Fifty-two
MEG CLOSED THE BEDROOM DOOR SO THEIR RAISED VOICES WOULDN’T reach Savannah and Rachel. “I’m sorry,” she said, turning back to Brian. “But I don’t see anything wrong with inviting Carson. Savannah was thrilled—you saw that.”
“What about me, Meg? I wasn’t thrilled. You didn’t even tell me you were doing it!”
“Because I knew you’d react like this!”
“How would you like it if I invited one of my ex-lovers to our daughter’s birthday party? What if Lisa Hathaway had shown up and you had to be polite and act like it didn’t bug the shit out of you?”
“It’s hardly the same thing,” Meg said. “She’s a local news anchor, not an international star that Savannah idolizes.” Her lips had trouble with the words, and she made herself slow down. “Besides, as far as I know, you and Lisa don’t have any sort of current relationship.”
Brian pointed at her. “This is what I’m saying—since when do you have a relationship with McKay? You’re not telling me anything, Meg, Jesus!”
She turned toward the window, looking out onto the still-lighted pool. He didn’t know the half of it. Not only hadn’t she told him Carson might come by tonight, she hadn’t told him she’d seen Carson Wednesday, or that she’d called him before that—she hadn’t even mentioned seeing Carson, James, and Val at the tailor’s. She hadn’t told him about her visit to Lana Mathews’s home or about her mother’s diaries or the journal she was writing for Savannah.
For all that they’d shared a bed, a room, a home for almost half her life, he wasn’t someone she wanted to share her innermost thoughts with. She knew now that this had always been true, that it explained, in some measure, the arm’s-length intimacy of their family life. If Brian had ever wanted more from her, she would not have been able to marry him, to live together in relative harmony for so long. How strange it was that now, when she was pulling further away, he wanted to pull her closer. Could he be feeling jealous, competitive, even knowing that she was dying? It was flattering to think he cared that much, but sad, too, especially because he was not the one she had chosen to turn to—would not have chosen, even without Carson back in her life.
Turning to look at him, she said quietly, “All right, Brian. You want to know what’s going on? First, I’m committed to finding some way to end my life before I become fully incapacitated—”
“What are you talking about? You’re going to—are you talking about suicide?”
She nodded. “So that no one has to see me suffering, and so that I don’t have to suffer.”
“But…ALS is painless. I read it in that booklet you got.”
“It’s painless, but that doesn’t mean people don’t suffer with it.” She thought of Lana. “They suffer dependency, paralysis, indignity…. Once all your limbs stop working, once you can no longer talk or chew or swallow, it becomes, in my opinion, an excruciatingly slow death you just lie there waiting for. That is suffering. And can you imagine Savannah seeing me like that, day in and day out?”
He looked agitated. “You can’t just…I mean, okay, yes, I can see how…but I mean, how am I supposed to—come on, Meg. Think about the stigma—and your life insurance won’t pay out.”
She forced herself not to react. He was upset, he was grasping at straws. Even without the insurance, Brian wouldn’t ever hurt for money, and she’d leave Savannah well provided for; her lawyer was working on that. Even if the DNA results showed that Brian wasn’t Savannah’s father and Savannah lost her trust funds, she’d be able to get through college and into adulthood without financial strain.
“You know the money isn’t a problem,” she said calmly, “and as for the stigma, it couldn’t be any worse than the stigma of having her mother lying in a hospital bed in a diaper, needing full-time care.”
“It’s suicide, Meg.” He stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. “And if you think I’m going to help you, forget it.”
She hadn’t expected his support, but his unwillingness to even consider helping her if she asked, if she needed him, saddened her just the same.
She drew a deep breath, then said, “The second thing you should be clear about is that while I’m still around, Carson wants to be involved in my life in whatever ways he can. And I want him to.”
“Christ.” He sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed his forehead. “Anything else you want to dump on me while you’re at it?”
“I’m sorry to sound so abrupt…but there’s just no point in wasting time and energy dancing around the subject. I, well, I’m going to live my last days honestly, and I hope you’ll be able to respect that.”
Brian looked up. “Honestly, huh? How about responsibly? How about thinking of Savannah instead of yourself?”
Her temper flared. “How about you make a list of what you’ve done for her in sixteen years, then make a list of my efforts—except you can’t, because you don’t even know what all it’s taken for me to manage her life and yours and my own all this time. Don’t you dare try to tell me I’m not thinking of Savannah. There’s not a time when I’m not balancing her needs against my own, even now.”
“You’re the one who wanted a kid, Meg—you did that all by yourself.”
“Didn’t I,” she agreed.
They glared at each other, then Brian looked away. “I don’t want to do this.”
“Then don’t. Savannah already knows that Carson and I are old friends. If you’ll handle things maturely, that will help a lot.”
“What, I’m supposed to welcome him into my house—give up my wife and my bed, too?” He stood and gestured as if offering the bed to Carson. “Should I bunk in a guest room until, what, you slit your wrists or OD?”
“Give me a little credit, Brian. All I’m asking is for you to be…understanding. I’ve done my best by you, you know I have. But things are different now.”
BRIAN LEFT FOR THE BAR AT THE CLUB, SAYING HE NEEDED SOME SPACE TO think. Meg didn’t mind; she had no energy left for his emotions. It was hard enough to manage her own.
She poured some milk and took a short stack of chocolate-chip cookies to the den. In between bites of soggy cookie, she wrote in the journal:
May 14, 2006
Your sixteenth birthday today, and the party was better than I feared, since Carson showed up. Take him up on the offer to play with the band—you have such great potential, such a pretty voice, such a feel for music.
I hope I’ll be able to know how you’re doing after I’m gone, that whatever comes after this life will let me peek, from time to time, into yours. Maybe I’ll see you onstage one day, singing and playing your songs. Maybe one day you’ll host an awards show where Carson gets a lifetime achievement award. Or maybe music will only ever be a hobby, which is fine too. Do everything you can to be whatever—and whoever—you most want to be. Don’t let your dad or your friends or any man in your life distract you from the truth of your heart. There is nothing worse than looking back on your life and wishing you’d done it all differently, that you’d resisted the pressures, that you’d followed that truth faithfully. As the saying goes, I’m here to tell you not to make the same mistakes I made.
But you, my wonderful daughter, you are the one thing I would never change about my past.
I watched you today, surrounded by other teens, all of you so grown-up looking. I remembered one weekend morning when you were maybe eight, and Jonathan had spent the night; the two of you were droopy with exhaustion, having succeeded in an “experiment” of staying up all night. I was exhausted too, having been unwilling to sleep while the two of you were up—this was before Jonathan could swim, and I worried that you’d decide to take a three AM dip in the pool. But also, I wanted to witness your delight in doing something so exciting and “grown-up” as canceling bedtime. When the sun came up, I made waffles and the three of us ate them with our fingers, remember? And no plates—we poured on the syrup, then sat on the floor to eat, catching drips on our knees.
Jonathan said,
“Wait till I tell my mom we broke all the rules!”
“Who makes up the rules anyway?” you asked.
Jonathan said, “God, right?”
I said, “Well, some are just to make parents’ lives easier, but some rules are nothing but old habits that people are afraid to change.”
So here’s my advice: follow the rules that make your life work best, Savannah, and discard all the rest.
Meg put the pen in her mouth, rubbing her hand and thinking what to write next, and the phone rang. When Brian didn’t answer it, she stood, stumbling a little before regaining her balance, and hurried to the desk to answer.
“Hello?”
Static, rustling, heavy breathing. Meg was about to hang up, then she heard “Mom?”
She braced herself against the desk for better balance. “Savannah? Honey, is that you?” Why would Savannah be calling her?
“Mom, I—” More static. Savannah was talking fast, but Meg could only make out the words Kyle and car and get me? and Summerfield, please hurry.
The boyfriend. Another fight? She couldn’t tell if Savannah heard her when she said, “I’m on my way.”
Fifty-three
SAVANNAH CROUCHED IN THE DARK UNDERBRUSH AS SOMETHING CRAWLED over her neck. She didn’t dare move again, or Kyle and his horrid friend would hear her, find her, take her back to their nasty excuse for a house—or just rape her—kill her?—out here in the woods. Her breath came in rapid, shallow gasps and she prayed silently for her mom to get there fast.
Maybe she should’ve called 911. She thought of her phone, lost in her panicked run…. Too late now. Maybe her mom would call the police—but probably not; their connection was so poor that Savannah didn’t know if her mom could even hear her, let alone understand that she needed help now. God, she was stupid. Stupid not to call the cops, stupid to come out here in the first place, stupid, stupid, to have believed in Kyle….
Everything had begun pretty well. Except for the house being a very rural, very small, unpleasant-smelling pigsty, she was glad to be there with Kyle, to feel his arms around her and hear him whisper, “Happy, happy birthday,” in her ear. She left her bag and shoes by the door and accepted his offer of a Coke and tried not to wrinkle her nose at the sight of food-encrusted countertops and overflowing garbage pail.
“Hey, come have a seat,” he’d said, leading her past sloppy piles of junk mail and magazines to a worn, gold-colored sofa in a dingy front room. Thrashy rock music blasted from a cheap old stereo; he turned it down a little.
“You hungry? My roommate, you know, Aaron, he’s bringing in some pizza.”
She brushed crumbs off a seat cushion and sat down. “Actually, I’m good. We had pizza. And lots of cake,” she said.
“Yeah, yeah, of course.” Kyle sat down next to her, leaned back and put his feet up on an old milk crate. “So, the big one-six. Now you’re legal for relationship purposes, heh.”
She smiled. “Yep, as if it mattered.”
“And, now we’re free.”
She sipped the Coke and nodded, reluctant to jump immediately into the discussion she’d tried to script in her head during the drive. She wanted to wait for the right moment—maybe he’d suggest they get high, which would be the natural time to say why she thought neither of them should do it anymore.
For now she asked, “How would it work? You know, getting out of the country and all?”
Kyle sat up, eager to explain. “It’s a masterful plan,” he said. “Me and Aaron, we’ve worked it all out.”
Alarmed, she said, “Aaron helped?”
“Aaron is, like, the key. He has all the connections. He’s, you know, my source.”
His source. For drugs. Which, from the look of the place, was where they spent all their money. And hers too?
This was as good an opening as any. She said, “You know, I want to talk to you about that, about the drug stuff.”
“Aaron’s great,” Kyle continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “He knows the ways. He gets the goods. Fake ID, passports, tickets—oh, did you get that money out?”
“No, not yet. I—”
“We figure our first stop will be Mexico, right, ’cause it’s easy to get through the border, and Aaron, he knows a guy there.”
Savannah had just opened her mouth to protest that she didn’t have any interest in traveling with some drug dealer, when Aaron walked in with three cardboard pizza boxes balanced on his upturned hand.
He was dirty-blond, and so pale his skin appeared almost translucent. His eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses. “Hey!” he said, looking at her. “If it isn’t my favorite six-pixel chick!” He continued into the kitchen, dropping the pizza boxes on top of the junk mail.
“Six—?” she began. What was he talking about? And then it dawned on her: he was talking about the pictures, Kyle’s photos of her from the night at the hotel. Her stomach tightened into a ball and she whispered, “You didn’t show him—?”
Kyle shrugged. “He was there.”
The Coke she’d just swallowed threatened to come back up. How could he be so casual about something so painfully personal?
From the kitchen Aaron was saying, “So, are we all set with the car?”
Kyle said, “Uh, no—haven’t had a chance to get to it yet, man.”
“Then it’s dinner conversation,” Aaron said, lighting a joint. “Come on, let’s eat.”
Kyle jumped up. “I’m starved.” He left Savannah there on the sofa, mortified.
She watched while Kyle shared the joint and loaded a paper plate with sausage pizza, panic spreading through her chest like hot lead. This wasn’t working at all the way she’d planned; she needed to get out of there, go home and think things through. Kyle was not the guy she thought he was, not at all. The truth ricocheted in her mind as the sweet scent of marijuana drifted her way.
She stood up, conscious of her short skirt, her bare legs and shoulders, the shape of her nipples visible beneath her tank top. “I gotta go. My parents—”
The men looked at her in surprise, then Aaron said, “What’s up with her? I thought you said she was on board.”
“She is. Right, babe?”
“Actually,” she began, but Aaron’s eyes narrowed and he jumped up, getting her bag off the floor.
“Hey!” She went to grab it away from him but Kyle stood up, stopping her.
“Hey yourself,” Aaron smirked, pocketing her keys. “I got a buyer for the Honda—good money. We can’t back out on the deal now.”
Kyle smoothed her hair back from her face. “Come on, babe, we aren’t even gonna need a car. Let Aaron take care of it, he knows what he’s doing.”
The dread that had pricked her conscience from the first mention of Aaron’s name now jabbed her as she looked into Kyle’s eyes. She knew now for certain that she had no ally in him. Just as quickly she knew that if she hoped to get her keys and get out of there, she had to start by playing along.
“Fine,” she sighed, dredging up a nervous half smile.
Aaron pushed a chair out with his foot. “Here you go, Six-Pix, have a seat.”
Kyle waited until she was sitting, then he sat down too.
“Now,” Aaron said, “let’s discuss the pièce de resistance of our plan—something I just came up with a little while ago. It’s brilliant, Six, I’m telling you. You’re gonna love it.”
She smiled as though in agreement already. “Can you call me ‘Savannah’?”
Aaron laughed. “Now, soon as we get into Mexico, here’s what I’m gonna do…” He went on to outline a plan to extort money from her parents by offering to destroy the photos of her in return for as much as they could get. “Couple hundred grand minimum, I’d say, considering the kind of assets Daddy’s got.”
“Wait. You can’t…I mean, this is a joke, right?” She looked around the tiny room, a space hardly larger than her bathroom at home, as if she might be on hidden camera. “This isn’t serious?” The last thing she wanted was for her pa
rents to get wind of any of this, but especially not of the pictures.
Aaron said, “It’s not like they need the money.”
“How would you know?”
He pointed a slice of pizza at himself. “I know everything. Real estate values, company holdings—it’s all on the Web, Six.”
Kyle said, “You have trust funds, babe, so there must be lots of money to go ’round. Anyway, we won’t get caught. And can you think of a better way to get the cash we need?”
“I don’t know—by working, maybe?”
He snorted. “For seven bucks an hour, right? You see where that’s, like, got me so far.”
She tried to keep the desperation out of her voice. “C’mon, Kyle—we can make it all work some other way. I’m not doing it.”
“Don’t, like, get all self-righteous,” he said amiably.
“Well, I can’t believe you’d blackmail my parents—and that you’re willing to use me—”
“Yeah, okay, we get it,” Aaron sneered. “Sixteen, bro—not old enough, I told you. Look, Six, we don’t need your approval; we got the photos uploaded, so all we need to do is call Daddy.”
Kyle glanced at Aaron and Savannah caught his look, an expression that said Let me handle this. Then to her he said, “Listen, don’t sweat it, right? It’s just an idea.” He frowned at Aaron for Savannah’s benefit and said, “Give it a rest for now, man.”
She smiled gratefully, letting Kyle think he’d fooled her. He had given her a reprieve, but for how long?
Savannah pushed her chair back and said, “I need to use the bathroom.” What she needed was a minute alone, to get her thoughts together and come up with a plan. Somehow she had to get Aaron to give her back her keys, and somehow she had to get Kyle to ditch the blackmail idea. She added, “And then I guess I’ll join you guys for a slice.” To make it look like she was loosening up. When she reached for her bag, hoping to at least protect her cash and her bank card, neither man stopped her.
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