“Ever since I was a child I’ve been forced to do what everybody else wanted me to do,” Carly continued. “I made all A’s in high school because that’s what everybody expected me to make. I went to Harvard because that’s where I was expected to go. I graduated with high honors because I was expected to graduate that high. But I’m tired of it now.”
Jenay stared at Carly as she walked over by Charles.
“I’m tired of living up to somebody else’s image,” Carly continued. “I’m tired of doing what somebody else expects me to do. It’s my turn now. It’s my time to live my life the way I want to live it. And if that doesn’t meet with any of your expectations, then tough. None of you have always met with mine either. I’m done.”
Carly rose to leave. She was that determined. But there was just one problem with her escape plan: her father.
Charles grabbed her by the wrist, and pulled her back. “I told you already,” he said, “and I’m going to tell you again. You are not going to Boston.”
“I have to go!” Carly angrily yelled.
Charles frowned. “Why do you have to go?” he yelled back.
“Because it’s what I want to do for a change. It’s what I want, not you!”
“What do you want, Carly?” Charles asked her. “Trevor Reese? You actually think that man wants you?”
Jenay could tell there was a kink in Carly’s armor. She could tell Carly wasn’t all that certain of Trevor’s true feelings for her.
“What he wants,” Carly responded to her father, “isn’t the point.”
“Well it damn well better become the point,” Charles said. “Because you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. At least you need to know that he’s worth it. At least you need to know that he loves you and is willing to go through the fire with you the way you’re willing to go through it with him.”
“Mom came to Jericho to be with you on faith,” Carly said. “She wasn’t sure if you really loved her. She told me so herself. But she had to try. All I’m doing is trying for my life’s sake. Love isn’t a guarantee. It’s never been and never will be.”
“That’s true,” Jenay said, and everybody looked at her. “But Charles wasn’t back then and has never been some mystery man I couldn’t learn shit about. He’s never been shady like that. You can’t compare your father to a man like Trevor Reese.”
“I’m not trying to compare them,” Carly said. “I’m just trying to see if it will work.”
“And what if it doesn’t work?” Charles asked. “Is it worth the price you might pay? What if he doesn’t even want you like that?”
“I’m sure he wants me,” Carly said, although it was with weak conviction. “He wants me,” she said with more forcefulness.
“But he wants you for what, Carly?” Charles asked. “To be his woman, or to be his whore?”
Carly couldn’t believe her father spoke those words to her. And she slapped him. She slapped Charles hard across his face.
Donald and Ashley jumped to their feet in shock, holding each other’s arms. “Oh, snap!” Ashley yelled. “Call Rescue, Donnie, call Rescue! Daddy about to kill this crazy girl!”
But Charles didn’t have time to do anything to Carly. Jenay stepped in between them and did it for him. She slapped Carly even harder across her face.
When Carly looked back up, holding the side of her now stinging face, she saw a kind of fierceness in Jenay that she had never seen before.
“Don’t you ever,” Jenay said between clenched white teeth, “even think about raising your hand to your father ever again! He’s your father. This man right here! The one who brought you into his family and loved and cared for you like you were his own flesh and blood. The one who sacrifice for you time and time again no matter what the problem may be. I don’t care what words come out of his mouth, I don’t care how much you hate those words, he is your father! And you will respect that.”
Carly looked at her mother, and then looked at her father, and she knew she was wrong. She regretted what she had just done, she regretted it with bitter regret. She looked back at her father, and tears appeared in her eyes. “Daddy, I’m sorry,” she said heartfelt.
To Donald and Ashley’s total shock, tears appeared in Charles’s eyes too. And when Carly fell against him, and hugged him, they were equally shocked when he hugged her back.
Jenay wasn’t shocked. She was grateful. Because Charles knew like she knew that there was more going on with Carly than meets the eye. There was more pain and hurt inside of that young woman than she would ever reveal.
Carly looked at Jenay as she held Charles, with her tears still dropping freely, and she pulled Jenay into her embrace too. And apologized to Jenay too.
But as Carly held her parents, she knew it wasn’t enough. She knew they weren’t listening to her. They weren’t trying to feel the pain she’d been feeling practically all of her life, because it would be unimaginable to good, God-fearing people like them. She had no voice. She had no say in her life. She was screaming, but nobody was hearing her. She was crippled by other people’s expectations, and they couldn’t see the crutches. She was paralyzed by other people’s wants and needs, and they couldn’t see the paralysis. She had to walk away. Didn’t they understand that? She was a paralyzed woman trying to walk away. She knew she had no business walking at all, not a woman in her condition. But she had to try.
After her embrace of her parents ended, and it was clear that they had accepted her apology, she moved away from them and began heading upstairs.
Jenay turned toward her. “Where are you going?” she asked.
“To change,” Carly responded. “They’re having a car wash at Saint Cat’s.” Then she swallowed hard. It was a bitter pill to swallow. “They expect me to be there,” she added, and hurried upstairs.
Charles looked at her as she left the room. Donald and Ashley looked at him, surprised that he didn’t run Carly down and knock her through a wall. But they didn’t see anger in their father’s eyes. They saw pain. Tremendous pain. Jenay looked at him. She saw it too.
“I’ve got to get ready for work,” Charles said, and left. He headed upstairs too.
Jenay exhaled. She could just feel his agony.
Donald and Ashley, however, could only feel their own. “I told you,” Donald said. “Carly gets away with everything. If that had been me or Ash who slapped Dad like that, we’d be on the floor.”
“They wouldn’t even have to call Rescue,” Ashley agreed.
“That’s right,” Donald said, nodding his head. “Because we would have already been dead! Dad would have killed us on the spot. I told you, Ma. You think we be lying. But I told you. Carly gets away with murder!”
Jenay looked at Donald and Ashley as if they knew about that night in Boston. She looked at them as if they had just revealed the great secret of the universe. And then she realized who she was talking about. Donald and Ashley. Both of them together wouldn’t have brains enough to reveal their own secrets, let alone somebody else’s. “Boy, if you don’t leave me alone,” she said to Donald, and headed upstairs too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Jenay stopped her Mercedes in front of Charles storefront office building, grabbed her paperwork, and got out. She hurried across the sidewalk, speaking to a passerby, as she entered the building.
Her stepson Robert was there, sitting on the edge of the desk of one of the clerks, running his hand through his thick, blond hair and making her laugh at his dirty jokes. He smiled when he saw Jenay. “Hey, Ma,” he said. “I heard there were fireworks at the house this morning.”
“Is he in?” Jenay asked.
“He’s in. But he’s in a nasty mood. He told us that he doesn’t want to be bothered. With no exceptions, he said.”
Jenay headed straight for his office.
“Of course he didn’t mean you,” Robert said out of earshot of Jenay, and the ladies in the office laughed.
Jenay heard the laughter but didn’t care what it was about. Ch
arles was on her mind. And their daughter. She knocked once on his closed office door, and entered.
Charles was seated behind his desk, but his back was to the door. He was looking out of his window.
Jenay walked slowly into the office, and then walked around to the window. He didn’t react, as if he knew it was her all along. He just continued to stare.
“Carly’s at Saint Catherine’s,” he said.
Jenay didn’t expect him to say that. “You went there?”
“I saw her. She’s where she said she was going to be. And when I drove up, to get my car washed, guess what she did?”
Jenay braced herself. “What? She continued to argue with you? She cussed you out? What?”
“She smiled as if nothing had happened. She’s still wearing that gotdamn mask, Jenay.” He looked at his wife. “And I can’t do a damn thing about it!”
Jenay let out a harsh exhale. “I found something, Charles,” she said.
Charles, leaned back in his chair, looked at her. “What?”
Jenay handed him the folder that was in her hand. “That’s Trevor Reese’s client list for his marketing firm. The list Mick’s man gave to you.”
“Yeah, so?” He began thumbing through the paperwork in the folder.
“Look on page seven.”
Charles looked. “Okay,” he said. “What am I looking for?”
“Go to the F’s,” Jenay said.
He did. At first he didn’t see it. Then he did. He leaned forward. “Sharon Flannigan,” he said, and then looked at Jenay. “Where do I know that name?”
“Oh, Charles, don’t you remember? She’s the new Headmistress at Saint Catherine’s.”
Charles stood to his feet. “And she’s on Reese’s client list?”
“And she was in the lobby when that agitator fired those shots,” Jenay said.
For the first time in weeks, Charles felt as if they were getting somewhere. “Where is she? At that car wash?”
“No, she just got back to the Inn. I saw her go to her room just before I discovered this. I didn’t know how to approach her. I came to you.”
“You did right, baby,” Charles said, squeezing her arm. “Let’s go,” he added, as he grabbed his suitcoat off of the back of his chair, and hurried out.
“She left, you know.”
Carly was standing there in a pair of shorts and a tucked-in shell top. She wasn’t washing cars, because they had more than enough students present to handle that. She, instead, spent most of her time standing around and thinking.
“You heard me, Carly?” It was Marge, one of her fellow teachers. They were standing in the parking lot of the Saint Catherine’s Prep Academy as a dozen students washed a steady flow of cars.
“You heard me, Carly?”
“What is it?” Carly asked.
“Our Headmistress. She left already. I know she didn’t have to be here at all, just as we don’t have to be. But it’s about supporting the students. She could have at least stayed until the end of the day.” She looked at Carly. “Don’t you agree?”
Carly thought about it. “No,” she said, and looked at Marge.
Marge was surprised. “No? Why would you say no?”
“She’s not needed here. The kids are washing the cars. The vestry’s hand-picked chaperones are handling the traffic and the money. Why should she have to stand out here all day? Why should we?”
Marge was confused. “To prove that we’re supportive,” she said.
“But to prove it to whom? The students? They don’t care. The Headmistress? She doesn’t care.”
“To prove it to ourselves then.”
“To prove what to ourselves, Marge?” Carly asked.
Marge was flustered. It wasn’t something she had ever thought about. “I don’t know. It’s expected of us to be here, if we’re good teachers. Why are you asking me such questions? I do what I’m told.”
And that was when it hit Carly. Once again, she was doing what was expected of her. Not what she wanted to do. Not even what other people wanted her to do. But what she assumed they wanted her to do. She wasn’t even doing what she was told, as Marge put it, but what she assumed they wanted to tell her to do. She was being good Carly all over again. Going above and beyond. Being Miss Perfect, as Donald and Ashley sneeringly called her. And she was unhappy. And nobody cared.
She looked at her fellow teacher. “Goodbye, Marge,” she said, and began walking away.
“You’re leaving already too? I thought we were going to stay until the end of the day. Carly? Carly?”
But Carly had already tuned her, and everybody else, out. She walked to her VW Beetle, out of the shop and good to go, got in, and took off. It was Saturday. She had no husband, no children to get home to. She was going to do what she wanted to do for a change.
Tony Sinatra saw her as soon as he walked into the Inn. He came by to say hey to his stepmother, which he often did, but when he saw Sharon eating her dinner in the restaurant inside the Inn, he headed in that direction.
Sharon let out a harsh exhale as he approached, which didn’t help his confidence, but Tony had a way of shielding himself. He smiled broadly. “Hello, stranger.”
Sharon understood the reference. They hadn’t seen each other since he came by her hotel room after the shooting. Her choice. “Hello.”
“Having dinner, I see.”
“Yes.”
“May I join you?”
He could tell she didn’t want that, but she was in a shell too. He pressed. “I won’t bite, I promise,” he said.
She smiled. “You may.”
Tony sat down across from her.
“Have some?” she asked.
“Between you and me,” he said, “I wouldn’t eat the food here if my life depended on it.”
She looked at him with horror in her eyes.
“No, I’m kidding,” he said, and she relaxed. “But I’m good. Not hungry.”
Sharon continued to eat.
“I thought you’d be over at the church,” Tony said. “At the car wash.”
“I was there earlier, but I saw where they had it well in hand.”
“So tell me, Miss Flannigan, how have you been enjoying your stay in Jericho so far?”
“I’m still getting my sea legs, but I think I’ll be fine. The school needs a lot of changes, but I’m game.”
“That’s the spirit,” Tony said for a smile. “I always figured old Joe Huddleson to be the wrong jockey for a horse like that school, but what do I know?”
“You know more than you give yourself credit for,” Sharon said. Then she added: “I listen to your radio program.”
Tony smiled. “Oh, yeah? How often?”
She thought about it. “Since I’ve been in town? Every day,” she said.
Tony smiled greatly this time. “Smart girl,” he said.
They continued to talk, mainly about his broadcast, as Jenay and Charles entered the Inn. Jenay saw them before her husband did. “Over there,” she said. “Come on.”
When Charles saw them, he took the lead walking over to them. Jenay felt it was typical Charles. Always protective even thought she had no reason to fear Sharon. There was reason to believe Sharon was involved with Trevor Reese, and Trevor was involved with how Ethan Campbell’s body ended up in Carly’s former house, but she didn’t fear the woman. At least not yet. But Charles wasn’t taking any chances.
Tony smiled when he saw his parents approach. “Dad, Mom. Hey.”
Charles and Jenay sat at the table. Tony looked at Sharon. He wondered how she felt about this intrusion.
“You know Trevor Reese,” Charles said to Sharon.
Tony didn’t understand. He knew who Trevor Reese was. He looked at Sharon. Her expression remained unchanged. “Excuse me?” she asked.
“Trevor Reese,” Charles said. “What is your relationship with him?”
“Relationship?” Tony asked. “She doesn’t have a relationship with Trevor Reese.”
“I know him professionally.”
“You’re one of his clients?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I had an issue in Baltimore. I needed my reputation rehabilitation.”
Tony looked at her.
Sharon paused. “I had a relationship with a man I later found out was married. When his wife found out, it devastated her, as you can imagine. It devastated me. But she killed him.”
Jenay’s heart dropped. “Good Lord,” she said.
“And she went to jail,” Sharon said. “I was blamed.”
Tony stared at her.
“So my Bishop,” Sharon continued, “recommended that I go and speak with Mr. Reese. Mr. Reese discussed the matter with my Bishop, after talking with me, and they came back with a proposition. I can either get fired outright, or get demoted and accept an assignment in Maine. Jericho, Maine.”
“So Trevor Reese arranged for you to come here?” Charles asked.
She nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Did he say why he suggested that your Bishop send you here?” Charles asked.
“He didn’t say why, no.”
“What were you supposed to do when you got here?” Jenay asked.
“Work to turn around Saint Catherine’s mainly. But he also mentioned that he wanted me to get close to the Sinatras.”
Tony was surprised. “Get close to us?” he asked. “Close to us to do what?”
“To spy. To get dirt on any one of you I could. But that was the choice they gave me. I could go to Jericho, spy on the Sinatras, or get fired. I came here.”
“But you haven’t tried to get close to any of us,” Tony said. “Just the opposite.”
“That’s right,” Sharon said. “I couldn’t in good conscience spy on people. Especially when I don’t know why. I chose to keep my distance.”
“Has Reese or any of his people been in touch with you?” Charles asked.
“No, sir,” Sharon said. “Nobody.”
Charles leaned back. Jenay and Tony looked at him.
“What do you think it means?” Jenay asked.
“What I thought all along,” Charles said. “He’s up to something.”
Big Daddy Sinatra: Carly's Cry Page 17