This Lullaby(95)

Except, of course, for one.

I heard a horn beep, loud, and looked up to see Jess pulling in beside us. To my shock, Chloe was in the passenger seat.

“Hey,” Jess said as they got out, doors slamming, “nobody said anything to me about a meeting. What gives?”

Lissa and I just sat there, staring at them. Finally she said, “What on earth is going on tonight, anyway? Has everyone gone crazy? What are you two doing together?”

“Don’t get too excited,” Chloe said flatly. “My car got a flat over at the mall, and neither one of you was answering the phone.”

“Imagine my surprise,” Jess added drolly, “when I was her last resort.”

Chloe made a face at her, but it wasn’t a mean one, more just rankled irritation. “I said thank you,” she told Jess. “And I will buy you that Zip Drink, as promised.”

“The deal was Zip Drinks for life,” Jess said, “but for now I’ll just take one Coke. Extra large, light on the ice.”

Chloe rolled her eyes and headed into the store. Lissa slid off the hood, shaking her own cup. “Refill time,” she said. “You?”

I handed over my drink, and she followed Chloe in, one in each hand. Jess came over and sat on the bumper, smiling to herself. “I love it that she owes me,” she said, watching as Chloe fixed the drinks, with Lissa chattering away beside her. From the way Chloe kept glancing at her, her mouth dropping open, aghast, I knew she was getting the full story about my mother and Don. So I filled Jess in, getting much of the same reaction, and by the time they returned and we all had our drinks, everyone was more or less on the same page.

“Asshole,” Chloe said decisively, taking a sip of her drink. Then she made a face, coughed, and said, “Yuck. This is regular Coke.”

“Thank God,” Jess said as they traded, both of them wincing now. “Because this stuff I’m drinking tastes like shit.”

“So let me get this straight,” Chloe said, ignoring this. “Patty sent the picture to your mom?”

“Yep,” I replied.

“But she got the pictures developed at Flash Camera.”

“Correct.”

Chloe swallowed, considering this. “And Dexter knew it was her, and what the implications were, so he showed it to you to get you back for dumping him.”

“Exactly.”

There was a moment of silence, during which all I could hear was the sloshing of ice, creaking of straws, and a few doubtful murmurings. Finally Jess said, “I’m not getting the logic of that, exactly.”

“Me neither, now that I think about it,” Lissa agreed.

“There is no logic,” I said. “He was just being a jerk. He knew it was the one way he could really hurt me, so he did it, just when I’d tried to make amends and had my guard down.”

More silence.

“What?” I said, irritated.

“I think,” Chloe began tentatively, “that there’s really no proof that he even knew that you knew her.”

“Wrong. He met her at my mother’s cookout. And she was at Toyotafaire too.”

“Not naked,” Lissa pointed out.

“What does that have to do with it? Naked or not she still had the same face.”

“But,” Chloe said, “how could he have known it was Don that took the picture? Or even that it was in your mom’s room? I mean, I haven’t even been in there. Has he?”

Now, I was the quiet one, as this logic—if it was even that—suddenly began to click together in my head. I’d just assumed, in my shock, that Dexter had seen my mother’s bedroom, and especially that ugly biblical tapestry. But had he? For all he knew, it was just a picture of a woman who worked for my stepfather getting her kicks taking nudie lingerie pictures in someone’s bedroom. Anyone’s bedroom.

“I’m all for you being pissed at Dexter,” Chloe said, tapping her nails on the hood of the car. “But it should be for a good reason. Face it, Remy Starr. You’re in the wrong here.”

And I was. I’d been so ready to blame Dexter for everything, from my mother’s marriage dissolving to making me trust him in a way I hadn’t anyone else in a long time. But none of it was his fault.

“Oh, my God,” I said softly. “What now?”

“Go find him and apologize,” Lissa said decisively.

“Admit it was a mistake, don’t find him, move on,” Chloe countered.

I looked at Jess, but she just shrugged and said, “I have no idea. It’s all you.”

I’d yelled at him. Told him to f*ck off, thrown the picture at him, and stalked out even as he was trying to explain. I’d dumped him because he’d wanted more from me than to be a faceless, smelling-of-sunshine-and-chlorine summer boyfriend, made to order.

So what had changed? Nothing. Even if I did go to him, we’d already be too late, no time left to make a foundation before we were flung to opposite coasts, and everyone knew that kind of relationship never worked.

It was just like my mother said. Everything, in the end, comes down to timing. One second, one minute, one hour, could make all the difference. So much hanging on just these things, tiny increments that together build a life. Like words build a story, and what had Ted said? One word can change the entire world.