The People in the Park (6 page)

I envied Tiffany and the full life she had, which somehow seemed to be more real than mine.

When she returned, I didn’t want to talk anymore. I pretended to take a nap.

I felt a tremendous void with no grandparents in my life. Sure they were on the periphery of my life, sending gifts for holidays and birthdays. But Tiffany had a real relationship with them, a real connection.

She had everything while my whole life was crumbling around me.

8

7:30 AM Monday. A day after Chicago. I went straight to school.

The student parking lot was virtually empty, school not starting for another hour. I didn’t need the comfort and sereneness that the park provided today. Still soaring from our weekend in Chicago and high from a shopping fix, I intended to put the finishing touches on an article for the school paper. Standing next to my locker was Jay and a couple of his friends.

“Hi, Jay,” I said. “When did you get back in town?”

“Last week,” he said.

“I didn’t see you,” I said.

He looked at his friends, Rick and Jared, who were smirking. They told him they would catch up with him later.

“I spent the weekend in Chicago,” I told him.

“Really?” He seemed surprised.

“Mom took me and Tiffany. We bought our prom dresses.”

“Oh,” he said. “You still going to the prom?”

“Yes,” I said, all of a sudden bewildered. “I thought we were going to the prom together.”

“Yeah, well…”

“Well what?” I asked.

Students were surrounding us as they opened their lockers.

“Let’s go outside,” he said.

We walked outside and stood under the tall oak tree in the center of the lawn.

“I’ve missed seeing you,” I said. “How did everything go in Atlanta at your grandmother’s funeral?”

“Good.”

There seemed to be a distance between us that had not been there before.

“While we were there the news about your dad’s firm was all over.” he said. “It’s just that my family thinks we should chill for a while. Let it flow. See what happens.”

“What? Are you breaking up with me?”

“No, not really. It’s just that maybe we shouldn’t go to the prom together. We can meet there, you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said. I turned and walked away, not knowing where I was going. I walked aimlessly across campus. The joy from my weekend away had been knocked out of me. My world was in a tailspin again, whirling and spinning and turning. I struggled, not knowing if I could come out of it. When I reached the track field, I saw Callie. The track team was running laps. I watched until they finished. Callie headed to the locker room for a quick shower.

I sat in the bleachers and waited for her. I never thought Jay would abandon me. He was the one bright spot in my life. How could he cancel our prom date? My life had been shaken to the core. I felt more alone than ever.

“What’s wrong?” Callie asked when she saw me. Sorrow must have been written all over my face. “I thought you would be happy. Did you find a dress?”

I nodded. “Jay doesn’t want to be seen with me, so he isn’t taking me to the prom.”

Callie sat beside me. “I’m not surprised. You do know that his friends, Rick and Jared, were the ones who spray painted your car?”

I shook my head sadly. I didn’t know. “Rick and Jared? I just saw them with Jay. I thought Mrs. Clancy said they were punished.”

“Punishment doesn’t extend to them being kicked out of school. The police department has them doing community service. They still get to come to school provided they don’t get into any more trouble.”

“Does Jay know what they did to my car?”

“I can’t say for sure, but he would have to be deaf not to have heard.”

The bell rang for the start of the school day.

“We have to go,” I said.

Callie gave me a ride back across campus. She pressed me for details on what exactly Jay had said. I told her his family told him not to see me.

Numbly I sat through my classes. I knew everybody knew that Jay had broken up with me. I could feel my classmates looking at me. When I looked up they rapidly looked away.

I didn’t know who to be upset with, Jay or his family. I thought his mother liked me. She worked on several charities with Mom. Whenever I was around her, either at their house or when our paths had crossed at the country club, she seemed friendly enough.

Mom had been pleased when Jay and I started hanging out together. She said that his family was “old money.” She also warned me that Jay’s Mom and other old money families looked down on us and the recent family additions to Fairfield as
nouveau riche
. I told her that Jay’s Mom treated me well.

Not so much!

They probably didn’t want his picture to appear in the paper or on TV if he was hanging out at my house. The media lounging around our gate didn’t bother me. I wasn’t the one they wanted to talk to. I was used to seeing them there when I left for school and when I returned in the evening. There were fewer and fewer of them each day. I took that as a sign that Dad was being cleared, slowly but surely.

“What was the use of going to Chicago? I have a dress and no one to take me to the prom. This would be real funny if I didn’t feel like crying.”

9

A uniformed guard opened the front door of our house, nodding to me as I entered.

Dad’s law firm had hired a security firm after several threatening packages and letters arrived at our house. Guards were posted at each entrance. Every car that came on the property had to be searched, which somehow didn’t unnerve me, being just a continuation of the nightmare.

I went to my room, happy to be alone after getting through the day. My brain felt like it had frozen. I closed my closet door, where my prom dress hung, reminding me of dreams shattered. I couldn’t bear to look at it. I just wanted to lie down, deep under the covers, and not come out. Ever.

The coldness of our house had penetrated my bones. Mom and Dad were trying to save on heating bills so the thermostat was turned way down. The heat was turned on early every morning and stayed on until noon. Therefore, the house was warm when the lawyers and clerks arrived. I didn’t benefit much because I was at school during most of the day. At least I was warm there. When the house started to cool down, I could see the law clerks putting on sweaters and their suit jackets. They were polite about it and tried to do it discreetly, but I knew they were getting cold.

So I was covered up in my bed trying to get warm before I dressed in warm-ups and went down for dinner. I wanted to buy a space heater for my room, but Mom vetoed it. She had heard too many stories on the news about houses burning down because of them.

Mom would rather be in a pretty house with no heat than in a house with only certain rooms warm. I thought it had to do with a status thing. How many wealthy people heat their big houses with space heaters? Only poor people who’re trying to save on energy bills use space heaters.

I started staying at school as long as possible, working in the newsroom after school, so I wouldn’t have to go home to a cold house.

Ignoring Mom’s calls to dinner, I buried myself further under the white eiderdown comforter on my bed. I felt myself slipping off to a place of blackness and a void in time and space.

“It’s your fault! It’s all your fault!” I screamed as I came into the kitchen the next morning.

Dad’s eyes searched mine. “What’s my fault, Kitten?”

“It’s your fault that Jay broke up with me. His family doesn’t want him to see me anymore.”

“Sit down and have some breakfast,” Mom said. “You’ll feel better.”

“I don’t want any breakfast. I’ve tried to be supportive, but did you stop to think what getting mixed up with crooked people would do to me?”

“I didn’t know this was going to happen,” Dad said.

“Maybe you did know. Maybe you were a part of the scam. Maybe you even helped plan it,” I cried. “Whatever. My life is ruined.”

“Darling, your life is not ruined,” Mom said. “You have your whole life ahead of you. If anybody’s life is ruined, it’s mine.” She paused, thinking about what she had said. “And your father’s.”

Crestfallen, Dad stood up from the table. I could see the hurt on his face. My words had hit home. I didn’t care.

“Every day it kills me that I have put my family in this situation. Yes, it is my fault. If I hadn’t tried to give both of you the best of everything, I wouldn’t have worked at this firm. I wanted my family to live in the best neighborhood. I wanted my family to have every door opened to them. I wanted for you, Kitten, what I didn’t have growing up. I promised to make this right, and I will.” He threw down his napkin and went into his study.

“I’m not hungry,” I said as I went out the door.

10

I went to my safe haven. The park.

Fairfield College sits across the railroad tracks from the park, up on a hill. The land the park sits on used to belong to the college. Back in the day, a professor loved to jog along the Missouri River. He urged the college to put in a walking/jogging trail and the work was begun. He got local businesses to donate the material. Unfortunately, the professor died in a tragic car accident, and the trail lay unfinished. As a memorial to him, Fairfield College donated the land that
River Landing
sits on to the city and the city finished the trail and constructed a park on the site.

I sat on a wrought-iron bench, looked out on the Missouri River, and just stared out into space. I must have looked lost and forlorn because the Old Women stopped to talk to me.

“It can’t be that bad,” Rose said.

“Don’t you remember?” asked Maybelle. “When you’re that age everything is that bad.”

“I’ve been following the news about your father’s situation,” Rose said. “I don’t hear that much about him, only about that Williams fellow. I hope that means your father is OK.”

“He is,” I said. “Thanks for asking.”

“Then what has you down in the dumps?” asked Maybelle.

“I have a prom dress but no date.”

“No boyfriend?” asked Rose.

“He broke up with me because of Dad’s situation.”

Maybelle sat beside me, “Then it doesn’t seem like he was the right fellow for you.”

“I went to Chicago over the weekend to get a designer dress, me and my cousin and my Mom and aunt.”

“Honey, he’s not the only pickle in the barrel,” said Maybelle.

“It might seem like it now, but you don’t have to settle for him,” Rose said. “Go to the prom with somebody else.”

“But I don’t know anybody else. Only the people at my school.”

“What about your cousin? Maybe she knows somebody,” Rose suggested. “When I was a young lady in my first job, my boss was giving an elegant party at his house. Everyone was supposed to bring spouses and significant others, and I didn’t have a date. One of my friends offered her husband and he went as my date.”

“You’re kidding,” I said, incredulous.

“I kid you not,” she said. “I had a wonderful time. We were friends, and we both knew it was a one-time thing, and he was doing me a favor. End of story.”

“Now you go ask your cousin if you can borrow her boyfriend for the evening,” Maybelle said.

“I couldn’t do that,” I said. “We don’t have that type of relationship. I hardly know her. We don’t see each other often.”

“Oh,” said Rose. “Then we have to come up with another plan. I’ll ask my friends to suggest a nice young man to be your date.”

“You can’t do that!” I exclaimed.

“I can, and I will,” Rose replied.

Maybelle said, “I see you sitting here day after day. You’re a young girl. You should be out with your friends. Where is your mother? I haven’t seen her since this whole thing with your father broke.”

“She doesn’t go out much,” I said softly. “Besides, I have to drive her car now. Dad had to sell mine. If Mom came out here in the mornings, I’d have to drive her back home before going to school.” I had to defend Mom. She would be out here with me if she could.

“We could give her a ride,” Rose said.

Mom would just love riding with the Old Women. I dared not tell her what they said.

“The important thing to remember is that this isn’t the end of the world for either of you,” Maybelle said. “Everybody has ups and downs. It’s how you deal with them that counts. I bet your father isn’t sitting around feeling sorry for himself. He’s probably doing everything he can trying to get out of this mess.”

I smiled. “You’re right.”

“Everybody has something they wish wouldn’t have happened,” Maybelle said. “Let me tell you about me. It hasn’t been that long ago either. Only about twenty years ago.”

That was longer than I had been alive. But I didn’t say anything. I wanted to hear her story.

“I was an executive in a big company in New York. Oh, I had a good job.” Her eyes glistened, remembering. “I had reached heights only very few women have ever reached, then or now. But I got involved with my boss. Everybody knew about it, but things were going well with the company and nobody said anything. Did I tell you he was married?”

“Don’t be telling her your sordid story,” Rose said, shaking her head and clucking her tongue. “She doesn’t want to hear about your life.”

“She needs to hear it,” Maybelle said and continued with her story. “Well one day the auditors came. Earnings for the company had been misstated and made to look as if we were making money when we were in fact losing our shirts. The CFO said that he had been directed by my boss to cook the books, so to speak. Needless to say, there was a big scandal, along with another scandal that included the boss and me. The CFO and my boss went to jail. I lost my job. Nobody would hire me. And I came back here to live with my sister, where I’ve been ever since.”

“What happened next?” I asked.

“I changed my name and started over as a secretary,” she said. “It hasn’t been easy, I’m not going to lie and say it was, but we do what we have to do.”