Falling From Disgrace (14 page)

She found herself pulling on to Rachel’s parents’ street and before she could talk herself out of it, she drove the Lexus onto their driveway.  More memories flooded her as she walked the short distance from the car to the front door.  She rang the bell, thinking what a horrible idea it was and hoped no one would answer.  However, after a few seconds, the familiar figure of Rachel’s father stood in the doorway.

“Hey, looks who’s here,” Mr. Simms said kindly, with a smile.  Adrianna looked at him closely.  He looked so much older than she remembered.  Most of his hair was gone and the wisps that were left were white.  His body was thin and frail looking.

“Hi, Mr. Simms,” she spoke, stepping through the door when he invited her in and accepted a hug.

“Since when am I Mr. Simms?” he chuckled quietly, squeezing his late daughter’s friend with an ache in his heart.  “It’s Carl, Adrianna.”

“Right,” she said.

“Well, come in,” he insisted, gesturing down the hall towards their living room.  “Lynette will be so pleased to see you.”

Rachel’s mother was on the living room sofa, watching a program on television.  When she saw Adrianna she looked confused for a moment and then her face lit up in recognition.

“Adrianna!” she exclaimed, rising from her seat and embracing her.  “How are you, dear?”

Lynette Simms looked older to Adrianna as well.  Wrinkles that hadn’t been there the last time she saw her were prominent in her features and while she still had a full head of curled hair, there was plenty of grey in the blonde locks.

“I’m well,” Adrianna lied.  She frowned when she detected the odor of alcohol on Lynette’s breath.  When she pulled back to look into her eyes, the same green eyes that Rachel had, she noticed they had a glossy look to them.  It was barely noon.

“It’s been so long, it’s so good to see you,” Lynette continued as they sat down together.  “Tell me what you’ve been up to.”

Adrianna smiled and tried dancing around her answer, saying she was just keeping busy while living in the city.

“No school?”  Lynette asked.  Carl retuned from the kitchen with a cup of coffee for Adrianna which she gratefully accepted.

“No,” Adrianna answered.  “It’s still a possibility but for now I’m just going to work.”

“You and Rachel were so ambitious,” Lynette sighed.  “What you two could have become…”  She trailed off and Adrianna sipped her coffee.   Don’t you dare cry again, she told herself.

“How are your parents?” Carl asked from his recliner in the corner of the room.

“They’re fine,” Adrianna said.  “Mom is still working part time at the hospital and Dad is enjoying retirement.  I think he plays golf six days a week.”

“Well, good for him,” Carl laughed.  “Doesn’t sound bad at all.  I’m still pushing numbers for AT&T, stuck in a stuffy office all day, but I like to keep busy.”

Adrianna grinned and remembered all the times Carl had taken Rachel and her out when they were kids.  While she wasn’t close to her own father, Rachel’s took them to museums, ballgames, and to Great America on the weekends, even riding the roller coasters with them.  He was so fun, like a big kid himself, and when Rachel’s mother would tell them no to staying up late or extra ice cream or watching a scary movie, Carl would wink and help them sneak it anyhow.

“So, do you have a boyfriend?” Lynette asked hopefully.

“I do,” Adrianna said and then felt another dip in her belly at the thought of Jack, who still had not called.  “His name is Jack.  He owns a bar downtown.”

“How lovely,” Lynette commented.  “Do you ever hear from Jason?”

Adrianna wondered if she should answer truthfully but she said, “Actually I saw him just the other day.”

“How is he?  We don’t hear from him anymore.”  Lynette’s voice held a little sadness to it.

“He’s well.  He works with an accounting firm in the city.  He’s… getting married.”  Why the hell did she let that spill out?  The look on Lynette’s face almost killed her.

“Well, that’s nice,” Carl interjected after a stretch of silence, reaching for his wife’s hand.  “Isn’t it Nettie?”

Lynette seemed to drift off into another place and when Carl nudged her hand she blinked and shook her head.

“Yes, lovely,” she stammered.  “You know what, dear?  I’m really not feeling well, today.  I’m going to lie down for a while.  You visit with Carl and come back again next time you’re in town, okay?”

Adrianna stood to say goodbye but Lynette hurried from the room before she could offer a parting embrace.  Feeling horrible, Adrianna set her coffee down and told Carl she had better be getting home anyhow.

“She’ll be alright,” Carl assured while he walked Adrianna to the door.  “It’s been… hard for her, to say the least.”

Adrianna swallowed thickly and nodded.  She was so stupid for going there.

“Come back and see us again soon, kiddo, okay?” Carl said as he hugged her goodbye.  “It was good to see you.”

“You, too,” she whispered back.  “Take care.”

By Saturday evening Adrianna was wondering why in the hell she even decided to go home.  Her four days of withdrawal were more pleasant than visiting her hometown where every hour that passed made the black cloud hanging over her head more and more ominous.  Her mother came around and started talking to her like nothing had happened but her father hadn’t left the den since Friday evening, not even coming out for supper.  Again that night, Adrianna found herself alone in her bedroom wondering why Jack still hadn’t called her.  Talk about feeling like she was kid again.  She was crying in her room waiting on a boy to call.

After another restless night, Adrianna decided she would head back to the city earlier than she had planned.  Rather than take the last train, she would go home on the four o’clock one.  She would have rather gone home first thing in the morning but there was one last thing she needed to do.

Rachel’s grave was located way in the back of the cemetery and, needing a walk to stretch, Adrianna parked near the entrance and trekked up the narrow, paved road to find it.  When she saw the yellow tulips that were wilting next to the headstone, she tossed them to the side.  Rachel hated yellow and she hated tulips.  Reaching into her purse, Adrianna placed the sprigs of jasmine she had brought on the ground and then a box of cinnamon Hot Tamales, Rachel’s favorite, next to them.  Crossing her legs beneath her, she sat, opened the box, and popped a few of the red, chewy, candies into her mouth.

“I saw your parents today.  Your Dad is still cool but your mom isn’t doing so well, Rae.  If you have any pull up there will ask someone to help her out?  Try to pay her a visit in her dreams or something.  Let her know you’re all right.

“Jason is getting married, but I’m sure you know that.  Are you mad?  I don’t think you’re mad, you were never mad at anyone.  He wants me to go to their wedding but I can’t go.  It should have been you marrying Jason and I’ll never be able to sit there and watch him get married without losing my shit.  If I do end up meeting her somehow, I promise to hate her.”

Adrianna ate a few more candies and then twirled the jasmine between her thumb and first finger.  Bringing it to her nose, she inhaled deeply.

“You were the better of the two of us, you know that.  If I had died and you didn’t, I know you’d have gone on to finish school and you’d be a doctor right now.  Look at me.  What a fucking ‘Lifetime Movie of the Week’ I’ve become.”

Hot tears burned her cheeks while she wept over her friend’s grave.

“I’m trying, I really am, to let go of this but the ironic thing is, the only one who would know what to say to me is you.   Like with the acorn incident.”

When they were ten, Adrianna and Rachel had been having a picnic on the front lawn of Rachel’s house.  Acting like fools, they took turns tossing peanuts into each other’s mouths.  As a joke, Adrianna grabbed an acorn that had fallen from the tree they were sitting under and onto their blanket.  She tossed it, directly into Rachel’s mouth, thinking that as soon as she felt it wasn’t a peanut she would spit it out.  Instead, she bit down and cracked one of her molars.

Rachel was fine after the dentist pulled the tooth, but Adrianna had been hysterical.  She felt awful, putting her friend through that pain.  Though her parents told her not to worry, Rachel’s parents told her not to worry, Adrianna cried for hours.  It finally took Rachel, whose cheek was all puffed out from cotton, and who was still a little loopy from the nitrous gas, to say, “Would you get over it, you big marshmallow!  It was a baby tooth anyhow,” for Adrianna to feel better. 

“I wish you were here to talk some sense into me,” Adrianna continued.  “I’ll keep my eyes and ears open if you should decide to send me some kind of sign or, ya know, haunt me.  Just don’t do it at night, okay?”

Adrianna emptied the rest of the Hot Tamales on the ground and threw the empty box in her purse.

“I hope you’re up there having a good time, Rae,” she said, getting up from the ground and brushing the grass from her jean shorts.  “Save a bed or a… patch of cloud for me, or something, ‘cause when I make there, I’m headed straight for you.  We have a lot to talk about.”

Kissing her fingers, she leaned over and touched her hand to the ground.  “See you later.” 

As Adrianna turned to leave she jumped when she felt something hit the back of her head.  Spinning around and bringing her hand up, she searched for someone and came up with nothing until she looked down at the ground.  There, at her feet in the grass, was a small, solitary acorn.

It was plucked up from the ground and placed in Adrianna’s pocket before she wrinkled her nose at her friend’s grave.

“You bitch,” she laughed.

Sure, it could have fallen from a tree, even though it was the middle of the summer, or a squirrel could have dropped it from its nest above.  Adrianna, however, chose to believe otherwise.                

Chapter 11

T
he cab pulled up to Loki’s at approximately seven forty-five.  Heaving her bag over her shoulder, she stepped into the bar and was surprised to see it was pretty full for a Sunday evening.  Then she heard the awful, twangy voice of someone who sounded drunk and she remembered Jack had booked a Karaoke D.J. to try to bring in more customers on a usually slow night.  It seemed to be working.

She shuffled through people and around tables to reach the bar, searching for Jack.  He was supposed to pick her up from the train station that night but since he never called, he didn’t know she had decided to come home earlier.  Rather than just call him, Adrianna decided to show up so she could see it in his face if he was really through with her. 

Recognizing his messy, dark hair above the heads of those around him, Adrianna made her way towards the very end of the bar where Jack was.  When she saw what he was doing, she stopped dead in her tracks.

Across from Jack was an attractive brunette with painted on jeans and a black halter top that showed an ample amount of cleavage.  Jack was flashing his sexy smile at her and talking.  The woman giggled and then crooked her finger so that Jack leaned over the bar so that she could whisper in his ear.  Jack laughed and pulled away from her, shaking his head.

As if he could feel her glare, Jack’s head turned and he looked straight at Adrianna across the room, their eyes locking on to one another’s.  Confusion swept over his features before he smiled brightly at her and waited for her to move to greet him.  With a look that was half hurt, half pissed off, Adrianna only spun on her heel and stormed back towards the door.

“What the fuck?” Jack mumbled and pushed a beer bottle aside to swing his legs over the bar.   The brunette who had been flirting with him jumped out of the way with a cry of surprise.  He caught up with Adrianna just as she exited the door.

“Adrianna!” he called and lunged to catch her hand.  She stopped walking but yanked her hand from his and shot him a nasty look.  “What are you doing here; I was supposed to pick you up at nine?”

“I came home early.  Sorry, to just show up here and interrupt you and your...friend,” she scathed.

Cocking his head to the side, Jack’s face twisted in confusion.  “Oh, come on, you know that wasn’t anything to get upset over.  I’m a bartender; flirting with the customers is a practically in the job description.”

“Whatever,” Adrianna huffed.  “I’m going home.”

She turned to flag a cab down but Jack grabbed her hand once again, holding strong this time.

“Ade,” he said gently, “I’m sorry if your feelings are hurt but please don’t just walk away from me on the street.  It was friendly flirting, that’s all.”

Refusing to meet his eyes, Adrianna gritted, “I didn’t hear from you all weekend.”

“Yeah, because I wanted to give you some space and time to visit with your parents, not because I wasn’t thinking about you.”  He moved in front of her and threaded their fingers together.  “All I did this weekend was work and worry about you but I started to feel like I’ve been smothering you.  I figured when you needed me you’d call.  You did promise you’d do that.”

Softening a bit, Adrianna sniffed and finally met his eyes.  They stared into hers with sincerity and she squeezed his hand.

“Hey, Jack!” a female voice called from the doorway.  “We’re dying in here, you coming?” 

“Yeah, just a second,” he called back over Adrianna’s shoulder.  “Look, Kenny will be here in about a half hour, you wanna go up to my place and wait for me?”

“No,” she answered.  “I have no clean clothes and I smell like train.  I’m gonna go home and shower.”

“I’ll come over when I get off then, okay?”  Adrianna nodded and then Jack pulled her into an embrace.  “I missed you,” he said with a kiss to her temple.

Adrianna said nothing but returned the kiss, placing a small one just below his jaw.  She closed her eyes and breathed him in, a mixture of Irish Spring deodorant and light smoke comforting her.  She really missed him, too. 

Jack hailed her a cab and while she was driven away she closed her eyes and was relieved her shitty weekend was coming to an end.    

A
drianna, freshly showered and in a pair of small, black cotton shorts and a black tank top, unlocked her door and let Jack in when she heard him knock.  Raking his eyes over her barely dressed body and her damp hair, he had the sudden urge to have her wrapped around him and he didn’t fight it. 

Without a word, he lifted her by her hips, taking her by surprise.  Still, Adrianna wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck and let him press her into the door behind them.  Jack’s lips assaulted hers, pushing her mouth open to let his tongue glide roughly against her own before taking her bottom lip between his teeth.  By the time he finished greeting her, Adrianna was breathless.

“Hi,” Jack said, still holding her against the door, searching her eyes for any lingering anger or sadness from earlier.  Adrianna’s eyes always conveyed what she was feeling and just then they were showing a little bit of shock and a lot of lust.

“Hi,” she answered weakly.  Jack contemplated just walking to her bedroom but he they needed to talk.  Talk, one; sex, two. 

He let her slide slowly to the floor and then he kissed her again, three times, with closed lips.  “I really did miss you,” he told her again.

Adrianna pouted and admitted, “I thought you didn’t want me anymore.”

“I’m an idiot.  I’m sorry.”  He ran his finger across her forehead, brushing her bangs away, trying to alleviate her worry.  Taking her hand, he led her to the sofa where she curled up on his lap. 

“Where you really worried that I felt smothered?”

“Kind of,” Jack shrugged.

“Oh, Jack, I don’t feel smothered at all!  You’ve done so much already, I’m afraid you’re going to get tired of me.”

“Never going to happen,” Jack promised.  “I love you and I want to take care of you, Baby.”

“Baby?” Adrianna grinned.  “That’s a new one.”

“No, I mean Baby as in ‘No one puts Baby in a corner.’  You were supposed to call me Johnny.”

Adrianna burst into laughter, feeling better than she had in days.  It took only Jack a few minutes to make her forget about any of her worries.  Screw her pills; he was all the medicine she needed.

“And I’m sorry about the flirting thing,” he added.  “I promise you though, the only interest I have in those women is what they spend in my bar.  That’s it.”

Adrianna cuddled against his chest and Jack rested his chin on her head.  “It’s okay.  I wasn’t really that mad about it.  You have to realize though, that the last long term relationship I was in lasted less than a year and I was seventeen.  I’m a novice at being a girl friend.”

“I haven’t had that much practice either,” Jack spoke into her hair.  “We’re both in unfamiliar territory.”

“But you’re so much older than me,” Adrianna joked, earning a pinch to her rear end.  “Really, though, you haven’t had a lot of girlfriends?  I find that hard to believe.”

“I mean, I’ve dated people but the last real relationship I was in was over two years ago,” Jack admitted, not entirely comfortable with where the conversation was headed.  Not that he didn’t want to share his past with Adrianna, but guys just weren’t into talking about former lovers.  Still, when Adrianna pressed him for more information he gave it to her freely.

“Her name was Stacy and we were together for a little over two years.  I met her when I was twenty-eight.” 

“What happened?” Adrianna asked with genuine interest.  She wanted to know what kind of girl would let a guy like Jack get away.  Or better yet, she wanted to know what she did to drive him away.

Jack shrugged.  “We just didn’t love each other anymore.  It ended peacefully; no big fight, no crazy drama.  I think that’s what kind of made me realize we were over.  There wasn’t any... passion left I guess.”

“Do you still talk to her?”

“We haven’t spoken in over a year.  She emails me sometimes but it’s never personal, just garbage she forwards to everyone in her address book.  She lives in New York now.”

“Well,” Adrianna said, adjusting herself so that she could look into Jack’s eyes, “since we’re both fairly new at this relationship thing, let’s at least make a deal.  I’ll let you know if I ever feel smothered if you let me know when I’m getting to be too much for you to handle.”

Jack rolled his eyes at the last part but agreed.  Adrianna leaned up to kiss him and when she went to pull away, he held her to him, deepening the kiss once again.  “I know I’m new at this, but I’m pretty sure couples seal deals with sex and not just a kiss.”

When they finished making love and lay sleepily, naked in Adrianna’s bed, Jack asked how her weekend went.

“It was awful,” she sighed.  Her finger traced an imaginary pattern on Jack’s chest while her mood dampened with memories of the last two days.

“Why?”

“After I told my parents about not having a job and being dependent on the pills they both flipped out.  My mother cried and my father demanded that I move back home.  When I refused he didn’t speak to me for the rest of the weekend.”

Adrianna filled Jack in on the rest of her trip, including visiting Rachel’s parents and the details of that disaster and then going to the cemetery.  She neglected to tell him about the acorn, though.  There are some things a girl just needs to keep to herself.

“I’m sorry,” Jack told her sadly, pressing his lips against her dark hair.  “I wish you would have called me.”

Adrianna stopped herself from reminding Jack that she did call him but she didn’t want to rehash the same conversation they’d already had on the street and in her living room.  Instead, she shared that she was craving a cigarette and asked Jack to reach into her nightstand where she kept a pack and an ashtray.  Usually, when Adrianna smoked inside her apartment, she did it in front of her kitchen window but after great sex, some rules had to be broken.

Jack’s hand reached blindly into Adrianna’s drawer until it felt the cellophane enclosed box of Marlboros.  He could have leaned over so that he could see what he was doing but frankly he was too damn comfortable to move.  He lit one cigarette with a lighter he found stuffed into the half empty box, took a long drag from it and then passed it to Adrianna.  Reaching back into the drawer he pulled out what he thought was an ashtray but was actually a small photograph in a metal frame.  Adrianna smiled at the picture while Jack brought it closer to his face to inspect it.

“Is this you?” he questioned, studying the little girl with dark hair dressed in a pumpkin costume.  Beside her was a little blonde girl in a witch’s hat and dress.  They were both smiling widely at the camera and holding on to pillowcases stuffed with candy.  The blonde was missing her two front teeth. 

“Yeah, that’s Rachel and me,” Adrianna answered.  “Halloween when we were eight.”

“You were adorable.” Jack grinned at the photo showing Adrianna eighteen years younger.  Upon concluding that when she was dressing up as a pumpkin at eight years old, he was a teenager egging houses on Halloween, he chuckled. 

Adrianna passed the cigarette back to Jack and took the photo from him.  She tapped the scrolled edges of the metal frame and struggled to recall memories of the night it was taken.  Sadly, she couldn’t come up with one from that specific night.   

“This was taken the year Rachel and I met,” she offered without being prompted.  “We were both in Mrs. Barton’s second grade class and Rachel was so shy.  One day these two nasty girls, Melanie Decker and Nicole Randall, were making fun of her on the playground.  Since she was missing her two front teeth she spoke with a slight lisp.  Anyhow I overheard them teasing her and so I walked over, grabbed Rachel’s hand and marched her away from them, threatening that if they bothered her again I would tell Tommy Dristol about all the love notes Melanie had written about him.  We became best friends from that day on.”