The Life She Wants Part 5

"You want to date her, is that it?" Riley asked.

"We had a gla.s.s of wine together," he said. "It was good to see her. We talked a little bit about Maddie, about her return home after that sideshow back east, the difficulties of finding work. She asked about Mom, about Grandma and Grandpa. Except for Lyle and the old widow she rents from, she's pretty much alone, but we had a nice hour or so together and I was really happy to see her again. While all that mess was going on in New York with her husband, then his suicide, I thought about her a lot. I checked in with Lyle now and then to make sure she was okay. Lyle was talking to her almost daily at the end-he was her sole emotional support. I should have called her. I think Lyle would've given me her number, but I didn't ask. I decided to wait awhile, see how things shook out, then there was the suicide and feds all over her possessions. I think what she endured must have been unimaginably painful, worse than most things I can envision. You know that Emma, like you and I, was left orphaned when her dad died, except we had Mom and who did she have? Rosemary, that coldhearted b.i.t.c.h. So yeah, it was nice to see her, talk to her, get reacquainted. I offered her a letter of recommendation. I gave her your business card. She probably won't ever call you or ask you for work, but I'm the one that gave her the card so don't be surprised. And if you don't mind me saying so-I think you owe her."

"Oh, G.o.d, don't lay that on me! I begged her forgiveness for Jock, which she did not give me, and I can't even repeat the horrible names she called me. She didn't leave here a broken woman, she-"

"Girl," Adam said. "She was just a girl." Then more quietly he added, "And so were you. You were girls."

"Don't do this, Adam. Don't get involved with her. I bear no grudge but after what happened, please don't bring her around. Please don't tell me I owe her. Not now. I know things turned out badly for her but try to remember that while I was scrubbing floors and trying to hold it together to raise a baby alone, she went from sorority princess to New York socialite, and never sent a word of forgiveness to me."

"Everything is past now," he said. "She's no longer a sorority princess or socialite and you're no longer scrubbing floors and struggling to take care of your baby."

She rubbed her temples with her fingertips and groaned. "It's over and I don't want it all coming back. Not now. Please, Adam."

"You can't erase the past any more than she can. But we can all live with it decently. If she calls you, you better do the right thing, Riley."

He was really deep down a kind person, and since he was just a boy had felt most comfortable when the whole family was together. He didn't like loose ends; he was a protector. He'd been like a father to Maddie since she was born. And there was no question, Riley would be lost without him.

"She will never call me," she said.

"Don't be too sure. It's really time to lay this thing between you to rest."

"I have no jobs but cleaning jobs. She'd have to get her hands dirty."

He laughed. "You don't think she got dirty in that New York life?" He was moving toward the door. "I'm just giving you warning."

When they were kids, people were used to seeing them together. They were known as Beauty and Brains. They were both smart and pretty, but very different. Emma was a tall, slender brunette with rosy lips and eyes more commonly seen on a doe-large and dark. Riley was blonde, four inches shorter with a tight little body and crystalline blue eyes. Both were incredibly popular. And while they seemed inseparable, they spent time with other friends, as well. Emma was a cheerleader and partic.i.p.ated in gymnastics; Riley was in choir, was a pom-pom girl and the star in the school musical-Grease. Emma was the homecoming queen and Riley, the valedictorian.

There was another difference between them that Riley was extremely conscious of-she was the poor one. Emma protested that her family was not rich and privileged, just that her father, being a CPA, was extremely good with money. Plus, his business certainly paid better than cleaning houses.

When they were in grade school at St. Pascal's, Riley knew she looked shabby. By the time she was in eighth grade, thanks to a lot of babysitting and clever shopping, she was pulling herself together quite well. But Emma grew up in a five-bedroom house on a half-acre lot while Riley lived in a small, old three-bedroom, one-bath house that held five people. She and her mother shared a room. If Riley wanted Emma to spend the night, which was quite often, Adam would take the couch and say, "Only if Mom sleeps in my room because you would get into my stuff!" His stuff, as Riley recalled, wasn't all that interesting.

Even that hadn't driven a wedge between them. But Riley was only ten when she said, "My family isn't always going to be poor, you wait and see."

In all the years Riley and Emma were best friends, they had about three memorable fights. One was in seventh grade when Riley was invited to the first boy/girl party in their cla.s.s and Emma was not. In fact, Emma was most deliberately excluded by some jealous girls. It was melodramatic and tragic and there were many tears. They were estranged for a long, painful month.

In their junior year Emma was asked to the prom by a senior and virtually abandoned Riley for the older crowd. She did her dress shopping with senior girls who were part of the new guy's clique. Riley was crushed and sat home on prom night playing Scrabble with her mother and brother. And Emma's prom night was a disaster-the guy got drunk and pressured her for s.e.x, so she called her father for a ride home. At nine o'clock.

Both girls were miserable and sad. They sulked and avoided each other for a couple of weeks.

Then Emma's father was killed in a car accident-a drunk driver.

Of course Riley and her whole family went to Emma at once, embracing her, propping her up. The girls made up and swore they'd never let such differences divide them again. Emma was so sorry she put such stock in those prom friends, and Riley was devastated that she'd begrudged her best friend good times and was so sorry things went so badly. They bonded over Emma's grief. After all, Riley had lost her own father at an early age. She knew the pain of it too well.

Emma was left with that tight-a.s.s evil grump, Rosemary, and her two nasty sisters whom she didn't feel were her sisters at all.

Then came college. Emma got a partial scholarship; her stepmother said she would be able to help a little. She bought new clothes and excitedly prepared for a whole new life. Riley and Emma parted tearfully and for the first two weeks called each other constantly, missing each other desperately. Then Emma settled in, became busy, got a part-time job. She had awesome roommates, was pledging a sorority, she was overwhelmed by her cla.s.ses, loved the many social events and the surrounding rush. Also, Emma, being a vivacious young beauty, was getting hit on by the college guys. Even older college guys. She confessed to Riley that she was doing a little harmless hanging out with guys, a little innocent dating that she didn't want Jock to know about. Of course her secret was safe with Riley.

Getting acclimated to community college wasn't nearly as exciting. Riley found it to be very much like high school, except they didn't take attendance. Big whoop. It didn't take Riley long to begin to feel lonely.

As Emma settled into campus life, making new friends and experimenting with her newfound freedom, she wasn't in touch as much. She wasn't picking up when Riley or Jock called; she wasn't answering texts or returning calls right away and when she did, she didn't have much time. She was always rushing off somewhere or it sounded like there was a party in the background. All she wanted to talk about was herself and all her cool new experiences. A week, then two, then three went by with hardly any contact and what contact they had was brief-just long enough for Emma to relate all the fun things she was doing. By early October she'd already made plans to spend Thanksgiving with one of her new cla.s.smates and her family in Astoria, Oregon, rather than coming home to Santa Rosa. "I saw pictures of her house, Riley," Emma said excitedly. "I think they're incredibly rich!"

"We never talk at all anymore," Riley complained. "It's like you're too busy to be bothered with me."

"No, of course not! Well, maybe we're growing apart a little bit," Emma said. "On account of going to different colleges. But we'll always be best friends."

Riley, who used to talk to her best friend every day, several times a day, was lost. Jock, not one to go long without a girl, was calling and hanging around Riley a lot. He said it made perfect sense for them to be going out. "You can't tell me she's not," he said to Riley. "I'm not sitting home until Emma decides she has time for me."

Looking back, Riley remembered she'd felt deserted. Abandoned. Was it too much to expect her best friend to talk to her every couple of days? Twice a week? For more than three minutes? And maybe ask her about herself once in a while?

She and Jock were commiserating a lot. Jock was always around, calling her, taking her out for pizza, inviting her to join him for their high school's homecoming game and subsequent parties with old cla.s.smates. They were pals in their shared loneliness.

"Be careful of him," Adam had said to Riley. "He's been known to take advantage of girls."

"We're just friends," she said.

But Riley was growing very fond of Jock. She looked forward to every call, every casual date. They stopped commiserating so much and started laughing and having fun. They met friends at pizza parlors and on the beach. One crisp fall night they drove over to the coast and had a few beers by a beach fire, just the two of them. It was amazing how much they had to talk about-Emma's name never came up. Riley was astonished to find she was feeling far less abandoned.

She was falling for him.

"I think I might be way into you, too," he said. "d.a.m.n, I never saw this coming! I'm starting to think it probably should've been me and you from the start."

"We have to tell her, Jock. We have to tell Emma exactly how this happened. We couldn't get her on the phone for five minutes, we started hanging out, we got closer-at first because we were both missing her. But then because we have something. I don't know...chemistry?"

He laughed. "You think Emma cares? Go ahead-leave her a message. She'll get back to you in a week or two."

Then it went too far. Riley never meant for it to happen. At least not until she had thought it through much more carefully. Not until they came clean with Emma. She was telling herself it wasn't the worst thing in the world to spend so much time with Jock, to kiss and fondle and whisper in the dark of night, but then things got out of control and before she knew it, her shirt was pushed up, her jeans were around her knees and they'd gone all the way. Before they'd been honest with Emma.

"Oh, G.o.d, I wanted us to tell Emma before something like that happened."

"Baby, Emma could care less."

"But I think I'm falling in love with my best friend's boyfriend!"

"Whoa, whoa," he said. "Riley, let's just slow down here..."

"Aren't we in love?" she asked. "All those things you were saying, that you couldn't get through this without me and I'm the best thing that's happened to you and you probably should've hit on me first..."

"Hey, shoot me for being nice, huh? Of course I care about you-who said I didn't? That was totally up to you. You were totally into it. Just don't say anything, all right? You don't have to make an announcement, for G.o.d's sake. I won't tell her. I just don't know if I'd call it love. Yet."

"You have to break up with her. Tell her about us. You're the one who started things with me, not the other way around. Aren't you breaking up with her?" Riley asked.

"I don't think I'm going to have to," he said. "I think she broke up with me about three months ago. She's partying her a.s.s off in Seattle."

"And there's no gra.s.s growing under your a.s.s, now, is there?" she threw back at him.

Four weeks later, right before Emma came home for Christmas break, she told Jock she was pregnant. She'd taken the home test and it was positive.

"You sure it's mine?" he said. "I used a condom."

"I haven't been with anyone else," she informed him hotly.

"But I don't know that for sure, do I? Since I wasn't with you every minute. And like I said, I had protection."

"What am I supposed to do?"

"I don't know. I guess what anyone would do. You need a little money?"

She was so filled with shame, disappointment and rage she wanted to die, but she lifted her chin and said, "Go to h.e.l.l, Jock."

But really, when it happened, she had thought she loved him. And she struggled with that feeling, on and off, for a few years after that.

Adam left Riley in her office and got in his car. He thought he'd drive by his mother's house and ask if there was anything she needed him to do, see what her plans were for the evening. He might tell her about Emma, but he hadn't decided yet. Those dozen or so times he had gotten in touch with Emma before she got married, when she was in college and then living in New York in the city, well, he never mentioned that to his family. Or to Lyle. And it seemed as though Emma hadn't talked about it, either. But maybe it hadn't left that much of an impression on her.

What's that about? Do you have a thing for her?

Oh, yeah. He had since she was about fifteen. That summer she'd gone from fourteen to fifteen-man, that was the pivotal summer in a young woman's life-and Emma had gone from the little sister to a woman of interest.

I see the way you're looking at Emma, his mother had said. Do not touch that girl, do you hear me? She's like a daughter to me, like a sister to you and Riley and you're eighteen. She is off-limits. At least until you're both adults. This is non-negotiable. Her evil stepmother would love to throw you in jail!

But not long after she pa.s.sed her eighteenth birthday, she was gone to Seattle. Soon after that Riley was expecting Jock's baby. There was a significant part of Adam's heart that was very happy Jock was no longer Emma's guy, but he was smart enough to know that until Emma recovered from her broken heart, he'd better not step forward.

The next six years were a blur. Emma didn't return to Santa Rosa except for very brief visits and he didn't see her. He worked two jobs and went to school, his grandparents both died, he was helping his mother and Riley as much as he could. He grew very attached to Maddie, and Emma moved to New York. He always thought, one of these days...

While he was thinking that, she got married. And not to just anybody, but some internationally known millionaire.

All that had changed. And she was back.

Chapter Five.

Emma didn't qualify for unemployment, as hers had been a part-time job. She did qualify for food stamps, which weren't called food stamps anymore. Although she had applied online, she had to invest four hours in the county welfare office, completed forms in hand. It was now a debit card that would come in the mail. Soon, they said-in about thirty days. If things went well. After her application was approved.

She judged herself against the great throng of people gathered in the county welfare office. She'd heard her husband rant about how many undeserving and ent.i.tled people took advantage of the welfare system, got all this free money without hardly trying. She felt like one of them and wondered if she deserved help. Probably not. She'd been married to him, after all. She also wondered where all that free money was and where those people who worked the system were. She'd always had visions of slick con men sauntering in and with the flick of a form, walking out with money or some other a.s.sistance. Most of the people in the office were women, more than half with small children hanging on their legs or sitting on their laps. At least half were Hispanic but as she'd read in the guidelines, they had to be doc.u.mented to qualify. None looked like the type she expected. And no one looked at ease or comfortable about being there. As for Emma, she felt a little ill. Demoralized and ashamed, like further proof she'd done something wrong. But she looked better than anyone in the place. She still had some good clothes, expensive shoes and a couple of nice handbags, unlike everyone else there.

Her clothes didn't fit so well these days. It hadn't taken long for the extra pounds she'd gained from Burger h.e.l.l to fall off. Job searching, the stress of it and the sheer calisthenics of tromping all over h.e.l.l and gone ate up a lot of calories. Not to mention the worry that she'd never be able to support herself again.

There seemed to be a lot of hair in her hairbrush these days. Was she losing her hair? She'd been grinding her teeth at night for a couple of years and she dreamed about losing her teeth. Awake, she worried about falling apart one batch of cells at a time.

She wondered what Rosemary, Anna and Lauren thought she was doing right now. How did they not have the slightest concern that she might be struggling? None of them reached out or asked her how she was getting by. When she'd been comfortable, before Richard's investigation began, they were always front and center, her family. They'd wrangled first cla.s.s trips to New York on Richard's dime and just to save himself the annoyance of having them about, he'd put them up in a suite at the Plaza Athenee. It quickly became expected. Rosemary, the woman who couldn't even have been bothered to take her shopping when she was a girl, called and in her sweetest voice would say, "It's time for our annual trip to the city, dear. Will you book it for us?" And Emma had given them such generous, beautiful birthday and holiday gifts. They never even thanked her. They thought it was nothing to her. They probably thought one of her servants bought and shipped them.

The only jobs she seemed to qualify for were laborer's positions. Waitressing paid far less than minimum wage because of the tips, which waitstaff were obligated to report to the IRS. In the end she did better for herself by not mentioning her degree; she said she was educated through high school. Stealing a little bit from Riley, she said she'd cleaned houses for work and the only reference she had was Adam Kerrigan because she hadn't lived around here since high school.

So she took a job on the housekeeping staff of a hospital in Petaluma. After four days of training she began on the day shift, punching in at 7:00 a.m.

She made a decision, an easy one. She wasn't about to tell anyone her story. She'd like to at least pay her bills for a while. She kept it simple. She had been married to a man named Rick-no one had ever called Richard Rick-they didn't have children, he died of a brain injury. Hospital people took that to mean stroke or aneurysm, not a bullet. She never mentioned New York; she said they'd lived in Ohio. On the line that asked for her last address, she made up a completely fict.i.tious address in Akron. She decided to come back to California where she grew up, where she had a few friends and some spa.r.s.e family. It was a little dicey when people asked, in a friendly way, "Who are your friends? Who do you hang around with?" At which point Emma began to have secret, imaginary friends. "Oh, my girlfriend Mary Ann who I went to school with and a cousin, Jennifer, who's married with two kids. Then there's Ruth, my favorite aunt who's only four years older-I'm close to them."

The women on the housekeeping staff she worked with were exceptionally friendly, reaching out to her, warning her about the supervisor who was a dragon lady named Glynnis Carlson. Glynnis was short, wore a forty-year-old hairstyle with one silver slash in front, came upon them like an unexpected storm and without even raising her voice threatened their very lives for having a cell phone out, for disposing of soiled linens wrong, for leaving streaks on the floor or porcelain, letting their carts get overladen or worse, understocked. And that was nothing compared to the way she berated people who weren't keeping up with their a.s.signed area, which was very hard because nurses and aides were constantly summoning housekeeping. They didn't help with cleaning up beds or patients, of course, but anything that hit the floor was pa.s.sed on to the housekeeping staff. There were a lot of messes that hospital staff didn't handle. The horrid ones.

"Be glad you're not in the ER or the operating room. Wear a mask and never work without gloves, just change them out," advised Barbara, one of the cleaning staff who had been around for years. "Wrap as much mess as possible in the linens, careful not to get any plastics or papers in them, get them down the chute fast as you can. Let it be laundry's problem. They transfer it all with big sticks and hooks."

There was a lot of that in a hospital. The doctors pa.s.sed it off to the nurses, who pa.s.sed it to the orderlies and aides, who pa.s.sed it to housekeeping, who pa.s.sed it to laundry.

It was hard, ugly work, but steady and among decent people. Emma had never been shy of hard work and she was growing confident and a little bit happy. She had work. She had just enough money and didn't require much to live on. Life in her tiny bungalow was compact and uncomplicated. Not only were her coworkers nice to her but the patients and their visitors were also pleasant, and under the direst of circ.u.mstances-illness. Cleaners weren't allowed to have traffic with patients-they weren't trained for that. But there was nothing preventing them from being cordial, going for an extra water jug for flowers, calling nurses when they saw a problem. "Just don't touch them," the dragon lady said. "Not even if one of them falls. Switch on the emergency light and stand by."

"Not even if they fall?" Emma asked, aghast.

"All you need is to help someone off the floor and break their neck or something. You'll lose your job and the hospital will get sued. You never move an accident victim. You let the professionals do that."

"Makes sense, when you put it that way," she said.

"Think of them all as accident victims," Glynnis said. "Just get their bathrooms clean."

But despite these terrifying warnings, Emma warmed to the patients, particularly the elderly. Little old people were so vulnerable when ill and she found she couldn't turn away. The old women loved her and the old men loved her more, and she just couldn't stop herself from offering the occasional sip of water to someone who was struggling with the tray table or a gla.s.s. It pleased her to hand a wet washcloth to someone who needed it. She even stayed late and read to an eighty-five-year-old blind woman, though she was careful to ask the dragon lady for permission first.

"I'm not allowed to help you to the lavatory," she told the woman. "I'm so sorry. But I'll get the nurse."

"I hate the nurse. I'd rather it be you."

"Oh, I'd be happy to, but the housekeeping staff has been threatened with dire consequences if we break the rules, even just slightly. I'm not trained in patient care. Let me get that nurse and I'll stay with you until she comes."

She started thinking about possibly training as a nurse's aide.

She had three very blissful weeks in her hospital job, though it was the hardest work she'd ever done. She didn't care; she went on break with coworkers, she ate lunch with her new friends, heard about their marriages, their kids, their aging parents, their car problems and vacation plans.

Emma began to have fantasies of a normal life. It wouldn't be a rich life for sure, but at this point a rich life only represented disaster and danger to her. She was looking for stability, nothing more. She had her food debit card, she handed out Halloween candy with Penny, the leaves finished turning, November came in wet and cold. She got together for wine with Lyle and Ethan, who was almost starting to believe she wasn't a bad person. She spoke to Adam on the phone a couple of times when he called to see how she was doing. She had a light dinner with Penny on TV trays, watching Madam Secretary with her, just like normal people. Penny invited her to join her with her girlfriends Susan, Marilyn and Dorothy for a potluck one evening and to her delighted surprise, these old girls liked martinis! Susan's son was the chauffeur for Susan, Marilyn and Dorothy. "I told him I was completely capable," Susan said. "But it's just as well he wants to drive us. That way we can have two!"

"William is such a nice boy," Penny said of Susan's son.

"That boy is fifty-nine years old," Susan said. "Before long I'll be chauffeuring him!"

At two weeks until Thanksgiving, Emma had more than one offer for the holiday feast. Lyle and Ethan were going to Ethan's sister's house and had graciously included her. She might've gone but for the fact that Penny and a couple of her widowed girlfriends who were sharing the feast also invited her-and they were to dine at Penny's little house. She dearly wanted to join them.

"Being one of the new kids at the hospital, I'm sure I'll have to work that day," Emma said.

"We took that into consideration," Penny told her. "We'll be ready at about four-that should give you time to get home, shower, come over for some pre-turkey poo-poos and wine."

"Let me pick up the wine," she said.

"You're absolutely welcome to."