You Knew Me When (15 page)

I followed Luella into the kitchen, where a plate of croissants was laid out on the table, as if she'd been expecting me. It seems like Luella is always expecting me, which I've never acknowledged is a pretty nice way to feel.

“I just can't believe it.”

“Can't believe what?” She sat down across from me.

“That he likes me.”

“As well he should. You're a beautiful, very intelligent young woman.”

“I don't know.” I took a croissant.

“Well, I do. You just need a little more confidence, that's all. Grant's a smart boy. He sees what everyone else sees.”

“Not the other guys at school.”

“Well, I can't speak for them. But I'd say they'll regret it one day.”

“Doubtful.”

“Nonsense.” She paused, as if she were trying to figure out what to say next. “So, how was it?”

“How was what?” My whole body was still quivering with adrenaline; it was hard to concentrate on anything other than the way his lips had felt on mine.

“The kiss. How was the kiss?” Luella didn't make eye contact. She just busied herself by tidying things on the kitchen table, which didn't appear to need tidying.

“Good, I guess.” Honestly, I hadn't thought about the good or bad of it, and I don't exactly have a point of reference, unless you count Dan. Which I do not. Grant probably could have licked my face clean like a puppy dog and I'd still be in seventh heaven. Then it occurred to me: what if
he
didn't like the way I kissed?
Shit.
“I mean, I hope Grant thought so.” It wasn't my typical course of conversation with Luella. Sure, we'd talked about plenty of personal things before, my personal things—like fights I'd had with my dad or even disagreements I'd had with Laney. Sometimes it was easier to confide in Luella than it was in either of them. With Laney, it could be challenging to keep her focused on anything but herself or what was going on at that very moment, in that it applied to her. With my dad, it was mainly about him being, simply put, a man. Luella had a way of listening without judging, and also understanding when I needed help and when I just needed her to hear me and, if necessary, console me without offering her two cents.

“Well, was it . . .” she trailed off. It was uncharacteristic for Luella to be at a loss for words.

“Was it what?”

“Brief?”

“Oh no, it went on for a while.” She considered this.

“Well, then, sounds like a good start, my dear.” She reached her hand across the table and patted my arm affectionately. Then she stood up and walked over to the drawer next to the oven. “Now I've got a little something for the birthday girl too. I've been waiting for the right time to give these to you.” Luella handed me a jewelry box the same size as the one Grant had given me.

“Thank you so much.”

“Don't thank me until you open it.” Here eyes twinkled with anticipation.

There was no wrapping paper, so I just lifted the lid to find the most stunning pair of emerald studs I'd ever seen. “Oh, my God, Luella. These are gorgeous. They must have been a fortune.”

“Not at all.” She smiled.

“What?” I lifted them out of the box carefully.

“Those earrings, which are your birthstone, by the way, were mine. And my mother's before that. I guess you could say they were free.”

“Luella.” My eyes filled with tears. “I can't take these.”

“Nonsense. My mother told me to save them for when I have a daughter one day.” Her voice cracked. “And you're the closest thing I have, Kitty.”

“I don't know what to say.”

“Don't say anything, darling. Just wear them in good health and pass them down to your own daughter one day.”

I stood up and walked toward her, catching her off guard with a proper hug, the kind where she couldn't just pat my shoulder and let go. “I love you, Luella.”

“I love you too, darling. I'm so very proud of you.” She squeezed me back. “And I'm happy to see Grant's finally appreciating what a smart, beautiful woman you've become. You have such a bright future ahead of you, Kitty. Only good things to come.”

D
ay three at Luella's house had been a whirlwind—pandemonium, her father had called it. Katherine and Laney had made a last-minute decision to call in the estate-sale lady early, so she could start assessing the pieces of furniture, china, stemware, table linens, and other trinkets that had been in good enough condition to salvage for a high-end estate sale. They'd also hired a moving company—more like a friend of a friend of Rick's who'd materialized with a pack of burly men and two enormous trucks. When Katherine had asked about a contract, in the event of damages, they'd all had a hearty chuckle at her expense. “We'll get it all there in one piece, sweetheart,” the leader of the pack had assured her, and she'd smiled stiffly. The idea, which Katherine had concocted on her way back to the Equinox, was to get as much stuff out of the house and into storage as they could so that the cleaners could come in and start on the first floor while Katherine and Laney proceeded to pack up the rooms upstairs. She'd called Laney and, to Katherine's surprise, Laney had agreed wholeheartedly, without any resistance. She'd even offered to find the movers—thus Rick's friend of a friend.

All day long it had been people running around the house, asking questions, needing answers, wanting to know what went where and who was supposed to do what. Katherine was in her element, at the same time fielding anxious pleas from Brooke back in New York. After all, it was a Monday in the “real world,” as Katherine had heard herself repeating over and over every time someone raised an eyebrow at her phone ringing
again
.
If only they knew this is nothing compared to my usual pace,
she'd thought. Katherine suspected that Jane, her boss, had asked everyone at the office to give her as much space as possible while she was out; the phone wasn't ringing as often as it normally would, despite the fact that all of the other people working around her seemed to be burdened by the frequency. After the sixth consecutive call, one of the movers had said, “Boy, oh, boy, lady. You must be someone important” within earshot of Laney, which had afforded Katherine a jolt of self-satisfaction.

By five p.m. everyone had been exhausted, but the house did look—and smell—drastically better. It had taken seven of them—five big men, Katherine, and Laney—to cover and move the crystal chandelier, which had been the last piece of furniture. Now, arriving on day four, Katherine felt a profound sense of relief and accomplishment in finding a barren first floor, with only dust mites to dance atop the hardwood surface. They still had three guest bedrooms, which they hoped to knock out today, thereby leaving only Luella's den and bedroom, the most arduous, mentally and physically, of all the rooms in the house. Luella's closet alone could take a week. Last night in bed, Katherine's head had been spinning, conjuring every blouse, skirt, dress, scarf, shoe box, and belt they'd have to catalog, not to mention her jewelry. It was daunting, certainly, but it was also the only thing she could focus on if she wanted to avoid thinking about Grant. She'd dreamt about him again, as she had the two nights prior. She'd tried desperately to will herself not to. She'd long been a firm believer that if you told yourself you were going to dream about something, then you wouldn't. In the same way, she told herself that if she thought she was going to fall down a flight of stairs, then she wouldn't. Some strange combination of Murphy's Law and Katherine's own neuroses. Unfortunately, this time it hadn't worked.

All three dreams had been a version of the original, the one she'd had that first night after being abruptly reunited with Grant at Luella's house. She was a teenager living back in her father's house, only her mother was there. She looked just the same, with her bright red lips and bright red nails, except she couldn't find her way around the house. It was as if she'd never died, never been hit by the car on that fateful day, yet this wasn't her house and she knew it. She was frustrated by this, as so often she was by things, and Katherine was showing her where everything was. Then Grant and Laney showed up. Her mother didn't know Laney at all, and Laney couldn't see her mother; only Grant could. In turn, Katherine's mother loved Grant. She was fawning all over him, which annoyed Katherine, and she kept being pulled in two different directions—wanting to help her mom and trying to keep Grant away from her. Then suddenly the dream had switched locations, as dreams tend to do, to Luella's house. Grant and Laney were there too, but Katherine's mom was gone, and when she'd asked Luella about it, everyone in the room had gone silent, like she was going mad. Then she and Laney and Grant had gone out in Luella's backyard like it was any other day. Grant had wrapped his arms around her from the back and started kissing her neck. Right up until the alarm went off.

Katherine figured there was some deep-rooted psychological analysis to explain the overlapping layers of her dream, but she wasn't as much fixated on that as she was on the intense pangs of desire that having Grant's arms around her again had reawakened. Even if they were only his dream arms. It had taken her a few minutes to snap out of the blissful miasma and prepare herself for round four at Luella's house. Due to the frenzied nature of the previous day, Katherine and Laney hadn't been forced to interact for more than a few harried seconds at a time, nor had there been the awkward predicament of it being just the two of them. In light of both of these circumstances, Laney hadn't had the opportunity to snarl at Katherine or give her the cold shoulder, a marked improvement even if it had been conditional.

Laney was already upstairs in the second of Luella's four guest bedrooms when Katherine arrived, so she set her purse by the door and climbed the spiral staircase to join her.

“You're here early.” Laney jumped up, startled by the company.

“Yeah, I needed to get out of my house.” Laney pointed at overflowing piles of papers, blankets, and ski clothing on the other side of the room. “That's all the stuff from the dresser they took yesterday. You can start going through it.”

“Okay.” Katherine didn't make any mention of the fact that Laney was allowing her to work in the same vicinity as her. She just did as she was told, smiling inwardly at the irony. When was the last time anyone had told her what to do? “Seeing the first floor cleaned out was a total relief.” Katherine sat down on the cushy white carpet and crossed her legs Indian style.

“It does look good.” Laney was moody, Katherine noticed, but, for once, it seemed her ire wasn't directed at Katherine.

“Everything okay?” Katherine didn't look directly at her. She kept her head down while folding ski hats into a neat stack.

“It's fine.” Laney closed the top of a full box of ski gloves and socks and stretched a piece of packing tape across the top. “I think all this stuff can go to Goodwill.”

“Definitely,” Katherine agreed.

“I can take it this week.” Laney set the box to the side. “Fuck!”

“What?”

“I cut my fucking finger on the tape dispenser.” She held up her index finger to reveal a small speck of blood. “This just isn't my fucking day.”

“Feel free to vent if you want,” Katherine stated plainly. “Don't worry, I won't think it means you actually like me.”

“It's not a big deal. It's just Gemma. She's going through a bratty stage.”

“How old is she?”

“Twelve.”

“Right.” Katherine scolded herself silently. Of course she was twelve—the same age as the number of years since Katherine had left Vermont. “So she's basically a teenager. That must be a nightmare.”

“She's always been a really good kid, and all the sudden, out of nowhere, I'm like persona non grata. She's completely obsessed with this ridiculous friend of hers, Casey, who's gorgeous and rich beyond belief. If Casey has it, she wants it, and, unfortunately, I'm not in the business of buying my twelve-year-old three-hundred-dollar boots. Of course, she doesn't seem to hate Rick. Oh no. He's still a god to her. It's just me. I'm the bitch. I'm always the bitch.”

“I know how you feel.” Katherine smirked. “Not about the teenager daughter. Just the bitch part.”

“And what's even more annoying is that I can never get a word in edgewise, because she's either on the phone, on Facebook, on Tweeter . . .”

“Twitter.”

“Right. Or she's got those stupid headphones on, listening to TMI or TB—whatever that idiot rapper's called. Do you know he went to
prison
?”

“T.I.”

“That's the one!” Laney's cell phone rang, intruding on her rant. “Shit. It's Tina.” Katherine nodded. She certainly wasn't one to judge an incoming work call. “Hi, Tina. What's up? Right . . . Okay . . . I know. Yes, that's terrible. We'll find someone else . . . Tina, I can't. I really . . . Fine, okay. But just for two hours. Okay, I'll see you soon.” Laney ended the call and threw her phone across the room, skimming Katherine's head by a few measly inches.

“Jesus!” Katherine shrieked.

“Sorry. I'm just SO FUCKING FRUSTRATED!”

“What's going on?”

“I need to go in to work for a couple of hours.” Laney grabbed her camel-colored Uggs and yanked them onto her feet. “God forbid I should take a few days off during the slowest week of the year.”

“Why don't you just tell Tina you're busy and that you can't come in?”

“Ha! You don't know Tina. She doesn't take no for an answer. And even if she did, she'd be calling me every three minutes to ask me something. Shocker of all shockers, another receptionist quit, because Tina verbally abuses them, and now I need to save the day. Yet again.” Laney was all worked up, huffing and puffing as she got herself together.

“That's not right.” Katherine had met Tina only once, but she knew her type—catty, bossy, and know-it-all, while incompetent and useless at the same time.

“What else is new?”

“Well, it's no big deal for me. I'll be here powering through. Whenever you get back, you get back. Don't worry.”

“Thanks.” Laney didn't smile, but she did seem genuinely grateful for the easy pass. “I'll be back before noon.” She slung her monogrammed Coach purse over her shoulder and rushed out the door.

•   •   •

For
the next hour, Katherine packed box after box amid the eerie silence. She thought about calling her dad to come over, but it was easier and more efficient to get things done on her own. Just as she was finishing up, she heard a ringing from nearby. It wasn't her cell, and Luella's lines had long been disconnected. She scanned the room and spotted Laney's phone, which was sticking out from under the curtains, where she had thrown it. Katherine crawled over and picked it up. The screen read: “
Manchester MS
.” Katherine ignored it. Until five minutes later it rang again. And then again two minutes after that. Same caller all three times.

“Hello?”

“Mrs. Marten?” It was strange to hear Laney called that. She would always be Laney Drake to Katherine.

“No, sorry. This is her friend Katherine Hill. Laney had to run in to work and she left her phone behind. Can I help with something?”

“I'm afraid her daughter Gemma needs to be picked up from school
immediately
. We can't reach Mr. Marten either.” The woman's voice was firm and schoolmarmlike.

“I guess I can try to reach her at work. Is everything okay?”

“Yes, Gemma is fine. She was caught smoking in the girls' bathroom, and we have a no-tolerance policy.”

“Of course.” Katherine tried to think quickly. She could definitely track Laney down at Oasis, but that would only make Laney's life more difficult than Tina was already making it. “Would it be okay if I come pick her up?”

There was a brief silence.

“Does Gemma know you well?”

“Yes, yes, of course.” Katherine went out on a limb. Surely Laney had told Gemma about her, especially now with Luella's house and all. “I'm an old friend of the family, and I went to Manchester Middle School and the high school. Go, Maple Leafs! I'll be with Gemma's mom in an hour.”

The woman thought for a moment, likely contemplating whether Katherine was really a family friend or a serial kidnapper. “I suppose I can make an exception, since I can't reach her parents.”

“Excellent. Just tell her that Kitty is on the way.”

•   •   •

It
took Katherine less than ten minutes to arrive at Manchester Middle School, which was on the same campus as Manchester High School, both of which she, Laney, and Grant had attended. It was a strange blast from the past, driving through the familiar entrance with its green wooden sign etched with the school's name and a big red maple leaf—their mascot, if you could really call it that. The campus looked pretty much the same, save for a few new benches and one extra building called the Bartley Science Center, after Sam Bartley, who'd been killed in a freak skiing accident six years earlier. Katherine's father had sent her the clipping from the local newspaper. Apparently, Sam had been skiing down a blue slope with a few friends, well below his double-black-diamond capabilities, when a skier at the top of the mountain had fallen, thereby launching his ski through the air and into Sam's back, slicing his body like a machete. According to the article, it had been a grisly scene. Shortly thereafter, Sam's family had raised money for the new science center to be dedicated in his name.

Katherine pulled up to the front door of the middle school and waited until she saw Laney walking toward her. Only it wasn't Laney. It was the Laney she remembered. Gemma bounced toward the car with the same hair, practically the same face, and the same lean body as her mother. It was like traveling back in time, so much so that Katherine's immediate instinct was to start gossiping about what had happened in gym class that day.