Authors: Tara McTiernan
Standing in the parking lot, the warm day starting to cool and the moon appearing, a pale ghost in the sky, Chelsea relaxed and abandoned her fake phone call. She took a deep breath, still holding the phone. Go back in? No, the call had to last her at least a few minutes, and besides she needed to figure out an excuse to leave.
Just then a text came in from John. "How's it going at your mother's? RU coming back?"
Chelsea started to type in an answer and stopped. What she should do is call her mother and plan a real visit. Maybe even take her out, away from that dreary apartment. Chelsea had money now, could afford to treat her mother to a nice dinner. It was overdue.
Her mother answered on the second ring. "Hello?"
"Mom, it's Chelsea!"
"Well, hello. I haven't heard from you in a long time. How is my long lost daughter?"
"Oh, come on. April and Brooke aren't that much better, are they? April's always working and who knows where Brooke is these days? Have you heard from her?"
Her mother sighed and there was a pause as she dragged on her cigarette and then blew out the smoke, a habit she picked up after Chelsea's father died. "No. I haven't. Last time I spoke to Brooke was two Christmases ago. She was out in California then. You're right. You're all rotten kids. But I can't blame you for not wanting to visit. I'm not much fun these days."
"Are you still getting your checks?" Chelsea asked, inquiring about the disability her mother was able to collect due to her back injury.
"Yeah. Still rolling in the dough here," her mother said wryly.
"Mom, I want to take you out. Out for a really nice dinner. You name the place and we'll go."
"What? How can you afford that?"
"Let's just say I can. And I want to treat you," Chelsea said, thinking that she would also bring her mother flowers: yellow freesia, her favorite. Something to brighten up the gray-on-gray apartment in the low-income housing complex where she lived, where the hallways and the parking lot were even worse, graffiti and garbage everywhere. At least her mother's run-down apartment's interior was kept clean and tidy.
"My, my, my. My little girl's come up in the world." Although she was being sarcastic, Chelsea could tell her mother might be a little impressed as well.
"No, nothing like April."
"Well, for all April's success, she doesn't share the wealth with anyone but herself," her mother said and then took another audible drag on her cigarette. "You know? I'd love to. There's this fancy seafood place on the water in Stratford I'd like to go to, Daniel's Harborside. I heard their oysters Rockefeller are superb. You can afford that?"
"Of course I can. Let's make a date."
They finalized their plans and hung up, but before they did, Chelsea's mother said something she hadn't said to Chelsea in many years: she said "I love you".
Smiling and a little weepy, Chelsea hung up. That was it: she'd tell the girls it was her mother on the phone. She had, indeed, just talked to her. And she could tell John honestly about the plans she and her mother had made to go out for dinner, something that John would instantly approve of as he worshipped both of his deceased parents and spoke of them often.
She sent a quick text reply to John: "All good. CU soon." And hoped he would take it as a cue to come over. Maybe tonight things would be better between them. She knew that if they didn't get better, she couldn't take it much longer. While their lovemaking and passion had cooled, their arguments had heated up more and more. The boiling point would be reached soon.
Crossing O'Malley's dining floor for a third time under the increasingly wolfish attention from the bar, probably due to more beer being consumed, Chelsea approached the booth where the two women were talking quietly and sipping their drinks. She came to a stop in front of the table and held up her cell. "I've gotta go. That was my mother."
"Oh? Is she okay?" Lucie said, looking distressed.
"She needs to see me."
"Wow," Sharon said. "I thought I was close with my parents. But no, that's great that she can count on you."
Chelsea said, shrugging and refusing to feel guilty, "I try. Well, it was good to see you both."
"You haven't even finished your drink?" Sharon said, nodding at it.
"Oh," Chelsea said, plucked up her purse, pulled out her wallet, and put down a twenty. "This should cover it."
"And two more," Sharon said, eyebrows raised.
"I don't have change. I better go. See you!" Chelsea said, plastering a brilliant Homecoming Queen smile on her face and turning away. This time, as she crossed back to the door to the parking lot, the men at the bar weren't the only ones staring and speculating, the burning sensation of the girls' eyes on Chelsea's back unmistakable.
Chardonnay
Lucie took a bite of the huge onion ring, and the crackling-crisp batter-dipped exterior gave way under her teeth, yielding a puff of contained onion-scented steam and a softened bit of onion. She nodded, an impressed little frown on her lips. "Not bad."
"Not bad?" Sharon exclaimed after laboriously chewing and swallowing her mouthful. "They're the best anywhere! O'Malley's is famous for them. That, and drunks."
"I'm not one for bar food. But this is good."
"Your enthusiasm is overwhelming. I'm going to need to lie down here and calm myself."
"What do you expect? I'm French."
"You're American. Your mother is French."
"Ah, do not nit-pick with me or you will be in big trouble, you petite peste!" Lucie said in her best French accent, furrowing her brows sternly before laughing at Sharon's cartoonish mimicry of being attacked, both arms flying up, hands splayed, an exaggerated expression of terror on her face.
Resuming her composure, Sharon said, "So, it's official? Chelsea probably isn't hiding anything, right?"
"I don't think so," Lucie said, ripping off a smaller piece of the onion ring with her fingers and popping it in her mouth.
"I don't know, she was acting weird. And that fake phone call! I don't think that was her mother calling her. Her phone didn't even buzz."
"I think she's a very loyal friend and she's been friends with Bianca for a long time. She was upset. And that call, the oldest trick in the book. She even told me about it when we used to hang out, about faking a call when she was on a bad date."
"So we were her bad date?"
"Yes. I think you might have gone a little too far. I know you were trying to do the right thing, but..."
Sharon nodded thoughtfully. "Okay, but one last thing. Were you ever a compulsive liar?"
"What!"
"A compulsive liar. I know, it sounded outlandish to me, too. But she was so apologetic afterwards I assumed it was one of those TMI slips we all make now and then."
"Who said this?"
"Bianca said it. That you two worked together and that you were infamous at the office for your bad habit."
Lucie blinked and shook her head, sitting back. "I can't believe she would say that?"
"She did. Were you?"
"No! That's ridiculous. We did know each other years ago; we were both working at a hedge fund company on Greenwich Avenue. Actually, we were friends for a short while. Then we had a cooling off. I wonder...," Lucie said, trailing off. Why had Bianca said this to Sharon? Could it be due to what happened, what Lucie had witnessed that night in the small conference room at Pinnacle Funds? Perhaps Bianca thought she could cover for herself this way. But what a nasty thing to do, to smear blameless Lucie?
Sharon interrupted her reverie. "You know, maybe it was something she heard from the office grapevine. You know how bad that can be: tons of false things mixed in with the true things."
"Yeah, like how I'm an anti-Semite?" Lucie said dryly, eyebrows going up.
"Yeah, just like that," Sharon said in an equally deadpan tone and nodding. "Well, we better get ready. It's almost eight. I guess I'm glad the other girls left, so we don't have to tell them the whole sordid story."
Lucie laughed without mirth. "Like Chelsea would believe us."
"She would once she heard the tape. Molly will certainly get the picture."
"Molly's going to freak out."
"We'll see, won't we?"
They finished off the onion rings and Lucie found herself draining her second glass of wine too quickly. She hadn't been kidding earlier: she
was
terrified. She was also hopeful for the first time in weeks. It could work. It had to. But what if it didn't?
Sharon excused herself to make a quick call to her friend, Alan. Lucie had heard the whole sad story about Sharon's old boss and hoped that Alan had simply decided to take a walk or something equally mundane and had missed Sharon's call. Watching Sharon walk away cupping her phone to her ear with both hands to block out the bar's hubbub, Lucie said a little prayer for Alan as well as one for her friend. Sharon was obviously going through a tough time.
Even though she spent so much time helping Lucie and Alan, Sharon had to start thinking about herself more, get some rest. She was frazzled, pulled too many directions, starting to imagine things. To think that Bianca would push Kate down those stairs! Lucie shook her head at the thought. She remembered that night all too well and how Bianca had run down the stairs to help so fast she nearly fell herself and had to grab the bannister. Clearly horrified, she had halted at the bottom of the stairs, gawking at the two fallen women before rushing forward again.
Bianca had been the one to hold Kate in her arms until the ambulance arrived. She'd been the one to call Kate's husband and take on the terrible task of informing him of his pregnant wife's accident, the baby lost. She'd been the one to make sure that Lucie didn't need the ambulance, helped support her to Sharon's car, waited in the emergency room for hours, and then sent Lucie a huge beautiful bouquet along with a sweet get-well card. Bianca had been nothing but kind, helping every way she could. There was no way she could have done what Sharon thought she did.
And what did Sharon see? She had admitted it was just a suggestion of a movement, seen at a distance. Lucie had spoken frankly to Sharon once Chelsea had left and she had gotten all of the details: whatever it was that Sharon saw, it wasn't that. And that was that. Sharon had conceded, looking so abashed and forlorn that Lucie realized that, although Sharon was brilliant and saw things very clearly usually, when it came to Bianca, Sharon was blind.
Just as Sharon returned to their table, Lucie remembered Bianca's allegation that she was a compulsive liar. It was so bizarre and the night had been so fraught already without the impending battle with Molly that Lucie dismissed it. It had to be what Sharon suggested, another rotten piece of fruit from the office grapevine.
Sharon slid into the booth. "He's still not answering."
"Maybe he went out for dinner? He probably doesn't want to stay home every night?"
"Maybe," Sharon said, nodding, her face creased with concern.
"Don't worry about it. Check on him on your way home."
"I'm going to knock on his door at ten o'clock at night?"
"You don't have to do that. Just check to see if his car's there. Then you'll know he's safe at home and you can call him tomorrow."
Sharon shrugged. "I guess that's the only thing I can do. We've got serious business to take care of here, so Alan will have to just...hopefully have dinner somewhere. I wish I knew he had some friends who didn't practically live in bars. Then I could think he might be with one of them. Oh, well. So, are you ready?"