“This is the problem with convertibles in anything but great weather,” Colleen said. “They are muggy and cramped and unreliable. Come on, crew, let’s get in the trailer. At least there are snacks back there.” She opened the door, pulled her seat forward, and helped Tam out. Bitty got out the other side and they both slammed their doors and ran for the door to the trailer.
When they climbed in, it was incredibly dark and dank.
“There,” Colleen said in the darkness. “Isn’t that better?” She gave a dry laugh, opened the curtains, letting in the flashing neon glow of the sign, then said, “I’ve got some candles here somewhere. They were in that carved box I got at the auction in Florence.” She felt around. “Got ’em.” And started to set them on the little Formica table. “Now all we need is matches.” She frowned and looked around, then said, “Tam?”
“I—” Tam started uncertainly. “I think I have a lighter, hang on.” She dug around in her purse until she found it and handed it over to Colleen. As if lighting the candles herself would prove she knew how to use a lighter and that would be the damning thing.
As the glow bloomed before them, the trailer took on a pretty, albeit cramped, ambiance. Colleen took out a bag of trail mix and plopped it on the table. “Best I can do.”
“You have the Whipped,” Tam suggested.
“The what?”
“The Whipped.” She pointed. “That you got at that gas station on the way down.”
“Oh, yeah.” Colleen got up and brought the cans over to the table. She wrestled the plastic lid off one and squirted it into her mouth. “Not bad. Not bad at all.” She handed it over Bitty. “Try it.”
Bitty didn’t even question why this would be a good idea but opened her mouth and took some in. “Mmm. What is this?”
“Whipped cream and fifteen percent alcohol.”
“No way!” Bitty took another hit.
“Can I try it?” Tam asked. As if she hadn’t had it a hundred times before.
Colleen looked shamed, as if she’d been caught being rude. “I’m sorry, honey, it’s alcohol. Not that strong, but still. That would be irresponsible of me. But Bitty and I will put it away.”
“Like hell.” Bitty took another mouthful and said, “Let ’er ’ave some.” She swallowed. “Jeez, it’s not like you never drank when you were underage.”
“True,” Colleen conceded slowly, “but I’m supposed to be looking out for her best interests.”
“And it’s in her best interest to relax and have a little fun since we’re stuck here in the shadow of Ron Jeremy land.” Bitty handed Tam the bottle. “I’m making an executive decision. Go ahead.”
Tam looked at Colleen, who nodded her assent but turned her head slightly away. “I didn’t see.”
“No, because you were busy opening the hazelnut one.” Bitty gestured. “Get on it!”
Forty-five minutes later, Colleen had clearly lost track of her intention to keep track of Tam, and they’d gone all the way through the vanilla bottle, and the hazelnut one was starting to feel a bit light too. The rain continued to pelt down on the roof like pennies being hurled from heaven.
“Looks like we’re here for the night,” Bitty commented.
Colleen looked at her. “Because we’re drunk or because the Revenge of Noah is spilling out of the sky?”
“Well … both. Probably mostly the drunk thing.”
“Amen.”
Normally Tamara had a pretty high tolerance, but this stuff was getting to her too. She didn’t say anything, though. She didn’t want the small, rational part that remained in Colleen to come out and close up shop.
“Is anyone tired?” Colleen asked.
“Not me,” Bitty said.
Tam shook her head. “Me neither.”
Colleen looked at her watch. “It’s only nine P.M. This is going to be a really long night.”
“We could play a game?”
“I don’t see the opportunity for a lot of dares or anything,” said Bitty.
“Yeah, that and you always puss out when you get dared to do anything you don’t feel like doing.” Colleen rolled her eyes.
“No! Well, yes, but I was always being dared to do things like knock on a door in the boys’ dorm naked.”
Tam laughed. “Did you do it?”
“No, she didn’t,” said Colleen.
“But Colleen did.” Bitty fell back a little in laughter. “I couldn’t believe she really did it.”
“Yes, I did. I actually got a date out of that dare.”
“Yeah, no shit. You knock on a guy’s door naked, and he asked you out? Shocker!”
“Whatever!” Colleen tossed her hair. “Point is, what game would we play? I should have brought some kind of card game or something.”
They all thought for a second, until Tamara spoke up. “We could play Never Have I Ever again.”
“All right, I’m in. Who starts?” Colleen put a hand up.
“I’ll go,” said Tam. She racked her brain for a question that wasn’t boring, but wasn’t going to get her in trouble either. She wanted it to be good, though. She kind of liked hearing Colleen and Bitty’s stories. “Never Have I Ever … made out with a stranger.”
Colleen looked to Bitty, whose eyebrows had shot up, and who was avoiding eye contact. She put down her thumb and cleared her throat. “And moving on—”
“No, you have to tell her!”
“Tell me!”
“It wasn’t even a dare. I just … well, I felt someone standing behind me once at the bars and just leaned back and kissed him, thinking it was my boyfriend Blake … but it wasn’t. It was someone I didn’t know from Adam … but at least he was hot.”
“And a good kisser, you said.”
“Yes, but not as good as Blake.”
“Oh my god!” said Tam. “Was Blake pissed?”
“He thought it was hilarious! He watched the look on my face as I realized it wasn’t him. Apparently, I looked as horrified as I felt.”
“Your face was bright red. And that place was lit up by black lights, so it would have been impossible to tell if you had been a shade lighter than lobster Red.”
Bitty shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Yes, classy times.”
“Okay, Bitty, your turn.”
“Ha. Okay.” She tilted her head at Colleen. “Never have I ever gotten lost on Halloween, only to be found after two hours, dancing with a bunch of people dressed up like musical horns.”
“Oh my god, I didn’t mean to be lost!”
“Yes, you did! You stormed off all pissy,” Bitty said, and then looked to Tamara. “Word of advice: Never go out for Halloween in Fell’s Point in Baltimore and decide you’re angry over nothing, amble off dressed as Madonna, and get yourself lost.”
“The guy I was dating made some rude comment—”
“No, he didn’t!” Bitty squawked. “You admitted you misheard him.”
“Well, whatever. I thought he said something rude. So I stomped off. And. Yes. Got lost immediately. In a time before cell phones. And was not found until hours later. Maybe if my friends were a little nicer and found me sooner, I wouldn’t have had to accept the free shots from the Justice League, and start dancing with those horns.”
“She made a fool of herself. Lesson here, Tamara, is that drinking can make you unreasonable and get you lost. And give your best friend blackmail material, like a picture of you backing your butt up on a man in a trombone costume.”
Tamara smiled. She had dreaded this trip and been so mad that her father made her come, but now she was sitting here with two of the coolest betches she’d ever meet. She wished she’d known this Colleen, and not the Instagram-reporting one, a long time ago. It would have been nice to have her to go to with some of her problems.
Maybe it still wasn’t too late.…
“Okay, my turn.” Colleen put up her hand, now with four fingers.
A couple rounds passed, and the rain got harder. Tamara laughed
at their old stories, at first, really enjoying them. Then becoming stupidly, childishly jealous of the fact that they had each other, and that at the end of the day, she still didn’t have someone to share all those best-friend experiences with.
Finally, running out of things, Tam shrugged and tossed out, “Never have I ever not found out the person I was dating until recently is really a cheating asshole.”
Both of the women looked at her.
“Vince cheated on you?” asked Colleen. Tamara found it nice she had taken the time to remember his name, but also felt like it was a waste. He was a waste.
“Yep.”
“I’m so sorry, honey.”
Bitty put down a finger.
“Wait, what?” said Tam.
Bitty spritzed a little more Whipped into her mouth and nodded slowly. “My husband cheated on me.”
Colleen said nothing.
“My turn, right?” asked Bitty. “Never have I ever been married to a straight man.”
Tamara’s eyes widened into half dollars, and Colleen went, “Whoa! What?”
Bitty nodded again. “Yep. Walked in on my husband with another man. We separated a year ago. Here I am today.”
“So when we ran into you at Henley’s—”
“I wasn’t in a good place. I was kind of on my last leg, I guess.” The look on her face confirmed it. “You know, I mean, I did what I’m supposed to do, you know? I tried to get back up on that horse and be okay. To just simply keep on living. I got a little apartment in town—well, a little outside of town. And I knew I’d lost my position as a leader there, but I still spent the next year doing my best to be part of coordination for events and gallery openings and all. It’s amazing how even a Race for the Cure can become a political thing in the society of a small place like that.”
“What happened then?” asked Tamara. “Were you sad or what?”
She took in a deep breath. “I was utterly alone. I had spent my entire adult life piecing together this life, and it was irrevocably shattered into dust. It wasn’t just that he cheated once with a pretty waitress or something. This was fundamental and not going away, no matter how I handled it. So. Yes. I felt hopeless, and once I was on my own, it was so much worse. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be saying all of this, especially in front of you, Tam.”
Contrary to how she might think, and maybe it was messed up, but all of this was kinda making Tamara feel better. “No, please. I’m not, like, gonna be weird. Just keep going. You need to talk about it.” She parroted the words her school guidance counselor had always told her.
Bitty gave a tight smile and went on, “I don’t mean to be a downer, but coming home to that small apartment, filled with almost nothing, and having nothing sentimental even to make it feel like home—well, it was miserable. And I didn’t want to leave. When I did, I was gossiped about and treated with superficial smiles I could almost feel vanish from their faces the second I turned my back. I couldn’t win. The only thing I could do was move away and start over. But I have no connection to anywhere. To anyone anywhere. And to go out and date now is … Ugh.”
Colleen was watching her intently as she spoke, doing the Colleen thing: taking it all in, deciding how she felt, setting those feelings aside, and seeing how the sad person felt. Then reevaluating her own feelings on it.
“But you know what?” Bitty spoke to the two of them, but glanced at Tamara in the eyes before going on. “I was the most hopeless I have ever been in my life. I felt just about as awful as I believe a person can feel in my situation. And whatever stuff happened in between, I’m here now, on the other side of it. Glad I’m not with him. Glad I’m not dead. Glad I can move on.”
Tamara nodded. The silence now between them, and the cacophony outside, made her want to be honest. To say what had happened. She said it fast, the way her confessions always came out. Like ripping off a Band-Aid.
“When I left home, I agreed to give my stupid, cheating boyfriend a blow job. And he recorded it. And I didn’t know at first. And now it’s all over the Internet.”
That was another slap in the face for them. Colleen looked immediately sick, while Bitty looked like she was trying not to look intrigued as well as concerned.
Tam nodded. “It’s eating away at me, and I feel like I needed to say it out loud. I know how bad it is. I know I was an idiot. I know there’s—”
Tamara had been talking into her hands, but was cut off by Colleen’s arms around her. At first she didn’t know what to do, but then as Colleen squeezed her, she felt an emotional catch in her throat. Was Tamara really going to cry again? What a lot of that she’d been doing for the last couple of weeks.
It was weird, but she had been happier in the last few weeks than in the past few years. And some of the worst stuff that could have happened had all happened in that two weeks. Especially the night in St. Augustine.
She always pictured Rock Bottom as a well. A cold, dark, slimy, wet well. So if she had been rappelling down into this well for however long now, being pushed down by Vince and anyone else—mostly herself—then on this trip, she had definitely landed on the bottom. But now, and maybe it was kind of lame or whatever, but it felt like she was reaching around on that grimy wet ground and had found a key. A key that might unlock some happiness for her. All she had to do was climb back out of that well, and not slip on the way up.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Colleen
“Gaaawd,” Colleen whispered to Bitty sotto voce when they stepped outside and left Tamara asleep in the trailer. “Can you believe what that poor kid has been through?” She was distinctly tipsy. Distinctly.
Bitty, however, was pretty sober. And she agreed. “It’s awful.”
“We need to save her.”
“How?”
“You.” Colleen jabbed a finger toward Bitty. “You should adopt her.”
Bitty gave a laugh. “I—I don’t think she’s up for adoption.”
“Just think how much fun you guys could have! Doing girl stuff together, shopping, mani-pedis, face masks, eating junk food while you watch The Sound of Music for the zillionth time—”
“Colleen.”
“Mmm?”
“It sounds like you’re thinking how much fun you could have with her.”
She was. She was she was she was. But would she and Tam always have some small vestige of resentment between them for Colleen’s telling on her? It had been on her own mind a lot, but she hadn’t wanted to bring it up. Then again, Tam’s revealing her story had been a big leap of faith. “I— Do you really think I could?”
“Are you kidding? Aunts and uncles take over for their lame siblings like that all the time. It’s whatever’s in the best interest of the child, right? Do you think Kevin’s brother would object?”
“I don’t know,” she said honestly. Colleen had no doubt Chris would be overjoyed to be able to unload this burden onto someone else. But she was not so sure his pride would let him admit his failure in that way. So he might hold on to her, damaging her more and more each day, all in the name of saving face.
What would it really be like, having Tamara at the house full-time? It wasn’t like this was the first time she’d met her or anything, but it was significant that this was the first time she’d liked her.
Then again, this was the first time she’d gotten to know Tamara at all. How could she have formed a real decision before this?
Now that she knew Tamara, and they’d talked as much as they had, and she’d really gotten to know her better, she was already thinking about weekend visits, maybe a trip to New York. And, yeah, maybe if Tam hadn’t seen The Sound of Music, they could have a movie and popcorn night.
Maybe everything in her life—every coincidence, every uncertainty, all the stuff with Kevin and her meeting with Julia—maybe all of it had been some grand design, proving that she and Kevin were a good and strong alliance and they had the love and strength together to help raise this troubled kid alongside their own. Maybe—though
this might be a stretch—maybe that was why they’d never been able to have another child, the daughter Colleen had longed for so much, maybe that was because that girl was already out there, waiting for them to find her.
Her conviction was strong, but she wasn’t sure her argument would be right now. “How do I sound?” she asked Bitty. “Do you think I could have a conversation with Kevin that wouldn’t be totally invalidated by all that—” She gestured toward the trailer. “—whatever it was that I had?”
Bitty considered, then, after a moment, said, “I think you have something important to say, and you have a lot of conviction right now. And, yes, you’re tipsy. But you don’t sound hammered or anything. So, yeah, give him a call. See what he says.”
“I’m going to.”
Bitty nodded. “I’ll go back in the trailer.”
“Bitty.”
She stopped and turned back. “Yeah?”
“Is there more of that stuff in there?”
Bitty took a look. “Several cans.”
“Good.” Colleen heaved a sigh of relief. “I’m gonna need it.”
Two minutes later, she was pitching the idea to Kevin. No intro to the idea, no laying of groundwork; she felt strongly about this, and all she needed to do was communicate that to him.
“Hon,” he said, “a week and a half ago, when you were leaving, you were absolutely dreading having to take her with you.”
“I know. But I didn’t really know her then. Obviously. She was a reputation more than a person. Now that I’ve gotten to know her, Kevin, she’s so vulnerable. She has so many needs. I’ve got to tell you I’m scared of what will happen if she stays with Chris.”
There was a long exhalation on the other line. “It’s true, I never would have pegged Chris as Father of the Year.”
“Think about Jay,” she said. “Think about how many times we’ve had to walk on eggshells to preserve his self-esteem and confidence. No one has ever done that for this girl. But it’s not too late.” She thought of the story of the video and what Tamara potentially had to go back to if she couldn’t come and live with Colleen. It was horrible to imagine that all her progress—and her opening up and talking about her feelings—might be for nothing if she had to go back to that sand trap.
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