Social Lives (8 page)

“Cait?” Amanda was watching her as well, wondering where she'd gone.

“Is he staring again?” Cait asked, looking up to meet her friend's eyes.

Amanda leaned back nonchalantly and did a wide perusal of the cafeteria. “He was, but not now. He's getting up with his tray.”

Cait nodded and took another sip of her diet soda. “And the others?”

Amanda gave her a disapproving look, then leaned forward to accentuate the point. “Screw the others, okay? They used to be your friends, and now they're gonna judge you? What—just because it wasn't Billy in the hallway?” She leaned back and shook her head with disgust. “Hypocrites. I mean, come on!
As if.
”

“You're right. Sorry. It's just a little weird being back.”

“It'll pass. Besides, you're kinda famous now.”

She was kidding, of course, but it still made Cait nearly gag on her soda. Popular had been good. Popular had felt like someone had stopped throwing dirt on her coffin and instead lifted it from the ground, pried it open, and let her out. She'd been washed in sunlight, finally noticed by the world. But today was more like a laser beam cutting her in two. If only she hadn't been caught.

Amanda's face changed suddenly, and Cait turned to follow where her eyes had gone. Kyle Conrad was walking to their table.

Cait felt her cheeks flush as she looked back to the table. It was a high, as good as any she could ever imagine. She could feel him standing behind her, and it took all her will not to turn around and acknowledge him.

“Hello, girls,” he said. At sixteen, he had a deep, commanding voice that carried just enough indifference to make any audience stop and take notice.

Cait felt his hand resting on her shoulder, and she could tell from her friend's expression that he was also looking down at her.

“Hello,” Amanda said, failing miserably to hide her jealousy.

With his hand still upon her, Kyle sat down beside Cait. It was then that she allowed herself to look at him. Her mind—no, her entire being—was rapt with a bittersweet longing that left room for nothing else.

“Hi,” she managed to say along with a smile.

Kyle smiled back, then looked down at the BlackBerry he held in his hands. “So, listen. I'm sorry about all the trouble. Has it totally sucked?”

“Not too bad. I can deal,” Cait answered, though Kyle's concern was somewhat undermined by the fact that he was now checking his messages. And that he had missed entirely the irony of the word he'd used to describe her situation.

With his fingers clicking at the speed of light, he nodded and said “Good” before finishing his texting.

Amanda and Cait waited in silence.

Finally, he looked up again. “So, I'll see you both this weekend?”

“Absolutely,” Amanda answered.

Cait nodded as well, though she had no idea what he was talking about, or how she would manage to be anywhere when she was still grounded.

“Good.” He got up then to leave, and Cait prepared herself for the pain that was coming. Could this be the most dreadful misery known to mankind? She was nerve-racked when he was near her. Despairing when he was gone. All that saved her was the hope that one day, she might finally have him. It was sheer insanity, and she was powerless to cure it.

“See ya.” His parting words were delivered with a smile, then a slight brush of Cait's hair the way he'd done in the hallway that night. It was a small gesture, but there was no doubt she would spend the rest of the day (week?) analyzing it, reliving it, and breathing into it more significance than it could ever deserve. Each morning, she would trace the path of his day—the classrooms and hallways and lunch breaks. She had memorized his schedule, knew when he would pass certain places within the school or on the grounds, and she would be sure to be there, watching, waiting. Hoping. The blissful misery of infatuation.

“Cait . . .” It was Amanda, again breaking her train of thought. “Why did you tell Kyle you'd be there this weekend?”

Cait shook her head. “I don't know. I didn't even know what he was talking about.”

Amanda let out an exasperated gasp. “He's having a party at his house—while
your
parents are having their big party! Your house will be swarming with help. You can't possibly go!” Her voice was deadly serious, as though Cait had done something unthinkable.

Inside, Cait felt like dying. “Who's gonna be there?”

“Only a few of us. And now Kyle's expecting
you
.” She raised an eyebrow, as if Cait couldn't connect the dots on her own. As if she didn't know
that if she failed to finish what she'd started, he would find someone who would. The thought of it made her nauseated.

“Maybe I can get out in the middle of the party. Can I get a ride?”

Amanda gave this serious thought as she rubbed her chin. “I guess. I can ask my brother.”

“Really?” Cait said, her voice replete with desperation.

And though it was completely contrary to her own self-interest, Amanda found herself making the promise. “Really. Text me when you get to the end of your driveway.”

Relief set in as Cait muttered the words, “I will!”

Suddenly, life became about one thing—getting to the end of that driveway Saturday night. As she got up from the table with her empty can of soda, her back to the small group of friends from her recent past, she felt lifted by the emergence of this new purpose, and the rescue of hope it afforded her.

 

 

 

 

 

N
INE FIFTEEN
. A
SSUMING NO
traffic, which was assuming a lot, Jacks was still counting on an hour's drive. Sitting behind a school bus trying to make a left-hand turn on the most traveled street in Wilshire, she could feel the steady flow of adrenaline like a perfectly calibrated IV drip. She wasn't panicked—not yet. But the blood was flowing. The bus turned and she sped past it, along South Avenue to the Parkway ramp. The cars were moving.
Thank God.
She pressed her foot to the floor and felt her Mercedes take flight.

The night had been long, restless, maybe even entirely sleepless, though she couldn't recall one way or another. She had been in the bed, heart pounding, mind racing, and there had certainly been moments of delusion. None of this mattered. She'd copied everything she could think of. The mortgage papers, the 401(k) reports, credit card bills, bank statements. She'd downloaded their budget and investment schedule from the Excel file on the family computer, then printed it out. For hours, she'd gone over it all—the financial landscape of the Halstead family—and the numbers were still playing before her eyes.

As she passed the last exit for Wilshire, the stream of traffic thinned, leaving only those on the road who were heading north toward the grayer
parts of Connecticut. With her Starbucks cup in one hand and her eyes glued to the road, she put the pedal to the metal again.

Where had it all gone? David had told her the equity in the house was down because of the money they'd spent on the addition. He'd complained about the drop in the housing market, and Jacks had bought it. What did she know about these things? Now, nothing he'd told her made sense. They had borrowed nearly two million dollars with the home equity loan, yet the contractor's bills Jacks dug up totaled less than one million. They were covering that loan with a mortgage payment that had jumped from $50,000 a year to $170,000. And the checkbook for the account was missing. It was the same everywhere she looked. The 401(k) had been divested in large chunks over the past several months, their private equity investments sold, all at a loss.

She had their budget down cold in her head, partly because it had shocked her, and mostly because she was moving that much closer to believing the life they had was ending. They would never make it with what was left. Home maintenance, yard, pool—that alone topped fifty thousand. The maid was another fifty. The nanny was seventy. Car payments, sixty. Private clubs, another sixty. Private school for three girls, eighty-five. Donations to the same schools, another hundred. Dance, piano, squash, riding: thirty thousand. Then there were the gifts, parties, clothes, trips. Another eighty. Now add in the utilities, gas, oil, cable, and phones: sixty thousand. They had a seven-thousand-square-foot house to heat and cool. The list went on. Medical expenses, therapists. The Christmas season, with the endless array of presents and gatherings. And, last but not least, taxes.

They could pare down. Of course they could. Jacks had a mental checklist of all the things that would go first. But at the end of the night, after the mind-bending analysis of their financial reality had taken her into the little cracks and crevasses of their existence, the larger picture emerged. Living on a smaller income didn't alarm her. Nor did the vanishing equity and 401(k). Those things could be rebuilt over time. It was what they said together that had Jacks racing north for the slums of Connecticut.

It took forty minutes to reach the exit. She turned off the Parkway and drove to the end of the ramp. As she waited for the light to change, she exhaled for what felt like the first time all morning. With the car stopped, she allowed herself to take in the dismal surroundings. Dull, gray concrete littered with debris,
cracked sidewalks, dilapidated brick town houses with rusty metal railings and clothes hanging from lines out back. The only foliage was the occasional weed that no one bothered to pull or spray, as though it would make a difference. The accumulated neglect lent itself to more neglect. What could one person possibly do to hold back the tide that swept through cities like this one? It was a plight Jacks knew well, having grown up in places so similar, she felt a wave of remembrance every time she came here. They had their own feel, their own smell—gas fumes, garbage. It was the smell of rot. The feel of hopelessness, the acute kind that makes a person want to flee, and if that proved impossible, then to find another avenue of escape. Alcohol. Drugs. And, if one were lucky, a man like David Halstead.

The light turned, and she went through it, one hand on the wheel and the other curled up over her mouth as though she could hold back the air that was trying to get inside her. She had made it out, for seventeen years she'd been on a kind of parole, a furlough, and the thought of returning for good was as impossible as anything she could imagine for herself, let alone the children. She drove two blocks, made a turn. Another three blocks, another turn, her mind seeing documents and numbers as she drove. She knew the way by heart. By feel. She'd been going there for over twenty years.

As she pulled up to the house, she felt strangely relieved. Even with the state of things, the peeling paint, the unruly patch of grass littered with plastic balls that were faded from the sun and blackened with mildew after a rainy month. Nothing had been done to this house for years, nothing could. Her sister was so damned stubborn.

She drove around back and parked next to an old Ford station wagon. She gathered the papers from the front seat, grabbed her purse, and headed for the back door.

“Kel?” she called in through the screened window, pressing her face closer to see inside. The kitchen was dark, even through the morning hours, shaded by the other units that crowded around.

She heard the footsteps, then the familiar voice. “Coming, Jacks—hold on a sec. . . .”

When Kelly Moore finally appeared through the doorway, she was in her usual state of controlled chaos. Still dressed in a beige Holiday Inn uniform, her name tag slightly askew as it hung from her chest, she was pulling a long drag from a cigarette with one hand and steadying a cup of coffee with the
other. A broad smile came across her face as she opened the door and saw her sister.

“Hey, baby girl,” she said, throwing her arms around Jacks. “You okay?”

Jacks squeezed her back as the competing forces of her own need and profound guilt tugged at her emotions. With everything that she had, it seemed entirely wrong to have turned here—of all places—for help. Still, it was the only family she had left, and she found herself letting go.

“Shhh . . . it's okay,” Kelly said as her sister cried in her arms.

“Come sit down. Did you bring the papers?”

That had always been her sister's way, to focus on the task at hand, worry about one thing at a time. It was how she had survived their childhood, and the many mistakes she'd made since then, including the reckless behavior that had produced two children over the years.

“I have them.” Jacks wiped her face and followed Kelly to the metal table set up next to the window in the small family room. Having only two rooms on the first floor, Kelly had struggled to transform the space to serve as a dining room as well, and a place for her kids to do their homework. There were crates with school supplies set up against one wall, and a large bulletin board with a chore wheel. Tirelessly, she had done her best to make the home tolerable—torn out the old carpet and wallpaper, sanded the floors, painted the walls and sewn window treatments. It was tidy, orderly. She ran a tight ship for those kids. All that with two jobs—hotel clerk for the benefits, nanny in a neighboring, more affluent town for money. There wasn't a moment in her life that Kelly Moore didn't devote to her children. Still, the problems came, which was exactly what had Jacks sitting here now.