They cut glances at Sandra. I knew they were wondering: then was this our fault?
“The thing is, we can’t judge another’s actions. We can never, any of us, know the struggles someone else goes through. We might think we know, but we don’t.”
“I’m here,” Sandra said. “Why not just ask?”
“Okay,” Suze said.
Silence.
“I’m pregnant,” Sandra said. “He’d hurt me before. I knew he’d do it again. My kids had seen me beaten over and over. When I found out I was having a baby, I thought, I just can’t let him do that anymore. I couldn’t, could I?”
“No,” said Christie.
“I had to protect my baby.”
“That’s right,” said Kim.
Their shoulders dropped a fraction, they turned slightly to face Sandra. The muscles around their eyes relaxed. I could have closed my eyes and known, just by the sound of their breath and the subtle change in their scent, that the group was re-forming, that Sandra was being conditionally reabsorbed. Protect the children, the old clarion call. I wasn’t sure whom I disliked the most: Sandra for manipulating them, them for allowing it, or me for sitting witness.
“How far along are you?” Nina said. “Only I was wondering if that’s why you signed up.”
Sandra looked wary, but Nina plowed on, unaware of what she’d asked.
“I signed up because of what happened to my sister’s youngest. Made me think. I went into a coffee shop in Smyrna, Borealis—anyone know it?”
“No way!” Pauletta said. “I saw the flyer in Borealis, too, only in Decatur.”
“So why’d you sign up?” Nina said.
“Because some yahoo neighbor who’d been drinking thumped on my windshield one night and I thought he wanted to jack the car. Turned out he was just staggering around. Scared the crap out of me, though.”
“I saw a flyer at college,” Christie said.
“Which one?”
“Agnes Scott.”
I wondered how it got there.
“Coffee shop,” Tonya said.
“Me, too.”
“And me.”
“E-mail,” Suze said, “a friend. That’s why I was late that first day. She was supposed to come along. She chickened out.”
“I nearly chickened out,” Katherine said. “That first day.” I remembered the footsteps in the dust on the stairwelclass="underline" down and then up and then down again. “I was so nervous.”
“Yeah. I thought I’d get mashed in the face first thing,” Tonya said.
“No, that was later,” Katherine said, and everyone smiled.
“I think we were all afraid,” Therese said to me. “But you taught us a lot.”
All past tense.
Then they were all standing together, even Sandra—Suze helped her to her feet—facing me, smiling.
“Thank you,” Therese said. She was holding something towards me.
They were happy, relieved, ready to reminisce: they were no longer scared because they were done. They’d finished their sixteen-week course and beaten up a padded man and frightened a bookstore clerk and looked a killer in the face, and now they were safe.
“It’s a small token of our appreciation.”
An envelope. I took it.
“It’s a gift card.”
A picture of azaleas. Bright and impersonal as a southern smile.
“We didn’t know what you’d want, but then we thought, Well, everyone likes coffee.”
“Or tea,” Nina said.
“Right.” They sounded anxious.
I forced a smile and opened it. A Starbucks gift card. The kind of gift one corporation might give another. Steel Magnolias, Inc., to Aliens from the North, LLC. But they had all signed it:
You taught me so much, Jennifer.
Now I will kick ass! Katherine.
My children are safe, Kim.
Aud, you rock! Suze.
Whether you know it or not, I think you’ve changed our lives a little, Therese.
Please, will you let me know if you give an advanced class? Tonya.
I want more, Christie.
With sincerest thanks, Sandra.
You scare the crap outta me, you really do, but in a good way, Pauletta.
I’ll never know, but I hope she finds someone like you to learn from, Nina.
I ached for them. Most of them would not be able to cling to their bubble world; one day someone, something, would burst it. I wished it could be different.
“Thank you,” I said. “Be safe.”
SEVENTEEN
THERE WAS A RED DOT BY THE PAINTING. “WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?” I SAID TO the sales associate. But I knew.
“It’s sold,” she said.
“Sold.”
“Yes. I’m sorry. You must be very disappointed. But there are several of his other pictures available.”
“I want this one.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s no longer available.”
HIPPOWORKS RENTED The Last Supper Club and invited all the cast and crew and dozens of industry insiders, local celebrities and hangers-on, and corporate sponsors.
The party had been going for three hours with some serious drinking, including bartender stunts involving flaming shots and leaping balls of flame that were probably illegal. I stayed in a corner. My eyebrow stung and my ribs ached and I didn’t want anything to do with fire for a very long time.
“Hey,” said someone with a bright red face and messy black hair. John. Wardrobe. “Hey, there’s a rumor going round that you strangled that kid.”
“Why would I do that?”
He looked puzzled. “I don’t know,” he said, and wandered off. Kick and Rusen and Finkel were surrounded by admirers at the other end of the club.
I took my beer upstairs, where I found a pool table. There was no one else around so I racked the balls and began potting them in order. The color and motion and geometry were soothing, and it was good to keep my muscles moving, work the stiffness out.
“Here’s where you’re hiding,” Dornan said.
“I’m not hiding.”
“No, of course not.” He watched for a while as I stroked the balls into their pockets. He coughed once or twice. We’d all been doing that, particularly the ones who had left the warehouse last. “All packed for tomorrow? Oh, you should have had that one. No doubt it’s your bandaged rib.”
“No doubt.”
“Would you find an actual game more interesting?”
“I might.” I banged the eight ball in. “Help me set up.”
He dug the balls obligingly from the top pockets and rolled them towards me. I racked them. He broke. For Dornan, it was a brilliant stroke: the cue ball actually hit the clustered balls at the other end of the table. It wasn’t a legal break, because only one ball touched a cushion, but Dornan and I had long ago found that making him play strictly by the rules led to a great deal of frustration. He leaned on his cue. “Try not to pot all yours in one go.”
I cracked in the two and the six. He sighed loudly.
“We should give you a handicap.”
Handicap. I wondered how much longer we’d able to use that word in casual conversation.
“Kick’s looking very pretty tonight.”
“Yes,” I said, squinting down the cue at the four, which was hiding behind the eight ball. I could do it if I banked off the left-hand cushion.
“Oh, nice shot. So why is she down there and you’re hiding up here?”
I chalked my cue, walked around the table, leaned, measured, stroked in the five. “I’m not hiding,” I said, lining up the next shot. “I’m waiting. I asked her a question. She hasn’t answered me yet.”