be fine and whole. I spot check myself, but I feel no pain or discomfort outside of the collarbone or the myriad scrapes and bruises.

  Ingrid, covered in Trip’s blood, is standing over Betsy’s prone body. She’s holding an oxygen canister, with a petulant look on her face.

  “That basic bitch ruined my tropical vacay.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  West North Shore, Illinois

  One Year Later

  “Hydrangeas and peonies and gardenias. Yes. That’s what we’re having,” Kitty says, tapping at her iPad. “Can you imagine a better pairing of texture, size, and scent? No, no, you cannot.”

  “Don’t forget the white tree roses,” Terry adds. “We’ll have twenty of them. That’s ten on each side of the aisle. Love! Now, are we underplanting the tree roses with blooms, housed in painted birch containers, or are we opting for a more simplified look, wrapped in burlap and tied off with moss-green raffia?”

  “Burlap, of course. Always burlap,” Kitty decides.

  Terry claps with glee. “Perfec
tion, we love it!”

  “By ‘we’ you both mean ‘Jack,’” I remind them.

  “Right, right, of course,” Kitty says, with a flip of her hand.

  “Did you just wave me off?” I ask, incredulous.

  “I did no such thing. But if you wanted to check on how the boys are doing building the gazebo, that’s just fine,” Kitty replies. “Kassie made some lemonade and you’re welcome to bring it out to them. Scurry along! I’m sure they’re thirsty.”

  “I’ve been dismissed. You just dismissed me from planning my own wedding,” I say.

  “Oh, honey,” Terry replies. “This wedding stopped being yours the second you told us, ‘I don’t care, as long as you’re all there.’ That’s what’s called a forfeit.”

  “Everything has to be on point; I’m using the shots in my portfolio since this is my first wedding,” Kitty says. “And you’re going to flipping love it!”

  Kitty launched An Affordable Affair while still in her shoulder sling, less than two weeks after we returned home from the Caymans. Her event planning business has completely caught fire in the past year, given her ability to blend the beautiful with the economical. I’m so glad she’s channeled her post-divorce energy into something positive. Ken wanted to save the marriage but Kitty couldn’t get past his betrayal. They sold the big North Shore house at a loss and now Ken’s stuck in a small condo in Rogers Park. Alimony’s a bitch. (And so is Kitty when she’s wronged. Trust me, been there.) Cookie dumped him, too. Apparently he was a lot less attractive with six thousand fewer square feet of real estate under his belt.

  Kitty’s new Cape Cod is far smaller than the old place, but she’s content living more simply in the rural portion of West North Shore on three acres, five miles removed from the pressure of North Shore proper. The boys were able to stay in their schools, but Kassie had to transfer to Calvin Coolidge Elementary. When Kitty explained to Kassie she was switching schools, Kassie cried with relief, delighted to finally be away from Avery Birchbaum.

  I guess it’s never too early to have an enemy.

  The backyard here is lush and green, surrounded by woods, with a barn and small paddock, room enough if Kitty were to want to buy a pony for Kassie. Nana Baba lives in a cute little cabin next to the barn. Baba completely sided with Kitty during the divorce, appalled at her son’s behavior. She sold her Chicago home for ten times what she originally paid forty-five years ago and she helped Kitty buy this place. Baba’s here for the kids anytime that Kitty’s off-site at an event and not working in her home office.

  Kitty says she’s not ready to date, but I have my suspicions. Bobby seems to be her first and only choice whenever she needs someone to manage the liquor portion of her events. He expected me to believe he was really “tearing down the catwalk” for five hours last week after the Sweet Sixteen mocktail party they worked.

  That’s a negative, Ghost Rider.

  I carry the lemonade outside, where Konnor, Kord, Teddy, and Bobby are finishing applying cedar shake shingles to the roof of our wedding gazebo in the early summer sun. They drain the pitcher in a minute flat. Sean helped frame out the gazebo, but he’s currently on a volunteer mission in the Dominican Republic. He’ll be back in plenty of time for the ceremony two weeks from now.

  We’re honeymooning in London, of course.

  John-John will also be here for the wedding, along with my half sisters, Rose and Caroline. After seeing my life flash before my eyes in the Caymans, I figured it was time to get to know them; none of the business with our mother has ever been their fault.

  Those two young women give “girls” a very good name.

  I’m not ready to reach out to the Honorable Judge yet. Maybe I will eventually, maybe I won’t. Too soon to tell. But having my sisters in my life has been a blessing. They’re even standing up with me at the wedding, along with Ashley, who insists on doing my hair, Sean’s sister, and, of course, Kitty. I thought she and Terry were going to throw down over who’d be my maid of honor. Sean saved the day, asking Terry to be his best man.

  P.S. I am not having a bachelorette party.

  Part of me still wishes Sars was her old self, and that she could be here, too. Despite having become a terrible adult, she was there for me as a kid and I won’t ever forget that. I visit her at the psychiatric hospital sometimes, taking her flowers from Kitty’s garden. She pretends not to know me, but I’m cynical enough to believe that her psychotic break will last exactly as long as Trip’s trial.

  As for Trip? He recovered from his gunshot wound and is currently under house arrest at Steeplechase, thanks to his family’s connections and maneuvering.

  I don’t have high hopes that justice will be served.

  But at least I can tell the whole story and let the public draw their own conclusions. That’s what I’m working on now—an exposé of the whole mess, told from my perspective. The Lone Shark: Profiles in American Greed comes out next year. I hope to—and honestly, need to—finish the manuscript in the next six months.

  I’m sitting in the shade of the porch, watching the guys work. I’d help, but I’m hesitant to climb any ladders right now. Not prudent. Kassie opens the screen door, and tells me, “Auntie Jack, Mommy wants you to come inside and model your dress for Uncle Terry.”

  In the past year, I’ve learned that family isn’t only who you’re related to; it’s also who you choose.

  And I’m so very sorry that Sars opted out.

  I step back inside, following Kassie down the hall to Kitty’s office. She and Terry are in there already, each clucking over the way they’d embellish the dress, if I weren’t so stubborn.

  I insisted on something plain, without ribbons or bows or tulle, so I’m walking down the aisle in a simple knee-length gown, sleeveless and fitted on top, with a swirly skirt. Kitty says it’s an A-line, scoop-necked, satin something or other. Don’t care. I’d happily marry Sean in flip-flops.

  The first wife was one of Sars’s lies. Sean never married. He insists I was worth waiting for.

  I slip out of my shorts and T-shirt and slide the dress over my head. The two mother hens gather behind me to work the zipper and buttons.

  “You? Need to lay off the mini-pies, girl,” Terry says, huffing as he tries to force the zipper all the way up my back. “We’re going to have to have this taken out! Oh, Jack. What are we going to do with you? No one gains weight before her wedding. No one.”

  I glance over at Kitty, who is ramrod straight, mouth agape, pointing at my midsection, and staring directly into my soul.

  I truly can’t hide anything from her, can I? I’m not out of my first month; I haven’t even told Sean the good news yet.

  I reply, “No, it can happen. Happened to a friend of mine. My best friend, actually.”

  Kitty squeezes my hand, leans in close, and says, “Welcome to the dark side; we have cookies. And P.S., they’re made with squash.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  First, thank YOU for (I hope!) liking this book enough to want to continue reading what I’ve written even now that the story’s over. I won’t go all Ferris Bueller here and tell you to hit the bricks after the credits roll. Instead, I offer my appreciation for your continued support. You’re the best. Fact.

  I wasn’t terribly familiar with embedded journalism when I started this project, but learned so much by researching books and articles by reporters such as Ann Jones, Kirsten Scharnberg, David Ignatius, and Patrick Cockburn. I didn’t realize exactly how in harm’s way these journalists could be until I visited the Imperial War Museum and saw the wreckage of the Reuters Land Rover hit in the Gaza rocket attack. Let me be really clear here—I’m not worthy to be listed on the same page as them. But I hope I’ve done them a small bit of justice with Jack’s character. All mistakes are my own.

  I’m so thankful for the support I’ve received from the whole New American Library family—Kara
Welsh, Claire Zion, Tracy Bernstein, Craig Burke, Jessica Butler, and each department that helps propel the author’s work forward, from copyediting to production to sales to art. You all are my “takes a village.” Thank you. Mean it.

  Fletch and I would like to offer our collective thanks to Trident’s Scott Miller. You are perpetually the ocean of calm that supports this ship of fools. (FYI, the adult tricycle has since been donated.)

  As always, big love to my girls Stacey, Tracey, Gina, Joanna, and Laurie for putting up with all the canceled lunch dates and general flakiness when I’m on deadline. And much respect and admiration to the amazing community of female authors out there for always rallying around one another. Knowing that writers are readers makes my heart smile; you’re class acts, every one of you.

  I kind of want to thank Jack and Kitty here, even though they didn’t actually do anything and, also, they’re not real. (But I wish they were.)

  Finally, for Fletch, who really ran the show this year while I completed two books. Thanks for being right there to pick up the slack. You are my hero! (And, yes, fine, your beard deserves its own Facebook page.)

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