The Things We Wish Were True (10 page)

ZELL

Zell watched as James handed Cailey her trophy for winning the pie-eating contest. (She didn’t know why they called it a pie-eating contest, as the kids weren’t really eating pies—they were eating Little Debbie Snack Cakes. But that’s what it had been called for as long as she could remember. And who was she to call attention to it?) She’d been surprised by Cailey’s fierceness, the way she tore into those little cakes one after the other, her body hunkered over the plate, her intensity visible.

James gave Cailey a hug that went on a second too long, if you asked Zell—not so much that anyone would notice it, but enough that Zell felt her guard go up. She’d known James since his family had moved in. He’d been attending college then, coming and going like young men do, not really connected to his family or the neighborhood. But in his senior year of college, his father had suddenly dropped dead. James had quit school and come home to assume his role as man of the house: earning a living, mowing the grass, and chasing after his mentally delayed brother, Jesse, when he got loose. Living across the street from the Doyles, Zell could attest to the orderly way James kept up the house, to his comings and goings from whatever job he held, and the way he cared for both his mother (who had dementia and was little more than a shell of a woman anymore) and Jesse. She was sure it wasn’t an easy life for him, and she did feel sorry for him at times. But . . .

One time she caught him outside her daughter Melanie’s window trying to look in. At first she thought her eyes were playing tricks on her, and she stood and watched for just a moment, wondering what was happening. It took her mind a second to catch up, to register that she was witnessing a Peeping Tom in action. She hollered out his name, “James!” and he turned toward her voice with a look of horror and guilt on his face. “What are you doing?”

She marched over to him. He began backing away, and before she could get to him, he broke out in a run. She hollered at his retreating figure, disappearing in the gathering dark. “I better not catch you around here again!” She’d stood there for a moment, listening to her heart pounding as she caught her breath enough to go back inside. She watched as a light went on in the Doyles’ house, signifying James’s successful escape.

The next day, after double-checking the locks on Melanie’s window, she went outside to see if he’d left footprints, debating whether she should call the police and report him. It was in looking for the footprints that she saw a soccer ball, and remembered that Jesse had been in the front yard kicking a soccer ball as far as it could go just before she found James by the window. One of her sons had remarked that it was too bad Jesse was mentally delayed because he sure could kick the hell out of a soccer ball. She’d picked up the soccer ball and carried it to the Doyles’ front porch. She left it there for Jesse, but she never apologized to James for accusing him. She still wasn’t sure what she’d seen. Now, watching him hug Cailey, those same concerns returned.

Cailey skipped over to her, holding her trophy aloft. “I won, Zell!” she crowed, and Zell clapped her hands together, managing, she hoped, to look happy and not concerned.

“That is just amazing, Cailey! I mean I’ve seen you chow down, but never quite like that.”

Cailey grinned, her first real smile of the day. “I can’t wait to show it to Cutter.” She inspected her trophy. Then quieter, she added, “I’m going to tell him I won it for him.”

“I think that’s a great idea.” Cailey handed over the trophy, and Zell tucked it into her beach bag for safekeeping.

Cailey dug into the cooler for a water and took a long pull from it. “I’m so thirsty. I can still feel that cake stuck in my throat.” She took another drink.

“I saw you met Mr. Doyle,” Zell said.

“You mean the guy doing the contest?” Cailey asked. “The one who lives across the street?”

“Yes, I’ve known him a long time.” Zell weighed her words carefully.

Cailey thought about it. “His mom’s in a wheelchair. I’ve seen him push her around. What’s wrong with his brother?”

“Well, now, I don’t rightly know. That family has just had its share of hardships.”

Cailey looked thoughtful again. “Kind of like mine,” she said.

It was not the direction Zell had wanted this to go. She didn’t want Cailey identifying with James, sympathizing with him. “I guess you could say that,” she said. “But he’s a lot older than you. He’s an adult, and he’s got adult problems,” she added.

Cailey gave her a “duh” look. “I know,” she said.

“Well, I just saw him talking to you, and I wanted to make sure you knew that he is not really someone I’d want you to . . .” She had run out of words.

Cailey raised her eyebrows. “Yes?”

Zell waved her hand in the air. “I’m just being silly. Worrying like old ladies do.”

Pilar called to Cailey, and she hopped up from the chair. “I’m gonna go swim,” she said, already forgetting Zell’s warning.

“Sure thing,” Zell said, relieved that the conversation was over. But before Cailey could walk away, she called out to her. “Just don’t ever go in his house, OK?”

Cailey gave her a quizzical look. “Like I ever would,” she said, then shook her head and scampered away.

EVERETT

The fireworks terrified Christopher. He shrieked so loudly that Bryte scooped him up and ran out of the pool area, stumbling over chairs and mumbling “Excuse me” multiple times as she hastily made her exit. Everett watched his wife and child leave. The darkened pool area was packed, making it hard for Bryte to move with ease, much less while clutching a screaming child. Every few minutes, the lights of the fireworks illuminated a path while simultaneously setting Christopher off again, his shrieks ringing out over the tinny patriotic music playing through the speakers.

Everett, embarrassed by the spectacle, wondered what he should do. Did he wait for her to settle their son down and return? Did he go after her and create another disturbance? He surveyed the various items he would have to collect in order to leave. There was no way he could accomplish that in the dark. They’d spent the whole afternoon at the pool and had participated in the potluck dinner there that evening. All around him were dishes and clothing and towels and several bags strewn about the area where they’d set up camp. He turned his attention back to the fireworks, reasoning that he’d just wait until the show ended, gather up their things, and leave. It had to be close to over, though down by the lake, he could see James and his buddies still lighting fuses and scurrying around.

Everett wondered idly just how much money the man had invested in fireworks, only to see it all go up in smoke. Literally. He smiled at his own joke. He felt someone’s eyes on him and turned to see Jencey looking at him. She smiled back, and he wondered guiltily whether she thought the smile was for or about her. Jencey turned her attention back toward the fireworks, but he didn’t. In the dark, he could make out her blonde hair, and the two blonde heads on either side of her, leaning into her.

He wouldn’t have pictured Jencey as the consummate mother, and yet it suited her. He thought with a pang of Bryte’s resistance to having more children, of her recent announcement that she might just look for a job instead. He never thought it had to be one or the other and didn’t understand why she was making it sound like it had to be. But whenever he tried to bring it up for discussion, she closed up like a book slamming shut.

Jencey was sitting with Lance, the “hero.” Everyone had been making such a fuss over him all day, slapping him on the back and thanking him.
Come on,
Everett thought more than once,
the guy just did what any man would do who saw a child drowning
. It seemed as if Jencey had fallen under his hero spell as well. Everett would be lying if he said it didn’t bother him, seeing her at the pool where they used to watch fireworks, their fingers laced together and her leaning against him the way her daughters were leaning against her now. “Get a room, you two,” Bryte would tease. And later, after everyone had gone home, they would get a room of sorts, only it wasn’t a room at all.

He hadn’t gone to their spot in years, felt guilty visiting that place now that he and Bryte were married. It would hurt her too much to know he did that. And yet, sometimes he could feel it calling to him, the tree branches waving in the breeze, beckoning him to come . . . and remember. He shook his head and forced himself to look back at the fireworks, concentrating on the light arcing across the sky, feeling the explosions in his heart. Lee Greenwood sang “Proud to Be an American,” and on the other side of him, he could hear John Boyette’s mother singing along off-key but loudly. In his pocket, he felt his phone buzz. He looked at it. A text from Bryte:
Took him home. Will you just bring everything when it’s over? I’m putting him to bed.

He texted back:
Will do. Sorry you missed the rest of the show. Fireworks of our own later?
and pocketed his phone. He would never admit what had put him in the mood.

After they’d started dating, Bryte had confessed to him that each time she saw him and Jencey together during high school her heart had broken a little more. He’d been so slow on the draw, unaware of Bryte’s unrequited love for him until Jencey was out of the picture and Bryte finally, after too much to drink one night, blurted it all out. Until that moment, he’d always thought of Bryte as his best friend, his confidante. And, actually, seven years of marriage later, she still was. “Today I marry my best friend,” their wedding invitations had said. And it was true.

The screech of chairs being slid back into place startled him out of his thoughts. He looked around as the floodlights around the pool came back on and people began the leaving process. He stood, stiff and sore, and stretched before gathering their things. It would take several trips to the car to get it all loaded. Someone poked him in the side, and he turned to find Jencey there, looking concerned. “Is Christopher OK?”

“Yeah. He just got scared.” He shrugged. “Funny because last year he loved them.”

She nodded. “That’s the age. One year they love Santa, the next they scream bloody murder if you get within ten feet of him.” She rolled her eyes playfully. “Kids.”

He pointed at Jencey’s girls. “They’re beautiful.”

She glanced over at her daughters and smiled proudly. “Thanks.”

“I guess it’s not really how I pictured you, when I pictured you as an adult,” he said.

She squinted at him while nudging her daughters in the direction of Lance’s kids. “What do you mean?”

Now he’d put his foot in his mouth. “I mean, you just always talked about this supersuccessful life, and I guess I thought you meant this high-powered career. You know,
Sex and the City
kind of stuff.”

She laughed and shook her head. “I probably thought that, too, but . . . then I met my husband, and well, he wanted the life we built and I . . . didn’t stop to question it.” She paused. “I didn’t question a lot of things.” The last bit seemed more to herself than him.

“And where is he now?” he asked, giving voice to something he and Bryte had discussed after Jencey left the night she came for dinner. Jencey still wore a wedding ring, so they didn’t think she was divorced, and yet she was there alone, and didn’t seem to be going anywhere. Bryte had told him she’d even asked about the schools.

Maybe it was due to the beers he’d seen her sip throughout the fireworks display. Maybe it was because, he hoped, she trusted Everett. Maybe it was the fact that none of the neighborhood busybodies were around. Whatever the reason, Jencey didn’t hesitate to answer his question. “Jail,” she said, the word almost flippant, but he detected a catch in her voice. “Federal prison, to be exact.” She raised her eyebrows. “For the next ten years at least.”

His eyes widened at the news. “What’d he do?” He thought of the big, bad things—murder, rape, bank robbery.

“Wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering, and bribing city officials.” She ticked off her husband’s offenses as if it were no big deal, but her eyes gave her away. “Turns out he was not the prince I thought he was.”

He pointed at her ring. “But you’re still married?”

She twisted the ring around self-consciously, lowering her eyes. “Not officially divorced. Not yet. And, until I am, I’ve sort of kept it on for the girls. And, I guess, for me. Old habits and all that.” She glanced back up at him. “Had to get used to the idea.”

“And are you? Used to it?”

She shook her head. “Not really. Still not sure what I’m going to do next. I have to reinvent my life, make a new life for the girls. I came back here because I . . .” She looked around at the pool, and he wondered if she too had memories. She took a deep breath and turned back to him. “I would’ve told you I came back here because I had nowhere else to go. But I don’t necessarily think that anymore.”

“What do you think now?” he coaxed.

“I think I needed to come home.”

He nodded, swallowed, thinking of why and how she’d left, how he’d failed to protect her. He could still see one of those damn hearts, this one under
his
windshield wiper, fluttering in the breeze. The crowd had thinned out. Jencey’s girls were chasing Lance’s kids around the pool, and no one was stopping them. He could see Lance waiting for her, off to the side, shuffling his feet as he tried to be polite. Everett still had to gather their things, make the multiple trips to the car, go home to his wife and son. “I’m glad you did,” he said.

She reached out, grabbed his hand, and squeezed it lightly before letting go. “Me, too,” she said. She gave him a little wave and was gone. To his credit, he did not watch her go.

JENCEY

She watched Everett leave. He gave her a weak smile as he passed by, then trudged out of the pool and toward the parking lot. Lance cleared his throat, and she turned to face him. “Is there a story there?” he asked, pointing at Everett’s retreating back.

She raised her eyebrows. “You could say that.” She worked to make her voice playful and light. This was flirting, as best she could recall.

He shook his head. “Something tells me you’re a woman of many stories.”

She nodded and gave him a sage look. “You could say that, too.”

He glanced down at her wedding ring but said nothing. She had to take it off, and soon. She’d told herself that the moment the final papers came from her attorney, that would be her signal that it was time. It was really and truly over.

“I better get them to bed,” she said, indicating the girls, who’d left the pool area and were swinging in the adjoining playground with Lance’s kids. She heard their giggles ringing out in the night air. Other than the lifeguards and a few teenagers, they were the only people left.

Lance ran his hands through his hair, and when he did, she took in the muscles flexing in his arms, the obvious strength there. She found herself wanting to feel those arms around her, and wondered if that was just a normal reaction for someone who hadn’t had physical contact with a man in months, or if she was actually attracted to this one.

“Yeah,” he agreed, “I should do the same with mine.” He reached for the bag that was sitting on the chair near them and hoisted it onto his shoulders. “Thanks for hanging out today. It was fun.”

She nodded. It
had
been fun. They’d talked and laughed and teased each other. He couldn’t believe she’d never seen
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
and tried to express the many, apparently hilarious one-liners from the movie. But hearing him attempt a British accent was what really made her laugh. They’d socialized with the neighbors, met some new folks, eaten potluck with her parents. He’d talked for a long while with her dad. Her mother, to her credit, had not asked any questions, though Jencey suspected she was dying to. Their kids had played together most of the day, sinking into the chairs beside them as the fireworks began. They’d made a little unit, him with his kids and her with hers, yet all together, looking up at the night sky, their chins tilted at the same angle. She’d watched the colors explode and expand across the blackness, unable to keep herself from recalling the last time she’d seen fireworks.

Last Fourth of July she’d been with Arch and had no idea of what was coming. They’d gone out of town without the girls, leaving them behind with a college-age sitter she used from time to time. She and Arch and their friends had eaten gourmet small plates and drunk champagne on a yacht anchored in the Charles River as fireworks exploded over Boston. They’d gone to hear the Boston Pops and taken a historical tour of the city where much of America began.

It had been a quintessential Fourth celebration, and Arch had delighted in showing her all that money could buy. She had, as he’d so kindly pointed out to her from behind bars, reveled in it all. Gushing to her girlfriends about the experience after it was over had been almost as much fun as doing it. She and her friends had each tried to outdo one another with how they’d spent the holiday in a never-ending game of one-upmanship that, in hindsight, kept her breathless and anxious a lot of the time. But she’d been too immersed in the game to even know she was playing it.

It was only sitting there, relaxed and at ease, flanked by her girls, wearing an old T-shirt with grape Popsicle dripped down the front, that she could see her former life for what it was. Exhausting. Soul sucking. As empty as her former home now was. She hadn’t really missed any of the women she once called friends, hadn’t heard from even one of them after Arch was exposed and arrested. They avoided her as though she’d caught a plague. She supposed she had—the plague of poverty. And yet, sitting there by the pool with normal people observing a normal Fourth of July, she didn’t feel poor at all. She felt fairly rich.

“So,” Lance said as they walked together to their cars, the kids lagging behind, complaining that they had to leave. “Think you might want to come over sometime and watch
The Holy Grail
?” Continuing to kid around about being named Lancelot, he’d joked that the knights in that movie were more like the kind of knights he would be. Jencey let him joke, but she sensed that his self-deprecating humor was an attempt to deflect all the compliments and kudos he’d been receiving from neighbors who’d heard about him saving Cutter. She’d felt proud to be beside him, but not proud like she used to be beside Arch. She was proud of who Lance was, not what he had.

Now he raised his eyebrows at her. She tried to process just what he was asking with his invitation. Sure, they’d flirted and spent the day together. Now he wanted to see her again. But was this a date? Or was he just being neighborly?

“I mean, you really shouldn’t go much longer without seeing it.” He kept his voice nonchalant, which didn’t exactly help her figure things out. He pressed the latch on his trunk and stowed the bulging bag of pool paraphernalia, then slammed the liftgate shut and turned back to her.

She nodded. “I’m not sure how I’ve survived this long without it.”

“Well, then, we need to get it scheduled as soon as possible,” he said. She knew he hadn’t dated since his wife’s departure. She’d come upon that information courtesy of Zell, who seemed to be matchmaking. Jencey had laughed Zell’s insinuation off, assuring Zell that the last thing Jencey needed was a relationship. What she needed was a plan for getting on with life. But in the meantime, she told herself for the hundredth time, he was good company, another grown-up to pass the time with.

“OK, so when would be good for you?” she asked.

“Well, today’s Wednesday—it
is
Wednesday, right? I never know what day it is since summer started. So . . . maybe Friday? Bring the girls and we’ll put them in front of a movie in our playroom while we watch our movie? Order some pizzas?” He was doing a good job of looking spur-of-the-moment about it, but she had a suspicion he’d worked out the details of this invitation before extending it.

She pretended to think about her plans, though of course she had none, unless she counted her nightly jaunts to the hideaway in the woods, a habit she should probably break. “Sounds great,” she said. “What time?”

“Six thirty?”

“We’ll be there,” she said. “And thanks. For saving me a seat today.”

He smiled. “No problem.” He held out his arms for a hug and raised his eyebrows in question.

It was only a hug. What harm was there in it? She walked into the same strong arms that had pulled that boy from the bottom of the pool, letting them encircle her for a brief moment, pulling her into an embrace she hadn’t known she needed until she stepped inside it.