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Part XII: 1988- End of Innocence
Sal shook her head as she played the tips off her fingers against each other, "You know, there doesn't always have to be an agenda junior detective." She put the cigarette out on the bleacher and tossed the butt in her front pocket as she looked at her little brother. She reached out, fingers brushing some of his hair out of his face. "I'm allowed to just be a sister and check on you, you know?"
He laughed. He hadn't meant to...obviously, there was nothing to laugh at. Something about the words "check in", like she was trying her hand at being maternal or something. But maybe that was unfair. The impulse wasn't completely foreign to her...in his mind's eye, he saw her fussing over his face when he'd shown up at Leo's after Audrey...
His throat tightened.
Double unfair, really, since for all his griping and bitching, he'd never done a very good job taking care of her either.
"Everyone's got an agenda, Sally," he used her full name, which was probably a bridge too far, which was certainly mean, which was definitely pointless, which he should care more about, which he didn't, "Don't need to be a detective to figure that one. I've got an agenda, you've got an agenda..."
He wanted to take her hand in his. He'd never been clingy, not as a kid or any other time. And Sal had always been a little too much of a tomboy to be the hand holding type herself. Still, now, at this tiny, almost tentative sign of affection, he wanted nothing more than to accept it and return it and get over it, over himself.
He'd failed before, much more dramatically.
"Leo's got an agenda," he said finally, "Nobody does anything for nothing."
-Jimmy
Sal gave a brief pause at the use of her full name, almost certain now that something was the matter, but she knew better than to push an inquiry. "I don't know lil bro, Leo is one of the most transparent dudes I know, you get what you see with him. And you know, if you weren't so skeptical and hard on yourself all the time, you'd probably have an easier time believing in people too.' She stood, straightening her clothes as she did, looking down at the boy. "You gonna sit here all day?"
He nearly broke then, at Leo's name. He almost opened his mouth to tell her about the soft squeak of the window opening, of Leo on the windowsill, frightened and wide-eyed and guilty.
"I have to tell you."
He was supposed to know Leo. He was as good as a brother as he'd ever had and, dammit, for a time he'd understood him better than his own sister. Or he thought he had. He should tell her. He should say something. He should...
"I'm gonna go," he said eventually, "Pretty sure there's school I'm supposed to be underachieving in."
Mrs. Lakotos' arms, warm and strong and weirdly compassionate around him. Her quiet, sad understanding. The sinking in the pit of his stomach as he realized he hadn't dreamt that midnight visit. That its senseless surreality hadn't been his own sleepless fiction. That he'd seen Leo and heard him and...
"Man, you're not making any sense. Breathe, okay..." his hand on Leo's shoulder, "Just take a breath..."
"I am breathing!" his eyes bright, "Maybe I shouldn't be."
"Thanks for the talk, Sal," he got to his feet, "Consider me checked," he started down the length of the bleachers, the heel of his hi-top clanging against the underside of one of the benches and producing a stentorian echo, up and down the field, "Out."
He continued down the concrete steps, telling himself not to turn around, not for anything, for Sal's sake...
For Leo's too, and fuck him for putting him in this position.
Fuck him for trusting him, as if he knew a damn thing he was doing.
-Jimmy
Vicki instinctively rose her hand to her mouth when the attendant removed the sheet, stifling a gasp. She didn't have any words to scream, though. At least, not at first. The figure on the table didn't look human...but it was Kirk. That was what was so surreal. How anything could make someone look so less than human...Vicki couldn't comprehend it.
And to see Kirk so quiet--forever quiet--it didn't make sense. For all their problems, there was a reason they were together. He was warm, loyal to his friends, and had a sense of honor not common among boys his age. There was a fire in his heart that could make him quick to anger but quick to love as well, now quenched, leaving Kirk's body cold and empty.
A tear streamed down Vicki's cheek as it became clear that she was never going to get her final peace with him, to apologize to him and him apologize to her. To end things cleanly so they could both move on. She feared on the way here that the decision would take Kirk by surprise, that it would hurt him and she'd have another thing to feel guilty for in an increasingly long line of mistakes. Few things hurt more than having so much love for a person who is unable to give as much back.
But now Vicki knew that to be false. The pit in her stomach told her as much as she began to feel sick and the reality set in that some wounds would now never heal. She would never be at peace with Kirk and perhaps now she would never be able to move on. Vicki should have told him sooner. She should have stopped playing that charade that was their relationship and just been honest with him and herself. She owed Kirk that much.
Without thinking, Vicki's hand touched Kirk's as she uttered, "I'm sorry..."
She was so lost in her regrets that only then did she turn to see Pamela, who seemed to be subdued with shock. Vicki moved her hand from Kirk's to Pamela's, wrapping her fingers around her and gripping them tightly, hoping that her friend knew she wasn't alone. She felt a pang in her heart as she did so, her conscience chiding her that there was still more to tell her. Kirk's body only served as a reminder that life was short and to leave so many things unsaid...Vicki couldn't make that mistake again.
But did she have the courage to go through with it? Or would she continue to live in fear?
Finding her senses slowly returning to her, Vicki looked up at Kowalski for any answers. "How could...I...I don't understand. What happened?"
Kowalski took a short breath, assuming a deferential position, "We're still piecing that together, ma'am. All we can say for a certainty is there was an attack on the hospital floor last night. Whether or not there were specific targets, we don't really know enough yet..."
"Where is she?"
Kowalski turned sharply, his eyes widening, his lips forming a tiny, perfect little circle of surprise, "I'm sorry?"
She didn't waste time elaborating, turning away from her brother's cold, waxy face, knowing she had seen more than enough of it, of that, of him. That she would have it blazed right over the front of her memory for the rest of her life, and in the end she had nobody to blame but herself for insisting on identifying him, for telling herself she needed to prove it was true. There was nothing she could do about seeing it and, if there was anything she could've done to stop him being on that slab, well, that ship had long sailed too.
The other cot, across from Kirk, still shrouded. Under closer observation, the covered form was a little smaller. Pamela took a step forward, "Is that her?"
"Is..." Kowalski took a step nearer, a hand half outstretched as if to stop her, but for whatever reason he didn't follow through, "There was another victim."
"That's her," she said quickly, coming up alongside the cot so sharply that it shook, "Professional victim."
"Do you..." he began to ask, "Do you know who..."
Pamela ripped the shroud off. There was a sound like tearing, but that was just in her mind. She wasn't that strong, but she was about that angry. The body was a grisly sight: Pamela stood, repelled and compelled in equal measure, by the violence, the gore, the sheer fascination of a body crudely disassembled, like an engine: barbs and bits hanging out of a busted metal chassis, their purpose obscured by damage, their design inscrutable, their function unknown.
There were more sounds of protest, but nobody did anything to stop her. Maybe they were all shocked. It was a shocking sight, Pamela knew. But maybe that...the insane extremity of the violence...was why she didn't scream or retch. Looking down at that bloody ruin, the pulp that had been made of the woman's (if a woman it even was) face, Pamela laughed.
Not a high, raucous laugh, like she had before, when Kowalski had come to the door, but a giggle. She lifted her hand to her mouth, shaking her head.
"Oh..." she turned away, looking at Kowalski, who was regarding her as if she'd just started speaking in tongues, "Oh, come on."
"Miss Devlin..." he began, "Do you know who that..."
She laughed again, looking back at the body, "Too easy..."
"I don't understand."
Her eyes roved down, past the ravaged hair and the stove-in skull, to the gaping black-red maw that had once been a chest. Pamela looked into it, that big gaping pit: the ribs protruding like chipped blades, ravaged organs...those that hadn't already fallen or been scooped out...lying around, ripped from their moorings, sitting in a fecund slop.
Possibly, Pamela didn't know where to look, but she didn't see a heart.
"Nothing," she said softly.
"...I'm sorry?"
"She's nothing!" she declared, her words echoing through the morgue, "You asked, right? Who is she? She's nothing! No one!" she pointed at the faceless husk, the shredded carapace that had not so long ago been a human being, "She never was. Who is she? Who the hell is she?" she kicked the side of the metal trellis, which shook precariously. An arm dangled loose, mostly intact, "She's nobody." she kicked it again, "She came in and she ripped everything to shreds and now..." a long, low, wet laugh, "It's like she doesn't exist."
"Pamela," Kowalski was behind her, at her shoulder, "We've had trouble identifying her. If you know anything that can help us...who she was, why she might've been visiting that room with your brother..."
"Weren't you listening?" she turned to him, blinking rapidly to chase the tears away before they could form, "I have no idea who she is..." she stepped forward, "Are we finished?"
He put a hand on her shoulder to stay her...not roughly, but enough to keep her in place. She almost wished he would pin in her place...not just because he was hotter by the second in this frigid cell, but because there was a white hot rage steadily building in her gut and she needed to let it out somehow, someway. She wanted to hit someone, someone living, someone who could take it, who could try to fight back...
But Kowalski was unflappably professional. If anything, his eyebrows sort of knit together in concern, and that wasn't helping. She didn't need people concerned for her. She didn't need Vicki's sad eyes and her hand in hers, like she needed pity.
She could've stopped this. Any one of a dozen ways in the last three days. She couldn't see the full picture yet, but she could spot enough of the pieces to know she could've acted, somehow, if not to fix things than to make them less bad.
"Just a few more questions for you."
"Questions," she repeated softly, "What, like...where was I last night?"
"Miss Devlin..."
"Deputy,"
He winced before admitting, "...yes. Among...other things."
She laughed again, lowering her eyes as she wiped them with the back of her hand, "I guess I'm not doing myself any favors telling you to fuck off."
"You're a minor," he said, as if he had trouble believing it, "You'll have a social worker present..."
"And a lawyer?"
"You aren't under arrest."
She scoffed, looking back at the thing that had once, though she couldn't prove it, been Janey or Audrey or Someone.
"Get me a coffee and we can hold the social worker."
"That isn't exactly..."
"Black is fine," she looked over her shoulder, "You coming, Vick?"
-Pamela and Kowalski
Vicki found herself in this recurring habit of constantly being lost, despite her best efforts to catch up. Just when it felt like she came close to understanding to the entirety of what happened while she was away, as ugly as it was turning out to be, there seemed to be another gruesome detail waiting around the next corner.
Indeed, nothing could have prepared her for the unveiling of the second body. The "professional victim" as Pamela called her. Her stomach curdled at the sight of this girl's body, who remarkably was mauled much worse than Kirk, to the point where she didn't even resemble a human. Much more sickening was the guessing game Vicki was forced to play: who was this woman? Who was she to Kirk? To Pamela?
A joke perhaps, as Pamela yet again broke out into a peel of laughter as she fought back tears. She was nothing, according to Pamela, but that only meant to Vicki she was much more than that; just another problem Pamela tried to minimize because she was tougher than that. Tougher than she looked, but not tough enough to handle this, not on her own.
This woman had done something to Kirk and Pamela; Vicki was going to find out what.
Brought out of her own thoughts by Pamela's call to her, Vicki nodded, muttering, "Sure," in a faraway voice as she followed her best friend. But not without giving one last glance towards the bodies behind them, her eyes lingering on Kirk once more, memories good and bad swarming her all at once.
She came home to tell him she didn't love him. She came home to apologize for pretending to be someone she wasn't. She came home to make things right.
It appeared she came home too late. "I'm sorry," Vicki found herself mouthing, feeling a panging at her heart as she fought back tears of her own, thinking of a life where she and Kirk could have still been friends, when they all could have been kids just a little bit longer before finally growing up and ditching this nowhere town.
Her eyes drifted to the mysterious woman, or what was left of her. Vicki had no last rites for her; any she had would be insincere. She was taught at a young age that all life was sacred, even if the people who told her that made it difficult for her to say the same for her own life. It felt natural to mourn this stranger, but the questions of what this woman had done to hurt her friends clouded any empathy she could muster for the woman.
Maybe it was best of think of her as "nothing," as Pamela vehemently insisted. But Vicki knew better than to think anything was that simple. If she learned anything from her little homecoming, it was that.
As Vicki and Pamela left the morgue, the tip of a rid hat slowly slid out of one of the many freezing cabinets in the room, watching the duo from afar. Unbothered by the cold and well-hidden from the clueless police officer, Galdamez furrowed his brow, fascinated by who the reverberations had brought him to. An interesting proposition within an already unprecedented cosmic experiment. This little project of his had already provided many surprises but the one he was least prepared for was the sudden departure of one of the seven travelers, a spanner in the works that could have disrupted this entire operation and doomed the other travelers to never return to the present.
And yet, hope was not lost. For when there was love, there was hope.
His eyes lingered on this "Vick," curious. There was a lot of love in that woman indeed. In a way not too dissimilar from the maternal Anne or the young Antoine or the mischievous Stogie.
Perhaps she was the answer.
Galdamez smiled, relieved that his gamble against time, fate, the cosmos and all that was holy was not over yet.
-Vicki and Galdamez
"Okay," Paula said with a grand gesture, "Sit down."
Sam eyed the examination table skeptically, "This is stupid."
"I can't do it when you're standing," there was a short, awkward pause before she elaborated, "You're too tall."
Sam didn't protest this point, and sank with a short groan onto the covered table, "I'm not taking my shoes off."
"Gross," said Paula conversationally, "Now, I don't know how much time we have before Alice-Marie gets back..."
"What about one of the other biddies?"
She glared at him over her shoulder, "The other nuns never come down here."
"Scared of needles?"
"Are you?"
"You're not sticking a goddamn needle into me," he paused, "You better not be, Burke..."
"Oh, could you shut up?" Paula scolded, going through the cupboards and saying a silent thank you for Alice-Marie's hyper-compulsive attention to organization which made everything very easy to find at the same time as got her super nervous about screwing up where things went when she was finished, provided she didn't end up needing to call Sam an ambulance after all, which would probably be a bigger problem...
"And it isn't gonna happen anyway," she muttered, "So stop worrying."
"You say something?" Sam asked tetchily. Paula turned to him, smiling beatifically, "Stop worrying, I said, so stop."
He laughed humorlessly, "Sure, nurse."
"Why do I have to be 'nurse'? That's super sexist..."
"You sure as hell aren't a doctor."
"Hey, the '80s called and they said women can do whatever they want," she started rattling off on her fingers, "Run for President...well, Vice President..."
"And lose."
"...and own a business and go to space..."
"...and blow up."
"Not Sally Ride!" Paula protested, "She didn't blow up. That was the other one, and Sally Ride was first."
"Lucky her."
"Take your shirt off."
He stared at her, goggle-eyed, "...huh?"
"Please," she blushed, "Don't be stupid, Sam."
"It's really..." he indicated the spot, "It's my neck."
"No, that's just the worst part," she wrung her hands together, "Look, we don't know how much time we have, so..."
He shed his shirt, grunting softly as he did. Paula drew in breath, not at the length and breadth of...well, him, but at the half a dozen lacerations on his right side. She opened her mouth...
"Don't," he beat her to the punch, "No questions," he cocked an eyebrow, "Remember?"
And she hated him, for a moment. Not just in the way he always got...irritating and annoying and smug and sly, delighting in all the ways he knew to get under your skin. Because she thought of turning it back on him...threatening not to fix him up if he didn't tell her how he'd been hurt, deciding that that's just what Pamela would've done...
She hated him, truly, for knowing that she couldn't do what Pamela would do.
Soaking some cotton in antiseptic, she leaned over to the gash on Sam's neck, "Cold..."
"Eh?" he turned to her, and for half a second she thought there was something like remorse in his eyes and she wanted so badly to drop the cotton and stamp her foot and go to school and be late and forget this ever happened...
(...for him to apologize, to thank her for doing all this, to answer her questions so she could know how much to hate him...)
"It's gonna be cold," she cocked her head to the side, "Just so you..."
"I'm not a baby, Paula, so..."
She pressed the cotton to his neck and he howled, "Jesus shitting Christ..."
"Hey!" Paula scolded, "Keep your freaking voice down," she looked idly at the framed icon of the Virgin Mary on the wall, "And watch your mouth."
"Yes, ma'am," he said curtly and, when she glared at him, caught the last vestiges of a brief smile.
She cleaned the wound in short order and then, deciding she'd procrastinated long enough, went to the little cart she'd stocked up (and, admittedly, felt very Dr. Barbie in the process) by the table and retrieved the surgical needle.
"What the hell is that for?"
She looked at him like he'd gone stupid, "For your stitches, duh."
"You said you weren't gonna stick a needle in me!"
"I'm not," she rolled her eyes, "You never had stitches before?"
"Yeah, once, when I was four."
"Oh, poor baby..." she eyeballed the delicate white thread on the cart, unraveling a section, "Lacrosse stick get somewhere it wasn't supposed to?"
"Do you even know how to do stitches?"
"I can mend a dress," she looked at him over the needle, "And polyester's even harder to work with than you. But there's still time to go to the E.R..."
"No," he interrupted, "Just..." he gestured impatiently, "Come on."
Paula nodded and, threading the needle, drew close...
Sam winced away. She frowned, preparing to reprimand him...
"Sorry," he didn't look at her, "M'fine."
He was shaking. And screw him with a nastier needle than the one she was holding because she shouldn't have to be here, she shouldn't be doing this, she shouldn't be subjected to...to him.
Like this.
"I...I can't give you knock-out gas or anything."
"Yeah, I'm not eager to become a statistic."
"But if you're nervous..."
"I am not..." he raised his voice and, seeming to realize this, lowered it, "...I'm not nervous."
"Well, I'll be if you keep shaking the whole time, and then my hand will slip and then we'll have a real mondo problem on our hands and I am too pretty for prison."
His face had gone very white. Paula decided she'd better just take matters into her own hands if she ever wanted to get out of here and crossed to the little radio Alice-Marie kept on her desk, "Some music, okay?"
There was a brief silence in which she wasn't sure whether Sam was gonna cuss her out or laugh it her before he finally said, "Just none of that easy listening crap."
"Easy is just what you need," she retorted, switching the radio on and allowing warm, pleasant synthesizers to flood the room, "Now, hold still..."
Sam tensed as she neared, needle threaded...
"And you made me smile..."
She heard him draw in breath, his hands clenching on either side of the table.
"For a little while..."
She put her free hand over his, to steady him, she told herself, as he lifted a surprised, bright eye to hers.
"I was falling in love..."
She got to work.
***
He shouldn't have gone to school. After a sleepless night, he'd seriously considered just lying in bed all day, giving up.
Hiding.
Jason could still taste the pool water in the back of his mouth: stale and harsh, redolent with chemicals.
"This is the least you deserve..." the ghost, the vision, his own tormented conscience had told him as his vision had begun to cloud.
Jason believed in it, whatever it was. He thought about the Telltale Heart, and the possibility that guilt could be its own force, could gain a life of its own, independent from the body, and more powerful than it, dedicated solely and completely to total exposure and, with it, release.
He closed his locker and flinched at the reverb of the echo through the hallway, looking self-consciously up and down to make sure nobody was paying attention but, per usual, nobody was.
But was it possible, he wondered idly, as he headed toward the doors. Was guilt a biological function as much as a mental one, complete with built-in safeguards, no different from sweat and blinking? A desperate effort to expel whatever was keeping the body from maintaining its functions?
Or maybe he was overthinking things. Maybe it was nothing more than a feeling. The other guys didn't seem bothered, with the exception of Fitz, of course, who was never anything less than bothered, and he hadn't even been on the damn boat! He hadn't been there, he hadn't had to watch, he hadn't had to hear the sounds of...
He was alone today. He stopped in the entrance to the cafeteria just to confirm this, as if the others would just spontaneously sprout up from under the green and gold checkered tiles. No luck, and as much as he tried to tell himself he wasn't in any hurry to face them...to face Sam's angry contempt, Fitz's frenetic cartwheeling and Kirk's...
Kirk wanted to tell.
Kirk was different and Kirk always called the shots...and he was on Jason's side. So why did the thought of seeing even him today turn his stomach?
And maybe it wasn't that much of a shock. Quinn's absence was easily explained...he was suspended. Fitz was in all likelihood still laid up in the hospital after his rollerblading accident...
(A little more colorful than a 'swimming accident'. Is that why they would have called it, if he hadn't been fished out in time? If he'd gotten what he deserved?)
Sam was no stranger to cutting class, and the mood he'd been in last night more than suggested he'd stay away today. And that just left...
He reached the lunch line and froze in his tracks, transfixed by an ambling black shape outside the floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the east-facing wall. For a few short moments that seemed to stretch into hours, he stood still, watching the strange, shrouded figure, like some big hunched black bird with the wings wrapped tight around it, close-fitting like a cowl or a shawl or...
A coat, he told himself, dumbass.
It wasn't a bird, it was a woman, heading up the school's path (the Prep was shaped like a half-square, like an English country house, and the cafeteria made up the entire of that square's bottom rung, its windows looking onto the courtyard) to approach the entrance. Jason watched her steady progress...she was a tiny thing, seemingly swallowed in her dark wrap, her head itself covered in a gauzy lace scarf, the kind some older ladies wore to Sunday Mass.
In the high afternoon glare, Jason could see a profile through the head-wrap: a high brow, a sharp, almost hawkish nose and...so bright they seemed to see right through the veil, as if holes had been cut out for them in the fabric.
Leo's mother. He knew without ever having seen her before, knew in the way you knew what time of day it was or whether or not someone was looking at you in the street. Something prickled at the back of his neck: an army of invisible insects crawling inside his skin as a harsh, chlorinated stink filled his nostrils...
You will know what it's like...
"You're holding up the line, boatboy,"
The harsh urging brought him forcibly back to earth. He looked over his shoulder, "Uh, sorry..."
Boatboy... he thought, they know, how can they know, unless someone talked after all...kirk wants to talk and he should and you should be talking too, so why haven't you and why are you so scared, if it's what you want to happen, ififif...
But, of course, the lacrosse guys called him boatboy all the time, because being on crew was faggy, and if he weren't buds (such as it was) with a couple of team heavyweights, there'd be a dozen rumors around the school about him engaging in extracurriculars with his own paddle.
"Yeah, don't worry about it," Connor Price, midfielder, flashed his famous pearly whites at him, effortlessly supplanting Jason's spot in line, "I'd be pretty wadded up if I were you too."
Behind Jason, a mirror image snickered sycophantically...Connor's twin Ross, nearly indistinguishable from his brother except his hair was feathered like a soap opera starlet's, "Lighten up, Murray. We're joshing."
Jason frowned, "What am I supposed to be wadded up about?"
"What, besides getting up at 1 AM to doggie paddle on the lake?"
He heard the splash, the short, startled cry...saw the bubbles on the unsettled surface.
"4 AM," he said eventually, "If you care."
"Yeah..." Ross nodded ponderously, "I don't."
"You seriously haven't heard?" Connor asked, almost in the same breath as his brother.
Again, his flesh crawled over him. He thought of Mrs. Lakotos walking through the doors, as if dressed for a funeral.
He's been missing for two days now. She's obviously noticed. Has she called the cops? Has a body been found? It's a deep lake, but it can't be that deep...
"What?" he asked, maybe too quickly, "What happened?"
Connor had that same morbidly fascinated smirk on his face, like he'd just seen a particularly avant garde bit of roadkill, "Christ, dude, it's all over the school. You spend the night under a rock or something?"
"Rowboat doesn't get Channel 7," Jason answered tersely, not really in any mood for the gossip grist...
Except, of course, he was part of some pretty damn juicy gossip right now...probably the juiciest damn thing to have ever happened at this place.
"Something went down at the hospital last night," Connor grinned, relishing every word. Jason prepared to make some rote comment about Fitz, that he'd heard or even that he was there, if that was the right thing to say, the safe thing...
"Someone died," he continued.
"And no St. Elsewhere shit," Ross laughed grimly, "We're talking 'splattered over the walls' dead."
"People saying it was a Georgie," Connor folded his arms, "Not to stick a spork in your soft bits, Murray, but I couldn't help but notice you're short a buddy or three," he winked and Ross guffawed, began to say something about the locker room being less of a gulag shower now...
Jason wasn't listening. He set his tray down on the counter ("Sloppy Joe don't like you neither!" the lunchlady groused casually) and running from the room like the Devil was chasing him.
You will know what it's like...
Maybe he was.
***
I saw your eyes...
...And you touched my mind
***
"Are you really a virgin?"
Paula nearly stabbed him right then and there...not on purpose, though once she'd gotten over the shock of the question, she seriously considered the premeditated attack.
"Excuse me?"
Sam had been mostly still and silent while she worked on him, his head raised to the clinic's harsh fluorescent lights, and his neck bared for Paula's convenience. She'd even begun to get over her initial apprehension...sure, human flesh was sensitive and gross and extremely prone to damage, but it was much easier to work with than polyester, especially the cheap stuff you got off the rack around here.
"What you said before...on the stairs..." he grunted softly as she began another pass of stitches, squeezing his eyes shut, "After you got all P.O'ed I'd called you easy...ach..." his breath hitched, "Which I didn't, for what it's worth..."
"Maybe not then."
"Don't want to shock you, Paula, but I don't spend a lot of time worrying about your sex life."
"Well..." she bit he lip, "...so don't ask."
"Just...I figured..."
"I'm not a nurse, Sam, but I do know how to find a vein and I'm spitting distance from some pretty important ones, so..."
"Murray's had plenty of time to break you in by now..."
"Sam!"
"Sorry," he winced, "I didn't mean it, like...disrespectfully."
"Like there's an undisrespectful..."
"There's gotta be an easier word for that..."
"...way to say it," she continued her work up the length of the scar, "Has he..."
Don't. Don't take the bait...
"...has he said anything," she said softly, "Different?"
Sam opened one eye, watching her carefully, "What, like if he said he'd been banging you six ways from Sunday and twice when the Saints win?"
There was a short, still silence, and she thought she could see the gears turning behind that one opened eye. Finally, though, he smiled, a tiny, pained smile, "C'mon. Dude gets a hint of tits and blushes. He doesn't talk about you at all."
He caught her eyes, "...I mean...with us. I'm sure he's a real patient lover. Super sensitive type."
Paula frowned staring at the needle as she rethreaded it...trying not to feel defensive. Through the needle's eye, she could see Sam's, rheumy and a little watery from the pain... It had to hurt like hell, having his neck sewn up with no drugs to dull anything. And, aside from a few little gasps, and the occasional tensing of his muscles, he gave no complaint.
"Maybe I'm the patient one," she said anyway, defensive.
Sam, to his credit, made no comment.
***
Although it took a while...
...I was falling in love
***
Alice-Marie had raced to Lakewood General so quickly she'd feared her car (a taupe 1979 Volvo coup, a carryover from a more glamorous youth) would give out. Mercifully, she wasn't stopped for speeding, which probably owed a lot to the fact that every policeman in Lakewood, and a few from the rest of the county, had gathered at the local hospital.
She was fortunate to be known in some small way to the harried (more than usual) intake staff...nuns were not on call at hospitals to the extent priests were, but Alice-Marie, owing 45% to her youth, 30% to her go-getter spirit, and 25% to her pretty face, had found herself more or less in charge of the Order's hospital mission and all sundry volunteering efforts so associated. It wasn't the worst gig...anything to get away from those perfumed-scented corridors for a blessed afternoon...and it came with no shortage of networking opportunities.
"I know I'm not family, Gladys. I was as surprised as you...yes, yes, she does have family. No, I don't know why she didn't call them, but she did ask for me, and I'm sure you know more than I do about this whole thing and...oh, okay, thank you. Let me just stick it on..."
Her visitor sticker duly displayed on her bodice, Alice-Marie ascended three flights of stairs (the elevator being ominously out of service) to arrive at Unit 3B, where an exhausted looking head nurse directed her to Room 4, where "That lady they 'lost track of' upstairs" ("And lemme tell you, if one of us on Step-Down had a patient on that roof, you'd never hear the end...but let this happen to the ICU, they're well looked after...") had been moved.
Alice-Marie hovered nervously on the threshold, rapping softly on the opened door with her knuckles, "...Laura?" and was unable to keep back a surprised gasp at the sight of the patient.
Laura sat up in bed, with some difficulty, lifting one IV'ed arm to brush a fringe of red hair from her bruised face, "AlRi..." her voice broke on the high school nickname, "You came."
Any restraint Alice-Marie thought she'd possessed crumbled in an instant, "Oh, honey..." she crossed to the bed, tears in her eyes, "Of course I came..." she hovered nervously by the bed, "Should I...is it okay if I..."
"I don't give a shit," and Laura reached drug-heavy arms up to enclose her in a hug. For a few minutes they remained like that, awkwardly positioned, Alice-Marie conscious not to disturb the drip in Laura's arm, or to hold her too tightly...from the look of it, she'd been through the ringer. Laura was crying, and the sound of her tough, ornery bitch of a friend blubbing like that got Alice-Marie crying too, so they swayed together in uncertain tandem, Alice-Marie aware of her tears staining Laura's hospital gown.
"Laura..." she attempted when she felt she could speak without losing her words to sobs, "My God, Laura, what happened to you?"
"I got hit by a car," she said with a weird, hysterical gurgle of laughter, "For a start..." before Alice-Marie could give this remark the interrogation it richly deserved, Laura lifted a shaking hand to her mouth, "It was horrible. I...Jesus Christ, AlRi, I thought I was dead...I'm not even sure..." she shuddered violently, grabbing wildly for Alice-Marie's hand, which she took in hers, shocked at how cold it felt, "I'm not even sure I'm not. That I didn't die and this is one of those hallucinations people have..."
"Sweetheart, I love you very much, but you're getting into New Religions now and I have to do my part and say you're as real as I am."
"That's what a hallucination would say," Laura grumbled, "But thank you."
"Is that why you called me?" Alice-Marie asked nervously, "The nurse was pretty tight-lipped..."
"God, these bitches. Sorry..."
"Oh, we've said worse to each other in less public places."
"...they think I'm nuts. Maybe I am..." she let out a hiccup-turned-sob, "I'm not having a religious crisis, AlRi and even if I was I think I'd probably just power on through it, like you do with a cold..."
"That's mostly the advice we get, actually, so good on you."
"...I need help," said Laura, "Real, human help. Not the God kind. And..." again, her voice showed signs of breaking, but she held it together more or less, "You're the only one I've got."
Alice-Marie frowned, at the same time as she felt a strange, warm feeling sweeping through her. A kind of gratification, and also a sweeping sadness. She hadn't seen Laura in years, not since they'd graduated and gone their very separate ways. Alice-Marie had gone right into a community...and, sure, she might not be chummy with all her Sisters, but that didn't mean they didn't look out for each other in their own way. But Laura, she was supposed to have found community too...not the spiritual kind, but one more permanent, of flesh and blood. The kind that many of Alice-Marie's sisters...
(That Alice-Marie...?)
...envied, whatever their lofty protests.
"But that can't be..." she began, unconstructively, before adding, somewhat desperately, "What about Eddie?" it felt weird saying his name, like invoking some totemic figure from another life. The cliche was that she'd been a different person when she'd known Eddie Teague, but of course that wasn't true. She was the same person, just with a few more coats of paint and/or tarnish, depending on the point of view, same as everyone else who'd ever lived.
"Eddie..." she let out a short bark of laughter, "He's gone," and, seeing Alice-Marie's brows knit together, clarified, "Overseas."
"I ran into his mother in a checkout line a few years ago," Alice-Marie volunteered, "She said something about him joining the Marines."
In between remarking on Alice-Marie's own "ironic choice of career, all things considered", but the path she'd chosen was that of Humility and Grace, so she'd held her tongue.
"Join he did," said Laura, "A week after Annie's christening. Plans are plans..." she let out a shaky breath.
"Well, I don't pretend to be an expert on how he thinks..."
"Join the club."
"...he's a family man, isn't he? Call him, he'll come right over..."
"...and put his first deployment on hold for me? Right..."
"You are his wife, the mother of his child..."
"And he's his father's son, and his grandfather's grandson, and the great-grandfather's too, and there are heroics to be done and medals to win and every second counts..." she let out another bitter, mildly hysterical laugh and Alice-Marie wondered if she could be serious, if she wasn't just exaggerating. Surely, whatever else, Ed Teague would drop everything he was doing at the first opportunity if it meant his wife had been hurt...
She remembered how she'd found Laura a few days ago, frantic and scrambling at the pharmacy counter, though, and reevaluated.
There are many tortures in this world, but none is crueler than loneliness. That's a large part of the reason women joined convents: the surety of company, without the...expectations other relationships (male relationships) brought with them.
"He's not coming," said Laura, "And I'm not in any hurry to call Mom and Dad..."
Alice-Marie frowned, "Still in Florida?"
"Disappointed in Dallas," she coughed dryly, "I can't risk it. No, no, the moment they see what it's like, how I live...you know my mother, she's going to start making plans, and then she'll start making calls..."
"But what about Annie?"
"That's it!" Laura pointed, "That's exactly it, Alice. Annie," she nodded, "The moment things get out...not just what happened to me now, but...everything..." she shook her head, "I can't lose my daughter, AlRi, she is all I have."
Alice-Marie began to ask if that was a real concern...Laura's parents taking her daughter away, or her husband stepping in...
Once upon a time, they'd hung around in the girls' bathroom and smoked, swapping stories and scandals with sisterly relish.
"You think you'd ever want to try?" Alice-Marie had asked.
"Doggie style?"
"Having a baby," but Laura had smirked to show she got it.
"I dunno...sounds like a lot of mess. And you pretty much throw your life away, don't you?"
"There's got to be something to it," AlRi had pointed out, "Since it's still so popular."
"Eh, give it a few years. Now everyone's on the pill, it's only a matter of time."
"So much for the human race."
"That's the spirit."
It had been a long six years, for all of them.
"What can I do?" Alice-Marie squared her shoulders and asked as gently as she could. Laura practically melted into her hand, nodding at her in wordless thanks, "She's...she was with my neighbor. A real prize drayhorse name of Ms. Edmonds."
"Spinster?"
"Widow."
"That'll do it."
Laura didn't seem to find this funny, "I got called into work after hours, and I left her with them...that's Apartment 26, next door to me...I'm 25..." she pressed a hand to her face, "I told the nurse, when I came around, and she said she'd call but then I thought...what if I don't get out?"
"Oh, honey..."
"I can't take any chances, and that bitch Edmonds knows..." she broke up, "She knows I'm not...I'm not always right...in the head, and...and she loves to talk, she just..."
"I'll go check in," Alice-Marie promised, "On Annie. I'll bring some diapers, right? And..." she racked her brain, thinking of the little primers she gave to anxious young mothers at the clinic, "Formula...does she drink formula?"
"She's a regular lush," and in her glassy, drug-clouded eyes, there was something like love, and Alice-Marie told herself she was doing the right thing, that her friend could not be separated from her daughter...
She has been forgiven, Alice-Marie thought suddenly, For she has loved very much.
"...and some baby food."
"I have a bomb shelter's worth," said Laura, "Pretty sure they took my keys when I went through the ER, but..."
"Forget about it. I'll just do a run..."
"Alice..."
"It's fine. Is she picky?"
"She's a saint," her lips twitched, "I don't know where she gets it from."
Sensing she was about to cry again, Alice-Marie was quick to assure her, "I'll take good care of her. I promise..."
Laura nodded, "I just...I can't risk..." the word cracked, "All night, when I was doped up, I...I had this horrible feeling and maybe it was the drugs, I don't know, but after what happened I don't know what to think..." her grip on Alice-Marie was like a vice, "I can't let that thing come near her."
Alice-Marie felt a sickly lurching in her...some sort of implacable unease, "...thing?"
"Whatever it was...the...the thing that came for me, the thing that...that did this to me..."
Confused, she cocked her head to the side, "Laura...do you mean the driver who hit you?"
"The driver!" she threw her head back and laughed, lone tears on either side of her battered face, "God, I wish..." her lips twitched, "there's one poor son of a bitch who won't be a problem for anyone ever again."
***
I saw your eyes...
...and you made me cry
***
"Baseball," Sam said abruptly, and so quietly Paula, consumed in her work and not looking for more interruptions, at first didn't hear him. When she raised her eyes to confirm she'd heard him, he answered, just as curtly, "My first stitches. Not lacrosse."
She absorbed this quietly, not sure if he wanted her to say something, or if she wanted to, for that matter. Her first thought was that this was some trick, or the setup to a joke, but his voice lacked the barbed edge it usually got (and had gotten, more than once today) when he was having fun.
So she said the first thing that came to mind, "That sucks," and then, more dubiously, "I didn't know you played that."
"I used too," he said, "When I was little. Too little for Little League, but I...had a bat and a ball..." he let out a little gasp as Paula made another cross with the needle. She darted an eye at him, but he shook his head slightly, communicating it was alright, so she continued.
"I would go in my yard and practice hitting off this crummy birdbath we had, with the top all shaved down."
"Like tee-ball," Paula observed conversationally, and he nodded, but gave no other indication she'd spoken.
"And this one time I...I swung too hard. Flyball, right through my folks' window," he wasn't looking at her, or at anything, really, just staring blankly ahead of him. He was still gripping the edges of the table, and Paula could see veins working in the top of his hands.
"Next thing I know, there's screaming...cussing like I never heard in my life...and I see his face in the window, just...staring out at me...I still remember it, just how it looked, like it's the first time I ever saw him..."
"Sam..."
"And then he's there, he comes crashing out the back door and my Mom is talking, but it's like she's somewhere else...I don't see her, but she's yelling at him and he doesn't listen and he's there, he's looking right down at me, and I can't see shit for crying but he's so tall, it's like he's casting a shadow and...and the bat on the ground, where I dropped it, he bends down..."
"It's over!" the words came out of her explosively, but it turned out she was right...she'd finished the stitches, a neat, jagged line up the side of his neck. She hadn't even realized she'd stopped. Sam didn't say anything to this, not at first. His face had gotten very red, and his shoulders were rising and falling in quick, quiet breaths. His knuckles were white on the table.
"Didn't feel a pinch," he said finally.
"There'll..." she swallowed, her throat dry, "There'll be a scar."
"Yeah," he looked at her, full-on, and he smiled, his eyes almost soft, "What else is new?"
***
...And for a little while
I was falling in love...
***
"I try not to come in here if I can help it," said Pamela flatly, "Guess it's a big day for firsts all around."
She looked across the table at Vicki for a few belabored seconds before lowering her eyes to the oversized menu on the table, "The 'Hot Ham and Cheese' sounds like something."
Honestly, she had no idea why Jack in the Box had been her first stop, except she'd left her 'informal interview' with the dashing Deputy Kowalski and the desiccated ghost of an underpaid social worker feeling like she'd been trapped in the fever dream of a hallucination. The deputy had been nothing if not patient, which somehow was only worse. If he'd been a bit more officious, maybe even a little condescending, she'd have felt well within her rights ripping the place to shreds and making the scene she pulled in the morgue look like a deleted scene from Heart to Heart.
The fact of the matter was, she hadn't been anywhere around anybody last night. Did this make her a suspect? Well...she wasn't under arrest.
As for what the hell did smash into their maid's window and commit a double homicide?
"Under investigation, Miss Devlin. I'm sorry."
Everyone's sorry for something.
Even Vicki, not that she'd said as much and not that Pam could imagine what in God's name she had to be sorry about, especially after the amazing welcome wagon Pam had rolled out for her. She had to be grateful Vicki had turned up when she did, like some guardian angel or some such sentimental garbage, just when Pam needed her most.
(Providential...or suspicious. But that was a whole different heap of BS.)
Nobody seemed interested in questioning Vicki. Then again, Pam had done her best to keep her name out of what she'd told Kowalski. No reason for her and Kirk's relationship to be dragged in front of the police.
Until it had to be, which Pam wasn't yet entirely sure it wouldn't.
"You pick whatever you want..." she said finally, "I'll cover it," there was a long, tense silence. Her fingers squeaked along the edge of the menu page.
"It's the least I can do," she said finally...the least she could say.
-Paula, Sam, Jason, Mrs. Lakotos, Connor, Ross, Alice-Marie, Laura, and Pamela
For all the things that seemed to have changed since Vicki went away, the Jack in the Box had stayed the same. The one constant in her life and it was this low-rate fast food restaurant, looking only slightly less desolate than that White Castle on the outskirts of town.
This was little comfort to Vicki, though, who was still distraught over seeing what was left of Kirk and his mysterious female friend, who seemed to have been more than nobody to Pamela, even if she didn't look like it now.
Considering that image in her mind, Vicki immediately eliminated anything with meat from her sudden brunch date.
"It's fine," Vicki assured her, closing the menu and pushing it aside. "Think I'll just have a shake..." She chose her next words carefully, because she knew how Pamela would get if she tried to turn the hospitality card on her; Vicki felt obligated to attempt it anyway. "What about you? Is there anything I can do for you?
Pamela shook her head immediately, "After the sightseeing tour I gave you this morning, you don't owe me any favors for a long time."
Their server came by with drinks, and Pamela spent a few moments disconsolately nursing the cold plastic of her straw, watching the Diet Coke bubbles floating up to the surface.
"I should be at home," she said eventually, "Phone's probably ringing off the hook. The 'rents," she exaggerated the vowel sound, thinking of Kirk and then of the bloody shape on the slab that had once been him, and suppressing the urge to gag, "They're probably feeding a small fortune to the airport phones," she took a disconsolate drink, "I don't think I can even hear them now. All worried and...sad and..." she traced the lip of the glass with her finger, "What am I supposed to say? I don't even know..."
But this wasn't entirely true, and Pam figured she might as well begin there.
"That night, when I called you..." she cautiously lifted her eyes to her, "Did you really come all the way back here because I asked?"
-Pamela
"It was...one of the reasons." Vicki feel silent, letting the dreamy doo-wop guitar play off the crackly Jack n' the Box speaker. She wondered for just how much longer she could get away with dancing around the truth. Maybe now was as good a time as ever to rip off the band aid. But maybe now was also a good time to figure out just how much she missed.
"I want to be honest with you, Pam, but first..." She leaned forward, imploring her best friend, "...I need you to be honest with me. That girl back at the morgue wasn't 'nothing,' Pam. She did something and knowing Kirk, he probably did something, too. Who was she? What happened?"
Pamela sighed heavily, "Right. I owe you that," she bit her lip, "And I wanted to tell you anyway, that...well, it was the whole reason I called you in the first place..."
She heard her heels clattering on the cracked asphalt of the parking lot, her hand shaking as she took the payphone off the hook, the ironish taste of fear in the back of her throat...
"It feels kinda stupid just thinking about it now..." she pressed her hands together, "Or not. I don't know, but I have this feeling..."
She was getting ahead of herself. Pamela readjusted herself in the booth, "She showed up a couple of days ago. There was a party at ours and all the usual suspects were there..." she took another doleful sip of her Coke, "And she just walks into the pool house like she owns the place. Meanwhile, she's dressed like she just fell off Old McDonald's truck, and she has this look in her eyes like she'd hit the pavement hard on the way out."
She let out a sharp, bitter laugh.
"And she spins this whole story for Kirk," she paused, adding almost as an afterthought, and with some guilt, "And Sam."
Vicki hadn't mentioned Sam yet or, well...any of the other guys, which came as a relief. Then again, it would almost be a relief to hear some of Vicki's politely tactful criticism of her relationship choices.
"...who kicked me out, as you can imagine. Anything to give Kirk his privacy," she shook her head, "Not that it matters, it all came out later anyway. Or a version of it did," she jostled the ice in her glass with the base of her straw, "She said they met at my birthday party...which I don't know how she could've done that because I would never have invited her even if I did know who the hell she was...especially if I knew who she was."
Cautiously, she met Vicki's eyes, "She said she was pregnant," she paused, "With his kid."
-Pamela
Vicki blinked, the words not processing at first, though she only needed to look at Pamela's face to see she was dead serious. This was the truth. Whoever said sometimes the easiest explanation is usually the right one was full of shit...
"That..." She didn't know why but she chuckled then, maybe out of sheer disbelief. "That's impossible. Kirk didn't cheat. He was lot of a things but..." Vicki stopped herself, finding fast enough just how raw that wound still was and would be for God knew how long. "What, was she trying to extort him for money? What did she want?"
"Well, isn't that the $64,000 question," said Pamela darkly, "I thought money. So did Sam, but that might be what the shrinks call 'projecting'."
That was mean. It was about Sam, though, so it didn't really matter if it was. Still, she could imagine the look on Sam's face if she'd said it in his hearing, given his own grumbling resentments about not coming from money. She remembered a day on the lake...they'd all brought chaise lounges out to the shore and lay soaking up the sun. Somebody had started talking about summer vacation...Quinn, probably, he was always starting shit on accident, but it didn't matter because they all started going in turns anyway. Quinn and his folks were going to Boca, Fitz was being dragged to a ranch in Argentina ("Where my Grandfather has 'interests', whatever that means, am I riiiiiiiiiiight?"), Jason started on about a rowing down the Loire, and then he'd turned to Sam, perfectly innocently, to ask, "What about you?"
Sam's eyes had darkened at once, boring right into Jason. Pam, sitting a little way away, had felt goosebumps prickle on her arms.
"I'm waiting for Debbie Gibson to call me back," he replied finally, tightly, "Until then, anything goes."
"All she would say, over and over again, was she wanted him to do the right thing," she twisted her hands together, "Which apparently means moving into the guest room and telling the help she's Kirk's girlfriend..."
She stopped short, looking at Vicki, "She wasn't," as she said it, she found herself believing it, "I wasn't sure at first, Vick, I'll be honest, but like you said..." she cocked her head to the side, "Kirk wouldn't cheat. And I know..." the ice clinked against the inside of the glass, crystalline siren-calls, "I know how bothered he was by it. He had no idea who this chick was. I don't know why he put up with it..." she propped her head up on her chin, "It didn't help that Paula practically adopted her. Ever since Ellie Fitch got knocked up, she's elected herself Mother Theresa. Hung off every word she said...helped her get a pregnancy test too, which she straight up shoved up Kirk's nose," she paused, "So she was pregnant, so what? Or maybe she wasn't...maybe she found a pregnant chick and got her to pee on the stick."
For the first time, it sank in that Janey's death meant the end of that baby.
"I hope it's a boy, personally," she'd told her that day at the mall and, when asked why, "I'm honestly not sure," all the while looking at Pamela like she'd smothered her dog.
For a moment, Pamela was filled with a horrible bloodthirstiness. It was good Janey was dead, and it was better her baby would never be born. What had she ever done to her? What had Kirk? What gave her the right to walk around, acting like she was better than them? Judging them all, constantly, and holding her cards close to her deceptively flat chest?
"Janey," she said again, "That was her name," realizing she'd forgotten that part, "Or, it wasn't, but she told Paula it was, and Paula told us...but other people..."
"I have a bone to pick with you," Leandro Lakotos, solemn faced and dark eyed: a man on a mission.
"She told other people her name was Audrey."
Leo grabbing her by the arm: "What do you expect to do about it?"
And she'd looked at him, shaking from fury, feeling like the whole world was beginning to come undone around her, that the infants' section of the Gap, with its cutesy strollers and its powderpuff tiled floor and Phil Collins piping in from the speakers and she'd realized she was afraid.
"I don't know."
She didn't want to talk about Leo.
"None of it makes any sense. If she was trying to blackmail o-or extort him, that's one thing, but the way she acted, like she knew us all, not just Kirk. And not just that she knew us, but she didn't like us. God, the way she acted..."
"I can't leave...not yet."
"Like she hated being around us as much as we did. But if she hated it so much, why play the game? Why string us along? Why threaten to ruin my brother's life? Why not just collect a check and run? Unless..." the ice was whirlpooling around in the Coke: a saffron-colored blur of bubbles in the glass, "Unless she wasn't the one calling the shots. If she wasn't alone. If..."
"Here you go!" the waiter set their tray down so suddenly Pamela almost screamed. She pressed her knuckles against her mouth, nodding wordlessly at their server.
"Y'all enjoy," he vanished back into anonymity. Pamela stared at the steamy cheese on her plate and reminded herself she hadn't eaten at all today.
"I don't like admitting it, Vick," she said finally, "But I have no idea what the fuck is going on," she took a morose bite of her sandwich, "And I'm scared."
-Pamela
The music continued to play, the manager of this joint seeming to prefer the oldies station above all. The dreamy, twangy guitar felt like an odd fit for a Jack 'N the Box but it was far from the strangest thing Vicki encountered in what had become the longest two and a half hours of her life.
Vicki let it all wash over, hanging on to every word Pamela said and yet still struggling to follow along. This woman just crashed into all of their lives with a secret to lord over them, a secret none of them had to believe, something they could have just thrown back into her face before promptly saying, "Get lost!"...but Kirk took her in. Because despite all his faults, he believed himself to be a man of honor. He might have been the only guy at St. George's who took the good as well as the bad of that prep school creed; Kirk could be a lot sometimes but he earnestly believed in at least trying to be a good person. He probably didn't believe this Janey for a minute but it wasn't in his nature to turn a pregnant girl out onto the street. Kirk was a complicated guy. Good might have been too generous but he had enough good to be manipulated by this newcomer, whoever she was.
And he had enough good to instill Vicki with guilt for what she was going to do to him when she returned to Lakewood.
Her shake finally arrived, though Vicki's appetite still hadn't returned, her thoughts fixated on the rare admission from Pamela: "I'm scared." A part of Vicki wondered if this all could have been avoided if she was here during all of this, instead of...instead of...
She couldn't dance around it anymore; she had to be honest with Pamela. "I'm going to tell you something, Pam. But you have to promise you won't tell anyone else. Can I have your word on that?"
Pamela looked up abruptly at Vicki's surprising entreaty. She hadn't expected her to have anything to divulge. Not for the first time today, an uncomfortable creeping feeling overtook her. She took a cautious bite, "Well, if I can keep anything, it's a secret."
That's half the problem.
"Whatever it is, Vick, you can tell me. God knows, I've unloaded enough on you already."
But there was another, darker sense in the back of her mind. A creeping doubt...Vicki couldn't know anything about all this, could she?
She showed up. At your door. Right on the heels of the cops.
Yeah...because you called her. If she's here at all, that's because of you...
Kirk was always so defensive about his relationship with Vicki, always insisting what he felt for her was real, serious...no silly kid stuff like...
Well, like Paula and Jason. Or, Pam supposed, though he never said it in as many words...her and Sam.
Sam's no kid, she thought briefly, thinking of the Gap, the anger in his eyes, boring into the back of her neck as she took off.
You should've stayed, she recriminated herself, again not for the first time, You should've stayed and faced them.
"You have my word," she said solemnly, because Vicki was probably expecting it, and she didn't want to look frivolous, if that was even possible anymore.
-Pamela
A small smile crept onto Vicki's face. At least some things had stayed the same; she could take comfort in that. Pamela could always offer an open ear to Vicki and vice versa; their friendship was one of the few things she knew she could count on.
So why did Vicki still feel this apprehension about telling Pamela where she'd truly been? Maybe it was because she hadn't really put it into words to anyone besides her parents and well...they already knew.
"All this time I've been gone," she started small and slowly, finding herself unable to just blurt out the point. "It wasn't on a ski trip. That was a..." Vicki stopped herself, trying to find a way to phrase it that didn't look suspicious as all hell; too late for that, she guessed. "...it was a cover. Something my parents wanted out there to save face. The Marches have a reputation to keep in Lakewood. Small town, big names--I don't need to tell you that." Briefly, she considered what the Devlins would have to endure in the coming days, weeks, months. All the questions they'd have to answer about Kirk, on top of the mourning they were already enduring. God only knew what rumors would come out of this. The people in this town could be cruel if they wanted to, especially if that meant bringing down someone a peg. And the Devlins, high atop their ivory tower, were a prime target for that.
"The truth is, Pam, my parents..." Vicki found herself getting choked up now, instinctively pulling her sleeves over her wrists to further hide her scars. You can't back out now. Be honest with her, Vicki, like you should have from the start.
She took a deep breath, steadying herself, before speaking. "...they had me checked into a mental hospital." Vicki let it sit there, feeling the weight leave her chest. It was a brief relief soon supplanted by this dread of how this would affect Pamela's perception of her.
It was finally out there, though. Vicki felt liberated.
Pamela leaned back in the booth, her mouth hanging a little agape, which may have been rude, but she didn't have the presence of mind to check this.
"Oh my God," she said finally, "Vick, I..." in a determined stage whisper, she pitched herself forward again, "A mental hospital? That's...I can't..."
Now that she thought about it...the suddenness of Vicki's departure, the bare fact it had been almost impossible to get in touch with her for all these months...obviously, if she'd just been at a swanky ski resort, it would be easy as anything to get her on the phone...
How could I have been so stupid? she thought crudely, hatefully, shaking her head.
"I don't get it," she said haltingly, "Why would you...I mean..." struggling for words, she tried again, "What's wrong with you?" and then, just as quickly to soften the bluntness, "What happened?"
-Pamela
Vicki winced as Pamela expressed--or tried to express--her shock and concern. "What's wrong with you?" The words stung, as Vicki was forced to ask them herself time and time again these last few weeks. She anticipated this, thought about it constantly, running the conversation a million times in her head. And yet for all her anxieties and fears, it still hurt to see her best friend react like this. Maybe she should have kept quiet. Maybe it was just selfish of Vicki to tell her this now, on top of everything else.
No...you promised yourself you'd be honest with her once you got out. You owe it to her.
And so Vicki went on, as did the place's dreamy music, its slow melody keeping her focused like some kind of twangy metronome. "Well, I...I got into it with my parents." Instinctively, her hand tugged her sleeve over the scars on her wrist, just barely visible to anyone who cared to look. "You know how I was with them. We didn't always...get along."
Flashes of that last night home intruded her consciousness. Shouting, reverberating through the house. Hot, messy tears streaming down her face. Her and her mother's. The shatter of a glass against their hardwood floors, with her towering father standing over the shards, bellowing at her. What exactly, Vicki couldn't remember. Merely thinking about that night caused her chest to tighten. Without realizing, she had tugged her sleeve even further, retreating briefly into a faraway silence.
"So..." Vicki slowly returned to the present, carefully considering her next words, a sudden fear gripping her heat at what Pamela would think as she tried to muster the courage to come clean fully and completely. "...they decided I was the problem and sent me away." Despite herself, she laughed, shaking her head. "While they went away on a ski trip. They basically dropped me off at the kennel until they got back from vacation. Guess I would have been deadweight for them. More than usual."
Against her better judgement, Vicki left it at that.
"Really?" Pamela asked, in the back of her mind chastising herself, saying she should try being sensitive, bitch, for once in her fucking life. That she'd clearly wounded Vicki, and she hadn't meant to, and...
"That sucks," and, finding this was also hardly appropriate, she added, "So they just sent you away? I can't...but..."
But what? She would've noticed? It had been the first response to come to mind, but now that she thought about it...would she have? She thought she was so perceptive, that she could razor-in on trouble, had a sense for when something smelled. Janey, sure, but that was different. She'd been practically paraded in front of her. If she hadn't noticed something was rotten, she should've been lobotomized as a public service.
Vicki was her best friend, though...and she hadn't suspected a thing. She barely even thought about Vicki's parents, or anybody's, really. And what did that say?
"I wish I knew," she said finally, which probably sounded accusatory, like she was blaming Vicki for not telling her. She added, "I mean, I wish I'd figured it out. It must've been scary, all locked up like that..." she paused, "I guess Kirk didn't know?"
Of course he hadn't. If he had, he'd probably would've have carried her out himself, whatever problems there may be between them. His white knight complex wasn't so easily neutralized, as she'd been harshly reminded this week.
"So, when you came back..." the thought occurred to her, "Vick, how did you get out? Did they, just...let you go, or...I'm sorry, that makes it sound like a prison. Duh. Of course, you weren't, like, locked up, or..."
She didn't finish, looking cautiously at Vicki for her to confirm whether she had been.
-Pamela
Vicki nodded timidly as Pamela tried to process the truth, or at least, the little truth she was brave enough to share with her best friend. Her heart was beating rapidly, her chest tightening as she kept fighting with herself if she should just blurt it all out now. How liberating it would be, now that all their lives felt shorter than ever...but how selfish, too, so soon after finding out Kirk was gone.
"But I guess Kirk didn't know?"
And right on cue, Vicki was faced with another regret. "Of course not," she said quickly, not to be cruel but to be honest. "You know your brother. If heard about something like this, he'd have made a scene. Even if he meant well." She closed her eyes and a shaky exhale escaped her lips. "I realize now I should have told him then. I should have been honest..."
I should have stopped leading him on and called it off with him.
She held her tongue, entering a forlorn silence as she didn't mean to fall into and for a while, couldn't emerge from, letting Pamela ask her next question, which somehow felt easier to answer than the last. "Oh, it was a prison," Vicki laughed, despite herself. "And, um...I got out. I escaped." It felt weird verbalizing it, as if the words were not her own--that they could not be her own--but she was learning that she was capable of more and more these days, it seemed. "I fought like hell to get back home so I could be with you and Kirk and Paula and all the others..." A sentimental smile crept on her face as the dreamy doo-wop music began to swell to a crescendo. "...because you guys felt more like home to me more than whatever my parents tried to keep me in. You always accepted me and cared for me..."
And yet you don't tell them the full truth because you fear you don't know them as well as you think you do.
Another shudder escaped her both; unbeknownst to Vicki, a single tear had managed to escape and stream down her cheek. Without thinking, she took Pam's hand in hers and spoke as bluntly as she could. "Pam...I love you..." Deep down, she felt her heart nagging her brain to just leave it at that and let the truth stand on its own, unafraid of what might happen next, of how this might end their friendship more than any petty fight or squabble.
"...all of you guys..."
Goddammit.
"...which is why I'm going to continue to fight like hell..." Vicki continued, swallowing her regrets. "...to make sure you're OK...and to find out what happened to Kirk. Because the reason I didn't just leave this town behind once I broke out of that hellhole, the reason I came back to Lakewood..." Taking a deep breath, she looked into her best friend's eyes and put it in the simplest terms possible. "...I came back to set things right. You have my word on that."
And finally, the dreamy guitar faded away, and it was just Vicki and Pam, sitting in silence.