by Cat Clarke
“I’d like to have friends.” Laurel didn’t say this in a self-pitying way. She said it in exactly the same way I would say that I’d like to have a cookie with my cup of tea.
“You do have friends. You have me.”
She shook her head. “That’s different.”
“You have Thomas and Martha.”
“They’re your friends.”
“They’re our friends now.”
Laurel wasn’t sure about that; she wasn’t sure they liked her. Of course they liked her, I said. I promised Laurel she would have plenty of friends. It would just take a bit of time, that’s all. And she would have to be careful about who she trusted, because some people would want to be friends with her because she’s Laurel Logan—the Girl Who Came Home. It will take a while before she can spot them, though—the ones who are interested for all the wrong reasons. But I’ll be there, watching. I won’t let anyone take advantage of her.
Thomas and Laurel are sitting at the kitchen table, shoulders almost touching. He’s explaining something exceptionally boring about the Internet while he taps away on my laptop. Laurel is hanging on his every word, nodding and asking questions. Thomas is loving it; boys seem to really like knowing things.
I made them both tea and even put out a plate of cookies. That was two hours ago. Since then I’ve read the magazine section of the Sunday paper, two chapters of the new Stephen King book, and an article about Laurel on my phone. The article raves about her “performance” on The Cynthia Day Show. I don’t like how the journalist calls it a performance—appearance is surely the right word.
I can’t seem to settle. It’s weird not being at Dad and Michel’s. They’ve gone to France for a long weekend. A couple of days in Paris before they go visit my grandmother in Nice. I think it will be good for them to get away for a bit. Hopefully Dad will stop neglecting Michel. He seems to be over here all the time these days. Whenever I ask where Michel is, Dad says he’s at work or out with friends. According to Dad, Michel is perfectly fine, busy getting on with his life. And according to Michel, that’s actually the case. He says he doesn’t mind, that he understands that Dad wants to spend as much time as possible with Laurel.
Martha texts and asks if I want to meet up. I’m about to say that I can’t make it, but then I change my mind and tell her I’ll meet her at our favorite coffee shop in half an hour. Thomas looks panicked when I announce that I’m leaving them to it. “But…but…I thought we were going to…” He can’t finish this sentence, because he can’t very well say that I’d hinted we would have some “alone time” after he’d helped Laurel with computer stuff.
We haven’t had sex again—not since the night before Laurel was found at Stanley Street. We haven’t even been on a date. He’s been really patient; he understands that Laurel’s my priority right now. But I’m well aware that his patience has its limits. And I do want to spend more time with him, just as soon as Laurel is properly settled in. I do want to be alone with him. Definitely before his birthday. And definitely not in his van.
I’m grabbing my coat from the hall closet when it suddenly hits me that maybe Laurel doesn’t want to be left alone with Thomas. She’s only met him a couple of times—he’s little more than a stranger to her. I kick myself for not thinking this through. “Laurel? Can you come here for a second?”
She pops her head around the living room door.
“Are you…? I can stay if you like. I don’t have to go out. I didn’t think…”
Confusion clouds her features for a moment before she nods in understanding. “No, you should go. It’s fine. Really. I’ll be fine.” I watch her closely, searching for any hint of a lie. “You don’t need to be so overprotective!” She smiles.
“I know. I’m sorry. I just thought…you haven’t been alone with a—”
“Don’t.” The word comes out harsh and flat, but she does her best to soften it with a hand on my arm. “Faith, I said it was fine, okay?” She looks over her shoulder, then turns back to me and whispers, “I like him. I trust him.”
“Why?”
She smiles as if that’s a stupid question. “Because you do.”
—
I told Laurel to text me if she wants me to come home. She rolled her eyes and said, “Yes, Mom!” Then she hugged me and told me to have fun with Martha.
But it doesn’t turn out to be very much fun at all. It starts to go wrong almost immediately, when Martha tells me that the girl serving the coffee recognized me from The Cynthia Day Show and asked her if it would be okay to ask for my autograph.
“Bullshit! You’re lying.” I risk a glance at the girl in question. She’s rearranging the muffins on the top shelf of the cabinet.
“Don’t stare! She’ll know we’re talking about her!”
I ignore Martha. The girl doesn’t look over—not even once. “You’re hilarious, Martha. Really.”
“I’m not lying! She wanted to know if I’d met Laurel. I told her to mind her own business…after she’d made the coffee. I didn’t want to risk a serving of saliva in my latte. Look, you’re just going to have to face facts: you’re famous now.” She sips her drink but fails to hide the sly smile on her face. Normally I don’t mind Martha, but I’m really not in the mood for her snarkiness right now.
Things take a turn for the worse when I tell her I’ve left Laurel and Thomas at home together. She doesn’t say anything, but she raises her eyebrows and widens her eyes.
“What?” I ask.
Martha tears off a piece of blueberry muffin and pops it into her mouth. Then she gestures that she can’t talk because her mouth is full. I wait, impatiently, before repeating the question.
“Nothing!” All wide-eyed innocence.
I wait her out.
“It’s nothing…honestly. I was just thinking that if I had a boyfriend, and if I had a sister who looked like Laurel…well, I probably wouldn’t…”
Martha has never had a boyfriend. “Probably wouldn’t what?”
She shrugs and takes a sip of coffee. I don’t think she has any idea of how infuriating she’s being. “I probably wouldn’t want to leave them alone together.”
I knew that was what she was going to say, but that doesn’t make it any easier to hear. It’s not the words themselves, but the fact that Martha’s the one saying them. It’s the kind of stupid thing I wouldn’t be surprised to hear spouting from Laney Finch’s mouth. “What?”
“You asked! I was just being honest.” She’s looking at me as if I’m the unreasonable one. Then she tries to backtrack. “It was a stupid thing to say. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Of course it’s fine to—”
“What the hell is wrong with you? As if Thomas is going to pounce on my sister, after everything she’s been through! God, Martha.” I realize too late that I’m speaking far too loudly. People are staring—including the girl behind the counter.
Martha seems taken aback by my reaction. “That’s not what I was…Look, can we just talk about something else? This is silly.”
“You’re the one who started it.”
Normally she’d say something sarcastic—that I have the argumentative skills of a five-year-old, perhaps—but today she just apologizes. I accept her apology and we try to move on.
It’s the strangest thing, but I can’t think of anything to say. I’m still furious about what she said. The thought of anything happening between Thomas and Laurel is too ridiculous for words, so I should have just been able to laugh it off. But for some reason it’s lodged in my brain like a splinter. I look across the table at Martha, who’s looking back at me, waiting. What do we usually talk about? I can’t even remember. I can’t remember how to have a conversation that isn’t about Laurel.
“Um…how’s it going with your mom’s job?”
One look at Martha’s face confirms that this was the wrong thing to ask. She puts her mug down. “She got laid off last month.”
“Last month? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I do
n’t know. I tried, but you were so busy with Laurel and everything. I told you she had that meeting with her boss, remember?”
“No, you didn’t.” Did she? Maybe she did. The day before Laurel came home. A text message.
“Look, I’m not going to argue with you, Faith. You’ve had a lot to deal with recently. I get that. I don’t blame you.”
Why does Martha saying that she doesn’t blame me give me the distinct impression that she does? “I’m sorry.” An apology seems like the best way to defuse the situation.
Martha downs the last of her drink. “It’s okay. Thomas was really nice about it.”
It feels like ice water trickling through my veins. People always say that anger is hot, but for me it’s so cold that it burns. “You talked to Thomas about it?” My words are clipped, my mouth barely able to open enough to force them out.
She shrugs, and it seems like the sole intention of that shrug is to infuriate me. “Well, yeah. I had to talk to someone.”
“And I suppose that someone had to be my boyfriend?”
Another shrug. Martha looks up at the wall next to us, suddenly interested in the blander-than-bland art.
I grab my phone and put it in my bag. “I have to go.”
Martha looks at me, and for a second I think she’s going to apologize, but instead she says, “Since when have you been bothered about me talking to Thomas? Why are you being so weird, Faith?”
I stand and look down at Martha. Her hair is a mess. She really should think about at least running a brush through it once in a while. Maybe then she might be able to get a boyfriend of her own instead of trying to borrow mine. I want to tell her to fuck off. I want to tell her that she has no idea what I’ve been going through, and that I do care about what’s going on in her life, and I do care about her mom losing her job.
In the end, all I say is, “I’ll see you at school.”
“Fine.” She gets her phone out and pretends to look at something.
I walk out of the coffee shop with as much dignity as I can muster. It was hardly a screaming fight. There were no tears, there was no swearing, there were no real insults to speak of, but it’s still the first argument Martha and I have ever had. Why did it have to happen now, when things are going so well with Laurel?
I’m not jealous about Martha talking to Thomas. I’m not. I’ve always liked the fact that they get along okay. It makes things easier for me. But the thought of her confiding in him doesn’t sit well. That’s not meant to happen. They are supposed to talk about books and films and people at school—not things that actually matter.
It doesn’t take long for me to realize that my feelings have more to do with guilt than jealousy. I’ve hardly spent any time with Martha since Laurel came back. I seem to have forgotten that other people have things going on in their lives, too—that the whole world does not in fact revolve around Laurel and me. Of course I should have remembered to ask Martha about her mom; I knew how worried she was about her.
Maybe Martha shouldn’t have said that stupid thing about leaving Laurel and Thomas alone together, but she didn’t mean anything by it. I should have just brushed it off. That’s what you do with your best friend, isn’t it? You forgive them for making mistakes. When did I forget how to do that?
A worrying thought nudges at the edge of my brain. It won’t go away no matter how hard I try to ignore it. That whole conversation with Martha was all wrong—like we’d forgotten how to be friends. Like I’d forgotten how to be a best friend. It’s the same with Thomas, too. I feel as if I’ve forgotten how to be his girlfriend.
I’ve forgotten how to be anything other than a sister.
—
I text Martha from the bus: I’m sorry I’ve been a crappy friend. Let’s not fight. We’re really not very good at it.
She doesn’t text back right away, and I don’t blame her for leaving me hanging. I’d probably do the same. I’m just getting off at my stop when she finally texts: I’m sorry too. Should have told you about Mom. Still besties?
That makes me smile. Martha would never ever use the word besties in normal conversation—unless she was making fun of someone.
Still BFFs, I text back.
She has the last word: Squeeee!!!!
The squeeee might have been sarcastic as hell, but the sentiment is still there. We’re okay.
—
The news vans left weeks ago. This story is over as far as they’re concerned—all neatly wrapped up, with a polka-dot bow on top. Of course, I know better than to believe they’re gone for good—they’ll be back as soon as anything happens. They’ll be back when the police catch that monster. They will catch him; he can’t hide forever.
In the meantime, the neighbors are happy to have their parking spaces back, and I’m happy to be able to walk down my own street and not have to worry about what my hair looks like or whether I’m wearing the same top I had on yesterday.
—
There’s laughter coming from the living room. I expect to find Thomas and Laurel where I left them—sitting at the dining room table—but they’re lounging on the sofa. The laptop and mugs of tea have been abandoned, the cookies left untouched. There’s a movie on the TV. I can’t place it at first, but then one of the actors says something in French, and I realize it’s Three Colors: Red—Thomas’s favorite film.
I stand in the doorway for a couple of seconds before Thomas looks up. “Hi! You’re back early.” He sits up straight as if I’ve just told him off for slouching, when I have, in fact, said nothing.
Laurel pats the space next to her on the sofa—the space between her and Thomas—and says I should sit down. She asks if I had a nice time with Martha and if I’ve seen this film before. Clearly Thomas forgot to mention that we went to see it together on one of our first dates.
“I need a cup of tea. Do either of you want anything?”
Laurel says, “No, thanks.”
Thomas shakes his head. He’s watching me closely, trying to work out how I’m feeling. I turn my back to him and head into the kitchen. He joins me a minute later, just as I’m switching on the kettle to boil. He closes the door behind him. “Hey,” he says as he leans against the counter.
“Hey,” I say.
“Are you annoyed?”
“Why would I be annoyed?” I take my mug from the cupboard above the kettle and open the ceramic jar labeled COFFEE, which is where we keep the tea bags. I broke the jar labeled TEA a couple of years ago, smashing it into hundreds of pieces on the kitchen floor. On purpose.
Thomas shrugs and I feel my shoulders tense up. If one more person shrugs at me today, I will not be held responsible for my actions. “I don’t know. You just seem…annoyed.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“Okay,” he says in that sarcastic whatever-you-say tone. “How’s Martha?”
I turn away from him and open the fridge. The milk carton is almost empty. We always used to have plenty of milk, but Mom hasn’t adjusted how much she buys now that there’s an extra person in the house. I pour the last dregs into my mug, even though it’s not enough for a decent cup of tea.
“Faith? I asked you a question.” Thomas hates being ignored. He thinks everything he has to say is of the utmost importance and should be listened to with a bowed head and a serious expression on your face.
“I’ve got a question for you. Why didn’t you tell me about Martha’s mom losing her job?”
He wasn’t expecting that. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s a perfectly straightforward question.” I take a teaspoon from the drawer—the one that doesn’t match the rest of the set. I always used to use it to eat my yogurt because I felt sorry for it; I thought it must be lonely, being the odd one out among the rest of the cutlery. “Martha told you about her mom. You didn’t bother to tell me. I’m asking you why.”
“I don’t know. I thought you knew.”
“Well, I didn’t know.” The kettle has boiled. I pour the water into th
e mug too fast and it splashes onto the countertop. Thomas grabs a dish towel and wipes up the water. I dunk the tea bag and press it against the side of the mug, making sure the color is as close to perfect as I can get it under the circumstances.
Finally, the tea is made and there’s nothing else for me to occupy myself with. “Faith? What’s the matter?” Thomas’s voice is gentle and coaxing. “Are you annoyed about Laurel and me watching Red? Is that it?”
I am annoyed about that. That film has always been our thing—mine and Thomas’s. We must have watched it at least eight times. “I’m not annoyed about that….”
Thomas moves closer to me and puts his hand on the back of my neck. His fingers start to work their magic. I’ve almost forgotten what it feels like to have him touch me.
I move away, out of reach. “Did you at least show her all the computer stuff she wanted to know?”
Thomas nods. “Yeah, she picked it up really quickly. She’s a natural.” Thomas looks at the door as if to check it hasn’t suddenly turned transparent in the last couple of minutes. “Can I have a kiss?”
I really don’t want to kiss him. I want to go sit in a quiet room with my mug of tea and not talk to another human being until tomorrow at the very earliest. “Okay,” I say.
He smiles, and I can tell he’s relieved. Everything must be fine if I’m happy to kiss him. He leans in toward me and the smell of his stale breath assaults my nostrils. I count to ten—slowly—while we’re kissing. I don’t want to pull away too soon. After all, this is the most action he’s had in weeks.
