Part 17 (1/2)

”Naomi sat me down one night-I think we were, like, in seventh grade-and looked at me very seriously and said, and I quote, 'Valerie, you shouldn't do drugs. It's not like it was in my day, when you knew what you were getting. They lace that s.h.i.+t now.'”

”That's what she told you?”

”Good old Naomi.” Val unwrapped her pillow chocolate and popped it in her mouth. ”Mother of the year.”

”Where is she these days, anyhow?”

”Remarried. Her current husband is twice my age and exactly half as interesting. She's still in Cleveland.” She shook her head in disgust-at Naomi, or at her new stepfather, or at Cleveland, I couldn't tell-and rolled onto her side. ”This is fun,” she said. ”Like a slumber party. Hey, wanna raid the minibar?”

I shook my head. I'd fantasized about going out of town with Vijay-he traveled often, for conferences and drug-company-sponsored retreats, usually held at some fancy golf resort or at a beach. We could go out to dinner, in a town where n.o.body knew either one of us. We could hold hands at the table and spend a whole night together in some plush hotel room. ”I had a boyfriend,” I told Val, who was crouched down in front of the minibar, inspecting the options.

She looked up and waved a fistful of miniature bottles at me. ”You did?” She sounded so proud. ”Ha. I knew that lingerie was for something. Good for you!”

”He was married,” I said.

”Oh.” Val considered this. ”Well, did you have fun?”

”So much fun,” I said. ”At first. And then for a while. I liked being with someone. You know. Watching TV. Holding hands.”

”Sweet,” Val said. She patted my arm and poured me a shot.

”I felt sorry for his wife,” I said, and drained my gla.s.s.

”Wives,” said Val. ”So problematic.” She dumped another tiny bottle of vodka into a cup filled with ice and sat on her bed, sipping.

”Hey, Val.” My tongue felt like a sock stuffed full of quarters. Wine with dinner plus vodka after equaled more than I'd had to drink in a long time. Carefully, I set my gla.s.s aside. ”What happened that summer you went to California?”

”Ah yes,” she said. She pulled a mirrored compact out of her purse, dug around for a cotton ball and a bottle of face cream, and started removing her makeup. ”Old Naomi had a new boyfriend that spring. He used to hang around the house when I came home from school, and Naomi thought it would be a good idea if I went away for a while.”

I thought this over, not liking the way it sounded. ”Did he do something to you? The boyfriend?”

”Not exactly.” Her eyes were trained on the tiny mirror in her hand. ”Not really. He bought me dresses. He wanted me to wear them. Try this one, try that one; try the white, try the pink. Come sit with me. Pretty girl. You know. That kind of s.h.i.+t.”

”Oh, Val.” I thought that I should try to touch her-her arm, her hand-but she was too far away.

”Anyhow.” She flicked the mirror shut and stuffed her equipment back in her bag. ”I don't think Naomi wanted the in-house compet.i.tion. So she scored a ticket somehow and put me on a plane, and then she called my dad to tell him I was coming.”

My throat clicked as I swallowed. ”Was your father glad to see you?”

”Thrilled,” she said drily. ”What forty-year-old down-on-his-luck stuntman turned craft service manager wouldn't want a sixteen-year-old showing up for the summer? He had a girlfriend, though. Shannon. She was nice. Do you remember how bad my teeth were?”

I spoke carefully. ”They were pretty crooked.”

”Oh, it wasn't just that. I'd never been to a dentist. Not since we left California.”

”Naomi never took you?” I was shocked.

Val shrugged. ”Shannon fixed me up. I got my teeth cleaned, got my cavities filled, got braces, got a haircut, got some new clothes. Shannon ran a tight s.h.i.+p. She had two kids of her own. Little girls. I wanted to stay with them.”

”Why didn't you?”

She shrugged again. ”No room at the inn. They had a two-bedroom apartment, and Shannon's girls were eight and six. I tried all summer long to be... what's the word? Indispensable.” She p.r.o.nounced it slowly, then said it again, ”Indispensable. I'd wake up early, do all the dishes, unload the dishwasher, sweep the floors, get the girls dressed, braid their hair, make their lunches... everything.” She tucked her hair behind her ears. ”Turns out I was completely dispensable. They had me on the first plane back home the week the girls started school. Naomi took me to the orthodontist a few times. Then she started dating the orthodontist. Then they broke up, and she got drunk one night and told me she was gonna pull my braces off herself. She had pliers and everything.”

I shuddered, wondering why I'd never known about any of this, why I'd never even guessed. Val reached across the s.p.a.ce between the beds and patted my arm. ”But never mind. It's ancient history. Let's talk about you! I bet your parents would be proud of you. All responsible, and thin and stuff.”

”Hah.” It was revoltingly superficial, I knew, but it made me sad to think that neither one of my parents had lived long enough to see me thin. Or thin-ish. Neither one of them would know about my career, or how beautiful the house was, neither would ever look at my cards, my mugs, the spoon rest I'd done, and think, Hey, she turned out okay. ”We should get some rest,” I said, and got under the covers, pulling them up to my chin. I rolled onto my back and shut my eyes. Then I opened them to see Val, still seated on her bed. Her knees were drawn up to her chest, and her chin rested on top of them as she gazed at the gold-striped wallpaper.

”What's wrong?” I asked.

”Dan.”

Oh. That. ”Listen,” I said. ”Maybe he'll turn up. You said you didn't hit him that hard, right? Maybe he was just stunned.”

”Not what I did to him,” she said impatiently. ”What he did. What he did to me.” She yanked back her covers and flicked off the light, plunging the room into darkness.

”Did you ever tell anyone?” I asked after a minute. ”Your mom?”

She snorted. ”Naomi. Hah. She would have probably been mad that I didn't get him to buy me dinner afterward.” She sniffled. ”She was dating his father for a while.”

”Your mother was dating Dan Swansea's father?” Another thing I hadn't known. I thought back to what my mother had said about Val not having it easy, and wondered what she'd known; if she'd had more of a sense than I did about what kind of mother Naomi Adler had been, if she'd seen behind the beauty and the glamour and the spur-of-the-moment road trips and been a lot less enamored than I was.

Valerie's voice was m.u.f.fled, so faint it could have been coming from the far end of a tunnel. ”The Swanseas split up for a while freshman year. He had car dealers.h.i.+ps. Naomi drove me by their house once. This great big place with a three-car garage. I think she'd had her eye on him for a long time.”

”Oh, Val.”

The room was quiet for so long I figured Val had fallen asleep until she said, ”I told my dad, though. I called him up. Woke him up. It was the middle of the night. I thought...” I heard her take a wavering breath. ”I don't know what I thought, really. That he'd get on the next plane and fly to Illinois and beat the s.h.i.+t out of Daniel Swansea. Tell him, 'That's what you get for hurting my little girl.'”

”I take it that didn't happen?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.

”He told me he'd call me in the morning, after I'd had a chance to calm down. I waited by the phone all day. He never called.” She pulled in a breath, and I heard the sheets rustle. ”For the longest time, I just never let myself think about it. It was nothing. That's what I'd tell myself. It was nothing. But it wasn't...” Her voice cracked. I thought that she was crying, and I didn't know what to do. Should I try to hug her? Say something consoling? It had been so long since someone had told me a secret, so long since someone besides Jon had needed me.

Before I could decide on a course of action, Val got off the bed and padded to the bathroom. There was a brief flash of light as the door opened, then shut. Poor Val. If it had been me, if I'd told my father, I was sure that he would have done exactly what Val had wanted her father to do. He would have found a way to make the boy who'd hurt me sorry.

A few minutes later, Val stepped out of the bathroom and flicked on the light. Her face was scrubbed, her hair pulled back, and she was wearing her new nights.h.i.+rt, a long-sleeved navy-blue cotton number. ”Hey,” she said, climbing under the covers, ”we're twins!” She fished a discarded chocolate off the floor and popped it in her mouth, and as she chewed, I thought of what I could tell her; of how I could help.

”I missed you, you know,” I said.

Slowly, she unwrapped another piece of chocolate and spoke without meeting my eyes. ”Even though I was such a b.i.t.c.h? Even though I lied about you?”

”It wasn't all lies,” I confessed. ”I did have a crush on Dan.”

She gave a short, bitter laugh. ”Big mistake.”