Social Lives (35 page)

Barlow drank again, thinking back on those days, which he could barely remember anymore. God, how he had pursued Rosalyn Eddings. In spite of the inconvenience, the hassles of getting there, finding things to do in a small town, then driving home because she never let him stay over, and yes, in spite of the many women at Harvard who were smart and sophisticated—he had hunted her down. There had just been something about
her.

“Maybe I didn't see it then.”

“Oh. So I lured you in under false pretenses? Think about it. Have I really changed that much?”

The face before him was a mere shadow in the dark cabin, and when he let himself remember, he could see the woman he'd fallen so madly in love with twenty-five years before. The angular jawline, perfect cheekbones and soft hair that fell around them. Her almond eyes that were green like emeralds, and sharp as knives. But that was not all that he was now remembering.

“Maybe you're right,” he said, lost in a revelation. “Maybe you haven't changed. This feeling I have now, like you're untouchable . . . or maybe impenetrable. I used to feel that with you. And then you would let me in, just for the smallest moment, and I would be hooked. Grateful, even.”

Rosalyn listened, not because she had the slightest desire to tolerate his indulgent self-pity, but because she was there now, with him in their past, and it left her startled. And silent.

“I was a nobody from Minnesota,” he continued. “Sure, I was at Harvard. But don't think a day went by when I wasn't reminded by some kid from places like Wilshire that I didn't belong. It's not that tough to stand out in Minnesota. Not a lot of kids from Minnesota set their sights on Harvard.”

His tone became indignant as he reached deeper into wounds that still felt freshly inflicted. “And there you were—the very embodiment of this world I craved. And you wanted
me.
Of all the guys you could have had . . . and the guy you left behind in Wilshire, that guy you always threw in my face. You wanted
me.
I don't think I even cared for one minute who you really were. I couldn't see past the things you represented. You and your family.”

Rosalyn's knuckles had gone white again, her hands clenched around her arms as she fought to contain herself. Was she meant to feel sorry for him? He was talking like this was somehow cathartic, like they were having an honest heart-to-heart conversation where he was finally able to see himself clearly, and wasn't that wonderful? Wasn't that just downright liberating?

“So you're saying our entire marriage, these twenty-five years, have been a lie? That they've been about you trying to prove yourself?” She steadied herself to hold back the rage, and the tears that she would not let him see. “Fuck you.”

Barlow's face was burning as he thought about his wife, and her mother. Wilshire royalty. He was speaking the truth, finally, after all this time. He was trying to be honest now that he could see what existed in the ground that their lives were built upon.

“You know what, darling? Fuck you. You've spent a
lifetime
thinking you were better than I am, with your perfect breeding and your blond hair. But what have you ever done? You were born. You got the best-looking guy in high school to be your boyfriend by sleeping with him. Then you dumped him for a brief moment of liberation before latching on to your next meal ticket. Congratulations.”

Rosalyn got up, turning her back to him. She braced herself against the walls of the plane, fighting to maintain her composure. He had stumbled on something he would never understand, something she had never and would never confide. And still he'd managed to cast a blade right into her heart. “You don't know a goddamned thing about my life. Not one goddamned thing!”

Barlow was up now, standing behind her. “You're wrong,” he said, his voice stifled but defiant. “I know you never loved me. Hell—I don't think you've ever loved anyone.”

Through sheer power of will, Rosalyn pulled herself back. Turning to face him, she looked into his eyes. “If I never loved you, then why did I marry you? Why did I marry some loser from Minnesota when I could have slept my way up the food chain? You had nothing back then.”

Barlow grabbed her arms. He wanted to shake her and shake her until something fell out. No matter what he did or said, it would always be the same. Like beating his head into a brick wall. “I don't know. Why? Tell me why!” he demanded, and this time he wasn't looking for a response. He just needed to say it, to scream it at the top of his lungs.

Feeling the blood rush from her head, Rosalyn sighed. He was wrong. Dead wrong. She had loved him, truly loved him the only way she knew how. He had been her second chance at liberation, her chance to break the legacy of Wilshire wifedom, and all he'd done was bring her right back in. Full circle. He had not been her meal ticket. She had been his. And now,
maybe it wasn't enough that she had really loved him. But it was still the truth, and having him stand there and not know it was close to unbearable.

She was about to push him off her, to retreat to the front of the plane and shut herself down until they landed in Connecticut or got the call from the hospital. But she didn't have to. The call came.

Reaching for the phone that was attached to the plane's inner wall, Rosalyn pulled it out. The question was already in the air when she held the phone to her mouth: “What happened?”

Barlow let go of her arms and stood before her, helplessly waiting. Then he saw the relief wash over her face.

“Thank God. Thank God . . . . Okay . . . we'll call as soon as we land.” She hung up the phone and repeated the message, but Barlow was already smiling from ear to ear. “She's fine! She's really fine. They released her.”

“Released her? She's home?”

Rosalyn nodded. Then, and only then, did it take her over. She drew a breath but could not feel the air reach her lungs. Barlow was before her, his head tilted upward as he swaggered from side to side, giddy with relief. Still, his smile had already faded. She heard his words as he repeated them over and over,
She's okay, she'll be okay.
And these were the same words Rosalyn whispered silently to herself as her body searched for air.

Her fists were clenched and she pushed them against Barlow's chest, forcing him to stand still before her. There was relief—
God
, was there relief. Their daughter was safe. But it was short-lived. This had been a minor miracle. Cait had plowed through two grown deer before swerving to miss the others and crashing into a tree. She could have died. But this was not just an accident. It was an accident that had been waiting to happen, and there were others in line behind this one, waiting, waiting. Cait was all right, but then, she wasn't really, was she?

Rosalyn's fists pounded against her husband, the husband who didn't believe she ever loved him, who thought she was incapable of love. She felt his hands upon hers, holding them in place. She pulled against them, but he was too strong, this man who married her for her social standing and—what else had he said?—her blond hair. Five children and a lifetime later, this had been his revelation. His confession.

The air rushed in again with a sudden gasp, forcing her to feel it, making her dizzy. She stopped struggling against him and laid her head against her
forearms. He was crying, this time with desperation, with helplessness. And it was too much, these feelings that filled the plane and had become inescapable. Was this how Cait had felt last night? Is this what had drawn her into that car and down the driveway, stoned and drunk into the darkness? Rosalyn knew the answer.

“Caitie,” she whispered, her face still pressed into the arms that Barlow had taken and would not release.

“I know,” he said. “I know.”

He let go then, but she didn't move. Instead, her body became limp, falling into him completely as she started to cry. With one hand on her back and the other gently stroking her hair, Barlow held his wife as she wept for their daughter, as they wept together for everything that had gone so wrong. But the tears were impotent against the anguish they held for their little girl, and they began to search for something more powerful. It started with the feel of their bodies against one another, then the touch of Barlow's hand against Rosalyn's face. She leaned into it, resting her head in his strong palm.

He said nothing. He didn't even look at her as he lifted her slight body and carried her back toward the couch. He laid her down, and only then did he dare see her face. There had been so many years of rejection, so much rejection that had come in so many insidious ways, and he expected to see it now. But all he saw was a drowning woman.

Falling down beside her, he grabbed her tear-streaked face and kissed her mouth. Then he felt her move, actually move with him, arms wrapped around his neck, body forming against his. She was kissing him back, and with a kind of sexual hunger he could barely remember.

“Barlow,” she whispered as she pulled away, but that was the last thing she said. Instead, she kissed him harder, tearing at their clothing until she could feel his skin against hers, his body lying over her. He pulled away for a moment, and she searched his eyes. He kissed her gently before resting his head beside hers. She wrapped her legs around his back, closing her eyes as she felt him inside her, as they moved together to chase away the things that had happened, the things they'd said and done. To chase away the pain.

When it was over, they held each other silently for the remainder of the flight until the charges had died down. Until they were back in Wilshire, where their life was waiting for them.

 

 

 

 

 

R
OSALYN HEARD THE FOOTSTEPS
approaching in the snow as she stared at the crash site. She did not turn around. Through the dim moonlight, she could just make out the patches of blood that appeared black against the white, frozen ground, seeping into a giant pool. The car had been towed, the mutilated bodies of the deer removed along with other traces of the accident—scraps of metal and glass. That's what she imagined. Several yards away, the tree stood almost defiantly, without much more than a scrape against its bark, though some of the Christmas lights had broken and fallen around its trunk. But the blood—there was nothing to be done about the blood in the snow until morning, when a bulldozer could be brought in to carve it out of the otherwise pristine covering that had blanketed their property.

“Yuck.” Rosalyn heard Eva Ridley from just behind her now. Then she felt the arm around her shoulders. “Come on. It's cold.”

But Rosalyn didn't budge.

Eva sighed and pulled her mink coat tighter around her. “It is hunting season. Deer are being slaughtered all across the state. They'll get this cleaned up tomorrow.”

Rosalyn nodded but said nothing. They both knew the deer were beside
the point, except to stand as a symbol of the violence that had occurred in the place where they now stood.

“She fell asleep, finally. Barlow's sitting in there with her.”

“Okay,” Rosalyn said. Her friend's arm felt warm around her shivering body, and her voice was deeply comforting. Still, she could not take her eyes off the black pool of blood.

Eva gave her a long moment before pulling her out of her morbid indulgence. “Do you want to hear about it now?” she asked.

Rosalyn turned her head to see Eva's face. Did she want to hear about it, the story that led to this near miss, to her daughter's self-destruction? Was there a choice?

She looked away. “Why the hell not. No time like the present.”

“It was Kyle Conrad. Ditched her for another girl. And the boys—well, I gave them a good talking-to.”

“I know—the pot, the booze. That feels like amateur hour in light of Cait's little adventure. Where was she trying to go? To find Kyle?” For all her wisdom and savvy when it came to teenagers, she could not put this piece into place. “I get that she was pissed. Heartbroken. Whatever. And maybe she thought getting high would make her forget. Numb her somehow. But . . .” Rosalyn broke away, turning her back to the black pool and her face to Eva. “Why didn't she call her friends, plot revenge, obsess about other guys she could get? Isn't that what we did?”

Eva smiled. “Is that how you remember things?”

Rosalyn looked down and kicked up a scraping of snow. “Oh, you are such a bitch.”

But Eva didn't hesitate. “And proud of it. I am also your memory at times like this. Times when you conveniently forget.”

Rosalyn folded her arms and looked up at the night sky.

Eva watched Rosalyn. “Do you honestly not remember?”

Rosalyn looked back from the sky to her friend with a scowl. “I remember you with your perfect boyfriend who bought you diamonds and didn't expect more than your tongue in his mouth once in a while.”