All We Ever Wanted(27)

   So, just as I’d called to tell her about Princeton, feeling confident that there would be no element of competitiveness or resentment in her reaction, I knew I could trust Julie with this. I found my phone in the kitchen, returned to my chair, and dialed her number.

Julie answered on a late ring, sounding breathless, as if she’d just run up a few flights of stairs—or more likely, down the hall of her small law firm.

“Hey. Can you talk?” I asked, part of me hoping she couldn’t, having sudden second thoughts about sharing everything when I was already so drained.

“Yeah,” she said. “I was just reviewing a PI report. It’s a doozy.”

“Your PI?” I asked

“Unfortunately, no. The other side,” she said with a sigh. “I’m representing the wife.”

“Do I know her?” I asked, though I knew confidentiality would prevent her from sharing anything specific.

“Doubt it. She’s younger than we are. In her mid-thirties…Anyway, she thought it was an excellent idea to make out with her also-married boyfriend in the Walmart parking lot.”

“Oh my God. Are the pictures…clear?” I asked, partly stalling, partly taking bizarre solace in the fact that my life wasn’t the only one in turmoil.

“Yep,” she said. “Great camera.”

I took a deep breath and said, “Oh no. Well, speaking of scandalous photos…I have something to tell you.”

“Uh-oh,” she said. “What’s up?”

   “It’s about Finch,” I said, my stomach cramping and head pounding. “Are you sure you have time for this now? It’s sort of a long story….”

“Yeah. I have a few minutes,” she said. “Hold on. Lemme close my door.”

A few seconds later, she returned and said, “So what happened?”

I cleared my throat and told her the story, beginning with Kathie showing me the picture in the ladies’ room and ending with the conversation I’d just had with Kirk in the Windsor parking lot. She interrupted a few times, but only to ask questions, in her fact-gathering, lawyer mode. When I finished, she said, “Okay. Hang up and send me the picture.”

“Why?” I asked, thinking that I had been fairly explicit about the image already.

“I need to see it,” she said. “To fully gauge the situation. Just send it, okay?”

The request, along with her tone of voice, was bossy and borderline abrasive, but also strangely comforting. Julie had always been the take-charge alpha dog in our friendship and was unusually good in a crisis.

So I did as I was told, hanging up, then staring at the image while I waited for her to receive it. It took her a sickeningly long time to call back, and I wondered if the photo hadn’t gone through or whether she just needed that much time to process it. The phone finally rang.

“Okay. I saw it,” she said when I answered.

“And?” I asked, bracing myself.

“And it’s really bad, Nina.”

“I know.” My eyes welled up, though I wasn’t sure whether I was more embarrassed or just plain sad.

   Silence waited on the other end of the line—which was unusual for the two of us, at least a silence that felt awkward. She finally cleared her throat and said, “I’m surprised that Finch would do something like this….He was always such a kind kid….”

I heard the past tense in her statement—which brought more tears—as I thought about how much time the three of us shared when Finch was little. During those early years, I’d go back to Bristol at least once or twice a month, whenever Kirk had to travel for more than a day or two, and although we stayed at my parents’ house, Finch always clamored to see Auntie Jules. On one visit, as Julie was really struggling with infertility, she told me that Finch gave her some peace. That even if she couldn’t have children of her own, she’d always have her godson. That’s how real and special their bond was.

Even after her twin daughters, Paige and Reece, were born when Finch was about five, we still got together often, including a week’s vacation at the beach every summer. Finch was so sweet to the girls, spending hours patiently playing in the sand, building castles, digging holes, and letting them bury him when he would have rather been out in the surf.

I asked her now what she would do if something like this happened to the girls.

She hesitated, then said, “They’re only in the seventh grade. So I can’t imagine it…yet.”

“Yes, you can,” I said because one of Julie’s many gifts was her imagination, a by-product of a highly evolved sense of empathy.

“Okay, you’re right,” she said with a sigh. “Well…I’d hang him by the balls.”

Her response was a punch in my stomach, but I knew it was the truth, and I now felt a little scared thinking of legal ramifications beyond Windsor’s walls. “Meaning what, exactly?” I said.

   “I’d press charges,” she said, with what seemed to be anger. Was she angry with me or with Finch? Or was she simply angry on a young woman’s behalf?

“What charges would those be, exactly?” I said softly.

She cleared her throat, then said, “Well. There’s a new law in Tennessee. A sexting bill passed last year…Any minor sending sexually suggestive photos could be labeled a felon or sex offender for involvement with child pornography—which means he’d be put on the Sex Offender Registry until age twenty-five. It also means that the minor would be required to report this on all job and college applications.”