by Mary Campisi
“I’d like to talk about Sydney,” he said.
Jenny coughed and spit up a tiny bit of black pepper. She grabbed her water and took a healthy swallow. The subject material was going from bad to worse. “I can explain,” she said, but she knew she couldn’t. Parents didn’t take too kindly to other people scolding their children.
Elliot held up a hand. “Thank you.”
“Thank you?” It came out like a squeak.
He smiled and nodded. Jenny liked the way the red-stained glass lamp threw a faint cast on his hair, softening the black, accentuating the gray. She’d never dated a man with any gray on his head. Then again, who really knew? Many of the men she’d dated before would have pulled, plucked, and colored at the first sprout of gray. This man had probably never even considered it.
What was she thinking? She wasn’t dating Elliot Drake. He wasn’t her boyfriend. She erased the “boy” part and left “friend.” Better. They were bordering on friends, hovering at the fringes. That was enough for now.
“Yes, thank you, Jenny. She’s been talking about you nonstop.”
Either he was quite adept at sarcasm or very misinformed. “Elliot,” she said, jabbing at a piece of calamari. It was the one with legs. Her favorite. “I wasn’t very…” she paused, started over. “We had a kind of disagreement,” she finished, her voice tapering to a whisper.
“I know.”
“I said some not very nice things to her. And then I told Eleanor exactly what I thought of your daughter.” She stared at the sauce on her plate, waiting. Fathers always protected their daughters. How many times had her father battled her mother? Forty? Four hundred?
“I know.”
He was talking but Jenny couldn’t hear him. She was too busy thinking about what she would tell him to make him understand. She liked Sydney, saw the child under the cruel words, even felt sorry for her, but she wasn’t going to put up with her meanness.
She glanced up and met his dark gaze. It was unsettling, really, those eyes that stared at her, into her, through her, as though they could see things no one else could. “I told her I didn’t like the way she treated people. Especially Eleanor. She’s just plain mean to her.” Her voice dipped. “I told her I was sorry about her mother, but that didn’t give her a right to act the way she did.”
That was it. She shut her mouth and stabbed another piece of calamari. She glanced back at him. What was he thinking? He watched her like a hunter staring down the barrel of his shotgun, waiting for just the right moment to pull the trigger. “Sydney told me I was a mean witch,” she blurted out, anxious to get it all out in the open, “and I told her that with the way she acted toward everyone, she was the one who was the mean witch.” Jenny set down her fork. “I know I shouldn’t have said it. I know it was wrong; she’s just a child, but she’s mean and everybody lets her get away with it because her mother walked out on her.”
Elliot let out a long breath. “You’re right.”
“I’m right?”
He nodded. “I told you she hasn’t stopped talking about you.”
Jenny chewed on her lower lip. “What’s she been saying?”
He rubbed his chin and said, “Let’s see. First she said you were horrible and she never wanted to see you again. That lasted about two minutes. And then, she fed me bits of trivia about you. Did I know you once rode a camel?” Elliot lifted a brow. “And an elephant? I’ve also heard all about the time you almost got locked in the zoo because you fell asleep in the monkey house.”
Jenny shrugged. “I was tired.” No one should travel through two time zones and then spend ten hours at a zoo.
“Or asphyxiated from the smell.”
She hazarded a smile. “What else did she tell you?” If she’d known Sydney was going to repeat everything she told her, she would have been more careful about what she said.
“She mentioned something about a horse throwing you to the ground.” He coughed into his hand, tried to hide a smile. “Said you landed in a very…smelly place.”
“It was smelly all right,” she muttered, recalling the time she went riding in white jeans and a white tank top. Just last year. It was her first experience with a horse and she’d been so impressed with her ability to stay seated, that the minute she relaxed, the horse bucked her off, straight over his head, and into a pile of manure. So much for horses and white outfits.
“She seemed especially intrigued with the time you climbed a tree to save a cat.”
Oh yes, that would be Mrs. Peter’s tabby, Chloe. “I was fifteen, with more heart than brains at the time.”
“I think she misses you,” he said, lifting his wineglass.
“Yeah, like a boil on her backside.”
“No. Like a real person.” He paused. “A friend.”
Jenny sucked in a deep breath and asked the question she’d been wondering about. “What happened to her mother?”
He took a sip of wine and met Jenny’s gaze. “She didn’t want to be a mother anymore,” he said, as though he was telling her he’d switched from whole milk to one percent. “She wanted to be,” he paused, and then pushed it out, “an actress.”
An actress? As in Hollywood? As in big screen? Jenny had a million, no five million questions for him. How did the woman go about telling him she was leaving? Was it heartfelt and painful, filled with tears and longing, or was it abrupt, a flick of her wrist as she walked out the door? Or were they having dinner, maybe sharing Chinese, white cardboard boxes lined up in front of them as they sat next to one another on the floor, knees touching, and in between a forkful of pork lo mein, she said, “Oh, by the way, I’m heading to L.A. in the morning. It’s been nice.” Or was it a long, drawn-out, grievous affair, with Elliot pleading for her not to go, begging her to reconsider as she threw her clothing into a sleek black suitcase. First the silk underwear, pinks and cream with just a hint of lace. Then the hosiery: suntan, earth, taupe, black, and white, followed by five pairs of shoes: three pumps and two flats, all in varying shades of black and cream. When she got to the linen jackets and jersey tops, did he yank them back out and force her to face him? Did he demand answers? Or did he simply let her leave? And when the door clicked shut and she was on the other side, did he ache to pull her back, erase the words, the hurt, try to pretend it never happened?
Jenny blinked twice. An actress. “She sure gave up a hell of a lot.”
“She never thought so,” he said. “She made a few commercials, did some low-budget films, nothing spectacular. The last I heard she was living in Greece with an oil tycoon twice her age.”
“I’m so sorry.”
He shook his head. “Don’t be. Really. Claudia was never the maternal type. I knew that, yet even knowing that, I thought she’d change when the time came.” He let out a harsh laugh. “I even thought I might be the one to help her change. Adapt to family life.” His words pulled her in. “Isn’t that ridiculous, Jenny? Here I was, a psychologist, telling people every day that they can’t change other people, that they can only be responsible for their own behavior, and then I ignored my own advice and actually thought I could change her.” His mouth curved into a dry smile. “What the hell is wrong with that picture? It’s kind of like the plumber who always has leaky faucets, or the accountant who never balances his checkbook. It’s all okay as long as nobody finds out about it. You just keep spinning your wheels, trying harder, falling deeper into the hole, telling yourself you can do it...and believing you can. Then all hell breaks loose and you’re alone, with a flooded basement or ten bounced checks.” He paused. “Or a child with no mother. It’s a very humbling experience, actually, makes you much more human.”
She nodded, wondering if Elliot’s ex-wife had ever tried to contact him about Sydney? Did she think about her when she saw a young, blonde-haired girl with big brown eyes in a crowd? Or when she was flipping through the newspaper and spotted an article about a disease that was crippling or killing children, did her heart beat a little faster, her mouth
go dry? Did she read each word twice, burn it in her memory? Did she even think about her daughter? Did she care?
“I’ve tried to compensate for Sydney not having a mother.” He leaned back against the red leather booth and crossed his arms over his chest. “I think I’ve spoiled her. Okay, I know I’ve spoiled her.”
“Anyone in your position would do the same thing,” she said.
“I know, but it isn’t right. It’s only going to make things harder for her later on.” He shrugged and toyed with a red pepper shaker. “I do try. Some days, I actually think I’m making progress, that she’s listening and absorbing what I’m trying to teach her. And then, there are other days….”
“She just wants to feel normal,” Jenny said in a soft voice, her thoughts rewinding twenty plus years, to a time when she felt very much like Sydney Drake. Oh, her mother might have been there, in the house every day, cooking oatmeal with raisins in the morning, sprinkling brown sugar on top, and pouring milk so Grace and Jenny could make moats. And she’d washed Jenny’s hair in the kitchen sink twice a week with gentle shampoo and sprayed a detangler on Jenny’s head before she pulled a pink comb through the knots. At least once a month, she’d get out a needle and thread to mend the hole in the knee of yet another pair of tights Jenny had managed to rip.
Jenny saw these visions in her head, memories of her mother, doing, always doing for her, but never being. Not the way she was with Grace. And that was all Jenny had ever really wanted from her mother. Just to be with her.
So, yes, she understood Sydney’s pain. Even though the child tried to hide behind cruel words and stony faces, Jenny could see her pain. She knew it. She’d lived it; the pain of loss, of wanting and not having, of never being enough. That’s how it had been with her mother then. That’s how it was now. They could be in the same room, talking, touching, and still they were worlds apart.
Jenny looked up to find Elliot studying her, probably trying to figure out what was going on in her head. She wanted to tell him that he really didn’t want to know, it was too psychotic, too Freudian probably, but instead, she smiled and took a sip of zinfandel.
He smiled back. “Sydney said Ruby Red misses you.”
Jenny opened her mouth and the words came out, whisper soft. “Tell her I miss them, too.”
* * *
It was 1:10 a.m. when Elliot brought Jenny home. He walked her to the door, took her hands in his and leaned forward, brushing his lips against hers, once, twice, making her body thrum like his Harley, and then he pulled away. She wanted to yank him back, press her lips, her body, against his, tell him not to stop just yet, but instead she stood there, watching him turn away, get on his Harley, wave good-bye.
Elliot Drake filled her senses as she let herself in the house, slipped off her sandals, and padded across the foyer. He was right; she shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. There was so much more to the man than horn-rimmed glasses and diplomas on the wall…and she was beginning to realize that she wanted to find out so much more …
She stifled a yawn, slung her sandals in her left hand, and tiptoed upstairs. That’s when she heard the low keening sound coming from the far end of the hall. Grace’s room.
Jenny ran down the hall, a million dreadful possibilities racing through her. Grace had hurt herself, fallen, blacked out. Or maybe she’d experienced some kind of delayed problem from the accident.
“Grace!” Jenny let out a fierce whisper as she opened her sister’s door. It was pitch-black. She stood in the doorway, listening. Nothing. She flicked on the light.
“No!”
Grace was huddled in the far corner of the room, head bent, an orange bandanna lying several feet away, hugging her knees to her chest. Crumpled pieces of paper lay at her feet.
“Grace? What’s wrong?” Jenny started toward her, wondering what could have happened in the few hours she’d been gone to put her in such a state.
“No!” she sobbed again. “Turn out the light!” She jerked her head up and met Jenny’s gaze. Her eyes were red and almost swollen shut, her nose puffy, her lips pulled into a straight line. But it was the torment etched across her face that shocked Jenny most. “Turn it off. Please.” Her voice was flat, her words, empty.
Jenny switched off the light. “Grace?” she said, inching her way forward in the dark. “What happened? Is it the girls? Are they all right?”
“They’re fine. Laura has them.”
“Did something happen after I left?”
“Bastard,” she whispered. “Goddamn bastard.”
Grace never swore. “Who, Gracie?” Had she taken the pain pills Dr. Shaffer sent home with her? If so, how many? Grace got tipsy on half a glass of wine. Maybe she was having some kind of reaction to the stuff.
“Bastard,” she said again, but this time her voice quivered.
Jenny worked her way toward her sister, feeling along the edge of the bed. When she heard her sniff, she knew she was close. “I’m going to sit with you, Gracie,” she said, easing to the floor in the darkness. She swatted away a few crumpled pieces of paper. One of them got stuck under her foot. She reached for it, felt the glossy edge of a photograph.
“Just put your hand out so I know where you are,” Jenny said. She moved her own hand in the air, sweeping it back and forth until she came into contact with Grace’s fingers. “There.” She grasped Grace’s hand. “It’s okay, Gracie.”
The tears came then, great sobs that wracked Grace’s body as she clung to Jenny. “It’s okay,” Jenny murmured, stroking her back. How many times had Grace held her like this and whispered these same words? But Jenny’s grief was usually related to some wrong committed against her, perceived or otherwise, some misdeed or misunderstanding that revolved around her bruised feelings. Not once in all of their years together had Grace come to Jenny for comfort. Until today. Right now.
The key to Grace’s pain lay on the floor, in the glossy, ripped photographs. Jenny had to see what they were, what image or images could make a person like Grace lash out with such malicious intent. Jenny felt around for one and pulled it into her hand. After several more minutes, Grace’s sobs dwindled to an occasional hiccupy sigh. “Grace,” Jenny murmured, “I’d like to turn on the light and talk to you now.”
Grace sniffed again and eased out of Jenny’s embrace. “I’m okay now,” she said. “I’m fine. Just a little overwhelmed, I guess.”
“Let me turn on the light,” Jenny said, scrambling to her feet. “I’ll get the one on your nightstand.” Whose picture have you annihilated, Gracie?
“I think I’d rather be alone,” she said. “I’m fine now. Really.”
“I’m not leaving you,” Jenny said, flicking on the small bedside lamp with the rose-colored shade. “Not until I find out what’s going on. If you’d found me like this, you’d be making me spill my guts.”
Grace shook her head, pressed her fingers against the bridge of her nose. “It’s not the same. This is....this is....”
“What?” Jenny asked, making her way back over to Grace. Her gaze caught a splash of black and white on the edge of a torn photo. She knelt and picked it up, slowly smoothed it out. It was a half-picture of Grace on her wedding day, looking beautiful and very much in love. She was smiling at someone, presumably Grant, but nothing more than a hand remained in the picture. The rest had been torn away.
Jenny picked up another photo. It, too, had been brutalized, husband and wife badly mangled. A third did have the couple holding hands but Grant’s head was missing. “Gracie? What’s going on?” She touched her sister’s arm. “Tell me.”
“Why?” she moaned. “Why did he have to...?”
Why did he have to die? Jenny wanted to tell her she was better off with the slime bucket dead, rotting in hell, where he deserved to be, but Grace was grieving and that wouldn’t solve anything. She’d loved Grant, loved him still. He was the father of her children. Jenny sucked in a breath and said, “I know how much you loved him. And I’m sorry.” Sorry that you had
the misfortune to care about somebody who used you.
Grace’s shoulders started to shake with new tears. Jenny sat there, helpless, watching her sister shrink away and curl up like a flower that’s seen its last bloom. She had to do something, say something. “Oh, Gracie, please talk to me.”
Maybe it was the pathetic sound in Jenny’s voice or her desperate plea that got Grace’s attention. It didn’t matter. All she cared about was that Grace had heard her and inched her head up. “I…did...love him,” she said.
Jenny nodded, tried to smile. “I know.”
“And now,” she gave a deflated sigh and leaned against the wall, closing her eyes, “I hate him.”
16
Jenny blinked. “What?”
Grace’s eyes fluttered open and she stared at Jenny. Her voice was flat, hard. “I said I hate him.”
No, Grace loved him. She’d always loved him. Ever since they were freshmen in college. Jenny was the one who hated him. “Grace?”
“I loved him with my whole heart,” she said. “With every part of me. I would have done anything for him.” Her voice dipped. “And now, I can’t stand to hear his name.”
“What are you talking about?” Jenny asked, settling next to her. Grace couldn’t know the truth. Could she?
“He had a girlfriend.” She tossed the statement out as though she were telling her he wore a size 12 shoe. “She was a brunette. Long, black, curly hair, kind of like yours. I always did think he liked long hair better.” Another sigh slipped through her lips. “I wonder what he’d think if he saw my hair now.” She patted her spiky head. “It doesn’t matter. He’d lie to me anyway. Just tell me something so I would believe he really cared. At least I don’t have to worry about that anymore.”
