The Almost Sisters(43)
Now, that was the JJ I knew. That was the JJ he’d always been. Of course he’d planned to poof, even knowing that it was something his wife could not forgive. When JJ did something so bad he couldn’t stand himself, he disappeared, ditching anyone who’d been dumb enough to love him. It was time for JJ, version 3.0. I could imagine him in Portland, growing a giant beard and a craft-beer belly, maybe moving into one of those tiny houses. He could call himself Jac. Do whatever people did out there. No more Superman-loving dork and now no more sportsy yuppie. Maybe he’d even take up boccie ball. That unmitigated asshole.
Rachel said, “I confronted him that day, when you came over with the cake. I told him that he had to decide. He could stand and face his mess with us or run west like the lowest-crawling worm on the planet.”
“Jesus, Rachel,” I said. Birchie would have fussed at me for taking the Lord’s name in vain, but this was, I think, an actual prayer. Lav had witnessed that fight. She knew that her dad had planned to ditch her. “What did he say?”
“He hasn’t gotten back to me on that yet,” Rachel said, both so glib and so bitter that it set my eyes to stinging. “I don’t even know if he got on the plane. I told him not to speak to me or look at me or even think my name unless he was ready to man up.”
So when shit got real, JJ had filled a Whole Foods bag with underpants and left. Nice. At least Rachel had called him on it. When Jake screwed me over, I’d given him the luxury of never having to explain himself. Of course, I’d had the luxury of not having his child.
“I know this hits you where you live, but Lav at least needs to hear from him. She—”
Rachel’s eyes blazed. “I told him not to dare think her name either. Not if he’s going to leave her.”
If Jake weren’t such a coward, he would have contacted his child anyway. I pushed through Rachel’s touch-me-not force field, practically visible around her, and I laid one hand on her clammy arm.
“What can I do to help? Please let me help. I can get you caught up on the house payments so you have time to sell—”
She blinked, several times, rapidly, as if she had just noticed me in the room. Her lips curled up oh-so-slightly at the corners.
“That’s sweet. I know you make a living with your art stuff, and that’s great. So great, that you can do that. But it’s freelance, and you’re single. I wouldn’t dream of taking your nest egg.” She looked down at me like she was Supergirl and I was a toddler offering to help her lift a building.
I squelched down an orange surge of irritation, sharp as citrus zest. I drew for freaking Marvel, and for DC, and Dark Horse, for the love of God. Literally thousands of art nerds would trade a good chunk of immortal soul to have my career. Thanks to V in V, my own house was paid off. If I wanted to, I could get myself a Lexus and a purse dog and shoot my forehead full of Botox like her friends in East Beach. Instead I bought mint-in-package Wonder Women, and the contents of my dining room built-ins were worth fifty times more than her Spode china. She always acted like this, though. Like I sold lumpy handmade pot holders door-to-door, but not to worry! She’d be there to pay the electric bill when the whole thing went south.
I breathed through it. Rachel and I were two broken halves that had been glued into a family. The difference was, my dad had died; I’d never once thought he might come back if I were perfect. Rachel lived her whole life like she was mother bait, shining for a woman who never even sent a birthday card. Jake’s decision to opt out had hit Rachel in her oldest open wound, and if patronizing me let her feel better, even for a second, she could have it.
“Okay, what then?” I asked. “What can I do?”
She looked around the room again, from the love seats to the lamps to the tidily filled bookshelves. “It’s so nice here. Do you think that we could stay with you? For a little?”
I hesitated. Rachel was an alpha female, marching into a house that already held both Birchie and Miss Wattie. “Are you sure you would want to? After we found the . . . after what we found?”
“It isn’t what I thought. Not at all,” she said. She spread her hands. “I don’t want to go back to Norfolk. I have no idea where Jake is, and I can’t stand being home while Barb-the-perky-real-estate-agent drags families through my house. I can just imagine her leaning in, telling some yuppie bitch and her manscaped husband that they should make an offer, any offer, because we’re desperate not to end up in foreclosure.”
I needed Rachel here like I needed a good old-fashioned zombie apocalypse, but she was asking me for help. She never had before. A window had opened in the smooth wall she kept around herself, and I was being allowed to peek through it. Of course, inside that wall was a moat full of monsters and another, bigger wall and probably some dragons, but it was a start.
“Of course you can,” I said. “If that’s really what you want.” She smiled, a true bright sunshine smile, even as I added, “You’ll have to bunk with me, though. We are flat out of empty bedrooms.”
“That’s fine. That’s great. It will be like when we were kids on family vacations,” she said, as if this were a good thing.
Mom and Keith had planned one every spring break. They’d pile us into the van and drive across the country to aquariums or canyons or theme parks. None of us were really camping types, so we’d bunk at inexpensive family-style hotels that featured two queen beds per room and swimming pools and free continental breakfast. Rachel and I always shared the bed by the bathroom. Keith had to be by the door, as if he thought pirate brigands or hostile aliens might burst through and he’d need to protect his womenfolk.