Pretty Girls (4 page)

“Deedus Christ!” her sweet little child used to scream, legs and arms kicking out from her highchair. “Dee-dus Christ! Dee-dus Christ!”

In retrospect, Lydia could see it had been a mistake to let her know it was funny.

“Lydia?” Penelope Ward held up a finger, as if to tell Lydia to wait. Instantly, Lydia checked the doors. Then she heard the Mothers tittering behind her and realized she was trapped.

Penelope was something of a celebrity at Westerly. Her husband was a lawyer, which was typical to a Westerly dad, but he was also a state senator who had recently announced he was going to make a run for the US House of Representatives. Of all the fathers at the school, Branch Ward was probably the most handsome, but that was largely because he was under sixty and still had a clear view of his feet.

Penelope was the perfect politician’s wife. In all of her husband’s promos, she could be seen looking up at Branch with the googly-eyed devotion of a border collie. She was attractive, but not distracting. She was thin but not anorexic. She’d given up a partnership at a top law firm to pop out five fine, Aryan-looking children. She was president of Westerly’s PTO, which was a pretentious and unnecessary way of saying PTA. She ran the organization with an iron fist. All of her memos were bullet-pointed to perfection, so concise and focused that even the lower Mothers had no trouble following. She tended to speak in bullet points, too. “Okay, ladies,” she would say, clapping together her hands—the Mothers were big clappers—“refreshments! Party favors! Balloons! Table dressings! Cutlery!”

“Lydia, there you are,” Penelope called, her knees and elbows pistoning as she jogged up the bleachers and plopped down beside Lydia. “Yum!” She pointed to the empty bag of chips. “I wish I could eat those!”

“I bet I could make you!”

“Oh, Lydia, I adore your dry sense of humor.” Penelope pivoted her body toward Lydia, establishing eye contact like a tense Persian cat. “I don’t know how you do it. You run your own business. You take care of your home. You’ve raised a fantastic daughter.” She put her hand to her chest. “You’re my hero.”

Lydia felt her teeth start to gnash.

“And Dee’s such an accomplished young lady.” Penelope’s voice dropped an octave. “She went to middle school with that missing girl, didn’t she?”

“I don’t know,” Lydia lied. Anna Kilpatrick had been one year behind Dee. They’d been in the same PE class, though their social circles never overlapped.

“Such a tragedy,” Penelope said.

“They’ll find her. It’s only been a week.”

“But what can happen in a week?” Penelope forced a shudder. “It doesn’t bear thinking about.”

“So don’t think about it.”

“That is such fantastic advice,” she said, sounding both relieved and patronizing. “Say, where’s Rick? We need Rick here. He’s our little shot of testosterone.”

“He’s in the parking lot.” Lydia had no idea where Rick was. They’d had a hideous fight this morning. She was pretty sure he never wanted to see her again.

No, that was wrong. Rick would show up for Dee, but he would probably sit on the other side of the gym because of Lydia.

“Rebound! Rebound!” Penelope screamed, though the girls were still warming up. “Gosh, I’ve never noticed before, but Dee looks just like you.”

Lydia felt a tight smile on her face. This wasn’t the first time someone had pointed out the resemblance. Dee had Lydia’s pale skin and violet-blue eyes. Their faces were shaped the same. Their mouths smiled in the same way. They were both natural blondes, something they had over every other blonde in the gym. Dee’s hourglass figure only hinted at what could happen later in life if she sat around in sweatpants inhaling potato chips. At that age, Lydia, too, had been just as beautiful and just as thin. Unfortunately, it had taken a hell of a lot of cocaine to keep her that way.

“So.” Penelope slapped her hands on her thighs as she turned back to Lydia. “I was wondering if you could help me out.”

“Oka-a-ay.” Lydia drew out the word to convey her great trepidation. This was how Penelope sucked you in. She didn’t tell you to do things; she told you that she needed your help.

“It’s about the International Festival next month.”

“International Festival?” Lydia echoed, as if she had never heard of the week-long fundraiser where the whitest men and women in North Atlanta sat around in Dolce & Gabbana sampling perogies and Swedish meatballs made by their children’s nannies.

“I’ll resend you all the emails,” Penelope offered. “Anyway, I was wondering if you could bring some Spanish dishes.
Arros negre. Tortilla de patates. Cuchifritos
.” She pronounced each word with a confident Spanish accent, probably picked up from her pool boy. “My husband and I had
escalivada
while we were in
Catalonia
last year. Ah-mazing.”

Lydia had been waiting four years to say, “I’m not Spanish.”

“Really?” Penelope was undaunted. “
Tacos
, then.
Burritos
. Maybe some
arroz con pollo
or
babacoa
?”

“I’m not from
Meh-i-co
, either.”

“Oh, well, obviously Rick’s not your husband, but I thought since your name is Delgado that Dee’s father—”

“Penelope, does Dee look Hispanic to you?”

Her shrill laughter could’ve shattered crystal. “What does that even mean? ‘Look Hispanic.’ You’re so funny, Lydia.”

Lydia was laughing too, but for entirely different reasons.

“Goodness.” Penelope carefully wiped invisible tears from her eyes. “But tell me, what’s the story?”

“The story?”

“Oh, come on! You’re always so private about Dee’s father. And yourself. We hardly know anything about you.” She was leaning in too close. “Spill it. I won’t tell.”

Lydia ran a quick P&L in her head: the profit of Dee’s undetermined heritage making the Mothers cringe with anxiety every time they said anything mildly racist vs. the loss of having to participate in a PTO fundraiser.

It was a difficult choice. Their mild racism was legendary.

“Come on,” Penelope urged, sensing weakness.

“Well.” Lydia took a deep breath as she prepared to sing the Hokey-Pokey of her life story, where she put the truth in, pulled a lie out, added an embellishment and shook it all about.

“I’m from Athens, Georgia.”
Though my Juan Valdez mustache may have fooled you
. “Dee’s father, Lloyd, was from South Dakota.”
Or South Mississippi, but Dakota sounds less trashy
. “He was adopted by his stepfather.”
Who only married his mother so she couldn’t be compelled to testify against him
. “Lloyd’s father died.”
In prison
. “Lloyd was on his way to Mexico to tell his grandparents.”
To pick up twenty kilos of cocaine
. “His car was hit by a truck.”
He was found dead in a truck stop after trying to snort half a brick of coke up his nose
. “It happened fast.”
He choked to death on his own vomit
. “Dee never got to meet him.”
Which is the best gift I ever gave my daughter
. “The end.”

“Lydia.” Penelope’s hand was over her mouth. “I had no idea.”

Lydia wondered how long the story would take to circulate. “Lydia Delgado! Tragic widow!”

“What about Lloyd’s mother?”

“Cancer.”
Shot in the face by her pimp
. “There’s no one left on that side.”
Who isn’t in prison
.

“Poor things.” Penelope patted her hand over her heart. “Dee’s never said anything.”

“She knows all the details.”
Except the parts that would give her nightmares
.

Penelope looked out at the basketball court. “No wonder you’re so protective. She’s all you have left of her father.”

“True.”
Unless you counted herpes
. “I was pregnant with Dee when he died.”
White-knuckling detox because I knew they would take her away from me if they found drugs in my system
. “I was lucky to have her.”
Dee saved my life
.

“Oh, honey.” Penelope grabbed Lydia’s hand, and Lydia’s heart sank as she realized that it had all been in vain. The story had obviously moved Penelope, or at least interested her, but she had come here with a task and that task was going to be assigned. “But, look, it’s still part of Dee’s heritage, right? I mean, stepfamilies are still families. Thirty-one kids at this school are adopted, but they still belong!”

Lydia took a millisecond to process the statement. “Thirty-one? As in exactly thirty-one?”

“I know.” Penelope took her shock at face value. “The Harris twins just got into preschool. They’re legacies.” She lowered her voice. “Lice-carrying legacies, if you believe the rumor.”

Lydia opened her mouth, then closed it.

“Anyway.” Penelope blasted another smile as she stood up. “Just run the recipes by me first, okay? I know you like Dee to take on special skills projects. You’re so lucky. Mom and daughter cooking together in the kitchen. Fun-fun!”

Lydia held her tongue. The only thing she and Dee did together in the kitchen was argue about when a mayonnaise jar was empty enough to be thrown away.

“Thanks for volunteering!” Penelope jogged up the bleachers, pumping her arms with Olympic vigor.

Lydia wondered how long it would take for Penelope to tell the other Mothers about the tragic death of Lloyd Delgado. Her father always said that the price for hearing gossip was having someone else gossip about you. She wished that he were still alive so she could tell him about the Mothers. He would’ve wet himself with laughter.

Coach Henley blew his whistle, indicating the girls should wind down their warm-up drills. The words “special skills projects” kept rolling around in Lydia’s head. So, here was confirmation that the Mothers had noticed.

Lydia would not feel bad for making her daughter take a basic car maintenance class so that she would know how to change a flat tire. Nor did she regret making Dee enroll in a self-defense course over the summer, even if it meant that she missed basketball camp. Or insisting that Dee practice how to scream when she was scared, because Dee had a habit of freezing up when she was frightened and being silent was the worst thing you could possibly do if there was a man in front of you who meant to do you harm.

Lydia bet that right now, Anna Kilpatrick’s mother was wishing she’d taught her daughter how to change a flat tire. The girl’s car was found in the mall parking lot with a nail in the front tire. It wasn’t a big leap to think that the person who’d driven in the nail was the same person who had abducted her.

Coach Henley gave his whistle two short blasts to get the team moving. The Westerly Women ambled over and formed a half-circle. The Mothers stamped their feet on the bleachers, trying to build excitement for a game that would unfold with the same drama as a mime’s funeral. The opposing team hadn’t even bothered to warm up. Their shortest player was six feet tall and had hands the size of dinner plates.

The gym doors opened. Lydia saw Rick scan the crowd. And then he saw her. And then he looked at the opposing side’s empty bleachers. She held her breath as he considered. Then she let it out as he made his way toward her. He slowly climbed the bleachers. People who worked for a living didn’t tend to sprint up bleachers.

He sat down beside Lydia with a groan.

She said, “Hey.”

Rick picked up the empty bag of chips, leaned back his head, and let the crumbs fall into his mouth. Most of them went down his shirt into his collar.

Lydia laughed because it was hard to hate someone who was laughing.

He gave her a wary look. He knew her tactics.

Rick Butler was nothing like the fathers at Westerly. For one, he worked with his hands. He was a mechanic at a gas station that still pumped gas for some of their elderly customers. The muscles in his arms and chest came from lifting tires onto rims. The ponytail down his back came from not listening to the two women in his life who desperately wanted it gone. He was either a redneck or a hippie, depending on what kind of mood he was in. That she loved him in both incarnations had been the surprise of Lydia Delgado’s life.

He handed back the empty bag. There were specks of potato chips in his beard. “Nice ’stache.”

She touched her fingers to her raw upper lip. “Are we still fighting?”

“Are you still being grumpy?”

“My instinct tells me yes,” she admitted. “But I hate when we’re mad at each other. I feel like my whole world is upside down.”

The buzzer sounded. They both winced as the game started, praying the humiliation would be brief. Miraculously, the Westerly Women managed to get the tip off. Even more miraculously, Dee was dribbling the ball down the court.

Rick yelled, “Go, Delgado!”

Dee obviously saw the looming shadows of three giant girls behind her. There was no one to pass to. She blindly heaved the ball toward the basket, only to watch it bounce off the backboard and drop into the empty bleachers on the other side of the gym.

Lydia felt Rick’s pinky finger stroke her pinky finger.

He asked, “How did she get so amazing?”

“Wheaties.” Lydia could barely get the word out. Her heart always swelled when she saw how much Rick loved her daughter. She could forgive the ponytail for that alone. “I’m sorry I’ve been such a bitch lately.” She amended, “I mean, for the last decade.”

“I’m sure you were bitchy before that.”

“I was a lot more fun.”

He raised his eyebrow. They had met at a Twelve Step meeting thirteen years ago. Neither one of them had been a lot of fun.

“I was thinner,” she tried.

“Sure, that’s what matters.” Rick kept his eyes on the game. “What’s gotten into you, babe? Every time I open my mouth lately, you howl like a scalded dog.”

“Aren’t you glad we’re not living together?”

“We gonna have that fight again?”

She almost started to. The words, “but why do we need to live together when we live right next door to each other?” were right on the tip of her tongue.

The effort didn’t go unnoticed. “Nice to see you can keep your mouth shut when you really want to.” He whistled as Dee tried for three points. The ball missed, but he still gave her a thumbs-up when she glanced his way.