Family Dynamics (Pam of Babylon Book Five) (13 page)

Natalie Borg opened the door to her apartment and quickly shut it, locking it and putting up the chain. She let out a long, harsh breath. Unexpectedly, the afternoon had turned into a battle of emotions for her. Sitting across the dining table in Ted’s immaculate apartment from Beverly Phillips with her blond good looks initiated a downward spiral of self-deprecation that led to a physical response. She almost didn’t make it through the meal without crying. She’d given up a baby when she was in her twenties and had spent the next twenty years pretending that it didn’t bother her, that she didn’t care. She never told anyone that every time a news item about an abused child came on the air, she wondered, heartsick, if it was her child. And when she was unable to find anyone to spend her life with, the realization that the child she gave up for adoption was it, was the only one she’d have, a severe depression engulfed her. It was so bleak that she was almost unable to do her job and received her first warning from the university. It was like black dust, almost thick enough to block air and sunlight. Slowly, her senses were dulled until the only thing she could feel was the satisfaction of food being stuffed into her mouth and swallowed.

Deborah wanting to meet her and having spent the time and effort to seek her out should have wiped away all of her guilt and doubts, but it only made her sadder. Who was this young woman? Did she have the energy to get to know her? Did those same qualities that allowed Natalie to give her infant up for adoption to strangers also make it possible for her to resist building a relationship with her now? Why in God’s name did she have to face it? She wanted to draw the blinds in her childhood home and pretend that nothing mattered but going to her silly Parks and Recreation summer job to show poor children how the natives made their crafts. She thought the woven mats and feathered headdresses she created were something white people had conjured up to trivialize the life of the first people in the country. It made her sick now, thinking she’d have just Sunday alone, and then what would the rest of the summer bring?

Natalie’s phone rang, and she went to see who it was. Deborah Phillips popped up on the caller ID. She was obeying Natalie, calling to tell her she arrived home safely.

“Mother,” she said, “I’m home. We’re hungry already, so I’m going to make sandwiches. What are you doing?” Natalie took the phone to an easy chair in front of the window that looked out on Broadway. The buildings were in shadow, the sun beginning to set to the west. The scene always made her smile, for some reason.

“Hi, dear, sandwiches sound good. I guess I need to get ready for my little craft project for Monday.” It sounded so lame that she was almost embarrassed.

“Why don’t you come into Hoboken tomorrow? I can meet you at the train. They have lobster claws at City Hall Bakery on Sunday, but we have to get there before noon. They are so amazing. The pastry is crispy, and the filling is this delicious cream, like a cross between whipped cream and pudding. I have no idea what it is. And there’s a great used bookstore down the street from Zach’s apartment,” she said, stopping to take a breath.

Natalie had been all set to take the phone off the hook, close the shades, and be incognito for Sunday. But she was a mother now, and mothers didn’t normally get to do such selfish things. They had to be available for their children when they called, and hers had just called.

Chapter 16

D
an Chua pulled his car in front of Pam’s beach house.

“You don’t have to get out, Dan. I’ll run in, make my calls, and meet you at the gym in an hour and a half. Is it a date?” He nodded at her and smiled his crooked smile. His teeth were perfect except that the two to the right of his eye-tooth were slightly overlapped. It gave his grin an authentic, personal quality, like he smiled only for her. It sent another shiver down her spine.

“It’s a date,” he said. “Hurry up!”

She got out and bent down to look in the window. “Thanks for breakfast, by the way. I’ll see you soon!” She waved a silly, immature, flirtatious wave. He caught on and gave her another smile and an open-mouth laugh.
Oh, God, he’s going to be hard to resist
, she thought. And then,
What about Dave?
She just couldn’t see him tonight. They’d gone dancing almost every Saturday night for the past nine months. What could she say to him that wouldn’t make him angry? She was so nervous about him spilling the beans about having her AIDS all over Babylon.

But then the realization hit her; she didn’t use him as she was condemning herself for. They’d been companions and not much more. She paid for his air fare and hotel room when they went to Pasadena, or he stayed in a separate bedroom if she rented a house. She never made a promise to him of exclusivity, nor did he to her. They weren’t intimate; although there had been a time she thought they might be moving toward it. The truth was that she made excuses not to sleep with him. She maintained that they needed to be married, or at least considering it, but she knew all along she would never marry him. She didn’t like the way he treated other people. He wasn’t interested in anyone else, and that made him uninteresting. They shared a love of good food, and he sure knew his vegetables, but he didn’t have a thing to say when he was with her kids—and in a crowd, forget it. He treated her friend, Jeff like a leper, and hated her relationship with him. It just boiled down to the fact that they were from different places in their lives. She’d been a wife and a mother, and he’d had only himself to worry about all his life. Dave’s poor ex-wife seemed like a really genuine person, yet he talked about her like she was a dog. In contrast, Pam had tried to remain loyal to Jack and not speak ill of him for the sake of their children.

“Why do you keep trying to protect him?” Dave had asked when Pam once again refused to say anything to him about how Jack had contracted AIDS. They’d barely been home from Pasadena for twenty-four hours when he started in again. “It’s clear he was unfaithful to you. How else did he get it?” That day Pam was disturbed by the conversation more because of where it was taking place—on the beautiful veranda that Jack had built—than because of its content, which was becoming an ongoing drama of Dave digging for information about her marriage.

“Dave, I’m not trying to protect Jack. I just don’t want to talk about him with you. He’s the father of my children. Isn’t that enough?”

“I don’t see them trying to protect him,” Dave countered. “Do yourself a favor and come clean so you won’t have any more regrets. Everyone knows Jack was a liar.”

Pam turned to him. “Who’s everyone, Dave? I’ve never heard a bad word uttered about him. As a matter of fact, I never have had a conversation like this before. It’s none of your business how Jack got AIDS. Why does it matter so much to you? The only regret I have right now is telling you I have the disease. I guess my trust was misplaced.” She didn’t add “once again.” She looked at him, at his profile in the soft light of dusk, and wondered when it had happened. When did their relationship switch from one filled with anticipation of the next best thing to almost open hostility? She felt like she was on the defense, trying not to expose too much about her life married to an infidel while at the same time placating Dave, giving him enough information to satisfy his curiosity about her marriage. And then the thought hit her:
Had he questioned the children about their father?

“Well, we’ve talked in a circle again,” he said with that smirk on his face. He’d remember later that Pam let him have the last word, to his detriment. He wished she’d argued with him, made him see how ridiculous he was being.

After two days of fun with Dan Chua, Pam thought,
Forget it! Forget Dave
. She called Jeff after she made the calls to her kids and gave him the brief version of the past two days.

“Oh, he sounds wonderful,” Jeff said. “What are you going to do about Grocery Boy?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t know how to avoid seeing him tonight. I don’t want to!” She was pacing through the house, looking at the sunlight-dappled waves and the people on the beach, and then back to the coolness of her beautiful bedroom, where she stretched out on the chaise lounge.

“You didn’t have girlfriends to tell you what you refused to see about Jack. Well, I’m here to tell you to ditch Dave the Grocery Boy. He’s a bore, he dresses badly, and he’s not good enough for you,” Jeff said. Pam thought Jeff was right about the first thing: She chose isolation so she could live in denial. It’s pretty difficult to have a husband who screws around town if you have girlfriends watching your back. She wondered what it was about her that not only resisted girlfriends; she had avoided having them at all since childhood. She had her sisters to play with when she was young, so that eliminated the need to get together with girls from school. Who knew what the underlying reasons were? She hated gossip; maybe that was why. Once when she was about ten, she discovered a group of her classmates talking about her clothes, how she wore the same dresses over and over. It was hurtful. She was careful about who she sought out for friendship after that. Could a childish schoolgirl experience really determine how an adult would carry out her life? It appeared so.

“That’s all well and good,” she said, responding to Jeff’s critique of Dave. “But it doesn’t answer how I’m going to get out of seeing him tonight.”

“Be honest,” Jeff replied. “You don’t have to tell him you’re going to work out with a hot attorney and want to be free if he asks to see you later in the day. Just tell him you don’t want to dance tonight. If he presses, say you don’t want to see him tonight. You can do it nicely; you think you might need some space is always a good excuse.” Jeff thought he may have used that excuse with Marie when he was attempting to lure her into being his beard, but he didn’t say it out loud. He felt guilty now about not being honest with Marie at first.
Poor thing
, he thought. Marie didn’t stand a chance with the baggage she had.

“I know you’re right. I should have ended it before now, but I was getting so comfortable having someone there for me, even superficially.” She said goodbye to Jeff and, looking at the clock, determined she had just enough time to call Dave and tell him she was not going dancing.

“Oh!” he said, surprised she was canceling. “What’s going on?” Pam took a deep breath, thinking,
Well, it’s now or never
.

“After our last conversation about Jack, I almost think it would be better if we didn’t see each other so much,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut, waiting for the barrage that was sure to follow. She didn’t mean to use Jack as an excuse, but it was all she could think of.

Dave was restraining himself; in the middle of a busy Saturday crowd in June in the store was not the best place to tell anyone off. “You’re still protecting him,” Dave said with a sarcastic edge to his voice that he was unable to control.

“Maybe I am,” she said. “And if that’s the case, all the better reason to be rid of me.” With that, she hung up on him. If he talked about her personal life to others,
Oh, well
, she decided. Pulling her clothes off, she chose the nicest of her workout wear to meet Dan in at the gym. It was an old, unsatisfied wish she had, working out with Jack. He’d come in to use the treadmill but would ignore her if she was there. She wished she’d questioned him about it. Didn’t he want the people at the gym to know they were together? They’d lived in Babylon for years, and he coached the children’s sporting teams. Did he really think he’d get away with anonymity? Dave fulfilled another wish she had: of wandering through the garden centers like other couples did, planning what projects they would do in their yards. But it wasn’t the two of them planning anything together. She’d tried to be satisfied with a superficial solution to a deeper need. She wanted intimacy but was afraid of it. Could it be that she was growing healthier and not willing to settle for a relationship that wasn’t real? She grabbed her purse and went out to her car. The anticipation of working out with Dan was giving her a big case of jitters. But when she arrived at the gym parking lot and pulled down the visor to look in the mirror, she was smiling.