I’m still diving into shit headlong. And I’ve got the scars to prove it.
“Leo let me in,” Luke says unnecessarily. “Where’s my girl?”
My chest twinges. “Taking a nap. We took her for a long walk this morning and wore her out.”
“Didn’t think that was possible,” he says with a grin.
I smile back. “Neither did I.” Then I take a big breath and do that diving thing. Face-first. “I’m so sorry. About you and Tina.”
The grin fades as he nods, then walks over to this beat-up, olive-green couch we put down here when my grandmother got the new stuff. He sinks into one corner, his hands splayed on his thighs. He’s still wearing his wedding ring, which I find both reassuring and unsettling. Especially as I’m getting this real bad feeling about where this conversation is headed.
“I take it Mom told you?”
“Jason, actually. He overheard Frances talking to you.”
Another nod. I carefully lift the muslin; the bleeding’s nearly stopped, but I wrap the finger up again for good measure. Other than the chair by the machine or the lone, hard stool, the couch is the only place to sit. So I plant my wounded self on the other side, my foot tucked up under my butt, and wait.
His fingers drum the arm of the couch for several seconds before he looks at me. “You know how I said things’ve been weird between her and me for a while? Well, a couple weeks after the miscarriage, she told me—” He takes a deep breath while my heart stops. “She told me there’d been someone else.”
For a good five seconds, I don’t breathe. Then I finally whisper, “What did you say?”
“That there’s—”
“Never mind, I heard you. Ohmigod, Luke…are you sure?”
“She said it’s nobody I know, some guy out in LIC. Close to where she works.”
“And the baby…?”
“She said it wasn’t mine.” He looks at me, desperately searching my eyes for…what? “You didn’t know?”
“I swear to God, she never said a word.” Probably because she hadn’t made up that part of the script yet. And that’s just what this feels like, a bad scene from a third-rate soap. I half expect to hear the ominous, minor chord before we cut away to a detergent commercial.
“Under the circumstances,” he says, “I figured it was better to let her go.”
Straight into an institution, I barely manage to keep from saying.
I mean, I suppose it could be true, but I honest to God don’t think Tina’s capable of keeping something like that under wraps. In the past year, wouldn’t I have picked up on something? Well, other than the very real possibility that my best girlfriend’s a pathological liar. Aiyiyi.
“So, that’s what’s happening in my neck of the woods.” He reaches over and gently slaps my knee. “What’s doin’ with you?”
“Uh…I don’t think you came over here to talk about me.”
“Actually, that’s where you’re wrong. I’ve been sittin’ in my new, empty, apartment every night, feeling like shit, and it occurred to me I’m never going to get over this if I don’t get out and do something about it. So here I am.” He folds his arms across his chest. “Talk to me.”
“Luke, you’ve got some heavy-duty issues to deal with here—”
“That’s what I’m doing. Dealing. By asking you about your life.” He tries a smile. “So work with me here, okay?”
It’s a little hard to stick to my vow to stay out of it when I want to throttle Tina to within an inch of her life. And as soon as I get three minutes to call my own, I may well do just that.
In any case, since he asked, I tell Luke about the job possibility.
His expression doesn’t give anything away. But then, that’s Luke for you. “Sounds great,” he finally says. “Getting to travel all over the place like that. It’s what you always wanted.”
“Is it?”
“Whaddya mean, is it?” His mouth pulls into a grin. “When we were kids, it was all you talked about, about how you couldn’t wait to get out of Richmond Hill. Frankly, I expected you to be long gone by now.”
Did I really talk that much about wanting to leave? I know I thought about it, but I honestly didn’t think I’d voiced my dreams aloud all that much.
“So how come you don’t sound more excited?”
“Dunno. Didn’t seem right, under the circumstances.”
“Because of my situation, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s nuts, El. What’s goin’ on with me has nothing to do with you.” Again, his hand lands on my knee. And this time, he doesn’t remove it right away. “I’m happy for you, babe. This is what you want, you should go for it.”
“It’s not that easy. I mean, I do want this. But I’m worried about leaving Starr so much. About Leo.”
“Eh, they’ll be fine.” He finally takes back his hand, leaving an odd little tingling sensation on my kneecap. “And Mom and I’ll check up on them, you know that.” Then he gets this wistful expression. I so do not need wistful right now. “I’ll miss you, though.”
Rapidly steering both of us away from an area of the woods I have no wish to explore, I playfully slap his knee. “I don’t even have the job yet, doofus. And besides, we just went a month without talking to each other, right?”
“And it was hell,” he said. Too fast. With his eyes locked in mine.
I have gone way too long without love/sex/a boyfriend for eye-locking with somebody I know better than I know myself. Misinterpretations happen. They have before, they could again. Except this time, I can see the land mine; ergo, I can avoid it.
“So why’d you stay away?”
Or I can walk right up to it to get a closer look. Sheesh.
He gets quiet for a moment, but his eyes never leave mine. And deep, deep in the pit of my stomach, I get this…feeling. Sort of a combination of dread and excitement. Of course, that could just be the anxiety about tomorrow’s interview. Yes, let’s go with that, shall we?
“Because I decided you were right,” he says at last. “That Tina and I needed to hash things out without anybody else gettin’ in the way. I mean, Jesus. She’d run to you, I’d run to you… What the hell was wrong with us, that we couldn’t sit down and talk to each other? No wonder we fell apart.”
My stomach torques. I lean my elbow on the back of the sofa, casually sifting my hand through my hair until it occurs to me that might look like I was trying to be seductive or something. “So…when did she tell you? About…the guy?”
“Last week sometime. It was so weird, the way we were having this conversation and suddenly it just…popped out.”
“God. That must’ve been horrible.”
“I’ve had better days, believe me. I mean, I keep replaying the scene over and over in my head, like I think that one of these times, the end’ll be different.” He swallows so hard I’m afraid he’s gonna choke. “I don’t get it. Did she think I was gonna give her a hard time? That I’d try to make her stay against her will?”
“I don’t know, honey,” I say, then add, “Funny how you think you know somebody so well, and then…” I shrug, at a loss for words.
“Yeah. I know. Well…” He stands. “You’re in the middle of something, I don’t wanna keep you…” But he walks over to the bulletin board, surveying the photo and sketch. And I realize, the moment’s passed. He’s not going to bring up the subject I thought/feared/half hoped he would. And God knows, neither am I. Not when he’s still reeling from this whole business with Tina.
But the reprieve is only temporary, I know that.
He nods toward the board. “This for Heather?”
“Uh-huh,” I say, getting up as well. “What do you think?”
That actually gets a laugh. “It’s a white dress, what’s to think? I just go to these things for the food.” Then he turns to me. “This new job—it sounds like a good deal.”
“It could be. It’s just…scary.” I let out a sigh. “I’m nearly thirty. And
a mother. So why do I still feel like a little girl sometimes?”
“Aw, honey…” He drapes a solid, leather-scented arm around my shoulders and gives me a quick hug, but he doesn’t say anything. After planting a glancing kiss off my hair, he starts up the stairs. Halfway, he stop and leans over the banister. “I brought the Twink a new game for the Nintendo. It’s on your TV.”
“Great. Thanks.”
He bangs his hand twice on the banister, then continues up the stairs.
I pick up the bodice to rip out the last seam so I can replace the bloodied panel—Heather might not find it amusing—but after a few frustrated minutes, I give up.
Leo’s in the living room in his recliner, watching football.
“Going to Tina’s,” I yell out as I pass. “Taking the car.”
“Make sure you put gas in it, don’t leave me with an empty tank.”
“Got it,” I say, shutting the door behind me.
Tina’s not home when I get there, but I figure I’ll give her an hour, what the hell. If she’s not back by then, I’ll leave, taking it as a sign that I’m not meant to beat the living daylights out of her.
Not that I really intend to beat the living daylights out of her. I cart spiders outside and let them loose, for God’s sake. But you know what I mean.
I’m sitting on the floor in her hallway, reading a Dean Koontz, when the elevator door opens and out she pops. I have never actually seen somebody turn white as a sheet before.
“Ellie!” Nervous smile. “What are you—?”
“Honey, you got some heavy duty ’splainin’ to do.”
Underneath her leather jacket, her breasts heave with the force of her sigh. “I take it you’ve talked to Luke?”
I get to my feet, trying to massage some feeling back into my butt. Bad-ass Queens broads, the pair of us, in our leather jackets, tight jeans, two-story tall boots. “How’d you guess?”
On another exhalation, she opens her door and gestures for me to go in. The door barely snicks shut behind her before I light into her.
“You were cheating on him?”
Amazingly enough, she gets even paler. At this rate, she’s going to turn invisible. But instead of answering right away, she dumps her jacket on the sofa and goes into her kitchen, an open-to-the-living-area jobber. “Wanna beer?”
“No, I don’t want a beer. I want some answers. Some straight answers, this time.”
Tina pulls a can of Pabst from the fridge and pops off the tab, knocking back five or six gulps like a guy. “It wasn’t something I planned, okay?”
“Are you out of your mind?”
After another swallow of beer, her mouth tilts into a sad, ugly smile. “Was there ever any doubt?” Then: “So…what did Luke tell you, exactly?”
“That you said there was some guy in Long Island City. And that the baby wasn’t his?”
A second passed, then she nods.
Am I the only one here having a hard time making the pieces fit?
“Let me get this straight. You had a problem with telling me you were carrying another man’s baby, but you didn’t with telling me you wanted to abort your husband’s kid?”
This time, when she lifts the beer can, her hand trembles. “It seemed like the lesser of two evils, what can I tell you?”
“The truth might be nice.”
Her eyes shoot to mine. “I am telling you the truth!”
“And I’m supposed to know this how? For crying out loud, Tina—every time I turn around, the story’s changed! Why the hell weren’t you up front with me to begin with?”
“Because I was scared shitless, okay? I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t think…”
“Oh, Tina…” I collapse onto one of her dinette chairs, a throne-size upholstered swivel number on casters. “You could have had the baby. Luke probably wouldn’t even have known it wasn’t his.”
After a second, she says, “The father’s, um, a redhead. If the kid’d come out with red hair, he would’ve known. Besides, how honest is that?”
Oh, brother.
“Is the affair over?”
“Yes. Oh, God, yes. It didn’t even last that long, you know? A few weeks, maybe.”
Gotta admit, she’d be damn good on the witness stand. Of course, she’d burn in Hell later, if you believe in that sort of thing, but Tina’s never been much for planning ahead. “Then why did you let Luke think otherwise?”
She looks confused for a second, then seems to recoup. “Because it was the only way I could think of to get him to let me go.”
So Luke hadn’t been imagining her pulling away. Still…“Dammit, Tina…if you wanted out, why didn’t you just tell him that?”
“Because that wouldn’t’ve been enough, don’t you see?” The wall-to-wall carpet sucks up the sound of her heels as she swings around the counter to sit across from me. “He’d’ve wanted to talk, or go to marriage counseling. He wouldn’t’ve accepted it, just like that. You know how protective he’s always been about me, how he’d always make excuses for the crazy stuff I did. I had to do something drastic, or he would’ve seen our breaking up as somehow his fault. That he’d somehow failed me. And after everything he’s done for me, I just couldn’t do that to him.” Her mouth twists. “And I didn’t want him to feel sorry for me anymore.”
This might sound totally off the wall, but I see a glimmer of understanding here I’ve never seen before. Tina’s never been stupid, and she obviously needs to talk to somebody with some major degrees up on their wall, but she’s always had a knack for not seeing what didn’t suit her purpose. I’m not sure even Luke gets just how much his feelings for Tina are based in large part on his compassion for what she’d been through, but I sure as hell didn’t think Tina had an inkling that’s what was going on.
What I didn’t get, however, until this moment was just how crappy a foundation that makes for a real relationship. I mean, I’d simply accepted it for what it was. The fact of their being together superseded the reasons behind it, I guess. Which is what comes, I suppose, from making these decisions without understanding why you’re making them. Just as I’d accepted my relationship with Daniel without taking two minutes to analyze why I thought I loved him. Had I done that, my life might’ve turned out very differently.
Had I thought through a lot of things, my life might have turned out very differently.
“Then why didn’t you tell him you had an abortion?” I ask.
She looks down at her nails, then tucks them into her fist. The iridescent rose polish is badly chipped, which only goes to show what a bad state she’s in. I don’t think I’ve seen Tina with a neglected manicure since she was seven.
“I don’t know,” she says quietly. “I guess because I just couldn’t bring myself to admit I’d gotten rid of his baby.”
“I thought you said it wasn’t his baby.”
“But I’d told him it was! Dammit, you’re confusing me!” Tears glitter in her eyes. “I know I’ve made a huge mess of things, okay? And I know both of you will probably hate me, but that just proves my point, doesn’t it?”
“What point?”
“That I don’t belong with him. He doesn’t deserve me. He deserves you. But as long as he was tied to me, he was never gonna see that.”
For the second time that afternoon, I feel as though someone’s clunked me over the head with a brick. Even as we speak, cartoon birdies are tweeting over my head.
“You don’t believe me?” she says.
The only thing I believe right now is that I’ve been somehow catapulted into an alternative dimension where the language is the same, but the words all have different definitions.
I get up from the table. “Now I know you’ve lost it.”
“Not about this, El!” She rises as well, scooting around to block my exit. “You have every right to think I’m off my nut, that everything I say is circumspect—”
Wow. I didn’t even know she knew that word.
“—but just think
about it, okay?” She rams her hand through her already windblown hair, her eyes enormous. “Whenever he’s needed somebody to talk to, who does he go to, huh? You, that’s who. Not me. Me, he just screwed—”
“You, he married, lughead—”
“—I mean, I tried to pretend it was okay, him picking me over you, that maybe one day he’d love me for real, you know? But it never happened. His dick might’ve been in bed with me, but the rest of him belonged to you. So I’m removing myself from the picture. And by making him hate me, you’ll look even better.”
Suddenly, shock and confusion give way—once again—to anger. Or maybe it’s indignation, I can’t quite tell.
“Christ, Tina. I don’t know what’s worse, listening to you blow off Luke’s feelings for you, or the fact that you think you can just…just hand him over like a coat you’ve grown tired of! Here, Ellie, go ahead and take it, the lining’s a little worn, but you should still be able to get some use out of it!”
“No! God, Ellie—that’s not what I meant at all—!”
My phone shrills in my purse. Since I don’t know what else to say, anyway, I fumble for it, wiping tears from my eyes as I answer it.
“Ellie?” Frances says softly. “Honey, where are you?”
Too shaken to puzzle out why she’s calling me, I say, “I just went out for a little while, to get some air—” I grip the phone so hard it nearly slips out of my hand. “What is it? Ohmigod, something’s wrong. Is Starr—?”
“Starr’s fine, baby. She’s with me.” She pauses. “It’s your grandfather. You need to come home right away.”
chapter 10
The paramedics did what they could, but Leo was already gone. Starr had found him, dialed 9-1-1, then called Frances, who came right over and took charge.
Hanging by a Thread Page 13