Girls' Night Out_A Novel

by Liz Fenton

  Lauren blinked, and suddenly she saw the girl she’d met years before, the one who’d seen something special in her. She couldn’t help herself; she smiled. Maybe she could clear the hurdles of their friendship. Maybe today was the day they would do it.

  “Don’t worry,” Ashley said. “I’ll be right by your side the whole way up. Come on.” She extended her hand and Lauren reached greedily for it, letting the past slip away silently as they began their trek.

  They climbed like that the entire way up, clinging to each other and to the impossibly tiny steps, neither of them speaking, but understanding each other perfectly all the same. Lauren gasped as she came up the last few stairs, the night air still humid and hot, making it harder to catch her breath.

  “Harder than it looks, no?” Felipe said, and held out his hand to help her up.

  “It really is—thank you,” Lauren said, gripping his palm, then reaching down to help Ashley. “You can see for miles!” she said as she took in the view of the vast evergreen jungle that stretched out before them.

  “Follow me around the top of the temple and I will show you all of the structures we toured on the ground. They look even more spectacular from up here.” Felipe started walking. “Over there is the Group of a Thousand Columns.” He pointed to the large structure. They stopped and took it in, then continued walking. “There is the Platform of Venus. And then over there is the High Priest’s Grave.”

  Lauren drew in a deep breath, her heartbeat finally resting after the climb. She couldn’t believe an entire civilization had once lived here. She looked over at Ashley, who was watching her, her eyes thoughtful. “Do you feel it?” she asked Lauren. “The energy? Makes me realize that life . . .” She paused, as if unsure to continue.

  “Is short?” Lauren filled in.

  Ashley nodded. “Yes, and it also makes me believe we can get through this. Me and you.”

  Lauren smiled. “Maybe we can.”

  Felipe interrupted their conversation. “This is the largest entrance to the high temple, where it is believed many religious ceremonies were performed, and we will go in there in a moment.” He motioned toward a doorway, then turned. “And you can’t see it from here, but out through the jungle there is the Sacred Cenote.”

  “Where the bodies are buried,” Ashley said as she angled her phone so she could take a selfie.

  “The skulls are, yes,” Felipe said, then looked over at Ashley. “I’d rather you not take pictures. It’s disrespectful.”

  Ashley brought her arms down to her sides, frowning. Lauren laughed. Ashley and her selfies. How she loved them.

  “Some people believe that if you disrespect the Maya, you do so at your own peril,” Felipe continued.

  “I did read that,” Ashley said thoughtfully. “But I thought it was more if you took something from here?”

  “It’s hard to say, and I like to be extra cautious with my tours. Other guides—the ones less informed about the deep history—let people do things like jump in front of El Castillo so they are airborne with the temple behind them. But I choose to respect the grounds. There have been several incidents, like you mentioned, of people stealing from the temple. One man from Ohio took just a small pebble from this structure home to America with him. I read on the internet that he claims to be cursed—said terrible things have happened to him since he left here—he lost his job, his house . . .”

  “So no souvenirs for us then?” Ashley joked, slipping her phone into her back pocket.

  Felipe smiled ruefully. “No, not today. At least not from up here.” He walked toward the edge and motioned for them to join him. “Below us are the chambers that were discovered in the pyramid under this one. Inside they found a chacmool, which is a statue that represents human sacrifice, and a jaguar throne.” He pulled a book from his fanny pack, flipped it open, and showed them pictures.

  Lauren took in the eerie eyes of the jaguar and felt a shiver pass through her.

  “As I mentioned, this entire structure—and everything under it—is very spiritual. Follow me,” Felipe said, then walked inside.

  Ashley followed.

  Lauren hesitated.

  “Are you all right?” Ashley asked, turning around.

  Lauren felt that energy again. She was frozen in place as she stared at the opening to the temple—the doorway flanked by two upright bodies of snakes carved into the stone. She touched one of the snake carvings and hoped she could find her own redemption.

  She was tired of living in contradictions, swinging like a pendulum between love and anger, between wanting to rebuild her old friendships and wanting to tear them down to the studs.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ONE DAY BEFORE

  ASHLEY

  “Are you sure this is okay?” Lauren asked Felipe as they entered the temple.

  “Yes, come,” Felipe said, and Lauren walked inside.

  “What’s that?” Ashley said, pointing to a low stone table with haunting faces carved into its thick legs.

  “That is a sacrificial table.” Felipe walked up behind her quickly.

  “Did they actually . . .” Lauren trailed off.

  “Yes,” Felipe said. “Many have died up here.”

  Ashley crouched down, fingering the limestone beneath her feet, imagining the sacrifices that had taken place here—the pictured warriors, sweaty from their ball court victory below, bowing their heads to the mighty shamans who stood tall, mystical, and magical. Still, she just couldn’t comprehend how the Maya had chosen death. How they viewed it as their salvation.

  She stood up, stealing a quick glance at Lauren, who seemed deep in thought. She wondered if Lauren was thinking of Geoff. That there had been no salvation for him.

  “El Castillo is centuries old. So many people were sacrificed here. It’s sacred,” Felipe said.

  Ashley touched Lauren’s shoulder. “You okay?” she asked, her voice soft, praying Lauren would let her in—the climb up the narrow pyramid steps had left her hopeful.

  “It’s hard being here. I can’t stop thinking about him.” Lauren’s eyes were empty as she said it, and Ashley felt a dull ache in her chest, the same one that had throbbed behind her rib cage at Geoff’s funeral, when Lauren had blamed her for his death. Was she blaming her now?

  “I hate what’s happened to you. To us,” Ashley said faintly. She’d finally found the courage to start telling Lauren how she felt. Words she wished she’d said to her the moment she’d seen her at the crowded terminal at LAX.

  Lauren looked toward the sky. Ashley followed her gaze, noticing that the clouds were moving quickly above, one looking like it was chasing another. She prayed Lauren would say she hated what had happened to them too.

  Finally she turned toward Ashley. “Why did you have to push me so hard?”

  Ashley didn’t want to relive that horrible fight in the coat check. She wanted it to be easy—to skip ahead to the forgiveness part. She took a deep breath. “You were getting hurt—badly hurt. I was worried about you. I did what any friend would do. I wanted you out of the situation. I wanted it to stop, and so did you. Right?”

  “He was getting better; it was happening less. He would have changed, eventually.”

  Ashley got the impression it wasn’t the first time she’d said those words. That somewhere along the way, Lauren had convinced herself of this.

  She stepped closer to Lauren. “Do you hear yourself?” she said, not unkindly.

  “You don’t think it’s possible he could have changed?”

  Ashley hesitated, understanding that Lauren desperately needed Ash to agree with her—to tell her Geoff could have stopped hitting her. But she couldn’t, no matter how badly she wanted to deflate their problems. “No,” she said quietly.

  “But what if you’re wrong?”

  “He almost broke your arm the week before he died. When I saw you at lunch, you jumped when I barely touched it! Lying to me and saying you fell before finally admitting what was really going on. What was I
supposed to do? Wait until he did worse?” Ashley’s voice began to rise. “I was not going to let that happen.”

  “You overstepped. And I never should have listened to you.” Lauren’s cheeks reddened. “I wish it had been me, not him.”

  Ashley’s face tightened. “But that’s what you aren’t getting. If you’d allowed things to continue or I hadn’t helped, it would have been you!”

  “If I hadn’t confronted him, he’d still be alive,” Lauren said, unyielding, and Ashley could almost see all the goodwill they’d built earlier fade away. “I always thought you knew everything. Maybe because you prance around like you own the world. It made me blind,” she spit, her face hard.

  Ashley felt like she’d been punched in the gut. She watched Felipe quickly retreat to the other side of the temple to give them space, clearly uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had turned. “Is that what you really think of me?” Her voice had lost its tension, like an old rubber band. She had thought she was doing the right thing. Why couldn’t Lauren see that?

  “Just look at how you’ve behaved on this trip,” Lauren continued. “Spending so much time with a perfect stranger when you supposedly came here to be with us.”

  “We’re together now. And I had hoped we could get past what happened.” Ashley couldn’t explain why she’d gravitated toward Marco. Why she’d turned to him as a confidant instead of Lauren and Natalie. Everything was upside down.

  “You know what the worst part is, Ash? I actually thought you’d have gained some perspective after a year.”

  The accusation hit her hard, and she felt her knees begin to shake slightly, realizing that Lauren’s anger toward her was still deeply embedded. Understanding that she might never be able to change that. “I’m sorry your life hasn’t turned out the way you thought it would. But I will not apologize for encouraging you to leave the man who was hurting you. You can blame me for a lot of things. We all know I’m not perfect. But you can’t blame me for Geoff hitting you. And for having a bad heart.”

  “It wasn’t that bad,” Lauren said loudly, her voice thick.

  “Goddammit, Lauren! Yes, it was! They said his two main coronary arteries were completely blocked. He would have eventually had a heart attack, regardless of whether you confronted him. How can you not get that? You listened to me because you knew in your heart you should. You knew how bad it was. You were scared. Maybe the person you’re really mad at is him.”

  Lauren started to cry, and Ashley felt her own tears threaten to spill over. The last thing she wanted to do was cause Lauren more pain. How would they ever find their way out of this toxic cul-de-sac?

  Ashley softened and tried again. “I know you loved him,” she said. And she did know. She knew exactly what it was like to love someone that you shouldn’t. To stay when you should run. “And I know there were good times. Maybe even more than the bad. Believe me, I get it.”

  “How could you possibly understand anything?” Lauren wiped her tears away.

  Ashley swallowed hard. “I need to tell you something,” she said, her voice breaking. She had to tell someone before it consumed her, the same way it had with Lauren. “I’m hoping it will help you understand why I was so adamant. Why I wanted to help you get out of your marriage. To stand up for yourself. No one knows, not even Natalie.”

  “What is it?” Lauren asked, sniffling as she tried to regain her breath.

  “I didn’t tell you guys everything the other day. I didn’t explain why my marriage is falling apart.” Her heart started pounding and she put her hand over it. “Jason yells at me and puts me down. A lot. He calls me stupid. Tells me I’m an awful person. That I’m an idiot, a dumbass, a bitch; you name it, he’s got a word for it.” A sob escaped her throat, and Lauren’s face went slack as she absorbed her words. Ashley hadn’t realized how hard it would be to release the truth. To finally stand up and be honest about what her life really looked like. She understood now why Lauren had hidden her secrets deep.

  Ashley took a breath. “And he came at me. Just once.”

  “Wait, what?” Lauren interrupted. “Are you saying Jason hit you?”

  “No, he never hit me. Just pushed me. But still, I fell pretty hard. It was in the early days of BloMe and we were arguing about some super expensive shoes I’d bought. They were my first pair of Prada, I think?” she said more to herself than Lauren. “Anyway, we’d just secured a meeting with Sephora, and I wanted to celebrate. He lost his temper. Pushed me up against the dresser in our bedroom and I fell back and slid to the floor. He came this close”—she used her fingers to illustrate—“to my face, his fists up. And God, Lauren, I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in my life. I told him the next day that I’d take the kids and walk out the door if he ever touched me like that again.” It had felt surreal to see Jason’s rage peak. How underneath her bravado, she’d been terrified she’d somehow made him like that.

  Lauren stood still, much like the statues that surrounded them. Ashley pushed on with her story, now feeling desperate to let it spill onto the floor of the ancient pyramid, to be brave like the Mayan warriors. In this moment, she could almost understand their fearlessness, the ability to let the gods decide their fate.

  “And he never laid a hand on me again. But he still makes me feel small in other ways. Especially since the Revlon offer came in. He’s so damn angry I won’t sell and bail his restaurant out of debt again.” Ashley’s voice cracked as she said the last words. “He tells me constantly that I’m a terrible mother. That he never should have married me. I convince myself they’re just words. That they can’t hurt me.” Her eyes filled with tears. “But it breaks me a little bit every day. And now I’m terrified that I won’t be able to put myself back together. I try so hard to seem strong. But I feel so weak.”

  Lauren began to cry again, and Ashley reached out to grab her hand, grasping it tightly. “And maybe when I realized how bad things were for you, I thought, I can’t help myself, but I can help her. You didn’t have kids . . .” Her voice caught, but she pressed forward. “And I couldn’t let you live with that fear any longer. I didn’t want you to feel small. You deserve better. We both do.” Ashley finished and stared at Lauren, her eyes wide. She had laid her heart open, much like Ashley envisioned the warriors who’d once been sacrificed in this temple had. It was just for a moment, but she felt empowered. The truth was out there now, for better or for worse.

  “Why haven’t you left him already? You told us you were thinking about it, but you didn’t sound sure.” Lauren sniffled loudly, but Ashley thought she’d heard something off in her tone—anger? She reflected on the moment Lauren had confided Geoff’s abuse. Ashley had been touched by a myriad of emotions: shock, sadness, indignity, and yes, of course, an uncontrollable anger with Geoff. But Lauren’s angry tone seemed directed at Ashley.

  She paused, suddenly acutely aware that she needed to be careful with her words. “I told myself that I could handle it—put up with it until the girls were a bit older.” She stopped and studied Lauren’s face, her expression now reading skepticism. Or was she just imagining it? She pressed on anyway. “But now, I don’t know anymore.”

  “It’s not as easy as it looks, is it? Walking away?” Lauren said.

  “No, it’s not. But I never said it was,” Ashley said, more curtly than she intended, her frustration growing. Where was the I’m sorry? The I understand?

  “So I was your project because you were too weak to leave your own marriage? Because hitting is worse than yelling? Because you have kids and I don’t?” Lauren sounded tired. She glared at Ashley.

  “What? No,” Ashley said, finally understanding why Lauren hadn’t comforted her. She was pissed. “I mean, the kid part makes everything more complicated.”

  “You have no fucking clue what you are talking about. Just because we didn’t have kids didn’t mean it would be any easier to leave. How could you be so myopic?”

  Lauren’s words stung and Ashley dropped her chin.
“I guess it was because I’ve always thought that if I didn’t have Hannah and Abby, I would have left Jason years ago.” And it was true—her daughters had been the anchor that had kept her in her marriage. But now, with a few days away to think, she was recalculating that decision.

  “Still not the same,” Lauren said, her words like daggers. Ashley flinched. This was not going at all how she had thought it would. She had imagined connecting with Lauren over their shared experience, but it was clear she had grossly misjudged the situation.

  “Look, here’s the thing,” Ashley tried to reason. “I’m not making excuses for Jason, but he has never laid a hand on me since that one night. Not even close. He was under a ton of pressure—he’d just gotten a terrible review in the Los Angeles Times and his dad was not doing well. He snapped. My situation is different. Geoff controlled you and abused you, no matter what was going on in his own life. He talked you out of having kids! Of getting your teaching degree! At least I was living the life I wanted to lead. If Jason had ever touched me again, I would’ve been out the door.”

  “Do you hear yourself, Ash? You are making excuses. The same ones I used to make. That you told me I had to stop making! You’re a hypocrite. And don’t you dare try to convince yourself otherwise.”

  Ashley felt stricken, dizzy with the realization that Lauren was right, that she’d pushed Lauren to leave to assuage her own guilt for staying. She’d focused so much on pushing away the accusations surrounding Geoff’s death that she never really evaluated how it mirrored her own life. Sure, it had been the right thing to encourage Lauren to leave, but to do it without revealing her own secrets? Cowardly.

  She turned and impulsively stepped on the sacrificial table before Lauren could speak again, wanting her to understand. She was sorry. So sorry. Felipe called out from several feet away, and he hurried toward them, waving his hands.

  Ashley ignored him, raising her arms toward the sky, feeling desperate. “You know what? I am a hypocrite! I should have packed my shit and left the first time Jason told me I was an imbecile who rode on Natalie’s coattails. I couldn’t see it at the time. But you’re right. I should have told you.”