by Unknown
Zooey looked up at Keeley. “Am I wrong?”
They looked at each other for a minute, as if having a silent conversation. Then Keeley started shaking her head. “I, I,..” Keeley whimpered, and then started outright crying.
Amy couldn’t stand it anymore. She walked right over to Keeley and wrapped her arms around her as far as she could reach. A full head shorter, her face rested against Keeley’s chest. “It’s okay, Keeley. It’s okay! We know you’re a clumsy goof, but we love you anyway. We love you so much. Your head’s going to heal just fine. My mom can look at it and fix you right up.”
Keeley just cried louder and said, “No! No one! Leave me alone!” But she didn’t shake Amy off.
Pam wrapped her arms around Keeley, too, one arm going around Amy’s back. Then Zooey stood up and hugged Keeley from behind. Zooey said, “It’s going to be all right. Really it is.”
Then they were all crying a little, mostly from shock at seeing their friend hurt so badly.
When the tears subsided, they parted, patting Keeley on her arms and back. Keeley still stood, looking at her feet, little sniffles emanating from under the floppy hat.
Then Zooey said something weird. “You don’t have to tell us, Keeley. It’s okay.”
Amy looked at Zooey like she was nuts. Not tell them? Why not? Keeley probably fell down the stairs and needed a grownup to help her! What if she was seriously hurt? She forgot all about Keeley’s own mother, who was living in the same house with her daughter and should have looked at her daughter’s injured head herself. All Amy could think about was her own mother and how her mother would clean Keeley’s wounds and wash her hair and bandage her. She would probably make her something nice and comforting to eat, too, like a grilled cheese sandwich and they would all get one. Amy’s mouth started watering thinking about that warm gooey sandwich.
But Zooey looked very serious. She kept a hand on Keeley’s shoulder.
Keeley said, her voice watery from tears, “I can’t tell. If I tell, then maybe it’s true. Maybe she really…”
Amy stared at Keeley. What was she talking about? Who?
Pam spoke up, her voice louder than before. “What? What are you talking about?”
Zooey shushed Pam. “Don’t shout, Pam. Let her talk.” She put her arm around Keeley protectively.
“I am!” Pam yelled and then lowered her voice, and looked around at each of them, “I am. I don’t understand.”
Join the club, Amy thought.
“You were telling us about your mom,” Zooey prompted softly. She rubbed Keeley’s arm, and peeked under her hat at her face.
Her mom! What? Amy felt an electric zinging feeling pass through her.
Keeley mewled and nodded.
“It’s okay,” Zooey said again.
Keeley told them then, her voice halting and then surging in pulses like a wonky outboard motor. She stood among them, her head hung low, her face obscured by the hat and told them everything about her mother’s hidden hatred for her, about the hitting that started and then had just gotten worse. They heard the basics that day and more details of the story would be filled in over the years.
It all began two years before, when Keeley was five. Before then she was coddled and spoiled by both parents, a favored pet in their family, the darling little girl that was a perfect counterpart to her older golden-boy brother, Sean. Four years older than Keeley, at nine Sean was their family’s shining light. Like his father, Sean was both scholastically gifted, a straight-A student, and an athletic star – he was both the captain of his ice hockey team as well as one of the best players on his school’s tennis team.
Riding home on his bike late one night after tennis practice, he’d taken a shortcut through a little wooded area, probably hungry and tired and in a rush to get home. Keeley’s mother, Maggie, held dinner as long as she could, going to the front door again and again to look for Sean. When she and Keeley finally sat down to eat - her father was working late as usual and not home for dinner - the food was dry and hard from being kept in the oven for over an hour.
After they finished eating, Maggie called her husband’s office, and not reaching him, called the police. Sean was found two hours later by the police lying just off the path in the woods, his head split open by a rock from when he fell off of his bike. There was nothing in the path to explain why he had fallen and the assumption was that an animal had been in the path and Sean had swerved to avoid hitting it.
Keeley’s parents changed forever that night. Their marriage had never been strong. Joseph O’Brien was a workaholic and rarely home, usually seeking the bottle and the solace of other men’s company at a local bar when he wanted to relax. Maggie’s social ambitions exceeded her working-class reach and her failure to be truly accepted by the genteel women of the local garden club was a grave disappointment to her, making her bitter and often depressed. What had held them together, what had been their favorite topic of conversation on the rare nights and weekends when Joe was around, were their ambitions for their son.
Sean’s aptitude for numbers, something Joe had never had, meant he could work on Wall Street one day, where the real money was. Joe’s career in advertising, despite long hours and hard work, had never really taken off and he was still only an assistant account executive. Things would be different for Sean. Doors would open. Maggie could see him living the kind of life she had always dreamed of: one of yachts and sprawling estates and regular trips to Paris and Rome.
After Sean’s death, Joe all but disappeared from their lives, only showing up when sufficiently harangued by Maggie, and Maggie’s bitterness blossomed into anger at the world, at the unfairness of her life, and specifically, anger at Keeley for being the one to live. That was when the beatings started. First it was slaps and smacks and ordering Keeley to go to her room. Then Maggie started using a big wooden hairbrush. Then, it was an aluminum frying pan.
This summer, Joe had come out to Captain’s on the weekends, but yesterday was Monday and he was back home and at work. Keeley said she hadn’t seen it coming last night. She had been sitting at the kitchen table waiting for her mother to serve dinner. Her mother had been grumbling to herself, but that was typical.
Then, all of the sudden, smack! Her mother hit her in the back of the head with the aluminum frying pan that she had stopped cooking with and now only used on Keeley. Keeley fell on the floor in surprise.
The girls still clustered around her, Keeley said, “She just kept hitting me on the head while I was lying there and yelling about my head being the one that should be cracked open and not Sean’s. Every time I tried to cover up my head to protect it, she’d grab my arms away and hit me again. I really thought I was going to die. That she was going to smash my head open. It hurt so bad. Then she just stopped. Dropped the pan on the floor and went to her bedroom. Left the food burning on the stove with me lying on the floor. She wanted me to die last night.”
Amy was frozen in shock, her feet glued to the floor. She had never heard anything like it. Sure, kids got spankings sometimes. Sometimes they deserved them. But this? It was terrifying.
Pam, who had also been silent and still while listening to Keeley’s story, suddenly spoke. “No, she didn’t mean it, not really! My mom gets the blues sometimes, that’s what she calls it when she won’t leave the house, and she’s really mean to me. But after, she always tells me she loves me, that she didn’t mean it, what she said. Your mom’s just the same way. She doesn’t mean it!”
Amy looked over at Pam. Her mother, too? What was wrong here? Her mom and all her friends’ moms back home had always been a source of love and comfort and care. How was it possible for them to be anything else? They were mothers! They’re supposed to be that way. She couldn’t get her mind around this whole thing. It was like there was a stop sign in her head.
Keeley lifted the brim of the hat and looked at Pam and then at each of them. “No. She means it. She really does.” Then her face crumpled. “Oh, I don’t know what I�
�m going to do!”
They all hugged Keeley again, all looking at each other over her head, their faces filled with fear and confusion. Amy wanted her mother to see Keeley’s head, but Keeley adamantly refused. Pam took over then and they all went to the bathroom downstairs together, hooked the lock on the door, and camped out while Pam gently washed Keeley’s hair. They used up a whole box of Band-aids on Keeley’s head as well as some Bacitracin, which made Keeley whimper and squeal in pain when it was applied to her still-oozing wounds.
Even though it was a beautiful sunny day, the girls didn’t want to swim or sail, they just wanted to take care of Keeley. They stayed in the house all day, playing board games on the screened-in porch and ignoring Rich and Jim, who were crouched under the porch yelling out jokes and quotes from Saturday Night Live. Keeley kept her hat on over her newly bandaged head to hide it from Amy’s parents. After much pleading from the girls, Amy’s mother agreed to a sleepover, and the girls breathed a sigh of relief knowing Keeley would be safe that night. Pam and Zooey had to get permission for the sleepover from their parents, but Keeley didn’t go home at all.
“She doesn’t care if I ever come back,” she said, and shrugged. Then she changed the subject, talking about a dollhouse she’d seen in a magazine that had real working lamps. Amy told her mother that Keeley’s mother had given permission, feeling slightly guilty but justified in her lie.
Keeley went back to her house the following night and didn’t say another word about her mother. She wouldn’t even talk about the subject if one of the other girls brought it up. Her head healed and came out of hiding from behind the floppy sunhat after two weeks. Their days returned to the old pattern they’d had before, but now, when they saw the bruises, they knew Keeley wasn’t clumsy, had never been. Tears would start in Amy’s eyes at those moments and she would wipe them away quickly, understanding that’s what Keeley wanted, for things to be happy and normal. That was all she understood.
Chapter 20
Keeley paid the fare, tipping lavishly as she always did, and climbed out of the cab onto the strip of gray carpet that stretched to the door of the Upper East Side apartment building under a long navy awning and let the doorman, who had opened the cab’s door, shut it behind her. She looked at the entrance to the building and felt the strong urge to pee, the way she always did when she was nervous. If she went to the toilet now, there would be practically nothing. It wasn’t a physical thing.
She smoothed the skirt of her pink tweed suit that was a Chanel knockoff and, hopefully, acceptable. Ben was right, why didn’t she just buy the real thing? Yes, the cost was ridiculous. Yes, there was a long waiting list. But she could afford it, unbelievably.
“It’s a stupid waste of money!” she had protested when Ben had brought it up. “Plus, a waiting list? Are they kidding?”
“Chanel’s the best,” Ben said. “Why don’t you treat yourself?”
Keeley shook her head. “I’d rather spend it on something fun, like a hot air balloon ride or a trip to Italy or something.”
Now she wished she had waited on that list and spent the money. The suit she was wearing wasn’t even a fall suit, it was a spring one. Was that okay? She didn’t know with these people. She was a margaritas-and-jeans kind of girl, one at home on an island with no electricity and water pumped from rainwater cisterns. She and the other Barefooters made fun of hoity-toity types. What was she doing here?
But she knew that answer. Feeling high after sending her daughter the keys to Captain’s and the Barefooter house, certain it helped make up for her lack of forgiveness, she ran into Rebecca Matthews on the street while shopping. Rebecca was a sweet, though thick, woman who was married to one of Ben’s colleagues and was always trying to rope Keeley in to volunteer on one of the many charity committees she was involved with. This time, Rebecca succeeded. It was for cancer after all; one of Keeley’s biggest fears was dying painfully and slowly from some form of cancer.
So here she was, about to go to a committee luncheon. The luncheon would be at Brooke Somerset’s apartment just a block from Central Park. It was the first meeting of the event committee for the annual Cure Cancer Now Spring Ball and Silent Auction hosted by the Somerset Cancer Research Foundation. The committee was, of course, headed up by Brooke, a tireless volunteer and well-known socialite.
Keeley took a deep breath, straightened up, and walked as nonchalantly as she could into the building, the doorman rushing from the cab to the door to open it for her. After approaching the porter, another clean-cut man standing behind a tiny reception desk in the lobby, he called up to the Somerset’s apartment and announced her arrival. Then she was riding up in the paneled elevator that came complete with a little leather bench for those unable or unwilling to stand for the few minutes it took to ride up or down in the elevator.
The elevator deposited her directly into a pristinely white vestibule with a large heavy wooden door that was already swinging open to admit her.
“Keeley? Keeley Cohen?”
Keeley hesitated. She would never get used to her new last name. She was Keeley O’Brien. Who was Keeley Cohen?
The sunlight pouring in behind the woman standing in the door made it impossible to see her face, but Keeley could see that she had a short dark bob of sleek shiny hair and that she was dressed in separates rather than a suit. She was also wearing flats instead of heels. Mistake number one: Keeley was overdressed.
“Yes? I’m Keeley?”
“Oh, howlovelytomeetyou,” the woman said so quickly it became one word. “I’m Brooke. So sorry, but we’ve already started. We didn’t know what had happened?”
Keeley was fifteen minutes late, but thought it normal to be fashionably late. That was why it was called “fashionable”, right?
“Oh,” Keeley breathed, not sure what lie to tell. “Traffic! You know how it is!” She tried to smile, but it felt like a grimace.
“Oh, too bad. Our driver is so good, he always gets us out of the worst jams. We’re spoiled by him, really. Please, come in!”
Stepping closer, Keeley could finally see Brooke’s face and saw she was about the same age, early forties. Brooke’s facial features were all tiny: a small pointed nose, close-set dark eyes, and narrow lips that looked incapable of being pursed for a kiss. Her only beauty came from her high cheekbones and strong jawline.
She also didn’t have a speck of makeup on her face. Not even mascara! Keeley suddenly wondered about her own lipstick and blush and fully made-up eyes. She saw a slight smirk twist Brooke’s lips. Brooke said, “Rebecca speaks so highly of you! I’m so glad you could take the time to join us today. Please, let’s not keep the other girls waiting.”
Keeley walked with Brooke down the hallway, trying not to gawk at all the artwork on the walls. Ornate gold framed oil canvases were arranged artfully on both sides and rose nearly all the way to the ceiling. Keeley squinted at a familiar looking painting as they passed it. Was that a real Renoir? The oriental runner wasn’t a fake like the one in Keeley’s apartment and it looked to be a perfectly kept antique that was just the right side of shabby.
Then they entered the dining room, impressive with its high paneled ceiling, huge crystal chandelier, and solid oak Victorian furniture. Seated at the table were nine women, all dressed as Brooke was in simple separates and all equally makeup-free. They were engrossed in quiet conversation and weren’t eating as much as moving their salads around on their plates with their forks. Brooke gestured to the one empty seat that, thankfully, was next to Rebecca’s. Then Brooke smiled at Keeley in that artificial way that was all teeth, and went to sit at the head of the table. The other women barely noticed Keeley’s arrival, only glancing up before continuing their conversations.
“Where were you?” Rebecca hissed, her usually pale face pink and moist-looking.
Keeley looked at her. The woman was actually wearing a headband. A headband! What was she doing here again? No, but Rebecca was nice. With the exception of the Barefooters, most wo
men didn’t like Keeley. No matter how hard she tried, they were either cold and rejecting or jealous and scheming. When she married Ben, Keeley had hoped that at least the jealousy would end; she was off the market after all. But, no, it was still there, vibrating off most of the women she met.
Rebecca was different. She always asked about Hannah, always acted as if whatever Keeley said was fascinating, always complimented her on something every time she saw her. Keeley would consider Rebecca a friend if it wasn’t for the fact that she was a bit dumb and had no sense of humor at all. Rebecca just didn’t get jokes or sarcasm or silly things. She would get this blank look and you could see her desperately trying to “get it”. Then she produced a ridiculous fake barking laugh and accompanied it with a fierce arm slapping that left Keeley’s arm feeling bruised.
Keeley started to answer but was interrupted by the ting-ting-ting of Brooke tapping her crystal water glass with her silver fork.
“Ladies! Thank you so much for joining me for lunch to discuss this year’s event. As many of you know from past years, I usually give this little speech before starting our meal, but as one of our newest volunteers was unavoidably detained, I’ll have to give it now,” Brooke said, nodding and smiling that terrible smile at Keeley again before refocusing on the group.
Keeley looked down at mesclun salad on her plate. The extra dig was over the top. Was it really that big of a deal? The public jab reminded her of someone. Brooke’s smile, too. It was so familiar. It involved the lower teeth as well as the upper, like an animal baring its teeth.
“As you know, last year’s event was our most successful yet with over three hundred attendees and almost all of our donated auction items bringing in three to four times their estimated value. This year, we need to make it even better. We’ll just keep topping ourselves!” Brooke said, smiling more genuinely now and emitting a low chuckle of satisfaction.
The women at the table broke into light applause, startling Keeley. “Hear, hear!” called Rebecca. Keeley started to bring her hands together just as everyone else stopped clapping, and her loud claps echoed in the silence. She stopped as quickly as she could and pushed her hands into her lap.