Ambush
Max
It’d been about five years since I moved into my condo, but I remembered packing maxims. Don’t fill a box with all books. Too heavy. Half books, half something soft, like pillows or towels. I was putting a pillow from the side chair on top of the books I’d packed when Theresa came downstairs.
“You put this in the log yet?” she asked.
“Yeah.” I taped up the box and carried it to the stack in the corner.
“Don’t do that. The moving guys will do that. Between now and Saturday morning, there’s no point rearranging boxes.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me onto the sofa. Damn. For a bitty thing, she was damn strong. “Talk to me. Please.”
“Ethan told you about last night.”
She nodded. “He did.”
“Thank you for not telling him about –”
“Not my story to tell. As for how you feel about what happened, I could talk myself blue in the face and you wouldn’t believe me.” I dropped my head. All day long I’d been replaying my conversation with Ethan, trying to sort out how I felt about what he said. “Tell me,” Theresa urged. “Why’d you run away from Ryan?”
“He went behind my back and had a cop in the Berkeley PD dig out the case. I don’t know how Ryan found out something happened ten years ago, but once he had a timeframe, and I guess he knew where I went to school, that’s no secret, he found a way to get answers I didn’t want to give him.”
“Ethan said he explained how from Ryan’s point of view it wasn’t a betrayal.”
“Yeah. The thing he said that’s sitting on my chest is how my secret is our problem.” I hated that tears were rolling down my cheeks, but I couldn’t stop them. “I didn’t want to be an us. Every time I sent him away, he came back. Bossy, pushy, and fuckin’ relentless.”
Theresa got up and came back a moment later with a tissue box. I took it and blew my nose and wiped my cheeks.
“I have no worries you can handle bossy and pushy. You push back all the time. I bet he likes your ferocity.”
In spite of myself I laughed. “He eats it up.” She smiled. “Thursday, I lost it after his press conference. One of his cops fucked up.” Her brows went up. I took my phone out of my back pocket and found a video of Ryan’s press conference. “Here.”
Theresa watched for a couple of minutes and handed the phone back to me. “If I didn’t have Ethan, I’d chase Ryan until I caught him. He’s fiiiine.”
“You know how hard it is to yell at him when he looks like that?”
“I have some idea,” she said, laughing. “Why’d you lose it after the press conference?”
“This is going to sound so stupid.” I sighed. Knowing she’d sit there quietly and wait until I told her, I gave over and said, “All the staff and clients watched the press conference. When Bernadette turned off the TV, the women started saying shit about how commanding he was, and how handsome. One of them said she’d have ten of his children, and, no lie, I saw red. I thought, if anyone is going to have his children it’s going to be me.”
She grinned.
I got up and started pacing in front of the couch. “I didn’t want to fall in love with him. When it hit me how deep I’d fallen, I ran out of the spa and wound up sitting at the top of Cottonwood Street for hours in the dark. A cop found me, and Ryan came and got me a few minutes later. He took care of me. He was sweet and gentle. He loves me. I did everything I could to chase him away.”
“Why?”
“Because when he finds out what I did, he’ll hate me and leave,” I shouted.
Theresa snagged my arm and pulled me down onto the sofa. “Bullshit.”
“He’s a cop.”
“And?”
“He’ll know what happened to Lindsey was my fault.”
“Goddammit, Max. It wasn’t your fault.” She tugged on my hand. “You didn’t rape her. You didn’t kill Artie, and you didn’t commit suicide.”
“But I got her drunk, then Artie and I left. She was alone. No one was there to protect her from those animals,” I screamed.
“Did you hold her down and pour the drinks down her throat?”
I glared at her. “No, but I was drinking right along with her. We were smashed.”
“Such an unusual thing to happen at a frat party.” I didn’t appreciate the sarcasm. “You told me you and Artie tried to get her to leave with you and she fought with you.”
The tears threatened and I was back there in the hallway yanking on Lindsey’s hand trying to drag her out the door with me. “She wouldn’t listen. I begged her to go back to the dorm, but she pulled away and went back to the party.”
“And Artie followed her and tried to get her to leave. Again.”
“You know all this, Ter.”
“So the fuck do you.”
“Some friend. I left her there cuz I wanted to go back to my dorm room and fuck Artie.”
“Another unusual occurrence for a nineteen-year-old college student.”
“Okay,” I shouted. “Let’s pretend I absolved myself for passing out and not going back to the frat with Artie. Let’s pretend I absolved myself for not being able to talk my boyfriend out of wanting to die because he didn’t take care of his TWIN SISTER.” Theresa held my gaze, fierce as ever, willing me to get to the nub of it. “I lied to the cops.”
“How?”
“I didn’t tell them Lindsey was my friend. I didn’t tell them we got drunk together. I didn’t tell them Artie and I tried to get her to leave and she wouldn’t. I didn’t tell them I was her brother’s girlfriend. I didn’t tell them we left the party together, and she was there alone.”
“Would them knowing any of that have changed the outcome of their investigation?”
“That’s a chickenshit way to look at it.”
“For the love of god, how?”
I couldn’t take this anymore. I’d replayed all of it over and over and over for ten years and I always came to the same conclusion. I felt sick, and I wanted this done. “Because if I’d told them, they would’ve known none of it would’ve happened if I’d dragged Lindsey out of that frat, even if I had to carry her.”
“I’ve got a newsflash for your ass, Max. Those predators would’ve found another girl to rape that night. Were you supposed to save her too? Would it have made a difference if she wasn’t your friend? Would it have been okay she was the victim because she wasn’t your boyfriend’s sister?”
“No,” I screamed, “but at least Lindsey and Artie would be alive today.”
“Artie, probably. Lindsey, no.”
“What?”
“You told me a lot of Lindsey stories before that night. She wasn’t stable. I can’t say with certainty, but it sounds like she suffered from bipolar disorder, and I’m sure she was clinically depressed. Had she gotten help she might have made it. But along with your Lindsey stories were Artie’s stories about their parents. They were absent from their children’s lives, and they threw money at problems, not attention. If they hadn’t seen what a disaster their daughter was before she went to college, they sure as hell didn’t see it when she was in college. My guess, Lindsey would’ve committed suicide before she graduated. She was a mess, Max, and only professional help could’ve saved her.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“No, my sweet, sensitive, darling cousin. It’s supposed to make you realize you can’t control other people’s choices.”
I laid my head on Theresa’s lap while she stroked my hair. She used to do this every year at the end of the summer the night before she had to go back home. Between summers, I always felt a little lost without her.
“How is it I’ve got seven inches and about sixty pounds on you, and you’re the tough one?”
“Little dogs are always scrappier. We have to be.” She kept stroking, her little hand a light and soothing weight on my head.
I knew all this emotional upheaval was part of the march to Theresa’s goal post. “Okay, Ter. Bottom line me.”
“I signed you and Ryan up for The Letter Club. They have overnight mail now, and you two have to talk. Unless you don’t want to talk to him ever again.”
“Jesus. You don’t cut a girl a break.”
“Option one. You go back home and let him know he’s out of your life, and eventually he moves on and finds someone else and they get married and have kids.” That felt as good as being stabbed in the heart with a serrated-edge knife. “Option two. You stay here for a while, get a license to cut hair and hang out with the East Coast fam. Maybe you look into getting your PhD. We have two Ivy League schools within driving distance. Ryan moves on with his life, finds someone else, they get married and have kids.” And she keeps on stabbing. “Option three. You trust his love and you lay it all out on the table. If he bolts, fuck him. He didn’t deserve you. If he’s the man I think he is, he’ll understand and be supportive. He marries you, you have your four kids, and visit the East Coast fam frequently.”
I sat up. “You’re brutal.”
“And you’re not a coward. You found him, Max. The one. You know how many people find the one? Maybe twenty percent, and I’m probably being generous. Most people settle. Some have happy, healthy marriages, but their love is a warm glow, not a blazing fire.”
She took my hand, squeezed, and continued, “When I was sitting with fifty cops waiting for Ethan to come out of surgery, I decided I’d never hold anything back from him. If I’m pissed, he’ll hear about it. If we disagree, we’ll fight it out until we get through it. If I’m horny, I’ll jump him. I was so scared I was going to lose him ten minutes after I found him, I swore to myself that we were going to live our lives out loud and to the fullest.” She touched her chest. Something she did unconsciously since the shooting when her emotions were close to the surface. “I almost died. I’m alive, in love, pregnant, moving into a new house, rescuing another dog, and getting married. Life’s short and precarious. Don’t survive it, jump in with both feet and truly live it.”
Boo got up from his bed and stood in front of Theresa and stared at her. “He has to go out, doesn’t he?”
“Yep.” She put her hand on my cheek. “You want to call him?”
I shook my head. “I’ll do The Letter Club thing. This way if he bails, I won’t have to hear him say it, and I won’t make a fool of myself on the phone.”
“Take Boo out, and I’ll set the table. When you come back in, while we’re making the garlic bread, I’ll tell you how TLC works. Tonight you’ll write him a letter, and tomorrow I’ll take it to the office and put it in the overnight mail. Deal?”
I opened my arms and she came in for the hug. “Deal,” I whispered into her ear. We separated, and I snapped my fingers. “C’mon, Boo. You and I are going for a walk.”
***
Theresa
Ethan loved everything I cooked. After he’d recovered enough to go out, he’d come to three of my cooking club dinners. After every one, he’d said, “They don’t cook as well as you.” Taste buds blinded by love, but I’d take it.
After dinner – there were two servings of lasagna left – and a dessert of assorted donuts – did we eat enough carbs tonight? – we cleaned up and left Max sitting in front of her laptop at the dining room table.
Now, we were leaning against the headboard, legs tangled on top of the covers, catching up on last season’s episodes of Endeavour. We shared a love for British detective procedurals. When episode two ended, Ethan shut off the TV. “How’d it go today?”
“Rough, but we got there. The big plan is I signed her and Ryan up for TLC. They have to communicate, and writing letters is intimate but remote. I thought she’d need that. He texted me his home address. The man’s all in. Whatever it takes to get Max back to him. She doesn’t want to talk to him until she’s sure he won’t bail, which is what I figured, so she said she’d write to him. That’s what she was doing on her laptop. Writing his letter. TLC has an overnight mail option now. After they do their twenty-four-hour verification, Ryan should have her letter by Friday.”
“Huh. I wouldn’t’ve wanted that in the beginning. I liked the anticipation of getting your letters, and I needed the time to process I was falling in love with a woman I didn’t know, and had never met. For a while, I worried you didn’t feel the same way.”
I stretched up and kissed his cheek. “I get that.” I smiled. My man had a soft heart. “Their situation is different.”
“Undoubtedly. She okay?”
I put my hand out and flipped it palm up, palm down a couple of times. “A little shaky, but better than she had been. It’s a leap into the unknown for her. Your talk last night made a real impression and helped her come to terms with Ryan’s motivations. Have I thanked you for that?”
He grinned. “I seem to recall something transpiring in the shower this morning, but I might need to be reminded.”
I took my time reminding him, and he took his time reminding me how I got pregnant.
The next morning, as Ethan was watching a video of Ryan’s press conference on his iPad, I picked up an envelope addressed to TLC that had been leaning against the white ceramic cannister that held the multicolored spatulas.