Kristin Hannah's Family Matters 4-Book Bundle: Angel Falls, Between Sisters, The Things We Do for Love, Magic Hour

by Hannah, Kristin

  “Can you get there by yourself? Maybe I could fake a cold—”

  “No. If I had grandparents, I’d love to go visiting.” She felt a tiny sting at the confession. How often had she dreamed of going to Grandma’s, or meeting a cousin? She would have done almost anything to meet an honest-to-God relative.

  “I’ll bet Angie would take you. She seemed pretty cool.”

  Lauren thought about that. Was it possible? Could she ask Angie for that big a favor? “Yeah,” she said, just so David wouldn’t worry. “I’ll ask her.”

  David’s remark stayed with Lauren all the rest of that day and into the next. She was unused to having someone of whom she could ask a favor. It would make her look vaguely pathetic, she knew, might even prompt questions about her mother. Normally that would be reason enough to just forget the whole thing and take the bus.

  But Angie was different. She seemed to really care.

  By the end of the week, Lauren still hadn’t made up her mind. On Friday, she worked hard, moving quickly from table to table, keeping the customers happy. Whenever she could, she caught a glimpse of Angie, tried to gauge how a request would be received, but Angie was a butterfly all night, flitting from place to place, talking to each patron. Twice Lauren had started to ask the question, but on both times, she’d lost her nerve and turned away abruptly.

  “Okay,” Angie said as she was closing up the register for the night. “Spill the beans, kiddo.”

  Lauren was filling the salt shakers. At the question she flinched. Salt went flying across the table.

  “That’s bad luck,” Angie said. “Throw some salt over your left shoulder. Quick.”

  Lauren pinched some salt between her thumb and forefinger and tossed it over her shoulder.

  “Whew. That was close. We could have been struck by lightning. Now, what’s on your mind?”

  “Mind?”

  “That space between your ears. You’ve been staring at me all night, following me around. I know you, Lauren. You have something you want to say. You need Saturday night off? The new waitress is working out. I could spare you if you and David have a date.”

  This was it. Now or never.

  Lauren went back to her backpack and pulled out a flyer, which she handed to Angie.

  “California schools … question-and-answer session … meet with representatives. Hmm.” Angie looked up. “They didn’t have any of this cool stuff when I was a kid. So you want Saturday off so you can go?”

  “I-want-to-go-could-you-give-me-a-ride?” Lauren said it in a rush.

  Angie frowned at her.

  This had been a bad idea. Angie was giving her that poor Lauren, so pathetic look. “Never mind. I’ll just take the day off, okay?” Lauren reached down for her backpack.

  “I like Portland,” Angie said.

  Lauren looked up. “You do?”

  “Sure.”

  “You’ll take me?” Lauren said, almost afraid to believe it.

  “Of course I’ll take you. And Lauren? Don’t be such a chicken next time. We’re friends. Doing favors for each other comes with the territory.”

  Lauren was embarrassed by how much that meant to her. “Sure, Angie. Friends.”

  The traffic from Vancouver to Portland was stop-and-go. It wasn’t until they were halfway across the bridge that connected Washington to Oregon that they realized why. This afternoon was the big UW–UO football game. The Huskies versus the Ducks. A rivalry that had gone on for years.

  “We’re going to be late,” Angie said for at least the third time in the last twenty minutes. It was alarming how angry that made her. She’d undertaken the obligation to get Lauren to the appointment on time and now they were going to be late.

  “Don’t worry about it, Angie. So we miss a few minutes. It’s hardly a trauma.”

  Angie flicked on the turn signal and veered left onto their exit. Finally.

  Once they were on the surface streets, the traffic eased. She zipped down one street and up the other, then pulled into an empty parking stall. “We’re here.” She looked at the dashboard clock. “Only seven minutes late. Let’s run.”

  They raced across the parking lot and into the building.

  The place was packed.

  “Damn.” Angie started to walk down to the front. They could sit on the step if nothing else. Lauren grabbed her hand, led her to a seat in the back row.

  On stage there were about fifteen people seated behind a long conference table. A moderator was facilitating a discussion of entrance requirements, school selectivity, in-state to out-of-state student ratios.

  Lauren wrote down every word in her day planner.

  Angie felt a strange sort of pride. If she’d had a daughter, she would have wanted her to be just like Lauren. Smart. Ambitious. Dedicated.

  For the next hour, Angie listened to one statistic after the other. By the end of the presentation she knew one thing for sure: She wouldn’t have been accepted to UCLA these days. In her era, you’d needed to be breathing without a respirator and have a 3.0 grade point average. Now to get into Stanford you better have cured some disease or won the National Science Fair. Unless, of course, you were good at throwing leather balls. Then you needed a solid 1.7 grade point.

  Lauren closed her notebook. “That’s it,” she said.

  All around them, people were rising, moving toward the exit aisles. The combined conversation was a loud roar in the room.

  “So, what did you find out?” Angie asked, staying in her seat. There was no point merging into the ambulatory traffic.

  “That in the public schools almost ninety percent of the students come from in-state. And tuition is on its way up.”

  “Well, you’re definitely having one of those the-glass-is-half-empty moments. That’s not like you.”

  Lauren sighed. “It’s tough sometimes … going to Fircrest Academy. All my friends are picking the schools they like. I have to figure out how to get the schools to like me.”

  “It sounds like the essay is a big part of that.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And recommendations.”

  “Yeah. Too bad I can’t get, like, Jerry Brown or Arnold Schwarzenegger to write one for me. As it is, I hope Mr. Baxter—my math teacher—can rock their socks off. Unfortunately, he forgets where the blackboard is half of the time.”

  Angie glanced down at the stage. The folks from Loyola-Marymount, USC, and Santa Clara were still there. They were sitting at the tables, talking to one another.

  “What’s your first choice?” she asked Lauren.

  “USC, I guess. It’s David’s second-choice school.”

  “I am not even going to get into the conversation about following your boyfriend to school. Okay, I lied. It’s a bad idea. Don’t follow your boyfriend to college. Now come on.” She stood up.

  Lauren put her day planner in her backpack and got up. “Where are you going?” she said when Angie headed downstairs instead of up.

  She grabbed Lauren’s hand. “We did not drive all this way to be in the peanut gallery.”

  Lauren tried to draw back, but Angie was a freight train. She went down the stairs, around the orchestra pit, and onto the stage. Dragging Lauren behind her, she marched up to the man from USC.

  He looked up, smiled tiredly. No doubt he was used to mothers hauling their children on stage. There was no way for him to know that Angie wasn’t a mom. “Hello. How can I help you?”

  “I’m Angela Malone,” she said, offering her hand. When he shook it, she said, “I’m a UCLA girl myself, but Lauren here has her heart set on SC. I can’t imagine why.”

  The man laughed. “That’s a new approach. Knocking my school.” He looked at Lauren. “And who are you?”

  She blushed deeply. “L-Lauren Ribido. Fircrest Academy.”

  “Ah. Good school. That helps.” He smiled at her. “Don’t be nervous. Why SC?”

  “Journalism.”

  Angie hadn’t known that. She smiled, feeling like a proud parent.r />
  “Think you’re the next Woodward or Bernstein, huh?” the man said. “How are your grades?”

  “Top six percent of the class. About a 3.92 with lots of honors classes.”

  “SAT?”

  “Last year I got a 1520. I took it again, though. Those scores aren’t in.”

  “A score of 1520 is impressive enough. You do sports and volunteer in your community?”

  “Yes.”

  “And she works twenty to twenty-five hours a week,” Angie put in.

  “Impressive.”

  Angie made her move. “Do you know William Layton?”

  “The dean of the business school? Sure. He’s from around here, isn’t he?”

  Angie nodded. “I went to school with his daughter. What if he wrote Lauren a recommendation?”

  The man looked at Lauren, then pulled a small brass carrier out of his back pocket. “Here’s my card. You send your app. To me personally. I’ll shepherd it through.” To Angie, he said, “A recommendation from Layton would really help.”

  Lauren still couldn’t believe it. She kept breaking into laughter for no reason. Somewhere around Kelso, Angie had asked her to please stop saying thank you.

  But how could she? For the first time in her life, she’d been treated like Someone.

  She had a chance at USC. A chance.

  She looked at Angie. “Thanks. I mean it,” she said again, bouncing in her seat.

  “I know. I know.” Angie laughed. “You act like this is the first time anyone’s ever done you a favor. It was nothing.”

  “Oh, it was something,” Lauren said, feeling her smile fade. It meant so much to her, what Angie had done. For once, Lauren hadn’t been on her own.

  FOURTEEN

  The high school campus was buzzing with talk today. It was the third week of November and the college admission application process was in high gear. Everyone was obsessed with college. It was in every conversation. Lauren had filled out all her financial aid and scholarship paperwork, gotten all her transcripts together, and written all her essays. And miracle of miracles, Angie had gotten her a recommendation from Dr. Layton at USC. She was beginning to believe she had a real shot at a scholarship.

  “Did you hear about Andrew Wanamaker? His grandpa got him into Yale. Early decisions aren’t even out yet and he knows.” Kim Heltne leaned back against a tree, sighing. “If I don’t get into Swarthmore, my dad will crap. He doesn’t care that I hate snow.”

  They were all sitting in the quad, eating lunch, the “gang” who’d been best friends since freshman year.

  “I’d kill for Swarthmore,” Jared said, rubbing Kim’s back. “I’m supposed to go to Stone Hill. Another private Catholic school. I’m afraid I’ll go postal.”

  Lauren lay back, rested her head in David’s lap. For once, the sun was shining and the grass was thick and dry. Even though it was cold out, the sun warmed her cheeks.

  “It’s Mom’s alma mater for me,” Susan said. “Yippee. William and Mary, here I come. This high school is bigger than the college.”

  “How’s it going for you, Lauren? Any word on scholarships?” Kim asked.

  Lauren shrugged. “I keep filling out the paperwork. One more why-I-deserve-it essay and I might scream.”

  “She’ll get a full ride,” David said. “Hell, she’s the smartest kid in the school.”

  Lauren heard the pride in David’s voice as he said it; normally that would have made her smile, but now, as she stared up at his chin, all she could think about was their future. He’d applied to Stanford, and it was a foregone conclusion that he’d be accepted. The thought of being separated from him chilled her more than the November weather, and he didn’t seem to worry about it at all. He was sure of their love. How did a person come by that kind of certainty?

  Kim opened her pop. It snapped and hissed. “I can’t wait to be done with all this application crap.”

  Lauren closed her eyes. The conversation swirled around her, but she didn’t join in.

  She wasn’t sure why, but suddenly she was on edge. Maybe it was the weather: cold and clear. Storms followed days like this, when the sky was scrubbed clean by clouds that raced from west to east. Or maybe it was the college talk. All she knew was that something was not right.

  A fine silver mist clung to the morning-wet grass. Angie sat on the back porch, drinking her coffee and staring out to sea. The rhythmic whoosh-whoosh of the waves seemed as familiar and constant as the beating of her own heart.

  Here was the soundtrack of her youth. The rumbling roar of the tides, the sound of raindrops hitting rhododendron leaves, the creaking whine of her rocking chair on the weathered porch floor.

  The only thing missing was the sound of voices; children yelling at one another and giggling. She turned to say something to her husband, realizing a second too late that she was alone.

  She got up slowly, went back inside for more coffee. She was just reaching for the pot when there was a knock on the door.

  “Coming.” She went to the door, answered it.

  Her mother stood on the porch, wearing an ankle-length flannel nightgown and green rubber gardening clogs. “He wants me to go.”

  Angie frowned, shook her head. It looked as if Mama had been crying. “Come in out of the rain, Mama.” She put an arm around her mother, led her to a place on the sofa. “Now, what’s going on?”

  Mama reached into her pocket, pulled out a rumpled white envelope. “He wants me to go.”

  “Who?” Angie took the envelope.

  “Papa.”

  She opened it. Inside were two tickets to The Phantom of the Opera. Mama and Papa had always had seats at the Fifth Avenue Theater in downtown Seattle. It had been one of her father’s rare indulgences.

  “I was going to just let the date go past. I missed The Producers in July.” Mama sighed, her shoulders caving downward. “But Papa thinks you and I should go.”

  Angie closed her eyes for a moment, seeing her father dressed in his best black suit, heading for the door. He’d adored musicals most of all, had always come home from them singing. West Side Story had been his favorite, of course. Tony and Maria.

  That’s your mama and me, he always said, except we love each other forever, eh, Maria?

  She slowly opened her eyes; saw the same play of bittersweet memories on her mother’s face.

  “It’s a good idea,” Angie said. “We’ll make a night of it. Dinner at Palisades and a room at the Fairmont Olympic. It’ll be good for us.”

  “Thank you,” Mama said, her voice cracking. “That is what your papa said.”

  The next morning, Lauren got up early and made herself breakfast, but when she stared down at the eggs on her plate, the thought of eating that runny pile of yellow goo was more than she could bear. She pushed the plate away so fast the fork fell off and clanged on the Formica table. For a second, she thought she was going to throw up.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  Startled, she looked up. Mom stood in the doorway, dressed in an obnoxiously short pink denim skirt and an old Black Sabbath T-shirt. The dark circles under her eyes were the size of Samsonites. She was smoking a cigarette.

  “Gee, Mom. It’s nice to see you again. I thought you’d died in your bedroom. Where’s Prince Charming?”

  Mom leaned against the doorway. There was a dreamy, self-satisfied smile on her face. “This one is different.”

  Lauren wanted to say As in different species? But she held back. She was in a crappy, irritable mood. It wouldn’t do any good to tangle with her mother. “You always say that. Jerry Eckstrand was different, all right. And that guy who drove the VW bus—what was his name? Dirk? He was definitely different.”

  “You’re being a bitch.” Mom took a long drag on her cigarette. As she exhaled, she nibbled on her thumbnail. “Are you having your period?”

  “No, but we’re behind in the rent again and you seem to have retired.”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but I mi
ght be falling in love.”

  “The last time you said that, his name was Snake. God knows you can never go wrong with a guy named after a reptile. You pretty much know what you’re getting.”

  “There is definitely something wrong with you.” Mom crossed the room and sat down on the sofa. She put her feet up on the coffee table. “I really think this guy might be The One, Lo.”

  Lauren thought she heard a crack in her mother’s voice, but that wasn’t possible. Men had always drifted in and out of her mother’s life. Mostly out. She’d fallen in love with dozens of them. They never stuck around for long.

  “I was havin’ drinks with Phoebe, and just gettin’ ready to leave, when Jake walked in.” Mom sucked in a long drag on her cigarette, exhaled. “He looked like a gunfighter, coming in to the bar for a shoot-out. When the light hit his face, I thought for a second it was Brad Pitt.” She laughed. “The next morning, o’ course, when I woke up with him, he didn’t look much like a movie star. But he kissed me. In the light of day. A kiss.”

  Lauren felt the tiniest of openings between them. Such a moment was rare, and she couldn’t help moving toward it. She sat down beside her mom. “You sound … different when you say his name.”

  For once, Mom didn’t ease away. “I didn’t think it would happen for me.” She seemed to realize what she’d said, what she’d revealed, so she smiled. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

  “I guess I could say hi to him.”

  “Yeah. He thinks you’re a figment of my imagination.” Mom laughed. “Like I would pretend to have a kid.”

  Lauren couldn’t believe she’d walked into it again. Or that it still hurt. She started to get up, but her mother stopped her. Actually touched her.

  “And the sex. Holy shit, it’s good.” She took another drag, exhaled, smiling dreamily.

  Smoke swirled around Lauren’s face, clogged her nostrils. She gagged at the smell and felt her stomach rise.

  She ran for the bathroom, where she threw up. Afterward, still shaky, she brushed her teeth and went back to the dining room table. “How many times do I have to ask you not to exhale your smoke in my face?”