Doublecrossed (15 page)

“No,” Callie said, after a few seconds. “It would be more that it’s outside the norm in their social circle. Once her parents got comfortable with her being gay, she started sleeping with guys for the first time in her life. She just wants to tweak them any way she can.”

“She sounds like a teenager.”

“Yeah, in a way. But she still does just what they want her to in most things. She’s seriously screwed up. I wish to God I could have seen how screwed up she was long before now.”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s hard to believe you didn’t see it.” Blind people could have seen it from a hundred yards. Callie didn’t seem that oblivious.

She looked down, seemingly chagrined. “I guess love is blind. In her defense, she’s smart and fun and sometimes playful. She’s really good at her job, and she has a lot of long-term friends. So she has her good points. I should have paid more attention to how she treated her parents. That’s a sure sign of character.”

“But you can have idiots for parents and still be a good person.”

“True. But Marina’s too tied up with them, and that’s voluntary. They’re really, really involved in her life, and they try to control her with money.”

“They bail her out a lot?”

“A whole lot. And for their generosity Marina loves to surreptitiously screw with them. Never to their faces…except for being gay. But even then they caught her in the act. I don’t think she would have ever voluntarily come out to them.” She put the keychain on the bedside table. “What a miserable person she is.”

“Then why did you give her another chance? Why did you try to convince me to give Angela another chance?” Listen to yourself! You knew she was evil, and you stayed with her. For what?

“Stupidity. Blindness. I don’t know.” Callie turned off the lights and lay down again. “I really regret that. I hope you can forgive me one day.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’m interested in why you did it. Not because of me, but because of you. Why did you think you had to settle for someone like her?”

“I don’t know,” she murmured. “My friend Terri has been asking me that for over a year and I’ve been telling her that I wasn’t settling. I’m gonna have to spend some time thinking about that.”

Regan was sure she could truncate the thought process. Callie had not only been settling, she’d been participating in a dangerous game that had blown shrapnel all the way across the country. But she was obviously blind to that. Maybe hopelessly blind. “I hope you can. Before you get into another relationship.”

“I think I might choose to be like my mom. Bitter and lonely. At least I’ll only hurt myself that way.”

Regan didn’t respond, and eventually Callie fell asleep, her rhythmic breathing filling the quiet room.

*

The next morning Callie opened her eyes to the bright sun streaming in through the open window. The air held the scent of the jasmine plants that ringed their balcony and just a touch of the sea. She opened her eyes and turned to see Regan lying on her side, her head propped up on her hand, looking at her.

“That’s not true, you know.”

“What’s not true?”

“If you become bitter it affects a lot more people than you. You can’t tell me it doesn’t hurt you to see how your mom is.”

“Of course it does. I think I was just grousing. I’m not the bitter type.”

“I hope not, because I want you as a friend and bitter people don’t appeal to me.”

“Okay, I’ll be cheerful just for you.” She got up and patted Regan’s dark head.

Regan called after her as she went into bathroom, “Good enough. Reality doesn’t have to intrude on my fantasy world. As long as you seem happy, I’m happy.” That wasn’t true. Not a word of it. But it was nice to dream.

*

Their flights for home left around noon, and Callie was up early, putting on her running clothes when Regan woke. “Hey, where are you going?”

“To run on the beach. I’ve been slacking.”

“Slacking? You’ve been working nonstop on my site.”

“But I haven’t been running. I’ve got to make up for that today. I’m gonna do ten miles.”

“Ten miles?” Regan sat up and scowled. “Wait for me. You’ll probably kill me, but I’ll try to keep up.”

Callie held a hand out and pulled Regan to her feet. “With those long legs you’ll leave me in the dust. How tall are you, anyway?”

“Five eleven or so. Mostly legs,” she said, grinning.

“If you ran middle distance you’re probably faster than me anyway. Maybe I should start now and have you catch up.”

“No way. You wait right here. I’ll just be a sec.”

Callie sat down and opened her computer, using the few minutes to try to load some images before the other guests started using the Wi-Fi. She was going to finish the web site no matter what. Regan was going to get her money’s worth.

*

When they got to the beach Callie pulled off her shoes. “I’ve never run on sand. Wanna try it?”

“Mmm, I’m faster on an even surface.”

“No. Really?” Callie gave her a smirk. “Who would have guessed that?”

“Oh, all right. I can keep up with your cross-country nonsense.” She started to pull off her shoes. “You people and your uneven terrain.”

They started off slowly, and within a half mile had settled into a nice, moderate pace. Callie could tell that Regan wasn’t extending herself, probably trying to make sure her footing was safe. Callie could use her normal stride, which was a little shorter than a track runner’s would have been, and that let her easily keep up with Regan’s longer limbs.

“This is fun,” Regan said after a while. “I haven’t run with anyone in ages.”

“I haven’t either. I should get back into running with a group. It helps motivate me.”

“We have so many runners in Cambridge that it gets crowded.” Regan’s face fell as she corrected, “We had. I have to learn how to use the past tense.”

“You can find some buddies in Scituate.”

“If that’s where I end up. I’m itching to move out of my parents’ house. I’ve got to get my own place.”

“Me too. Here’s to our new adventure.” She said this with such false enthusiasm that Regan couldn’t help but react with a smile. There was something about Callie that was impossible not to like. And she truly needed someone to help her see where she’d gone wrong. If she could see that, she might turn her life around. There was a good person in there who’d simply lost her way.

As soon as Callie returned from the Bahamas, she started to search for an apartment. Her only goal was to decrease her monthly expenses. It didn’t matter where the apartment was or what shape it was in. Only money mattered. She’d spent so much keeping up with Marina that she hadn’t been able to save a dime—one more lasting effect of wasting a year and a half of her life.

Within a week she had a short list of potential apartments and was ready to dive in. It only took two days, and by Friday she had signed a lease.

Regan phoned when Callie was packing the few things she’d used for her stay at Pam’s. She’d come to rely on the calls, feeling better talking to Regan than to most of her Dallas friends. Regan not only understood what she’d been through, she was interested in talking about it. Her other friends listened, but she could tell they wished she’d get over it.

“Are you all set for moving day?”

“Is anyone ever ready to move? I’m going to get my moving truck at eight and I’ve got four friends to help. I’m sure I’ll be the only one ready at eight, but they’ll all show up eventually.”

“I wish I could be there to help you.”

“Liar. No one wants to help anyone move. Even professional movers don’t want to.”

“Okay, so I’m lying, but I still wish I could help you.”

“That’s just because you’re nice.”

“Yeah, I am, but you’re fun to be with and I’d like to see Dallas.”

“You should have come when I was still living with Marina. Now that was a nice apartment. It was almost worth the airfare.”

“I’d rather visit you in a refrigerator box than visit Marina at the nicest apartment in Dallas.”

“That’s a very good answer. You might regret saying that after you see my new place, but I appreciate that you feel that way.”

“Have fun tomorrow.” Regan used the same fake enthusiasm that Callie sometimes adopted.

“That was a dreadful attempt. You have to work on that.”

Her voice was even more full of glee when she said, “I’ll work on it this weekend while you’re having fun!”

*

On Sunday evening Callie called Regan and reached her when she was out running. “It’s eight o’clock here. What are you doing out running at this time of night?”

“I was really busy all weekend and this is the only time I had. Delaney had some function with her husband’s family, so I had to take over for her and oversee a huge twenty-fifth anniversary party.”

“Older sister pulling rank?”

“Yeah, she does that occasionally. But that’s cool. She takes over for me, too.”

“Are you in charge of parties very often? You haven’t mentioned it before.”

“No, not very. It’s not my thing. I much prefer dealing with suppliers and purveyors and doing the business side. I like being around people, but I don’t like being around people who are having a party. Don’t tell anyone I told you this, but our banquet clients are huge pains in the ass.”

Callie could imagine Regan’s face quirking into the charming grin that graced her face when she was saying something she knew she shouldn’t say. It was a very lovable trait, and she felt herself missing Regan—even though they’d just gotten back from vacation.

“I can imagine. But I bet you do a great job.”

“I’m certainly not going to try to wrestle the job away from Delaney, that’s for sure. So how did the move go?”

“It was okay. I had to give away boxes and boxes of stuff to fit into the new place, but I’m glad I finished. I’m not finished-finished, of course. There are a zillion things I haven’t put away, but my roommate, doesn’t have much of anything so I was able to bring more than I thought I’d be able to.”

“It sounds like you just moved boxes. Don’t you have furniture?”

It was an embarrassing admission, but there was no reason to withhold the truth from Regan. “I sold all my furniture when I moved to Dallas. None of it was up to Marina’s standards.”

“What a jerk! I’m liking her less every time we talk about her, and I didn’t think that was possible.”

“She never said that in so many words. But her apartment was fully furnished when I moved in, so all I brought were my electronics, which were considerable. Marina wasn’t the kind to say rude things. She just manipulated you into doing what she wanted.”

“I’d rather be around someone who said rude things. At least then you know where you stand.”

“That’s probably true.” But being manipulated into selling your stuff for pennies on the dollar wasn’t anything to boast of.

“Is your roommate a nice guy?”

“He seems to be. He’s in his last year of med school and he swears he’s hardly ever home. I don’t think we’ll wind up being best friends or anything, but that’s fine with me.”

“Do you have to buy a bed?”

“No, I’m using his. He’s going to sleep on the sleeper sofa in the living room.”

Somewhat hesitantly, Regan said, “Are you sure you’ve thought this through?”

“Yeah. I want to save money and this place is only going to cost me five hundred dollars a month. He’s the one who’s getting the bad end of the deal, but he’s cheaper than I am, so he’s giving up his bedroom and I’m paying a hundred more than he is.”

“Are you sure you can be happy living like that?”

“No, not in the long term. But it should be fine for a year or so. If I work hard and keep an eagle eye on my expenses, I’ll have some money in the bank and I’ll feel much better.”

“You really took a hit when you went into graphic design, didn’t you?”

“I took a fifty percent pay cut, but I’d do it again. Business was good, but I was paying seventeen hundred a month to live with Marina. That was way too rich for me.”

“That’s a lot!”

“Don’t I know it? She had an expensive mortgage and the common charges were really high because they had two pools and some tennis courts.”

“Did she make you pay half?”

“Not quite. She accounted for the tax break she got, then we split the difference.”

“That’s still not fair. She’s building equity.”

“Not in this market,” Callie laughed. “She lost everything…or I should say her parents lost everything they put down. She’s going to have to get a new girlfriend pretty quickly to keep up the payments because she sure can’t sell it.”

“I hope they put her in debtor’s prison.”

“Bitter, bitter. I’m the one living with a guy I don’t know who’s ten years younger than I am and sleeping on his crummy old mattress. I’m the one who should be bitter.”

“But you’re not, because you’re a good person and you know things are going to improve.”