Second Chance Friends (16 page)

They danced through three songs and then got thirsty again. Back at the table, they sat side by side, leaning their shoulders into each other as talk turned personal. What was Karen's childhood like? What happened between Marty and his ex-wife? Where did each of them want to be in ten years? By the bottom of her third fizzy glass, Karen was feeling fine, so fine that she almost didn't bother to answer her phone when it lit up the inside of her purse.

But it was Kendall.

Karen excused herself and stepped outside into the cold, but much quieter, vestibule.

“Mom? It's me.” Karen thought she could hear a party going on in the background, though she couldn't be sure that she wasn't just hearing her own party spilling over into the microphone of her phone.

“Yes, hello,” Karen said. “I've been wondering about you. Is everything okay? It's not the baby, is it?”

“No,” Kendall said. Her tone was sour, and Karen could almost visualize the pout on the girl's face. It was too predictable. She heard a crash of breaking glass, followed by laughter. She was sure that had come from Kendall's end of the phone, not hers. Nobody had broken anything at Abuelita's. “Marcus is fine. But listen, so things haven't really worked out here like I thought they would.”

“Where is ‘here'?” Karen asked, trying to keep the sour
tone out of her own voice, but having a hard time, given that she still had no idea where in the world her own grandson lived now.

“I think we're going to come home, I guess.”

“Home here? From where? Where are you?”

“It's a long story,” Kendall said. “It doesn't matter anymore. It didn't work out, so we're coming back.”

Karen leaned against the cold window that faced the outside. The windows were foggy, streams of condensation dripping down into their frames. She wondered if her dress was getting wet, but at the moment didn't care. The cold was refreshing and was clearing her head a little. “Have you talked to Travis?” she asked.

Kendall laughed into the phone. Far in the distance, Karen could hear what sounded like a baby crying. Dear God, where did Kendall have her grandson? “Now is not a good time for that,” she said. “I can't come home to him anyway. Not with him locked up all the time. Besides, we got evicted from that apartment, so it's not like we can just go back to living there.”

“Evicted? I gave you rent money to cover it.”

“Well, it got used,” Kendall said, irritation sliding through the phone.

Got used,
Karen thought.
Right.
Got used for God knew what, but she knew not for the baby. “So where do you plan to go?” Karen asked. She bit her tongue before she did something dumb like offer to let them stay at her house. Yes, it would be wonderful to have Marcus under her roof, but she couldn't exactly trust that Kendall wouldn't steal
her blind. If she was going to make an offer like that, it would have to be when she was completely sober, when she'd had some time to think about what precisely she was offering. Why, oh why, did she decide to drink? After all these years?

She also couldn't guarantee that Kendall wouldn't up and leave Marcus with her. Was she ready to start over again at forty-six years old? Without warning, a memory of Maddie Routh gripping the positive pregnancy test strip pushed itself into her mind. She closed her eyes against it.

“I just need some money, Mom,” Kendall said, and Karen burned with anger over the use of the word “Mom.” Kendall pulled it out artfully, whenever she thought it would buy her something she was after. Thinking that Karen was stupid enough or gullible enough or desperate enough to believe that the girl had any sort of actual affection for her.

“Money?” Karen repeated. “I gave you money to get to where you are now. What happened to it?”

“It got me out here. But now I'm out, and I need more. So I can come back.” Kendall said this last sentence plaintively, so false it made Karen's skin crawl. She was being played. Even she could see that much.

“I don't have it,” she said.

“What do you mean you don't have it?” Kendall barked into the phone. “I need it to get back.”

“I'm out,” Karen said. “I'm a single mom. I'm not made of money.”

“That's bullshit,” Kendall spat. “Travis told me how
much money you have. It's just been the two of you all these years. It's not like you had to pay college tuition or anything. You're loaded.”

“I don't know what Travis told you,” Karen said. She could hear her own voice ratcheting up. “But I'm all tapped out. I don't have anything to give you.”

“Don't you even care about Marcus getting home?”

“Of course I care,” Karen said. She swallowed before speaking the next words. “But I can't help this time. You'll have to do it yourself.”

“Fine,” Kendall said. “You know, I guess I never expected you to turn your back on family.”

But you're not my family,
Karen wanted to shout.
You're my son's Tramp of the Hour. He's probably already got the next you lined up for when he's let out of jail.
She blinked, shocked to even hear herself think this about her son, even if it was true.

“Of course I'm not going to turn my back on Mar—,” Karen began, but Kendall had cut her off. Karen stared at her phone screen and, when it didn't light up again, murmured, “Happy New Year, Kendall,” and stuffed it back into her purse.

Marty was working on a piece of cake when she got back to the table. A piece waited for her at the seat next to him, but her mood had been dampened. She sat in her original seat across from him again. The air felt cloying, full of sweat and spices.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

Karen sighed, pulled the paper plate toward her, and began picking at the cake listlessly. “My son's girlfriend. Wanting money again.”

“Ah.” He tucked another bite into his mouth.

“You sure you want to get involved with a woman like me?” Karen asked, dragging her fork to make tracks through the icing.

Marty stifled a smile. “A woman like what?”

“A hot mess,” Karen said. “Well, I'm not a hot mess. But I come equipped with one. I've obviously failed. Look at my son's life, and it keeps spilling over into mine. Don't you wonder what's wrong with me?”

Marty speared a piece of cake and held it across the table. It shivered on the end of his fork, inches from her mouth. “Not even a little bit,” he said.

Karen tried to stare him down—tried to see the lie, or at least the little niggle of fear behind his confidence—but after a moment couldn't help but let his smile become contagious. She bit the cake off his fork, licking the icing off her lips.

“Fifty seconds!” a woman yelled, plowing through the crowd, carrying a bottle of champagne in each hand. “Fifty seconds!”

The music stopped and the DJ took up the count, as Marty tore the foil off the bottle of champagne he'd brought. Karen found herself drawn to her feet and pulled into the crowd, feeling Marty's arm snake around her waist as they reached ten . . . nine . . . eight. . . . She allowed herself to lean into him. Six . . . five . . . four . . . The crowd frenzied tighter,
pushing her closer and closer, and she didn't fight it. Instead, she turned to face him.

“Three, two, one! Happy New Year!” Karen shouted, unable to hear her own voice over the cheering of the crowd and the sudden explosion of music.

Marty popped the cork and a fountain of champagne bubbled out of the bottle. He held it away, but they were too closed in and a streak of foam smeared down the front of Karen's dress. She didn't mind. She threw her head back to laugh.

And didn't pull away when she felt Marty Squire's mouth on her own.

“Happy New Year, hot mess,” he said.

“Happy New Year,” Karen answered, and kissed him again.

It would be morning before she found the text that Kendall had sent at 12:07:

I need $1,000 to get home or u will never see Marcus again. Think it through.

W
hen Paul finally came home, there was nothing but silence. For days. It wasn't a grudge sort of silence, but rather the sort of silence where neither of them knew what to say. It seemed like too much water had gone under the bridge. She'd lied; he'd left angry. He'd stayed gone two months, rather than two nights. She'd spent the holidays alone, in an empty house. What was there to talk about? How did you even begin a conversation about that?

Melinda tried not to think about it. She worked extra shifts when she could. She arrived at the diner before everyone else and left after they'd gone. And when she was out of other options, she visited her sister, Holly.

Melinda and Holly had always been close. Best friends
as well as sisters. But after Holly had her third child, she'd had less and less time to hang out with her sister. This meant that Melinda always had to visit Holly at her house, where there was a minefield of toys and constant mayhem and frequent interruptions. It was agonizing, the jealousy that Melinda felt.

Once Melinda had begun secretly taking the birth control pills, she rarely visited—only if she was needed for babysitting, which was heart-filling and gutting all at once—and eventually she just stopped visiting altogether, despite her sister's phone calls.

When Melinda pulled into her sister's driveway after Paul had been home for a week, it was the first time she'd been there since the day Holly had been called to jury duty and Melinda had been called back to the Tea Rose Diner. She'd been conveniently “working” throughout the holidays, mailing her gifts to the family. She couldn't face them without Paul. She didn't want to have to explain.

Holly stood in the door, a displeased look on her face. “Well, look who's gracing me with her company today,” she said.

“Just let me in, Hols. You know you will, and the quicker you do it, the quicker I can apologize,” Melinda said, and then, when her sister didn't budge, pulled out a brown paper sack. “I brought brownies from Lotta Chocolotta. Your favorite.”

Holly gazed at the sack, then rolled her eyes and turned and disappeared into the depths of the house—as close to an invitation as Melinda was going to get. Melinda knew
where to go, though. Straight back to the kitchen, where Holly was already filling the coffeemaker with water.

“So to what do I owe this special treat?” Holly asked.

“I'm sorry, Sis,” Melinda said, sliding onto a barstool. She plucked two napkins out of the napkin holder on the bar and laid them out, then set a brownie on each. “Really, I didn't mean to ignore you.”

“Where have you been? Mom says she hasn't heard from you, either.”

“Well, that's not exactly unusual.”

“True,” Holly said, pouring coffee grounds into the coffeemaker and pushing the brew button. “I was always the suck-up.”

“Yes, you were. How is Mom, anyway?”

Holly leaned over the bar and picked up her brownie. She studied it before pinching off a tiny piece and tucking it into her mouth.

Mitchell, Holly's oldest, bounded into the room. “Ooh, yum! Can I have one?”

“Aunt Melinda brought them for me,” Holly answered.

“Please?” he begged, clasping his hands together as if he was praying.

“No,” she snapped. “Aren't you even going to say hi to Aunt Melinda, Mr. Rude?”

“Hi,” Mitchell said sullenly.

“Don't worry, I brought enough for everyone,” Melinda said. She pulled out a brownie and handed it over the bar. Holly sighed and threw her arms into the air, but Melinda knew she wouldn't really get mad. Holly liked it that
Melinda spoiled her kids when she came around. She'd have expected nothing less.

“Anyway, Mom?” Melinda asked, once Mitchell had left.

Holly shrugged, then picked another corner off her brownie and ate it. “She's wondering what's going on with you. She said she heard that Paul left.”

“Where did she hear that?” Melinda asked.

“God, I don't know. Where does Mom hear half the crap she hears? From the Old Lady Brigade.”

Melinda paused. It had gotten around. Of course it had. Had she really expected it not to? “Well, it was true,” she said. She didn't need to look up to know Holly's reaction. She could sense the shock in the air. “But he's back now.”

“What? When did that happen?”

“Back in November,” Melinda said.

“November?” Holly repeated, in a voice so loud, another kid popped into the room. Holly handed that kid a brownie without being asked, or even looking to see whom she handed it to. “What the hell, Linds? You're just now telling me this?”

Melinda shrugged, playing with the handle of her coffee mug. She wasn't hungry for brownies anymore, but a good slug of coffee sounded so good it made her mouth water. As if she could sense this—and she probably could; Holly had always been a very intuitive sister—Holly grabbed the pot out from under the gurgling coffeemaker and filled Melinda's cup.

“What happened?” she asked, filling her own as well.
She grabbed a container of vanilla caramel creamer—both sisters' favorite—and laid out two spoons in front of them. Melinda was glad of the distraction of fixing up her coffee. “Why didn't you tell me?”

“I was embarrassed,” Melinda said. “And I think a little depressed. Maybe I still am, actually. It's been hard. Do you remember that bus crash?”

“Of course.”

“I've been really worried about the woman who survived. The one in the car. She's pregnant, and she's a disaster. But every time I come near her, she tells me to get out of her life.”

“What do you mean, every time you come near her? You're coming near her? Why?”

Melinda stirred the coffee. The alarm in her sister's voice drove home what Maddie Routh had been saying all these months: she had no place in her life. Saving her from a crash did not give her access to the woman's life if she didn't want her in there.

So why couldn't she stay away?

Because she couldn't stop thinking about her.

Holly shook her head, her brow furrowed. “Wait a minute. I'm confused. What does this have to do with Paul leaving you?”

“It doesn't. Not really. But in a way it does, too. It's because of all the tragedy out there, you know? Because this woman exists, and her baby exists, that's what it has to do with Paul leaving.”

“You're not making any sense, Linds,” Holly said. She
took another wary bite of brownie. “Should I be worried about you?”

“No,” Melinda said. “But how do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“How do you ever let your kids out of your arms? How do you put them in a car every day? How do you not go insane with worry that they will have to be scraped off of a highway, or pulled from the bottom of a lake, or their brains hosed off of a bathroom floor someday?”

Holly looked stricken. “Jesus. That's a real cheery thought. What the hell is wrong with you?”

Question of the hour,
Melinda thought. “I'm sorry.”

Holly set her brownie back down on the napkin. “Why would you even say such a thing? Is this why Paul left you? Are you going crazy? This is a real question, Linds. If you're losing your shit, I need to warn Mom and Dad and host an . . . intervention or something.”

“I'm not going crazy,” Melinda said, but she was doubtful. Maybe this was what the beginning of crazy looked like. Maybe crazy started as irrational fear, and was followed by lying, and then inserting yourself into someone else's life when you weren't wanted. Maybe crazy drove husbands away and made them come back silent. Maybe crazy made you hide from your family over the holidays. Maybe crazy had you imagining the violent deaths of your nieces and nephews when talking to their mother. “Maybe I am,” she muttered.

Holly took a sip of her coffee. “Did something happen?”
Her eyes grew big over the top of her mug. “You didn't cheat on him, did you?”

At that, Melinda burst into tears. “I lied to him,” she cried. “I felt so guilty, but I did it anyway. Holly, I'm going to lose him, and I'm going to lose Maddie Routh, and I can't explain why the thought of losing them hurts equally, but it does.”

Holly hurried around the counter and folded Melinda into her arms, shushing her. “It'll be okay,” she said. “It'll be okay.”

But hadn't Melinda said the same thing to Maddie Routh that day of the crash? Hadn't she consoled her similarly? And now Maddie Routh was a skeleton, sunk into herself and her misery.

Melinda hoped her sister wasn't lying as baldly as she had on that day.