Читать книгу It’s Always the Husband: the Sunday Times bestselling thriller for fans of THE MARRIAGE PACT - Michele Campbell, Michele Campbell - Страница 13

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That fall, Kate frequently mentioned the idea that the other two girls should visit her in New York. Whenever Jenny tried to follow up and set a specific date (she liked to keep an orderly calendar), Kate would get all vague and wave her off. Vagueness – a Kate specialty when confronted with anything she didn’t feel like dealing with at that moment. After a while, Jenny figured the invitation was BS, like a lot of stuff Kate said, and let the subject drop. She was busy with classes, and chorus, and had been elected freshman rep to the student council from Whipple. She worked at the hardware store every Saturday, and had taken a second part-time job, typing and filing in the provost’s office, because she wanted to learn how the college ran. (She was the first freshman ever hired by the provost, in fact.) It would have been a struggle to fit a trip to New York into her crazy schedule anyway.

Late one night a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving break, Jenny switched off her desk lamp and got into bed. The lavender comforter cover was freshly laundered, and she snuggled down under it, curling and uncurling her toes and trying to unwind from the difficult econ problem set she’d been working on. Aubrey had gone to bed an hour earlier, and Jenny assumed she was long asleep.

After a few minutes in the dark, however, Jenny became aware of quiet sniffling emanating from Aubrey’s bed.

“Aubrey?” she whispered.

The sniffling stopped.

“Aubrey, are you crying? What’s wrong?”

Aubrey broke into muffled sobs. Jenny sighed, threw the covers back, and climbed in next to Aubrey in the other bed. As usual, she was torn between feelings of tenderness and irritation for her roommate, who’d been having trouble getting her footing at Carlisle, and seemed to lurch from one crisis to the next. The only time Aubrey ever looked happy was tagging along with Kate to parties.

“What is it, sweetie? Tell me,” Jenny said, stroking Aubrey’s shaking back. “Is it about a boy?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“I . . . can’t . . . go . . . home,” Aubrey forced out between sobbing breaths.

“Home? You mean home for break, to Nevada?”

Aubrey nodded miserably, dissolving into sobs again. Jenny hopped out of bed, grabbed a box of Kleenex from her desk, and switched on the lamp.

“Here, sit up,” she said, resuming her place next to Aubrey.

Aubrey sat up and blew her nose. “I can’t afford the plane ticket. The dorms are closed for a week.”

“Why didn’t you say something? You’ll come home with me. You know you’re always welcome. Problem solved.”

“Thank you. I’ll take you up on that. But it’s not the only problem.”

“What, then?”

“I don’t know where my mother is,” Aubrey said, bursting into tears again.

“I don’t understand. Did she go somewhere?” Jenny handed her another Kleenex, and Aubrey mopped her face.

“Her phone is disconnected. That happens sometimes. She waitresses, she doesn’t always have enough to cover her bills. And even when she does, she isn’t always organized enough to pay them. I used to handle that. I probably still should, it’s just, with everything . . .”

“Of course. I’m so sorry, that’s awful.”

Jenny genuinely felt terrible for Aubrey. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like, not only to have such money problems, but to be uncertain where your own mother was. Jenny’s mother phoned her twice a day, and if Jenny didn’t call back right away, she worried there was something wrong and called again. To not hear from your own mother was beyond her comprehension. Surely there was somebody back home who could help Aubrey get in touch. Jenny knew surprisingly little about Aubrey’s home life, because Aubrey rarely chimed in when they talked about their families. Jenny had noticed this silence and tried to be sensitive to it, but now she felt compelled to ask.

“Is your father in the picture, or are your parents divorced? I’m sorry, I hope you don’t mind if I ask.”

“Ugh, I can’t talk about this,” Aubrey said, flopping down and pulling the pillow over her head. Jenny tugged it aside.

“Hey. Come on, divorce is nothing to be ashamed of in this day and age.”

Aubrey looked at her with watery eyes. “If you want to know the truth, it’s a lot worse than divorce. My parents never got married. My dad drove a long-haul truck, and my mom was like, his road girlfriend. She says he had another family somewhere, and one night he drove away and never came back. I’m so ashamed. Don’t tell anyone? Please?”

“Of course not. I would never. This is not your fault. You’re the victim. It must have been terrible for you. How old were you when it happened?”

“I was three. It’s not like I missed him or anything. All I remember about him is the smell of beer. But after he left, things were rough financially. My mom couldn’t catch a break. Vegas is a tough town for a woman. She was pretty when she was younger, and she made decent money waitressing. But she got old fast. And she didn’t have the gumption to make a move. You know, take a GED course, learn to type. She never got her act together, and she lost one job after another. Once I was old enough to work, I did my best to help out. But then I left.”

“Well of course you did, and I’m sure she wanted you to. Who’d want their kid to pass up a Carlisle scholarship? But wait, don’t you have an older sister? Amanda, right? Why can’t she check on your mom and help her get her phone turned back on?”

Aubrey’s sister was in her early twenties, and worked as a cocktail waitress in one of the big hotels on the Strip in Las Vegas. She’d been in and out of trouble. Jenny knew the two of them weren’t close.

“I tried, believe me, but Amanda doesn’t return my calls,” Aubrey said.

“Give me her number. I’ll call her.”

Jenny was relentless when it came to solving problems. Over the next couple of days, she left a series of increasingly urgent messages for Aubrey’s sister. When she didn’t hear back, she got the number of the hotel where Amanda worked and called the manager four times in a single afternoon demanding to talk to Amanda regarding a family emergency. That finally resulted in an expletive-laden return message from Amanda, left on the answering machine on the room phone. Buried among the swear words was the revelation that Mrs. Miller was fine, just temporarily without a telephone, so Jenny should back the hell off and tell that whiny idiot Aubrey to get bent.

Jenny played the message for Aubrey, who hugged her, with tears in her eyes, and whispered, “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” over and over again.

“Don’t mention it,” Jenny said, basking in the gratitude as she rubbed her roommate’s back. She loved helping someone in need, and Aubrey provided ample opportunity to do that.

Despite what seemed to Jenny to be an extremely satisfactory resolution to Aubrey’s quandary, as Thanksgiving approached, Aubrey seemed increasingly depressed. In fact, Jenny noticed, she was growing paler and sadder – and also thinner, since she’d nearly stopped eating – with each passing day. This disappointed Jenny, who liked to see more concrete results from her efforts. It also alarmed her.

Jenny reviewed the protocols in her dorm rep handbook for what to do if you suspected that a student suffered from untreated or undiagnosed depression, anorexia, or any other of a long list of mental or emotional challenges. The first step was alerting the dorm RA, but Jenny dismissed that out of hand. Whipple’s RA – a biochem grad student named Chen Mei – was rarely around, and when she was, she made it very clear that she’d taken the position for the free housing, and wasn’t interested in being bothered with actual student problems. The handbook next counseled reporting Aubrey to Student Health Services or the dean of students’ office, which could force Aubrey into a mental health evaluation, or even make her take a leave of absence to seek treatment. The thought of taking such drastic measures horrified Jenny. She was a friend, not a rat. She had to help Aubrey on her own, without getting the administration involved and possibly getting Aubrey in trouble.

But maybe not entirely on her own.

Aubrey idolized Kate, and tagged along with her everywhere. To meals, to parties, anywhere Kate would allow. She’d even bought some Nice’n Easy from the drugstore, in a shade called Palest Blonde, and dyed her mouse-brown hair a color practically identical to Kate’s. Nobody but Jenny seemed to find this odd; everyone just said how great Aubrey looked. If Jenny weren’t too busy to care, she might even feel hurt over how much Aubrey obviously preferred Kate’s company, especially given that Kate was a snobbish bitch, and made Aubrey do menial things for her, like running out to Hemingway’s for a cappuccino, or going to early lectures and taking notes when Kate didn’t feel like getting out of bed – even for classes Aubrey wasn’t enrolled in. (She claimed to enjoy it, but come on.) Jenny wasn’t petty. She wanted Aubrey to be happy, and it was time for Kate to start pulling her weight as a friend to make that happen. Jenny just needed to make Kate step up.

On the Tuesday evening before Thanksgiving break, the Quad felt silent and melancholy. A lot of kids had already left for home, and a chill rain had been falling for days. The cobblestone paths were slick with wet leaves that stuck to Jenny’s waterproof boots. She wished it would snow – at least that would be pretty. Near Whipple, the air smelled of woodsmoke, and she poked her head into the common room before heading upstairs, hoping to find a fire roaring in the fireplace, but the room was empty and the grate cold. Up in 402, the suite was dark except for a strip of light under Kate’s door. Jenny hurried to put away her coat and backpack, the quick trip to the double confirming that Aubrey was out, and that it would be the perfect time to speak to Kate about helping out their roommate.

As she knocked on Kate’s door, Jenny heard giggling.

“Come in,” Kate called.

“Sorry, I didn’t realize you had company,” Jenny said, pushing the door open.

“It’s cool. We’re not naked. Yet,” Kate said, with a naughty laugh.

Kate was on her bed, tangled up with a dark-haired guy whose back was to Jenny. Kate’s shirt and the guy’s sweatshirt and jeans were on the floor at Jenny’s feet. The guy turned around, a goofy grin on his face. When Jenny saw who it was, she froze.

“This is Lucas,” Kate said.

“I – we know each other,” she managed to say.

“Jenny,” the guy said, his grin disappearing fast. Jenny glanced down instinctively at his briefs, and saw something deflating there, too.

“Jesus,” Lucas said, and grabbed his pants, hopping as he shoved his feet into the legs.

“What’s the rush, Luke?” Kate said, amused. “Jenny’s seen guys pantsless in my bed before. Nothing shocks her.”

But Jenny was shocked.

“Sorry, gotta run,” Lucas said. He stuck his feet into his sneakers and grabbed his shirt and backpack. A second later, the girls heard the front door slam.

“What was that about?” Kate asked.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“He hightailed it out of here like he saw a ghost.”

Jenny shook her head. “I wouldn’t know.”

Kate wore nothing but jeans and a black push-up bra. Her mouth was raw from making out. The sight of it had Jenny flashing on what it felt like to kiss Lucas when he hadn’t shaved, and how she’d savor the irritated feeling the next day – that proof that they’d been together. Jenny watched in sick fascination as Kate picked up a tube of lip balm from her nightstand and slicked shiny goo over her reddened lips. Everything about Kate radiated sex. The ruby glinting dully in her belly button, the jeans that fit just so. Yet Kate never appeared trashy. Even when she acted like a slut, there was a classiness about her. She was playing with her golden hair now, twisting it into a messy braid at the nape of her neck without the benefit of a hair elastic. Jenny kept a basket on her desk filled with scrunchies and headbands and hair clips to match every outfit, yet with all the work that went into her hair, it never looked half as good as Kate’s unwashed, unstyled locks did. Kate made it all seem effortless, like she didn’t care, and didn’t have to work for anything. No wonder Lucas was into her. Guys loved girls who didn’t give a shit. Jenny’s problem was that she cared too much.

“You look upset,” Kate said suspiciously. “Is something wrong?”

“I’m sorry if I interrupted,” Jenny said.

“Don’t give it another thought. I have to pack tonight so I wasn’t up for a hookup anyway. How do you know Luke?” Kate asked, standing up to pull on her shirt.

Lucas, Jenny thought, annoyed to no end to hear Kate call him something different than anybody else did, as if he belonged to her. Then Jenny noticed the fresh hickey on Kate’s neck, and had a momentary vision of slamming Kate’s head against the wall.

“We went to high school together,” Jenny said, bracing for the obvious follow-up question. Is he that hockey player you say you lost your virginity to? But the question didn’t come. Kate had probably forgotten the whole conversation they had the night they went to that first frat party. They were drunk enough – thankfully. She hoped Kate would never make the connection.

“No kidding, Luke’s a townie?” Kate said. “He’s so different from those pimply boys who work in the dining hall, I never would have guessed.”

Jenny normally would’ve jumped all over that comment, but she had no interest in talking about Lucas with Kate for a moment longer than necessary.

“I thought you were dating Griff,” Jenny said, to change the subject, and because it was the first thing that popped into her head. Griff from the frat party was one guy Jenny had definitely seen naked in Kate’s bed, on several occasions.

“What are you, the dating police?” Kate said.

“You’re right. It’s not my business.”

Griff was none of her business. Lucas, on the other hand.

Kate grabbed a pack of Marlboro Lights from her desk, and looked at it, hesitating. “Hmm, should I smoke a cig if we didn’t bang? Oh, what the hell. Want one?”

Jenny had never smoked in her life. But she needed a distraction to help her deal with the bombshell, so she took a cigarette, and accepted Kate’s light. When she inhaled, she willed herself not to cough, so Kate wouldn’t notice that it was her first time and rib her about it. Though Kate was so obtuse when it came to other people’s feelings that Jenny probably didn’t need to worry.

Not this time, however.

“So were you close with Luke in high school?” Kate began.

“Forget Lucas, we need to talk about Aubrey,” Jenny blurted. “It’s really important. I’m worried about her.”

“About how skinny she’s getting?” Kate said, falling for Jenny’s change of subject.

“You noticed.”

“How could I not? I’ve been worrying about her, too. Do you think she’s anorexic?”

“Maybe. Or maybe just depressed. She has problems at home.”

“Poor thing. Money troubles?”

The cigarette made Jenny’s head hurt, so she stubbed it out in the Carlisle mug that Kate used as an ashtray, and proceeded to explain the situation with Aubrey’s mom.

“She never told me any of that,” Kate said, which gave Jenny some satisfaction.

“She’s worried you won’t like her if you know she’s poor,” Jenny said.

“You can’t really think I’m that shallow. Besides, obviously I know she’s poor. Look at how she dresses. The same four skanky T-shirts in endless rotation.”

“The thing is, she confides in me, and yet she doesn’t always take my advice. I was thinking we should join forces. You know, sit her down and have a heart-to-heart. Sort of like an intervention. She would listen to you.”

“I have a better idea,” Kate said.

It annoyed Jenny that Kate dismissed her proposal so glibly. Just then, the front door opened, and they heard Aubrey bustling around in the living room.

“In here, Aubrey!” Kate called.

Aubrey walked in, bringing a scent of fresh, cold air. Snowflakes melted in her hair and on her eyelashes.

“It’s snowing!” she announced, scooping snow off her thrift-store peacoat and holding her wet fingers out for them to inspect. “Isn’t it wonderful? I’ve never seen snow before.”

“How fabulous,” Jenny said indulgently.

Kate dragged on her cigarette. “Enjoy it tonight, because tomorrow it’ll be covered in dog pee.”

Jenny took a deep breath, thinking about how best to broach this difficult subject with Aubrey.

“Guess what?” Kate said, before Jenny could get a word out.

“What?”

“Jenny and I were just saying how you seem a little blue lately, like maybe you could use a pick-me-up. So both of you are going to come to New York with me over Thanksgiving break!”

Jenny opened her mouth to protest. Aubrey was coming home with her for Thanksgiving. Her mom had already made up the guest room and planned the menu.

“Oh my God, really?” Aubrey shrieked, jumping up and down and throwing her arms around Kate. “That is the best thing I have ever heard! I’m so happy.”

When Kate met Jenny’s eyes over Aubrey’s shoulder, Jenny could’ve sworn she saw a look of triumph there.