Marshmallows for Breakfast (24 page)

Kyle shook his head. “It's not me you should be apologizing to.”

“She probably won't even remember,” Ashlyn reasoned. “She's only three”

“Are you for real? She won't remember so you don't have to apologize? She was terrified, Ashlyn. And her screaming woke up Jaxon, who was terrified. The pair of them woke up a couple of times during the night in a cold sweat, crying. They didn't even know why So, maybe they won't remember what happened exactly, but they'll never forget the terror.” Kyle stalked past her, deciding to leave the room—he couldn't stomach sharing the same space as her a moment longer. “Oh, and the reason I'm not at work? I couldn't risk leaving the kids here with you—I didn't know what sort of state you'd be in. It's the biggest day of my career, the shopping center presentation we've been working on for six months is today and I'm going to miss it. Even though it's my project, someone else is going to present it. Probably get to work on site with it, too.”

“I said I'm sorry,” Ashlyn repeated, on the verge of tears.

“Yep, you did. But this time, I'm not going to accept your apology.” He stalked out of the room, leaving Ashlyn to stand alone in her kitchen.

From that day onwards his life was irrevocably altered in two ways: Kyle was unofficially demoted and was never given another big project to work on even though they won the pitch; the rows began.

CHAPTER 20

T
he fire was gorgeous.

Lindsay built it, being the camping expert, and we all lay on blankets around it, warmed by it as it cast a warm, flickering orangey glow around us. We'd set up insect repellent lamps around the border of our tents to stop us from being eaten alive by bugs. We'd laughed and talked and played campfire games. I felt comfortable with these other women. Relaxed. For the first time in months, I wasn't worried about something. Anything. The kids did come to mind, but I knew they were fine. Probably didn't even notice I was gone. In this haven in the woods, I felt as though nothing bad existed. Not before, not after. In the here and now, everything was perfect.

Janene ruined it, of course. I lay on my back, staring up at the stars.
I love the stars,
I was thinking. If anyone were to get me my ultimate present it would be to box a star. I wouldn't want one named after me, that'd be too vain, but a beautiful star, in a box, would make me happy.

“We're women, we have choices now,” Janene's words cut into my thoughts. We hadn't spoken since our mini field trip earlier even though I had tried. I'd made the effort not only because we worked together, but also because Janene wasn't an evil person, just a stupid one. She believed that owning lots of things made you a better person. She didn't know—possibly didn't want to know—that happiness
comes from the inside. Like beauty and wealth, they started at the center of who you are. Reading a million self-help books had taught me that and I was on the road to living it—one monumental mistake at a time. “And because we've got choices, we can't be whining about every little thing that happens to us.”

I rolled over onto my front, looked over at Janene illuminated by moonlight and firelight. She'd changed her clothes since we got here. Before she'd been wearing low- rider jeans and a skinny T-shirt and a cropped fleece top. Now she'd changed into silk combat trousers and fleece. The rest of us had come wearing jeans and fleeces and had stayed in them. Would most likely sleep in them. Janene was comfortable with her body, enjoyed showing off her curves in her designer clothes, and that would be commendable if I didn't suspect the reason she spent so much money on clothes and getting her hair done wasn't to raise her self- esteem but to try to lower everyone else's.

Janene's true stupidity came from her ability to pontificate for hours on a subject she knew nothing about. With me she didn't like to speak, with everyone else, she liked to hold center stage.

I could see we were in for one of those talks. Us being women with choices and all. Who talks like that at a camping bonding session? Who wouldn't rather yammer on about crap TV, which book we'd last read and whether astrology predictions were usually accurate? Janene was who.

She lay amongst a group of adults—most of us had many more years of experience in this thing called life than her— but she felt no bashfulness in holding court. In dominating the conversation. “Like my friend who's all, like, crying and stuff after this date with this guy.”

“Ah, she liked him, he didn't call,” Moira said, bored. She
was married, had two kids and wasn't interested in hearing another tale about what bastards all men were, clearly. None of us was.

“Oh, no, no, nothing like that,” Janene said. “That's the stuff she usually comes out with. No, after this date with this guy, who she'd been going on and on about liking and being gorgeous for ages, she starts accusing him of all sorts.”

Ice water tumbled over in my stomach.
You're special,
murmured the voice from the past.
Stop fighting, you're special.

I sat bolt upright, pulled my knees up to my chest, laced my arms around them. I was suddenly cold. The fire didn't seem warm enough, I wasn't wearing enough layers. I was suddenly freezing on the inside. So cold nothing could warm me up.

“How'dya mean?” Lindsay asked.

“Well,” Janene stopped to take a dramatic swig of her champagne from her plastic glass, “she says they went back to his place for a coffee, one thing led to another … But she said she didn't want to, changed her mind, whatever. I'm, like, what did you expect? It's, like, duh, what else did she go there for in the first place if not for that?”

“To maybe have a coffee?” Gabrielle suggested.

“Yeah, but everyone knows if you go back to someone's house you're going back for sex,” Janene said.

“Whoa! That's a news flash to me,” Lindsay said. “In all my years of dating I never knew that. As far as I know, I go to someone's house for a coffee, I'm wanting coffee. If he tries it on and it leads to bed, then it leads to bed. If I say no, I mean it.”

“You can't lead a bloke on—” Janene asserted, a little put out that this conversation wasn't going her way.

“Hang on there, missy, ‘lead a bloke on’?” Gabrielle cut in. “What the hell does that mean? Are we living in the dark
ages? He needs to take responsibility for his actions. No one is led on. And, let's just say if that ridiculous notion is true, and he is ‘led on,’ it still means he should stop when asked to.”

Janene rolled her eyes, her face demonically illuminated by the orange and yellow flames. “You're all so politically correct,” she said with a sigh.

For a moment I felt like picking up one of the burning logs from the fire and beating her over the head with the flaming end. She was one of those people who reached for those two words when she wanted to say something offensive or indefensible by trying to make you think you were in the wrong.

“But politically correct or not, next time she goes out on a date she'll know what to expect,” Janene added.

“She'll expect to never feel safe again.” Me. This was me talking. My voice was low but determined. I'd decided not to beat her with a flaming log, but to explain the reality of this to her. “She'll expect to always walk down the road, looking behind her, worried about who's following her. She'll expect to never quite trust another person's motives again—even if they're the nicest person in the world. And, of course, she'll expect to never be able to confide in someone without the reaction she got from you.”

Silence descended upon the group; the only noise came from the crackling and snapping of the wood as the fire broke it down into ash and charcoal. Everyone's eyes were fixed on me, all wondering where my reaction, my voice came from. Everyone, except Janene, who couldn't bear not to have the last word. “What you don't seem to understand, Kendra, is that you could ruin a man's life by accusing him of something like that.”

My voice remained as hard as concrete. “What you don't seem to understand,
Janene,
is that a woman's life is
always
ruined when something like that happens to them,” I replied. I stopped, aware that I was about to slide into a rant and this wasn't the arena to get my soapbox out.

I struggled to my feet from the ground, folded my arms around me so my zip-up fleece hugged my body. Moving over the food containers, plastic glasses and plastic cutlery, I passed by the fire. “I'm going for a cigarette,” I said.

“But you don't smoke,” Gabrielle said.

At the edge of our tarpaulin and tents, where the ring of citronella lanterns sat and the edge of our pool of light ended, I stopped, turned as one last thing occurred to me. Something I meant to say. “I hope nothing ever happens to you, Janene. That you never know such fear. That you never experience such contempt afterwards.” I picked up a lantern then marched through a gap in the trees into the heart of the forest.

Anger thudded and pounded through my veins at the speed of light. My whole body was on fire with it.

Every time I thought about what Janene had said I wanted to hit something. Every time I heard that sort of nonsense it needled me. Prodded at the part of me that believed in causes. I meant what I said to her, I hoped nothing ever happened to her. I wouldn't wish such a thing on anyone. Maybe it was better for her to think as she did because she knew no better. She was an innocent. Better an innocent than an enlightened victim.

As the anger slowed its progress through my body, the reality of my surroundings came back to me. I was in a forest, at night, with insects licking their mandibles and dreaming of feasting on my flesh, and wild animals whose ears were pricking up at the sound of a ten-stone- something steak walking right onto their plates. This wasn't good.

A little farther on, I spotted a fallen tree, its leaves stripped away, its branches broken. Its bark had been worn
off by the elements over time and the most worn sections glowed white in the full moon. Full moon. Werewolves. Great. I survived living in the land of sharks, crocodiles and poisonous spiders for nearly three years, so obviously I was going to be dismembered by a half-man, half- animal supernatural beast in Sussex.

I sat heavily on the fallen tree, placed the lantern on the ground beside my feet, put my face in my hands then slowly pushed my fingers through my hair. Jeez, it was tiring having strong beliefs. Reacting to the filth people like Janene tried to propagate. Sometimes I wanted to sit back and accept it. To not register anything when the nonsense started. To be morally numb—or even morally corrupt—so I could eat certain brands of chocolate, go into certain stores, wear certain brands, listen to certain theories.

Also at times like this, I wished I did smoke.

Crack!
The sound of a snapping twig made me jump and I froze, wondering if I should have paid more attention to those black-and-white Hammer House of Horror movies. How
did
you kill a werewolf? Silver bullets? A silver stake through the heart?

The footsteps continued through the forest but they didn't sound like an animal's, they were soft and light. “Ow, shit,” the person cursed softly.

Not a werewolf, more likely the only person who would bother to come after me.

“Despite all the bugs, and scary stuff out here, I had to check to see if you'd really taken up smoking,” Gabrielle said, coming to stand in front of me.

I gave her a small smile. She sat down on the fallen tree, on the other side of my lantern. She reached into the left pocket of her navy-blue fleece, pulled out a battered packet of low-tar cigarettes. From her right pocket she pulled a slender, silver lighter. She slipped a cigarette between her
pink lips and held up the lighter to the end of the cigarette. “Now,” she spoke with the cigarette clamped between her teeth, “I've not smoked in about eight years, but I'm willing to start again just to keep you company.”

“Don't do that,” I said, taking the cigarette out of her mouth and relieving her of her lighter.

A long silence stretched between us.

“I've never seen you like that,” she said. “I've never seen you go for anyone like that. Wanna talk about it?”

“She was talking bullshit,” I said, straight back into Soapbox Kennie mode. “She's always talking bullshit but no one ever says anything because ‘Janene's young.’ ‘Janene doesn't know any better.’
Bollocks.
I'm so sick of that excuse. I was young once, I never came out with as much nonsense as she does. And we're worse because we do nothing. We pander to her filth. We excuse it by letting her spout that vile nonsense.”

Gabrielle unsheathed another cigarette, held it between her forefinger and middle finger, then started threading it along her fingers by twisting it slowly between each finger. “Wanna talk about it?” Gabrielle repeated.

“It…
That
happened to someone I know. A long time ago when we were all in college. And she wasn't asking for it, like Janene was implying, or leading him on. She was really hurt by this man, she trusted him, and he took advantage of that. And you know what kills me? There are so many people—
women
—who think like Janene. It's scary. It's why women keep those things to themselves.”

Gabrielle watched her cigarette moving along her fingers and back again. She said nothing for a while, then without looking at me, she asked, “What happened to your friend?”

“She got on with her life. Made sure she never made that mistake again,” I explained.

“Really?” Gabrielle asked. I could see from the corner of my eye she was looking at me.

I nodded. “As far as I know. We don't keep in touch, but the last time I heard she was doing well. Really well.”

“Yeah?” Gabrielle kept looking at me until I faced her.

“Yeah,” I replied.

“Good. I'm glad.” Her naked lips slid up into a smile, her gentle blue eyes, which reminded me of the color the sky had been earlier, seemed to see right through me. To understand everything about me. I recoiled a fraction. She was clearly making assumptions that were way off base. “Everyone deserves to do really well. To be happy. Don't you think?”