by Rea Frey
The varying thoughts ping-pong until she sits up and rubs her eyes. It’s late, but she doesn’t want to go upstairs, doesn’t want to see Grace. She studies the houses around her, the rustling trees, the beautiful night. She can just make out the start of the hiking trail from the backyard.
“A hop, skip, and a jump, and you’re there!” Marge had said. “One of the treasures of this little place.”
Before her mother was murdered, they would take hikes at Radnor Lake and make weekend trips to Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. After her mother died, she gorged on reruns and scalding TV dinners and rarely went outside unless it was to check the mail. Here, everywhere she turns, nature pushes in, offering itself to her.
But it’s not nature she wants. She wants Noah. She wants revenge.
She wrenches her body from the chair, flips up the hood of her sweatshirt, and sways on the deck. What should she do?
She stalks through the backyard, her striped socks protecting her bare shins. Wispy grass sweeps her ankles and calves, and she tugs her socks higher. Maybe she’ll prove the girls wrong and do the entire hike. She thinks of her friends, women she felt so close to and now feels immediately removed from. They lead such cushioned lives. They have no idea what she’s been through or had to deal with. Except Grace … and this is how her best friend repays her for being so vulnerable and open?
She advances toward the trail. Is it crazy to hike this late? No crazier than her getting totally wasted after years of sobriety. No crazier than her best friend and the man she’s interested in—has been interested in—going behind her back. No crazier than thinking she can trust anyone.
Never again.
A wooden stake in the ground signifies the start of the trail. She wonders if poisonous snakes lurk in the grass, or if a bear or coyote will bide its time and then devour her on the way up. She can always turn around. She’ll be fine once her body starts moving.
She pushes one wobbly leg in front of the other toward the base of the trail. She owes it to herself to do this. She owes Mason. The exercise and fresh air will help the wine wear off and give her a clear head. She’ll deal with Grace and Noah after. The confession. The reaction. The real truth no one knows or will ever know, as long as she has anything to do with it. For now, she’s doing the damn hike.
She steps onto the path and begins to climb.
25
grace
Grace cannot sleep. As much as she wants Lee to be happy for her, she knew it would go just like this. But as angry and hurt as she is, can she really blame her?
She has replayed her and Noah’s relationship over and over, as if on a calendar. They’d met years ago at a coffee shop. He’d been dating someone else at the time, and Grace wasn’t romantically interested in anyone. Then they’d joined the same gym. Once she found out he was an occupational therapist, she’d taken Luca in for a few sessions. After years of casual run-ins, occasional drinks, and professional referrals for her friends’ kids, he’d asked her on a real date. She didn’t even know if she was interested until she was.
She should have told Lee the first time she and Noah went out, but she knew Lee might find it problematic for her best friend to be dating her son’s therapist. Grace didn’t yet know how strongly they’d both feel or how fast they’d fall. She didn’t want to add to Lee’s worries if their relationship fizzled out before it had even started.
Their first date, they’d met at Lockeland Table, a sweet little slice of hipster heaven in East Nashville. She’d worn a form-fitting dress. As she walked through the door, searching for him in the dim light among laughing guests, she realized that she wanted more than friendship.
She spotted him at a high-top by the window. Streetlight poured in and illuminated his strong features. There was a new intimacy to meeting like this, on purpose, alone. For a startling moment, she wondered if she could go through with it. There was Lee. There were boundaries. There were lines friends didn’t cross. But that early on, she had no idea Lee liked him romantically.
Grace felt like she deserved some fun too, something just for herself. She spent so much time worrying about Lee and Mason that she owed it to herself to go on a real date with someone she already trusted. As she sat across from Noah, tossed back drinks, and flirted, something awakened for the first time in a while: genuine interest.
He’d kissed her that night, before they separated toward their cars, lingering on the front walkway. The new boutique hotel across the street thrummed with tourists spilling onto the porch, listening to music and getting rowdy, and just as she was making a comment, he’d gripped the back of her waist and leaned in for a deep, intensely intimate kiss. His thumbs grazed her cheeks. Her entire body—which had been dormant since her divorce—sprang to life. She left in such a giddy stupor that she’d speed-dialed Lee before she even knew what was happening. She made up some lame excuse as to why she’d called and hung up before she told her where she’d been.
Looking back, she should have. They should have had it out then, so it wasn’t a secret now, so she could have shared every step of their relationship instead of treating it like some sinister secret. It could have even shifted Lee’s interest in Noah, made her realize he was unavailable. Grace had seen the crush forming but had done nothing to stop it.
She sits up. Despite Lee’s anger, she can’t leave her out there. Grace thinks about the confession from the party and a protective rage settles over her. Though Lee puts on a good front, she’s still fragile. She tries to bury all that sadness, but it’s there. Grace recognizes it.
She tiptoes downstairs and listens for signs of Lee in the house. On the back deck, the chairs are empty and the blankets refolded. She scans the backyard, then heads inside. She searches the downstairs couch and the empty guest room and even walks up to their room again and hunts for the bathroom light shining beneath the closed door.
No Lee.
She checks her phone for a missed text and decides to go back outside. She’ll do a quick loop, see if she can find her so they can talk. One way or another, they are working this out.
betray
betraybetraybetraybetraybetraybetraybetraybetraybetraybetraybetraybetray
What does it mean to be betrayed?
Now I know.
I know what it means to be betrayed.
I know what it feels like to be betrayed.
I know how it moves inside of me, a rage unlike anything I have ever known.
I think we’ve all probably betrayed someone: a friend, a lover, even ourselves.
But this …
I don’t know how to handle this.
What do I do?
How do I get past this?
This is the type of betrayal you just don’t forget.
past
26
lee
Lee woke to the sound of her father’s laugh. How long had it been since she’d heard him laugh? She checked the time, groaned, and sat up. Last night’s photo shoot barreled through her mind. It had been some of her best work to date, and Kevin, one of the industry’s top stylists, noticed. She’d worked so hard to build a stellar portfolio and it was finally paying off.
Lee climbed out of bed, stretched, and went to brush her teeth. She hadn’t told Shirley about the photo shoot. It was childish, but she wanted this one thing for herself. As she scrubbed, she thought about how much had changed in the past two years. Her best friend had gone to rehab and stayed clean. Shirley had even made it into cosmetology school and then apprenticed with Lee.
Lee knew it wasn’t a competition, but she was getting tired of all of this copycat behavior. Yes, it was important for her best friend to have goals, but she wanted her to have her own goals—not just snatch hers. Becoming a hair stylist wasn’t just something you did because you’d run out of other options. It took dedication and skill. Like everything else, Lee assumed Shirley would grow bored and move onto something else.
Laughter drifted from the kitchen again, and Lee paused in the hall
way. She knew that laugh. She rounded the corner. Had she missed a call or text from Shirley?
Leaning against the countertop, Shirley was wearing her father’s Titans T-shirt and eating a bowl of corn flakes. For the millionth time, Lee registered how similar they now looked.
Shirley joked it was like the couples who had been together for long stretches of time, or dogs and their owners. They started to look and act just like each other, but Lee wasn’t convinced. In the past few months, Shirley had taken an unhealthy obsession in wanting to be as skinny as Lee. In wearing Lee’s clothes. In having the same hair. In wanting the same profession. In fitting into Lee’s family.
Harold stood next to her, already slurping his second beer. He exhaled smoke from a nubby joint and admired Shirley as she lifted onto her tiptoes in search of a mug. Her calves tightened and Lee swallowed the revulsion for her father’s leering stare.
“Hey, Lee Bee.” Shirley turned and smiled. “Coffee?”
“Sure.” She glanced at the clock. “What are you doing here so early?”
“I’m always here.”
“I know, but what are you doing here … like this?” She gestured to the T-shirt and bare legs.
Shirley secured two mugs and offered them in her direction. “Drinking coffee.”
“Dad?”
Shirley shifted back down to flat feet and fastened her hands around her tiny waist, the mugs dangling from her thumbs. “Well, I guess now is as good a time as any.” Shirley looked at Harold then back at Lee. “Don’t freak out.”
“Why would I freak out?” Lee could tell she was about to freak out, but she waited for Shirley to explain what was going on.
“We’re together.”
Lee looked between them. No, not possible. “Who’s together?”
Harold’s glassy eyes focused on his daughter as he exhaled smoke into the air. “We are.”
Shirley took a few steps toward Harold and wormed against his chest. Lee watched, horrified, as Shirley situated her father’s arm around her shoulders. She inhaled sharply as her entire body began to shake.
Sensing her discomfort, Shirley extricated herself and poured Lee a cup of coffee. “Here. Let’s talk about it.” She offered her the drink, and Lee had to refrain from slapping it out of her hands.
When Lee didn’t take it, Shirley retracted the cup. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I knew you’d be mad. Are you mad?”
Her eyes were dilated, and Lee searched for the pills or powders scattered on the counter like roaches. She grabbed the crooks of her arms and ran her fingers over the unblemished skin on the inside of each elbow. How quickly she believed Shirley would relapse.
Shirley yanked her arms back, obviously insulted. “I’m not on drugs, Lee. Jesus.”
“Well what the hell am I supposed to think?” She tried to untangle the truth. First her looks, then her career, and now her father? She glanced at him, awaiting some sort of logical explanation.
This was her best friend. They couldn’t be dating. She almost choked on the word, on how ludicrous it sounded. She tried to say it out loud, but it rolled around her mouth like sour candy. Lee batted through the chaotic thoughts. Shirley patiently waited for her to respond, to somehow tell her it was okay, but she couldn’t. She looked from him to her.
“I don’t get it.” She shot an incredulous look at her dad. Memories lurched to the surface of her mind … how he used to take her fishing, show her how to tie sailor knots, change tires, shoot cans on sizzling tin roofs. He was a decent father before her mother died. It was like she’d somehow forgotten that it hadn’t always been so awful, that he hadn’t always been such a lousy drunk.
“What’s the problem?”
“The problem is that you’re dating someone my age who now looks just like me. Doesn’t that seem twisted to you?”
Shirley self-consciously fingered her new bangs. Did she not see the situation for what it was? Lee knew about her roster of men, how she met them after work or between shifts, sometimes early in the morning or late at night. She kept them away from Lee, that romantic part of her life highly secretive, just like her real family, even though Lee was desperate to know whom she liked and where she’d come from. Though they’d met years ago, Shirley never talked about her past. She only focused on today and tomorrow. It was one of the things Lee loved most about her—but also one of the things that frustrated her.
Every time Lee thought she’d figured out the man of the day or could decipher who she spent hours each night talking to on the phone, Shirley had already moved on. But this didn’t seem like a fleeting male in a lineup of endless, faceless conquests. This was different.
Lee fixed her eyes on her father. “So, what? You two are in love or something?”
He shrugged and popped another top. “Would that be so impossible?”
Lee nodded. “Yes, Dad. It would. It would be extremely impossible.”
He swiped the rest of the six-pack from the counter, along with the crumpled pack of cigarettes he clenched between dirty fingernails. He’d worked on the car yesterday and the oil spots and grime remained. Had he touched Shirley with those hands? Lee worked her way up to his face, one she rarely studied anymore. He was still handsome in a rugged, worn sort of way. He’d been compared to Clint Eastwood his whole life. So many of his sins had constantly been forgiven because of his face, and she was just sick of it. This behavior would not be tolerated in her house.
He pinched a white stick and wedged it between chapped lips, unlit. “Shirl, let’s go to the lake. Want to?” The cigarette trembled with every syllable. He sniffed, looked at Lee, and moved past her into the hall. “I’m sorry, Lee. But this is my life too.”
His life too? “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I’m entitled to be happy.” He shrugged and retreated toward the bedroom.
The lake was her mother’s place. Harold had taken her mother there every Saturday for as long as she’d been alive. He’d never taken Shirley there before. Had he? She wanted to shake some sense into both of them. Shirley was twenty-seven years old. Her father was fifty-two. He couldn’t have sex with someone the exact same age as his daughter.
Shirley gripped Lee’s elbow, and it startled her. She’d almost forgotten Shirley was even in the room. Ragged nails chewed into the flesh of her biceps until she wrenched free of the desperate fist.
“I’m sorry.” Shirley retreated a few steps. “I know you’re angry.”
“Angry? I don’t even understand how this happened. When this happened.” When had they ever had a stolen moment, a furtive glance, a second to morph from her best friend’s father to the possibility of romance? A thousand warnings she’d probably missed between them fired through her brain: suggestive looks, lingering conversations, time spent together in her absence. Had their budding relationship become obvious to everyone but her?
“I know. But I’ve always liked your dad. He just gets me.” She shrugged her slight shoulders as her father just had, her clavicles pointy and somehow still highly seductive through the thin cotton of her dad’s T-shirt. Were these the details her father had noticed, even fantasized about? The thought turned her stomach.
Why couldn’t Shirley see Harold for who he was? That he would hurt her. That he wasn’t good enough for her. That Shirley, in some sick way, was replacing her mother. It was the ultimate betrayal.
“No, I get you,” Lee finally said. “You’re my best friend. We’re the same age. We like the same things. That’s my dad in there. He’s…” Old. Sad. Tired. Off-limits.
“I know. And I’ve tried to put myself in your shoes. I really have. I’ve thought about how I’d feel if the situation were reversed. What I’d say.”
“And what would you say?”
“Well, I guess I’d just want you both to be happy.”
Lee rolled her eyes. “What a crock of shit.”
“Look, I know you think he’s a bad guy, but he’s not, Lee. He’s just heartbroken.” Shirley re
ached for her again and then lowered her hand.
“What, and your vagina is going to make him all better?” Lee crossed her arms. “This is not happening. I won’t let it happen.”
Shirley straightened, her jaw set. “It’s already happened.”
“So stop then.”
“I don’t want to.” Shirley crossed her arms to match Lee’s.
“What are you, five? I’m telling you right now.” Lee leaned closer and refrained from shaking Shirley like a rattle. “Either choose whatever this is with Harold or your friendship with me. I mean it.” She’d never given Shirley an ultimatum, but she resisted the urge to apologize. She wasn’t the one who should be sorry.
Shirley gazed at her bare feet. “Please don’t make me do that.” When she lifted her head, she had tears in her eyes, and Lee recoiled. Did Shirley truly care that much about her pathetic father?
“You need to talk to me about all of this. Right now.”
Shirley wiped her eyes. “I’m not talking to you about it. Not when you’re being so aggressive.”
Lee laughed. “Aggressive? Are you kidding?”
“Besides”—Shirley stood up straighter but her eyes were wildly insecure—“it’s really none of your business anyway.”
Lee felt as though she’d been slapped. “You’re unbelievable.” She swiped her car keys, slammed the front door, and slid into the driver’s seat of her car.
27
noah
Noah pulled up to the school at seven thirty. He was taking a half day today so he could fly to Philly. He adjusted his tie and checked his teeth for lodged kale from his morning smoothie. He’d worked for Music City Open School since obtaining his master’s degree, and he was thinking of going solo, of becoming a full-time at-home occupational therapist, because he could organize his days and work on therapies outside the confines of such a rigid curriculum.
