Blue Stars (12 page)

Lacey saw Felicia slip away from the group. She would hate this kind of talk. And to tell the truth, Lacey felt queasy also: the crowded kitchen, the slumped sitting body, the slices of turkey and ham sandwiches. “Who’s in with the kids?” she asked, and several women hurried back to check on them.

“Aimee can’t hear
any
of this,” someone whispered. “Not now, in the state she’s in.” They all nodded, faces echoing fright and determination.

In the kitchen, Lacey plated sandwiches and covered them with plastic wrap. Dina loaded the dishwasher.

“They think they’re all that,” Dina said. “The Marines. So tough, so above it all. Well, where’s that discipline now?”

“Yeah.”

“Which is the worst, do you think?” Lacey turned to Dina at the sink. “If you had to pick one.”

“What do you mean?”

Dina lowered her voice to a whisper. “You know. Between your guy doing
that
 … and what Aimee has to go through.”

“Jesus. Neither.”

“If you had to.” Dina, in soapy pink gloves, didn’t budge. “Gun to your head, which one.”

“The—the—pissing thing.” Lacey flushed with anger for having been made to say it.

Dina blew hair out of her face, relieved. “Yeah, obviously. Do them before they do you.”

*   *   *

The rest of the afternoon passed in a sad whirl. When Aimee came back from the service, she was ensconced on a couch, with a wiggly Peter on her lap, ringed by relatives. Lacey didn’t know her well and kept a respectful distance. She rotated plates from table to kitchen to table, and kept an eye on Otis—shushing him when she heard him laugh, but glad that he was, in fact, laughing—and waited for the time until they could leave. She longed to talk to Eddie, just to shoot the shit with him about anything except all this. She wanted to tell him about the Others on
Lost,
she wanted to hear what he thought about Joe Torre’s prostate cancer—would he resign?—she wanted to ask his opinion on skinny jeans. Could she pull them off? Although Eddie would think all of that irrelevant, silly. She could picture the way he’d dismiss it and make her feel embarrassed.

“Hi. Mrs. Diaz?”

It was one of her group members! The youngest one, this girl who came off as thinking she was all-that, but who was probably just shy, Lacey had realized. What was her
name
?

“Oh! You can call me Lacey. How did you—?”

“My parents used to go to church with his parents. Corpus Christi.” The girl nodded toward Aimee on the couch. “I brought cookies. I didn’t know what to bring.”

“No, cookies are good. Go on and put them on a plate. There’s stuff in the kitchen.”

But the girl didn’t move. She hung back, nearly behind Lacey, eyes darting around the room full of people. “Do I have to … should I go say something to her?”

“Not right now. Later.” Lacey studied her, remembering what she’d said in the group about her husband making them go three nights in a row to his favorite ribs place right before he shipped out. “Come with me.”

In the kitchen, she handed the girl a paper plate and showed her how to fan the cookies out so they looked nice. A woman bagged up garbage and said hello before moving past them. One of the few men present was in there too, on the phone, scribbling notes in a small pad. When he got off, Lacey said, “Colonel Robbins? I’d like you to meet someone.”

“Hi. I’m, um, Bailey Reese.” Then she whispered, “My fiancé is in Third Cav Bravo.”

Bailey
.
That was it, Bailey
.

The rear detachment commander shook her hand gravely. He thanked her for coming. He asked where she was living, how she was handling deployment, how communication was with her fiancé. Lacey lingered for a few minutes, wiping counters, listening as she spoke politely to tired Colonel Robbins, who had spent a hellish week nailing down details related to this funeral. She’d guessed this girl’s charm came out around men, and she’d been right.

“Mom! Mom!” Otis collided with her in the hallway. “Can I sleep over at Rich’s?”

“What does his—”

“It’s fine with me,” Rich’s mom said, following them into the hall. “We’ll get pizza on the way home—can you get him before noon tomorrow? We’re going to head out now, though—these heels are killing me.”

“That’s—sure, okay.” Otis and Rich:
Yessssss.
Lacey and the other mom exchanged address info via their phones. Otis skidded out to the elevator; she had to call him back to get a hug. Then they were gone.

Most people not in Aimee’s family were on their way out also. Children were wrestled into coats, cleaned Pyrex dishes were sorted and collected. The funeral’s earlier hush gave way to a higher noise level, made up of relief and practical actions and leave-taking. Lacey wandered from room to room, giving good-bye hugs, not sure what to do. At last it seemed awkward for her to stay any longer.

“I just wanted to say—”

Aimee jumped. She’d been checking her phone and Lacey had come up next to her too quickly.

“Sorry!”

“That’s okay.”

“I mean, I wanted to say: I’m really sorry.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

Lacey held still, coat over her arm. Aimee looked fried, not even that sad, just—out of it. She seemed like she was waiting for Lacey to go so she could keep scrolling through messages.

“If you need anything…” How would Anne Mackay do this? Lacey had thought this moment would have more weight. But in the end, Aimee merely thanked her again, and Lacey left, feeling unsatisfied.

She piled her Tupperware and bag of serving spoons into the backseat, but when she got in the car she swung her key chain around her finger, waiting. Why had everyone left so quickly? You’d think the girls would want to go out for a drink afterward, at least at someplace they could all bring their kids. Lacey realized she’d been counting on it. Why was Martine in Florida with her in-laws this weekend of all weekends? Why had she said yes to Otis’s sleepover?

In the early summer dusk, Lacey drove. She went up and down Westchester Avenue, she did the triangle around Crotona Park. Mexican men hoisted giant bouquets of blue and pink cotton candy; packs of kids gathered on street corners, and sometimes under the freeway overpasses. Families held cookouts on any patch of grass, hibachis and folding chairs. Everyone played Jay-Z. Everyone played Rick Ross.

She told herself to get on the BQE, but didn’t. She told herself she wanted to see the water, but then she got on the Bruckner and let it lead her to I-95. Lacey skirted the wide expanse of Pelham Bay Park, and told herself that she was going in to check on Lolo—

Give it up already.
Conning herself only made it worse. She was going to the Snug. She was going to see if that guy Jim was bartending, and there may or may not be different ways to view that, but at least she could stop pretending. Shore Road to the Pelham bridge to City Island Avenue to the bar. Lacey parked across the street and fumbled her way out of the car with her bag and keys. Whether or not Jim Leahy was working tonight, the truest thing she knew was that she needed a drink.

But he was there.

And he gave her a sidelong smile when she entered, his hands busy underneath the bar. Lacey wavered, and then took one of the tall stools by the window at the bar. On the long side were a couple and a few single men. The door was propped open so that puffs of summer night air blew in, bringing a sense of ease and relief—
you can go anytime—
and the sounds of motorcycles idling at the stoplight. Guys walking by leaned in the doorway to call something to the regulars; make a smart-ass joke and get waved away with a laugh.

“Where’s the big guy at?” Jim laid a napkin in front of her.

“Ditched his mom for a sleepover. Maker’s Mark neat, if you have that. Double. And a—”

“Yeah?”

“No, that’s good.”

“You want a beer back?” He whispered, making fun of her reticence.

Lacey laughed. “What, I didn’t know if we were too chichi in here for that.”

Jim straightened up and gave her a
you’re-crazy
look. “I’ll take care of you.”

So she settled in, shrugged off her jacket, watched some ESPN highlights. Lacey felt a deep comfort in knowing these next few hours were booked for her; a session of time, a frame she could relax into and fill with the rhythms of rounds and buy-backs, talk and silence, a buzzy walk to the bathroom and the sweet knowledge of her barstool to return to.
You make yourself a little home
, she thought stupidly, half a drink in.
You can be anyone you—

No, she couldn’t. Not here. Jim rang up the couple and waited until they finished a sloppy kiss before putting down the check. Did she remember him from school? Lacey squinted, trying to take the gray out of his bushy black hair, the paunch from his frame.

“What did you look like, back then? Do you have a photo?”

“Well, yeah—I keep one on me at all times.” He wiped his hands and took out his phone. “Who doesn’t? Here.” Jim handed it to her. Lacey held it close: against a blue backdrop, Jim, one baby on his lap, two girls in identical dresses lined up in front of him.

She ran her finger along the arm of an unidentified woman who had been cropped out of the picture. “Your ex?”

“What can I say, the rest of us look good.”

Lacey gave his phone back. “My husband’s in the service. He’s in Iraq now, on his second deployment.” It seemed important to get this out there on the table too, with her drink.

“That’s tough,” Jim said. “How long till he gets back?”

“A while. Did you play football, in school?” Lacey didn’t want to talk about Eddie or Iraq, didn’t want to explain that the reason she was in these black pants and subdued heels was because she’d been at a soldier’s funeral all day.

“Six-foot fat Irish kid from Long Island? Nah, I was a figure skater.”

“You did, didn’t you.” Lacey had a blurry image of the blue-and-yellow uniform tops, white helmets. “Did you hang out in the lunch courtyard?” This was where the kids cut class and smoked cigarettes until a monitor would bust them.

“No, but I bet you did.”

“Well, I wasn’t a total loser.”

“But kind of a hell-raiser. Am I right?”

Lacey tipped the liquid around in her glass and half smiled, hiding behind her long bangs. “Remember the fire in the auditorium my senior year? The one that went up the curtains after that play?”

“Oh, Jesus. You set that? So, what, that makes me like an accessory now?”

“I didn’t
set
it. But maybe I knew more about it than I should. I hung around with some real meatheads.”

“Yeah.” Jim wandered off to take care of a customer, and Lacey tried to slow down her pulse. She never alluded to the Asshole in this way; why now?

*   *   *

The Asshole. When she got pregnant by him the first time, summer after high school, Lacey had wanted to keep it. She loved him, she loved him through the craziness of the desperate fights and the other girls, the way he humiliated her in front of her friends and the way he could always get her to come back to him. It was a sweet-sourness in her blood, the way she loved him. She spun a story: a baby to make them real, forever, a baby who could help them rise above midnight drama and police visits and all the mean phone calls. He had a job, she’d get one, and they’d make it work. But the Asshole wouldn’t go for it. He made her get the abortion, he even drove her there. (But somehow it was Lacey who got stuck with the bill.) In the week she was recovering he slept with a girl they both knew and didn’t bother to come up with a good lie.

Then came the early 1990s, Lacey barely making the grade for her associate’s at Nassau in the sports management program, drinking too much. She lived between her mother’s and the Asshole’s place way out in Suffolk—switching it up whenever the fighting got too bad at either. He began to hit her. Once bad enough to break a tooth and puff up the side of her eye green and yellow. She let him go, she let him back. She lost friends over him; she swore him off and then relapsed. Years passed in this way.

She got pregnant again. It was right after she’d passed her exams and got a good job at a health clinic, doing group classes for obese senior citizens. She threw up at work and took a test on her lunch hour. But this time—it would never stop haunting Lacey—
she
wanted the abortion. They weren’t in high school anymore. When he was mean or cheap there was less charm or youth to cover up those moments of ugliness. She couldn’t pretend to ignore the blinking danger sign, right in her face. Using up the last bit of good judgment, Lacey made herself an appointment. She might be a lost cause, but no way would she bring a kid into this mess. And then she got drunk, got weepy, called the night before to let him know … and caught the Asshole in a rare moment of deluded decency, of imitative chivalry.
I’m going to make this right
, he told her.
This is our chance to be better, Lace, I won’t let you throw it away.
(Later she learned there were several other women’s “chances” he was supporting—or not—to some degree.)

So she delayed. She wanted it to be true. She missed one deadline after another and then it was too late. He started bailing on her. One morning at 6:00 a.m. she drove to some girl’s Levittown apartment and leaned on the horn until he ran out wild-eyed, pants barely on, screaming at her. Another time they fought and he shoved her and she went down hard, seven months pregnant. The afternoon she gave birth to Otis, Lacey gripped her mom’s hand and knew he wouldn’t make it.
He won’t be here.
She went six hours before an epidural.
He won’t
. She had been pushing for ninety minutes when they saw the cord around his neck.
He’s not coming
. They cut Lacey open and lifted Otis above the curtain so she could see her baby: red, wet, umbilical dangling down.

“My mom was glad. She never liked him, not that she’s any great judge about stuff. And everyone, all my friends, they told me it was for the best, when he just—poof—” Lacey blew out her fingers into star shapes. “Disappeared. This time for good.”