Crooked Little Lies (9 page)

7

J
eff came back to the warehouse after lunch on Tuesday, looking grim. He’d met with a vendor, he said when Lauren asked, and they’d had words. And then he left her, going into his office, closing the door. Not a slam exactly but hard enough that she knew it would be unwise to follow him. He wouldn’t welcome her intrusion, her commiseration. He was in one of his moods. Shutting her out. It made her furious and anxious in equal parts.

She went into the showroom, where she’d been cataloguing a collection of Depression glass, but she couldn’t focus. She thought of calling Tara, but since Sunday, she’d left a half-dozen unreturned texts and equally as many messages. Still, she reached for her phone and dialed Tara’s number. “Why don’t you call me back?” she said to her sister’s voice mail.

A while later, she left without telling Jeff she was going. Let him hunt for her, she thought. Let him wonder. But her exit was spoiled when her car wouldn’t start. Maybe it was a blessing. At least it forced them to be together, forced his attention.

He opened the hood and jiggled a few things. He asked her to try it again, to no avail. Eventually, they called a tow truck, and once the Navigator was loaded and gone, she shouldered her purse and followed him, feeling the distance between them widen with every step. Not so long ago, she could have mapped the territory of his emotions the way she could number his ribs or chart the architecture of his shoulder blades, but it was harder now, and the fact that he was no longer as easily accessible grieved her.

Jeff got into the truck and looked over to where she stood, holding the passenger-side door open. “Are you getting in?”

She boosted herself into the cab, slamming the door, meeting his gaze. “What?” she said.

He gave his head a slight shake. “Nothing,” he answered.

Liar
, she thought, turning away from him, mind running loose on its circuit of worry. Then quickly, she looked back at him. “It isn’t a vendor you’re angry at, is it?”

“Huh?” He kept his eye on the road.

“I can’t see how a vendor could piss you off this much, so it must be me. Something I’ve done. What is it?”

“I don’t think I said it was a vendor, did I?”

“Yes, that is what you said.”

“Well, I meant to say contractor. It was Wick Matson, and I didn’t want to tell you—”

“Because we owe him a lot of money.” Lauren was guessing, but it only made sense, given that Matson National Equipment provided Wilder and Tate with the heavy machinery they used for demolition. But even knowing the source for Jeff’s anxiety, that it wasn’t about her finding the Oxy after all, didn’t give her much relief.

“It’ll be all right.”

“You don’t need to protect me.”

“I’m not.” The streetlight made a haggard puzzle of his face. “You need time, is all, and I’m trying to give it to you.”

“This is about the bank, isn’t it? I’m back to square one in your mind, because I forgot we opened the account.” Why had she told him? But what did that make her, if she didn’t let him see how handicapped she might be—was. Still. For who knew how long? What if she never recovered all of her wits? She looked out the window, fighting tears, damned if she’d cry.

They passed several miles in silence.

She broke it. “Sell the farm. I don’t care. I just want us out of this mess.”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s not the best idea. Like I said before, I don’t know when I can get back out there. Neither does Tara. We talked about hiring someone to finish the job.”

“What happened? I mean, I know you got into it about the money, but what did she say? I’m guessing Greg overheard and neither one of them liked your advice, right?”

Jeff made a sound, something derisive. He fiddled with the radio, turning it on and off.

“I told you, didn’t I, that Greg does that day-trading thing? He’ll probably offer to invest for her.” Lauren’s pulse tapped lightly in her ears. There was no
probably
. Tara was already investing with Greg. Lauren knew because he had told her last August over coffee at a café where they often went—after a meeting. So this particular secret, unlike his other one, wasn’t covered by the pledge of confidentiality. Lauren was free to say whatever she liked about it, which was nothing.

“Well, that’s a sucker bet, a fast way to lose everything. She better run like hell.”

Lauren picked at her thumbnail. Too late now, she thought. Greg already had his hands on some of Tara’s savings. Not all of it.

He had told Lauren on that August night, nearly bragging, that he wouldn’t let Tara take out
all
of her savings.

Lauren was shocked. “How could you take anything from her?” she demanded. “What if you lose it?”

“I know what I’m doing,” Greg countered.

“You need to give it back,” Lauren said. “Now.” She pressed her fingertips to her temples. “God! This is such a mess, all the things I know about you and now this.”

“You won’t tell her I told you, will you? About the money, I mean.”

“I don’t know, Greg. What you’re doing isn’t safe, and she can’t afford to lose anything.”

“Look, I’m sorry. I’d never hurt her for the world. You know how much I care about her, and you, and Jeff and your kids. You guys are like family to me.”

The note of pleading in his voice made her heart ache.

By then, she’d known his background, that he’d been taken away from his parents, both addicts, who had neglected him so severely CPS became involved. From the age of six, he had been bounced from one foster home to another. At meetings, he often spoke about the yearning he had inside to belong to a family, one that would love him and that he could love in return. Lauren knew what he meant; she knew his hunger and need were bone deep.

She had sympathized with Greg that hot summer night. His pain was so like her own. But she also knew enough about addiction and its hold on the addicts who were possessed by it to be afraid. Addicts could slip; they could pick up their old ways and, out of desperation, commit unspeakable acts, and it wouldn’t be only money that was on the line then, but someone’s life. In this case, Tara’s life. Or Lauren’s, or Jeff’s, and the children’s lives could be at risk.

She didn’t know what to do about Greg and his secrets, and since finding them out, she had avoided him. And it was confusing, because her doubts aside, she missed him. Greg was a good and loyal friend to her. The only friend to stand with her in this place, this lonely, foreign, ex-addiction place, where no one but another ex-addict could or would want to be. It was just one more in a numberless line of losses, all of them lying behind her like a row of crooked stitches.

A group of boys, Drew among them, was shooting hoops in their driveway when she and Jeff got home. Jeff parked at the curb, turned off the ignition. “We could order pizza for dinner.” He didn’t look at her.

“I was thinking the same thing,” she said, when truthfully, she hadn’t thought about dinner at all. “I have a meeting.” She wasn’t sure where that came from, either. She hadn’t planned to go to a meeting.

“Again? Weren’t you just at one a few days ago? Thursday, wasn’t it?”

“I should attend at least two a week. I thought you wanted me involved.”

“It takes up a lot of your time, is all.” He glanced at her, and she saw something in his eyes, frustration, disappointment. Some pained mix of emotions that she couldn’t bear.

“I found some Oxy tabs over the weekend in the study in a stack of old catalogues. I don’t know how they got there.” The words were gone before she could stop them, but she owed them to him. Owed him the truth.

His eyes widened. So much she could see flashes of white. His astonishment was palpable, and her heart fell against the wall of her chest. He hadn’t known. She almost groaned aloud. Why hadn’t she kept her mouth shut?

“What did you do with them?”

“I flushed them, Jeff, I swear. And I promise you, I have no clue how they got into our house, much less the study.” She felt his stare, his disbelief. She said, “Gloria says I could have hidden them at some point. People at meetings have talked about it, how they’ll find stuff they were using, booze or drugs or whatever, ages after they quit.”

“I searched the house, though. I look through those catalogues all the time. Why didn’t I find them?”

“They were pretty far down in the stack.”

“How can you not remember hiding them?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because of the head injury? I did have a dream Friday night that was—Oh, God, I sound so crazy.”

“You didn’t take them?”

“No. I wouldn’t do that to you.” Of course, she had done it to him, countless times.

“Maybe Gloria’s right. It makes sense, I guess. But, Jesus, it makes me want to search the house all over again. It scares the shit out of me that the kids’ll find it.” Jeff took the keys from the ignition.

Lauren wiped shaky hands over her face.

Jeff got out of the truck, saying he would phone in the order for pizza.

Drew shouted at them, and the other guys called out greetings when they walked up the drive. Jeff lingered, horsing around with them, but Lauren only waved and went into the house, needing space, knowing Jeff needed it, too. Setting her purse down on the countertop, she gripped the sink’s edge. Whoever said confession was good for the soul didn’t know what they were talking about. She didn’t feel one damn bit better. And Jeff was more suspicious and worried about her now than ever.

She blinked up at the ceiling. How she wished she could redo it, all of it, going back to the day she’d volunteered to climb into the church bell tower. She might have screamed from frustration if she hadn’t heard Kenzie coming down the stairs. Lauren shook herself slightly, and turning, picked up the mail, smiling when Kenzie appeared, dressed in her black leotard, pink tights, and pink ballet slippers, twirling a series of piqué turns across the floor.

So like a tiny fairy, Lauren thought, heart bursting. “How was your lesson?” she asked.

“Okay.” Kenzie boosted herself onto a stool next to Lauren.

“You practiced in your toe shoes?” Lauren tucked loose strands of hair from Kenzie’s ponytail behind her ear.

She nodded, not smiling. She didn’t smile a lot since getting braces, and when she did, she covered her mouth. Lauren deplored it; she was nearly as anxious as Kenzie for the ordeal to be over.

“It was hard, I bet,” Lauren said. Miss Madden, Kenzie’s dance instructor, had warned Lauren privately that the transition from demi pointe to pointe would be more difficult than Kenzie realized. Few students were prepared for the amount of work that was involved, never mind the pain that was also part of it. Only the girls who were serious bothered to persist. Lauren thought it was Miss Madden’s way of culling the students who lacked the necessary passion and discipline.

“It was awful, Mommy. I fell.” Kenzie admitted this in a small voice that cracked with humiliation.

“Oh, honey.” Lauren put her arm across Kenzie’s narrow shoulders, pulling her tight against her side. “You aren’t the first, you know?”

“That’s what Miss Madden said. Even Jodie told me she fell, too, when she first got her toe shoes.”

“Well, there, you see?” Lauren jostled Kenzie a bit. “And just look where she is now.”

Jodie was Miss Madden’s star pupil, a senior in high school who had recently landed a scholarship to Juilliard.

“She’s so nice,” Kenzie said. “She told me if I want to, she’ll work with me after class sometimes. I said I would ask you.”

“Can we talk about it later? Daddy ordered pizza, and we need to make a salad.”

The four of them sat down when the pizza came.

“I found a great deal on a four-wheeler on Craigslist,” Drew said, stuffing half of his pizza slice into his mouth.

“What makes you think you’re getting a four-wheeler, champ?” Jeff asked.

“I’ve got money saved.”

“He thinks if he gets it, he can ride it at the farm,” Kenzie said. “I told him you’re selling the farm, but he didn’t believe me.”

“Yeah, dummy, because Aunt Tara said—”

“You talked to Tara?” Lauren asked.

“Not lately,” Drew said.

“Well, you’re not getting a four-wheeler, bro,” Jeff said.

“Have you talked to her since you got back?” Lauren addressed Jeff.

He shook his head, chewed his pizza, drank his Miller Lite.

Watching him, Lauren was seized with fresh doubt. It wrote itself into the crevices of her mind, as dark and indelible as the blackest ink. They were talking, Jeff and Tara, behind her back. Lauren would bet the month’s grocery money on it.

Get off the dope or lose your kids.

Wasn’t that the ultimatum they’d given her?

It’s for your own good
.

How many times had Tara said that?

It’s because I love you and them
, she had insisted.

Lauren put aside her napkin. Even though she’d been off drugs almost a year, they were still treating her like she was some kind of lawbreaker, and entering a treatment facility and attending 12-step meetings were conditions of her parole.

“You know, you and Tara were never such huge friends before I cracked myself up,” Lauren said, and she was staring at Jeff. Staring hard at him. She had a sense of the children, frozen in her peripheral vision, but she couldn’t stop herself, couldn’t break her glance.

“What are you talking about? Before what?” He looked perplexed.

Genuinely so.

Was it an act? Lauren held his gaze, trying to decide. But it was impossible, and she left the table, feeling his eyes, and Drew’s and Kenzie’s eyes, following her. Feeling trapped and as helpless as a beetle tipped onto its back, legs fruitlessly clawing the air. She heard noise, a kind of buzzing. It seemed to originate in her brain, and she touched her ears with her fingertips. Was this insanity? Could a person know the exact moment she lost her mind? She thought again of Dr. Bettinger’s warning that she might continue to suffer from any number of symptoms as the result of her fall.

Or she might not.

“It depends,” he’d said.

Depends
. He used the word a lot. It wasn’t helpful.