The Good Goodbye

  But there had been a boy. Had Arden fallen in love with Hunter? Would she really have pursued her best friend’s boyfriend? Arden’s always been a private person, even as a child. It’s a quality I’ve always understood and respected. But maybe I should have pushed a little. Maybe she’d been waiting for me to ask.

  “It was a quick conversation. She had to get to class. I was packing to get ready for our trip. But, Natalie, she sounded fine. She really did.”

  I very much want to believe this.

  “George and I will be home in a few days. We’ll head directly to the hospital. Call me if you need anything in the meantime. I’ll keep my phone by my bed.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I do wish we were there, Natalie. I truly do. It’s such a terrible time for all of you. This split between you and Vince isn’t helping things. Don’t you think it’s time you forgave him?”

  Again. “I’m not thinking about Vince right now.”

  “It’s not just him I’m worried about, honey.”

  “Vince thinks Arden set the fire. He thinks she tried to kill Rory.”

  I’m glad I’ve said this, put the shocking words out there. Let Sugar see who her son really is. Even Theo has doubts. I’m the only one holding fast. The scene below me blurs, tiny headlights flaring on, and a car slowly pulling away.

  “He’s just upset, Natalie. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

  It’s exactly what Theo said. “We’re all upset. Stop making excuses for him.” I have never spoken to my mother-in-law so sharply. I’ve crossed a line, slammed a door shut I can never reopen. My mother would be horrified.

  There’s silence. Sugar’s sorting her words. “All I’m saying is you need to pull together,” she says, at last. “You need to be prepared. You don’t know what’s coming.”

  —

  It’s the middle of the night. I sit beside Arden’s bed. The machines blink. Christine’s reassured me over and over. There’s no timetable. Every case is different. We should know something in the next day or so. Through the curtain, I see the shadowy shape of someone walking past. It looks like Vince. Probably going out to sneak a cigarette.

  I’ve tried everything I can to save my restaurant—firing people who’d worked hard and were my friends, begging suppliers for credit extensions and loan officers for a break, coming in early and staying late, all in a desperate attempt to keep the slippery sliding mud from pushing past me and taking my restaurant with it. But the mud had come, knocking me to my knees.

  I had been so focused. I had let things go unremarked. When I didn’t hear from Arden, I should have called her. I should have asked her how things were going, but I thought we could talk later. I always thought there would be a later.

  The nurse comes in to take another reading. A short woman with gray curls. I close my cookbook and set it aside. “How is it?”

  It’s a moment before she answers, a split second that stretches to eternity. “Twenty-two.”

  That damned number. It’s concrete. It’s lead. Arden’s not as resolute as Rory. She sometimes takes the path of least resistance. “Could we get her a fresh sheet?” I ask. “And maybe some new socks?”

  I lift the end of the sheet to reveal my daughter’s legs, bulky compression boots around her calves, and gently tug a sock free. The nurse’s flashlight sweeps past and my daughter’s pale foot is revealed to me, each toe swollen, and the gentle sheen of silver polish. A sophisticated shade. Not like the bright colors Arden loved before she went off to college.

  The flashlight moves on and we are left once again in darkness.

  Arden

  “WHO’S CHELSEA LEE?”

  I wake with a gasp. It’s Uncle Vince talking. He sounds close. Why do you think I’m Rory, Uncle Vince? Maybe there’s something wrong with my face. I try to touch my cheek. But my arm lies stiff, throbbing.

  “I think she’s one of Rory’s professors,” Aunt Gabrielle answers.

  “Nice of her to send flowers,” Uncle Vince says.

  People send flowers for funerals. But I’m not dead. I’m burning alive, smoke rising up.

  “I saw that pink-haired girl again,” Aunt Gabrielle says. “She was standing by the elevator. I think she was looking for Rory’s room. I don’t know why. I told her the girls can’t have visitors.”

  D.D. leans close and whispers, You fucking bitch.

  “She’s young. She doesn’t understand.”

  Uncle Vince says it in the way that means he doesn’t want to be having this conversation but doesn’t know how to stop it from happening. It’s like that all the time between him and Rory. Daddy, she’ll say when she wants something, and he’ll pretend he’s listening. Hmm? He’ll smile at her, but not really. It never deters her. She just goes right around to face him. Daddy, Daddy, Daddy. I have a question.

  But if I say Daddy? to my dad, he immediately stops to look at me. I’m careful what I let him see. When all that crap was going on in eighth grade, he knew. I caught him standing in his office doorway and watching. I’m fine, I told him whenever he asked. Because here’s the thing: I couldn’t stand to see the sadness collect in his eyes.

  “Gabby? I called you Friday night, but you never answered. Where were you?”

  “Did you? I suppose I didn’t hear my phone.”

  “You heard it when the hospital called.”

  “Yes, thank God.”

  My leg is on fire. I can’t catch my breath. I need to stay awake, but the pain rolls in.

  I’m in my bed at home. Something fierce lies curled in my belly, trying to claw its way out. The overhead light snaps on.

  Arden? My mom bends over me. I moan, roll around, clutching my stomach. I stumble to the bathroom while she calls the doctor, her voice low and clear. She’s scared, too. When I see the blood, I’m embarrassed. Mom. It’s okay.

  Someone’s screaming. Is it me?

  Henry howls from the basement. The animal cry makes the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up. Dad rushes him to the hospital while I watch Oliver, the two of us pretending to play Crazy Eights. I’m tucking him into bed when he whispers, I didn’t mean to. His mouth crumples like he’s going to cry. Mean to what? I whisper back. But he turns his face to the wall.

  Where is Rory? Why isn’t she telling everyone who I am? Is it Rory screaming?

  But Rory doesn’t scream. Rory doesn’t even cry. She’s never broken her arm and she’s never had her period. It’s her thinness that keeps it away. When I found that out, I tried starving myself, too, but I couldn’t make it one day before sneaking down to the pantry in the dark to eat handfuls of crackers straight from the box. Still, Rory knows pain, too. It’s just a different kind.

  —

  The man next to me on the Metro keeps trying to look down the top of my dress. He reeks of B.O. I turn my shoulder to him and watch cement walls zoom past. I’m dragging by the time I get to Zorba’s and my arm’s itching like it’s on fire. The things you think are cool when you’re little are not the things that really are cool when you’re grown-up. I’m surprised Rory never changed her mind about getting a tattoo, but I’m glad I went through with it. I’m glad I made her happy.

  The screen door bangs shut behind me, stirring up dust motes that spin around in the weak sunshine. The wooden table and chairs are battered, and the place reeks of mildew and stale grease. How did I ever think this place was so sick?

  Toby’s by the soda dispenser. The place is empty except for him. “Hey.” He presses his paper cup against the lever. Dark soda fizzes in. He’s got his black messenger bag slung across his chest and he’s broken out in angry zits across his forehead and chin.

  “Hey. How’s school going?”

  “College apps suck, man. How many stupid essays do I got to write?”

  “Can’t your coach help you?”

  Toby’s parents own a spa clinic in Alexandria. He gets good grades but doesn’t play a sport, so he’s screwed. He’s been working with a college prep coach si
nce eighth grade. “She says I have to do it on my own.” He sucks on his straw, shrugs. “I might buy some essays online.”

  “They’ll find out.”

  “There are sites.”

  I should tell Rory that. I pull out my wallet and he frowns, jerks his chin to a booth. I’m dismayed. I don’t want to sit. I want to get this over with. He slides onto the bench. I sit down opposite, wincing at the sticky surface beneath my bare thighs. He nods and I glance to see Ed’s gone into the kitchen. Ed has to know what’s going on. He’d be an idiot to think people would want to hang with Toby for any other reason. I push across a folded sheaf of bills and Toby quickly thumbs through them. “You sure this is all you want? Won’t last you long, the way you’re burning through them.”

  Like it’s any of his business. The sixty bucks I’d paid the tattoo artist meant six pills I couldn’t buy. “I’m sure.”

  He flops open the flap on his messenger bag. “Look, I hate to give away business, but coke’s a lot cheaper, you know. Or, hey. Go to the doctor. Tell him you can’t concentrate. You know what to say.”

  Coke’s for addicts and my family doctor will just raise his thick white eyebrows at me and tell me the only way he’ll give me a prescription is if I go to therapy, too. But really, I’m afraid. I’m terrified of all the ways things could go wrong. This is what I know, meeting Toby for a soda at a crappy pizza place. This is safe. “It’s illegal,” I say, lamely.

  “Dude.” He tosses me the small white bottle. “Calm down.”

  —

  The house is lit up when I get home, all the windows glowing. I unlock the door and step into the front hall. It smells just the same as always, of wood and leather and lemons and rosemary and melting butter. It almost looks the same, too, the tumble of small blue sneakers by the front door and clogs and loafers, the glass lamp filled with seashells turned on in the living room, shining a big circle across the pale green carpet. There’s something missing. I can’t figure out what. I drop my bag on the floor.

  Everyone’s in the family room, talking while the television’s playing. “Can we go out for Chinese food?” I call out, a joke between my dad and me. I’m always asking to go out to eat and he always answers, Do you know any good places? Percy lets out a volley of barks, then he and Oliver skid into the hall. “For real?” he says, as Percy bounds toward me, his long ears flopping. “You’re here for real?” Henry is right behind him. “It’s a miracle!” he shouts.

  My mom’s car crunches into the driveway and I push back my kitchen chair. Oliver and Henry jump up and down. “Guess what? Guess what?”

  Her measured voice in the hall, happy the way she always is when she’s talking to the boys, the clatter of her keys in the bowl. “You won your game?”

  “Hi, Mom.”

  She stops in the doorway, her fingers pressed against her mouth, her eyes shiny with tears. She doesn’t move, not even after Dad grabs her shoulders and squeezes. “Look who’s here, sweetheart!” I go over to my mom because she’s not moving and she drops her hands and opens her arms. We hug for a long time, but nothing about it feels the same. She feels smaller, somehow. “You came home for your birthday. Thank you, darling.”

  She had wanted to drive up with Dad and Oliver and Henry and take me out, but I had told her no. She had sent a cake instead, chocolate fudge with mocha buttercream and my name carefully scrolled on top in purple icing, packed in dry ice. It had probably taken her a long time. She’s not a pastry chef like Uncle Vince. He sent me a cake, too, but I don’t tell her that.

  My bedroom doesn’t look anything like I left it. My bed’s made, my clothes hung neatly in my closet and folded in my drawers. The dirty dishes under my bed have disappeared, my trashcan’s been emptied, and the carpeting shows vacuum cleaner tracks. It smells clean and fresh. I lie down and stare at the ceiling. I know every stucco whorl, the five-fingered crack around my ceiling fan, the wiggly brown stain above the window where the roof leaked. I hold up my arm and look at the white gauze covering a little purple butterfly. Now Rory and I are as close to twins as we’ll ever be. My brothers are twins and so are Grandpa Howard and Great-uncle Melvin. I look at them all old and wrinkly and try to picture my little brothers grown up like that. My aunt Christine separates twins who are born connected, which grosses Rory out. Whenever I talk to her about it—two babies sharing a heart or a brain or three legs—she makes a face and covers her ears. Shut up, will you? she’ll say. But I want to know. Where do you draw the dividing line?

  My arm’s itching. Give it a week, the guy had said. Don’t peel it. Let it flake away by itself. I pick at the corner of the gauze to sneak a look.

  A knock on my door and my mom’s there. “I’ve brought you some towels.” She stops and frowns with concern. “Did you hurt yourself, honey? Let me see.”

  I slap my hand over my arm. “It’s nothing.”

  “It’s not nothing. I can see that it’s not nothing.”

  “You have to promise not to be mad.”

  “Why would I be mad? Oh, Arden. What have you done?”

  —

  I’m in the front hall, crouching beside my bag, stuffing in my gloves and scarf for the cold mornings that are right around the corner. My mom’s upstairs, getting my laundry out of the dryer, and my dad’s in the boys’ room, supervising as they make their beds. “Like this, Daddy?” Oliver says. “I got it,” Henry says.

  There’s still something missing. I look around, searching. I see my brothers’ shoes, my dad’s briefcase leaning against the table in the hall, Percy’s leash hanging from the hook. A toy airplane, my mom’s gardening gloves. Now I see it, what’s missing. It’s me.

  Rory

  THE STREETS SHINE with rain. The trees drip, a sudden cool splash on my head, the back of my neck. Music thrums, growing louder as I turn the corner. The house on the corner’s filled with light that sprays out, dusting the lawn. Shadows of people moving inside print themselves against the windows. I walk up the steps and through the front door. The first person I really see is Hunter, in the middle of a bunch of people, the way he always is. He sees me and comes over. “Hey, babe.” His smile is tight. “You get lost?” He holds out a plastic cup of beer and I shake my hair, wipe moisture from my bare arms. “Let’s go.” I grab his hand to pull him through the mob of people. “Whoa,” he says, following along, laughing.

  When we get up to his room, I slam the door and twist the latch. It’s quieter in here. A person can think. “What’s going on?” he says. “You okay?” I turn into his arms and pull his T-shirt over his head. “I’m fine. I just missed you.” I kiss the warm skin of his neck, feeling his steady pulse beneath my lips. I breathe in his clean-boy smell. “Got a problem with that?”

  He kisses me back. He doesn’t answer.

  —

  When I get back to my room Sunday, I hear voices coming from inside. Arden’s back and someone’s with her. D.D.? I unlock the door and swing it open. “Hello, bitches.” Too late, I see it’s my mother. I’m not even wearing long sleeves.

  “Oh, Rory. You know how I feel about that language.” The things on my desk are out of order, the papers moved from one side to the other, the drawer left open half an inch. She’s been looking through my stuff again, probably while Arden had her back turned. My mom can be very quick about this sort of thing. Had I left anything out—the Baggie of weed, the strip of condoms? My mom would freak if she saw that. She still thinks I’m a virgin. I used to leave her traps, like the fake diary under my mattress. Arden and I would giggle as I wrote sappy entries just for my mom’s sake. I can’t believe he likes me! But I won’t even let him kiss me. I’m saving myself. She believed every word. I know she did. She tells me all the time. I want you to grow up to be a strong woman. I don’t want you to settle. I don’t want you to rely on a man to make you happy. Which tells me a lot more about my parents than I ever wanted to know.

  I pull down a hoodie from my closet and tug it on.

  She comes toward me, her ex
pression smooth and not yielding clues, which doesn’t mean I’m in the clear. As we hug, I throw Arden a dark look. She makes a face back. “You should have come home, too,” my mother says. “We could have gotten you in to see Jean-Pierre. Ah, well. Thanksgiving will be here soon enough. I’ll make you an appointment. Come on, I want to take you both shopping. I owe Arden a birthday present.”

  “No, you don’t,” Arden says, and I quickly add, “Hunter’s coming over.”

  “Yes, I do, Arden, and that’s perfect, Rory. He can come, too.”

  Which is the entire point of her coming here, isn’t it? “Hunter doesn’t want to go shopping, Mom.”

  “Well, of course not. He can join us afterward. We can go back to that little place I took you to, Arden.”

  This is the first time I’ve heard anything about that. “We were planning to study,” I say. Arden rolls her eyes. I ignore her. “We have a big test tomorrow.”

  “Just a quick bite, then. Boys are always hungry. Hunter’s an athlete. He can do that carbo-loading.”

  I want to die. “Please don’t say that around him, Mom.”

  “That’s not the right expression?”

  “Don’t you want to beat the traffic?”

  “Oh, cherie. You make me feel like you don’t want me here.”

  Sunday afternoon’s a terrible time to go shopping. Most of the shops are closed, so we end up at the university bookstore, going through all the lame EMU stuff. Maroon and gold are just two colors that don’t belong together.

  Arden keeps pulling stuff on and my mom keeps shaking her head. “I’m not sure that does anything for your figure.” And, “That’s just not special enough.” Finally, she decides on a cashmere scarf that Arden insists is too expensive, to which my mom replies, “Don’t you think you’re worth it, darling?”

  Finally, we go to the coffee shop around the corner. I look around, but she’s not there.

  “We’ll be right back.” I give Arden a look. She rises from her chair with a noisy sigh and pushes into the bathroom behind me. Only one stall, and we crowd in front of the mirror.