Since She Went Away(68)

Sally went to the bar and brought back two bottles of beer. Budweiser. Cheap. Jenna took a long swallow, and it tasted like liquid heaven. She enjoyed the sting of the alcohol against the back of her throat, the tingling in her bloodstream as the buzz started.

“I shouldn’t be here,” she said.

“Why not? You’ve earned a drink. And so have I.”

“I should be home with Jared.”

“I thought you called him,” Sally said.

“I did.”

“And?”

“And he’s home,” Jenna said. “His friend Syd came over. They’re playing video games.”

“And probably looking at porn. Normal boy stuff.”

“Sally, that’s gross.”

“Honey, every boy does it. They can’t get enough of the stuff.”

“Not Jared.”

Sally raised her eyes. “All of them, Jenna. Even the pope. All of them.”

Jenna took another drink. She’d spent the week lying low at work, trying to stay out of the way of patients who had once again seen her all over the news. She wished more than anything her life could return to being normal. No chance of that, she thought. No chance of that any time soon.

“See,” Sally said, “you wanted that beer. And to think you said you didn’t want to come out.”

“You’re right.”

And Sally was. She always was. It felt good to get out of the house and away from work, to go somewhere and not talk about any crimes. Jenna wasn’t naive. She knew everyone in that bar had heard of Celia and Holly and Natalie. She felt certain some of them recognized her, if not from before, then certainly from the previous few days of coverage. Local and national news talked about the cases, covering every angle. And speculation ran wild that everything was related.

“Jared’s doing okay otherwise?” Sally asked. “I know he got his little heart broken, and now this with the girl . . .”

“He’s doing fine,” Jenna said. “I’m sure he’s talking to his friends about it.”

“Boys talking about feelings?” Sally said. “Playing video games together is as much as you’ll get. They aren’t going to talk.”

“Maybe. He hasn’t said much to me. I think I need to get him in to see a therapist. He’s a teenager, and he’s dealing with all this.”

“Has he been having nightmares?” Sally asked.

“Not that I can tell. He isn’t eating as much. He’s a little down, a little distracted. I’m walking a tightrope here. I don’t want to keep asking and push him away, but I don’t want to ignore him.”

“He’ll talk when he’s ready,” Sally said, her voice certain. “I’m sure he’s just glad to have you around and to know you care as much as you do. Really. If he feels loved, he’s doing okay.”

“I hope he does.”

“He does.” Sally emptied her beer and without asking went to the bar for more. She also brought back two shots. Kamikazes by the looks of them. “Drink up.”

“Sally, what are you trying to do?”

“We’re not driving for a while.”

“All I’d need right now is to get pulled over or arrested for public drunkenness on top of everything else. That would enhance the story.”

“You see that guy over there?” Sally pointed at an overweight man with a walrus mustache and a leather wallet on a chain. His belly had slipped out from beneath his shirt, exposing a pale roll of fat.

“What about him?” Jenna’s nose curled.

“He’s going to take you home.”

They laughed, and then they threw back the shots. Jenna felt good. Really good. Better than she deserved to. She also felt her tongue loosening, even more than usual. She wanted to talk to Sally, to say some things out loud she hadn’t said to anybody.

Sally seemed to read her mind. Her face grew a little more serious, and she said, “I’m really wondering how you’re doing. That’s what we’re here for. Your therapy.”

“All I need is alcohol,” Jenna said, pushing aside her pledge to drink less. The alcohol made her feel philosophical, expansive. She asked, “Do you ever wonder about all the paths you didn’t follow in your life?”

Sally’s look told Jenna there were too many unwalked paths to ever think about all of them. “Where did that come from?”

“All of this. Everything. Thinking about Celia so much, seeing Jared growing up, it’s all making me feel old.”

“What does that make me? I’m ten years older than you.”

Jenna stared at her bottle of beer, the faint light from above reflecting dully off the brown bottle. “Did I ever tell you Ian and I were almost an item in high school? This was before he started dating Celia.”

“You told me once. You made it sound like Celia swooped in and took him away from you.”

“She did. It was no big deal. It was inevitable in a way.”

“No big deal?” Sally said. “It seemed like a big deal when you told me about it the first time.”

“It did?”

“I think it was a couple of months ago. We were talking after happy hour one night, maybe at the Downtowner. You still sounded pissed.”