Lost Along the Way (5 page)

He began to obsess over their own finances the way he monitored his clients', always keeping some kind of mental tabulation of payables and receivables down to the last cent. The man she lived with was not the man she'd thought she was marrying twelve years ago. She wished she'd paid more attention to the warning signs. She wished she'd paid attention to Jane and to her mother when they voiced their concerns. But she hadn't, and unfortunately, it was too late to go back and redo the past, and divorce simply wasn't an option. Even as a child, Cara had never been willing to admit that she'd made a mistake. She was thoughtful, thorough, cautious, and old-fashioned in a lot of ways. She believed in her vows and refused to advertise to people that she couldn't find a way to make her relationship work. She didn't like the thought of ditching her marriage when things got hard—she wasn't a quitter. Her father had quit her mother, and by default, her, when things got hard in her parents' marriage, and she'd sworn she'd never be like him. She wasn't a coward like he was. She'd figure out a way to make it work or die trying. There simply was no other option.

Still, she hated that she'd allowed it to go this far. Jane had seen it from the very beginning.
Why didn't I? Why didn
't anyone
else?
Why didn't I listen to her?,
she asked herself when she lay in bed awake at night, but she hated the answer. Because she'd assumed Jane was pissed she was still single when Cara was on her way to being married. She'd thought everything Jane did back then stemmed from her being jealous, but now things looked different—how Reed had really treated her, what Jane had really seen, and how she'd responded to both of them in return. She spent a lot of time lately thinking back to the first time that the crack in Reed's perfect image showed, the first time his inner control freak surfaced and silenced her, the first time she lashed out at Jane for voicing her concerns. Ironically, it was at their engagement party.

November 2000

“Where is she?” Cara asked Meg as she looked at her watch and wondered for the millionth time why Jane was late. Reed's uncle had been nice enough to throw them an intimate party at his apartment, and instead of enjoying the night with her family and friends, Cara was completely distracted. “The party started at seven o'clock and it's almost nine. What, is my engagement party not important enough for her to show up?”

“She'll be here! I'm sure she's stuck in traffic or something,” Meg said, trying to calm her. “Don't get upset. It's your engagement party. Go mingle and I will make sure she comes right over when she gets here, I promise.”

Just then, the door opened and Jane slid inside. “See, I told you she'd be here,” Meg said as she waved her over.

“I'm so sorry I'm late. I had an audition that ran later than I thought it would and I couldn't find anything to wear and then I completely misjudged how long it would take me to get all the way up here. You look amazing, Cara!” Jane said as she leaned in to wrap her in a hug. Cara immediately felt herself tense because she could smell the booze on Jane's breath. Was she really running late because of an audition? Or was she late because she'd rather stop off at a bar with some of her random roommates than celebrate Cara's engagement with her?

“Were they serving wine at the audition?” Cara asked. She knew she shouldn't be picking a fight with Jane, but she'd reached
her breaking point. Jane's complete lack of interest in the biggest event of Cara's life wasn't something she felt like ignoring anymore. This was as good a time as any to have it out with her.

“Huh?” Jane said. “Why would you ask that? I had a glass or two while I was getting dressed. So what?”

“The ‘so what' is that you're two hours late and you had to have wine to come up here?” Cara asked. If she sounded disapproving and judgmental, it was because she meant to. She didn't think Jane deserved to be let off the hook for her behavior anymore.

“Cara, don't start an argument. She's here; that's all that matters!” Meg said. She looked around to make sure no one could overhear their conversation. “It's your engagement party. Now's not the time to do this!”

“No, Meg. I think now is the perfect time to do this. I'd like an honest answer, Jane. Did you really need to get liquored up to come support your best friend?”

“Yes,” Jane said without hesitation, which surprised both Cara and Meg. “If you expect me to party with you all night and pretend that I'm happy you're going to marry this guy, then I'm going to need some wine. Lots of it, in fact.”

“You're supposed to be one of my best friends.”

“I am your best friend, and that's why I'm telling you the truth. If you're going to call me out for being late and insinuate that it's because I was partying downtown somewhere, then I'll be completely honest with you. I'm sorry I'm late because it's rude, but I'm not sorry that I was spared two hours of watching Reed boss you around. It's hard to stomach.”

“You're shameless, and jealous, and it's sad. I'm moving on with my life, Jane. I'm sorry if that makes you feel abandoned or something, but you don't have to try to rain on my parade.”

Jane laughed out loud, her eyes wide and glassy from the wine. “You think I'm jealous of you? Are you serious? Cara, I swear to God if I die alone an old shrew in a cardboard box downtown, I still will not be jealous of you. How can you say that to me? I only want what's best for you, and I'm telling you this is the worst decision in the world. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to pretend otherwise. I can't do it. I'm not that good an actress.”

“No kidding,” Cara said.

“Now that was just unnecessary,” Jane said, looking legitimately hurt for the first time in a long time.

“I'll never forgive you for this, Jane.”

“I'm sorry you feel that way, and I sincerely hope you get over it. If you're going to stay mad at me because I told you the truth, then our friendship isn't as strong as I thought it was. I thought we were supposed to be honest with each other no matter what.”

“You guys, stop. You're turning this into something much bigger than it needs to be. Let it go. We can talk about it later. Jane, let's go get a glass of champagne,” Meg said.

“I was also telling you the truth when I said you look amazing, Cara,” Jane said as Meg tried in vain to drag her away. If the compliment was supposed to assuage her anger, it didn't.

Cara made her way through the crowd and grabbed Reed's sleeve to separate him from his friends. “Are you having a good time?” Reed asked.

“I was until Jane decided to show up drunk. Do you believe her?” Cara said. “She just waltzes in here almost two hours late and after more than a few cocktails and doesn't seem to think that's a problem? She made up some bullshit story about an audition running late, but the truth is, she's jealous that I'm getting married and she hasn't gone on a date with a guy in months.
Does she think I'm that stupid that I don't see it? She's one of my bridesmaids and she shouldn't be acting like this. What is wrong with her?” Cara's ire was evident, and she was hoping Reed would say something to soothe her.

“Honestly, Cara, the better question is what's wrong with you?”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“I don't know why you even talk to her. She's beneath you. Even if you don't believe that, she's definitely beneath me, and I don't need my wife socializing with deadbeats like her. I don't know why you even invited her.”

“How can you say that? She's one of my closest friends; of course I was going to invite her,” Cara said. She found it odd that two seconds ago she had been ripping Jane apart and now she was defending her, but it was one thing for her to insult her best friend; it was another for Reed to do it.

“No. She
was
one of your closest friends. Now you're going to be a married woman and you need to start realizing that you're a reflection on me. We don't need people like her hanging around. It's inappropriate.”

“Are you kidding? Reed, I really don't think—”

“Enough, Cara!” Reed said forcefully. His eyes darted around the room to make sure no one was listening to their conversation. He never stopped smiling or rubbing the small of her back, as if the two of them were having an intimate moment instead of an argument. “I refuse to spend one more second of this party talking about this. This is not how we are going to act in public. Now, get over it, pull yourself together, and go mingle with our guests. Don't bother me with this stupid stuff again.”

Cara was stunned by what he said, not to mention the way in which he said it, but she didn't want to ruin her own engagement
party by fighting with Reed over anything, especially not Jane. This was supposed to be a night of celebration, and she'd already had an argument with one person; adding Reed to the list didn't seem like a good idea. “You're right,” she said, forcing a smile. “It's our night. I don't know why I care what anyone else is doing.”

“Exactly,” Reed said. He planted a quick kiss on her cheek and ambled over to a group of his friends on the other side of the room as if the entire conversation had never happened. At the time, Cara chalked his mood swing up to nerves and convinced herself that he wasn't entirely wrong. She wasn't going to let Jane's behavior ruin her and Reed's party, so she shrugged it off. It simply wasn't worth making an issue over. If this was how Jane felt about Cara's marriage, then she didn't need to be a big part of Cara's life anymore.

She pushed the memory from her mind and forced herself to focus on the task at hand. She took one last look around her childhood home before she locked up and drove back to her own house, wanting nothing more than to climb into a hot shower and then go to bed. She was hoping that Reed would be working late, so she wouldn't have to talk to him when she arrived home around 5:00, but she found him sitting at the kitchen table with a book and a glass of wine. She wiped her hand across her face to dry her cheeks, but there was no hiding the fact that she'd been crying. Her eyes were burning and swollen and she hadn't slept well in weeks, which wasn't strange considering everything she was going through. What was incredibly strange was that her husband didn't seem to understand her grief. Not only did he not understand it, it actually seemed to bother him immensely.

“What's wrong with you?” Reed asked, as if crying were some
sort of mortal sin that she should repent for instead of a normal human emotion that comes from grieving the loss of her mother, the loss of her marriage, the loss of herself. She wasn't sure which loss was responsible for these particular tears.

“I just need a minute. Today was hard. I put my mother's entire life into boxes and threw them in storage, and the house I grew up in is no longer mine. I shouldn't have to explain to you why I'm upset. Why won't you let me process this my way?” She had been married twelve years, but in retrospect, twenty-five had been too young for her to get married.

“Your sulking isn't helping this marriage any. Your mother died. That's life. Dwelling on it isn't helping you, and it isn't helping me. Don't forget, we have dinner with Cody and Tabitha tonight,” he added, tossing his copy of the
New York Post
on the counter and looking at her as if daring her to say she wasn't going to go. She didn't answer, somehow still stunned by his complete lack of compassion. He grabbed his jacket off the back of the kitchen chair. “I'm going down to the club to work out and take a steam before we go, but I'll come by and pick you up for dinner at eight. Try to pull it together by then. No one wants to spend a night with a weepy woman. Put on some makeup. It will make you feel better.” With that he grabbed his sport coat and exited out the back door, into the driveway that abutted the patio at the back of their house.

The words should've stung. They should've ripped her soul out so that she was wearing it around her neck like a scarf. But they didn't. If she had felt anything for him anymore, his words would've caused her to hide under her duvet for days and come out only for showers and glasses of water so that she didn't dehydrate and die. But she didn't. The only things she felt these days were empty and alone.

That fucking club,
she thought as she watched him back his Jeep out of the driveway. She'd never understand the draw of this men's club, which of course was by design, as women weren't allowed on the premises. It wasn't the fact that the club excluded women that bothered her, it was the fact that it was where men went to get away from them. The only places she could go to get away from Reed were the grocery store or the dry cleaner, and neither of them provided much solace or helped her deal with her problems. Where was she supposed to go?

She ran into the bathroom and closed the door behind her, pushing in the silver button next to the doorknob to lock it. She stared at herself in the mirror, rested her hands on the ledge of the sink, and exhaled deeply enough to make her entire upper body cave in.
What happened to you?
she asked herself.
What the hell happened to you?

When she looked up, she glanced out the window, past the flowers that lined her front walk, past the lamppost with the bulb that burned out weeks ago that she hadn't gotten around to fixing, to the woman standing at the curb in front of her house. Her breath caught and she felt her insides churn in shock as the woman approached her front door. Cara wondered if her eyes were betraying her, or her grief was causing her to conjure ghosts. All she'd been doing lately was thinking about why Jane really pulled away. More important, she'd done a lot of thinking about how she'd not only let her go, but encouraged it, because she knew Reed didn't like her. She suddenly remembered what her mother had said to her, asking her to reconcile with her friends, as if knowing this was going to happen. It was no apparition. For some reason that she couldn't understand, Jane was about to ring her doorbell.