Little Fires Everywhere (20 page)

At dinner that night Mrs. Richardson announced her plan to visit Pittsburgh—“For research,” she told everyone. “A story on zebra mussels in Lake Erie, and you know Pittsburgh has had its own problems with invasive wildlife.” She had thought carefully about a plausible excuse and, after much thought, had come up with a topic that no one would have questions about. As she'd expected, no one paid much attention—except Lexie, who briefly closed her eyes and whispered a silent thanks to whatever deity had made this happen. The next morning, Lexie pretended to be running late, but once everyone had gone, she checked to be sure the house was empty before dialing the number to a local clinic, which she had looked up the night before. “The eleventh,” she told them. “It has to be the eleventh.”

The evening before her mother left for Pittsburgh, Lexie called Pearl. “I need a favor,” she said, her voice dropped halfway to a whisper, even though they were on the line only she and Trip shared, and Trip was out.

Pearl, still wary after the Halloween party, sighed. “What,” she said. In her mind she ran through the list of things Lexie, of all people, might want. None of the usual things applied. To borrow a top? To borrow a lipstick? Pearl had nothing that Lexie Richardson would ever need to use. To ask her advice? Lexie never asked anyone's advice. Lexie was the one who dispensed advice, whether it had been asked for or not.

“I need you,” Lexie said, “to come with me to this clinic tomorrow. I'm getting an abortion.”

There was a long moment of silence while Pearl struggled to process this information. Lexie was pregnant? A flash of selfish panic shot through her—she and Trip had been at Tim Michaels's just that afternoon. Had they been careful enough? What about the last time? She tried to reconcile what Lexie was saying with the Lexie she knew. Lexie wanted an abortion? Baby-crazy Lexie, quick-to-judge-others Lexie, Lexie who'd been so unforgiving about Bebe's
mistakes
?

“How come you're not asking Serena?” she said at last.

Lexie hesitated. “I don't want Serena,” she said. “I want you.” She sighed. “I don't know. I thought you'd understand more. I thought you wouldn't judge.”

Pearl, despite everything, felt a tingle of pride. “I'm not judging,” she said.

“Look,” said Lexie. “I need you. Are you going to help me or not?”

At seven thirty
A.M.
, Lexie pulled up in front of the house on Winslow. True to her promise, Pearl was waiting at the curb. She'd told her mother that Lexie was giving her a ride to school.

“Are you sure about this?” she asked. She had spent the night imagining what she would do in Lexie's situation, every time feeling that flash of panic surge through her again from her scalp to the soles of her feet. It would stay with her until the following week, when she would feel cramps beginning and sigh in relief.

Lexie did not look away from the windshield. “I'm sure.”

“It's a big decision, you know.” Pearl tried to think of an analogy she was sure Lexie would understand. “You can't take it back. It's not like buying a sweater.”

“I
know
.”

Lexie slowed as they approached a traffic light and Pearl noticed dark rings beneath her eyes. She had never seen Lexie look so tired, or so serious.

“You didn't tell anyone, did you?” Lexie asked, as the car eased into motion again.

“Of course not.”

“Not even Moody?”

Pearl thought of the lie she'd told Moody last night—that she couldn't walk to school with him as usual because she had a dentist appointment that morning. He hadn't seemed suspicious; it had never occurred to him that Pearl might lie. She'd been relieved, but also a little hurt: that over and over again, he believed her so easily, that he didn't think her capable of anything but the truth.

“I haven't told him anything,” she said.

The clinic was an unassuming beige building with clean, shiny windows, flowering shrubs in front, a parking lot. You could be there to have your eyes checked, to meet your insurance agent, to have your taxes done. Lexie pulled into a spot at the edge of the lot and handed the keys to Pearl. “Here,” she said. “You'll need to drive back. You have your temp on you?”

Pearl nodded and refrained from reminding her that technically, the temporary permit allowed her to drive only with a licensed adult over twenty-one. Lexie's fingers on the keys were white and cold, and on a sudden impulse Pearl took Lexie's hand in hers.

“It'll all be fine,” she said, and together they went into the clinic, where the doors slid open as if they were expected.

The nurse at the desk was a stout woman with copper-colored hair,
who looked at the two girls with benign sympathy. She must see this every day, Pearl thought, girls coming in terrified at what's about to happen, terrified about what will happen if they don't.

“Do you have an appointment, honey?” the woman asked. She looked from Pearl to Lexie pleasantly.

“I do,” Lexie said. “Eight o'clock.”

The woman tapped at her keyboard. “And your name?”

Quietly, as if she were ashamed, as if it were really her name, Lexie said, “Pearl Warren.”

It was all Pearl could do to keep her mouth from dropping open. Lexie studiously avoided her eyes as the woman consulted her screen. “Do you have someone to drive you home?”

“I do,” Lexie said. She tipped her head toward Pearl, again without meeting her eyes. “My sister's here. She'll drive me home.”

Sisters, Pearl thought. They looked nothing alike, she and Lexie. No one would ever believe that she—small, frizzy haired—was related to willowy, sleek Lexie. It would be like saying a Scottish terrier and a greyhound were littermates. The woman glanced at them quickly. After a moment, she either seemed to find this plausible or decided to pretend she did.

“Go ahead and fill these out,” she said, handing Lexie a clipboard of pink forms. “They'll be ready for you in a few minutes.”

When they were safely settled into the chairs farthest from the desk, Pearl leaned over the clipboard.

“I cannot
believe
you are using
my name
,” she hissed.

Lexie slumped in her chair. “I panicked,” she said. “When I called, they asked for my name and I remembered that my mom knows the director here. And you know—my dad's been in the news, the whole case
with the McCulloughs. I didn't want them to recognize my name. I just said the first name that came into my head. Which was yours.”

Pearl was unappeased. “Now they all think
I'm
the one who's pregnant.”

“It's just a name,” Lexie said. “I'm the one in trouble. Even if they don't know my real name.” She took a deep breath but seemed to deflate further. Even her hair, Pearl noticed, seemed lank, falling in front of her face so it half covered her eyes. “You—you could be anyone.”

“Oh, for god's sake.” Pearl took the clipboard from Lexie's lap. “Give me those.” She began to fill out the forms, starting with her own name.
Pearl Warren
.

She had almost finished when the door at the end of the waiting room opened and a nurse dressed in white stepped out. “Pearl?” she said, checking the file folder in her hands. “We're ready for you.”

On the line for “Emergency contact,” Pearl quickly jotted down her own mother's name and their home phone number. “Here,” she said, thrusting the clipboard into Lexie's hands. “Done.”

Lexie stood slowly, like a person in a dream. For a moment they stood there, each clasping an end of the clipboard, and Pearl was sure she could feel Lexie's heart pounding all the way down her fingertips and into the wood of the clipboard's back.

“Good luck,” she said softly to Lexie. Lexie nodded and took the forms, but at the doorway stopped to look back, as if to make sure Pearl were still there. The look in her eyes said:
Please. Please, I don't know what I'm doing. Please, be here when I get back.
Pearl fought the urge to run up and take her hand, to follow her down the hallway, as if they really were sisters, the kind of girls who would see each other through this kind of ordeal, the kind of girls who, years later, would hold each other's hands
during childbirth. The kind of girls unfazed by each other's nakedness and pain, who had nothing in particular to hide from one another.

“Good luck,” she said again, louder this time, and Lexie nodded and followed the nurse through the door.

At the same time that her daughter was changing into her hospital gown, Mrs. Richardson was ringing the doorbell of Mr. and Mrs. George Wright. She had driven the three hours to Pittsburgh in one swoop, without even stopping to use the restroom or stretch her legs. Was she really doing this? she wondered. She was not completely certain what she would say to these Wrights, nor what information, precisely, she hoped to obtain from them. But there was a mystery here, she knew, and she was equally sure the Wrights held the key to it. She had traveled for stories a few times in the past—down to Columbus, to investigate state budgeting cuts; up to Ann Arbor, when a former Shaker student had started at quarterback in the Michigan-OSU game. It was no different, she told herself. It was justified. She had to find out, in person.

If Mrs. Richardson had had any doubts about whether she'd found the right family, they were dispelled as soon as the door opened. Mrs. Wright looked strikingly like Mia—her hair was a bit lighter, and she wore it cut short, but her eyes and face resembled Mia's enough that Mrs. Richardson glimpsed what Mia would look like in thirty years.

“Mrs. Wright?” she began. “I'm Elena Richardson. I'm a reporter for a newspaper in Cleveland.”

Mrs. Wright's eyes were narrow and wary. “Yes?”

“I'm writing a feature about promising teen athletes whose careers were cut short. I'd like to talk to you about your son.”

“About Warren?” Surprise and suspicion flashed across Mrs. Wright's
face, and Mrs. Richardson could see the two emotions wrestling there. “Why?”

“I came across his name while I was researching,” she said carefully. “Several stories said he was the most promising teen running back they'd seen in decades. That he had a shot at going pro.”

“Some scouts came to watch their games,” Mrs. Wright said. “They said a lot of nice things about him, after he died.” A long, quiet moment passed, and when she looked up again, the suspicion had faded away, and was replaced by a look of weathered pride. “Well, I guess you can come in.”

Mrs. Richardson had planned out this beginning and trusted her instincts to lead the conversation in the direction she wanted it to go. Getting information out of interviewees, she had learned over the years, was sometimes like walking a large, reluctant cow: you had to turn the cow onto the right path while letting the cow believe it was doing the steering. But the Wrights, it turned out, were unexpectedly easy subjects. Over mugs of coffee and a plate of Pepperidge Farm cookies, the Wrights seemed almost eager to talk about Warren. “I'm just interested in keeping his memory alive,” she said, and as soon as she began to ask questions, the gush of information that poured out of them was almost more than she could write down.

Yes, Warren had been the starting running back on the football team; yes, he'd been a forward on the hockey team as well. He'd started with peewee when he was seven or eight; would Mrs. Richardson like to see some photos? He'd just had a natural gift for sports, they hadn't trained him; no, Mr. Wright had never been much good at sports himself. More of a watcher, he would say, than a player. But Warren had been different—he just had a talent for it; his coach had said he might make a Division I school, if he trained hard enough. If the accident hadn't happened—

Here Mr. and Mrs. Wright both fell silent for a moment, and Mrs. Richardson, curious as she was to learn more, felt a pang of true pity. She looked down at the photograph of Warren Wright in his football uniform, which Mrs. Wright had pulled from the mantel to show her. He must have been seventeen then, just the same age as Trip. They didn't look much alike, the two boys, but something in the pose reminded her of her son, the tilt of the head, the mischievous trace of a smirk at the corners of the lips. “He was quite a heartbreaker,” she murmured, and Mrs. Wright nodded.

“I've got children myself,” Mrs. Richardson found herself saying. “And a boy around that age. I'm so sorry.”

“Thank you.” Mrs. Wright gave the photo one last long look, then set it back on the mantel and angled it carefully, wiped a speck of dust from the glass. This woman, Mrs. Richardson thought, had endured so much. Part of her wanted to close her notebook and cap her pen and thank her for her time. But she hesitated, remembering why she'd come. If it had been
her
daughter who had run off and lied about who she was, she told herself, if it had been
her
daughter who'd stirred up trouble for well-meaning people—well, she wouldn't blame anyone for asking questions. Mrs. Richardson took a deep breath.