by Annie Knox
“I love Casey,” I insisted. “Please don’t ruin this for me.”
Sean’s head dropped forward, and I could see his shoulders lift and fall in a mighty sigh.
“I won’t ruin anything, Izzy. But I won’t stand back and watch you throw away your life on a user and a loser like Casey Alter. I’ll respect your decision, but I can’t support it.”
He jerked his bike upright and began walking it off into the darkness. Another flash of distant lightning ripped open the sky, and I swear I could see the droplets of water clinging to the dark curls at his nape.
“Sean,” I called softly.
I didn’t know if he could hear me, but he didn’t turn around, and I didn’t know what I would have said if he had.
Instead, my mother’s voice calling from downstairs, inquiring about the commotion, pulled me away from the window in a hurry. But not without one last glance at Sean’s retreating form, his slumped shoulders and hangdog shuffle.
Of course I’d seen Sean over the years: at graduation, class reunions, occasional encounters at the Grateful Grape or across the brunch crowd at the Thistle and Ivy. But that night was the last night he spoke to me as a friend rather than an acquaintance.
“Izzy, I love you.” How could four simple words cause such a rift?
And now, on this awful momentous night, here he was again. I could only imagine what earthshaking words he might utter this time.
He wasted no time. “Rena called me. Said y’all were having quite a night.”
Sean’s family had moved to Merryville from a little town right where Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama kiss, and he’d never quite shaken the hint of a drawl in his voice. My mom, who’d had Sean for eleventh-grade English and who continued to play canasta with Sean’s mother, Hetty, told me he’d gone back south after graduation, first to Tulane and then to attend law school at Ole Miss. His stint south of the Mason-Dixon Line had clearly sunk his southern roots deeper into his vocal chords, rounding his vowels and resulting in the occasional dropped consonant.
“You could say that,” I said, as I let him pass and closed the door. “Sherry Harper is dead.”
“I know. I was with Carla and her mom at the Grateful Grape when the police arrived to notify them.”
Even though Sean and I didn’t move in the same circles anymore, I knew he’d been dating Carla Harper, Sherry’s cousin, for over a year. My sources (namely, my mom and Aunt Dolly) suggested that wedding bells would be chiming soon. I was a little surprised that Sean had left Carla under the circumstances.
He was looking past me into the interior of the shop. “It looks real nice, Izzy,” he said. “Sorry we couldn’t make it for the grand opening. We had Carla’s mom’s birthday dinner at La Ming, and then we all went to the Grateful Grape to celebrate.”
While Carla had been born to the family trust, her mother had grown up next door to Rena’s dad, so far on the other side of the tracks that they couldn’t even hear the train whistle. Virginia Larsen moved way, way up the socioeconomic ladder when she became Virginia Harper. She didn’t inherit any of the family money directly, as she wasn’t a blood relative of the paterfamilias, Grandpa Harper. Still, Carla had bought her mother the space to open the Grateful Grape, a wine bar that served small plates and fancy desserts.
While our grand opening had been an open house, Sean made it sound like he’d been issued a special invitation, and I wondered if maybe my mom or Rena had personally asked him to come. And then I wondered why they wouldn’t have told me if they had. And then I decided I was being a crazy person, and pushed the whole matter out of my mind.
“Listen, I need to talk to Rena, if that’s okay,” he continued.
“Oh. Of course. Let me run get her.”
But before I got halfway across the room, I heard Rena practically thundering down the stairs, her boots making an almighty racket as she pounded down the wooden treads, the clicking of Packer’s toenails on the bare wood signaling that he was not far behind her. She tumbled into the room in a flurry of bony arms and legs.
“Sean!” She dashed across the room and threw herself into his arms. “Thank you for coming. Thank you so much.”
He bent his tall frame to wrap her in an awkward hug. “Of course. You said it was an emergency.”
She pulled him aside, to the counter by the cash register, and they put their heads together in a hushed and frantic conversation. He handed her a pen, then pulled a sheaf of papers from an inside jacket pocket and flipped through them one by one, pausing now and again for her to scribble something in the margins. Finally, she reached into her black cross-body purse, pulled out a crumpled bill, and handed it to him.
Sean stood up a little straighter, squaring his shoulders with an authority I didn’t associate with my gawky teenage friend.
“Officer Collins, my name is Sean Tucker. I am an attorney and I represent Rena Hamilton. Any questions you have for her should be directed to me.”
CHAPTER
Seven
Jack Collins left with very little information about Rena’s relationship with Sherry Harper.
What little he got came from Sean’s lips, not Rena’s. Jack would ask a question, Rena would whisper in Sean’s ear, and Sean would reply with either a terse answer or a simple “next.”
My mom, Aunt Dolly, Ingrid, Taffy, and I traded anxious glances throughout the interview. I know we were all thinking the same thing: It was like watching a cop drama on TV, except it was happening right in front of us. The notion that Rena might need to speak through an attorney seemed positively surreal.
Finally, Jack asked about the text message Rena had received at the end of the party, inquiring whether he could perhaps just take a look at Rena’s phone. This prompted a frantic exchange between Rena and Sean.
In the end, Rena folded her arms across her chest, mouth set in a mutinous pout, and Sean sighed.
“My client assures you that there is nothing on her phone related to Sherry Harper or her untimely death, but she declines to let you look through her phone records without a warrant. And I’d bet dollars to doughnuts you can’t find a judge willing to sign off on a warrant based on nothing more than your powerful desire to get a look at that phone.”
When Jack left, his shoulders slumped in defeat, we all pinned Rena with stern glares.
“What?” she challenged.
“Why not just give them your phone, Rena?” I asked. “It makes it look like you have something to hide.”
“I’m not hiding anything. It’s just private, that’s all. I didn’t get a text from Sherry, and beyond that, it just isn’t anyone’s business.”
“All right, you and I can talk about this later,” Sean said, “but right now I think it’s time everyone got some sleep.”
I glanced at the clock hanging on the back wall of the barkery. It was nearly three in the morning.
“Rena, dear, you’ve had a terrible evening,” my mom chimed in. “Can we drive you home?”
“Thanks, Mrs. McHale. But if it’s okay with Izzy, I’ll crash here tonight.” She shot me a questioning look.
“Of course you can stay. As long as I have a couch, you have a place to sleep.”
During the round of goodbye hugs, I found myself facing Sean. I shifted from foot to foot, not really sure how to proceed.
“It was good to see you, Izzy,” he said, breaking the awkward silence by extending a professional hand. “Wish it had been under better circumstances.” Before I could grasp his hand in return, Packer wiggled his way between us and began tapping his paw on Sean’s shoe. Sean bent down to give Packer’s flanks a brisk rubbing, sending my dog into a frenzy of joy. Sean stood again just as I was beginning to join them at floor level. As we shifted past each other, one of his curls brushed against my bare arm, a feather-soft caress. I jolted upright and took a step back.
He held out his hand again, and this time I took it. His palms were square, his fingers long—solid, strong hands. I shivered.
“Do you like animals?” I asked, instantly realizing how abrupt and weird the question must sound.
“I do,” he said with a smile. “In fact, I have a basset hound named Blackstone. Why?”
“Oh, well, we’re hosting a pet costume contest at this year’s Halloween Howl. We’ll have prizes, treats for the animals. I was wondering if you’d be interested in judging. It might be good publicity for your practice.”
“I’m honored,” he said, “but I’m sure to have clients who are entered. It might be awkward.”
“Oh. Sure, that makes sense. Still, you should come.” I suddenly realized I was still gripping his hand, so I dropped it. “With Carla, of course.”
“Carla’s not much of a pet person, but I bet we’ll stop by. I think her mom mentioned that the Grateful Grape is involved this year.”
“Right.” Of course. I should have known Sean already had a reason to attend the party, and I felt silly for having invited him.
“Actually,” he said, “Carla’s mom has a corgi that she loves beyond reason, and I know Virginia would be thrilled to dress Sir Francis up for Halloween. Maybe you could ask her to be one of your judges. You’re right that it would be good publicity, and the Grateful Grape could use it.”
“That’s a great idea,” I said, trying to inject a little enthusiasm in my voice. I don’t know why I was so disappointed that Sean had declined my invitation to judge the contest.
• • •
When everyone had gone, I marched Rena upstairs—leaving Ingrid at her own apartment door on the second floor—and loaned her a pair of yoga pants and one of Casey’s old sweatshirts, which hung nearly to her knees.
Once we were both in comfy clothes and huddled together on my patchwork-covered couch, Packer hunkered down between us and Jinx sprawled over Rena’s lap, I got down to brass tacks.
“I want to know what happened in Minneapolis.”
Rena ignored my question. “I hadn’t realized how much I missed spending time with you and Sean until I saw you two together tonight.”
I shrugged. “No reason you can’t hang out with Sean.”
Rena chuckled. “Who says I haven’t been hanging out with Sean? I see him all the time.”
I drew back, stunned at this revelation. “Why didn’t you ever mention it?”
She cocked a brow and tipped her head to one side, silently communicating a big “duh.”
“You didn’t talk about him; he didn’t talk about you. . . . I decided to keep my head down and wait for you two to work it out. Never guessed it would take this long.”
“Well if you’ve been seeing Sean all along, I’m not sure what there was for you to miss.”
“What I meant is that I missed having the three of us together. I mean, you’re my best friend, but Sean was always like the third leg in our relationship, balancing us out, making us even stronger.”
I rested my hand on Packer’s head, and ran my finger over the crease at the base of his ear. “I guess I’ve missed that, too. I just didn’t realize it.”
Rena was staring down at Jinx as she rhythmically stroked her soft fur. “I know why you and Sean stopped speaking,” she said. “He told me.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, you pretty much broke his heart. But like I said, I thought you two would get past it, eventually be friends again. I never imagined you would shut him out of your life entirely.”
“What can I say? It was stupid. I was young. I waited for him to apologize to me, when I probably should have been the one apologizing.”
“I don’t think anyone needed to apologize,” Rena said. “You just needed to get past that one little incident and move on. But I guess it was a big deal to both of you.”
I’d never thought it had been a big deal to me, but after my reaction to seeing Sean on my doorstep that evening, I wasn’t so sure. Now, though, it was my turn to ignore her question. “Come on, Rena. What happened between you and Sherry in Minneapolis?”
Rena cocked her purple head. “It was stupid. I was young,” she said, echoing my own excuse back to me. “Can we just leave it at that?”
“No. Listen, I’m not going to judge you. I just need to know.”
“After high school, I went a little wild. It sounds pathetic, but you and Sean were my only real friends, the only people who didn’t act like I had some sort of disease. And you’d both just left me.”
It felt like she’d smacked me in the head with a two-by-four. “I didn’t leave you,” I argued.
She waved her hand dismissively. “I know you didn’t mean to ditch me, but that’s effectively what happened. You were in Madison, Sean was in Louisiana, and I was stuck here. You guys were so busy, you hardly ever came home.”
“You never came to see me, either,” I said.
“Don’t get defensive. You asked what happened, and I’m telling you. Besides, I couldn’t come visit you. What would I have done? Hung out in your dorm room while you went to class? Gone to parties where I didn’t know anyone? Please.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but then snapped it shut. She was right. All those years, I’d never really questioned what Rena did while I was away. I’d call her to tell her about my new friends, about Casey, about classes and work, but she rarely offered anything about her own life . . . and I didn’t ask. When I came home for the occasional holiday, I just assumed she’d be around, ready to go out and take up right where we’d left off. Like she was a doll, tucked away in its box, waiting for me to pick her up to play whenever the mood struck me.
I’d been selfish. A terrible friend.
“I’m sorry.” The words didn’t begin to cover it, but she smiled.
“Hey, we were both young, right?”
“And stupid,” I agreed.
“Exactly. Anyway, I got a fake ID and started hanging out down at the Silent Woman a lot, and that’s where I met Nick and Sherry. Nick was a quiet guy, but Sherry was a force. I couldn’t help being drawn into her orbit.”
A shadow of a smile kissed her lips, and her eyes took on a dreamy cast. Whatever had happened to sour her relationship with Sherry, Rena remembered those early days of raising hell fondly.
I felt a pang of jealousy.
“She was older, you know,” Rena continued, picking mindlessly at the cuff of the sweatshirt, “and I thought it was cool how she was always angry about stuff. She talked about politics and corruption and the little guy getting what was his.”
“Right. Like she’s the little guy.”
“Oh, I know. Her jeans were old, but they were from a vintage clothing boutique, not the Salvation Army. And that old Saab she drove probably cost more than my dad’s house. But I didn’t exactly examine her financial records. The words coming out of her mouth appealed to me.”
“So how did you two end up in Minneapolis?”
She raised her hands to cover her face and blew out a big sigh before dropping them back in her lap. “Sherry was part of this antiglobalization group. We went down to Minneapolis to protest the government’s response to Y2K.”
“Y2K?”
“You remember . . . how everyone was scared that all the computers would crash on January first of 2000.”
“Oh right,” I said, “I remember now. Casey and I were on a ski trip for the holiday and he joked that we’d be stuck in the chalet like the Donner party . . . but with lots of cocoa and a huge collection of eighties movies on VHS.”
“Right. Well, Sherry’s group thought that the whole computer crashing thing was a massive international conspiracy that would allow governments to conveniently ‘lose’ information about all the corporate corruption and kickbacks that greased the wheels of widespread globalization.”
“Really?”
Rena winced. “Yeah, it sounds crazy. Young and stupid, remember? Sherry sounded like she knew what she was talking about, and all these other activists from Duluth and Des Moines and even from Fargo met us in Minneapolis so we could march outside the Federal Reserve building there.”
“What happened?”
“Things got out of hand. This woman from Duluth brought white spray paint, and a bunch of the protesters started writing all over the building.” She made a wide, sweeping gesture, as though demonstrating the scope of the graffiti. “‘Whitewash.’ One of the security guards tried to stop them, and someone sprayed him in the face. Pretty soon, the police arrived, and all hell broke loose.
“Sherry and I were pressed against the building, so there was nowhere to run. She was holding a can of paint, but when the cops started making their way toward us, she shoved it in my backpack.”
“No,” I gasped.
She smiled, a crooked little half smile. “Yes.” She shrugged. “Later, she said that she wasn’t trying to get me in trouble, just hide the paint can. But whatever she intended, the bottom line was that I was arrested and charged with criminal damage to property. Obviously, I couldn’t make bail or hire a lawyer, so I waited in jail until I could meet with a public defender.”
“How long?”
“The courts were pretty busy. Holiday rush, I guess. I was in jail for about three weeks, total.”
“Rena, why didn’t you call me? I can’t believe you were in jail for three weeks and didn’t call me.”
“What could you have done for me? Hire me a lawyer? Break me out of jail? You were in Colorado with Casey, remember?” She fidgeted with a loose thread on her cuff. “Besides, I was mortified. I didn’t want anyone to know what had happened. And you have to promise me you won’t say anything to, like, your mom or anyone.”
“Of course I won’t.”
Her shoulders sagged in relief. “Anyway, by the time the dust settled, I ended up pleading guilty. I was criminally responsible for all of the damage done to the building. Plus the security guard. Thank God he wasn’t hurt, but he could have been, and that increased the seriousness of the charge. It was a felony.”
