Good Girl Bad (22)
“I thought it might be Leroy, okay? Have you seen pictures? Tabby is stunning. Men look at her wherever she goes. She spends a lot of time with Leroy, Rebecca works a lot, goes away for work a lot. He’s a good-looking guy. I thought maybe I’d see him coming home ten minutes later. But I didn’t.” A pause. “I did see him later, though.”
Cringing at what he’s admitting to—lurking creepily outside his ex-wife’s house for hours—he nevertheless goes on: “Leroy came out at about midnight. He was pacing around, agitated. He was on the phone, or trying to call someone, getting frustrated. He was probably outside for about ten minutes. Then he went back inside and I went home.”
18
Three Months Earlier
Rebecca is lying on Tabby’s bed, her eyes squeezed tightly shut.
The girls are both at school, and Rebecca needs to go to work. She’s nearly going.
Almost.
The night before keeps playing, over and over, as vivid as if it were happening right now. She doesn’t know why she can’t shake it. It’s not like it’s different than any other fight.
They’re all much the same, if she was really honest with herself.
Her impulse is to go shopping. Buy something nice for herself, and a few more nice things for Tabby. Designer clothes. Delicate, intricate jewelry that all Tabby’s friends would notice, be envious over.
That’s what Rebecca usually does when she feels this uneasy swirl of difficult emotions. She just replaces them with better ones.
Is it just because of Moira?
The thought shocks her, slapping into her psyche out of nowhere, jolting her eyes open.
Of course not. It’s got nothing to do with Moira.
Tabby was doing it on purpose. After everything Rebecca does for that child. She sends her to a good school, she pays for luxurious family holidays. She gives her free rein in the kitchen to order food and bake whatever she likes. Is it so much to ask that Tabby show a bit of respect in return?
What even was it over last night? Tabby had come home late. Rebecca missed the days when they baked cupcakes together, when Tabby would invite all her friends around to cook and watch movies. Rebecca had felt like one of their gang, young and carefree and trendy. She loved being around those girls. She loved posing with them for photos and sharing them on social media. Feeling like a good mother, a connected mother.
A cool mother.
When had they stopped visiting?
She’d just tried to reminisce a little with Tabby. She’d just asked why she didn’t invite her friends over anymore, she even suggested she invite them this weekend, and Rebecca would shop for whatever ingredients she liked. They could go wild in the kitchen, she’d said. And Tabby had rolled her eyes at her.
Rebecca had tried, she really had. She’d been gentle, she’d asked if Tabby wanted to talk about why she didn’t invite her friends over anymore, so they could all hang out like they used to. “I miss that,” Rebecca had said. She was trying to connect with Tabby, for God’s sake.
And Tabby had stood there, something strange passing across her face, was that contempt that Rebecca saw? She had looked undecided, like she was thinking about what to say, for a moment Rebecca thought she even might cry, but then there was that contemptuous look, and what had she said? Rebecca can barely remember through the roar in her ears, the disbelief.
“What? So you can pretend we’re one big happy family?” And then, the anger seeping out of her and turning into something else: “I don’t invite them because I’m afraid you’ll lose your temper in front of them.” Whispered, eyes wide. And it was ludicrous, people loved Rebecca, they always wanted to sit with her, to share an office, to be invited to her house, it was insulting, like Tabby had somehow lost her friends but wanted to blame Rebecca, make it her fault that they never visited anymore, and honestly it was hard to think about, because she just felt furious. And Tabby had said she’d be home at ten and it was at least half past, and she’d just lost it a little bit, screamed a few things, snatched Tabby’s phone out of her hands, confiscated it for a week.
And Tabby had smirked.
That was different, that wasn’t how things usually went. Usually, Rebecca would lose her temper, and she’d feel bad, and maybe she’d buy Tabby something nice to show her that there were no hard feelings, that she was forgiven. She wants to be a good mom, she thinks about how to be a good mom. It’s just. Well. She doesn’t know why she gets so angry. It’s inexplicable. It’s like a tsunami of rage comes up out of nowhere, rushes through her and out of her and crashes into Tabby. It’s always been like this, and then it’s over, as quickly as it started and she wishes she hadn’t yelled, and she can’t quite remember what it was she said, but if only Tabby could just be honest about her problems, why her friends don’t visit, if only she didn’t make it Rebecca’s fault, why was she like this?
But today, for the first time, something uneasy churns inside Rebecca.
They always make up, it’s always fine.
But that look last night.
Rebecca burrows into Tabby’s pillow. She can’t quite put her finger on what it is that’s wrong. Partly, it’s the uneasy sense that she’s lost control of something. That Tabby, who usually cowers and flees, who tries to make it up to Rebecca, who tries so hard to be good for weeks after a fight—everything is so calm and peaceful, for a little while—last night just looked completely untouched by it. Completely indifferent. For a moment, she looked like she always looked—fragile and sorry—but then there was that smirk, like she didn’t care that Rebecca took her phone, that she didn’t care that Rebecca was angry with her. It feels like something slipping through her fingers, something that seemed predictable and certain and, God, it was just the dance they did, wasn’t it? Their mother daughter dance. Tabby trying to push boundaries and Rebecca holding the fort.