by Meg O'Brien
“Besides,” she said, “if I had Roger arrested, the pharmaceutical company would go down with him. Their experiments would be dropped, and they’d never find a cure for Jade. Don’t you see, Mary Beth? The very people who are making her ill are the only hope she’s got.”
“Lindy, that’s just not true. What if Jade could be placed in a good hospital and her records, along with Roger’s notes, were put into the hands of one of the top scientists in the world? Surely if this story about a magic bullet that turned out to be dangerously defective came out, that’s what would happen. There would be scientists and doctors clamoring to find out what went wrong and if they could improve upon the drug. Jade could be treated, and you and she would both be free of Roger.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. The tears began to flow again. “I can’t risk it, Mary Beth. I just can’t.”
I studied her—the bent shoulders, the helplessness—and knew she never would go against Roger, even for her own child. Had he beaten her down so much, she didn’t believe in her own ability to make a decision anymore?
I sat and thought for a few moments. Finally I said, “You know, it’s hard to believe even Roger would put his own child in danger this way.”
“I don’t think he sees it that way. He’s been strange lately. Angry all the time, and I think he’s so anxious to prove that BZT-22 is safe, he’s in denial. He swears he’s actually trying to heal Jade, and I’m not sure anymore if he’s lying or he really believes that.”
“What do you think is making him so desperate?”
“Money,” Lindy said, her lips curling in derision. “The business hasn’t been doing well, and if it turns out BZT-21 is what caused the deaths of those soldiers in the Middle East, he’ll never be able to sell BZT-22. He stands to lose everything.”
“Including his life, Lindy. He could be charged with mass murder.”
“I don’t think he even cares about that. That’s what I mean, Mary Beth. He’s obsessed with this drug, and he’ll do anything to prove it works.”
“Even so, to experiment on his own daughter? Lindy, if you’re correct and he believes he’s doing the right thing, he’ll never stop. You’ve got to fight him on this, while there’s still time.”
“God, Mary Beth! Don’t you think I know that? Have you been single so long you can’t even imagine what it’s like to fear for your child? If I fight Roger, he’ll hide Jade away and I’ll lose her completely. If I don’t fight him, she…she could die.” Lindy covered her face with her hands and sobbed.
I wanted to ignore the tears and snap back at her for her accusation. But I held my tongue and watched a little girl below, on the beach. She was skipping over the waves with her mother, her shoes and socks in one hand and her dress hiked above her knees with the other. She reminded me of a picture in a book of poems by Robert Louis Stevenson. Something about, “little Louis, on the shores of Monterey.”
Finally, I was calm enough to realize I’d only filled Lindy’s mind with more fear, and she’d responded by sniping at me—just as she had when we were teenagers.
You think you’re so much smarter than me, she’d say when I’d try to lead her away from one disaster or another. And you’re not! You’re a sissy, Mary Beth, you know that? You don’t even know how to have fun!
She was probably right; I was too serious in high school. But Lindy’s idea of fun usually landed her in a heap of trouble. I was the one with the cool head, the one who thought things through first. Not that she always listened. Sometimes she’d go off half-cocked into a risky situation, and then come to me to help her clean things up.
Which, I thought, is why she’s sitting here with me now. The only question being, how involved did I want to get—even for someone who’d been my best friend for years, the one I’d shared childhood secrets with, practiced putting on makeup with, and even bought my first bra with? So many memories…and a large part of them laced with giggling and laughter, tears and fears, and vows of always being there for each other.
That vow had gotten lost over the years, for both of us. Still, maybe it was time to renew it, if only on my part.
“You know,” I said as Lindy’s tears subsided, “maybe what Roger is doing really isn’t hurting Jade. I remember something in one of my author’s books, about years ago when scientists couldn’t afford clinical trials. They experimented on themselves and their own families instead. Most of them were well-meaning, I guess. They honestly thought they had a cure. And if they did have one, they could somehow get the drug out there.”
“Sounds like Saint Roger, all right,” Lindy said sarcastically. “Sure, it’s all about curing Jade. Even the blood in her urine.”
“Well, of course you’re right, if he’s continuing to use something on her that’s giving her a bad side effect. And if he is—”
“Then he’s more wicked than you or I ever thought!” Lindy broke in. “Not that I blame you for sticking up for him. You always did have a bit of a crush on Roger in school, didn’t you? Why wouldn’t you think the best of him?”
If only she knew.
“That was long ago, Lindy. I’ve moved on. And it sounds like you should, too. Not just for Jade, but if Roger is selling defective drugs to the Middle East, have you any idea how that might reflect on our country? We could be accused of doing it on purpose, of hiring pharmaceutical companies to poison people. You don’t want to be in the middle of that if Roger is caught.”
Something about all this puzzled me, though. I’d apparently been wrong about Lindy being an airhead, considering what she’d been telling me.
“How did you find out about this defective drug and the sales to the Middle East?” I asked.
Her voice was full of scorn. “By being a jealous woman. Way before I knew what Roger was doing to Jade, I started listening in on his phone conversations. I was sure he had a mistress, and I even followed him sometimes to see where he went when he was supposed to be going to Courtland.”
She flushed and said, “Please don’t judge me. We weren’t having an easy time of it, even then. I did find out about the girlfriends—not one, but two. I never dreamed, though, that I’d overhear a meeting Roger was having with one of the Middle East buyers. When I heard the things I just told you, I flipped. I wanted to confront Roger right then and there. Either that, or go straight to the FBI, because by that time I’d heard him on the phone with his father, and I knew Roger was using BZT-22 on Jade. I thought if I turned him in, I could get her away from him. Then I thought, no, why not wait a few days more? After all, the deals with the Mideast would be his word against mine. I needed hard proof—like a tape, or a deal on paper. I figured with that, I could prove he was…well, I don’t know. A traitor, or something. You know what that would mean, Mary Beth?”
“A firing squad?” I said dryly. One could only hope.
“I don’t know about that. But it would mean I’d have Roger Van Court locked up and out of my life forever. I’d be free.”
That was something I could give my wholehearted support to.
The sun was high and moving over my house to the west. Lindy and I were in my room, dressing. I had to go into the office, and I had plans for her.
“May I use your hairbrush?” Lindy asked, standing in front of my mirror and trying to comb her matted hair with her fingers.
“Sure,” I said, applying lipstick and blush.
She ran my comb through the brush to clean out the hair.
“I used to get after you about cleaning your brush,” I said, smiling. “Since when have you become Mrs. Clean?”
“Since no when. I guess I’m jittery. My hands have to keep moving.”
“Great. You can start on the kitchen next.”
“Ha.” She bent over from the waist and used long, slow strokes to get the tangles and God knew what else from her hair. I’d have to put a new brush on my shopping list.
“So you’ve never had any children, Mary Beth?” she asked.
“No,” I said s
hortly.
“Well, I’m sorry. I mean, for that comment earlier. But you could adopt, you know. I mean, if you don’t want to get married. In that article I read in the paper, they mentioned that adoption book you just sold for one of your authors. Have you ever considered that for yourself?”
“No,” I said again. “For heaven’s sake, Lindy, don’t count me out yet. I’m only thirty-three, and my biological clock has barely started ticking. Besides, I could probably drag some poor man into marrying me if I really wanted to.”
“No, but that’s what I meant. If for some reason you didn’t want to.” She shrugged and said awkwardly, “It’s just that since you haven’t married yet, I thought maybe…I mean, if you were thinking about having a baby you could, you know, raise it by yourself. A lot of women do that these days, don’t they?”
“I suppose.”
“I guess I’m just wondering what it’ll be like if I do get custody of Jade someday. Raising her alone and all.”
“You’ll probably do fine,” I said, getting up to take our cups out to the kitchen. Adoption wasn’t a topic I wanted to continue with.
But Lindy was in a mood to talk. She followed me into the kitchen.
“You know why I never realized until recently what was going on with Jade, Mary Beth? Because Roger would take her out with him at first, like to work. He said the staff loved her and they entertained her when he was busy. But then I got an anonymous phone call from a woman, telling me that he was testing some sort of experimental drug on Jade.”
Lindy paused, tears streaming from her eyes. “Mary Beth, when he had her at work, he’d inject her with something and he wouldn’t tell me. All I knew was that she kept getting sicker. But I just thought it was some illness she’d come by naturally. That’s why I didn’t do anything at first.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, and when I didn’t, Lindy said, “Roger’s changed so much. When his reign as prom king ended, he tried to go to college. But he flunked out and had to work for his father. Ever since then, he’s been treated like a little boy again. Oh, he’s got the title of president of Courtland Pharmaceuticals, but his father still rules the family and the business with an iron hand, even from his hospital bed. Roger has to toe the line or things will go bad for him at Courtland.”
“It sounds like you’re making excuses for him,” I said irritably. God help her if she went back to him and let all this blow over.
“No, not at all,” she said quickly. “I just meant that Roger becomes more like his father as he gets older, and his weaknesses grow instead of his strengths. In his mind he’s still a playboy, and that’s the only escape he thinks he has anymore. That’s why he has girlfriends, I’m sure. They make him feel like a man again.”
Some man. I wondered how many of those girlfriends had actually been rape victims.
“Ready?” I said.
“Uh-huh.” She went to the mirror in the foyer and fluffed her hair.
“Ready for Freddy!” she said with a giggle, her face still wet with tears. “Remember our mothers saying that all the time? Ready for Freddy! It was supposed to be cool, but today it’d sound pretty gruesome.”
I tried not to sigh, but since Lindy arrived it was becoming a habit.
Picking up my cell phone and keys, I hustled her off to the car, carrying a cup of coffee and a slice of wheat toast. Lindy had eaten two yogurts out of my fridge earlier, and said she didn’t need anything else. She kept eyeing my coffee longingly, though, so I finally told her to take it.
While she sipped it, I nudged my little fifties-era MG into the traffic on Pacific Coast Highway and said, “Okay, look. The way I see it, you’ve got to get Jade some good, objective medical care. You need to know what’s really wrong with her, and you need to know for sure what Roger’s been giving her, and if it is actually harming her.”
“That’s exactly what I want to do,” Lindy said plaintively. “But how?”
“Well, can you get into the house at all? I know you said Roger changed the locks, but you must know other ways to get in. A window that’s left open all the time, a door that’s left unlocked during certain times for delivery people?”
“No, but…” She hesitated and gave me a quick glance.
“What?” I said.
“If I tell you, you can’t breathe a word.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Lindy, just tell me!” I was so irritated, I wrenched the wheel to the left too quickly and had to brake to keep from hitting on-coming traffic.
“Yikes, Mary Beth! Watch out!”
I gritted my teeth, and Lindy swore under her breath.
“You still drive as crazy as you did in San Francisco when we were in high school,” she said. “Remember when we got stuck on a hill behind a cop car and you started beeping your horn at him to get going? I thought I’d die.”
“I was just trying to break out and act as crazy as you,” I said, smiling.
She didn’t take it as the joke I’d meant it to be, however. Her face paled. “I’m not crazy, Mary Beth!”
I turned briefly to look at her. “Sorry. I was kidding, Lindy. Geez, lighten up.”
“It’s just that…well, my mother. Do you remember her?”
“Sure.”
“After my father died, my mother went all funny in the head. She had to go into a mental hospital. Two years later, she died there.”
“Lindy, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
She fell silent.
“So what’s the big secret?” I asked, to change the subject. “You were going to tell me something about getting into the house, I think.”
“Yes, but you’ve got to swear first.”
I sighed. “I swear,” I said, as I’d often done when we were kids, “on my mother’s red hair.”
Lindy laughed and punched me lightly on the forearm. The joke was that my mother dyed her hair red, unlike I, who came by it naturally from my father and his father and so on down the line to county Clare.
“Okay,” Lindy said. “Here goes. It’s Jade’s nanny, Irene. She said she’d help me if she could. I called right after Roger threw me out, and Irene said she felt bad about it and that Jade missed me horribly. She told me she had orders never to let me in, but if I came by once a week or so when Roger wasn’t there, she’d let me in. Just for a little bit, to see Jade.”
“Well, that’s something. Have you done that?”
“No,” she admitted. “I’ve been afraid. I knew I’d have to be careful, because Irene could lose her job if Roger found me there. And God knows what he’d do to me. Jade could end up with none of the people she loves. Nobody who’d take care of her right, anyway.”
“Hmm. How much could you count on Irene to help you get Jade out of there?”
“You mean just take her? I couldn’t do that!”
“But if you could—would Irene help?”
“I wouldn’t even ask her. I don’t think she knows anything about what Roger is doing. He’s always acted like he’s just trying to make Jade well, and I’m pretty sure she’s always accepted that.”
“If she knew, then. Would she help?”
Lindy shook her head, and I could feel her mentally digging in her heels. “I don’t think I could ever count on Irene for much more than letting me in to see Jade. Roger pays her salary, after all. Irene’s been kind to me because she knows how much I love Jade and Jade loves me, but beyond that…”
She folded her hands in her lap and bent her head, saying helplessly, “Even if I could get Jade out of the house, I wouldn’t have any money to take care of her.”
For a brief moment it occurred to me that this might be some kind of scam after all. Was Lindy here to “borrow” from me and then disappear? God help me if I’d fallen for the oldest sob story in the world: My child is desperately ill, and I need money to take care of her.
No. Lindy wouldn’t do that to me, would she? And there was no way I could turn my back on her now. It might have been me, six years ago, with
no money and a baby to feed.
“There must be someplace safe,” I said, “where you could leave Jade until you get back on your feet.”
She shook her head. “Not since my mother died. You remember how close they were? My mom and dad?”
I nodded as I shifted and passed a lumbering truck going fifteen miles an hour.
“Well, I always thought she couldn’t live without him,” Lindy said bitterly. “And of course she had to go bonkers and prove me right.”
“I’m so sorry, Lindy.” I remembered that Lindy had always felt like an outsider in her own family. Her parents were so involved with each other, they barely noticed her. Now that I thought about it, that might have been why Lindy had always looked for attention and affection to a greater degree than most of us.
“Aren’t there any other friends you can ask to take care of Jade?” I asked.
“Not really,” she said, her tone one of misery. “That’s why I came to you, Mary Beth. My other friends from school? They gave up on me after I married Roger. He has a way, you know, of cutting people off. Like he really wants me all to himself? But he doesn’t, so I don’t know why he bothers.”
“Lindy,” I said in as firm a voice as I could muster, “the way I see it, Jade is your first priority. You’ve got to get her out of there and to a good doctor.”
“I told you, I don’t have any money for a lawyer, Mary Beth. Criminy, haven’t you been listening? Stupid me, I even left my checking account in just his name. You know how it is when you’re young and in love. You think the other person would never do a thing to hurt you, so you don’t take steps to protect yourself.”
I was about to reverse my opinion about Lindy’s lack of airheadedness. Any woman these days who doesn’t protect herself financially is a fool.
To be fair, though, Lindy wasn’t entirely at fault. She’d followed a Trent family recipe, handed down through generations: Lasso a rich man, let him take care of you, and you’ll never be without.
Unfortunately for my old friend, times had changed since that recipe worked. Women who counted on men to take care of them these days were often in for a big surprise, and not a pleasant one.