The Whole Golden World

by Kristina Riggle

  Alessia ordered minestrone, so Rain did the same, not caring what she ate, only eating at all for the sake of the baby.

  “This place is private,” Alessia said, glancing up and down the length of the restaurant. Indeed, the booths had high dividers between them, and everyone seemed to speak in the same hushed tones. It was late for the business lunch crowd. There were few other customers. “I’m sorry to bring you here for this, but I didn’t want to talk about this at home. Yours or mine.”

  “About what?”

  For weeks now, Rain had told herself, It can’t get worse; this is the lowest point. She was about to be proven wrong again.

  “I understand if you hate me for not telling you before.”

  “Alessia, if you don’t just tell me I might scream.”

  “TJ cheated on you. Before.”

  Rain rolled her eyes. “I know he slept around in college while we were dating. We weren’t really exclusive and I’ve made my peace with that. He was sowing oats. Sorry to take the wind out of your sails, but that’s old news to me.”

  “No. When you were engaged.”

  “No, he didn’t” was all Rain could think to say.

  “Greg saw them together when you were off buying a wedding dress.”

  “I’m sure there was an explanation . . .”

  “How many simple explanations can there be? He was kissing her neck, Rain.”

  “So what?” Her voice cracked over the words. “Whatever, that was then.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. Greg and I talked about it, fought about it, actually. He convinced me not to. He said you were the best thing that ever happened to TJ and if we sabotaged it by telling you . . . He said you would save him. That you’d fix him. For all these years I thought he was right. You both seemed so happy . . .”

  Alessia’s eyes were misting up, and Rain wanted to slap her. How dare she be the one to cry?

  She continued, “That’s why I’m here. I should have told you then, and I’m telling you now. Greg says you are standing by him and I think it’s a beautiful example of how loving you are. . . . But now with what the neighbor saw, and Greg said there are text messages. . . . And now I can tell you it wouldn’t be the first time that he’d done it. I think you need a lawyer of your own.”

  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m pregnant. We are parents together no matter what happens. You think this will be simple? Just break up, like we’re in high school? I give him his class ring and letter jacket back? He’s gone crazy or something; he needs my help.”

  “You need your help. Your baby does. He’s betrayed you, ruined your lives . . . not to mention what it’s done to that poor girl . . .”

  “That poor girl is a few months from eighteen.”

  “Rain, I love you, and your loyalty is amazing. But you have to open your eyes. You have to protect yourself, and the baby.”

  “Too late,” Rain said, as the waiter appeared with their soup. “It’s too damn late for that.”

  The waiter shrank away as if he knew that he needed to.

  Rain said, “So is that why Greg has been around so much? Soothing his guilty conscience for not letting you tell me before?”

  “He knows you need taking care of. That your parents are . . . eh . . . airbrains? Airheads. Forgive the phrasing.”

  “Sure, I’ll forgive. Why not.”

  They toyed with the vegetables in their cooling soup, each pregnant woman shifting uncomfortably in the narrow booth. Rain allowed herself some hatred for Alessia: beautiful Alessia with a rich husband who only had eyes for her and never made a move not Grade A approved for appropriateness. Alessia’s baby would have an intact, happy family and all the material luxuries possible. Her own baby would be the pitied cousin, the one in whose wake whispers would trail. Did you hear about her? Such a sad story . . .

  Alessia coughed lightly. “What are you going to do?”

  Rain sipped her cold water, and after a moment, she gave Alessia the truest answer she had. “My baby’s father can’t go to jail. I can’t have my baby grow up with that.”

  Alessia nodded, glancing down at her own belly, her own baby-to-be. “I know,” she said quietly, reaching across the table to take Rain’s hand.

  Rain let her take it and let herself go ahead and cry. She said, “I hated you for a minute there.”

  “Yes,” Alessia said. “I know.”

  They finished their lunch in silence, and Rain wondered how she could go home and lie down next to TJ. Nor could she imagine what else she could possibly do.

  When she got home, TJ was at the table with both hands wrapped around a beer bottle. He raised his eyes to hers and then she knew: Alexandra had called about the neighbor’s statement.

  Then TJ said just that. Alexandra had called.

  Rain only nodded.

  “It’s going to sound bad,” TJ said. “But I swear it’s not true. Alex says it won’t hold up well in court, that he only came forward weeks after the police first talked to him; it was at a distance, and he wears glasses. She says a few rapid questions will make him look like a confused old man. She thinks he only came forward now because he wants to be famous.”

  Rain nodded. It all sounded so plausible. She realized she should pretend like she didn’t already know this.

  “So what is it that this confused old man supposedly saw?”

  “That the girl came out of my brother’s house, while he was away on vacation. But it couldn’t be true. I wasn’t even there. I was at home, remember?” He leaned forward, veins in his head standing out, like he was straining to lift something. “I was at home with you, all weekend.”

  Rain swallowed. “That’s what you told Alex?”

  “Yes, because it’s true. I’m sure you remember. It was when you told me about the baby.”

  Rain realized a jury might well believe him. He had committed one hundred percent to the truth of this. He might even believe it himself. “So she’s going to expect me to testify?” The thought gave Rain a blast of hot panic.

  “You’d only be a rebuttal witness if this guy makes it to the stand. She thinks the prosecutor might not even use him. In fact, she says if they do, it goes to show they’re grasping at straws. Hell, it could have been somebody turning around in the driveway. Eyewitness reports aren’t that reliable, she said. Plenty of room for reasonable doubt.”

  “Reasonable doubt,” she echoed.

  “Will you do that for me, honey? If you have to?” He jumped up from the table quickly, a little unsteadily, and Rain wondered how many beers he’d gone through in her absence. He’d taken to putting the empties away, rather than leaving them lying around. As if by putting them away neatly, she wouldn’t notice how many there were when it came time to return them to the grocery store. He crossed the room and took her hands, then rested his forehead on the top of her head. “I’m so sorry to do this to you. I don’t want you to have to do this, any of this. I’m so sorry I screwed up.”

  “You’re innocent . . . ?”

  “I mean in how I handled it. That I didn’t just go to the principal right away. I’m so stupid.”

  Rain felt him crying into her hair. What was it with everyone else crying today?

  “I don’t feel well,” Rain said. “I’m going to lie down.”

  She drifted away from TJ, his hands running down her arms and clinging to her hand just for a moment as she wandered away upstairs. She paused at the doorway and locked it; another first, she thought. Along with her husband being arrested, and wearing maternity clothes, she has also locked her husband out of the bedroom for the first time ever.

  She curled up, on top of the covers, facing out through the window at the gray wash of sky. He was asking her to lie for him in court. There was no getting around this fact. He had also lied about his whereabouts on a weekend that he had Greg’s big, empty house all to himself, and a neighbor saw a girl leaving.

  He had cheated on her before, when she was wearing his engagement ri
ng and congratulating herself that when it came time to settle down, he chose her. Her, above all the others.

  This girl was half naked in his car. In his car! Miles from anyplace that made sense, off a highway overpass of all places.

  She admitted to herself the secret thought that had been tormenting her since the beginning, stalking the edges of her consciousness like a predator in the dark, just outside a ring of firelight.

  TJ was just not that stupid.

  Something felt funny in her belly, and Rain gasped, and grabbed her swollen abdomen, wrapping her hands over her most precious treasure, the only pure love she had left in the world. There it was again. It felt almost bubbly, ticklish.

  The baby was moving. She was feeling her baby move.

  She lay on the bed, crying in anguish and delight, while a movie ran in her head of what should be happening just now: running to get her loving husband, telling him, celebrating, laughing at the feisty new life that would be the best of both of them.

  39

  Dinah was crouched in the warm spring sun, drawing her specials of the day in bright chalk on the display, trying to care about her dying business.

  All she could think about was her children in that massive high school surrounded by cruel peers. Jared had taken to wearing all black and complaining his legs hurt more than usual. Connor was constantly frustrated that his voice kept breaking up and down. He sounded like a clarinet blown by a novice.

  Jared had also taken to shunning Connor—no real reason, a fit of adolescent pique, Dinah figured—which caused more fights between the two of them. Connor, never one to take rejection well, would lash out as if he thought his brother was the worst person in the world. He’d given Jared a strong shove the other day, knocking him into the table and giving Dinah a terrified flashback to the fight that had broken the vase and scarred Morgan. It seemed to do the same to Connor; he paled and ran upstairs before Dinah could admonish him.

  And then, Morgan, insisting on attending school, now, in the midst of this. She had reported that the kids were nakedly curious, asking her crude questions, like whether she blew the teacher in his car. She kept finding lewd notes in her locker, so she put tape across the vents on the inside of the locker door, so nothing could be shoved in.

  Morgan would just reply, if she replied at all, “I’m not allowed to talk about it.” This was the answer they’d coached her to give that night before she went back, during an anxious dinner in which neither Morgan nor Dinah ate much of anything.

  Britney was supposedly protecting her, telling people off who were rude, eating with her at lunch when no one else would. Dinah tried to be grateful when Kelly reported this, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that Britney enjoyed having a role to play in their drama.

  Ethan came in to the Den once in a while, to let Dinah know how Morgan was doing, from what he could tell.

  Joe got reports, too, though he wasn’t supposed to, but normal rules seemed to be going out the window. So teachers would tell him throughout the day, “She seemed fine today, people left her alone” or “I had to send a couple jokers to Pete Jackson for hassling her outside the music room.”

  Joe told Dinah he needed the reports, but he hated receiving them. He could tell how much pity and schadenfreude was behind these missives. The other assistant principal, Kate, had taken to regarding him every morning with a sympathetic pout, asking sotto voce, “How are things?”

  Dinah felt a shadow over her shoulder. She turned in her crouch to be greeted by Helen Demming. “Oh. Hello.” She turned back to the board to continue with her chalk.

  Speaking of schadenfreude.

  “Hello, Dinah. I wondered if I could have a word.”

  “Go ahead. You’ll forgive me if I keep working.”

  Helen pulled up one of the wrought-iron outside chairs and sat with her pantsuited legs crossed and her hands folded across her knees. “I was hoping for a bit of privacy, but I guess this will do. Not exactly a stampede of customers here.” She laughed lightly, as if she were joking.

  “What can I do for you?” Dinah asked through a heavy sigh. She was done writing the specials and began adding little swirly designs to the edge of the board, to give her something to do besides looking up at that pretentious horse-face bitch. She’d had a flair for art in school, but didn’t work very hard at it, since it was no way to earn a living.

  “I was wondering if you’d ever consider selling the Den?”

  Dinah finally abandoned the chalk and rose to stand over Helen. “What, to you? As you so carefully note, there is not exactly a flood of traffic.”

  “The location here is prime, and not just for high school kids. I think you have an untapped market here, for a more sophisticated customer.”

  “Thanks for the advice, now if you’ll excuse me . . .”

  Helen drew herself up to her full height, which was still shorter than Dinah, even in her heels. She was wearing platform heels even, Dinah noted with a suppressed grin.

  “I’m serious, Dinah. We’ve known each other long enough, you can give me the courtesy of serious consideration.”

  “We’ve known each other long enough to be up-front about the fact we can’t stand each other. And since you torpedoed my entertainment license I don’t even feel the smallest inclination to pretend otherwise.”

  “You don’t have to like me for a business deal to work. So much the better, really. It can be so awkward between friends.”

  “I’d be surprised if you know that from experience.”

  “Even I have friends, Dinah.” She fished into her purse and withdrew a letter. “Read this over, consider it. That’s all I ask. This place can serve kids just like it does now, but adults don’t come here, have you noticed? Sure, a few moms with kids at midday, but the reason grown-ups don’t come is that they’re not welcome here. The kids don’t want them here, it’s obvious. You ever see an adult walk in there when it’s full of teenagers? You can almost hear the groan. But for a business to be a success, long term, everyone should be welcome. Not just a select few. Anyway. Please, take this. No harm in looking, is there?”

  Dinah snatched the envelope, folded it in half, and jammed it in her pocket. “Okay, I took it. Good day.”

  Helen clicked away in her heels, and Dinah fantasized about her tripping and crashing face-first to the concrete.

  It would be a cold day in hell when she sold her beloved business to that hypocritical, scheming bitch. She’d rather torch it herself.

  Morgan threw her backpack into the backseat of the car, narrowly missing Jared’s head.

  “Hey!” he shouted.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled, folding her arms and slouching low in the seat.

  Dinah pulled the car away from the school, unable to rally herself to get on Morgan’s case.

  “Boys, I have to drop you off home. Morgan and I have an appointment.”

  “Appointment where?” Morgan asked her, slit-eyed.

  “With Henry Davis.”

  “The prosecutor? Screw that, I’m not talking to him. This is all his fault.”

  Dinah ignored her and switched on the radio to hear a droll NPR announcer talking about the coming presidential election as the silence crackled between them.

  “How was school?” she asked, her forced brightness grating to even her own ears. No one bothered answering.

  Henry greeted them with appropriate sobriety for the occasion and excused himself for just a moment to talk with an associate in the other room.

  Morgan simmered with rage in the seat next to Dinah, across from his desk.

  Henry had called Dinah the night before, asking her to bring Morgan in. He felt he could persuade her to testify if he framed the conversation well enough. Dinah tried to tell him it was useless, that indignant rage was Morgan’s near-constant state, but Henry thought if it wasn’t her mother asking, she might reconsider.

  In that phone conversation, he had mentioned the possibility of subpoenaing her with the threat of j
ail if she refused to cooperate and Dinah had exploded at him. He listened to her eruption, then replied patiently, “I wasn’t going to do that to her. I was just letting you know what the options are.” Dinah reminded herself she really should listen to a whole sentence before flipping her lid, as she told Connor at least three times a week.

  Henry returned to the room and greeted Morgan with a tight professional smile. She looked away as if she were trying to melt a hole in the wall with her glare.

  “How are you holding up?” he asked.

  “Just fine when people leave me the hell alone. People including you. I’ve got homework and I don’t want to be here. I’m not helping you.”

  Henry settled down on his desk chair. He looked at Morgan with the detachment of a psychotherapist. “If I subpoena you to the stand, you are legally obligated to testify.”

  Henry darted a look at Dinah. He was bluffing, but it still twisted her guts to hear it.

  Morgan huffed. “Whatever. Even if I sit there on the stand, you think I’ll help you with this farce and travesty?”

  “A farce and a travesty. My, my.”

  She whipped around to face Henry. “Don’t patronize me. I’m not some ten-year-old winning a spelling bee.”

  “You’re right. I apologize. People don’t take you seriously, do they?”

  “No. They don’t.”

  “And that’s not fair. From what I can tell, you’re smart as hell, mature and poised, and you have every right to be taken seriously.”

  Morgan tossed her hair, then readjusted it. She straightened her posture. “Yes. Also true.”

  “You think this case is about you being treated like a child, and that infuriates you. A child who can’t make her own choices about whom to love, with whom she is intimate.”