“We have another on the way,” she said, and absolutely beamed as she put her hand over her stomach.
“Congratulations. That’s wonderful news.”
“I didn’t do very well in my first pregnancy,” she said. “This baby is why I needed a little more help around the office! I’m really still getting the business off the ground. I was a bookkeeper for a while and I just became a CPA. My husband’s cousin Tucker is my biggest client but he’s pushing more and more people my way. I feel so lucky to be part of their family.”
“Mmhm,” I murmured. Families were awesome.
“Are you and your brother very close? You must be, after having lost your parents.” Amy’s face was now full of sympathy. Apparently, Connor had a big mouth.
I quickly judged the situation and nodded. If something happened with Jared, if he got in trouble or my care of him was questioned, this woman would probably be a powerful ally. “Yes, Jared is like…well, he’s more than just a brother. He’s definitely my best friend, like you were talking about with your husband and brother-in-law. But because of our age difference, it’s also like I’m his mom. I can’t imagine people closer than we are. If anyone tried to make us be apart, I couldn’t stand it, and neither could he.”
It had sounded great, and she loved it. She absolutely ate it up. “That’s wonderful! You should always be together, of course!”
I imagined Amy in her beautiful clothes and big diamond testifying on our side, if it ever came up again with the fucking Samotnys. She would be perfect.
“How lucky for both of you to have that kind of relationship,” she continued. “He’s eleven, Connor said?”
“Yes, eleven. Um, how do you and Connor know each other, Amy?”
“Connor’s father and my husband’s father were fraternity brothers. They have a huge network.”
“Network of what?” I asked.
“You know, like really rich guys helping other really rich guys?” She rolled her eyes a little. “I’m not from that world at all, and it was eye-opening to see how they operated when I met Steve and moved to Michigan. I mean my husband, Stephen Whitaker,” she explained.
“Is that how Connor ended up working at Whitaker Enterprises for your husband?” I asked casually. “Because of their rich guy network, helping each other out?”
“I think Connor’s parents did talk to Steve about hiring him, but I know that Connor has done really, really well in the company. He’s the youngest vice-president in the organization and Steve wouldn’t have put him there unless he deserved it. He’s very smart. Hard-working. Honest,” she told me, smiling encouragingly.
I felt a little misplaced pride which I brushed off. Connor was a vice-president in that big, important company. Interesting. Also interesting was the information about his family background. I had known from my run-ins with them at the hospital that they had deep pockets, just by the way they had walked around acting like everyone who worked there was on their own, personal staff. I knew it by the way they had acted toward me, too, hustling me out like I was a bag of garbage ready for the dumpster. But now I also knew that they were connected. I wondered how much Connor used that rich guy network, because I wanted in.
“Where did you grow up if you’re not from here?” I asked Amy. People loved to talk about themselves and after they shared personal details, it made them feel like you were a friend. She told me about her life in Arizona, meeting her husband in California, then doing a long-distance thing for a little while before he asked her to marry him.
“I couldn’t cope with the distance, and neither could Steve. It was love at first sight when we met each other. I swore I heard music playing,” she said, and she got a little smile and looked at the ceiling, like she was remembering. “It was almost like a fairy tale. And I still feel that way about him.”
I wanted to retch but I smiled back. “That’s wonderful. Wow, how cool.”
“What about you?”
“Me? Do you mean, do I have a boyfriend?” She nodded eagerly. “Oh, no. No, I’m too busy with my brother.” And I couldn’t, so there was that.
“Not Connor?” She sounded so surprised. “I thought that was why he recommended you.”
I felt it best not to tell her the violent, terrible story of how Connor and I had known each other from seven years before, or that he had recommended me to her after renewing our acquaintance for only a weekend. He didn’t really know me at all. “We’re friends from a long time ago.”
Amy laughed. “How long could it be? You’re twenty-two!”
I flushed. “It was a while.”
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to make fun of you. It’s just that you’re so young,” she told me.
I didn’t feel that way. “I guess I am.”
“You know, it took me a while to figure out my career. I went back to school after I met Steve.”
What was she trying to tell me? “That’s great.”
“I mean, I saw on your résumé that you got your GED, but you could always go back to college.” She sat back. “I don’t mean to pry.”
Oh, she wanted to know why I hadn’t finished high school. “Sure, I could go back someday. I didn’t graduate because things were very difficult after Jared and I lost our parents. We went to live with my uncle and struggled a lot.”
“I’m so sorry.”
I started to feel guilty. Amy had been nice to me, and here I was tugging at her heartstrings, manipulating her. I pushed the guilt away. “Yeah, thanks. Anyway, I ended up having to drop out of high school because of…circumstances, but I could go back to college.” I thought about hanging my framed degree in our house and felt a rush of longing to see it there, on the wall with no holes in it.
“I think you can make it happen!” Amy told me. “I’d be glad to help you.”
Balls. She was really nice. “Thank you.” I changed the subject to ask more about what I was going to be doing in the office while we ate our totally organic, plant-based protein meal.
As the day wound down, Amy stopped by my new office again. It had been quite a mess when she had shown me in there that morning. Apparently, my office had been the designated space for Amy and Dayana, the bookkeeper who worked for her, to stash everything that they didn’t know what to do with. But with not too much work, I had gotten it straightened out. “Wow,” she said admiringly, “this looks great!”
“Oh, thanks.”
She looked at the empty surface of my desk. “Feel free to bring in pictures. I’d love to see some of your brother.”
I nodded and made a mental note to try to get one. It was important to establish my awesome relationship with Jared firmly in her mind, for just in case I needed her.
“I’m heading down to the gym. We’re done for the day,” she told me, even though it was still pretty early. “And you have a membership through Steve and his company also, by the way. There are a lot of guys there,” she added.
“Oh, ok.”
“I think Connor works out around now,” she mentioned. “I’ve seen him when I leave work.”
I stood up from my desk chair. “I could walk you down just to see it.”
“You should, to pick up your membership card. Definitely,” she encouraged. “Let’s go before I get hungry again. It’s a never-ending cycle of nausea and hunger with this pregnancy thing.” She paused. “Yep, now that I’ve talked about food, I want to eat.”
I was completely out of place in the big, shiny gym that smelled better than my apartment did. I had no idea of how to act in this chrome and muscle-filled space, no idea what I would do on any of the machines, or how I would manipulate any of the equipment. Also, I still had on my old waitress black pants and white button-down, not the tight workout attire that most of the other gym-goers seemed to favor. I was fidgeting nervously when Amy nudged me. “There,” she said, and pointed to where Connor was lifting weights.
My mouth started to water like I was as hungry as Amy was for food, as I watched his strong arms
flex and move under his shirt, watched the muscles of his legs bunch and straighten. He lifted his shirt to wipe off his forehead, displaying the square outlines of his abs and above, briefly, the half-circle of his pecs. He laughed with another guy and I smiled back at him across the room.
“Ok, then,” Amy said. She sounded very pleased. “I guess they’re already here. Connor!” she suddenly called loudly, and he turned our way. I made myself stay straight and tall as he walked quickly over.
“Hi, there.” Now his smile was meant for me. “Hi, Amy,” he greeted her too. “I came down to see if I could take you to lunch on your first day but you had already left,” he told me. “How did it go with that witch of a boss you have?”
Amy laughed. “I think I kept my true self under wraps but I’ll really bring it tomorrow. I’m going to go find my husband and do a little exercise. Lia, great work today. See you in the morning. Bye, Connor.” She waved as she walked off and we did too.
“Really, how was it?” he asked me. “What did you think?”
“Compared to waitressing? It was easy. She’s by far the nicest boss I ever had and no one yelled at me, touched my ass, or made me carry something half my body weight.”
“Touched your ass.”
“Whatever. I keep thinking…” I pinched my lips together. Something was going to happen. This was too good, too easy to be true. “Yeah, it was fine. How was your day?”
“If you give me a minute to change, we can go get a coffee and I’ll tell you,” he offered. “You don’t want me like this.” He gestured to his sweaty body.
Oh, I found that I did. I had a hard time pulling my eyes away from his chiseled chest. “Um, I have to go get Jared. He’s in an after-school thing but I don’t want to leave him there for too long.” At least they had locks on the doors at this program, so I knew he wasn’t going to take off on them once he was in there.
“Why don’t we meet later for dinner, then? All three of us.”
“Really?”
“Sure. My treat. I live in Royal Oak and we can go out around there, or get take-out and I’ll show you my place, whichever you’re interested in. I have to head back to work for a bit so I’ll pick you guys up later. Six?”
“Oh, ok. Sure. I’ll see you then.” I nodded at him and walked away. As I left the gym, I turned back to look. Connor was still standing in the same place, watching me, and he smiled. I flipped my head away quickly.
I stopped by my house to check on it, just as I had done before work that morning. The plywood was still intact over the larger holes and there were no new, nasty notes around where the front door was going to go, notes encouraging me to “fix it or sell it” and remarking that I was “ruining the street with this blight.” I considered this a good sign and swept the porch clean, noticing that it did creak and sway some under my feet. I remembered what Connor had said about bringing it down with just his body weight. That led me to thinking about his body in his gym clothes, which I did all the way over to Jared’s school, and when my brother refused to talk to me, I thought about it most of the way home, too.
“We’re going out to dinner,” I mentioned when we were almost back at our building. “To a restaurant.”
He seemed less than impressed. Jared had eaten a lot of restaurant food due to my previous employment and a few times, when the babysitter had left me in the lurch, I had hidden him in the backrooms of Atelier Anson so I could keep an eye on him. Turned out I should have been doing that all the time, rather than paying a woman who also solicited bribes from an eleven-year-old to let him wander the city streets at night.
“We’re eating with Connor,” I continued. “Maybe we’ll go to his house.”
“Really?” Jared sat up from his habitual slouch. “Connor’s house? Cool.”
Yeah, cool. I tried to engage Jared in more conversation but he looked out the window and ignored me, so I let myself imagine what Connor’s house would be like. Definitely old, something he had redone. A beautiful kitchen, because that had been one of his fixations when he talked about remodeling the Brush Park house. He would have repaired and replaced all the original features, like the floors and the built-ins and the hardware, returning the house to its former glory. I was sure it was perfect.
We turned into our dirty street. “Balls,” I muttered under my breath. There was a group of teenage and young twenty-some men loitering outside of our apartment building. “I’m just going to drive by,” I told Jared. “We can’t get out with them there.” Even if they were a local neighborhood improvement club, I wasn’t going to mess with that many guys together. And I was fairly sure they weren’t in that kind of club.
Jared slouched more, burying himself in his winter coat as we drove past. I heard some of them call out things at the car but most just silently watched, which scared the crap out of me. I took a long loop around and by the time we made it back, they had moved off down the street and I could park. We hurried inside.
“I’ll get ready,” I said casually, like I wasn’t at all concerned about how I was going to look. “You should finish your homework.” He reached for the little game machine again, the one I hadn’t worked up the courage to ask him about purchasing yet. After we had left Connor at the lacrosse field over the weekend, we had gone to get a Coney Island for lunch before coming home, and even though Jared hadn’t been a fount of conversation, we had a pretty pleasant, non-confrontational time. I felt like we had turned a little corner, or were starting to, and I was afraid to do anything to put us backwards. Maybe now that I was watching him better, he wouldn’t be able to do whatever (illegal and dangerous) stuff he had done before to get the money, the money he used to pay off his sitter and to buy his dumb game thing. We could just move on from it like it never happened.
I pulled my hair out of the ponytail and studied myself in the mirror for a moment, not very happy with the woman I saw there. I looked tired and pale and my hair was just as dull, without any shine or bounce. My clothes were equally exciting. Amy hadn’t been all dressed up today at the office, but somehow she had looked super fashion-y, and I had looked like I was there to take her drink order.
I reached in and turned on the water in the shower. It never got that hot and it wasn’t a place I liked to linger, but I thought that I needed a full-body re-do, which meant finding the razor I rarely used and also the hairdryer. “Jared, I’m taking a shower,” I called, and I heard a vague noise of response, which was good. I got in and poured the shampoo on my head and wondered when my hair had gotten so long. The last time it had been like this, I was in high school, but it—
I heard the front door close and I pushed the suds out of my eyes. “Jared?” I yelled. He shouldn’t have been opening the door for anyone but he couldn’t have left. No. I jumped out of the shower and pulled a towel around my dripping body as I opened the door. “Jared!” The living room was empty. The bedroom was empty. I stupidly looked in the closet, but obviously he was gone. Why hadn’t I screwed down the board? I’d been thinking that we had some kind of breakthrough over lacrosse. I had been hoping, and I had been wrong.
Now, I pulled on clothes, any clothes. It was dark outside and he shouldn’t—he couldn’t—I ran down the stairs. This time I went to my car and drove in the direction we had seen the crowd of guys walking earlier. I craned my neck as I steered, looking between houses, in empty lots, down cross streets. I almost hit a telephone pole and jerked my car back straight.
There. There was someone in the beams of my headlights, someone racing down the sidewalk. His dark hair was hidden by his sweatshirt hood.
I slammed on the brakes and opened the door, jumping out and leaving the engine running like I had done before when I’d seen him with the police. “Jared! What are you doing out here?” I yelled at the top of my voice. “Get in this car, now!”
He didn’t argue and practically leaped into the passenger side. “Go. Go!” he told me breathlessly. He yanked off his sweatshirt as if he was burning hot in the cold air.
I did go, making a U-turn as fast as I could get the car to accelerate. “What the hell, Jared?” My voice shook. “You snuck out while I was in the shower?” Residual shampoo ran into my eyes, making them sting. “In case I didn’t make it clear with the board screwed into the floor, you are not allowed out on these streets alone. Do you understand?” He didn’t answer, so I asked it louder and this time, he nodded slightly.
I was watching him and veering off the road again, almost into a parked car. “Why did you leave? Where were you going?”
“I had to talk to some people.”
“Who? Those guys? The ones in front of our building? Jared, what the hell is going on? You’re hanging out with them?” I stared at him. “Oh, my God! Are you working for them? Is that how you got the money for your game console?” My hands jerked and the car veered to the right.
“Lia! Watch out!”
“Holy balls!” I slammed on the brakes and we screeched to a stop. I stared in horror at the hood ornament touching Connor’s pants as he stood in front of my car.
Jared jumped out. “Did Lia hurt you? What did she do to you?”
“I’m fine,” Connor told him, but his hazel eyes were enormous. “I’m ok.”
I got out too, but my knees buckled and I had to grab on to the top of the door. “Connor.” I had almost run him down and killed him, the second time his life was in danger due to his association with me.
He came around the side of the car. “I’m fine, Lia, I really am. Didn’t you see me? Why were you driving so fast?” His hand came up to my head. “What’s in your hair?”
I reached out, like I was going to grab him too. “I’m so sorry. I could have…” There was a sharp sound behind us. “We need to go. Right now!” I told both of them, looking back into the semi-darkness. “Jared, get your butt upstairs!”
He also peered behind us down the street. “Let’s just leave. Aren’t we going to your house, Connor?” His voice was so high, he sounded like a little boy again. He was a little boy, still, involved in something way over his head.
Fixing Lia Page 7