A Place For Us

by Liza Gyllenhaal

  Troy’s slammed door reopened all these childhood insecurities. As well as the nagging question about Michael. The one that had first flared with Alice’s little aside before Christmas and had been simmering in the back of her mind ever since. Had he ever truly fallen in love with her? Or had he been drawn instead to the Pendleton name, the promise of wealth and security and a life beyond anything a small-town boy could dream of? It was so unlike Michael to be seduced by money, and he often seemed to resent her family’s influence, but Brook was also aware that her husband could tamp down his true feelings. There were parts of him that she knew he still kept hidden from her. Something lurked behind his gaze at times—something she caught only glimpses of—that he didn’t want her to see.

  But Liam was her main worry. It was the one she woke up to each morning and lay awake with each night. Often, just when she’d finally managed to drift off to sleep, she’d wake up again so rigid with anger that she’d have to sit up in bed. Her son was already struggling with so many problems, Phoebe’s accusation seemed particularly cruel. What would make Phoebe lie about Liam like that? She remembered what it was like to have people whisper behind her back. The shame and loneliness. The sensation of being isolated from the rest of the world, adrift and alone. That’s how Liam felt now, she knew. She could read it in his blank look, in the closed-off, defensive way he moved through the house. She longed to reach out and draw him to her. But she knew if she tried, he’d only pull further away.

  • • •

  “There you are!” Michael said, taking her in his arms when he got out of his pickup to greet her at the station. It was late and cold, the parking lot slick with ice, but when she rested her cheek momentarily against the rough wool of her husband’s winter jacket, her spirits lifted. She’d allowed herself to get ridiculously morose. Which wasn’t going to do Liam or any of them a damn bit of good. She mentally squared her shoulders, and felt her equilibrium begin to return. Okay. That was better.

  “Yes, here I am,” she said, climbing up into the cab of the pickup.

  “So, how did it go?” Michael asked, once they were on the highway. It was nearly midnight and the road was empty. The town of Dover Plains had closed down for the night.

  “It was sleeting in the city, so we ended up starting half an hour late. And we never did catch up. I had to leave Alice to deal with the stragglers and the caterer or I would have missed the train.”

  “Good turnout?”

  “Considering the weather, yes,” Brook said, pleased that he’d asked. As the years went by and both of their businesses had grown, they tended to share fewer of the day-to-day details. In the beginning, he could name every event on R.S.V.P.’s roster and where and when it was being held. Now, with so many other things taking up their time and energy, their professional lives tended to get short shrift. She doubted Michael even knew who her client was that night, but it didn’t matter. She was touched that he was showing an interest.

  “Are you going to make your numbers?”

  “We’re on target at least,” Brook said, thinking what a relief it was to talk to him about something other than the situation with Liam. She knew that he, too, had been worried sick about their son. The change of subject—and mood—was probably calculated on his part, but it was a good idea. She was grateful that he’d thought of it.

  “You know Bank of America came in as a corporate sponsor at the last minute,” Brook went on. She used to enjoy sharing this sort of shoptalk with him. She could feel herself beginning to finally relax. “That should put us over the goal.”

  “And Alice behaved?”

  “More or less,” Brook said. “She only referred to the board chair as the Dragon Lady once the entire evening. Though I’m afraid it might have been within earshot.”

  Michael laughed briefly, and they both fell silent. He’d turned the heat on full blast, and it was warm in the cab. Brook let her head fall back against the seat rest as she replayed the evening through in her mind. It was a good thing she’d been there. Alice was adept at the administrative side of their venture: watching budgets, managing databases and timelines, bargaining for the best terms and deals, and scouting new venues. But customer relations? Not so much. She tended to get defensive and brusque—and sometimes downright snappish—around R.S.V.P.’s more entitled clientele. When it came to the social milieu behind events such as Literacy International, Brook was the main liaison. She’d been raised in that world. Even after her divorce, Tilda Pendleton had been one of the city’s most admired hostesses. And Brook, too, was naturally skilled at calming frayed nerves, soothing bruised egos, and generally making nice when the mood turned a little tense.

  “So you’ll have to go down for the postmortem?” Michael asked, startling Brook out of her reverie. She assumed they’d finished their conversation.

  “We might be able to make it a conference call,” Brook said, weighing the options. After every event, R.S.V.P. held a follow-up consultation with the client. This allowed Brook and Alice to evaluate how things had gone—finessing any missteps—and make suggestions for improvements in the future, helping to assure that there would be one.

  As she let her thoughts work through the logistics, it began to occur to her that it was odd for Michael to be asking so many questions. This late at night. When they were both so tired. Something else was going on. She glanced over at him and felt her heart sink. His hands gripped the wheel. His mouth was set in a way she recognized all too well.

  “How did the rest of your day go?” she asked, hoping she was wrong. But she already knew that she wasn’t.

  • • •

  “Why didn’t you tell me this right away?” she asked, pouncing on the easiest question. Her mind couldn’t seem to focus on the real import of what he’d just told her. It loomed ahead of her in the dark, impossibly large and unscalable.

  “I’m not sure,” he said, looking across at her. “No, I am—I just wanted us to have a few minutes together. Before ruining everything.”

  “You realize, of course, that he knows perfectly well he didn’t do it.”

  “Well, he claims he doesn’t remember.”

  “He’s covering up for one of them. Carey or Brandon.” Brook tried to make sense of this latest development. How Fred Henderson had come to the house to ask questions. How Liam had suddenly confessed to getting drunk and had acknowledged that one of them had assaulted Phoebe. But why didn’t Liam just come right out and say it wasn’t him? Didn’t he realize what a dangerous game he was playing?

  “I asked him after Fred left,” Michael told her. “Point-blank. He insists he doesn’t remember a thing.”

  “I don’t believe that, do you?” Brook said, turning to Michael. “We’ve got to find out which brother it was—we’ve got to figure out why Liam’s doing this! It’s crazy! What’s he thinking?”

  “I don’t know, Brook,” Michael said. “But no matter how crazy it is, how wrongheaded, that’s where this stands.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “I decided we needed some legal advice. I put in a call to Larry McCarthy’s office.”

  “Larry?” He was a high school buddy of Michael’s who had a small practice in Harringdale. He was a contract lawyer. Handling real estate transactions. Business incorporations. He’d helped set up the legal framework for Michael Bostock Fine Wood Designs. Brook used him from time to time to look over local R.S.V.P. event paperwork. Larry was a nice guy. He coached his daughter’s Little League team. You couldn’t sit down in his office without him delivering some lame joke. The idea of turning to him for something so serious frightened her.

  “I trust him,” Michael said. He must have heard the doubt in her voice. “And we need someone we can really trust. Who’s totally on our side. He’s making some calls. He’s going to get back to me tomorrow with some ideas. But he said not to worry. Liam’s underage. He thinks it’s mainly going to be a matter of damage control.”

  She tried to stay calm. She tried to listen to what
Michael was saying. That Larry assured him everything would be okay. But then another part of her demanded, What does he know? Some one-man law office in the middle of nowhere? It was what Peg and Janice would ask. And she knew exactly what they would say: Take charge of the situation! Get some top-notch legal guidance. NOW! She tried to fight down the voices in her head.

  “I think we maybe need someone with more clout,” she said carefully. Peg’s husband, Stafford, was a partner at a big white-shoe law firm. He seemed to know everyone in the legal profession. “Let me call Staff tomorrow. You know he’ll be able to refer us to—”

  “Do you really want to go there?” Michael asked.

  “You said we needed advice. Shouldn’t we try to get the best?”

  “Bringing in some high-powered New York lawyer is just going to raise everyone’s hackles.”

  “You think?”

  “Yes. We want to keep this low-key. We need to just find some way to quietly get Liam off the hook.”

  Brook hoped Michael was right. Because the last thing she wanted to do was run to her sisters for help again. Though Brook knew they’d willingly give it—and more. She’d already made a mess of things, as far as Peg and Janice were concerned. What pleasure they’d take swooping down with their opinions and connections and cleaning up after their hapless little sister! No, she’d worked too hard and for too long to gain her independence from them to cave in like that now. And she had to ask herself if Liam would be in this kind of trouble if she and Michael hadn’t already done her sisters’ bidding. If they hadn’t sent him to Moorehouse, where he’d been forced to seek out new friends, one of whom was clearly a brute and a bully.

  “Okay,” she said, touching his arm. “Let’s see what Larry says.”

  “Good,” he told her, reaching over to take her hand. “Thank you, sweetie. We’re going to get through this.”

  • • •

  Though Michael called Larry’s office the next day and the day after, the lawyer didn’t get back to them until the afternoon of New Year’s Eve. When the call came through, Michael said, “Hold on. I want Brook to hear this, too. I’m going to run upstairs and get on the other phone.”

  “Hey, Larry,” Brook said, taking the receiver from Michael. “Hope you’re having a better holiday than we are.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’m sorry about all this. And I apologize for the delay. I’ve been back and forth with the DA’s office, trying to get a handle on what’s going on.”

  “I’m ready now,” Michael said from the upstairs extension.

  “Okay, here’s the deal,” Larry said. “It’s actually kind of complicated. I’ve had to do a lot of reading up on this. Have you ever heard of something called the Social Host Liability law?”

  “No,” Michael said.

  “I haven’t either,” Brook added.

  “Well, frankly, I hadn’t myself until these last few days. But it’s a law that was enacted several years ago that holds parents legally and financially responsible if minors are found to be drinking on their property—and something bad happens.”

  “But we weren’t even here,” Brook said. “We had no idea what was going on, or of course we would have stopped it.”

  “Yes,” Larry said, “I know, but that doesn’t get you off the hook, I’m afraid. In fact, the DA’s office is considering your absence a real factor in what happened. Especially in light of Liam’s record with alcohol abuse.”

  “Record?” Brook asked, but she already guessed what Larry was going to say. She bowed her head, waiting for the blow.

  “Yeah, some incident at your house last summer? During a wedding? According to someone who was interviewed, it was the reason Liam was sent away to prep school in Connecticut. So the assumption is you guys took it pretty seriously. Is that more or less correct?”

  “Yes,” Michael replied. “That’s more or less right. So what happens now? Are we actually going to be charged with this thing?”

  “Well, apparently that’s what the DA’s considering,” Larry said. “There’ll be a hearing with a magistrate in district court. Liam could be charged with attempted rape. And the two of you with this Social Host Liability thing. I’ll be here for you, but you’re going to need a criminal lawyer, too. One who really knows his way around the court system. I’ve been calling around, and I’ll get back to you on that.”

  “This is kind of hard to take in,” Michael said.

  “I’m afraid that’s not all. Troy Lansing has hired a Boston lawyer to pursue a civil action against you. This is a firm that’s handled a number of cases like this before. One resulted in a pretty big settlement, I’m afraid. One hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

  “Great,” Michael said. “So that’s what this is really about! Christ, I should have known! He’s going to drag Liam through the dirt—and us along with him—just so he can get his hands on Brook’s goddamned money.”

  11

  Liam stared down at his iPhone, debating. He could hear the television in his parents’ bedroom roaring with the crowds in Times Square. In another minute the New Year would begin. His parents had been arguing on and off all evening, but he could no longer hear their voices above the television. Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . . seven . . .

  Quickly, before he could change his mind again, he thumbed the message to Phoebe:

  Sorry, sorry, sorry! Can we talk, pls? R old place? Hppy nu yr!

  He sat back against the pillows, exhaling, clutching the phone. He knew that he had no right to hope she would message back. He had no reason to believe that he’d ever get to see her again. But he desperately needed to talk to someone. No, he needed to talk to her. Despite everything that had happened—all the lies and threats and accusations—Phoebe was still the only person in the world Liam could open his heart to. And he had to let her know that things had gone too far.

  • • •

  “What’s up?” Liam had asked Tilly that afternoon. He could hear his parents arguing in the kitchen while his sister hovered outside the swinging door in the dining room, her skinny arms hugging her chest. Tilly had to be aware that Liam had gotten into trouble again—and that it somehow involved Phoebe, who was no longer coming to the house. But Tilly pretended, to Liam at least, that everything was fine. They’d started a Ping-Pong tournament in the gym downstairs, and though she probably suspected he was throwing the games, she was clearly delighted when she ended up winning every other match. It broke his heart to see how grateful she was just to hang out with him. How hard she worked at getting him to laugh. She was the only one in his life at the moment who seemed not to realize—or care—that he was a total screwup.

  “I don’t know,” Tilly said, shaking her head. “It’s something Mr. McCarthy told them.”

  “What?” Liam asked, leaning his ear against the door. He could just barely make out what his parents were saying:

  “. . . why not just talk to him . . . explain how wrongheaded . . .”

  “. . . beyond that point now . . . Boston lawyer . . .”

  “. . . if you’d made more of an effort in the beginning . . .”

  “I don’t think it would have changed anything.”

  “. . . but that’s the real problem, isn’t it?” Liam’s mother’s voice had turned strident. “You just can’t get past this thing you have against him—”

  Liam glanced over at Tilly and saw his sister’s eyes filling with tears. Unable to stop himself, he pushed through into the kitchen.

  “What’s going on?” he said. His parents were standing about five feet apart, just outside his mom’s work alcove. Brook was still gripping the phone receiver in her hand.

  “It looks like we’re facing criminal charges,” Michael said evenly. “You’re being accused of attempted rape, Liam. And your mother and me for allowing underage drinking in the house. I know, I know,” he went on when Liam started to object. “We weren’t here. We didn’t know about it. But apparently we’re still responsible for what happened.”
>
  “That’s—just—” Liam was about to say “bullshit,” but at the last second he changed it to “—bogus! This has nothing to do with the two of you.”

  “Yeah, well, the law sees it a little differently,” Michael replied, running his hands through his hair. His face looked gray. The overhead lighting accentuated the lines bracketing his mouth and eyes.

  “Let me talk to them,” Liam went on. “Just tell me who to talk to!”

  “No!” Michael told him. “You’ve already said enough. We’re going to handle it. But, Christ, what a mess! Do you have any idea what a rape conviction would do to your future?”

  “Listen,” Brook said, turning to face him. “If you want to help, if you really want to help us—then be honest about what happened. I don’t care what you said before. It doesn’t matter to me that you changed your story. Now’s the time, Liam, to tell us the truth. Before this thing goes one step further.”

  Liam looked from Brook to Michael.

  “Your mom’s right,” Michael said, nodding his head. “These charges are deadly serious. It’s not just about Phoebe anymore. And who did what to her. It’s about everything that happened here that night. So let’s at least use this opportunity to clear your name.”

  Liam felt his resolve start to waver. Hadn’t he already given his dad enough to worry about without forcing him to believe that his son was a total prick in the bargain?

  “Tilly?” Brook said, starting across the kitchen. “I think it’s time for your bath, sweetie. Let’s go upstairs, okay?”

  “All right,” Michael said once they heard Tilly and Brook on the steps. He went over and sat down at the round oak table, pulling out the chair next to him. When Liam was seated, Michael leaned in toward him, elbows on his knees, and said, “I’ve been thinking. All you have to do is recant the part of your statement about Phoebe. Say that you remember enough to know you didn’t touch her. Go back to your first approach.”