I’ve always found that it difficult to explain the relationship between Lynette and me to other people. What I felt toward Lynette wasn’t love—at least, if you define “love” to be what I felt for Kristen, my mother, or my sister. However, it was more than just friendship. After having Lynette being an intimate part of the relationship between Kristen and me for the last three months made it difficult to even conceive of a relationship with Kristen that didn’t include Lynette.
It was plain to everybody that Lynette’s real focus in her life at the current moment was Kristen and not me. Lynette had been close to Kristen for years, and once thought that a romantic relationship with Kristen was unachievable. After Kristen and I became a couple, Lynette somehow managed to become a part of our relationship. I’m not sure what happened, but whatever it was must have happened right before or during the Senior Weekend, because the Lynette that I knew up until that point would never have accepted the role of “Pussy Slave” to anybody.
Lynette once confided in me that she didn’t think Kristen was capable of loving anybody else until she saw Kristen and me going together. This may sound heartless and mean, but I must admit that I thought the same way about Kristen before I got to know her better. Kristen always kept her personal life to herself and managed to appear aloof and superior to everybody else in school. Only now was I beginning to understand the (self-imposed) loneliness that she felt throughout her first eleven years of school.
Somehow, Lynette filled a need within Kristen that I couldn’t fill. Maybe it was the fact that they were both female. Then again, it could be that Kristen felt free to dominate Lynette, which she may have felt that she couldn’t do with me since I had the power of the tickets. Whatever it was, Lynette filled a very important need within Kristen, and likewise Kristen filled an important need that Lynette had. I remember this sort of relationship being described in biology class as a “symbiotic relationship,” and I guess that’s one way to describe it. Whatever it was, both Kristen, Lynette, and even I were much happier by the existence of the relationship between the two of them.
Likewise, Kristen and I shared a truly wonderful relationship, and it was pretty amazing that Kristen and Lynette’s relationship didn’t interfere with it, but augmented it instead. It made it even more special.
Both Lynette and I realized that Kristen was the main focus of our love, but there was also something quite consequential between the two of us that was there if you looked deep enough. The two of us were very much attuned to each other’s feelings, and we could anticipate each other’s moods to a point. Neither Lynette nor I would hesitate to stand up to Kristen on behalf of the other if one of us felt that Kristen did something wrong to the other.
Once I got out of the bedroom, the place felt lonely.
June went home that night, taking Archy to his parents. I guess they were thrilled that Archy was home for a quick visit. I knew that Kristen’s “Uncle Jerry” would be taking Archy back to college this evening.
Last night, after June left, Sherry went home, but not before she gave me another one of her enthusiastic kisses in front of a rather surprised Lynette.
Cammy and Will were at the main house, and I remembered that Camille said that she needed to talk to me alone, a request that almost certainly had to do with the tickets.
Patty, who also told me she needed to talk with me, didn’t have an opportunity to do so last night, and she promised before she left that she’d find some time before the weekend was over. I knew she was supposed to work at Roman’s tonight, so that meant that she’d probably see me this afternoon.
Since Lynette—the one who did most of the cooking at the apartment—was still in the bedroom, I decided to skip breakfast, and peeled an orange that was in the fruit bowl in the kitchen and headed downstairs to the music studio as I ate the sections.
I went the long way downstairs, taking the stairs at the other end of the apartment so that I would walk by the billiard room to see if Kristen was perhaps playing another game of pool with Camille.
Instead of Camille and Kristen in the billiard room, I was surprised to see Patty sitting on the chair, listening to the soft and memorable strains of Stairway to Heaven on the record that Kristen and I were listening to yesterday afternoon.
“Hey, Patty! What’s up?”
I think this was the first time that my presence ever startled Patty.
Patty recovered quickly, however. “Hi, Jim! Kristen told me that I could come over whenever I wanted today, and I felt that the two of us needed to talk.”
I nodded.
“Kristen told you something that bothered you recently.”
This was a statement, not a question. I’ve learned over the past year that Patty was like that.
I simply nodded at Patty.
Patty looked serious. “The only thing Kristen could have told you that would have upset you about me was what Kristen and I talked about before the two of you started dating.”
Again I nodded.
“You have to realize that Kristen was suicidal, Jim!”
“Not to mention homicidal,” I added glumly.
“She wasn’t seriously going to kill you, and I doubt that she would have killed herself. She was trying to scare me.”
“Patty, you are easy to talk to, but you aren’t a psychiatrist! You can’t make that kind of decision! That sort of thing is a matter of life and death!”
“Jim, you never realized how much Kristen prefers to be in control. She saw no future with you because she’d never be able to control you while she had the addiction.”
“Kristen told me that yesterday. She told me that you said that if she killed me, she’d be a junkie without a fix. Some friend you are!”
I thought saying that would shock Patty, but I was mistaken.
“You think that I’m not your friend because I pointed out the truth to Kristen?”
“You’re twisting my words around!”
Patty didn’t respond, but just looked at me.
I stared at Patty, daring her to out-stare me. It was a child’s game; I admit it.
Finally, I broke the silence. “I really thought you were my friend, Patty.”
I slowly turned to walk away, feeling as if my best friend plunged a knife into my heart.
To her benefit, Patty didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, she quietly said, “At that time, Kristen didn’t have any friends, Jim. The only person she could talk to was her brother, who was living on the East Coast. I felt that Kristen needed a friend right then, and I tried to talk some sense into her. Can you really fault me for that? Isn’t that what a friend is supposed to do?”
I stopped walking away. Patty did have a point. I sighed and said, “Kristen said you called her up and wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
“I did. I knew what she was going through. Kristen felt violated, and to her, what you did to her was even worse than what she thought happened to me.”
Once again, I was at a loss. Patty’s words were hitting me like a sledgehammer. I was barely able to choke out the word, “Worse?”
Patty shook her head slowly. “Look at it from her point of view. You know what you did to her. She felt humiliated to have to call my home and then Wendy’s mother just to talk to me in order to set up a ‘date’ with you. Usually, I’m sensitive to these things, and I should have seen this when you crossed the line, but I must have been under the influence of a ticket. I was, wasn’t I?”