by Lynn Ames
“What’s the latest from your pen pal?”
“Who?” Rebecca feigned puzzlement. The steady sound of her running shoes pounding against the pavement gave her a familiar sense of comfort as she ran stride for stride with her colleague and closest friend, Natalie Runyan.
“Come on.” Natalie shoved Rebecca playfully in the shoulder, nearly knocking her off stride. “How many pen pals do you have?”
Rebecca arched her eyebrows suggestively. “Maybe I have a secret life you know nothing about. A pen pal in every port.”
Natalie chortled. “Nice alliteration, but I’m not buying it. Nor am I going to be dissuaded by your evasive tactics. Come on, Bec. Give.”
Not for the first time, Rebecca regretted having told Natalie about the correspondence with Constance. It was a weak moment. She’d had one glass of wine too many and still was basking in the glow of the newness of the dialogue. Well, there was no way around it now. “If you must know, I just sent her another letter. At her invitation.” Rebecca wasn’t sure why she felt it necessary to add the last. Probably because you don’t want her to think you’re stalking the poor woman.
“She asked you to write again?” Natalie whistled, as they made the turn at the covered bridge. “Why don’t you just ask the woman out, already?”
The blush crept up Rebecca’s neck. “As if…”
“Hey, you never know. She might welcome the possibility.”
Rebecca bristled. “First of all, we don’t even know that she’s a lesbian. Second, she’s practically the most private person on the planet. I’m sure she’d run for the hills at the first hint of any personal line of questioning. And what makes you think I’m looking for a relationship with her? Maybe I just enjoy the conversation and accept it at face value.”
Still, Rebecca’s heart thudded a staccato beat at the idea of something more than a discussion about books with Constance.
Dara sank into the in-room Jacuzzi and closed her eyes. Her laptop rested safely out of reach of the water on a wide ledge obviously designed for multitaskers like her. For several moments, she simply breathed in the scent of the lavender candle Carolyn thoughtfully left in the room for her. Her muscles and bones ached from so many hours spent sitting, first on the plane, and then in the hard hospital chair. Her head and heart ached from the emotional turmoil of the long day.
Exhaustion crept up on her and she forced her eyes open, fighting to stay awake. It wouldn’t do for her to drown in a hotel Jacuzzi. She could just imagine the headlines. Her gaze settled on the USB drive sitting innocuously next to the computer.
Her mother always had been a technophobe. It took her five years after cable television came to their neighborhood to get it. Dara tried to imagine her mother using a computer to compose an audio message. It was unfathomable. What on Earth could she have wanted to say so badly? There’s only one way to find out.
Dara dried her hands and picked up the drive. Her normally sure fingers fumbled as she tried to plug it into the laptop and she paused. Breathe. You’re not that little girl anymore. Nothing she says can hurt you now.
It was a lie, of course. Dara understood that, but it was necessary. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be able to listen to what her mother had to say.
She double-tapped the trackpad on her MacBook Pro to bring it to life, and double-clicked on the drive when it appeared on the desktop. There it was, a single file named, appropriately, “For Dara.” Dara’s heart fluttered and her nostrils widened as she sucked in air. It wasn’t her mother’s handwriting, but it might as well have been.
The arrow hovered ominously over the file. Just as Dara was about to double-click, her cell phone rang. “Oh, for goodness sake.” The sudden buzz in the quiet startled her, and she practically levitated out of the tub. Carolyn. She accepted the call and hit Speaker.
“Hello?”
“Catching you at a bad time?”
“It’s never a bad time for you, Car, although I will say, your timing is interesting.”
“What are you doing? You sound like you’re spelunking in a cave.”
“I’m in the Jacuzzi. Thanks for the candle, by the way.”
“You’re welcome. I can call back later, if you want.”
Dara considered. “No. It’s okay. Are you sitting down?”
“Do I need to be?”
“Probably.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“My mother recorded an audio message for me. I was just gearing myself up to listen to it.”
“Oh.” Carolyn drew out the word. “Do you need company? Want to wait for me?”
Dara closed her eyes. It was tempting. Nobody in the world understood the dynamic between Dara and her mother the way Carolyn did. How many times had Dara cried in Carolyn’s reassuring embrace after another painful encounter?
“No. No, I can do this.”
“Yes, you can. But you don’t have to do it all by yourself. I’m here for you.”
Dara smiled. “Always. I’ve given myself the pep talk. I’m good.”
“You sure?”
Dara swallowed hard and mustered up her brightest tone. “Yes.”
“Okay,” Carolyn said, clearly not convinced. “But if you want to talk afterward, I’m keeping the phone on.”
“It’s late. You should turn it off and get some sleep. Poor Stan.”
Carolyn’s laugh was rich through the speaker. “Poor Stan has been sleeping in the recliner for the past hour. I’m pretty sure he’s not missing me right now.”
“Still, I don’t need you to babysit me.”
“Good God no, but I could use the pocket change. How much does the job pay?”
Dara smiled. “Whatever I’m paying you, it could never be enough.”
“You know I’d manage your affairs for free, right?”
“You’re a horrible businesswoman, you know that?”
“That’s not what you say when I get you those great contracts.”
“Point taken. But I’m not paying you to babysit me.”
“Sweetie, this has nothing to do with our professional relationship. This is me, Carolyn, your best friend.” Carolyn’s voice was soft, comforting.
“I know. And I love you.”
“Thank God. But I mean it, Dar. I’m right here if you need me.”
“I hear you. I’ll be fine.”
“Okay. But if you’re not…”
“I’ll call you in the morning, okay?”
“Good night.”
“Sweet dreams, Car.”
“Dara?”
Dara halted her finger just before hitting the End button. “Mm-hmm?”
“Remember who you are, not who she wanted you to be.”
Dara’s lip quivered. “Right.” She wondered if her voice sounded as small to Carolyn as it did to her. “Good night.” This time she did disconnect the call.
Dara turned the jets in the Jacuzzi back on and double clicked on the file before she could over-think it anymore.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Dear Dara. I don’t know why, but I feel like this should start as a letter, since, in essence, that’s what this is, I suppose. A spoken letter to my only daughter. To say the things I should’ve said a long time ago.”
Dara closed her eyes. Her mother’s voice sounded so weak and scratchy, not at all like the powerful, commanding tone she was used to hearing.
“Oh, Mother. What happened to you?” Age, Dara supposed or maybe it was just the illness. She did the math in her head. Her mother was forty-five when she’d given birth to her only child. That would make her seventy-six years old now. Still, the difference between the booming, self-assured, imperious woman Dara knew and this tentative, soft-spoken slip-of-a-woman was stark and difficult to reconcile.
Her mother’s wracking cough brought Dara back from her musings.
“I’m sorry. I seem to lose my breath often these days. I have a feeling I don’t have long to live. I don’t mean to be overly dramatic, although I imagine if I
were, that would be the woman you’d recognize best.” Weak, self-deprecating laughter brought on another bought of coughing. “On with it, then, before I can’t get this done.”
The jets on the Jacuzzi shut off, and Dara reset the timer one more time.
“I regret many things in my life, but the one thing I will never regret—the one thing I know I got right—is you.” Her mother sucked in a wheezing breath. “I bet that surprises you. But there it is.”
Dara’s eyebrows shot up. “Not surprised, Mother. Shocked might cover it,” Dara mumbled.
“Please understand. Your father and I never wanted children.”
“That, I can believe.”
“When we got the news that I was pregnant, I panicked. I was so ill-equipped to parent a child. And your father… Well, your father wanted no part of it. Oh, how we argued. He wanted me to get an abortion. Can you imagine? Or I could put you up for adoption. Those were the only options he was willing to consider.”
Dara squeezed her eyes shut on the tears. To hear exactly how unwanted she had been in such naked terms made her cry for that little girl.
“As my due date came closer, something shifted in me. I fought for you with a ferocity I barely recognized in myself. Your father gave me an ultimatum, and I stood up to him. He backed down and I was proud of myself.
“Then you were born. You were the most perfect little child. Your father fell in love with you as much as I did.” Another, more powerful coughing spell rattled her mother’s chest. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to stop and start this darned thing, or I would spare your ears.”
Dara could hear the rustling of the hospital-bed sheets and envisioned her mother trying to get comfortable.
“Anyway, I’ll get on with it while the getting’s good. Neither one of us had a clue how to raise a child, no less a bright, inquisitive, sensitive child like you. It’s not like you came with an instruction manual.
“As you began to talk, you would say the damnedest things. Not the kinds of words other little toddlers said, but really advanced, complete sentences. It was as if someone was putting the words in your mouth. You saw and noticed things nobody else did. We never knew what you would say in public. It frightened your father, I’ll tell you.”
There was a pause, and Dara heard her mother struggling to take in air.
“As for me, I had no idea what to make of it. I just wanted you to be like other children. Your difference put so much pressure on my marriage.”
“My marriage,” Dara scoffed. Now that was more like the self-centered mother she knew.
“Anyway, once you hit six or seven, you started talking about imaginary people who weren’t in the room. When we corrected you and told you that you were making things up, you would get indignant.”
Dara closed her eyes, remembering. “Making things up” was more genteel than what her parents would say. They accused her many times of being a little liar and a troublemaker. For a small child to hear such things from the people in her life that were supposed to love her was devastating. It shook her to her core. But she knew what she knew. She wasn’t lying. She wasn’t. Dara shivered even in the warmth of the Jacuzzi, feeling more like that little girl than a thirty-one-year-old woman.
The first time it happened, Dara was on the playground at recess, playing kickball with her friends. The ball sailed over her head and down an embankment. She chased after it. When she finally caught up to it, there was a boy standing next to it.
“What’s your name?”
“I’m Timmy. This your ball?”
Little Dara shifted from one foot to the other. “Yeah. Wanna come play with us?” She pointed in the direction of the game.
“Sure.”
Dara picked up the ball and they ran up the rise together. “Everybody, this is Timmy. He’s going to be on my team.”
Every single child, with the exception of her best friend, Carolyn, laughed at her.
“What’s so funny?” Dara threw the ball back to the pitcher and put her little hand on her hip.
The children continued to laugh. “I’m sorry they’re so rude,” Dara said to Timmy. He shrugged.
“Dara?” The teacher motioned for her to come over.
“Wait here,” Dara said to Timmy. “I’ll be right back.” She darted to where her first-grade teacher was waiting. “Yes, Mrs. Sparks?”
“Who are you talking to?”
“You mean Timmy?”
“Who’s Timmy?”
“That little boy over there.” Dara jerked her thumb in Timmy’s direction. “He was down the hill all by himself, so I asked if he wanted to play with us.”
The teacher followed the direction of Dara’s thumb, then looked kindly back at her. “There’s no one there.”
Dara stood up a little straighter. “Of course there is. That’s Timmy.”
Mrs. Sparks put a hand gently on Dara’s shoulder. “Dara, there’s no little boy over there.”
Dara felt her face grow red and she raised her voice and gestured again in Timmy’s direction. “He’s right there. His name is Timmy.”
Mrs. Sparks shook her head. “Lower your voice, young lady. You need to take a time out. Go sit on the bench and take your imaginary friend with you.”
“I’m not making him up and you’re being rude. He’s right there.” Again, Dara gestured toward Timmy. “He’s the one wearing the striped shirt.”
“That’s enough! One more word, young lady, and I’ll send you to the principal’s office.”
Dara was shaking with fear at the thought of being sent to Mr. Ponterio’s office. He had a brush cut and liked to pinch everybody’s cheek. She marched to the bench and dropped down onto it hard, glaring at the kids happily playing. Timmy came and sat down next to her.
“I’m sorry I got you in trouble.”
“S’okay. I’m sorry they’re all so rude.”
“Listen, I’ve got to go. Maybe I’ll see you around sometime.”
“Yeah. See you around.” When he was gone, Dara folded her arms over her chest and brooded.
At the end of recess, Carolyn came and sat down next to her. For a moment, neither of them said a word. Eventually, Carolyn said, “We better get inside.”
Dara nodded morosely. When they were almost to the building, she said, “You could see him, right?”
“Your friend, Timmy?” Carolyn asked.
“Yeah.”
“No. But that doesn’t mean anything,” she hurried on. “You’re probably the only one who can see him because you’re special.”
Satisfied with that answer, Dara bumped shoulders with her best friend and skipped the rest of the way to the door.
Dara clicked pause and rose out of the Jacuzzi. If she stayed in there any longer, she’d turn into a prune. She toweled off and tried to shake the memory. She would leave the rest of the recording for the morning. Right now, what she really needed was a good night’s sleep.
The invitation shook in Rebecca’s hand. What had possessed her to accept? Whatever had she been thinking? You were thinking that high school was a long time ago, you haven’t seen or talked to any of these people in twenty years, and you’re not that girl anymore. Suck it up and go inside. It won’t help your case if they see you sitting out here in the car talking to yourself.
She unbuckled her seatbelt and opened the door of the rental car. “I’m a grown woman—an accomplished professor of American literature at a prestigious institution of higher learning. I’m a… Oh, stuff it.” Her heart sank as she saw someone get out of the car behind her and lurch in her direction.
“No, it can’t be…” The man with the paunch and the balding pate squinted. “Hefty Becky? Is that you?” He wolf-whistled.
It was all Rebecca could do not to turn around, get in the car, and hightail it out of there. Instead, she threw back her shoulders and mustered her best inauthentic smile. She would not allow this Neanderthal to spoil her night this early. After all, there would be plenty of time for that over t
he course of the next few hours.
“Bobby.” She acknowledged him with a small nod. “Are you here for the reunion, or are you still retaking Mr. Reistetter’s geometry class?”
“Still a smart-ass. But damn, you look hot.”
Rebecca did her best not to squirm under the inappropriate scrutiny of the school’s number one jock and biggest bully. He was the epitome of every cliché about high school she could imagine. And he and his friends had made her life completely miserable.
“You must be like a hundred pounds lighter. And you ditched the dorky glasses.” He undressed her with his eyes. “Damn. I could tap that.”
Rebecca felt the bile rise up in her throat and a frisson of fear run down her spine. She forced herself to walk toward the entrance to the hotel. “Thank God. Now we know where all the blood is flowing, since it isn’t being used elsewhere.” She watched with amusement as Bobby tried to puzzle out her meaning. He still hadn’t gotten it by the time they reached the hotel lobby.
According to the electronic sign in the lobby, the reception was in Ballroom A on the second floor. Rebecca spotted a ladies’ room and peeled off in that direction. She braced both palms on the marble sink countertop and leaned forward. Her breathing was shallow and her cheeks were pale. “Of all the people I could run into first, it had to be the biggest asshole in the history of high school assholes. God, if this is your idea of a joke, I’m not laughing.”
Rebecca jumped at the sound of a flushing toilet and blushed a deep shade of crimson when she looked in the mirror and saw a classmate exit a stall and wash her hands.
“You must be talking about Bobby Frasier.”
“Sorry. I didn’t know anyone else was in here.”
The woman checked her lipstick. She met Rebecca’s eyes in the mirror. “Would it have changed your opinion of Bobby if you had?”
