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Lily shut her eyes briefly, feeling an echo of that sorrow. She loved Dorothy Baird, too, a woman she’d known since she was Charlie’s age. Growing up, Lily had sometimes escaped her grim home life by stepping into Crystal’s world, a household undimmed by tragedy, where people knew how to forgive one another. It was terrible to know a massive stroke had stripped Dorothy away from everyone, even herself.
The emotional moment marked the end of the meeting, Lily could tell. She could feel them withdrawing and leaving the problem with Charlie suspended in midair. The conversation was far from over, but she knew they needed time to mull over what she had told them. “There’s a lot more to discuss regarding Charlie,” she said, not quite sure they were listening. “For now, I hope you’ll each speak with her calmly and in private about the stealing. Let her know it has to stop and try to get her to talk about what’s behind it. We can discuss it again on Monday.”
“I’m out of town on Monday,” Derek said. “Got a tournament.”
“I’m coordinating a Special Olympics sponsors’ meeting that afternoon,” Crystal said. “I was going to have Mrs. Foster stay late to watch the girls.”
And that, Lily knew with bleak resignation, was exactly why Charlie was in trouble.
chapter 3
Friday
3:45 p.m.
“They want to do the right thing,” Lily told Edna in the teachers’ lounge after the conference. “The trouble is, they’re so wrapped up in other issues that they’re not seeing Charlie.”
Edna took a sip of herbal tea. While most of the faculty consumed coffee by the gallon, Edna favored homeopathic and herbal concoctions, all designed to bring about inner peace. Lily eschewed coffee, too, and only drank organically-grown herbals, but that didn’t bring her inner peace. A better sleep cycle, maybe.
She and Edna were the last two left at the school. Laurelhurst had a relatively small faculty. On a stormy Friday like this, everyone was eager to get home to loved ones, or to get ready for the weekend. It was an unspoken fact that Lily and Edna were the only unattached people on the faculty.
Lily was slightly in awe of Edna, but she also felt a bit sorry for her. Edna’s most marked quality was her willingness to plunge into relationships and to risk her heart. She’d been smashed into the dirt time and time again, but she always dusted herself off and plunged right back into the next doomed relationship. Lily didn’t get it. Why set yourself up for hurt?
“Well, the fact that they adore her means they’ll work with you,” Edna said. She added a small dab of fireweed honey to her tea.
“I hope so,” Lily said, idly perusing the faculty bulletin board. “Available for summer house-sitting,” read one notice. “Prefer beach or river house.” This time of year, teachers were all about summer, and Lily was no exception. She had plans. Big, grand plans. This was something she loved about her job—a teacher had an entire summer to recover from the emotions of loving, educating and cultivating a group of children.
Parents never get that chance, she reflected, thinking of the Holloways. There’s no downtime when you’re a parent.
“It’s going to be a long haul with Charlie,” she told Edna. “We didn’t even finish discussing the reading institute. They didn’t seem to want to hear about it, except to say it would directly interfere with Mom’s plans for a Disney cruise and horse camp, and Dad’s month in Hawaii.”
“Now I want to be their kid,” Edna said.
“I think they already have as many as they can handle,” Lily told her.
“Maybe the reading institute isn’t the right choice for this family,” Edna said. “They might need more flexibility.” She took a sip of her tea, then regarded Lily thoughtfully. “You could be her tutor.”
Against her better judgment, Lily felt drawn to the idea. Like everyone else, she adored Charlie and felt that teaching her one-on-one could lead to the breakthrough Charlie needed. Unfortunately, the situation was complicated.
“I could never do that,” she said. “You know my policy. I need a life separate from school. And I believe in treating all children equally.”
“They don’t all need you equally,” Edna pointed out.
“Not possible,” Lily said. “With this family, it would be extremely tricky.”
“I should think it would be extra easy since you and Charlene’s mother practically grew up together.”
“Her ex can’t stand me,” Lily said. “He thinks I’m a lousy teacher.”
Edna shook her head. “Just like he’s a lousy golfer.”
“Not quite,” Lily said. “A professional golfer loses a game, maybe a bunch of money or even his PGA card. Big deal. When a teacher screws up, it affects a child.”
“True, but that’s not what I see happening with the Holloway girl. You’re doing a good job, even though at present, her progress doesn’t reflect that.”
“I’ve been working on this all year. I don’t have enough time to get Charlie on track.” She could read Edna’s thoughts. So give her more time.
A part of Lily yearned to do just that, to gather the little girl close. But that—well, that would just be dangerous. Life had not equipped Lily for this: quite the opposite. At an early age, she had learned to protect her heart, even from a child like Charlie. Perhaps especially from a child like Charlie.
Outside, lightning flashed and thunder cracked so close that the windowpanes rattled. Rain washed down the glass, smearing the view of the nearly empty parking lot outside. Lily made out two red squiggles of brake lights as a vehicle left the lot. Judging by the size, that was probably Derek’s SUV.
“I’ll be glad when this year is over,” she said, and cinched the belt of her raincoat snugly around her. Summer meant renewal and refuge from troubles she couldn’t solve. She needed that, needed time to recover from the emotional roller coaster of the school term.
“It’s too bad about that family.” Edna sighed, rinsing her mug at the sink. “I’ve known the Holloways since they enrolled Cameron here ten years ago. I sure as heck didn’t see the divorce coming.”
No one, Lily thought, not even the most perfectly matched couple, seemed to make it anymore. They could be blissful one day and in divorce court the next.
Crystal often urged Lily to settle down, marry and have a family, and Lily had no idea why. After all she’d been through, Crystal was still a true believer. Not Lily, though. She was a pragmatist, a planner. It was easy to do when there was no one to plan for but her.
Lily’s life was arranged exactly the way she wanted it. She had children to love and time for herself. This was her own personal formula for contentment, and she guarded it from anything that might upset the balance, never letting herself question the reason.
chapter 4
Friday
3:45 p.m.
Crystal Baird Holloway jabbed the key into the ignition of her station wagon. She forced herself to take a deep breath, close her eyes and count to ten. She needed to get a grip. In this weather, driving angry was a truly bad idea.
She opened her eyes and deliberately reached around for her seat belt. Torrents of rain glazed the windshield with dull silver streaks, distorting her view of Derek. He appeared ghostlike and indistinct under his black-and-white Ping umbrella as he splashed across the asphalt parking lot to his Chevy Tahoe. A crow with ruffled feathers scurried in front of him and then took wing. Watching him get into the late-model, luxurious SUV and drive into a shroud of fog, she felt a twinge of resentment. He got a new car every year from a sponsor.
There were several things she definitely missed about being married to him, though she would never admit it.
All right, she thought, noticing how quickly the windows had fogged. Don’t freak, as Cameron would say. Charlie’s going to be all right. How can she not be all right with Lily as her teacher? Okay, so it’s been a shitty day, but the worst is over.
Giving a firm nod, like a genie magically transforming chaos to order with a blink, she turned the key in the ignition.
Click.
It took just that one dry, dead-sounding click for her to know she was screwed. However, she tried turning the key several times for good measure. Click. Click. Click. Nothing but a weak flutter, like the rhythm of a failing heart on a monitor.
Great. What the heck was wrong now?
Oh, Crystal, she thought. You didn’t. Her fingers trembled as she reached for the headlamp knob, and her stomach sank. It had been left in the on position.
“Could you be any more stupid?” she muttered.
Even though she knew it wouldn’t work, she checked to see if the dome light would come on. No such luck. The car was deader than…a stale marriage.
Damn this weather. Where else but in Rain City, Oregon, did you have to use your headlights in the daytime, ensuring that one day you’d be upset or in a hurry and you’d dash out of the car, forgetting to turn off the lights?
This was all Derek’s fault. Every trouble in the world could be traced to smiling, sexy, talented, charming, renowned Derek Charles Holloway. If not for him, she never would have moved out here to the rainiest spot on the planet. If not for him, she’d be fine right now, just fine.
But Derek took up a lot of space in a woman’s world. He was larger than life in every department: athletic prowess, looks, spending habits. Oh, and his appetite for women. Let’s not forget that, Crystal thought. He was definitely larger than life in that department.
It was because of all his appetites, his greed, his carelessness in matters of the heart that she found herself sitting in a dead car with the rain beating down, crying her eyes out.
I’ll hate you forever, Derek Charles Holloway, she thought, digging around in her purse for a Kleenex. She came across everything but a tissue: her prescription slip (yet another errand she needed to run before picking up the kids), an ancient Binky dusted with bottom-of-the-purse lint (Ashley had surrendered her Binky six months ago), a couple of stray ball markers and tees with Derek’s initials on them (Was her purse really that old?), a tiny three-pack of Virginia Slims samples given out at a tournament (Yes. It really was that old.), a pack of matches from Bandon Dunes Golf Course. And she still hadn’t found a Kleenex.
By now the windows of the car were so steamed up, passersby might think there was some hanky-panky going on. Ha. Hanky-panky was a thing of the past for Crystal. Hanky-panky was what got her here in the first place. And the second. And the third.
God, what happened to my life? she wondered. Derek. Derek Holloway happened.
She’d been a student at the University of Portland, with everything going for her. She was a freaking beauty queen, for Pete’s sake. She had stood upon the mountaintop as Miss Oregon U.S.A. of 1989, heavily favored to win the national title. Then along came Derek. Three months later, she’d cheerfully handed her crown over to her first runner-up, a dull-witted, laser-toothed blonde from Clackamas County.
Crystal had been so stupid in love that she hadn’t even cried, giving up her crown. She was pregnant—on purpose, though Derek never knew that—and about to marry a man who, by the age of twenty-two, had already been on the cover of Sports Illustrated three times. Really, what was there to cry about?
She snorted into the wet sleeve of her microfiber raincoat, making up for lost time. Her sleeve made a lousy Kleenex, so she simply gave up crying.
“Enough is enough,” she said. And again: “Get a grip.” Somehow she managed to compose herself. She sat for a moment in the pall of silence. It was a dead car, for Lord’s sake, not a cancer diagnosis. She had weathered childbirth, heartbreak, infidelity, divorce, single parenthood, financial ruin, and the world hadn’t come to an end. Surely a dead battery was not going to finish her off.
Will it matter in five years? Her therapist’s favorite question popped into Crystal’s mind. For once, the answer was no. No, this stupid dead car she was forced to drive because her stupid attorney hadn’t milked enough spousal maintenance out of Derek would be nothing more than a bitter memory five years from now. She glanced at the crumpled pink receipt from the medical lab test on the console. Snatching it up, she stuffed it under the visor. Now, that was something that would matter in five years. It would matter forever.
She wished it wasn’t raining. If the sun was out, she’d abandon this piece-of-shit car, stride with her pageant runway walk over to Rain Shadow Lexus and slide right into the cushy leather interior of a brand-new car, one that shut its own lights off if the driver forgot. She’d sweet-talk the dealer into easy terms and drive off into the sunset.
Driving. She and Derek used to drive all over together. After they’d moved here to Comfort, a short distance from the magnificent Pacific Coast, they used to drive out to the edge of everything and explore the twisting, cliff-draped coastal highway to their hearts’ content. Sometimes they’d even pull off at a scenic vista and make love in the back of their minivan.
It was raining harder than ever now. She briefly considered prevailing on Lily for help, but dismissed the idea. She knew Lily would drop everything to help her. She’d wade through a flood if Crystal asked her to. Crystal didn’t want to ask. Lily had already been such a good friend to her, helping her out of one jam after another. It was high time Crystal started rescuing herself. And frankly, Crystal was tired of feeling like an idiot.
As she took out her cell phone, she held her breath. If this battery was dead, too, she’d shoot herself. She pictured herself slogging back into the school, a two-time loser, needing to use a phone.
“Work, please work,” she said, flipping it open.
The display leapt to glowing blue life, playing its happy little “Turn Me On” ditty. Finally, one thing went right today. Not only that, Crystal had, like the soul of competence and organization, clipped her auto club card to the visor. How smart of her.
She entered the toll-free number, then followed the prompts, submitting her membership number.
“We’re sorry,” said a soothing female voice. “That number is no longer valid. Please call our customer service department between 9:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern time to renew your membership.”
“Screw you,” Crystal muttered, pressing End. The phone’s clock told her it was well past 6:00 p.m. on the stupid East Coast.
Like everything else in their marriage, Derek had let the auto club membership expire and hadn’t bothered to tell her.
Swearing under her breath, she took out the sample package of Virginia Slims and the book of hotel matches. She put one of the ancient cigarettes between her lips and lit up. She gagged on the smoke, being an intermittent smoker at best, but lighting up was an act of defiance, a reaction to all the frustrations building inside her. For one moment, she could do something reckless, senseless, dangerous, and the only one to suffer the consequences would be her.
Calmed by the cigarette, Crystal pressed the button of her seat belt. It retracted with a snaky slither and she felt suddenly unburdened. Free.
Finally, she knew exactly what she was going to do. She was going to kill him. She smiled, took another puff on the cigarette and flipped open her phone again. Her fingers remembered his number and dialed it by touch alone. She didn’t even have to look.
He answered on the first ring because she had programmed him to respond quickly. With three kids, you never knew what emergency might be going on.
“My car’s dead,” she said without preamble. “I need you to come back to the school and give me a jump.”
“Call the auto club,” he said easily. “I’m busy.”
She could hear his car radio playing a Talking Heads song in the background. “You let the auto club membership expire,” she said.
“No, you failed to renew it,” he said.
“I would have done so if you’d told me it expired.”
“Call a tow truck, then.”
“Fine. That’ll cost a hundred and fifty bucks. I’ll send you the bill.”
“Oh, no you—”
“And since I’m going to be sitting here for hours, you’ll have to pick up the kids, even though it’s my turn to take them. I’m sure you don’t have any plans for this evening.”
“Come on, Crys. Get somebody from the school to help you. Lily. Get your buddy the schoolteacher to help. Maybe she can help you more than she has Charlie.”
“Oh, don’t start.” Crystal acknowledged to herself that this wasn’t really about getting a jump for her car. This was about getting Derek to jump for her. “Quit trying to hand off your problem to someone else.”
“There’s got to be a maintenance worker at the school, or—”
“Derek. In the time it takes to have this argument, you could drive back here and give me a jump. Then you’ll be a free man.”
“You’re pissing me off, Crys. You are really pissing me off.”
She smiled. “See you soon.”
The phone went dead. Crystal took it away from her ear and looked at the screen. It said Call Ended, not Signal Lost. The bastard had hung up on her.
She thought about what to do next. In a raging storm, with darkness falling all around, in a dead car, no one could hear you scream.
She opened the door and threw out the stale cigarette. Then, through the rain-blurred windshield, she saw a pair of headlights approaching. Friend or foe? she wondered. The day seemed darker than ever. The headlamps blazed, blinding her in a blue-white flash of lightning. The vehicle approached fast, coming straight toward her. Crystal was too surprised to scream. She clutched the steering wheel and braced herself for impact.
The vehicle stopped mere inches from her front bumper. She blinked at the strong stream of light stabbing right at her. And saw a flash of cobalt blue.
Derek. Bless him, the bastard had come back for her.
chapter 5
Friday
3:55 p.m.
The bitch just sat there like a queen, barely acknowledging his presence. Derek had the high beams on intentionally, and left them on, glaring straight at her. Take that.
