by Ann Minnett
Lark loved every minute on the Mizzou campus, wanting nothing more than to write documentaries about the outdoors.
Until the incident during finals week that had changed her life and the lives of her two best friends.
* * *
Rob drank too much in the wake of Lark’s angry visit. He flipped channels, wishing he'd ordered the movie channels on Direct-TV. ESPN replayed the Immaculate Reception game from back in the day when the Forty-Niners beat the Cowboys. He hated the Cowboys and remembered how the game ended, so he clicked on it, muted the sound, and drank beer.
Maybe he was just an unhappy bastard. Maybe all he touched turned to shit and misunderstanding. As he slumped into drunkenness, he became more convinced that if he could turn just one corner, the revelation about his true character would clarify his path.
Three years after his mother died, he got his driver’s license and worried his grandmother to death. He spent a lot of time alone, driving flat back roads, daring God or coincidence to enlighten the way. On the verge of momentous change, ripe for enlightenment, and utterly lonely, Rob would lean into the windshield and gaze up into the star fields, unconvinced he fit in. A speck in the stew of his own small universe, he’d open his arms in surrender to what was.
Weed deepened his spiraling thoughts in high school, his almost there consciousness. Weed also isolated him, forced him further into his head. When stoned, his lugubrious thoughts enthralled him, boosted his own grandiosity and kept his life self-contained. Self-absorbed pearls before swine.
On the other hand, a beer or two propelled him toward people. In college, he decided to become a part of, not apart from. Problem was, alcohol gave him a wee bit of hassle, and here he sat fifteen years later drowning in himself. Thousands of miles and millions of dollars mattered not a damn. No matter where you go, there you are. The phrase ran through his head like an unwanted mantra.
Damn if he didn't need people after all. His drunken stupor increased his fondness for Raven, who he allowed onto the couch. Her head rested on his leg before he passed out.
Rob woke up cold and alone. Raven had left for a spot closer to the stove. He'd fallen asleep without banking the fire or turning on any backup heat, which he hated doing because it seemed unmanly or some damn thing. “I bet Axel doesn’t have back-up heat.” Rob padded to the thermostat—fifty-eight degrees inside, four out. Backup heat came on at fifty-five degrees. He turned the thermostat to seventy and cajoled the stove’s embers to life. Raven scratched at the door, a habit he'd have to break. He checked the time—1:30 a.m. Typical. He never slept well after drinking and still felt tipsy.
Rob opened the door, and the whoosh of cold produced an image of Lark's disdain, her near hatred directed his way. Her wariness alongside her brother's casual warning. Her anger and abrupt departure. Her alert caution when he stupidly mentioned Mizzou. Truth to tell, it pissed him off she didn't remember him. He could have handled it, if she had.
He called for Raven and flipped on the porch light. Why had Lark seemed so wary after all he'd done for her? Maybe she does recognize me. His body locked. So this is what it’s like to faint, he thought. He steadied himself on the door jamb.
Rob scratched his chilled belly, waiting for Raven and contemplating next steps. He had to throw off the scent from the trail he’d stupidly left for Lark.
He'd wasted two thousand dollars. Women didn’t dismiss Rob. What would it take to gain some respect?
CHAPTER 10
Both Dee and Nora stood up nervously when Lark walked into Nora's small, cluttered home on Saturday evening. The twins were asleep, but their toys, clothes they wore that week—you name it—littered every surface in the room. The fourth envelope arrived as threatened, and it scared Lark. Why, of all places, had Rob mentioned The University of Missouri? She racked her brain for memories of him, for any reason that an acquaintance from college would give her money. Nothing came to mind. Time had come to brainstorm with her two best friends who had also attended Mizzou.
"Has something happened to Zane?" Dee hugged Lark like she expected the worst.
Nora pulled off Lark's coat and tossed it across the back of the couch. "Sit. What's happened?"
"Zane's fine, but I received another envelope of cash this afternoon."
"Cash? What cash?" Nora said while nudging race cars with her foot off the rug.
"Talk to us," Dee said.
Lark sat, but her knees bounced, agitated, and she leaned forward.
"Relax," Nora said. "You look like you'll launch at any moment."
Lark explained how the new man in town, Rob, had sent her cash through the mail, anonymously. Dee knew about the first installment, but it was news to Nora. As Lark's story progressed, Dee sank into Nora's leather cushions and wrapped her cardigan tighter around her plump body.
The confusion on their faces deepened.
Nora paced her beige-on-beige living room, occasionally scooping up toddlers’ food-splattered t-shirts, or the odd sock, and dropping them in a bin off the kitchen. She'd been the sloppiest of all three in college, and pervasive signs of disarray showed not only in her home but in her thrift-store wardrobe.
Two pots of coffee into the evening, Nora and Lark switched to beer, Dee to Diet Coke. They spooned leftover raspberry huckleberry pie from the pan. They finished off the twins’ fudgesicles at the bar counter. An uncomfortable silence descended. Nora dumped Goldfish crackers in a bowl. They weren’t any closer to figuring out Rob’s motives and had run out of things to say.
"Okay." Lark's voice quivered. "I'm going to say it out loud. What about the attack? The rape?" She stuffed a handful of Goldfish into her mouth and let them disintegrate on her tongue.
"Finally. Thank you, Lark,” Nora said. “I wondered that, too.”
"You don’t think he knows something about what happened?" Dee's arms rested on the counter, sphinxlike.
For the third or fourth time that evening, Lark went to the back door, smoked a cigarette, and blew the smoke outside into frigid night. “Don’t tell Kirk,” Nora said, and joined her there, inhaling and exhaling with reverence.
The three hadn't discussed the attack in years. The fact of it braced their friendship like a brass dovetail in split wood, but its power over their lives had ebbed with time.
Discomfort pried at the muscles in Lark's lower back. She bent over to stretch and upside down said, "You've met him. None of us recognize him. What else explains his so-called generosity?”
Dee said, “He’s hitting on you.”
“No way. I can tell when someone’s interested, and he most definitely is not.” Lark snuffed the cigarette on the sole of her boot. “Now Lulu’s another story.”
“Right,” Nora said. “I was kind of surprised when she brought him to your place that night.”
Lark sat on the barstool next to Dee. “He’s one of her entourage.”
Dee snickered.
“So again I ask, why give money to me? Has he approached either of you?"
Nora shook her head with lips sealed tightly, but Dee said, "The only time I've talked to him, you were there." The three sat quietly, drinking, mulling the past from each unique viewpoint. Nora stood abruptly and went into the kitchen. Dee sighed. “Don’t you dare bring out more food.”
"Kirk will be hungry when he gets home,” Nora shouted. “Maybe Rob worked in the hospital."
A skillet rattled on the stove, and the fragrance of frying meat made Lark’s stomach flip, especially after all the crap they’d snacked on.
Nora continued, “He could have seen us there."
"Maybe." Dee shivered.
Right, Lark thought. Maybe. She said, “Or he might have been involved.”
Nora stepped out of the kitchen, spatula in hand. “I can’t believe you said that.”
Dee examined her clasped hands and wouldn’t look up.
End of conversation.
No matter how much Lark needed the money, she decided then, at 2:20 a.m. on Saturday, it cost h
er too much to keep it. Righteous indignation—especially about rich folks' belief that money solved any problem—had never served her well. No way could she justify disliking the man while simultaneously keeping the cash.
She left Nora’s knowing she had to sever any ties with him.
* * *
Lark always blamed herself. She and Nora should never have left Dee, or Diedre as she was known in college, with those artsy types during that last week of finals. More to the point, they should have returned as promised to take her home.
They were the perpetual trio—three college freshmen sharing a two-bedroom suite with a bath in the middle. Broke, swamped with studies, and working as waitresses, better known as waitri, they did everything together. Once they discovered a mutual childhood obsession with the movie Beauty and the Beast, the three jokingly referred to themselves as the flirtatious Bimbettes. After all, the cartoon triplets were waitri, too. The silly nicknames stuck.
All waitri were invited to celebrate the end of finals at a big old Prairie Style house rented by five busboys from the college dining hall. The guys were poor, like the Bimbettes, wild and fun. Lark’s twenty-hour course load that semester had almost killed her. Coupled with Nora's fear of having to retake Biology, both wanted to let off steam at the kegger. Diedre was required to attend an art gallery event as part of her Drawing 102 final project. She let Lark take her car with the understanding that either Lark or Nora would pick her up around ten and all return to the party.
Out of sight, out of mind. Lark didn't give Diedre a second thought that night. She lavished all her attention on David—Dave? Dan? —who resembled a bulldog. In a good way. He dropped Lark off at the dorm the next morning. Lark dragged her hungover self up three flights of stairs and crashed on her built-in bunk, unconcerned about Diedre or her undisturbed bed.
Sometime later, the dorm phone she shared with Diedre rang and rang from across their room until Lark couldn’t ignore it. When she answered, a melodious female voice asked “Lark?”
She cleared her dry throat. "Speaking."
The nurse with the lovely voice, they found out later, had spent a good part of the night with an incoherent Diedre. "She's awake now and is asking for you."
Lark shouted a string of questions, drawing Nora in from the connecting bathroom to see what was wrong. Nora wore her waitri uniform, having worked breakfast. She grabbed the phone from Lark’s trembling hand.
"What happened?" Nora shouted into the phone. Her wild eyes roved over Lark’s face as she listened. "Where is she?" She nodded. "Tell her we love her and will be right there." She yanked off the hated headband and hairnet waitri had to wear for work.
"What?"
"Diedre was assaulted. Someone left her outside Boone Hospital's Emergency Room early this morning." Nora plopped beside Lark onto the hard mattress. They embraced, stricken and suddenly sober.
Lark had Diedre’s car key, but the car was miles away where she’d forgotten it near the busboys’ house. They'd have to walk the mile or so to Boone.
"I've got to shower, but I'll be ready in five minutes." Lark stood too quickly, lurching into the corner of a built-in desk. Notebooks slid to the linoleum floor, covering debris from marathon study sessions and fast food binges.
Nora tore off her apron, running through to her side of the suite. "Oh, my God. We should never have left her."
The thought had already crossed Lark’s mind. She turned on the shower and dry heaved into the toilet, waiting the mandatory thirty seconds for hot water to reach the third floor.
Guilt took root during the hurried jog to the hospital, but they agreed not to speculate what "assaulted" meant until they heard the facts.
The nurse, Sonja, who had phoned met them outside Room 224. Her warm half-smile reassured Lark who would always think of her as the epitome of bedside manner. Reassuring, quiet, capable. A grandmotherly type who might have been knitting in a rocking chair had she not chosen to work beyond retirement age.
Sonja blocked the closed door. "She's being interviewed by police. Wait here until they come out."
"They?" Lark gasped.
"Detectives and a social worker." Lark and Nora clung to one another, allowing Sonja to herd them into an alcove with two cushioned chairs. "I'll come get you when they've gone. She'll be glad you're here." Sonja turned on a dime and scuttled away.
That's when the two friends broke into tears. Detectives. Social Worker. Their dear friend was alive, no thanks to their abandonment the night before, but she was in bad shape.
Three women exited #224 nearly an hour later. Sonja entered the room immediately after. Nora and Lark waited nearby until she opened the door to beckon them in.
Lacerations from hairline to jaw covered the left side of Diedre's face. Lark now understood why a swollen black eye was called "a mouse." Diedre turned toward her two friends with difficulty and broke into sobs. They fidgeted by her bed. The contagion spread like yawning, making both Nora and Lark cry, too.
Lark grabbed Diedre’s hand, Nora circled the bed and gingerly took the other hand connected to an IV. No words could capture the horror, the profound sickening reality of her injuries. Lark’s view of their beautiful friend was grotesque. Selfishly, she regretted not stepping around to the other, unscathed side.
Nurse Sonja asked, "Honey, do you need anything?"
Diedre mumbled, "Ice chips. More ice chips, please." Her full lower lip split in two places—one had been stitched and taped.
Sonja left without a word.
Brimming with questions, Lark wondered, should she ask them?
"I don't remember a thing about last night after the gallery." Diedre's tears ran into deep purple creases under her left eye. "They think I was drugged. Did some tests to find out." She drew in a ragged breath. "They say I was raped, but … I don't remember." She cried the way of little children who struggle to breathe between sobs. Her friends stroked Diedre’s hair, her arms. They cooed and waited.
"I had my American Government final at three and then met some friends to celebrate the Art Walk at the gallery. Is that today? Wait. You were there," she said. Diedre glanced at Nora, an easier feat out of her right eye, and although she hadn't accused, Nora caved into herself. "You, too, Lark. You drove me to the gallery for the final project." She squeezed Lark’s hand rather than turn her head. "What's the name of that bar on Broadway with the green awnings?" Her speech slurred with lisps.
"Tappers." The place carded very loosely.
"Tappers. Now I remember. Some of us went to Tappers after, I think. It was dark inside—darker than usual."
Nora said, "Then what?"
"I don’t know. When did you leave for the busboy party?"
Leave her.
"About eight,” Lark said, wanting to hide under the bed, feeling ashamed.
Diedre talked over Lark’s response. "People from the art department were there. I had a good time. Even danced." Her swollen lips parted—no secret she was a clumsy dancer. Her right eye clouded. "Then I started feeling sick. It was really hot in the place." She drifted into drugged sleep but woke up to mumble, "The police wanted to know if I'd had intercourse yesterday." She winced. "What a joke."
They’d been cramming for finals with no nights out in weeks and complained as much.
Lark and Nora held Diedre's hands throughout that day, gut-punched and guilty for leaving with her car and forgetting her. They mouthed words of remorse to each other across her still body. They racked their brains to reconstruct who had been at the Art Walk and gallery before they left. First names of a few came to Nora, but Diedre had surely given those names to the police. They listed everyone they could remember on the back of a Ben Franklin's receipt from Nora's purse and later handed it over to the police.
When her grogginess lifted, Diedre had called her parents collect from her hospital bed. After reassuring them she had done well on her finals, she said, “I had a fender-bender last night.” Diedre closed her eyes, bowed her head while her mothe
r asked questions. “No really, I’m fine, but the car needs work.” She exchanged an alarmed glance with Lark. Would her parents buy the lie? “I have a few bruises but thought I’d stay here for a few days with Nora and Lark to take it easy after finals.” She listened. “Really, I’m fine and will call you tomorrow when I know more about the car.” She hung up quickly and collapsed into her pillows.
“That will keep them off my back for a day or two,” she said and settled into drugged sleep.
Close to noon, Sonja came in to check her patient. She squeezed Diedre’s feet, massaging them through the cotton blanket. "I'm leaving now, but Ginny will be your nurse until midnight. I'll be back then. You take it easy, now."
Lark asked, “Can we stay?”
"Sure. See you girls tonight."
Ginny arrived later to check Diedre's catheter. The tiny tube trailing out of the covers on Lark’s side of the bed dripped into a bag of brown urine, alarming Lark, but what did she know?
"You two can wait outside," Ginny said.
"No! I want them to stay. Please."
Lark would have been fine with leaving, but they both stayed because they would do anything for Diedre now. Nurse Ginny flipped open the blanket to reveal Diedre's entire left leg. Her outrageous tattoo—done solely to enrage her overbearing parents—seemed more vivid against her pale skin. Inked from knee to ankle: a bluebird of happiness, as Diedre called it, hovered over a huge clover blossom, the state flower of Vermont. Yes, Diedre had lived a wild and eccentric life before college. Despite her parents.
Her gown rode up, exposing a scraped hipbone and bruises even more raw than those on her face.
Lark lowered her eyes, thinking, if only we hadn't forgotten her.
Nora walked around the bed to see for herself but only glanced before saying, "I'm going to the cafeteria. You want anything?"
