About halfway to the car, I said, “I’ve got to say something, and you need to hear me out.”
She winced and shook her head. “There’s nothing to say, Crank.”
I took her arm and held her, my tone growing hard. “Maybe you’ve got nothing to say, but I do. And you owe me the courtesy to listen.”
She froze, flint in her eyes as she spoke. “Take your hand off my arm.”
I let go. “Two minutes. Just listen.”
“I’m listening.” She didn’t look like she meant it. In fact, she looked so angry I thought she was going to hit me.
I swallowed. “If what you need to be really happy … to be happy with who you are, to be … satisfied with your life … is to walk away, then I’ll accept it.”
“What?”
“Damn it, Julia. I don’t know how you’ve worked your way into me the way you have. But the fact is, I love you.”
She flinched when I said the words.
“It’s true,” I said. “I love you, and I want you to be happy, I want you to have the life you deserve. And if that means … if that means I have to stand here and watch you walk away, then I’ll do it. I won’t be happy about it. It’ll break my heart. But … if that’s what you really need, then we’re done.”
She looked at me, her expression shifting, and I couldn’t figure out what was going on in there.
“Before you go,” I said, “you need to know—I’d do anything for you.” I stepped closer, so close we were almost touching. “Even kiss you goodbye and watch you go.”
And then I leaned forward and laid a gentle, almost chaste kiss on her lips. I stepped back. The confusion and fear on her face were at war with each other. I’d said what I needed to say. Maybe I’d planted a seed. Maybe I hadn’t. Only time would tell, and that hurt more than I’d ever imagined a woman could hurt me.
Her eyes were watering, her face showing nothing but grief. Finally, she turned and without saying a word, slipped into her car and drove away, leaving me standing there alone.
CHAPTER TWENTY
My sister’s hand (Julia)
I made it two blocks from Jack’s house before I had to pull over. I was crying so hard I couldn’t see. I wanted nothing more than to drive back to tell Crank I was sorry, that I wanted to be with him, that I loved him, and that it had all been a huge mistake. I felt like I had a giant hole in my stomach, my vision was blurred and I couldn’t stop shaking.
But I knew it wasn’t a mistake. The mistake had been letting him under my skin in the first place. I knew the day we met in Washington there was something about him that attracted me. That initial flush of lust and intrigue, however, had turned into much more. Watching him playing his guitar, eyes closed, lost in his music; watching him taking care of Serena and Mark and Pathin as if they were his kids; watching him protecting his brother. All of it made me feel an intense need to be with him, no matter the cost. Even if the cost was my autonomy, my self-control, my life.
I couldn’t allow it to go any further. I was so perilously close.
Close to losing myself.
So, I pulled it together. I stopped crying, got myself in order, and I drove back to Cambridge. Then I dodged the questions from my suitemates and fell into a long, troubled sleep.
Monday morning, I was a mess. I woke up late and had to rush to class. I couldn’t get my mind off Crank: his hurt, frustrated expression when I’d run out of the warehouse Saturday night. And the words he’d said after dinner at his father’s. You need to know that I’d do anything for you … even kiss you goodbye and watch you go.
What the hell did that mean? Insanely, even though I knew I couldn’t do this, I couldn’t be in a relationship with him, I couldn’t love him—I still felt lost. And angry. It was this messy, out of control feeling I’d been trying to avoid in the first place. And yet here I was, unable to concentrate, unable to even think, even though I’d done exactly what I needed to do.
For the first time in my academic career, I got called out by a professor for not paying attention. I’d just been sitting, staring out the window at the grey winter sky, and then Professor Simpson called my name.
“Miss Thompson, if you aren’t well enough to pay attention, you should consider coming back another day.”
I looked at her a moment, nodded, then packed my bag and left. Which is something I’d never done before.
I was in slightly better shape Tuesday. Marginally. But, to be honest, it wasn’t exactly the best day I’d ever had. Finally, Wednesday morning I blew off class completely, packed my bag, including my best dress carefully packed in a garment bag, and left for the airport.
By five P.M. I was in a cab in Bethesda. I took a deep shuddering breath as I got out of the cab and looked at the building. No matter what happened, I’d never lightly enter this place. I’d never be able to separate it from the nightmare that had been my senior year in high school. I’d grown older and wiser, and I’d gained some distance from the events of that year. But it only took a glance at the scars on my wrist to bring it all back.
So, I was already tense as I rode the elevator upstairs to my parents’ apartment. I couldn’t think of it as home, any more than I could the townhouse in San Francisco. In short, my attitude left a lot to be desired.
When I got to the door, I felt odd and uncomfortable simply unlocking it and walking in, but it felt just as strange to knock. What was the appropriate thing? I decided it didn’t really matter. Regardless of how I entered, I was in for a not very pleasant night. Stress always brought out the worst in my mother, and a dinner at the White House? That was stress-inducing.
So, I set my bag down, unlocked the door, and walked in, dragging the bag behind me.
It was chaos. My father was nowhere to be seen … probably locked in the study. Sarah, Jessica and Andrea were at the coffee table, playing a game with a young woman about my age, maybe a little younger. She looked stressed and was probably their latest governess.
Alexandra was in tears, sobbing as my mother fussed at her. She was wearing an exquisite turquoise dress, badly stained by what appeared to be chocolate ice cream, still dripping down the front of the dress.
“I don’t know how you expect to be able to attend adult functions, Alexandra, when you can’t even keep your dress clean!” Her words were probably fine. But her voice was laced with anger and contempt. I recognized that tone and hearing it used on my sister brought to the forefront all the pain and anger and … and rage, that I felt toward my mother.
Without even a greeting, I said, “Maybe if the adults hadn’t dressed a little girl in formal clothing hours before the event, it wouldn’t have happened,” I snapped.
My mother turned on me, her eyes flashing. Behind her, I saw Carrie come into the room, just as Sarah said, “Mom, why can’t I go to the White House? Alexandra’s going! It’s not fair!”
My mother ignored Sarah and approached me with a look of anger and distaste on her face. “I see you showed up in jeans and a t-shirt. Did you at least bring something to change into? Or do you expect me to provide everything?”
In a calm and cold voice, I said, “Mother, I stopped expecting anything at all from you when I was fourteen.”
She looked as if I’d slapped her. I quickly turned to Alexandra. “Come on, Alexandra, let’s see if we can find something else for you to wear.” I reached out my hand, and she took it. Walking toward the hall, I tried to signal to Carrie with my eyes that she should follow. She got the message.
“Which one is Alexandra’s room?” I whispered urgently.
Alexandra, looking shaky, pointed.
I dragged her into the room, and Carrie followed, closing the door behind her.
“Mom’s been a basket case today,” Carrie said. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
Alexandra had tears running down her cheeks. “I didn’t mean to spill the ice cream on my dress. I really didn’t.” She started to blubber.
“Oh, honey,” I said. “It’s okay, it wa
s an accident.” I sat down on the bed and pulled her into my lap.
“I missed you, Julia,” she said.
Carrie dropped onto the bed next to me. “I did too. I’ve had no one to gossip with. And Mom and Dad were nuts that you were in LA with Crank. How did it go?”
I caught my breath, and I couldn’t stop the shakiness in my voice. “It went great. We got a record deal, a really good one. And I broke up with Crank.”
To my horror, I sobbed at the last word.
“You what? Why?”
I gasped for air. “I … I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I like Crank,” Alexandra said. “He was nice to me.”
“Julia,” Carrie said. “You’re so full of it. You can’t say that and not tell me why. What happened?”
I shook my head. Carrie put her arm around me and leaned close, whispering, “We promised to take care of our sisters, Julia. That means you, too.”
“He told me he loved me,” I said. “So … I left him.”
Carrie blinked. “You’re not making any sense, Julia. Of course he loves you. Even our waiters could see that. You could see it, couldn’t you, Alexandra?”
Alexandra nodded, then added, “And he’s really cute.”
Carrie spoke again. “What are you afraid of?”
I whispered, “Everything. And we don’t really have time to do this right now.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Yeah I know. But we’re not done here, Julia.”
I nodded, unhappily, and looked around. “I don’t even remember this room. Do you think there’s anything here?”
Carrie raised an eyebrow. “How can you not remember, Julia? This was your bedroom.”
I stiffened. Alexandra wriggled off my lap, so I stood and looked around the room. When I was here two months ago, I’d slept on the couch. And looking around this room … it was sterile. And I had virtually no recollection of it at all. I supposed it had been my room. But when we lived here, I’d never decorated it. Never put anything on the walls. I’d never felt like this was home. It was just … a room. I didn’t have any feeling for it. All I could remember clearly, vividly, was the bathroom. Every tile. Every bump in the caulk. Every drop of my own blood. I shook my head. “Are you sure?”
Carrie nodded, unhappily. “You really … don’t remember?”
I shook my head. “I ought to, I guess. But I never really … felt at home here.”
She whispered, “Julia, maybe you should see somebody.”
I grimaced. “What, like a doctor? A shrink?”
Carrie approached me and whispered, “Maybe. Sometimes with traumatic things, we need some help. Julia, you were a senior in high school. That was only four years ago. I don’t see how you could possibly forget your own bedroom.”
I closed my eyes. I thought about the state I’d been in senior year. The constant fog over my emotions. The constant self-recrimination. The abuse at school, and the abuse at home. My room had been a refuge. But the more I thought about it … it wasn’t the room I remembered. Most of the time I spent in this room was either buried in a book or with a blanket pulled over my head.
In my freshman year at Harvard, I took Psychology. And we covered major depression, among a lot of other things. But until this moment, standing here in this room that I couldn’t remember, it never occurred to me that maybe that applied to me. I’d never even thought of talking to a doctor about it. It was just who I was. Dead inside.
“Maybe you’re right,” I said.
She looked at me, more than a little bit of worry in her eyes. “We’d better get ready. Or Mother will explode. I’ll be right back … I’ve probably got some dresses Alexandra’s size in my room.”
Of course she would. When we lived here, four years ago, she wasn’t much older than Alexandra was now. I tried to recall any time we’d spent together that year. Had we gone to the zoo together? School functions? A museum?
I had no idea, and that scared me.
With a little bit of adjustment, Alexandra was all fixed up in a pretty green dress that had once belonged to Carrie, and we were all set. I was just finishing up adjusting my makeup when our mother knocked on the door.
Mother did her best to glare me into submission over the next ninety minutes as we finished getting ready and then loaded up in the van my father rented. As always, Dad was oblivious. Alexandra sat in the back seat, reading a book, while Carrie and I sat in the middle, quietly talking. She was actually looking forward to getting back to school. Apparently, despite the dislocations of going to three different high schools (one in Bethesda, one in Moscow, and now in San Francisco), she’d settled in and found a place for herself. I found myself envying her that. My own high school experience was nothing but one nightmare after another, and it was hard to imagine how different our lives were in that respect.
But seriously, so what? I had found a place for myself. Even if it was only recently. I was slowly getting closer to Jemi, though that was often awkward and odd. And Jack and Margot and Sean truly made me feel like I had family in Boston. It was beyond strange, that in a row house in South Boston, I’d found people I cared about as much as I cared for them. Briefly, I wondered how Jack was. On Monday, he’d mobilized with his unit, and they’d begun the process of deploying to Kuwait. I had no idea how long that sort of thing took. Were they already over there? In some camp in the desert? I had no idea.
Thinking of Jack turned my mind back to Barry Lewis, who had been my bodyguard and almost big brother, in middle school. Jack had suggested that I try the Pentagon’s worldwide locator. If he was still in the Marines, they’d find him. I’d thought about it a lot. Would he even remember me? I was just some kid he had to guard—somehow I was sure that relationship didn’t have the same significance for him as it did for me. He’d provided a … stability, a warmth, that I’d never had before, and really hadn’t experienced since, until I met Crank’s family. Someday, I wanted to thank him.
Carrie seemed to have dodged a lot of that. In fact, she seemed remarkably well adjusted and happy. It was weird. Our lives were lived out of sequence from each other, the distance in age compounded by the many moves. I couldn’t help but wonder what life would be like for Alexandra, or the twins, or especially Andrea, who would grow up too young to even remember the Foreign Service and moving every three years of her life.
We quieted down as the van approached the gates to the White House. A military Humvee was parked at the intersection, yet another relic of September 11. I wondered if they would be there permanently. At the gate, my father handed over his identification, and the Secret Service guards shined flashlights into the van, then pointed my dad where to park. Two guards followed to the parking space and stood a safe distance as we piled out of the van.
It was freezing cold out, just the slightest bit of drizzle threatening to turn to snow. The White House was brightly lit in the darkness, and we followed our escort to a door in the East Wing. Once inside, we went through metal detectors, and then the guard led us inside.
A young woman met us on a landing. “Ambassador Thompson and family? Come this way, please.”
She turned, leading us through a locked door, past a silent Secret Service agent and up a flight of stairs. A moment later, we were in the residence. We followed her down a thickly carpeted hallway, lined with portraits of past Presidents and First Ladies, and into a small room, where I was brought face to face with a nightmare.
“Ambassador Thompson, may I introduce Ambassador Easton, who will be representing the United Kingdom.”
I barely noticed as my father and Ambassador Easton shook hands and began introducing their families. Easton’s wife was a somewhat frumpy looking woman wearing a black velvet dress. Standing beside them, his face blanched, was Harry Easton.
I froze.
My dad and Easton chuckled as they shook hands. “We know each other,” my father said. “Ronald was on his last year in Beijing when we arrived there.”
Easton said,
“Richard, I don’t know if you’ll recall him, that was a long time ago, but this is my son, Harry. He’s currently a junior attaché at the consulate in New York.”
My mother smiled and shook hands with the Eastons, then said, “Julia, didn’t you go to school with Harry?”
I couldn’t answer. I was paralyzed with shock, a wave of confused emotions running through me, clashing with each other. I could almost feel blood rushing through my ears, and I wanted to back away, run away—do anything to get out of being in this room right now.
Harry, in his characteristic Eton accent that he shared with his father, simply said, “Julia and I are … acquainted.”
Carrie stepped up next to me and shook hands with Harry. He put his hand out to me to shake, but I couldn’t move, and not in a million years, under any circumstances, would I ever touch him again. My stomach was turning. Right in front of me was the man who had ruined my life. And the irony? I’d loved him when I was fourteen, I’d been utterly obsessed with him, even after he’d treated me like I was worthless, and looking at him now? I couldn’t figure out what the attraction had been. He was shorter than I remembered, though still very handsome, if you liked cold-blooded assholes.
After a moment of him standing there with his hand out, Harry stepped back, looking uncomfortable. Both sets of parents had fallen silent. I suppose my behavior was discourteous enough that it caught their attention. I didn’t care. I just wanted to vomit. Or run. Or hit him. I was shaking, and when Carrie stepped away from Harry, she stepped back to my side, leaned her head close to my ear and whispered, “Are you all right?”
I shook my head, very slightly. Part of me wondered if I would ever be all right again.
That’s when Alexandra stepped forward to be introduced. Ambassador Easton and his wife both cooed over her, and then she shook hands with Harry. He attempted to be charming, giving her a smile, bending over her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Alexandra.”
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