The Forgotten Hours(92)

“You’re awfully quiet,” Lulu said. “Didn’t you want to talk?”

“It’s really hot,” Katie said. “The coffee.”

“A million times I thought of calling you. When I told people about your dad, I had no idea what was gonna happen. I just said it. I wasn’t really trying to unburden my soul or anything. I knew it was pretty fucked up, but I liked your dad. He was a good guy, basically. Like, I know it wasn’t right, but I wasn’t intending to have him put in jail.”

She paused and stared at Katie in a way that was unnervingly direct.

“Thank God for Trevor,” she continued. “He’s the one who brought me up here. Not that I love it in the middle of the freakin’ wilderness, but I’m out a lot, moving around. My shrink says that’s good for me.” She took a sip from her mug. “Don’t you want to ask me anything?”

“Brad, what happened with him?”

Lulu tilted her head, looking suddenly like a cat. Her eyes were a little wild, and her knee began tapping up and down. “What about him?”

“Is it true that—”

“Yes, if you mean, did we have sex. Who told you about him?”

Footsteps on the back stairs made them both turn their heads toward the door. Trevor came in, arms filled with firewood. He stamped his boots on the mat once, twice, then went over to the stove and dumped the wood on the ground. “Everything okay in here, girls?” he asked as though expecting them to be giggling over their drinks, swapping stories and secrets. But when he turned, still crouching, a look of concern crossed his face.

Lulu was shaking her head. “What happened with Brad, it was sort of an accident, nothing more. I was stupid; I let it go too far. And Jack’s not totally reliable; you know that, right? He’s kind of a pleaser type of guy, kind of weak.”

“I, yeah . . . I think I made him into someone he’s not, in my mind,” Katie said. “I don’t think we really knew each other at all.”

“Well, me neither. Sometimes we only see what we want to see.”

“Amazing, isn’t it? We can be so sure, when we’re kids, and we can be so wrong.”

Lulu laughed, stretching out her long neck. For the first time that afternoon, Katie saw a glimpse of who she really was: still herself. She had not lost the ability to electrify when she connected, to make you feel right and solid, a better you.

It was hard to believe how much she had endured. “I read the transcripts of the trial,” Katie said. “And that report, about what could be admitted at trial? I’m so sorry about what happened to you then. I mean, I had no idea. Your mother’s boyfriends. I’m really sorry.”

“Yeah. I was pretty good at talking without saying much,” Lulu said, watching as her husband fussed with the wood. He got up, patted his hands together to rub off the wood dust, and then gave Lulu a peck on the cheek. “You don’t have a cigarette, do you?” she asked Katie when he’d left again.

“No,” Katie said, “sorry.”

“That’s what I figured, pregnant and all.” Lulu’s eyes were unblinking. She was still stunning, more so, even, than when they’d been teenagers. Although her skin had good color, there were bags under her eyes, but her weariness had something sensual to it.

“I quit,” Katie said. “Smoking, I mean.”

“You quit,” Lulu repeated. “Did you ever really smoke in the first place?”

Her tone was so accusatory, as though she thought Katie was pretending to be someone she wasn’t. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

“You sound angry,” Lulu said. She bit at the skin around her thumb. “You know, I stopped being angry at you so long ago.”

“Angry about what?” Katie asked. “About Jack?”

“It’s not what you did. You didn’t do anything. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t, you know, hard. Being your friend. And your parents never liked me,” she said, “but I really, really wanted them to. I would have done anything to have them like me, love me, even. The way they loved you.”

“They were my parents. Of course they loved me.”

“Your mother, she felt sorry for me. She was nice that way. Your dad, he liked me one minute and then not the next. Hot and cold. I could never figure that out. And all I wanted was for him to look at me the way he looked at you. I was so excited when we were watching TV, and he, well . . . He asked me to get that lipstick I’d been wearing. He did that thing where he kind of crinkled his eyes, like he was going to tell a hilarious joke or thought you were funny or something? I loved that.” Lulu mimicked a grin, and then her face fell. “Remember the red lipstick? He hadn’t liked it at first, but then turns out he did.”

Katie’s stomach tightened. At the clubhouse, during the prize giving . . . she was remembering now. Hadn’t her father—had he wiped the red off Lulu’s lips? “Christ. I didn’t realize. I just . . .”

“I was so happy—I figured it meant he thought I was pretty.”

Katie stared at her, horrified. Her mind scrambled, then fixed on the fact of Lulu’s bewildering vulnerability. She was not “pretty”; she was beautiful—didn’t she know that?

“So I went and got another one from that bag we got at the dime store. You were sleeping, just totally out. He put it on me, and his hand was trembling so much, like he was nervous. He was sweet with me, like he was the kid.” She rubbed her lips together, remembering. A look crossed her face, and she seemed like a girl again, uncertain. “You know, Katie, I should tell you—I never said no. I could have said no, and he would have stopped. I know he would have stopped if I’d told him to.”