Positively Pippa

by Sarah Hegger

  “Not the sort of money she needs.” Nate said it so quietly Pippa almost missed it.

  Nate had been holding out on them.

  Wet splotches appeared on the countertop in front of Laura. Her sister was crying. She wanted to shake Laura and yell at her, and she wanted to rush over there and comfort her.

  “She owes money to some nasty people,” Nate said. “Once I found the stolen items, I made some inquiries. Most of the time, if you want to know why, you follow the money.”

  “Laura?” Pippa winced at the raw pain in Patrick’s voice. He was pleading with her sister for answers. Begging her to put him out of his misery.

  Laura shook her head, silent sobs ripping through her torso, shaking her shoulders and coming out her mouth in sawing gasps.

  “She’s been gambling,” Nate said. “And she got in over her head. I’m guessing she didn’t want you to know, and she took the stuff from her grandmother to cover her debt.”

  “No.” Patrick stepped away from Laura. He shook his head and took another step back.

  Laura stood alone, so small and defeated and in so much pain. She wanted to be furious at Laura and she was, but a sister was a sister. Pippa ripped free of Matt and ran around the island. Her hip jarred against the corner as she reached for Laura. God, she wanted to kill her, but she wanted to love her more. She grabbed Laura and pulled her tight, as if she could suck some of that anguish into herself.

  “I don’t understand,” she whispered into her sister’s hair. Roses and lilies drifted in a subtle fragrance from Laura. Her body felt tiny, insubstantial and not strong enough to bear the weight of the emotion ripping through Laura. Pippa clenched her arms around her sister, holding on to her for dear life.

  Laura collapsed against her and Pippa braced and took her weight.

  “I don’t know why.” The words were pressed into Pippa’s shoulder. “I couldn’t stop. I knew I had to but I couldn’t stop.”

  “How much?” Patrick jammed his hands in his pockets, his jaw worked convulsively.

  “A little over three hundred kay,” Nate said.

  Oh, dear God. Pippa held Laura tighter. The desire to shake Laura again grabbed hold of her and she had to dig her nails into her palms to stop herself. That was a mountain of debt. Would Phi’s treasures even cover a fraction of that?

  “Laura.” Patrick nudged Pippa’s shoulder, pressing her away from his wife. “You need to start from the beginning and tell me all of it.”

  Pippa let him take his wife. Patrick helped Laura onto one of the wrought iron counter stools.

  Laura scrubbed the tears away with the dish towel. Dark smears of mascara made macabre stripes down her cheeks. She glanced at Nate. “What will you do?”

  “That depends on your grandmother. If she’s prepared to be lenient, I can get this pleaded down. You’re a first-time offender, a mother, a respectable community member. I can probably persuade the DA to let you off with a fine, maybe some community service. The items were extremely valuable, so that makes your case a lot weaker, but they are all here and you will have to pay back whatever you got from the antique dealer.”

  “I don’t have it anymore.” Laura grabbed a pack of Kleenex from the counter.

  Of course Laura would have Kleenex close at hand. She was the perfect mother. Perfect mother who stole from her grandmother to pay her gambling debts. The kitchen dipped and swayed around Pippa and she pulled up the stool three down from Laura. She didn’t trust herself to sit any closer right now.

  “Will she have a criminal record?” Patrick glanced at Nate.

  “It will go on her file for sure,” Nate said. “The items were reported stolen and I investigated the crime. There’s no way to make that go away, and even if there was, I’m not sure I’m inclined to. Laura stole and however close I am to your family, there are repercussions to that sort of thing.”

  “I understand.” A muscle ticked in Patrick’s jaw. He shook his head as if trying to make sense of this.

  It didn’t make any sense, none of it did. Why would Laura be gambling in the first place? Pippa voiced the question aloud and Laura’s head dropped again.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t explain it, but when I was there, I didn’t have to be me.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?” Patrick gripped the sides of his head. “What the fuck is so wrong with being you? You have a perfect life here. A beautiful home, great kids, I give you everything you need.”

  “It’s not that.” Laura held her hands out in front of her, pleading with him.

  “We should go.” Nate turned to her and Matt. “They need to talk and then we’ll see what needs to be done next. I need to talk to your grandmother.”

  Oh God, Phi. This was going to kill her.

  * * *

  Phi was asleep when they reached the hospital.

  Pippa felt like a bitch for having to break this to her now. She even tried to plead with Nate to see if they could wait, but Nate—followed by Matt—got stubborn. Phi needed to be told and by them before she heard it elsewhere. Also, Nate wanted to act before the DA got all excited by the idea of putting Laura in jail.

  Emily sat by her mother’s bed, her chair pulled into a large pool of sunshine.

  Pippa told her mother first. Emily paled but took the news quietly. Almost as if she didn’t quite grasp what she’d heard. She kept glancing at Nate as Pippa spoke.

  “Are you certain?” she asked when Pippa stopped talking.

  Nate nodded. “I drove to Denver with a second picture of Laura, just to make sure.”

  “Poor Patrick.” Emily shook her head. “He will be devastated. And the children.” She glanced at Pippa. “Do they know?”

  “We didn’t tell them. We left so Patrick could talk to Laura alone. Have you any idea why Laura would be gambling?” Pippa tried to see past the smooth facade her mother wore. It was her mother’s troubled face. When Emily got that smooth, impenetrable mask, it had been a signal as a girl that she was in deep, deep trouble. Had her mother developed that in reaction to Phi’s theatrics? Phi’s emotions were large, on a cosmic level that vibrated through everyone who came near her. Emily went dead still, the exact opposite.

  They waited for Phi to wake before they told her.

  Nate and Matt left them to it.

  Pippa watched Matt walk away down the long, antiseptic corridor. The words to call him back, beg him to stay caught in her throat.

  She left the telling to her mother. Emily in her calm, efficient voice gave Phi the truth. Pippa locked her gaze on Phi’s face. Ready to leap in with the inevitable explosion. Except it never came.

  Emily fell silent and Phi nodded once, and then turned her head to stare out the window. “It’s the pressure, you know,” she said. “Of being Laura. The perfect one. The good girl. She’s always been that way, and I am surprised she didn’t break before this.”

  “What do you mean?” Emily frowned.

  “I mean Laura is trapped inside a person she created.” Phi turned back to them. Her green eyes glimmered with tears. “My poor darling girl. How she must have suffered to end up so desperate.”

  Pippa perched on the end of Phi’s bed. The day kept bringing one surprise after another and she was all out of mental stretch. “She always seemed happy to me.”

  “Because that is what she wanted you to believe.” Phi swung her gaze to Pippa. “All her life Laura has done what was expected of her.”

  “Are you saying this is my fault?” Emily stood at the foot of Phi’s bed, her body vibrating with tension.

  Phi tilted her head and gave Emily a sad smile. “No, dear, I am saying this is my fault.”

  Okay, someone should start explaining because Pippa was lost as all hell here. How could any of this be Phi’s fault? Laura had stolen from Phi, and sold those things to pay off her gambling debts.

  “I created an imbalance,” Phi said. “I did not intend to, but I did it all the same. It was so easy to relate to Pippa. She was so li
ke me and I got to pretend I was not a terrible mother when she was around.”

  Emily sank into the seat by the window. “I don’t understand.”

  Thank God, Pippa wasn’t the only one lost as hell here.

  “I left you to your father to raise.” Phi looked at her daughter. “You were a shy child and you didn’t fit into the world I so desperately wanted to be a part of. It was easier to do that than come home and make the sacrifices I needed to make as a mother.”

  A tear slid down Phi’s cheek. “You married and had your children and I convinced myself you were happy. Laura was such a good baby and your joy in her was clear to see. I was a bit jealous of that. Then Pippa was born and she and I became a unit and I left you out in the cold again. Laura, bless her heart, tried to fill that gap. She wanted to be the one who would make everything all right for you,” Phi said to Emily. “Then that idiot left and you were even more alone than ever. Laura knew you were hurting and took it upon herself to ease that pain. Laura never discovered who Laura was, she tried to be what everyone wanted her to be.”

  Pippa’s head ached for all four of them. What a tangled mess they’d managed to make of their relationships.

  Emily felt rejected by her career-driven mother, rejected by her husband, and then again when Pippa chose Phi over her. And Laura. Not really belonging anywhere and trying so hard to make a place for herself. Hadn’t Pippa done much the same thing? Except her box was labeled “career woman,” and she’d never even allowed herself to consider there might be more. Been too frightened of ending up alone like her mother. Funny, she’d ended up alone anyway. Until she opened the door a crack and Matt charged through.

  “I should have seen it,” Emily said. “How could I not have seen that my child was in so much trouble?”

  “At least you tried,” Phi said. “I refused to see what was right in front of me when it came to my child.”

  “Laura’s stealing is a symptom,” Emily said. “And the gambling was an expression of how unhappy Laura is.” She pleated her skirt with her fingers. “Mom is right. Laura never went through a wild phase. She was always good little Laura. Everybody has a breaking point and Laura reached hers.”

  “But how is any of that Phi’s fault?”

  “Because I created the whole screwed-up dynamic in the first place,” Phi said. “I made Emily feel rejected, which is why she clung to Laura. Then when you and I became close, Emily felt more rejected and Laura needed to make that up to her somehow. She did that by being the perfect daughter.”

  “And the sperm donor didn’t help,” Pippa said.

  “Pippa!” Mom looked at her with wide eyes.

  “Well”—Pippa shrugged—“he didn’t do much more, even when he was around.”

  Mom’s lips twitched, humor lighting in her eyes. “True, but what a terrible way to describe your father.”

  “A father raises his children,” Phi said. “He does not merely beget them. The sperm donor.” Phi crinkled her nose. “I rather like it.”

  “You would.” Mom chuckled. “Laura has been trying to fix the world around her since she was little.”

  It made sense, in a strange way. When they were kids, she got muddy and Laura always kept her dress clean. Pippa got into the cookies and ate the entire batch. Laura had one with her milk. Pippa chased her dream. Laura stayed home and married the right sort of guy. “What about Patrick? She loves him, right?”

  And where the hell would that leave Daisy and Sam if the answer was no?

  “She loves her family,” Emily said, smoothing her skirt. “I’m sure of that. As unhappy as she is, Laura still chose well for herself. She loves being a wife and mother. It’s about the constant pressure she puts on herself to be perfect, all the time. I know a little something about that.”

  Phi snorted. “I’ll bet you do.”

  Emily looked at her mother and laughed.

  This was not Pippa’s family. Her mother and grandmother did not sit quietly and joke about each other, tease each other and not react. “What did you two talk about the other day?”

  “Never you mind.” Phi sent her an arch look. “That is between Emily and me. Now we need to turn our attention to Laura. You know the district attorney don’t you, Emily?”

  Emily nodded. “Yes, she chairs the committee that oversees the community center. I will talk to her, assure her we can get Laura sorted out.”

  “Can we?” She had to ask because it didn’t seem such an easy fix to Pippa. Basically, these two were saying Laura’s entire life was in the toilet.

  “We have no choice,” Phi said. “The alternative is too horrible to be contemplated. But we will do it together.”

  It felt good to hear Phi say that. Even better when her mother nodded and smiled. “I’ll be here to help, in whatever way I can,” Pippa said.

  “No, you won’t.” Emily looked across Phi’s covered legs at her. “I already have one daughter making bad decisions to fix what is not hers to fix. You need to go and do what is right for you.”

  “This is right for me.” Pippa looked to Phi for support.

  Phi rolled her eyes and snorted. “Living in Ghost Falls for the rest of your life is right for you?”

  “But you said family was more important than career.”

  “Yes, dear.” Emily stood and fussed with Phi’s sheet. “But there is a balance. Family is vital, but it’s not all there is to life. Can’t you see that with what happened to your sister? There’s something missing in Laura’s life and the gambling is a sign of that. You were never meant to stay here. What would you do?”

  It was a fair question, one Pippa had been avoiding. “I could take care of Phi.”

  “You would drive me mad within the month,” said Phi. “All the energy you have. Fussing and fuming around me all the time. Making those lists like a little dictator. No.”

  “I want to be here for you.” Pippa was beginning to feel the sting of rejection.

  “Then be here for us by being the best you that you can,” Emily said. “Do the things that make you happy, and the rest will follow. Come home more often. Call more often, but don’t go flying off to the other extreme.”

  “And what about Matt?” Phi raised her eyebrow. “You’re going to sit there and tell me you’re happy about walking away from him?”

  Emily frowned over the bed at Pippa. “What happened with Matt?”

  “It’s complicated.” Pippa had to stand and pace. “We were supposed to be a casual thing.”

  Phi snorted. “You spend a lot of time together for two people who are casual.”

  Emily rounded the bed. “Find the middle ground, Pippa. Don’t do what my mother and I have done our entire lives. Don’t blindly charge off in one direction to the detriment of everything else.”

  “Have you ever asked Matt if he wants to make space for you in his life?” Phi folded her arms over her stomach. “Or have you been too frightened to admit your feelings. Even to yourself?”

  “I haven’t told you everything.” Pippa swore she felt her back against the wall.

  Phi snorted. “Do you want that man?”

  “I do.” Saying it out loud brought it ringing home to Pippa. She did want Matt. With his lion eyes and his bad boy grin. The way he could make her laugh when everything was going to shit around her. The way he got her on a cellular level that made everything all right. “But his life is complicated and so is mine.”

  “Then uncomplicate them,” her mother said. “Do what you do best, Pippa. Find the thing you want and go after it.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Pippa sat in a pool of warm sunlight. Chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm, Phi slept peacefully. Mom had finally agreed to go home for a few hours, and left Pippa in charge.

  Tyler came in, smiled at Pippa, and went through the routine of checking on Phi. Her pen scratched across the chart as she made her notations.

  “Did you always want to be a nurse?” Pippa kept her voice low enough not to wake Phi.
>
  Tyler stopped writing and cocked her head. “Not always.” She glanced at Pippa, then finished her notations and slid the chart into the slot at the end of the bed. “I wanted to be a doctor, but halfway through my first year something changed.” Tyler clicked her pen and snapped it onto the top pocket of her duckling-yellow scrubs decorated with a swarm of bumblebees. “I discovered that I liked taking care of people more than I liked curing them. I like helping people.”

  “I wanted to be famous,” Pippa said. “Like my grandmother. I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, didn’t like acting, so TV seemed the next best thing.” Wanted to shake the dust of this nowhere town off her, and show them it didn’t matter that she was different, didn’t matter that her father had left. She was somebody.

  Shifting her weight, Tyler leaned her hip against the end of Phi’s bed. “I used to watch your show.”

  “Did you?”

  “I miss it,” Tyler said, and straightened. “I loved watching what happened to those women. It was like you gave them their own magic potion.” Tyler blushed, as if embarrassed by her statement, and jerked her scrub top straight. Bumblebees rippled across her chest. “I’ll see you later. I’ve got other patients to check.”

  “Okay.” Outside Phi’s window a man stepped into the courtyard and lit a cigarette. His cheeks hollowed as he sucked on his smoke. He looked like he really needed that nicotine hit.

  Pippa had started in television to be famous, but it wasn’t the fame she missed. She missed the transformations, the change she made in women’s lives. The magic—and the magic was worth fighting for. Her magic potion was worth any risk, and that potion was made up of many different ingredients. Family, career, home, and a man to share that home with her.

  Without the thought having fully formed, she pulled out her phone.

  “Pippa.” Chris Germaine answered almost immediately.

  “Um, hi.” The man outside tossed his smoke and ground it beneath his heel. “About our last conversation . . .”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve been thinking.”