These Girls

by Sarah Pekkanen

  Trey was watching her carefully now. She met his eyes and felt something pass between them.

  She tried to smile. “Okay, I’m going to stop now,” she said. “We’re supposed to be talking about work.”

  “I was a complete screwup in high school,” he said suddenly. “I got in fights. I stole a car.”

  “You?” Cate almost laughed, until she saw he was serious.

  “Now you know something about me that I don’t share publicly, either,” he said.

  “Why?” Cate asked. Her fingertip traced a design in the condensation on her glass. “What made you change?”

  Trey leaned even closer across the table separating them, his voice low. “Change back, you mean. Because I wasn’t that way until I entered high school. It was just a messed-up couple of years.”

  “So why did you change back?”

  Emotions washed across his face before he spoke. “My family is so screwed up,” he finally said. “Abby . . . well, she’s great. Such a sweet girl. I know you don’t know her all that well, but I promise you, she doesn’t have a cruel bone in her body.”

  Cate nodded but didn’t say anything, wanting him to continue.

  “But my parents—they’re so weird. They treated her differently.”

  He pulled his tie looser, and his fingers began to drum on the table.

  “I had a younger brother. Stevie. He died when I was seven and Abby was about four. And they never even talked about him when we were growing up. You know what I realized a few years ago? I don’t even know the exact date that he died. My parents didn’t discuss anything important, not ever. They just went through the motions of the day, commenting on the weather. Mentioning we needed to water the lawn because it was starting to turn brown. Asking if we’d finished our homework. Talking about things, not feelings. Never feelings. That house felt like . . . living in a fucking museum.”

  “Trey, that must’ve been so awful,” Cate said. She thought for a moment about her own family. They were shattered now, but they’d been happy for a long time. Maybe her parents hadn’t been in love, but they’d loved each other, and they’d cherished Cate and Christopher. As a family, they’d worked. Cate’s father had taught her to catch baseballs alongside her brother on summer nights in their backyard, near the azaleas and their old swing set. They’d taken camping trips on weekends, casting lines into lakes and competing over who caught the biggest fish. There were Sunday night Monopoly games, marshmallows roasted over the fireplace, and crunchy fall leaves raked into big piles for jumping. So many small moments that added up to joy.

  Cate tried to recast those scenes, to imagine her parents being like Trey’s, but her mind recoiled. She couldn’t do it.

  “I barely see my parents anymore,” Trey said. “I’m just so damn angry at them. For what they did to Abby.”

  “And for what they did to you,” Cate said, and he looked at her in surprise.

  “Yeah, that, too,” he said. He reached for his beer and took a long sip.

  “How did we get from celebrities to this so quickly?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Cate said. “I think we were talking about how you can draw people out.”

  “Yeah, but people usually don’t turn the tables on me.” He smiled, and she smiled back at him.

  “So are you heading back in the morning?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I’m on the Acela. Ten A.M. You?”

  “Eleven,” he said. “I just missed you.”

  She felt a little pang as she thought about what it would be like to sit next to him on the train for another three hours, talking. She’d been so tired earlier, but now she felt almost electrified. She could stay here all night—which meant she had to go.

  “Trey, we should probably . . .” she began.

  “I know,” he said. “It’s late.”

  He stood up and reached for her hand to help her out of the booth. It was quiet now; the cluster of people on stools had left and the bartender was at the other end of the room, clearing dirty glassware off tables. It must have been like this on the night Reece began singing as she rolled up silverware, the night she set her life spinning on a whole new course.

  Trey held on to her hand. Cate didn’t let go, either.

  He moved toward her first. Instead of wrapping his arms around her, he lifted up their clasped hands and held them against his chest as he kissed her. Cate felt the white-hot heat low in her belly, the feeling she hadn’t experienced since Timothy, so many years ago. But just as that experience had been tainted, so was this one. She pulled away after a moment. They were both breathing hard.

  “I can’t—” she began.

  “Why not?” he asked, his voice intent.

  She couldn’t tell him the truth—that deep down, she wondered if Trey really cared for her, or if she represented a challenge. A chase. She’d always been the one to end their conversations, to break the invisible tension between them.

  And if they started dating, gossip would break out all through the magazine. Her personal life would be on display; everyone would watch as they interacted. Would people speculate that Trey had only taken on the cover story to help out his new girlfriend?

  But there was one other reason, the most important. “Renee,” she finally said.

  Trey exhaled in a long whoosh. “Look, we went on a few dates. She’s a great girl. I know she wanted more, but nothing really happened between us.”

  “I know,” she said. “But it would feel like a betrayal. I told her a few weeks ago I wasn’t interested in you.”

  “You did?” Trey looked so hurt that Cate wanted to kiss him again. They were still holding hands, so she squeezed his. His hand felt warm and solid.

  “I didn’t want to be interested in you,” she said. “I was hoping it would go away.”

  “Think about it,” he said. “It might be strange at first. But maybe not. Renee’s a nice girl, Cate. She wouldn’t hold it against you.”

  “Okay,” she said, and then, against her better judgment, she let him kiss her again.

  Little girls in pink tutus had to be the cutest things imaginable, Abby thought as she combed Annabelle’s fine hair and wound it into a walnut-size bun. She anchored it in place with two bobby pins and held Annabelle up to look in the bathroom mirror.

  “You’re gorgeous,” Abby told Annabelle’s reflection. “And strong and smart, which is much more important.”

  “Okee,” Annabelle said agreeably. It was her current favorite word, but she was adding to her vocabulary like crazy, even forming a few choppy sentences. Abby loved this phase of her development. Watching Annabelle learn to verbalize her thoughts made Abby feel like she was being granted a glimpse into the little girl’s soul. When Annabelle struggled to make her wishes known, forming sounds with a tongue that wouldn’t always cooperate, and Abby worked with her, listening intently, trying to tease out clues, and then suddenly got it—understood exactly what Annabelle was trying to say—their connection felt magical.

  The dance class Annabelle had been taking for the past eight weeks was ending with a special “ballet”—a generous stretch of the word, since none of the kids knew a single formal step. But the teacher, a laid-back woman called Miss Stephanie with a long gray braid and a deep voice, wasn’t strict about rules. She never minded when kids ran around instead of spinning in circles, and she broke out great snacks at the end of every class. She’d announced that, for the last class, she planned to put on music from Swan Lake and let the kids interpret it with their bodies.

  “The process is much more important than the result,” Miss Stephanie had said. “That’s where the real learning is.” Abby had almost broken out in a cold sweat as she applied that philosophy to her relationship with Bob. What was she learning from the process? That she was sneaky, and a liar. That she’d fallen in love and it had turned her into a different kind of woman.

  Ever since the day she’d slept with Bob, she’d felt unsteady and unclean. She’d never enjoyed
being around Joanna, but now she could barely meet her eyes. The fact that Joanna seemed to be watching Abby only intensified her guilt. Sometimes Abby would look up and see Joanna’s gaze skittering away, as if she didn’t want to be noticed observing Abby.

  Then, last Sunday night she’d come home from a quick trip to CVS to discover Joanna in the basement, doing a load of laundry. When Abby had first taken the job, Joanna had asked if it would be okay for them to do laundry on Saturdays. Why had she suddenly changed her routine? Abby wondered, but all she said was “Hi.”

  “Hi,” Joanna responded, not offering an explanation for her presence.

  Abby went into her bedroom and shut the door. She leaned against the wall, breathing hard, feeling icy fingertips tickle her spine. Had Joanna waited until Abby left, then come in here, using the laundry as an excuse? Had she looked into Abby’s closet, found her stash of birth control pills in the dresser drawer, maybe even stared down at the bed where Abby and Bob had lain?

  She had to move out of this house.

  The problem was where to go. Sara, the friend who’d once let Abby crash at her apartment, had gotten engaged and moved in with her boyfriend, so that option had vanished. It would be tough for Abby to afford an apartment on her own because so much of her money went to pay her school tuition. Plus she didn’t want to sign a long-term lease since things with Bob were so uncertain. If he left Joanna, maybe, after some time had passed, he’d ask Abby to move in with him.

  She’d have to figure something out soon. The building pressure made this house feel as if it could explode at any moment.

  “Ready, Freddy?” she asked Annabelle as she lifted her away from the mirror and put her back on the floor.

  “No Freddy,” Annabelle said. “Bella.”

  Abby laughed and scooped up the car keys and diaper bag. They headed to the car, and Abby held her breath, hoping the panic wouldn’t strike.

  “Da wheels on da bus . . .” Annabelle started to sing. Abby began to feel light-headed, and she remembered her therapist’s instructions. Deep breaths in and out, she told herself. Inhale all the way down to your toes.

  “Honey? Can you sing something else? Let’s do ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm’!” Abby said, forcing brightness into her voice. She managed to get Annabelle buckled into her seat, then she fastened her own seat belt and headed off, feeling her heart thudding in her chest. It was just a few miles to the class, but she had to cross a busy four-lane road. She prayed she wouldn’t be hit by a panic attack on the way.

  “Hey,” Bob whispered into her ear.

  Abby looked up at him as he slid into the folding chair next to hers, and she couldn’t help breaking out in a wide smile. The sight of him always filled her with happiness. So few parents were here at this little recital—just a few moms mixed in with the nannies—yet when Abby had mentioned it to Bob and Joanna a week earlier, she’d seen Bob pull out his BlackBerry and make a note. He’d probably shuffled around a few appointments to get a block of free time in the middle of the day. He was such a devoted father.

  As her eyes soaked him in, her mind wandered into the dangerous territory of a fantasy: She and Bob would live together in a little house—nothing fancy, but a place with a yard and a big tree with a swing. Abby would get her master’s in teaching and begin work when Annabelle started kindergarten. She’d be there to spend every school holiday and every summer vacation with the little girl. Maybe they’d add to their family, too, and have a sunny little boy with Bob’s freckles and easy smile.

  “Isn’t she incredible?” Bob’s deep voice pulled Abby back to the present. She looked up and saw Annabelle running across the room, her arms outstretched as if she was flying, with a big smile wreathing her face. Abby reached over and squeezed Bob’s hand, quickly, before pulling away.

  “She’s perfect,” Abby said. She wanted so badly to be able to touch Bob, to feel the weight of his arm slung across her shoulders, or to put her hand on his knee. She hated existing in this netherworld, where their relationship meant everything to her but had to be invisible to the outside world.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw someone come into the room. Joanna.

  Abby felt as though it was an apparition, brought on by her guilt—punishment for her fantasy. But no, it really was Joanna, her glossy black patent leather heels clicking on the linoleum floor as she moved closer to them. She gave Abby a tight smile and sat down on the other side of Bob. He turned to look at her and made a soft, surprised sound.

  Abby couldn’t believe it: Joanna had driven all the way up from Capitol Hill to Silver Spring, in the middle of the workday, to attend a forty-five-minute-long dance recital. She’d never done anything like this before. She even skipped most pediatrician’s appointments—either Abby or Bob usually brought Annabelle to those. What had compelled her to come?

  Abby couldn’t focus on the class. She wanted desperately to look over at Bob and Joanna, to see if their arms were touching, or if she’d put her hand on his knee, but she couldn’t risk it. She heard them murmuring and wondered what they were talking about.

  The recital dragged on. One kid fell and bumped his head and had to be taken out of the room to be consoled. A song ended and another one began. Abby sat rigidly, staring straight ahead, feeling her left leg go numb. But she couldn’t uncross her right leg from atop it because the chairs were so close together: What if her leg brushed against Bob’s? She could feel Joanna’s awareness of her from two seats away—or maybe that was just Abby’s guilt linking them together with an invisible, heavy chain.

  Finally the class ended and Abby got up, limping to keep her weight off her tingling left leg. Annabelle ran over to them, and Joanna bent down.

  “Hi, sweetheart,” she said. “Are you happy Mommy came to your class?”

  Annabelle smiled and spun around in a circle, still giddy.

  “Where’d you get that tutu?” Joanna said to Bob as she stood up again. “It’s adorable.”

  “Actually, I bought it for her this weekend.” Abby finally spoke up. “Just happened to see it and thought it would be perfect.” That was a fib; Abby had searched for stores on the Internet and driven twenty minutes away to find the tiny tutu.

  Joanna considered her for a moment. “Sweet of you,” she finally said, but her voice contained no warmth. She turned back to Bob, and the way she positioned her body left Abby out of the conversation.

  “I thought we could take our daughter out for ice cream to celebrate,” Joanna said. Her BlackBerry sounded just then, but she ignored it. “Do you have the time?”

  “Ice cweam!” Annabelle shouted. It was her favorite treat.

  Bob smiled. “Sure,” he said, picking Annabelle up and nuzzling her cheek with his nose.

  “Great,” Joanna said. “Abby, you can take the rest of the day off. I’m sure you have lots of studying to do.”

  Bob shot her a quick look, but Abby forced a smile. “I do, actually. Have fun.”

  Abby turned and walked out of the room, quickly, so Annabelle wouldn’t notice she was leaving and cry. The little girl hated good-byes.

  Joanna knows, Abby thought as she walked to her car. Maybe she didn’t know everything, but she understood enough. Somehow, the idea filled her with relief. It meant she wouldn’t have to exist in this dangerous state of limbo much longer.

  Twenty-three

  RENEE RINSED A SPONGE in warm water and began wiping down the refrigerator shelves. She was scrubbing a stubborn spot on the underside of the glass when her cell phone rang. She hurried into her bedroom and grabbed it out of its charger, cradling it between her ear and shoulder as she came back into the kitchen.

  “Hey, it’s Becca.”

  Something in her voice made Renee stop moving. “Is everything okay?”

  “Not really.” Becca cleared her throat. “It’s your parents. They had this big fight and your mom is pretty upset. It’s . . . well, it’s my fault.”

  “What happened?” Renee asked, feeling a flare of pro
tectiveness. Had her instincts been right all along? Maybe Becca was as nutty as her mother. She was, after all, a complete stranger. “Becca, what did you do?”

  “I . . . Well, it’s kind of complicated. I just drove your mom to a hotel. Do you have a pen to write down the number?”

  A hotel? Renee closed the refrigerator door with her hip and fumbled through a drawer. “Go ahead.”

  Becca recited it, then said, “She’s in room 407.”

  A million questions flooded Renee’s mind, but she just hung up with a final, clipped “Bye.”

  She sat down on a stool as she dialed and asked for her mother’s room. It rang once, twice, and then her mom answered.

  “Mom? Are you okay?” Renee asked.

  Her mother hesitated. “I needed to get away. I had to leave him.”

  “What? Leave Dad?” Renee said as her windpipe seemed to close. None of this made sense; it felt as surreal and disjointed as a dream.

  Renee stood up and began to pace, then sat down quickly again. Her legs were about to give out.

  “I’m sorry, honey. I shouldn’t have blurted it out like that. I’m drinking a gin and tonic from the minibar.”

  It was nine-thirty on a Saturday morning. Her mother never drank more than a bottle of Budweiser, which she always opened, along with one for Renee’s father, on Friday nights before they sat with their little cocker spaniel, Sadie, to watch their favorite programs. A year ago, her mother had begun to fret about her weight, so the two of them now took power walks every evening after dinner. They’d even bought his-and-her tracksuits, and they waved in unison to the neighbors they passed.

  “He slept with another woman,” her mother said, her voice oddly robotic. “We were newlyweds.”

  “Okay,” Renee said slowly. “Mom, please talk to me. You’re leaving Dad?”