The Truth About Mallory Bain

by Clare Hexom

  A pair of mannequins silently sipped from matching glasses adorned with lime slices. They smiled and nodded in unison whenever ambushed for conversation. I never did catch how they knew the Fowlers, but I had the feeling they didn’t know them well.

  Dana saved Erik’s closest friends for last. Ryan Collins, the human resource director with his company, divorced, mid-thirties, and a chess buff, as was Erik, to my surprise. The other obvious candidate for my attention was Lance Garner, never married, thirty-two.

  Ryan towered over my five-five height. I guessed he stood a good six-four. Sandy-haired. Chinless, but handsome in another woman’s opinion—I didn’t much care to let another man’s looks grow on me like I had allowed Chad’s. Ryan’s stern bearing and need to peer at me through the bottom lenses of his glasses whenever I spoke nearly made me twitch.

  While his eyes shamelessly devoured my cleavage, I noticed a tiny tuft of moist nose hair I wished I hadn’t seen, but happily knew I wouldn’t forget in a million years. He offered me his hand for a firm, businesslike shake, then shifted his shoulders. My hand returned the shake deliberately limp and apathetic. I felt confident in my guesses as to why Mrs. Collins was no longer hanging on his arm.

  When Lance took my hand in his and said hello, I caught an ever-so-slight, enchanting, and courtly tip of his head and left shoulder, reminiscent of those imaginary knights exiting our front door so many years ago.

  He was handsomely dressed, a man in touch with his style, and he wore it well. He stood taller than Rick, a strong six feet at least. His dark hair gave him an opposite appearance from either golden-haired Ben or tow-haired Chad, and his pewter eyes exuded the tenderness missing from my life. He sported a sculptured black goatee, giving him an air of mystery and allure that made my heart beat a tad bit faster standing beside him.

  There was not one speck of unsightliness about him apart from nervousness which drove him to fidget with his jacket buttons, shove his hands in his pockets, and occasionally glance down at his well-polished shoes. I was mystified as to why no Mrs. Garner stood at this lovely man’s side.

  He easily struck up a conversation by explaining how he had bumped into a friend of a friend at a conference two years ago, and before one of the presentations, she introduced him to Erik. They became business friends and eventually racquetball partners.

  “Erik plays racquetball,” I said. “I guess there’s a lot I don’t know about him anymore.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at Erik standing a few feet away from us. “People change.”

  His stance relaxed when I smiled. Attaching myself to one of these men was Dana’s intent, not mine, although I had difficulty taking my eyes off of Lance.

  I spent much of the evening before dinner visiting with Jillian, Rachel, and Adam, who stayed glued to Rachel’s side. He confided to me the Fowlers were Rachel’s friends, but I think he feared the consequences if he dared peek at Dana.

  The three of them understood my dilemma without much explanation about being recently divorced and shy of dating. They drew me into their circle by helping me escape Ryan’s clumsy attempts to get better acquainted. Lance captured my attention at times but never pushed. Quite frankly, he had a way about him that actually left me wanting more.

  Dana flaunted her role of hostess superbly. She entertained with wittiness and charm. Over the years she had perfected her inclination to be the center of attention around men with a subtle roll of her shoulder and amusing conversation. Jillian showed indifference. Cassandra lingered on the sidelines beside Maria Lyon, the lady mannequin. Both kept a close eye on their men during the Dana show.

  Later on, Dana snuggled uncomfortably close to me, close enough for me to notice a blue bruise on the wrist of the hand holding her glass.

  “Are you enjoying the evening?” Her tawny beverage splashed over the pile of ice.

  “I am.” I stepped back into a more comfortable space. “Your friends are nice.”

  “Tell me who is more handsome, Ryan or Lance.” She swayed. “Erik made a teeny side bet with me and I’m dying to know if I won.”

  “Side bet. Great.” I know I smirked.

  With her glass to her lips she uttered, “Uh-huh.”

  I looked away. “Dana, stop. Set-ups stink.”

  “Busy people need them nowadays.” Her eyes widened. She poked her forefinger at me. “You need a man in your life.”

  I took a sip of my lemon water and shook my head fast. “I said, ‘don’t’. You mean well, but I’m not ready.”

  “You can’t still be carrying a torch for Chad. Your marriage is over.”

  I’d grown tired of her party and her. Disgusting images of her and Chad as younger adults romping in bed floated around my head. Yet I felt obligated to stay, if only to spare Erik the awkwardness of me grabbing my coat and rushing out the door because his wife was an ill-mannered boozer and undoubtedly the tramp Jack Harwood once called her.

  My longtime friendship with her forced me into giving her the benefit of doubt. Perhaps she believed her intentions were sincere and her condescension really had come out of a liquor bottle instead of intentional meanness. She lacked understanding about me as a woman years different from the naïve girl she’d once known.

  I inhaled deeply. “Rest assured, Dana, I’ve come to terms with all of the changes in my life.”

  “There’s no question if Ben were alive, you’d cling to him in a heartbeat.”

  Her words cut like a double-edged blade. “Sober up, will you?” I started walking away to find my coat and leave.

  “Mallory, wait. I’m sorry.” She touched my arm.

  “Coming here was a bad idea.”

  “Please. Don’t go. That was a terrible insult to your memory of Ben. I am truly sorry.”

  I looked down at her hand resting on my arm and saw a larger bruise on the underside of her forearm.

  I turned over her hand. “You have bruises.”

  She tugged her sleeve down. “Emma. She grabs on and swings. Please stay. I do need your opinion on dessert.”

  I’d seen her interact with Emma enough to doubt her daughter would ever dare grab on and swing. The cause of those bruises was none of my business, and sometimes not knowing was best.

  I tried my best to smile. “Chocolate, I hope.”

  “Fudgy.” She led me into the kitchen. “I seldom serve untried recipes on guests. Poor Erik eats his share of my failed experiments.”

  She lifted one of several dessert dishes from the refrigerator shelf and handed it to me, along with a spoon from a nearby drawer.

  The texture of the first bite melted in my mouth. The flavor of the second tasted unlike anything I’d ever eaten—not sweet, and another bite was downright bitter. An unusual kind of nut— no, tiny chunks of jellied, bitter fruit.

  “Different,” I said. My nose wrinkled. “It needs sweet.”

  Her cheeks and neck reddened. “I ran out of regular chocolate so I substituted unsweetened.” She shrugged.

  “There is an unusual flavor. Not unsweetened chocolate.”

  She gave me a deer in the headlights gaze.

  “Candied fruit?”

  Her glossy eyes widened. A soused deer in the headlights gaze. “Citron!”

  My recollection of citron in Grandma Bain’s holiday fruit cake failed to confirm her claim, though I did recall citron was a lemonlike fruit. Even if Dana had consumed a gallon of bourbon, she ought to know the ingredients. Not that I would ever make such a concoction, but as a guest, I felt obligated to be polite despite her propensity for rudeness.

  She steadied herself, laying one hand flat against the counter’s edge. “I whipped cream.”

  I set the dish on the counter.

  She scooped on a dollop. She threw open the cupboard and pulled out a bag of chocolate, which she dumped into a bowl and microwaved.

  With the added sweetness and cream, I finished the rest of the dessert. “You fixed it. Much better.”

  She smiled with a sigh of r
elief.

  When she finally served dinner, I felt full, bloated, as if I’d already overeaten. I welcomed the chance to sit and relieve my feet from the pinch of my narrow high heels. Lance pulled out the chair to my left and Jillian took the chair on my right, leaving Ryan to fend for himself.

  I enjoyed visiting with my dinner companions, especially Lance. We’d been having such an enjoyable conversation that he accompanied me from the dining room. He captivated my attention with a story about two black bear cubs ransacking their campsite during his vacation up north. He and his younger brother jumped into their boat, narrowly escaping a skirmish with the mother.

  “She marked us as dead men,” said Lance.

  “I’m glad you survived,” I nodded and smiled. “Do you live here in Plymouth, too?”

  “I have a condo in the Crocus Hill neighborhood. St. Paul.”

  “I’ve been there. Quaint.”

  He went on to entertain me with one amusing story after another. He admitted how much he, too, disliked set-ups and explained how that dislike caused his hesitation when Dana first introduced us.

  I opened my mouth to speak when my stomach convulsed. I bent forward against an intense cramp in my abdomen. Pain sent me reeling with dizziness. “I need to sit.” I tipped sideways. My legs gave way.

  Lance scooped me into his arms. “Too much wine.” He carried me over to the sofa.

  “Lemon water.” I struggled to stay awake—fight the wooziness, calm the pain. I heard a voice mumble, my voice sounding disconnected and not coming from me. “I’m driving home.”

  He knelt beside me. “Tonight you’re not.”

  Lying down eased the pain but a bitter taste permeated my mouth and my dinner churned. “I am not at all well.”

  “Let me get you an antacid. A cold, damp rag?” A cute grin formed. He whispered, “A barf bag?”

  I choked out a chuckle. “Either the rag or the antacid. Thank you.”

  Jillian sat down beside me and lifted my wrist for a pulse check. Lance rattled off an explanation of what had happened before he left us.

  “Were you sick before dinner?” she asked.

  I shook my head no. My eyes shifted between her mentally assessing my radial beats and Lance jogging down the hallway, presumably toward a bathroom.

  “I’m overtired,” I told Jillian. “Been doing too much. I need to sleep.”

  She laid the back of her hand against my forehead. “Maybe you need to throw up. I can help you into the bathroom.”

  “I want to lay still.”

  Rachel sat down on the sofa arm by my feet. Lance appeared with a white bottle and a damp cloth. Maria saw his intent and left for the kitchen.

  Jillian folded the washcloth. “I’ll put this on your forehead.”

  “Will she be all right?” asked Lance.

  “I’m not sure.” Jillian took the spoon from Maria and poured out a dose of the white liquid.

  The antacid took the edge off the nausea but not the pain. Dana brought a fresh bed pillow and spread a lightweight cotton quilt over me. I turned on my side and pulled my knees up into a bent position to ease the pain. Rachel removed my shoes and set them on the floor. She, Lance, and Dana remained with me, while Jillian stepped aside. I heard her talking to someone standing behind Dana.

  My heavy eyes stayed closed under the damp cloth. My swimming head pressed deeper into the soft pillow. Although newly acquainted, these people gave me comfort, showed me that other friends of the Fowlers were good people.

  When either sleep or unconsciousness fell upon me, that familiar male voice shouted inside my head.

  “Get—out—of—here! Get out now!”

  I raised the cloth and searched for Lance. He was gone. Rachel and Maria, too. Dana and Jillian were sitting with me.

  “What did you say?” Dana sounded stern.

  Had I spoken aloud?

  Jillian shook out the damp cloth and refolded it into quarters. A sudden pain punched my stomach. I sat upright to stand but then rolled sideward and groaned.

  “This could be appendicitis,” said Jillian.

  “Erik is calling for an ambulance,” said Adam.

  “I’m hot. I’m going to be sick.” I raised myself up. Adam and Jillian helped me stand.

  I overheard Erik in the background talking about my symptoms. Lance asked Rachel to grab my car keys from my purse.

  Rachel. Not Dana.

  I pulled from Jillian’s support and burst into the bathroom toward the toilet. Blackness shrouded my eyes. My body folded onto the hardness of floor.

  Unfamiliar voices were talking. A radio squawked. I was being lifted onto another cold but softer surface. Powerless to awaken fully, I acknowledged the voice telling me to get out had not been Lance or any of the other men’s voices I’d been hearing all evening. A familiar male face flashed through my mind but his image never took hold for me to remember. Sleep pulled me under, and I succumbed.

  “Mallory. Mallory honey, wake up.”

  Mom.

  Her voice was no less real than the man’s voice shouting at me to get out. I strained to raise my eyelids. My mother stood beside me clutching my hand as if I were dying.

  “I’m in a bed.” My voice came out weak. I scanned the bright room behind her. Stark. Unfamiliar faces atop scrub-clad bodies walked by. A few looked in my direction and smiled. My brain drifted in a fog.

  “You’re in North Memorial with food poisoning. They’re giving you intravenous fluids and talking about more tests.”

  I glanced up to my left. A clear bag, nearly full of clear liquid, hung from a stainless pole rising above my head.

  My throat felt parched, achy. I coughed. “What kind of tests?”

  “More blood, urine.”

  The memory of a clipboard, papers, and a thick white pen with a pink breast cancer ribbon printed on the plastic. A calm woman speaking softly above my face flashed through my mind, as did the memory of a woman wearing pink scrubs who spoke softly before sticking a needle into my forearm.

  “Not appendicitis?” I asked.

  “No. They emptied your stomach. We won’t know the results of all the tests for a few days.” Her face showed worry. “The doctor suspects poison. A gastric irritant.”

  “Well, that’s just nasty.”

  “No chemicals. You must have eaten tainted food.”

  “I ate takeout, and then Dana’s dinner, but everybody would be sick.”

  Mom shook her head and gave my hand a squeeze. “You were heavily sedated.”

  “Here we go again.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “I need water, and don’t you dare accuse me of taking drugs.”

  She reached for the styrofoam cup and held the straw to my mouth. “Small sips. You were out cold when the paramedics arrived. The initial drug screening was negative. I’ll give you that.”

  “How big of you.”

  “I am sorry, Mallory Anne, but as your mother and Caleb’s grandmother, I need to ask. People do slip things.”

  “Not those people.” I closed my eyes at her.

  “A lady named Jillian called me. You passed out completely when she and I were on the phone.”

  “Rest assured, Mother, I have never taken drugs. Shame on you.”

  “You’d have asked the same about me.”

  I chuckled. “I wasn’t born yet in nineteen seventy-four, but had I been there, you’d be first in line for a screening.”

  “Hush up. There’s a nice young man in the waiting room— Lance.”

  “He is nice.” I closed my eyes and smiled. “He saved me from a bad fall.”

  “So he said. You’ve been jabbering to me the past half hour.” Mom leaned close to my ear. She squeezed and patted my right hand. “You’ve been asking for Ben.”

  Hearing that widened my smile. “Where are the boys?”

  “Asleep at home. Caroline promised to stay until Rick gets there.”

  “My stomach hurts.” I lifted my left hand, dragg
ing the plastic tubing with it. “My new dress . . . my purse. What about my car?”

  “Your clothes and your purse are in a bag on that chair in the corner. A friend of Erik’s drove your car home and Erik followed to bring him back. If Dana misses you tonight, she’ll call you.”

  “I suppose she’s upset.”

  “She is . . . concerned.”

  I laid my hand against my forehead. “I better be well by Wednesday—the clinic.”

  “If you aren’t better by Wednesday, you will miss work.”

  My sickness gave Mom an important job to do. I had her back, and that felt good.

  A happy grin spread across Lance’s face when he showed up at my bedside. “You’re gonna live.”

  “Of course. I ruined the party, though.”

  “Nah. You won the Oscar. I haven’t had this much excitement in ages. Driving behind an ambulance with lights flashing and blaring sirens trumped the bears and Mrs. Fowler’s soirée.”

  I let out a small, bubbling laugh. “You might find a less nerve-wracking activity next time. How about a funny movie?”

  “As long as you go with me.”

  “Promise.”

  Declining his invitation seemed impolite, considering his kindness. He stayed by me like a dutiful friend until hours later, when he and Mom secured me in her car for the drive home.

  CHAPTER

  FOURTEEN

  Not one day passed without Dana either texting or phoning me at least a half dozen times. She fished for reassurances there were no litigating attorneys lurking behind the scenes, jingling the coins in their pockets. I had to give her a flat out no before she relaxed. She then insisted on treating me to lunch, even if only soup.

  Lance stayed in touch, too. His texts and calls were welcomed and his interest assured me that accepting his movie date invitation was smart despite my reservations. Granted, my divorce was less than a month old, but my marriage ended long ago. Lance wanted to know me better, and after mulling over the idea, I decided his knowing me better was good.