by Talley, Liz
Tennyson issued a chuckle. “Always been my motto.”
“I knew you’d understand.”
They ended up in a bustling ER where another nurse who also seemed to know Joseph, this one with a bigger chest and biceps that rippled, sent them upstairs to the intensive care unit. The halls were mostly empty after the hectic speed of the ER, and when the elevator opened and they started walking toward the ICU waiting room, it felt as if they were entering a tomb. A pall hung over this entire part of the hospital floor, and it was so thick it felt like Tennyson needed to wipe it from her skin.
She stopped in the doorway of the ICU waiting room and spied Melanie sitting alone on a couch, staring into the vacuum of space before her. Her hair, once bouncy, now hung on either side of her face as if defeated. She clasped her hands in her lap, turning them over each other in a kneading motion. Tennyson had never seen Melanie look so lost before.
The motion at the entrance drew Melanie’s attention. “Tennyson?”
“I’m going to grab some coffee, ’kay?” Joseph said in her ear, his tone implying he understood she needed privacy.
Melanie stood, still looking confused. “What are you doing here? Who’s that guy?”
Tennyson moved into the room. “I thought I should come check on you. And that’s Joseph. He’s . . . uh, a friend.”
“Oh well,” Melanie said, plucking at the dress she still wore. The conservative crepe dress with a floral pattern was now crumpled against Melanie’s newly beach-burnished skin. Her face, however, looked like curdled custard it was so pale and tired. “I, uh, I’m waiting to meet the doctor.”
“Where is everyone else?”
“Mother is in the chapel with her friend Margaret Ellison. Do you remember her? Big teeth? And Emma went home to get Noah. Kit’s still in Florida. Um, they don’t think . . . they . . .” Melanie started panting, her big brown eyes filling with tears. “What are you doing here? You . . . didn’t . . . you aren’t . . .”
“Why don’t we sit down. Okay? I think you should.” Tennyson gently took her arm.
“I can’t just sit. I need to do something,” she said, fidgeting her hands and staring at the opening to the waiting area. Tennyson glanced around the room. A woman sat with what looked to be her teenaged son, a blanket wrapped around her, weariness radiating from her eyes as she glanced their way and then turned her head. The stack of used coffee cups and worn books indicated the two had been here awhile.
“I know you do, but there’s nothing to do right now. Why don’t we sit and talk? Come on,” Tennyson said, leading Melanie to the far side of the room, which was still visible from the doorway but also away from the other occupants.
Melanie allowed Tennyson to lead her to a set of chairs.
For a few minutes they sat side by side. Then Melanie turned to Tennyson. “Why are you here?”
“I told you. I just felt like I should”—Tennyson turned over the palms resting on her knees—“check on you.”
Melanie looked at her strangely. It was as if she were studying her with the eye of a fashion photographer, deciding what light would be best, what position she should take. Finally, Melanie released a pent-up breath. “She’s going to die.”
“No. You don’t know that,” Tennyson said, her heart filling with anguish at the thought the world would lose Hillary. Sweet Hillary with her twinkling eyes and bouncing hair. Hillary with her uninhibited laugh and need to save baby birds and worms crossing hot pavement. It wasn’t fair. At all. “You don’t.”
“I could tell. You can see it in the doctor’s eyes.”
“What happened?”
Melanie sucked in a breath and exhaled. “Hilly knew something was wrong and called for Martha. Mother had the foresight to ask her to come stay with Hilly when she said she wasn’t feeling well. The doctor said it was cardiac arrest.” Melanie closed her eyes and pressed her gathered fingers against them.
“At least the ambulance got there fast. Maybe it was enough time,” Tennyson said, reaching over and pulling one of Melanie’s hands away. “Come on. Be positive.”
“Hilly’s not strong enough, Teeny. Her body just isn’t. It’s been through too many years of abuse. I’ve read everything there is to read about eating disorders. Cardiac arrest is a leading cause of death. They just deny and deny and deny their bodies nutrients, and then those bodies don’t work anymore. God, her body just doesn’t work.” Melanie wrapped her arms around her stomach and fell forward. Her face twisted in anguish, and bright blood appeared on her bottom lip. She’d chewed it until it bled.
Tennyson didn’t know what to do. Why had everyone left Melanie alone, assuming she could handle this situation by herself? Why did she have to be the one to talk to the doctor? Why did everyone else get a pass to deal with their own feelings but Melanie didn’t?
The thought pissed Tennyson off. Ever since she’d been back, she’d watched Melanie handle everything for everyone else.
Slowly, she began to rub Melanie’s back, the same way she’d done with Andrew when he’d been sick as a child. “It’s okay, Melly. It’s okay to be scared.”
Under her hand, Melanie stilled, her silent sobs abating. After a few more seconds, Melanie sat up and wiped her face. “Oh God. I am scared.”
Tennyson looked at her. “I am, too. All the time.”
“You’re not scared. You never have been.”
“Wrong. I . . . well, you know me, Melanie. I have to play it off. I have to put on a front.”
Melanie smiled at her then, a tremulous, wobbly smile. “You want to know a secret?”
She didn’t respond because she was fairly certain that secrets were the reason she and Melanie were no longer friends. That, and the fact that Tennyson had purposefully, albeit drunkenly, spilled the biggest secret of the Brevard family in front of hundreds of wedding guests. So that Melanie would offer up something using the word secret made her wary.
“I missed who I am with you,” Melanie whispered.
Tennyson felt something weird break apart in her chest at that confession. “Yeah? You miss getting detention and punished for sneaking out late?”
A tear slipped from Melanie’s brown eyes. “Yeah. We got in trouble a lot, but the thing is, I don’t like who I am much anymore. I’m older, fatter, and take more crap from people than I used to. I settle all the time and allow myself to be used, underappreciated, or whatever just so someone will pay attention to me. I am the doormat they walk across and wipe their crap on. I don’t have any true friends. Okay, a couple. But no one asks me to have cocktails or go on girls’ trips or be their ride or die. You know what I mean?”
“Ride or die? Or the doormat thing?”
Melanie made a confused face. “Both?”
Tennyson realized she didn’t have many friends, either. Oh sure, she’d had friends who invited her for cocktails and even took a few trips to her place in Colorado or the place husband number three had in Cabo, but she didn’t have ones who knew who she truly was. She had faux friends, people who looked the part, but never held her hand when she cried, never showed up with Oreos or ice cream when she had a crap day, never cared about the real Tennyson. None of them saw through her crap and held her accountable. No one told her no. That she was acting stupid. Or ridiculous. She hadn’t had a friend like that since . . . Melanie.
And Tennyson had thrown that friendship away over a damned man. Because she couldn’t accept Kit choosing Melanie over her, even when she didn’t truly want him anymore. She had always been jealous of what Melanie had—the big house, the fancy cars, the damned country club membership. She hadn’t wanted her to have Kit, too.
So she’d done what she thought she had to in order to steal Melanie’s “perfect” world. She was a shitty person.
“I know what you mean, but you don’t have to be everything to everybody, Melly. You know? You get to choose yourself sometimes,” she said, mostly because she couldn’t seem to admit that to herself, much less Melanie. Or maybe this was a new revelation—that s
he truly missed Melanie. How could she say she made the biggest mistakes of her life when she was twenty-three years old? And that she’d spent too many years regretting those mistakes, atoning for one with money, pretending the other one didn’t matter to her anymore? She’d spent too many years chasing happiness that she would never catch. Because she thought who she’d been couldn’t be good enough. She’d hated being powerless, so she’d ensured she never felt that way by buying a lifestyle.
Melanie nodded. “You’re right. I know I should stand up to my family, but I can’t seem to do it.”
Tennyson pulled a few tissues from the box beside her. “Here.”
Melanie took them, blew her nose with one, and wiped her eyes with the other. “Thank you. You always seem to be doing that.”
“There’s been a lot of emotion going on, and you’re welcome.”
“I mean it. Thank you for coming. You didn’t have to, but you did.”
“What is she doing here?”
The accusation rang out across the room, and Tennyson felt her stomach sink when she saw Anne Brevard standing in the opening to the waiting room next to a horse-faced woman who did indeed have big teeth. Anne’s face reflected absolute outrage.
“Mother, Tennyson came to check on us,” Melanie said, rising and holding her hands up in a motion that suggested the older woman calm down.
“And now she can leave,” Anne said, her voice the temperature of an arctic storm.
Joseph came in right behind the two women, holding a cardboard carrier of domed cups. “I have coffee. Figured everyone could use a cup about now.”
He slid by the frigid Asian woman, giving her a soft smile before heading toward Tennyson and Melanie. Anne stalked into the room behind him, her eyes now flashing anger. “I don’t know who this man is or why he’s here, but you need to leave. You are not welcome here.”
Anne had been pointing her finger at Tennyson, and now she stopped in front of her, wearing the black dress she’d worn to the bridal shower, looking pristine and marbled, unlike her rumpled daughter. She waited one second, two, even a third, before arching her perfectly drawn eyebrows in a supercilious manner.
“I’m not here for you, Mrs. Brevard. I’m here for Melanie,” Tennyson said, suddenly very grateful that Joseph had stayed with her. He stood next to her, and she could feel his wariness as he read the situation.
“Melanie doesn’t need you, either. Leave. Now,” Anne said.
“Ma’am”—Joseph held up a hand—“Tennyson doesn’t have to go anywhere. This is a public space.”
Anne turned toward Joseph, looking like a weapon repositioning and focusing its red target light onto his forehead. “That may be, but this woman is not welcome to converse with any of us. Come with me, Melanie.”
Melanie stopped moving toward her mother. “What? No.”
Anne turned to her daughter and gave her a look. It was one that said excuse me, missy? It was a look Tennyson had seen many times, and it always caused Melanie to fall in line. “I beg your pardon?”
“I mean it. I’ve had enough of all this . . .” Melanie waved her hand around. “It’s time to stop.”
“There will never be a time for this to stop,” Anne said, turning on her heel. “Never.”
“It has to be, Mother. I’m done with the hate and discord. Tennyson came when others didn’t. I’m not asking her to leave.”
Her mother tossed Tennyson a frosty glare over her shoulder. “Fine. You do whatever you wish, daughter. You always have.” And then her mother walked away.
Melanie looked at Tennyson and shrugged. Then Melanie sat down. To wait. On the word if her sister was alive or dead. That her mother was leaving, her regard for her own ego more important than the feelings of her daughter, made it all the more tragic. It also made Tennyson feel something she hadn’t felt for Melanie in a while—a sense of loyalty she had forgotten.
The horse-faced woman shot Melanie an apologetic look and followed Anne from the waiting room.
Joseph extended the cardboard carrier toward Tennyson. She shook her head. The last thing she could do was drink coffee. Melanie reached over and grabbed one, taking a swig. Then her former BFF looked up at the hot cop. “I’m Melanie, by the way.”
He picked up a creamer container and held it up, waggling it. Melanie took it. “I’m Joseph. Tennyson’s friend.” Then he gave Melanie one of his pretty smiles.
“Good. She probably needs someone like you. We all probably need someone like you,” Melanie said.
Tennyson looked at Joseph. His eyes met hers, and he conveyed a look that said I’m in over my head here. She could only mouth thank you to the man who had not only walked her in but had fetched coffee. This was the kind of man she’d never had in her life, outside of her father. Melanie hadn’t been wrong. Tennyson had needed someone like Joseph for a while.
“Melanie and I have a complicated history,” Tennyson finally said.
“I gathered as much,” Joseph said.
Melanie poured the cream into her coffee, then took a stirrer from the cardboard carrier. “So it started with college. Tennyson went to NYC to be famous, and Kit and I went to LSU.”
Tennyson figured it was going to be a long wait, so she grabbed the other coffee. “And Kit and Melanie fell in love.”
Joseph nodded. “So who is Kit?”
Tennyson glanced over at Melanie before looking at her hot cop. “He’s Melanie’s husband. But before he was hers, he was mine. And that’s where it all started . . . and ended.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Kit and Melanie’s Wedding Day, 1996
Melanie rubbed her lips together, adjusted her veil, and gave a final glance into the mirror of the church’s bridal suite. She looked about as perfect as she could get, mostly thanks to her sister, who had curled her hair, worked to make her both “glamorous and natural,” and tried not to cry while she was doing it. Hillary was nothing if not sentimental.
“You look so darn pretty, Melanie,” Carrie Carlisle said, blending her own lipstick behind her. “I swear Kit’s tongue’s going to loll out like an ol’ coon dog when he sees you coming down the aisle.”
Melanie smiled at her sorority sister and bridesmaid. Carrie was from nearby Minden and loved to use country euphemisms like she had grown up on a farm. Everyone knew Carrie had been raised in a large, historic house on Main Street, had a trust fund, and a new dress for cotillion. “I’m not sure my mother would like that.”
“Oh, pish,” Carrie said, waving away Melanie’s comment with a hand. “Who cares what Mama thinks when you got a man like that waiting at the altar?”
She did, indeed, have a hunk waiting for her to say “I do,” and sometimes she couldn’t believe that Kit was finally going to be hers. She couldn’t count the number of times she pinched herself when she remembered he would be her husband. “You have a point, Carrie.”
“Darn tootin’.” Carrie turned to the other bridesmaids. “Y’all ready, girls? Who’s holding my bouquet? Who has Melanie’s?”
The hustle and bustle fell away as Melanie rose and tried to concentrate on everything she was supposed to remember. Her daddy would be on her right side. She had to walk slowly because people needed to enjoy seeing the bride. Hillary had the ring tied to her bouquet. All Melanie had to do was remember how to breathe, wait for the pastor to cue her, and say her vows loud enough so everyone could hear her.
She turned to watch her sister and her bridesmaids make last-minute adjustments to their makeup and hair. Hilly looked so much better these days, her cheeks glowing, and the weight from the pregnancy making her finally look more herself. Hillary had been married for just over a year and had recently found out she and Kyle were expecting a little one at the beginning of next year. Her daddy was so excited to be a grandfather. He’d been carrying around cigars and passing them out to everyone ever since Hillary and Kyle had told the family they were pregnant.
Everything felt surreal but right. The only thing that felt wrong w
as Tennyson not being at her wedding. They’d both planned their weddings when they were ten years old, with each promising to be the other’s maid of honor. Melanie could remember poring over bridal magazines, clipping pictures of dresses and four-tiered wedding cakes, dreaming about the groom waiting for them at the altar. They’d taken Melanie’s lacy slips out of the drawers and pulled them on their heads to be makeshift veils, with the hairbrush alternating as both the bouquet and the microphone for when they launched into “Hopelessly Devoted to You” off the Grease soundtrack. Somehow it seemed such a travesty that Tennyson wouldn’t be standing beside Melanie when she became someone’s wife.
But that was because of who that someone was.
Tennyson had been so furious at her and Kit. She wouldn’t even take Melanie’s calls, and the letters she’d written and sent to New York City had come back with an angry “refused” scrawled across the front. The postal service’s red Return to Sender stamped atop validated that Tennyson didn’t want her apology. Even Kit had tried to talk some sense into Tennyson when she last visited Shreveport, but she’d slammed the door in his face. Melanie didn’t understand why she was so mad at them. Tennyson and Kit had been broken up for years, and Tennyson knew they had been dating for a few years. It wasn’t like she and Kit had cheated. Wasn’t like they had planned on falling in love. It just sorta happened.
When Melanie and Kit had first told Tennyson they were together, she’d thrown a glass of water at them both. Then she stood in the middle of Strawn’s and called Melanie the c word. She’d also accused her of always being in love with Kit and being jealous of her for years. After that little scene, she’d stormed out and not spoken to either of them since. Melanie had felt not only guilty because some of her words were true—she had been half in love with Kit for several years, even though she would have never interfered between Tennyson and Kit—but she’d also been angry at her friend for implying she’d been anything but a good friend to her.
Melanie had always stood in Tennyson’s shadow, supporting her, encouraging her, letting her have all the things—first dibs on everything. And this was how her “friend” acted?