The Party Page 7

Davis spoke. “We’ve found nothing to date that would deem you criminally responsible or negligent.”

  “Thank you,” Jeff said. He felt, and sounded, vindicated. The officers left, and he closed the door behind them, turning the lock.

  He looked at his wife and his own relief reflected back at him. The moment seemed to call for something, some kind of gesture or statement to mark their absolution. He reached out and patted Kim’s shoulder. She smiled back at him.

  “I’m going for a swim,” he said.

  kim

  FOUR DAYS AFTER

  On Wednesday, Kim picked up the phone and called Lisa. She had already made several overtures—sending a seventy-five-dollar bouquet to the hospital (anything over a hundred dollars would have implied culpability), and dropping a batch of home-baked healthy cookies (oatmeal, raisin, and flax seed, sweetened with maple syrup) at the hospital’s reception desk. But she needed to talk to Lisa; she needed to explain. Her heart thudded in her chest as Lisa’s phone rang in her ear.

  “Hi. You’ve reached Lisa Monroe. Sorry I can’t take your call right now… .”

  Voice mail. Kim was somewhat relieved. It would be easier to deliver her rehearsed speech without interruption. Of course, voice mail could mean that Lisa was still angry and screening her, but she couldn’t worry about that now. She had things to say.

  “Hey! It’s me, Kim.” She sounded too breezy, too casual. She lowered her register. “I wanted to check on Ronni. And on you. If there’s anything we can do, or anything you need, just call. We’re here for you… .” She paused, gathered her courage. “Hannah can’t wait until Ronni’s back at school. She really misses her. This whole thing has been hard on Hannah. On all of us. Of course, it’s nothing compared to what you’re going through… .” Her heart thudded louder as she plunged ahead. “The police were here. They said that what happened was a terrible accident, but we’re not responsible. We weren’t negligent. I mean, it’s not like it was a party party. There were only a few girls. We had no way of knowing they were planning to drink… .” She trailed off. God, she hoped she didn’t sound smug … or worse, triumphant. “Anyway, I hope you’ll reach out if you need anything. Or just want to talk. About anything. I’m here for you.” She hung up.

  She was suddenly aware of a pungent odor—dirty sneakers—that announced her son’s presence. When things settled down, she’d have a talk with him about personal cleanliness. On second thought, Jeff should handle that conversation. It was a father’s job to teach his son to shave, to use deodorant, to buy odor eaters for his smelly shoes… . Her son’s malodorous aura was just one more example of Jeff’s failings as a partner.

  “Shouldn’t you be leaving for school?”

  “I’m riding my skateboard. It only takes five minutes.”

  “Have you got your lunch?” Kim hustled toward the fridge.

  Aidan perched on a barstool. “What’s going on with Ronni?” He had been spared the drama of that night, thanks to his sleepover, but Kim had filled him in.

  Kim peered into the fridge, keeping her tone light. “I think she’s fine, but I haven’t been able to get ahold of Lisa.”

  “Is Lisa mad at you?”

  “She has no reason to be.” Kim found the lunch containers she’d packed for her son the night before and extracted them.

  “Wouldn’t you be mad if something bad happened to me when I slept over at Marcus’s house?”

  “That’s different.” Kim deliberately placed the lunch containers in Aidan’s insulated lunch bag.

  “Different how?”

  Kim closed the lunch bag and faced her son across the breakfast bar. “You are a good kid with no history of risk-taking behavior. Ronni, on the other hand …” She trailed off.

  “So you blame Ronni?”

  “I never said that,” she snapped. Why was her thirteen-year-old son grilling her like some criminal? Twisting her words to make her seem like the villain? On the upside, maybe Aidan could have a future as a prosecutor?

  Kim lowered her voice, spoke firmly but calmly. “We are not responsible for what happened to Ronni, Aidan. The police cleared us. Lisa may be upset, but when Ronni is better and back at school, she’ll come around.”

  She observed her son taking this in, processing it. A flicker of concern contorted his features, but he seemed somewhat appeased. “I should get going.”

  Kim handed him his lunch bag and kissed his cheek. “Have a good day.”

  KIM PACKED UP her laptop in preparation for her meeting with Tony. Normally, she would have fussed with her appearance. She wanted to look good, but not like she was trying to look good. She wanted Tony to think she was low maintenance and naturally pretty. But today, she’d let her hair dry into its myriad of waves and cowlicks and dispensed with the carefully applied, muted makeup. Usually, she felt excited to see him, anticipating the illicit thrill of sitting across from him in a quiet coffee shop, their knees almost touching under the table, their hands fluttering self-consciously between their coffee mugs and keyboards. Typically, these sessions consisted of a modicum of work and a lot of harmless flirting. But today, her heart wasn’t in it. As she drove to their meeting place in Bernal Heights, her heart felt heavy and tired, too old and worn for playful banter or innuendo.

  When she entered the faux-rustic café and saw him sitting there, sipping his cappuccino and staring at his computer screen, she felt a surprising rush of … well, fondness was the only word that seemed appropriate. It wasn’t strong enough to be love—she had only known the guy five minutes! And given recent events, she couldn’t muster any lust. But she knew then that this was more than just a flirtation. There was something real between them, a profound friendship, if nothing else. She could talk to Tony, she could open up and he would listen without judgment. She should have been able to talk to her husband that way, and maybe she could have, if Jeff ever stopped working or working out. Or stretching or showering after working out. Or making a protein smoothie after working out. He never seemed to stop moving.

  Tony looked up and smiled, and something twisted in Kim’s chest. He stood and held his arms out for a perfunctory hug, their standard greeting, but as she walked into his brief embrace, she felt herself collapse against him. Emotion clogged her throat and her eyes were wet. She wanted to lean against his chest; it was narrower than Jeff’s, lean and hairy, she could tell from the opening of his shirt. She wanted to bury her face in that hairy chest and weep.

  Tony held her at arm’s length. “Hey … What’s going on?”

  “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

  “I got you an Americano misto.”

  Oh God, he remembered her favorite drink. Maybe she did love him. She let him maneuver her to a chair, where she sat and proceeded to spill the events of the past Saturday.

  Tony could have said, “I told you so,” but he didn’t. Instead, he muttered, “Jesus … How is the girl?”

  “I think Ronni’s doing okay, but I don’t actually know. Lisa’s so angry she won’t talk to me. She won’t even let Hannah visit Ronni.”

  “Lisa wants someone to blame. It makes her feel better. But this wasn’t your fault.”

  Kim nodded. “The police cleared us of any wrongdoing. But still … I should have checked on them. But I’d had some wine and half an Ambien. I just went to sleep.” Her voice was trembling. “I thought it would be okay… .”

  “You told the girls the rules, and they broke them. That’s what teenagers do.”

  “Not Hannah, though.” Kim sniffled. “Hannah’s a good girl. She was a good girl. We talked about everything. About drinking and drugs and the problems they cause. I thought she understood … I thought I’d done my job. I feel like I failed her.”

  “You didn’t.”

  Kim let out a sardonic snort. “With a dad like Jeff, what did I expect?”

  “You can’t put this on him.”

  “Can’t I?” Kim was suddenly filled with an intense anger at her husband. She leaned forward and lowered
her voice. “Last year, I found a vial of LSD in his pants.”

  “Really?”

  “It was just a little bit, heavily diluted. He got it from some hipster colleague from Austin. But still …”

  “Is he a druggie?”

  Kim sighed. “I don’t think so. He called it microdosing. I looked it up, and it’s a thing in the tech world. But I laid down the law. I mean, we all had fun in our twenties, but we’re in our forties now. We have kids and responsibilities. We’re part of the community. We can’t do crap like that anymore.”

  Tony sipped his coffee. “Amanda would kill me.”

  “I wanted to kill Jeff.”

  “She used to work in family law. She saw some stuff. Parents with drug problems, kids abused and neglected …”

  “That’s horrible.”

  “It was. She couldn’t take it after a while, so she became a civil litigator. Less trauma.”

  “Thankfully, the kids know nothing about Jeff’s indiscretion. No one does. We dealt with it ourselves. Quietly. But maybe Hannah inherited Jeff’s risk-taking behavior? Maybe she’s genetically predisposed to take chances and make bad choices?”

  Tony smiled. “But half her genes are yours, and you never take chances or make bad choices.”

  Kim bit her lip. “Sometimes I do… .” Their eyes connected. Three innocuous little words but the intention was clear: Kim was about to make a very bad choice.

  Tony moved his hand, ever so slightly, so that his last two fingers rested on top of hers. It was a small gesture, and yet, so intimate. There was a table between them, a room full of people around them, but their four fingers were an electric point of connection. Tony’s voice was husky. “Do you want to get out of here?”

  “Yes.”

  “You sure?”

  No, she wasn’t sure. If she thought about it, for even a moment, she would change her mind. This wasn’t Kim. She wasn’t reckless or even particularly spontaneous. She lived her life according to a plan, following a code of morals and ethics; she always put her family first. But look where that had gotten her: her marriage was a sham, her daughter was sneaky and deceitful, her son refused to cut his hair and smelled of feet… .

  Right now, Kim didn’t want to think. She wanted to plunge ahead, not knowing where they were going or what they would do when they got there. She wanted to indulge herself in the excitement and possibility of this moment, to forget everything that had happened—with Ronni, with Jeff, with all of it.

  “I’m sure,” she said.

  They moved outside without a word. “We’ll take my car,” Tony said. Kim liked how he was taking charge. It was manly and sexy. She felt like she would follow him anywhere, do anything he asked. He could take her to some cheap, by-the-hour hotel room, and demand she strip. “Take me in your mouth,” he would growl at her, and she would do it. With Jeff, she avoided blow jobs as often as possible. Her jaw clicked awkwardly, and it took him forever to orgasm. But in this scenario, the thought of it was positively thrilling! Of course, she may have been taking a leap from the innocent brushing of their fingers to oral sex in a tawdry hotel. Tony might just be taking her toward the beach for a scenic walk. But she knew it was more than that. She obediently followed him toward his Volkswagen hatchback.

  Something made her slow her pace. It wasn’t that she recognized the vehicle that was pulling into the parking lot—in this neighborhood, the low-emissions Subaru was almost as ubiquitous as the reusable shopping bags draped over every other arm—but some Spidey sense was telling her to proceed with caution. So she was standing stock-still when the car parked beside her and the door opened.

  “Coming?” Tony asked, just as Emily Banyen emerged from the silver vehicle. Jesus, San Francisco was a small town sometimes.

  “Emily!” Kim said, a smile plastered across her lips.

  “Kim! Hi!” Emily approached and squeezed both Kim’s hands. “How are you holding up?”

  Emily had obviously heard what had happened to Ronni. She had been the girls’ fifth-grade teacher and Hannah and Caitlin’s volleyball coach. Hannah and her friends had adored Ms. Banyen. Kim had been in charge of the fifth-grade gift that year: a world’s best teacher T-shirt with Emily’s beaming face on the front and the entire class’s signatures on the back in indelible ink. Kim hadn’t seen Emily since she left teaching to have her baby. God, that baby must be four or five by now.

  “Jeanette was delivering a baby on Saturday night when Ronni was brought in,” Emily explained. Of course … Emily’s partner, Jeanette, was an obstetrician at the California Pacific Medical Center. That was why Emily had been able to leave her teaching job so readily. Kim had admired Emily and Jeanette’s relationship more than once. Not that she found herself attracted to women (though she’d once felt something stirring between her and a bisexual colleague at the agency one drunken night years ago), but it had to be simpler being married to another woman, didn’t it?

  “It was pretty scary,” Kim said.

  “It sounds horrifying.”

  “Hannah’s been really upset. She’s so sensitive.”

  Emily squeezed Kim’s arm. “The poor thing. She’s a sweet girl. And Ronni is, too.”

  Emily obviously hadn’t seen Ronni in a while. With her cleavage and pancake makeup, sweet wasn’t the adjective that sprang to Kim’s mind. But Kim smiled and nodded.

  Emily continued. “When Jeanette told me, I was so upset. I sent Ronni’s mom some flowers. How’s she doing?”

  “I haven’t seen her, actually. I sent flowers. And cookies.” Kim could feel her face turning red and she was eager to shift the topic of conversation. Her eyes flitted to Tony, still standing beside his car. “This is my colleague, Tony. We work together.”

  “Hi,” Emily said.

  “Emily was Hannah’s fifth-grade teacher.”

  Tony nodded. “Hey.”

  “Tony’s a designer,” Kim continued. “I’m copywriting now. Freelance. We have a contract with Apex Outerwear. We do their flyers.” Emily’s expression was bemused, mildly perturbed. Had Kim been babbling? Going on about herself? She had. She’d been rude and she would remedy it now. “How’s your little boy?” she asked.

  Emily seemed taken aback by the question. “He’s good.”

  “They grow up so fast. It seems like only yesterday Hannah was in your class and now she’s”—What was she going to say? Drinking? Taking ecstasy? Finally—“in tenth grade.”

  “This is a traumatic experience for the girls to go through at such a tender age.”

  “They’ve learned a valuable lesson,” Kim said. “The police have looked into it and we’re not responsible. It was really unfortunate, but it’s time we all moved forward.”

  “Kim …” Emily said, then paused, flustered. “I’m sorry, but I’m surprised you’re taking this so lightly.”

  She sounded like the schoolteacher she was, a schoolteacher expressing her disappointment in the fifth grader who colored both Utah and Arizona orange when shading her map of America.

  “I’m not taking it lightly.” Kim’s voice was controlled, but she was clearly affronted. “Jeff and I are very upset. We’re disappointed by Hannah’s behavior and we’re dealing with it. Lisa knows we’re here for her. Frankly, there’s not much more we can do.”

  Emily’s cheeks flushed. “Oh God … You don’t know, do you?”

  “Know what?”

  The schoolteacher took a breath, then rested her hand on Kim’s forearm. “Ronni lost her eye last night.”

  lisa

  FIVE DAYS AFTER

  Lisa hadn’t had a cigarette in sixteen years. Okay, that wasn’t entirely true. She’d quit smoking when she found out she was pregnant with Ronni and abstained throughout Ronni’s infancy. But when her daughter was a toddler there had been the occasional butt (never in the house, never around the baby). Lisa had allowed herself to slip back into her partying ways for a few months then: some drinking, a little weed, nothing hard… . That was when Curtis was still in
the picture. She had thought she had some support. She had thought she deserved to have a little fun.

  Lisa took another deep drag on the cigarette. She wasn’t even sure she was enjoying it, but the nicotine coursing through her system was calming her, or at least numbing her slightly to the trauma of Ronni’s surgery. Standing there, in the hospital’s designated smoking area, her mind drifted back to Curtis Rey. If only Lisa hadn’t let herself get knocked up by such a huge loser, Ronni’s dad would be here right now. Not as Lisa’s partner—she had Allan, and in no universe could she envision herself married for the past seventeen years—but as Ronni’s father. The girl could have used the support; and Lisa would have appreciated some relief.

  Their relationship had fallen apart mere moments after Ronni was born. Curtis had a temper when he drank, which was pretty regularly. Had she been drinking less herself, she would have been more vigilant on the birth control front. The guy had some good qualities of course, primarily his chiseled abs, caramel-colored skin, and drone-like ability to find her clitoris. But she couldn’t have a sporadically employed, angry drunk around her baby, no matter how good the sex was. She had kicked him out promptly.

  Still, Lisa had envisioned Curtis playing a small supporting role in their child’s life. And at first, he’d seemed perfectly capable of looking after his daughter once every couple of weeks. If he couldn’t support them financially, at least he could babysit once in a while so Lisa could have some semblance of a social life. If she was honest with herself, those nights out were as much about punishing Curtis as they were about her own enjoyment. It took two people to make a baby. Why was she the only one making sacrifices to raise her?

  She’d left Ronni in her father’s care on a handful of occasions without incident. When she arrived to pick her daughter up, Curtis would hand over his charge, her hair uncombed, last night’s pajamas covered in strained peaches or gooey cookie dried to cement-hardness. Ronni was a mess, but she was fine. Until she wasn’t… .

  It wasn’t quite a migraine but a persistent headache that had sent Lisa home early that night. In retrospect, it must have been her maternal instinct, an instinct that had deserted her the night of Hannah’s party. But fourteen years ago, a persistent dull ache behind her eyes had kept Lisa from enjoying the nightclub, drinking and flirting alongside her childless friends. She recalled a visiting football team—the Denver Broncos or someone—the place full of rich, good-looking guys with money to spend on drinks and Baggies of cocaine in their pockets. It had the potential to be an amazing night, but somehow, Lisa had known that her daughter needed her. With her friends lined up to do shots with the athletes, Lisa had slipped out to her car.