“It’s a deal then.” He started to walk away, toward the boys. “Oh,” he said, turning back. “There was a message on the voice mail I saved for you. Justine.”
I picked up the phone, wondering what she could want. I hadn’t seen her in days.
Her voice on the message was chipper and bubbly. “Hey, Ariel,” she said. “I am still applying for that job, but it looks like it’ll be a few weeks before I know anything. I thought it might be a good idea for us to plan to do some freezer cooking. Let me know if you want to do it, and we can go grocery shopping together. I thought that might be fun! Okay, call me.”
Ordinarily, I would’ve called her back as soon as I got her message, but instead I decided to let her wait. I wasn’t going to run every time she called.
I closed my eyes and listened to the sounds of the boys laughing on the trampoline, exhausted after a long day of buying snacks and things for the upcoming Fourth of July festivities in the neighborhood. I let my body rest even as my ears stayed on duty. When the laughter changed to shrieks, I rallied long enough to get up and go see what was going on. It didn’t sound like my boys’ typical noises, but it didn’t sound like anyone was hurt either. I stopped to peek out the window. My mouth fell open at the sight that greeted me.
Justine and her girls had joined the boys. Justine was jumping and bouncing the children up in the air, playing popcorn like she had scolded me for doing in the past. I bit back a smile and went outside. “What is going on out here?” I asked.
She stopped jumping and grinned broadly. It wasn’t her normal smile. This smile was different. It reflected genuine happiness. “This is great exercise,” she said, out of breath.
“I know,” I said, returning the smile.
“We came over to find out when we’re going to go grocery shopping. You never called me back about it.” She turned to look at the kids. “Then we saw the boys out here and I thought, oh why not? What’s the worst that can happen? Someone lose a tooth?”
Cameron laughed and flashed her toothless smile. “Jump again, Mom,” she called out. It was a far cry from the scene I had witnessed the last time we were all gathered at my trampoline. I didn’t know what had prompted Justine’s behavior change, but I liked what I saw.
“Should I join you?” I asked. Silent Joe was playing music, as always. Bruce Springsteen sang about one step up and two steps back.
Justine waved me up, and the kids all cheered. “But, Mom,” Donovan said. “That’s more people than the rules allow.”
I turned to smile at my friend. I didn’t understand what was happening, but at that moment I didn’t have to. “Well, then I guess you kids will have to get off. It’s the adults’ turn to have some fun,” I said. The kids grumbled good-naturedly as they climbed down, giving Justine and me room to jump, room to fly.
Chapter 33
Justine
I was winded as I came in the house with the girls. Winded and happy. I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt that kind of happiness—the kind that didn’t come with any guilt attached. When the phone rang, I assumed it was Liza, calling because the due date for my piece in the newsletter had slipped my mind. I was trying to pay attention again to the things that used to matter in my life. I picked up the phone, prepared to make an excuse to Liza about Mark losing his job, to promise her I would get back on track. Instead I heard a pause just before a male voice asked for me. I should’ve hung up.
“This is her,” I said. I decided that wasn’t grammatically correct. Shouldn’t I have said, “This is she”?
“Ma’am, my name is Steve, and I am calling on behalf of the collections department for Madison Furniture. Are you aware you’ve missed two payments on the furniture you purchased from them?”
“Ma’am?” he asked. “Can we make arrangements for payment? I am trying to collect on a debt you owe.”
I stammered for an answer. “I—we—my husband … My husband lost his job, and we—”
“Ma’am, you made a promise to pay for this furniture. Perhaps there’s a family member who could help you with the payments until then?”
I thought about my parents, the humiliation of calling them to ask for help. I was on a sinking ship, and I could either try to bail out water or just bail out. A simmering anger began to bubble just below my skin. But who was I angry at? Myself for living so close to the edge financially, for blindly trusting Mark to make things okay? Or him for losing his job? At the moment I couldn’t decide. I just knew I had to get off the phone with this man who was pushing me to pay a bill we couldn’t pay. We’d been slipping further and further into debt the more Mark didn’t make quota, the less income he brought home. Losing the job was just the signature on the bankruptcy notice. We had been living in denial for months, fooling ourselves into thinking that we were safe if we stayed inside the bubble of our affluent neighborhood, not realizing that’s the problem with bubbles: They shimmer and shine, but they burst easily.
“I’ll talk to my husband, and we’ll make arrangements,” I said. “If you’ll just give me a few days.”
“Ma’am, you don’t have a few days. If you don’t pay, this is going to our legal department. I can call you back this afternoon. I hope you’ll have made a plan by then. I suggest you do.” He disconnected the call without saying good-bye or extending any basic courtesy to me. I wondered who would want a job like that? An angry person who enjoyed being rude all day? Or just a person who needed money so badly he was willing to do anything? Would Mark reach that point? Would I?
I stood there holding the phone for a minute, wondering what I could do, wondering what Mark could do. Should I make the effort to call my parents and borrow the money to catch us up? If I did, I was bailing water out of a boat with a gaping hole in the bottom. There was more where that came from—more bills we couldn’t pay, more money we didn’t have. The creditors were lining up: mortgage, car payments, credit cards. I didn’t know much about our financial situation—I never wanted to know—but I did know it was bad and getting worse.
My friends at church would tell me to pray, to trust God, to read the Bible. But I couldn’t do that. I was tired of pious answers from prideful people who would do nothing more than offer their pity, then gossip about me behind my back. “First she lost that part, then he lost his job.…” I could see them shaking their heads, so secure in their own safety, unaware that the same wolves that had found us lurked in the shadows of their own landscaped lawns.
I threw the phone across the room. It hit the refrigerator and broke into two pieces, breaking just like I finally did inside. “Why?” I screamed at no one, but then realized I was screaming at God. “Why would You let this happen? I’m not even sure You’re there.” I sank to the floor and sobbed, my breath coming in heaving gasps. My hands were clenched in fists, and I stared at them, wondering what I could punch. I looked up to see Cameron and Caroline at the bottom of the stairs, clutching each other and staring at me with fear in their eyes. I could see my sister and me in the same pose a long, long time ago, watching my mother cry because we were going to lose our house. I remembered the fear in my belly, the knowing that something was dreadfully wrong, and the powerlessness to stop it that made me feel so small and helpless.
I had vowed I would never let that happen to my daughters. I stood up and backed away from them, edging toward the door. I had to get away. I had to find a way to escape the fate that was upon us. When I had a plan, I would come back for them.
Grabbing the keys, I babbled out some nonsense and fled. It was only after I was in my car that I realized where I was going and who I was headed for: the one safe place in all of this, the one thing that made sense in my life anymore. I pictured his face, and a peace settled over me. I exhaled slowly, breathed in and breathed out as my heart rate slowed. I imagined falling into his arms, telling him all that was wrong. I imagined him telling me I was safe, telling me he would
take care of me.
I rolled down the window of my car and let the warm air wash over me. I had tried to stay away. Even when he called to tell me that he’d moved out, that he wanted me, that the night we’d spent together had changed everything. Even then I’d resisted, told him he’d have to stop calling. I’d been strong only to find that none of it mattered. My commitment to Mark and the girls wasn’t going to save my family. As I pressed on the accelerator, all I could think was that I didn’t want to save my family anymore. Right or wrong, I just wanted to save myself.
Chapter 34
Ariel
Justine canceled a half hour before we were supposed to do our bulk grocery shopping. I hung up the phone and looked at David.
“What is it?” he asked. “You look upset.”
I nodded. “She canceled.” I walked over and flipped open my notebook. “I had this whole list drafted to use for tonight.” I shook my head. “It took me over an hour to get this done,” I moaned. David walked over and kneaded my shoulders.
“You can still go shopping,” he said. “You don’t have to have Justine.”
“I know. I just wanted to do it together.” I sounded pitiful and desperate and I knew it. What was wrong with me that I thought jumping on the trampoline was going to change everything that was wrong?
“Why? I mean, no offense, but it’s grocery shopping, not a girls’ night out.”
“You’re not supposed to get it. You’re a guy.”
“Are you that hard up for girl time?”
Girl time with Justine, I thought to myself. “Well, I do spend all my time with boys,” I said. I stuck out my tongue at him.
“Hmm, do that again,” he said and pulled me to him. I giggled and wrenched away.
“The boys are in the next room,” I said.
“So?” he said, trying to grab me again as I darted playfully out of the way. “It’s not like they’re spying on us,” he said.
It was David, then, who gave me the idea. And once I thought of it, I knew I couldn’t let it go. I grabbed my camera, just in case it would come in handy.
I sat in David’s car as it idled on the curb just ahead of Justine’s house, nervously watching the rearview mirror for a sign of her van pulling out of her driveway. Call it woman’s intuition or just a hunch, but I knew there was something up with her last-minute cancellation. At least, I hoped there was or I was going to feel really foolish coming home with no groceries and no explanation of what I had been doing while I was gone. I needed to come clean with David … and soon.
Sure enough, Justine’s van backed out of her driveway on cue and she drove right past me, oblivious. I wondered if she would’ve even noticed if I had been in my van or if David’s car had been an effective decoy. She was in her own world talking to someone on her cell phone as she zoomed past. I put the car in drive and followed her, feeling like a girl detective. I smiled to myself with the excitement of doing something so daring. I had no idea where she was headed; I just knew she wasn’t with me like she was supposed to be. The thought seized me that she was going grocery shopping without me, and I wondered what I would do upon learning that. Would I finally let go of this friendship?
I used the tactics I had seen in all of the detective movies David dragged me to through the years. I stayed a few cars back and didn’t make any sudden movements. From what I could see, she wasn’t paying attention anyway. She was talking the whole time on her cell phone. I looked at the clock as we wove through traffic. I had hopes that I would still be able to get my grocery shopping done and get home without David suspecting anything.
We hadn’t gone far when she turned into an apartment complex. I hung back a bit yet kept my eye on her as she steered her van into the parking lot, parked, and got out. I parked far enough away that she wouldn’t see me and jumped out to follow her, taking the camera with me. I hadn’t planned on following her on foot so I wasn’t wearing stealth clothing. The truth was, I thought as I crept closer to the building I saw her enter, I hadn’t planned on anything beyond tailing her. I hadn’t thought past that one idea that seized me when David made the crack about the boys spying on us.
I tiptoed up the steps and peeked around the corner to get a glimpse of her knocking on a door. I knew who would open the door before I saw him with my own eyes. I watched through my viewfinder as he took her in his arms and kissed her. I watched her reward him with that same amazing smile, my camera clicking away, recording it all. And then they disappeared into the apartment and closed the door, leaving me sitting motionless on the staircase, trying to absorb the truth I’d been ignoring. I wished hopelessly that she had just gone grocery shopping without me.
I didn’t know how long I had sat on the stairs. A man walked past me and mumbled something, knocking me out of my daze. I looked up to ask him what he’d said, but he’d already gone into his apartment. I knew I needed to get out of there. What if Justine and Tom came out of his apartment? Of course, where would they go that they wouldn’t run the risk of being seen? They were trapped in that apartment with nowhere else to go. Was it worth it, I wondered? Did the joy of finally being together after all these years live up to the sneaking around they had to do?
Images of them flashed in my brain: that first moment at the pool, the night of my party, how he must have hovered just offstage that night at the beach. All telling moments I had been witness to, yet had not really seen. I felt sick as I thought about what they were doing behind that closed door. When I closed my eyes, I could see him taking her in his arms and their lips meeting over and over and over. I thought about Betsy asking me if I thought he had come down to the beach that weekend. I had dismissed the idea as ludicrous. And yet, there was a familiarity in the way he touched her, a possessiveness that could only grow out of prolonged and frequent exposure. I felt nauseous as I stood and made my way back to my car.
I didn’t feel like a girl detective anymore. I felt like a middle-aged woman with a secret burning her up from inside out, holding the shards of a broken friendship that never quite was. I had wanted Justine to be perfect, but she was far from it. Everything was falling apart.
I didn’t have to think about where I was going. It was as if the car knew where to go even before I knew. When I pulled into Erica’s drive, I wondered if I should’ve called first. I sat for a moment and studied the house for signs of life and hoped that intruding on her at night would be okay, forgivable. I thought about her saying that we should help our neighbors. Wasn’t that what I was doing?
I heard her unlocking a series of dead bolts before the door opened, the sign of a woman who lived alone. Would Betsy install dead bolts on her front door? Had she already? When she opened the door, Erica frowned at me for a moment. She skipped the pleasantries we had relied on in the past. “You never called or returned my calls,” she said accusingly. The door was only halfway open, and her body blocked my entrance.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice shaking.
“So why are you here?” she asked.
“Because now I know the truth,” I said. “And if you let me in, I’ll tell you the whole truth about Justine.”
She opened the door wide and held out her hand to indicate I was welcome to walk in. I swallowed and entered her house. “You might as well come in,” she said. “Because you don’t know the whole truth about Justine.”
“Do you remember that time she asked you to go out for a girls’ night?” Erica asked, crossing her legs underneath her and leaning forward. “I saw you out by the entrance?”
“How’d you know about that?”
She lowered her eyes. “I just do.”
“Yeah, I couldn’t go,” I said.
“She knew you wouldn’t be able to, knew David was out of town,” she said. “It was a cover with Mark. She still told him she was going out with you. It was the first night she and Tom saw each other
. She’s been using you as a cover to see him—that night, the weekend you went away, tonight. He always thinks you’re with her.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because she’s done it before.” She paused, leaned back against the chair. “With my husband.”
“But your husband was her pastor!” I said.
She shook her head. “Justine wasn’t even the only one. She was just the one who hurt the most, because I used to think we were friends.”
“So that’s why you don’t like her,” I said.
“It’s more like that’s why she doesn’t like me. She knows I know the truth about her. She wanted me to just pack up and leave the neighborhood. I think she’s always afraid I’m going to spread rumors about her. Instead I just let her do that to me.”
“You knew that she talked about you like that?”
“Of course. You become the neighborhood pariah, you put two and two together.” She shrugged. “But it was good for me.”
“Good for you?”
“It taught me to let go, to stop trying so hard. In an odd way, Justine gave me the freedom to just be myself.”
I thought about how different Erica was. How refreshing my conversations with her had always been. “So? Did it get this far with your husband?”
“No, he confessed before it became a full-blown affair. It was just flirtation, innuendo, a few looks that lingered too long. The guilt got to him. He resigned from his position as head pastor, and some guy at the church got him a good job. He went away quietly. I’ve tried to make sure Heather knows nothing, though lately I’ve suspected she knows more than she admits. As far as she knows—really as far as anyone knows—her dad stopped being a pastor because we got divorced. I’ve let her stay involved at the church … but I haven’t gone back.”
I thought about the whispering that went on about Erica behind her back, how the other women were afraid that divorce was catching, that she would steal their husbands, when the biggest predator of all was their own leader. “That’s why you’re helping Betsy so much,” I said.
She Makes It Look Easy Page 22
