India's Summer

by Thérèse

  “My designer was English,” he said, gently massaging her toes. “That’s probably why.”

  “Yes, that dresser could have come straight from Heal’s.”

  “It did.” He laughed.

  Adam had moved his attention away from her feet and his hand was edging up the inside of her thigh.

  “I have another little treat for you,” she said, pulling away with an effort. “I think you’ll like it even more than the teapot. Be right back … put on that Shostakovitch CD.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” Adam grinned, lifting a log and aiming it at the dwindling fire.

  India went into the bedroom and pulled out an ankle-length white gypsy skirt from Annabelle’s LV overnight bag. She smoothed out the creases and draped a large Hermès scarf over it. I shall wear it handkerchief-style as a top. Très avant-garde. She smiled.

  She folded her worksheets into the Fendi tote, dashed into the bathroom and slipped on her Agent Provocateur Fifi slip ($550). She snapped the clasp on her suspender, straightened the seam on her black silk stocking, then gently eased her foot into a six-inch patent leather stiletto.

  ≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈

  Lizzie was not at the house when India arrived. India was disappointed. She was hoping for a quick cup of coffee and a few compliments on her current look. That’s a lot of cars. What time is it? Maybe the clocks went back, she thought, running toward the studio and adjusting the Hermès scarf as she went. Damn. It’s so slippery. I should have pinned it.

  Opening the door with one hand and struggling to adjust her top with the other, she stumbled into the room and looked up. There was a deathly silence the minute she appeared. Every face was turned toward her. She froze. Something was terribly wrong. The women from her Wednesday group were there too.

  Why is everyone so quiet? Why are they all looking at me like this? What on Earth has happened? she wondered, looking down and realizing with horror that she should have worn an under-skirt. But that was not what this was about, she knew.

  India was scared. It was as if she did not recognize these people anymore. Somehow she was the enemy. Summer was the first to speak. There was a tremor in her voice.

  “Why…” She paused, adjusting a couple of her bangles. “Why is it better to call yourself a country, India?” she said, her eyes flashing.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Than a season? Like why is my name so ridiculous, IN-DI-A?”

  Lizzie stood up. “You need to see something that Sophie sent to Joan last night, India. It’s on YouTube. When you do, I don’t think you’ll have any difficulty understanding what Summer means.”

  She spoke in a very measured tone, and India knew with absolute certainty that this was not a surprise party. Adam was not about to spring out from behind a curtain and propose. Her heart started to pound.

  Maybe they’ve found out I only taught high school. I can explain. This is a terrible mistake,she thought, scrambling through all the wildest possibilities. But she could not find her voice. Her throat had closed up. Then Lizzie turned her iPad round on the table to face her. She looked terribly sad.

  It took India a few seconds to make sense of what she was looking at. A line of small screens came up and then she saw the title: “Double Trouble for Annabelle Butler”

  Lizzie enlarged the page and pressed play. India was still having great difficulty taking any of this in properly, and then with a terrible shock she saw herself on the screen and realized she looked a complete wreck. Her eye makeup was smudged,her pajamas looked really old fashioned, and what on Earth was going on with her hair? The camera panned shakily back to Annabelle who, India saw, was looking pretty rough too.

  “This is not good,” she said, half out loud.

  Then the awful reality of what she was actually watching closed in on her. She heard her English accent, which sounded somehow peculiar.

  Do I really sound like that? she wondered. Then she tuned in to what she was saying.

  “Simon talks a load of bollocks… I think he’s full of shit… Anyone could come up with some fucking self- help program…,” she spat.

  India suddenly felt sick. Her legs went wobbly and she leaned against the side of the table. What? When? What is this?

  She stared in absolute horror. She began to shake. She sounded so sour. She looked so mean. It was like watching a horror movie where some evil spirit had taken over her body. Now she remembered. It was the week she arrived, the morning she had the hangover from hell after Annie’s dinner party.

  But how?

  She was having something approaching an out-of-body experience now, watching with a weird sense of detachment.

  Surely she had not been so nasty. Surely she had never been so horrible about such lovely people. She was horrified at her cheap joke at Summer’s expense, at the low punch at Trules. She was mortified. There was no escaping it, she was actually sneer-ing, and then when she thought the worst must be over…

  “Adam Brooks … attention span of a gnat like the rest of them…”

  This was wrong. She’d never said that, surely? Why would she? When would she? But clearly she had.

  She was seriously panicked now, conscious that her face was burning. She desperately ransacked her brain for an explanation. How could this have been taped? Who could possibly have done this and why would anyone want to put it on YouTube? A zillion thoughts were flying round her head. She felt cornered and ashamed. She needed to explain that the whole thing was out of context.

  Oh God! Adam will be so hurt. How can I ever explain this to anyone? Who the hell filmed this? How? How could they? We were by ourselves.

  The clip finished with Annie looking appalled and angry, crying, “That’s enough!”

  With that the screen went black. There was total silence in the room. India was absolutely mortified. Her head was swimming. All eyes were turned on her and still nobody spoke. They were all waiting for an explanation and she had none to give.

  ≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈

  It was midmorning when Annabelle heard the car screech into the driveway. One look at her sister’s face told her all she needed to know.

  “I tried to call you last night to give you a heads-up,” Annabelle said, lifting the milk jug, setting the cafetière down on the table and placing a box of tissues next to it. “I saw it last night. Lizzie called me. I tried to get hold of you for hours. Coffee?”

  India shook her head. “No, just Advil please. My phone died. Not that it would have made any difference I suppose,” she said, slumping onto the kitchen chair. Annabelle sat down opposite and held her hand across the table.

  “Annie, I don’t know where to begin. I feel terrible. It was the worst moment of my life. On the way back I was thinking how fond I am of Summer and how much I’ve learned about people these last few months. And my workshops aren’t cynical. They’re not just some … what did I say …’fucking self-help program.’”

  “I know, I know,” Annabelle soothed.

  “It’s only now I realize what a bad space I was in the end of last semester. Everyone here seemed to have it all so easy. All your friends were so pulled together and successful and I was eaten up with resentment and didn’t even know it.”

  “Yes,” Annabelle murmured. “I remember.”

  “I can’t think what to do. Everyone this morning was so hurt. I couldn’t think of anything to say to put it right. I just ran out of the room. I was such a coward.”

  “You were shocked, that’s all,” Annabelle said, standing up and coming round the table to put her arm around her shoulder. India began to sob uncontrollably.

  “I love those people,” she choked. “I love Lizzie. She’s been an amazing friend. They all looked so devastated, hurt. Really hurt. Annie, they weren’t even angry; they were wounded. Who taped that, Annie? Why? And who hates me enough to put it on YouTube? I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry … and Adam, what’s he going to think?”

  “Adam will be fine,” Annabelle said, stroking
India’s hair back from her face.

  “How so? I said he was stupid – well, about as much.”

  “You’d only just met the guy. It won’t do him any harm to think you weren’t starstruck, and anyway, what about me? I look bloody awful on it.”

  “Well, yes, it was bad,” India agreed, managing a very weak smile and blowing her nose loudly on a tissue. “There’s already a pack of photographers out there. I think I’d better warn you,” she said, wiping the mascara out of her eyes and leaving a streak across her blotchy face.

  “Yes, well, Joss as ever is handling that,” Annabelle glanced at the wall clock. “I wasn’t planning on going anywhere much today. José-Marie can come and do my hair here. I’ll have Tess call him. Why don’t you go and take a shower and get changed. Let’s talk this through and make a plan. Don’t bother charging your phone. Don’t call anyone, either. Come back here and let’s sit and decide what we’re going to do.”

  India was glad for the direction. She felt completely washed out and helpless. She stood up dutifully and went toward the door, trudged across the garden and went straight into the bathroom. She turned on the faucets in the shower, took off her clothes and went into the stall, where she let the water torrent down her face for a very long time. She dried off, wrapped a towel around herself, and pulled her computer out of her bag.

  To: Ssims@gmail.com

  FROM: Indiabutler@gmail.com

  SUBJECT: All Gone to Shit

  Desperately need to talk to you. Too much for e-mail. Cell’s dead but call the house when you get in from your shift. I’ll be here all day. Please call. I desperately need to talk to you about something that just happened.

  Indie xxxoooxxx

  ≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈

  Lizzie had watched the video several times. At one level, she could see that India had a point; there were a ton of people on the self-help bandwagon in California. As a lawyer, she was also trained to look at things with a critical eye. She understood that there was probably more to it than had been caught on camera. But it was India’s tone of voice that was the hardest to forgive. It seemed so out of character. After all the betrayals, the disappointments, of the previous months, Lizzie felt like someone had literally punched her in the stomach. India was a friend. But this woman on YouTube wasn’t the India she knew and loved. This was someone cynical and bitter, a vicious stranger. She cringed at the memory of all the confidences that she had shared so easily with India, how she had opened up to her about everything – from her lack of sex with Stan to her feelings about his kids. She felt foolish, vulnerable, and very alone.

  When Joan had called the previous evening, Lizzie had been filling out an application for a part-time position with a legal firm downtown. This was all part of her plan to reclaim her life. Stan and she had decided to try to work things out. Through their on-going sessions with a counselor, they were tentatively discussing the possibility of living together again.

  Stan had been staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel since the night of their violent row. Lizzie knew it was killing him to spend the money and was amused when he told her he was bored rigid with the menu. She suspected his motives for agreeing to counseling; he’d probably decided he couldn’t afford to pay two sets of alimony and still bask in prestige and sickening ostentation. She also knew he’d recently lost a wagonload in stocks and property portfolios.

  But after a few of India’s workshops and some sessions with her shrink, Lizzie’s resolve had softened, especially when Stan broke down. She’d never seen him cry before and was genuinely moved when he blurted out how he still loved her, how the affair had just been sex. He said he would do anything to save their marriage and the thought of his life without her and the kids was terrifying him.

  He was the father of her children. That had to be worth another shot. She determined she would try again, but there would have to be changes. She set out her terms and he agreed to them. She had to get back to work. She needed a life outside the family.

  India’s about to discover that people in this town will wipe you out faster than you can blink, she thought. She sighed thinking of the friends who’d been ostracized from the social calendar before the ink had dried on their divorce papers. Had that stark reality been part of her own fear when she agreed to try again with Stan? Had it? Could she ever trust her own judgment again?

  ≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈

  “Where’s the other half of Double Trouble?” Joss said, striding into the kitchen at twice his usual speed, reaching into the chiller and pulling out a can of Stella Artois. “I just got off the phone with Andy Goldberg and he’s not happy.”

  “I’m still trying to work out how serious this is,” Annabelle said, almost to herself, as she waited for the video to upload again. “Four hundred thousand downloads in the last twenty-four hours and I look goddamned awful. I’ll never work again.”

  “It’s gone viral. That’s for sure,” Joss said, grabbing a packet of Cheetos off the workstation and sitting down next to her at the kitchen table. “Want one?”

  Annabelle shook her head.

  “I can remember the fight clearly. India had only been here a few days … it was after we’d all been down to Malibu, the morning after our dinner party, so that would have been just after Memorial Day, yes?”

  “Yeah. I remember thinking you two were taking a while to shake down together.”

  “She’d been having a rough time at school. She’s always been prone to rants when she’s unhappy or hormonal. Honestly she’s like a bloody teenager herself half the time. No wonder she’s so good at understanding them.”

  “Okay,” Joss said, leaning back and running his hands through his hair. “Let’s work this out. Bella and Cindy were messing round with your iPhone, right?”

  “Yes. India had a hangover and she kept telling them to get the damn thing out of her face.”

  “So that’s how this got on camera, same day we went to the Marina. They’d been to some kid’s party the night before. You told me to watch they didn’t have any more sugar.”

  Annie nodded. “Yes they were hyper, but they were just mucking around, and one things for sure, there’s no way they’d post it, is there?”

  “Of course not,” Joss said, folding the empty chip packet into neat squares. “So where’s your phone? Let’s see if we can work out when it was downloaded.”

  “That’s it. I don’t have it,” Annie said slowly. “I couldn’t find it the morning you drove me in for the surgery. I remember because India was joking about me not needing it because I’d be unconscious anyway.”

  “Any idea when you lost it?”

  Annabelle slumped back in the chair and folded her arms.

  “I’m not sure…” she said tentatively. “Maybe the afternoon we went to the medical plaza for that first round of tests. I was distracted. There was all that shit going on with India and Max. It’s a bit hazy.”

  Annabelle clasped her hands over her mouth. “Joss, someone must have found it. It could be anyone. It could be anywhere.”

  “Tess would have canceled it when she ordered your new one, but they may have uploaded stuff onto a computer,” he answered steadily. “What else was on it?”

  “Well, I don’t know … photographs, texts – you know, the usual crap, but it was new, so not all that much, I suppose. Oh, God! I hear what you’re saying, Joss. This could come out in installments. We’ll have to ask the girls. Please tell me it’s the only time they used it. There could be anything on it … anything … at all.”

  “Annie, we don’t know that yet. I’ll ask Bella, but it’s really important you don’t get stressed,” he said, squeezing her hand. “This is embarrassing as hell for India, but you handled it like a pro. You didn’t fire back. This isn’t some Mel Gibson clusterfuck and there won’t be anything too awful – we’re not the Kardashians.”

  “I know.” She sighed heavily. “You’re right. But for India this is one giant cock-up and just when she was starting to get
it together. I mean, she must have been distraught when she found out. What happens now, do you think?”

  “I’m not sure.” Joss hesitated. “How is she?”

  “Not good. And it was all going so well for her,” Annabelle said into the air.

  “I’ll get the girls from school. You stay with India,” he said, getting to his feet and kissing the top of her head.

  “Thanks. I love you.” She smiled up at him.

  ≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈

  India dragged on a pair of Levi’s and a tee and climbed on top of the bed. She pulled her knees up to her chin and rolled onto her side. The physical discomfort was overpowering. Her stomach felt leaden, and she had a strange sense of detachment, as if her body belonged to someone else. She buried her head deep into the pillow, craving darkness, a deep dark hole where she would never wake up.

  She had felt like this before. She had felt this same sense of humiliation, disgrace, and failure. When? Why? She opened her eyes then closed them again and remembered. The nun was standing over her; cold black eyes peering through her wimple, her face distorted with anger, rows of classmates watching in silence “India Butler, you will never amount to anything. You are contemptible, an aberration in the face of God.”

  She began to tremble. What had she done? Yes, she had filled a sink with water, yes she had put her face in it, and yes she should have been in the playground… “But sister…” India winced at the memory. Yes. This was how it felt to be disgraced, to feel ex-posed, and still hear some inner voice screaming, “I didn’t mean any harm. I didn’t … I didn’t.”

  She needed to cry, but the pain was lodged so deep inside no tears would come. But now, reliving the morning, she could remember only sadness etched on these women’s faces, not fury or contempt. Why was that? What was different? What?

  She curled into a tighter ball.

  They loved me, she thought. They were hurt. They risked opening themselves up to me. I let them down. I misjudged them all those weeks ago. All I saw was the shiny veneer, the extravagant lifestyles and the privilege. Annie’s right. I did have a huge chip on my shoulder. So what changed? What? When?