The Lifeguards(40)

I will never forget the days we spent behind the counter, joking around and talking about Lucy’s many boyfriends. (I only dated Todd Levine, who is now my husband of three happy months!) Lucy adored her baby brother, Arlo. She also had three older brothers—Grant, Christopher, and Walter—who made sure that no one messed with her. One time, Lucy was having a romantic interlude with her high school beau when Grant and Andrew burst into her room with baseball bats! That was the end of that romantic interlude.

Lucy and I became friends when my family moved to Sugar Land. I was eight years old, new in third grade at Sugar Land Elementary. We had moved from the Panhandle, and I’d never really thought about my bowl haircut or wearing my older brother’s hand-me-down pants and T-shirts. I mean I guess I had thought about it, but I hadn’t wanted to make my parents feel bad or I don’t know but the point is I showed up for my first day wearing a T-shirt with a picture of a train and below that the word train.

I will never forget seeing Lucy that day. She wore pink, pleated corduroy pants, an aqua T-shirt, and a headband with pom-poms that matched her outfit. She had a rainbow backpack and silver sneakers that lit up when she jumped around, which was always. At this point, she was already kind of famous for gymnastics. She left class at one p.m. every day to go to the gym and everyone said she was going to be in the Olympics someday.

Her father of course is Jim Masterson of Masterson Honda, and they always had a new car. Also, all of Lucy’s spiral notebooks had animals on them and her pens and pencils had pom-poms like her headband but in different colors from the ones on her headband.

When I say she was my best friend I do not mean to imply that I was her best friend. I was maybe her fourth best friend, depending on if Skye Gutierrez and she were in a fight.

After her shoulder injury, Lucy valiantly found a new dream: to move to Austin and go to college. Understandably, all her brothers decided to work for Masterson Honda (except for Arlo, of course, who is only eight!).

I visited Lucy one time in Austin. She was super busy and had to work at her waitress job all three nights I was there (and forgot to call me when she went out one night after work) but I was able to get a glimpse of her sunny days. One morning, we went to get pancakes at Kerbey Lane Cafe and they were the best pancakes I’ve ever had. I told my husband Todd we have to go to Austin just for those pancakes sometime. Maybe like a romantic surprise getaway or something, since our honeymoon was one night at the Sugar Land Ramada.

Lucy was like this:

Her hair was spun gold.

Even after she had to quit gymnastics, her body was strong.

She always loved silver and pink, even when she was older.

Three days before she died, she answered when I called and told me she thought she might have fallen in love for the first time.

She was a strong swimmer. She had a pool and even when her brothers said they were joking and tried to hold her under, she could fight them off.

She loved red roses.

Her favorite shoes were a pair of black Steve Madden high heels with feathers.

She loved true crime shows like 20/20.

I can still see her in that pom-pom headband.





-8-


    Liza


I WAS IN THE middle of chopping scallions to prepare Sam’s Noodle Salad with Smoked Brisket and Lime when my cellphone rang. I rinsed my hands, dried them, and picked up the vibrating phone, which informed me I had a “Private Caller.”

It had to be the police officer. I let the phone go to voicemail, but then it started ringing again immediately. I knew I had to answer, if only to buy time. “Yes?” I said.

“Elizabeth Bailey?”

“Yes?” I said, using the back of my damp hand to push my hair from my forehead.

“This is Detective Salvatore Revello with the Austin Police Department.”

“Yes?” I managed a third time. I forced myself to take a deep breath. If I had known this call was a fuse, and my response like a match—countdown to explosion—would I have cut the line?

“Am I speaking with Elizabeth Bailey?”

“You are,” I said quietly.

“Mrs. Bailey, I’m on my way to interview your son, Charlie Bailey, at his place of employment, the Rosewood Park and Pool. This is just a routine interview but I wanted to give you a courtesy call, since he’s only fifteen.”

This was happening. This was real. A cop was going to interview my son. How could I make this stop? How could I make this go away?

“Mrs. Bailey?” said the detective.

I began moving quickly, putting the brisket back in the fridge, turning off my stove top burners, and tossing my Target purse over my shoulder. “No. I don’t give permission,” I said. This was happening too fast, and after Whitney had left, promising to text me my new lawyer’s name immediately, I had been biting my fingernails to the quick.

Whitney had not texted a lawyer’s name immediately. She had not texted at all. I considered googling lawyers, but didn’t want to make a mistake. Why should I hire some janky, affordable guy if Whitney was going to come through with a winner? Was Whitney going to come through? Jesus, I hated asking favors of people, of her. I knew it was time to find a way to get free of my dependence on Whitney. But how?

There was a pause, and then the detective said, “Is there a problem, Mrs. Bailey?”

“No,” I said quietly. Of course there was a problem. Fear reared up inside me: if Charlie was arrested and his photo—or God forbid, my photo—was in the paper, Patrick might see it. My mother might see it, or Darla. Everything I’d run from could find us here. Even the thought of Charlie seeing Patrick in whatever state he was in now…Charlie taking in the fact that his roots led back to tattooed, chain-smoking Cape Cod people…it made me want to run.