Ma walked over and went up on her tippy toes to give him her nightly good-night kiss on the cheek. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
He watched her climb the stairs, then made his way to the recliner and settled in to wait Brooke out.
Chapter Thirteen
Brooke rested on Lucy’s bed, staring up at the ceiling of the darkened room, the small lamp in the far corner casting more shadows than light. It’d taken monumental effort, but she’d managed to hold out until after ten to call Neve. “How’d your show go?”
“I only threw up once.”
For as confident as she seemed, Neve got a terrible nervous stomach before she performed. “Well, that’s good.”
“The crowd loved it. We sold a bunch of DVDs. I think I have a lead on two more variety shows next month.”
Brooke tried to muster excitement for her friend’s success but her “Great” came out sounding lackadaisical, even to her own ears.
Of course Neve picked up on it. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she lied, feeling more tears on the way. How was that even possible?
“I’m on my way.”
She wasn’t. “You have two performances tomorrow and one on Sunday. Stay put. I’m fine.” For the most part. The big bruise on her upper arm hurt. But the redness on her face had lessened, and she trusted Patsy’s assurance that no further harm would come to her in the Develen household.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” Neve said. “Or I’ll worry, which will make my stomach worse and I won’t be able to keep any food down and I’ll be too weak to perform and I’ll have to cancel at the last minute and I won’t get paid and I won’t get asked back next year, and it will be all your fault.”
Simple as that, her best friend could make her smile. And cry. And spill every single thing that’d happened from the time she’d left her condo that morning until right then.
“That bitch hit you?”
“Language.”
“Don’t you worry about my language. What did you do?”
Brooke kept quiet.
“Nothing,” Neve said with disgust. “You did nothing. When are you going to start standing up for yourself?”
“You know I don’t like to fight.”
“Well, someone needs to teach that witch a lesson. You can’t see, but I’m raising my hand to do it. Pick me. Pick me.”
“For your information, she’s probably three times your size.” Not that size had ever stopped Neve before.
“We can double-team her.” The hope and enthusiasm in her friend’s voice lifted Brooke’s flagging spirits.
“She’s Shane’s sister.”
“Speaking of that loser, he didn’t protect you?”
“Even worse.” She tried to hold back a giant sob that threatened to escape. “He didn’t believe me when I told him it wasn’t what it looked like.” She sniffled. “He stared at me with such disgust.” Her stomach cramped. “Like I was some deplorable deviant.” She felt sick. She’d never forget the expression on his face. “I’ve been there for him through some pretty horrific situations. I’ve given him my support and encouragement and care. I’ve listened to him and done my best to help him. I’ve shared things with him, private things. He knows me better than everyone but you. Yet he still thought me capable of such an atrocious act.”
The hurt poured out of her then. She couldn’t stop it.
“You’re killing me, Brooke. Please stop crying.”
She blotted her sore eyes and raw nose with a tissue. “I’m out of control, I know.” She took a few hiccupping breaths. “It’s just so good to hear your voice.”
“Where are you now?”
“In Shane’s sister’s bedroom.”
“What? You need to get the hell out of there. This instant! If you don’t call Aaron to come get you, I’m calling Nate.”
“No. Please don’t.” Brooke sat up, sliding her legs over the side of the bed. “Shane’s mother felt terrible about what happened and was so kind afterward. She sat with me and made us both some tea. She asked me to please stay to give the family a chance to make amends. Patsy reminds me of your mom.” So warm and loving. “I really like her.”
“When Aaron finds out what happened he won’t let you stay,” Neve said quietly.
True. “Then he better not find out. I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I want to stay. Jillian called on Patsy’s cellphone to check on me. We had a long talk. She’s really sweet and wants to start exercising right away. We’re going bike riding in the morning. Shane’s mom offered to teach me how to make her apple strudel. It’s delicious.” And Brooke refused to miss Tommy’s memorial service.
“What about Shane?”
The prevailing question of the past few hours. “He’s come by the door to my room a bunch of times to apologize and asking to come in to talk to me. I haven’t answered.”
“Good. Let him think about what he did, the moron.” After a few seconds of silence she asked, “Do you feel safe there?”
“I do. I think Shane realizes his mistake. His mother promised to keep Charlotte away for as long as I’m here.” Brooke switched the phone to her other ear.
“Do you have an Internet connection?”
Her eyes went to her closed laptop on Lucy’s desk. “Shane hooked me up to their wireless. But to be honest, I haven’t logged on in a few hours. Why?”
“I untagged you, but the picture is still on Facebook.”
“I know. Shane’s not happy about it. He hasn’t heard back from his friends or Facebook.”
“I, uh, sent an e-mail to Rory asking for his help.”
Rory, Shane’s soldier friend and Neve’s pen pal, who she’d cut off all contact with after a disastrous surprise visit when he was on leave a few months ago. “Thank you. I know that wasn’t easy after what he did.” The slug.
“I couldn’t think of anything else I could do to help. Well, anything legal, anyhow.”
Neve could always make her smile. “Did he respond?”
“Not yet. I’ll let you know when he does.”
“Have you talked to Nate?” Brooke had wanted to call him to get an update on the investigation, but she knew, just like Neve, he’d have detected the upset in her voice. And Nate was not nearly as easy to deal with, at least in certain situations.
Silence followed, and for her talkative friend, that was not a good thing. “Tell me.”
“Of course, everything I’m about to say is strictly confidential and you didn’t hear it from me.”
“Yes, I know.” Just like Nate knew whatever he told his sister would eventually make its way to Brooke.
“Which do you want first? The good news, the bad news, or the really bad news?”
Brooke considered requesting the good news tonight and holding off on the bad and really bad news until tomorrow, pretty sure she’d reached her limit of all the bad she could handle for one day. “Let’s start with the good.”
“Well, the boy who started all this, the one who posted his fifteen-year-old brother said he had sex with you? Apparently as soon as his mother found out she dragged both boys down to the police station. Bottom line, the older boy denied having sex with you.”
Thank goodness. Brooke relaxed a tiny bit.
“In his statement the fifteen-year-old swore he looked at your picture and told his little brother, ‘I’d have sex with her.’ The little brother swears he heard, ‘I had sex with her.’ Nate said their mother was so angry that she made her younger son close his Facebook account and grounded him for the rest of the school year.”
That seemed a little excessive but, “One down.”
“Maybe more. But…”
Uh-oh. “But what?”
“Your little buddy Isaac Dufflen, who you gave some extra attention to make up for his dysfunctional home life, is refusing to say anything that may incriminate you. Incriminate. Nate said the boy actually sat there proud as can be with his hands crossed over his chest and used
that word, like he was trying to protect you.”
Oh, Isaac. She shook her head.
“In the absence of him making a statement, people are doing a lot of speculating about what he may be hiding.”
“Maybe I should call him—”
“Absolutely not!”
Of course, Brooke knew she shouldn’t but…“I feel so helpless, doing nothing to clear my name.”
“Nate is on it. He’s got your back. He said to tell you to sit tight and hang in.”
Easy for him to say. “Was that the really bad news?”
Silence.
Good Lord. “Just tell me.”
“An eighth grader from your school said she attended a party at your condo over the summer where you served alcohol.”
“What?” Brooke stood up and started to pace across the carpet. “That’s not true.”
“I know. But she says she got sick and passed out and when she woke up her clothes were all disheveled.”
Brooke reached for Grandma Ellstein’s pearls, but she’d taken them off. “This is getting worse, not better.” Aaron’s words played in her head. It’s likely to get worse before it’s over.
“Nate tried to discredit her, but she described the inside of your condo almost exactly. She said she was there for a student council party.”
Oh no. “I’m the adviser.” Brooke flopped back on the bed and threw her left arm over her eyes. “I had the elected officers for the seventh and eighth grade classes to my home in August to celebrate their wins and discuss goals for the upcoming school year. Seven students came.” One was away on vacation. “I filled my punch bowl with rainbow sherbet and ginger ale. The kids joked around, pretending it was champagne punch. But you know I don’t drink champagne. Ever.” An unpleasant chill accompanied the memory of the first and only time she had. “I would never give alcohol to a minor,” she added, trying to figure out who could have made the false accusation against her.
Then she remembered. “One of the girls did get sick. A little blonde. I can’t remember her name. If her clothes were disheveled it was because I helped her back and forth to the bathroom each time she felt like she had to throw up, while we waited for her mom to come. That child whined and moaned the entire time. She most certainly did not pass out.”
“Nate suspects the timing of her story is a little hinky, coming out months after the fact. He did some research, and there may be a connection between the girl’s uncle and your dad’s campaign. Aaron is investigating.”
Would this nightmare ever end?
“Don’t get discouraged,” Neve said. “I am totally serious that I will hop in my car tonight. I can be there by morning.”
“I know you would. And I love you for it.” She’d truly been blessed the day Neve, the most popular girl in their first-grade class, had decided Brooke, the shyest girl in the class, needed a friend. “But don’t. Tomorrow is another day.” It had to be better than today. It just had to.
Her stomach growled out a reminder of its emptiness. “Last time I checked it sounded like everyone had gone to bed. I think I’m going to sneak down to find something to eat.”
“What, they’re not feeding you?”
It felt good to laugh. “Patsy served pork roast, antipasto salad, and baked ziti with meat for dinner.”
“To quote your Grandma Ellstein, ‘Oy vey.’ What did you do?”
“Excused myself from the table. She’d made such a nice dinner and it was the first time her family had been together at a family dinner in weeks. I didn’t want to make a big deal of it.”
“You’re too nice.”
According to Neve, another character flaw. Sensing food in its immediate future, Brooke’s stomach growled again. “Call me with updates as soon as you get them.”
“You know I will.”
With that they ended the call and Brooke walked to the door to listen through the keyhole. Hearing nothing, she unlocked it as quietly as she could, opened the door slowly, and peered out to find the hallway dark except for a night-light outside of the bathroom. She let out a sigh of relief. She’d half-expected Shane to be sitting in wait for her.
Nice of him to give up so easily and head off to bed.
But, honestly, who cared when fresh-baked apple pie and vanilla ice cream awaited? If any day called for a double helping of sweets, today was the day.
On bare feet she walked carefully, silently, on the wooden floor, running her hand along the wall for guidance. Thanks to another night-light at the bottom of the stairs, Brooke made it all the way to the kitchen in the relative dark. Once there, however, she felt around for the switch to turn on the light over the sink.
Her mouth watered as she moved quickly, finding a plate and utensils, taking the pie from the refrigerator, and slicing a piece. While it heated in the microwave she searched out the ice cream Patsy had told her was in the freezer.
Her plate made, she pulled out a chair, sat down at the counter, and put a huge forkful into her mouth. But in that blissful moment of warm apple pie goodness mixing with cool ice cream yumminess a man cleared his throat. Brooke jumped and sucked in a breath, somehow managing not to choke.
“You feeling better?” Shane limped out of the TV room.
Her arm hurt, her head hurt, and her heart hurt because she’d been completely let down by a man she’d thought of as more than a friend. No, she was not feeling better. But she lied and said, “I’m fine,” hoping that’d be enough and he’d leave her alone.
He didn’t. Instead he stood there, watching her, and, if she weren’t mistaken, scrutinizing her.
“What?” she asked.
“Are you pregnant?”
Was he out of his mind? “You did not just ask me that.” The idea was so ridiculous, so utterly beyond believable and insulting. That he would even think such a thing! “I have been faithful to you since long before you asked me to wait for you, since I first started having feelings for you.” Very early on in their pen pal exchanges. “What on earth made you think I might be pregnant?”
“I didn’t. Ma did.”
Brooke dropped her head. To think she’d actually thought the day couldn’t get any worse. “Your mother thinks I’m pregnant.”
He stopped at the other side of the counter. “She thought it back when she was trying to figure out why you were here.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That as far as I know you’re not.”
Brooke speared him with a glare Neve would have been proud of. “ ‘As far as you know’?”
“Well, you conked out on the car ride here.”
As if napping in a car automatically means a woman is pregnant. “I told you I didn’t sleep well last night. I’ve been accused of sexually abusing children. Don’t you think that justifies a sleepless night?”
Instead of answering, he pointed out, “You barely ate your lunch. You excused yourself from dinner, saying you were too queasy to eat. And you have to admit your moods have been swinging all over the place.”
Brooke wanted to scream. In deference to Patsy and Al sleeping upstairs, she did her best to moderate her tone. “My moods? You’re nice one minute and mad the next. You kiss me then tell me not to let you do it again because you’re not the guy for me. You’re mean, then you’re nice again, then you clam up or disappear and I can’t tell what you are. Did you even once consider maybe my mood swings are in response to yours?”
Apparently not, because he blew right over her statement with two of his own. “We haven’t spoken for months.” He let out a breath. “I thought maybe you’d moved on and found someone else.”
“Without telling you.” She shook her head. Unbelievable. “The way you are so quick to think the worst of me is getting old, and I’ve had about all I can take.” She inhaled a deep, calming breath. “Did you even read my letters?”
“Of course I did.”
“Do you remember, early on, when I wrote you I’d gone on a date to a pool party and instead of a standar
d barbeque they had a pig roast? I couldn’t eat anything and asked to be taken home early and the guy never called me again. I explained about my diet.”
He shook his head. “I must have gotten fixated on imaging you in a bikini and blocked out the rest.”
“Now it all makes sense.” She blotted her lips with a napkin. “While I paid careful attention to the content of your letters and e-mails to really get to know you and like you and care about you, you were too busy trying to imagine me in my bathing suit and thinking of ways to get me to send you sexy pictures instead of taking the time to really get to know me. Which explains why I trusted you enough to stand up to Nate and Neve and Aaron to accompany you to your home. And why you couldn’t bring yourself to stand up for me.”
“I did pay attention.”
“Then why couldn’t I eat anything at the pig roast?”
He didn’t answer.
“Because I’m Jewish,” she said.
“I know that.”
“As I explained in my letter, I grew up in a kosher household. I follow a kosher diet. I don’t eat pork or shellfish. I don’t mix dairy and meat. The only thing I could have eaten at dinner tonight was the green beans. How would that have looked? So rather than insult your mother by not eating the delicious meal she’d worked so hard to prepare, I excused myself from the table.”
He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. “Jeez. Why didn’t you say so? Ma would have gladly fixed you something else.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t want to make a big deal of it. Your family was sitting down together for the first time in months.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t remember. I’m sorry about what happened with Charlotte. I’m sorry I doubted you.”
“So you’ve said.” Through her door. Multiple times. She put down her napkin and stood. “Words are easy. They don’t negate the fact you thought me capable of…and being…” She refused to cry in front of him, so instead of trying to finish she started toward the stairs.
“Wait,” he said. “I screwed up.”
Loving You Is Easy Page 13
