She whirled around to confront the offender and was surprised to see Stephanie.
“Oh, hey! I didn’t know you were coming,” she said, naively interpreting the hair-tug as a playful greeting. Stephanie was all decked out in Seven jeans and a top that made her look like she’d stepped out of a scene from The OC (her favorite show). Her hair was loose and as golden as the oversize hoops in her ears.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” she snapped.
With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Lauren looked around nervously. “About what?” She noticed Mindy Levy standing next to Stephanie, arms crossed.
“Rory Kincaid,” Stephanie said.
She looked electrically beautiful in her rage, and it was hard in that moment for Lauren to believe that anyone would choose her over Stephanie. But it was clear that Stephanie realized that someone had.
“Let’s go outside,” Lauren said.
“Do you want me to come?” Mindy asked Stephanie.
Stephanie ignored her—seemed to be ignoring both of them—and stalked out of the rink. Lauren didn’t know if she was simply leaving or if she was agreeing to continue the conversation outside. Reluctantly, she followed her, just steps behind. Stephanie didn’t turn around, and the heavy doors to the rink almost slammed on Lauren before she caught them. Behind her, she heard the roar of the crowd, and she wondered if she’d missed one of Rory’s plays.
The hallway was ten degrees warmer than inside the rink, and perspiration immediately made her layers of clothes feel suffocating. Stephanie kept walking, still not glancing back, until she was gone from the Skatium. Lauren followed her outside.
“Stephanie, stop!” Lauren yelled. Her sister whirled around, and even in the darkness, Lauren could see the glisten of tears in her eyes.
“I can’t believe you,” Stephanie said. “How could you lie to me like this?”
“I didn’t l-lie to you,” Lauren stammered. “I just didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh, now you didn’t want to talk? We talk about everything else. And I felt bad for you. I invited you to everything because I didn’t want you to be a loser, and this is how you pay me back?”
“Stephanie, I don’t really get why you’re upset. You never, ever mentioned him to me.”
“You know we hooked up!”
Lauren couldn’t believe it. “Yeah, and I asked if you were dating and you said this wasn’t 1985 or something like that. As if it were the dumbest question in the world. And then you never mentioned him again, and the next time I brought him up, you said he was an asshole. So what do you care if I’m…hanging out with him?”
“Hanging out with him? You mean fucking him.”
Lauren felt herself turn white. Was that what she’d heard? “I’m not…fucking him,” she said, the words catching in her throat.
“Well, then I guess this whole thing should be over soon.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Stephanie smiled an odd smile. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you when he realizes he’s wasting his time with you. You’re on your own.”
She turned and walked briskly to the parking lot. Lauren trotted behind her.
“Fine, I should have told you. I’m sorry. It was wrong for me to let you hear it from someone else.” She resisted the urge to ask who had told her. “But why do you care about some guy you hung out with last year?”
“Some guy I hung out with? What do you think we were doing in my room that night, Lauren? Playing Monopoly? Maybe that’s what you do, but we fucked. And it’s the girl code—no, forget that, the sister code—not to sleep with guys your sister already slept with!”
Lauren reeled back as if she had been slapped. That’s what it felt like, a physical blow. In all the months she’d been with Rory, she had not thought about—had not allowed herself to think about—the extent to which he had hooked up with Stephanie.
She realized, standing alone in the dark, long after her sister had peeled off in her car, that she had been living in denial. And fine, maybe Stephanie had sex with a lot of people. And she acted like it never meant anything, and maybe it didn’t. But that didn’t change the fact that what was going on between herself and Rory merited a conversation with her sister. Deep down, on a level Lauren didn’t want to acknowledge, she had known this all along.
I’m going to fix this, she told herself, hugging her arms tight around her torso. I’m going to make things right with Stephanie. Even if it means ending things with Rory.
Lauren walked slowly back to her seat, feeling sick.
Watching the game was now the exact opposite experience she’d had before the argument with Stephanie. Whereas then she couldn’t keep her eyes off Rory, now she couldn’t stand to look at him.
That’s why she missed the freak accident.
Later, she would read all about it—how Rory was in LM’s defensive zone because there was some slack in that area. Penncrest’s Jake Stall passed the puck to teammate Eric Layton, who let it rip with a slapshot. Rory turned to block the shot and it smashed into the lower half of his face.
But in the moment, all she knew was the crowd gave a collective gasp, and all of them were suddenly on their feet. It’s human instinct to follow the energy of the crowd, and so even though she was lost in her own world, Lauren found herself standing, looking at the ice, where she saw the player down. She knew instantly it was Rory. And was that…blood?
She didn’t remember running down the stairs, but there she was on the ice, the assistant coach Jim Reilly shooing her away. Mrs. Kincaid was bent over Rory, along with Coach McKenna and a few others.
“What happened?” Lauren asked, turning to a stranger in the first row. Paramedics raced down the stairs. Rory was sitting up now, a towel against his face, blood seeping through it.
No one spoke to her. A flurry of activity, and then he was gone from the ice.
Bryn Mawr Hospital was a ten-minute drive down Lancaster Avenue, maybe even less. Lauren had been born there, and that had been the last time she was at that hospital—or any hospital. Lauren parked in the visitor lot and hurried to the information desk. Breathless, she asked where she could find Rory Kincaid. “He’s my brother,” she added quickly, figuring they’d only let family see him.
The weary-looking woman behind the desk consulted a computer and directed her to the fourth floor.
The wide, oversize elevator, the antiseptic smell, the people in wheelchairs, all made her feel like an interloper in some adult world where she didn’t belong. The elevator pinged open, and she felt sheer terror. What if Rory was terribly injured? What if he didn’t want her there? Suddenly, showing up like that seemed like a very bad idea.
Lauren stepped out of the elevator and into a jarringly bright corridor. She went down the hall and into a glass-enclosed waiting area, not sure what to do next. Inside, a TV played CNN. Only two other people were in the room, an elderly man and woman drinking coffee out of Styrofoam cups. Through the glass, she spotted Mr. Reilly, the assistant coach, heading in the direction she had just come from. Why not Coach McKenna? For the first time, it dawned on her that the game had continued. The rest of the team was still on the ice, and Rory was here, injured.
She poked her head out of the room. “Mr. Reilly!” she called.
He was surprised to see her.
“Is Rory okay? Can I see him?” she said.
He said she should follow him.
It was the world’s most awkward minute of walking. They passed the nurses’ station and finally reached Rory’s room. The door was open, and Mr. Reilly knocked on the frame. Peering inside, Lauren spotted Mrs. Kincaid. The edge of a hospital bed was in view, but little else.
“Mr. Reilly, come in,” said Mrs. Kincaid. “My older son just went to find you to tell you the good news—it’s not a break. We’ll have him back on the ice in no time.”
That’s when she spotted Lauren, and her face crinkled with confusion. Lauren, anxious to see Rory, didn’t feel the polite hesi
tation that might have held her back in other circumstances. Instead, she edged past Mr. Reilly into the room.
Rory was sitting in a chair, a bandage around his head and wrapped under his chin. His mouth didn’t move when he saw her, but his eyes smiled.
“Oh my God, are you okay?” She moved to hug him and felt a clawlike grip on her arm.
“Young lady, excuse me. Who are you?” Kay Kincaid said.
Rory reached for Lauren’s hand. Clearly, he couldn’t speak. Lauren didn’t know what to do—she didn’t want to leave him, but she wasn’t a big fan of pissing off adults. Especially not adults who were related to Rory.
The energy in the room shifted as Emerson walked in; he was as big as Rory, and his presence took up a lot of space. He immediately began talking with Mr. Reilly. Rory squeezed her hand.
“Rory, this isn’t the time or place,” Emerson said. “Your friend is going to have to leave.” Rory grabbed the pen attached to the clipboard by his bed, then reached for a paper napkin. He scribbled something, then passed it to Emerson, who frowned and then passed it to his mother. And that was the end of anyone telling her to go.
Later, Lauren saw the napkin crumpled up on the edge of the bed. While everyone was getting ready to leave, she managed to slip it into her bag unnoticed.
Alone in her car in the dark parking lot, she turned on the overhead light and read it: She’s my girlfriend. She stays.
Any thought of breaking up with him to appease Stephanie was gone.
Chapter Twenty
It’s not too late for you to change your mind,” Howard said, packing his suitcase.
Beth, reading in bed, ignored the comment. Then, to fill the silence: “I want to be here. In this house. With the girls. I told you the one thing I wanted this summer. Why can’t you give me that?”
Howard shook his head, as in Here we go again. Then he straightened up, holding a pair of swimming trunks, and looked at her. “You know what? If you’re not using the ticket, I’ll take Lauren.”
“What?”
“Yes. It will do her some good to get away. Change of scenery.”
“She’ll never agree.”
“Well, I’m going to ask her.”
“I’ll ask her. I don’t want you browbeating her over it.”
“You asking her is as good as not asking at all. She’ll say no, and you’ll say, Okay, fine, and that will be the end of it. At some point, Beth, she has to be pushed out of her comfort zone.”
Says you, Beth thought, closing her book and climbing out of bed.
“Where are you going?” Howard called after her.
“To talk to Lauren.”
Really, she just wanted to get out of the bedroom. It was suffocating, his arrogant certainty that he alone knew best for their daughters. He couldn’t fix the sinking store, so now he was going to fix Lauren. That wasn’t the reason she wanted them all at the shore together. Although she suspected that her own motive—her longing to recapture a time when they had been a happy family—was just as misguided.
When she didn’t find Lauren in her room or on the back deck, she climbed the stairs to the attic. Sure enough, she was sitting next to an open box, reading through a pile of old newspapers. Oh, how Lauren had loved writing for the school paper. And then, her junior year in high school, she’d entered one of her pieces in a writing competition and won a trip to Washington, DC. Lauren took the Amtrak there and met up with the other contest winners from schools around the country. For three days, she toured DC. She visited the offices of the New Republic, the Washington Post, and the National Journal. She showed Beth photos of a picnic lunch on the National Mall with the Lincoln Memorial behind her and the Washington Monument in the distance, the Reflecting Pool in between. Lauren was clearly in love with DC, and Beth suggested she apply to college there. But Lauren’s response to that was lukewarm, and Beth knew what she was thinking: Rory was already set to go to school in Boston the following year, and Lauren would no doubt apply to colleges based on their proximity to him. The thought of her limiting herself like that bothered Beth, and it infuriated Howard. In the end, that conflict, at least, had worked itself out. Back then, Beth believed that things usually did. Now? She wasn’t so sure.
She would not try to force Lauren to take the trip to Florida. But she would at least ask, and she felt that was enough of a compromise with Howard.
“Hon? How’s it going?” Beth asked, stepping over her own corner full of boxes. She was making very slow progress.
“Oh! I thought you guys went to sleep.”
Beth started to answer but then noticed the glint of silver around Lauren’s neck. Oh, good Lord.
She was wearing the heart necklace.
Beth swallowed hard. “No, we were just talking. Hon, you know Dad is going to Florida for a few days, and we thought it would be nice if you went with him. A change of scenery, keep Dad company. What do you say?”
As expected, Lauren looked at her like she was out of her mind. “Mom, I’m not going to Florida.”
Beth tried not to stare at the necklace. “Why not?”
“For one thing, I have a job. It’s the start of the busy season. I can’t just take off.”
“Have you ever taken a day off in the four years you’ve worked there? I’m sure Nora would understand.”
“Okay, I don’t want to take time off. I don’t want to go to Florida, Mom.”
Beth moved closer to her, biting her lip to keep from crying. “Lauren, hon, why are you wearing that necklace again?”
Lauren’s hand fluttered to her throat as if she had forgotten about the Tiffany heart necklace, though she could only have put it on in the past hour or so. She certainly hadn’t been wearing it at dinner.
“I just found it. In this box.”
Damn it, Beth knew she should have just taken it upon herself to get the boxes in storage.
“Let me take care of this stuff for you,” Beth said, reaching for one of the boxes.
“No!” Lauren said, jumping up and lunging at the unopened box. “I’ve got it.” She tried to pick up the box but struggled with the weight. Changing tactics, she stood behind the box and pushed it like a cart on wheels until she reached the stairs.
“Lauren, come back,” Beth said. But Lauren was already dragging the box down to her room.
“Unbelievable,” Lauren muttered, shoving the box into her closet. There was plenty of room on the floor considering that her only footwear was a pair of flip-flops and three pairs of running sneakers. Later, when everyone was asleep, she would go up to the attic and move the rest of the boxes into her bedroom.
What did her mother care if she wanted to wear an old necklace? And the whole Florida suggestion? Lunacy.
“Aunt Lauren?”
She turned to find Ethan standing in the doorway. He wore Batman footie pajamas, his dark hair wet from the bath. She smiled.
“Hey there. What’s going on?”
“I’m saying good night.”
“Oh, good night.”
He walked over to her and she put her arms around him. He smelled like baby shampoo, though he was far from a baby. She’d missed so much of his young life, and she felt a pang. She’d try to make up for it this summer.
“So, you’re going back to Philly tomorrow?”
He nodded.
“Are you excited for the end of school?” she asked.
“I want to stay here,” he said. He looked so forlorn, she gave him another hug.
“Oh—well, we’ll be here waiting for you to come back. The house isn’t going anywhere.” Not yet, anyway.
She heard Stephanie calling for him from the hallway.
“In here, Steph,” Lauren yelled.
Stephanie poked her head in. “Hey. Bedtime, mister.”
Ethan gave Lauren a little wave, then dutifully marched off to his room.
“See you later,” Stephanie said to her.
“Wait—come in for a second,” Lauren said.
Steph
anie walked into the room. “What’s up?”
“Look, I don’t know who you still hang out with back home,” Lauren said. “But if you hear about anyone talking to Matt, will you let me know?”
“Are you still worried about the stupid film? Just forget about it.”
“I can’t, okay? Not as long as he’s still here trying to dig into my life.”
She instinctively touched her necklace.
“Fine, I’ll keep an ear out. But aside from old coaches or a few guys from high school, who would he talk to? Although, you know Emerson is back in town.”
“What?” She froze.
“Yeah. He’s teaching at Villanova. One of my friends takes his wife’s yoga class.”
Lauren pressed her fingers to her temples. “Ugh. I don’t want to think about Emerson.”
“So don’t. Forget about it. And forget about the film. We’ve got bigger things to worry about.” She nodded her head in the direction of their parents’ bedroom.
Stephanie left and Lauren closed the door behind her. Would Emerson talk to Matt? No, there was no way. Emerson, the control freak, had already warned her off a film project years earlier. Could it be this same film?
But then, Emerson was never one to sit by and let things just happen. What if he talked to Matt specifically to control the direction of the film? If he had, he certainly wouldn’t be neutral on the subject of her marriage.
She’d never told Rory what his brother had said to her on their wedding day. She’d meant to, but there was so much going on that she never got around to it. She’d never told anyone, and it bothered her still.
Emerson had pulled her aside an hour before she walked down the aisle. Lauren was already in her dress, having just taken photos with the bridal party on the roof deck and in front of the famous twenty-foot statue of Benjamin Franklin in the rotunda of Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute.
“Lauren, can I talk to you for a minute?”
Lauren smiled and happily followed him to a quiet corner in the massive room, a domed space with an eighty-two-foot-high ceiling and so many pillars it was like the Roman Pantheon.
Emerson put a hand on her back and led her to the museum lobby. Lauren still felt nervous around Emerson. Rory revered his brother so much; Lauren was desperate for his approval. Now that they were about to become family, she thought she might finally get it.
The Husband Hour Page 11
