Rosebush (18 page)

“You don’t know.”

Langley put her hands on my shoulders and pulled me back up, but I didn’t dare to meet her eyes. “People don’t kill themselves because they’re not having fun at a party. If they do something like that, it has much deeper and older roots.” She reached a finger under my chin and lifted my face. “Look at me, Jane Freeman.”

I did. There were tears in her eyes too. Their expression said that she understood, understood what I’d said, and maybe even what I didn’t. She gave me a small, sad smile completely unlike the one she usually had. It was tender, loving.

“You were not responsible for what happened to your friend. You did not make her overdose.”

I hadn’t realized what a burden carrying all those secrets had been. Sharing them now, sharing them with Langley, felt like someone had lifted a lead blanket off of me. I was filled with a sense of gratitude that was almost euphoric. “Thank you,” I said. “You—you’re amazing.”

She shook her head and this time she gave me her characteristic Langley grin. “Don’t thank me, thank Dr. Phil. I learned everything I know about psychology from him.”

I laughed, my face still wet and stinging with tears.

“It must have been hard losing your best friend like that,” she said.

“It was.”
But not just in the way you know,
I thought. Because there was still one secret I was keeping. I stared down at the table, tracing the place where someone had carved B. G. + A. F. 4-EVER into its surface with my pinkie as I wondered if I should tell her the rest. Make a clean break of it. Finally, at last, tell someone the whole truth.

I looked up at her, her face expectant, her blue eyes sparkling like the icicles that hung outside the window, and I just couldn’t. I was too afraid of what would happen if I did. Too afraid that she’d see me for the coward, the loser I was and decide I was unworthy of her friendship.

Instead I said, “What about you? What’s your Jacuzzi trauma?”

Whatever I was expecting wasn’t what happened.

Langley pulled up her thermal shirt and I saw a long puckered scar that disappeared into the waistband of her jeans and crossed her pale white torso. “It goes all the way down my thigh.”

“How did you get it?”

She looked away. She was quiet for a long, long time and I thought she might have changed her mind. Then abruptly she said, “My mom grew up in Livingston, in the same house my grandparents live in now, you know.” I had no idea where this was going. Was this about their pool?

She went on. “When my mom was eighteen, she got pregnant. Her parents, well, Maman, really, gave her an ultimatum. Either tell who the father of the baby was or move out. My mother and Maman are a lot alike, both stubborn, and neither of them would budge. So when she was six months pregnant, my mother moved to Lynx Arches, Arizona.”

“Sounds exotic.”

“The natural part of it is really beautiful. Big blue sky, red mountains. Most people live in trailers, so architecturally it leaves something to be desired.”

“Why did your mother choose Arizona?”

“I think because it was as different as possible from Livingston. Plus she didn’t want her parents to be able to find her, so she used a fake name, which means she didn’t have a diploma to show, so the jobs she could get weren’t great. Waitressing. Secretarial work. Small-appliance repair shop. ” She stared out the panoramic window at the mountain, glowing pinky orange in the sunset. “For a while she was the assistant to a locksmith and she’d bring locks home at night and practice opening them. The best was when she worked at the bakery.” Her gaze moved to me and she smiled ruefully. “That’s how I learned to frost cakes. You didn’t know I could do that, did you? I’m actually an ace froster.”

“I’ll keep that in mind for my next birthday.”

“You should. My mother believed you had to make your own luck, and in order to do that, you had to have skills. She taught me to sew and shoot and fix almost anything. And then the spring when I was eleven, she was teaching me to swim.”

She poked at one of the mini-marshmallows in her hot chocolate until it dissolved. “Every Tuesday and Thursday after school we’d meet at the trailer and go to the community pool. It was our ritual, to make up for the fact she had to go to work before I got up because bakeries open so early. I always pedaled my bike home extra fast those days because I loved swimming lessons with her.”

She was sitting more still than I’d ever seen her, but with the setting sun lighting up her corn silk hair she seemed to shimmer. “One Tuesday, I got a flat tire so I had to walk my bike halfway and I was a little later than usual. I was just locking it up in the back when I smelled something weird. I looked up and I saw smoke coming from under the front door.

“The trailer was on fire.” Her fingers worked their way around the rim of her paper cup, unrolling it. “I used my sweater to pull open the door and flames exploded in my face. I called to my mom, but she didn’t answer. So I ran through the flames into the house. That’s how I got the scars.”

She kept her gaze very level. “I was too late. The—the fire had already spread and my mother was—they said she died of smoke inhalation, so the burns on her body, she never felt—never had a chance—never—”

She breathed in sharply and tightened her jaw. Her eyes were fixed on the wood-beam ceiling of the ski lodge, her hands clenched into fists, knuckles white with the effort not to cry.

I wrapped my arms around her, conscious both of her strength and of my weakness. She’d been honest, naked with me, telling me everything. I hadn’t been able to do the same. I’d left out one part of my story. The hardest part. I opened my mouth to tell it, but it caught in my throat.

When her breathing returned to normal, she pulled away and faced me. “I’m sorry.”

“For what? I’m—I feel really honored you told me.”

She nodded and cupped her hands around the mangled cup of hot chocolate, studying it as if it held the answers to all life’s mysteries. “I miss her,” she said. “I don’t like to show it around Popo and Maman, but I miss her every day. I wonder what my life would have been like if that didn’t happen. If I’d come home sooner. If I’d been able to save her.”

“Langley, you were a hero that day. You were so brave. Your mother would have been proud of you. And she’d be proud of what you’ve become.”

She shook her head, still staring into her hot chocolate. “Do you really think so?”

“Who wouldn’t be proud of you? You’re the light of your grandparents’ life. You’re smart, beautiful, fun, adored, and popular.”

“I am pretty great, aren’t I?” she said with a tenuous smile, She looked brave and vulnerable all at once. I marveled at her.

“Yes.”

She winked. “Takes one to know one.”

Tell her,
a voice in my head said.
Tell her the rest.
Before I could, Langley was finishing her story.

“Anyway,” Langley had concluded that day in Killington, “my mother never finished teaching me how to swim. So I still don’t know. And the scars always remind me. You won’t tell anyone, though, will you? About what happened or about my scars? My grandparents don’t like people to know.”

As I’d been listening, I’d been thinking that Langley reminded me of someone and I realized who it was. She reminded me of my intrepid turtle, Amerigo. They were both brave; they’d both been through a lot and used it to make them stronger. They were both survivors. I couldn’t even imagine having half their courage and strength.

Including the strength to show vulnerability. “Your secret is safe with me,” I assured her.

She smiled. “I know. I know I can count on you.”

With her hair pulled carelessly back and under the industrial light of my hospital room, the scar across Langley’s cheek was more visible. “You should be with Popo,” I said. “Not here with me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You need me. Besides, I can tell that something is bothering you.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Good, then it won’t take you long to tell me what it is.” She went to the windowsill and picked up the bear in the T-shirt. “Tell the get-well bear your problems, jelly bean. He’s a beary good listener.”

“Stop,” I cried, laughing. “I give in.”

She came back and settled herself into a chair next to my bed. “Is it about David? I ran into him and Ollie in the parking lot. Or, I should say, Ollie almost ran me over. He’s a menace in that huge Land Rover. No wonder he has a driver most of the time. David’s been so worried about you; he’s been calling me for updates. I’m so glad you got back together.”

“Got back together?”

She blinked. “I mean got together. Your mother was very cagey yesterday about not letting him come by.”

Of course. I should have known my mother was interfering.

“So, what’s wrong?”

“I know this is going to sound weird, but did we have a fight? At the party?”

“You and David?” she asked. All of a sudden her tone was wary.

“No, you and I?”

She looked surprised.

“It’s just, some people told the police officer that we did and I have this memory of you standing in front of a door and me not wanting to go past you. Or something. It’s weird.”

Her face cleared, but she started twisting the friendship ring on her right hand. “Oh. Well, yeah, kind of. I was trying to keep you from leaving the bathroom. You—I don’t know what happened, but you were really upset at David and you were sobbing and you kept saying, ‘I can’t take it anymore. It’s over. I’m done, it’s done. I just want to end it.’ And I just thought—I thought it would be better if you didn’t do it like that. That night.”

“That must be what people heard. Why they thought you and Kate and I had a fight. Do you know what happened?”

“No, I found you crying like that.”

“And I said I wanted to break up with David?”

“You said you wanted to end it…that you wanted it to be over.” She shrugged. “Maybe you meant something else.” Her voice was soft, softer than normal, and I had to strain to hear.

“Like what?”

I felt like I was seeing it in a film that kept slipping. Some frames were in focus, but others I couldn’t pull up. Langley in front of a door, looking upset, and me saying those words I could sort of imagine. But why? What could I have seen that would have made me want to end things with David? And if something
had
happened, wouldn’t he have mentioned it? Wouldn’t I have been able to tell when he came by?

You’re just being paranoid,
I told myself firmly. Like the writing on the mirror, this was probably just something my brain was making up with the help of heavy medication.

“Thank you for keeping me from making a fool of myself,” I said. “David may have his flaws, but I still love him.”

“Of course you do. That party was just strange. Did you hear that Elsa totaled her Porsche? She drove into a post.”

“What?”

“Yeah, and not just that. Apparently she was hallucinating or something and became so belligerent with the paramedics that they had to restrain her.”

“Was she drunk?”

“It’s
Elsa
,” Langley said. “The girl so clean she even brings her own bottled water to parties.”

That was true. Elsa didn’t drink or do drugs. She was strange enough without that. “Was it a neurotic episode?”

“Who knows. But it’s weird, right?”

It felt great to talk about something other than myself, to get into the rhythm of gossiping with Langley again, even if I was worried about Elsa. She went on, “Ollie said he heard that she had a nervous breakdown and got sent to the Bahamas to live with her real mother, but I heard they put her in a mental hospital for observation.”

“Was she okay? I mean, physically?”

“Yeah, I guess she was fine, just a few bruises. So who else has come to visit you today? Has Kate been here?”

The rapid change of topic unsettled me for a moment. “No. Um, not yet.”

“I’m sure she’ll be here soon. She’s so upset. She really loves you.” There was something about the way she looked at me then that made me uncomfortable. Did she know?

No, no one knew. Not even Langley. Especially not Langley.

“I should probably get going.” She smiled down at me. “You poor baby. Are you in a lot of pain?”

“A little.” I looked toward the IV rack she was standing next to. It had three bags on it and four digital monitors. “I think they’re keeping me pretty doped up. The hardest thing right now is not remembering. Oh, and not being able to move.” I’d wanted my voice to sound joking, but it came out more like a weak croak.

“You’re going to get all better. I promise.” She leaned down to give me a kiss on the nose and her arm must have rested on the cord to my IV because all of a sudden a wave of pain crashed over me.

The heart-rate monitor started to squeal and Loretta rushed in and Langley retreated to a corner and I was hyperventilating.