On a Night Like This (23 page)

Amanda finished her soup and reached for her champagne glass. It was empty. She looked at Luke but didn’t say anything. He watched her. Then she picked up the bottle and poured herself another glass.

“You’re going to have a hard time waking up in the morning,” Luke said.

“Well, that’s my problem, isn’t it?”

“Amanda, I wish you weren’t so angry with me. We were doing pretty well there for a while.”

“You’re in the way. My mother is dying, and you’re all over the place.”

“I can help you both.”

“I don’t want your help. I want to be alone with my mom.”

This time Luke was quiet, and he finished his salad, drank his champagne, told Rianne when she came to clear the plates to give his compliments to the chef.

They never got to the second course. Amanda reached for her glass, which tipped over and spilled all over Luke. She stood up and raced to the bathroom, awkwardly with her high heels, and stayed there for a while. Finally Rianne went after her, brought her out, her face white, her hair wet from the water Rianne had splashed on her.

“She was sick,” Rianne told Luke. “You better get her home.”

So he walked her home, and though he wanted to put his arm around her and help her, he didn’t touch her. She wobbled her way back to the cottage.

Once inside, Luke gave her some Advil and a glass of water, told her to go to bed. She looked at him—he recognized the old you’re-not-my-father look, but she didn’t say anything. She started toward her room and then said, “Can I lie in my mom’s bed and watch TV a little while? My head’s kind of spinning.”

“Of course,” Luke said. He noticed that she had asked permission.

Amanda disappeared into Blair’s room. He heard the TV. She hadn’t shut the door.

He changed his champagne-drenched clothes, found his book and went into the living room to wait for Blair. He knew she’d be disappointed—he was, too—but he’d take Blair and Amanda out to dinner someplace nice—the three of them—to make it up to both of them.

An hour later, the phone rang. Amanda didn’t pick up in the bedroom—he figured she was long passed out. He reached for the phone near him and said, “Hello.”

“Luke.” It was Emily’s voice. “I need help. I’m bleeding. I’ve got some kind of pain, in my belly. I can hardly breathe. I’m so scared. I don’t want to lose the baby.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment.

“Please, Luke. Come get me. I don’t want to go to the hospital alone.”

“I’ll be right there,” he said.

At the door, Sweetpea nudged his leg. “Come on, girl. Let’s go for a ride.”

Chapter Eleven

B
lair walked home in the cool night, tipsy from the champagne the staff had shared at the end of the evening. Leon, the pastry chef she had never met, had shown up to say good-bye. He was bad-boy handsome and wickedly charming, and happily she kissed him good-bye so she could head home to Luke. “Some man’s got your heart,” he had teased. “Yes,” she had told him. “He’s got my heart.”

She was feeling too many things—pain at saying good-bye to her dear circle of friends at the restaurant, fear about what was going on with Amanda, and an erotic charge about slipping into bed with Luke. She was also feeling bone-numbing exhaustion.

She walked slowly, breathing in the cool air, trying to clear her head, calm her heart. She wanted to get home—Luke would be there—and she wanted to walk for hours in the quiet night. Once she got home and undressed, she would no longer be a chef. For now, in her chef’s jacket and pants, well stained by hours of hard work at the stove, she was still a chef. Anyone passing by would see that. They could not see—not yet, not tonight—that she had quit work and was getting ready to die.

She reached the cottage and walked quietly up the steps to the front door. The house was dark—perhaps Luke would be sleeping, though he would awaken when she slipped in beside him.

She opened the door and heard something—a noise that made her heart stop for a moment. It was a kind of wail, almost inhuman, a long stretch of a cry, and though it sounded muffled, it was shrill enough to chill Blair’s overheated body.

She listened for a second more, than ran toward her bedroom. The door was open, the room dark. But in the corner of the room, on the floor, she saw Amanda huddled in a ball—the wail was coming from her.

“My God,” she called, and ran to her daughter’s side. “Are you OK?”

Amanda first pulled back from Blair, her body stiffening. She had her head buried on her knees, and when she looked up, her expression was one of terror. An animal trapped.

“Amanda,” Blair said, pulling her daughter to her. “What happened?”

Finally Amanda let go of herself and fell onto her mother. She still kept her body rolled into a ball, but now the wail got louder, and she clutched at her mother’s legs.

“Talk to me!” Blair shouted. “Tell me what happened.”

Amanda shook her head, cried louder.

“Where’s Luke?” Blair demanded, and the wail intensified.

Finally Blair grabbed Amanda’s shoulders and sat her up, holding her up in front of her. “What’s going on?” she asked, her voice strong and calm. “Tell me what happened.”

Amanda blinked as if Blair had turned a spotlight on her. Her eyes couldn’t seem to adjust to her mother’s stare. Her face was streaked with tears. She wore a T-shirt and boxers, and she pressed her arms tightly around her body.

“Amanda,” Blair said again.

The girl nodded. She blinked again. She swiped at her face with the back of her arm, wiping off the new run of tears. Then she wrapped her arms around herself as if she were freezing. She nodded again.

“He—he—he tried . . . Luke”—and then she shook her head again, lowered it, and her body began to tremble.

Blair reached for Amanda’s chin and pulled it up, kept the girl looking at her.

“He tried what?”

“To have sex with me.” This time she kept looking at her mother, her eyes wide and terrified.

“Amanda,” Blair said.

Amanda nodded, then fell forward into her mother’s arms.

Blair held her awhile, trying to take it in. Amanda sobbed in her arms.

“Where is he?” she finally asked.

She felt Amanda shrug in her arms.

“Did he—did you . . . ?”

“No,” Amanda said, her voice buried in Blair’s shoulder. Then she picked her head up, and the story exploded in a rush. “No. I was sleeping. I thought it was a dream. A hand on my body. Someone leaning on me. It was dark. I couldn’t see anything. He was naked. He just climbed in bed, and I felt his thing on me, and then I knew I wasn’t dreaming. He put his hands all over me, up my shirt and down my shorts, and he kept pressing on me. . . .”

Finally she stopped, and the wail began again, lower, more mournful.

Blair held her and rocked her in her arms. She fought off the images that sprang to mind immediately—the men at the beach who tore at her flesh as if she were nothing. One man first pushed his fingers inside her, and then finally his penis thrust into her, through her, it seemed. She remembered the pain and the terror.

“Tell me all of it, Amanda,” Blair said.

Amanda got quieter, her cry subsiding. She pulled back, spoke in a quiet voice, her eyes lowered to the floor.

“I woke up. I mean, in the middle of it. I knew it wasn’t a dream. But I was so scared. I didn’t know what to do. I mean, I should have screamed or something, but I didn’t want to. I don’t know, I was embarrassed or something. It doesn’t make sense, I know, but I was scared. I pushed him off me, but he just kept moving his hands everywhere. And then he pulled my shorts off, and when he climbed on top of me, I could feel it—it was hard and pushing against me—and finally I screamed and he stopped for a second and then he ran out of the room, just like that. Just took off. I heard the front door slam. Like he thought I wanted it, and when I screamed, he just flipped out or something. Oh, my God.”

She crumbled again, and Blair pulled her close, held her tightly.

“Shh,” Blair said.

“I was so scared,” Amanda said, and finally she cried quietly, her head on her mother’s lap.

“You’re OK,” Blair said, stroking her head. “Shh.”

Blair imagined Luke, not her rapists, not any rapist, but Luke, the man she loved. Maybe he had been drinking, maybe he had always wanted Amanda, but Blair hadn’t seen it. Maybe she was blind in love.

Her daughter would be all right, she told herself. He had scared her, done something awful, but she had stopped it in time. Then Blair thought back to sixteen, her own sixteen, and knew that this night mattered. This experience, even if he hadn’t finished what he had set out to do, had the power to pierce her soul.

“When did it happen?” she asked quietly.

She felt her daughter shrug.

“An hour ago?”

“Maybe,” Amanda said.

“He won’t come back,” Blair said, and she felt the weight of it all. “He can’t come back.”

Amanda didn’t say anything.

And then Blair thought of the fight that morning, thought about Amanda’s anger about Luke being there now, all the time.

“You aren’t making this up,” Blair said as gently as she could.

Amanda pushed herself away from Blair, scrambled to stand, turn away from her, run to her room.

Blair waited for the slam of the door, then hung her head, sighed deeply. She pushed herself up and moved after her daughter.
Oh, my God,
she thought.
Both possibilities are awful.
That Luke could do this. Or that Amanda could create such a lie.

She knocked at Amanda’s door. After a moment she called out, “I’m sorry, Amanda. You wouldn’t lie. I’m sorry I said that.”

The room was quiet. Blair put her head on the door, exhausted now.

“Can I come in? Please.”

She didn’t hear the answer. There was a noise at the front door, and then Sweetpea was barking. Blair moved toward the door.

Just as she got there, the door opened, and Luke stood there, his key in hand.

“Goddamn you,” Blair said.

“What?”

“I should call the cops. I won’t if you get out of our lives. Leave now and don’t ever reappear.”

“Blair—”

Luke started to move toward her, and she reached for the phone by her side. “I’ll call the police. Right now. Leave. Before I rip you to shreds.”

“What happened—”

Blair stared at him. She waited a moment. She looked at the closed door behind her. “Amanda . . .” She started and then stopped, watching him.

“What happened to Amanda?” he asked.

“You know what happened.”

“If I knew what happened, I wouldn’t be asking.”

“Goddamn you,” she said, shaking her head. “Get out of here. Now.”

“Blair. What happened to Amanda?” He stood solidly in the doorway, not moving.

“You tried to rape her,” Blair said, her voice low and mean.

“What? Someone tried to rape her?” He started to move into the house, and Blair held out the phone, but he kept moving, past her, and toward Amanda’s door.

“Stop it! Get out of here!” she shouted.

Luke stopped in front of the closed door. “Amanda! Amanda!”

“Get out of here,” Blair said, and she grabbed his shirt, started pulling him away from the door.

“I didn’t try to rape her!” Luke shouted, angry now. “Goddamn it, Blair. Tell me what happened!”

Blair pulled at him and then let go of his shirt, falling back against the wall.

“How could you?” she asked.

He leaned toward her. “I didn’t. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Emily called. She was miscarrying. She needed someone to take her to the hospital.”

“Liar,” Blair said.

“Blair, listen. Maybe your daughter is lying.”

“Get out of my house,” Blair said.

“Call the hospital if you don’t believe me.”

“Amanda wouldn’t lie about something like this,” Blair insisted.

Luke turned from her and started toward the door. He took a few steps and stopped. “Blair, don’t let her do this to us.”

“Leave,” Blair said.

He walked out the door.

Blair sank to the floor.

“Amanda,” she said loudly enough for her daughter to hear through the closed door. “Please come out and talk to me. I have to know if you’re all right.”

Amanda didn’t answer.

In the morning Amanda wouldn’t go to school. She wouldn’t get out of bed, though she let her mother bring her a bowl of oatmeal, let her sit at the side of her bed and stroke her hair.

Amanda didn’t speak much, and her face still looked swollen from crying. Blair finally leaned over, kissed her and said, “Take a day off. It won’t hurt you. I’ll go rent some movies for us.”

But Amanda stayed in her room, curled in her bed, and didn’t come out to watch a movie, or to eat any meals, or take a shower and get dressed.

Blair was sick—from exhaustion and worry and a dull pain that pulsed behind her eyes. She remembered her own slow recovery from the rape—she stayed in her house for weeks, watching TV, sleeping, silent, and when the summer ended, it was the headmaster of the school who came and talked her into returning to classes. She remembered the day she got up to go to school that first time. She had examined her body and found that all the bruises and cuts had healed over the couple of months since her attack. She looked at herself in the mirror and thought,
They’re all inside. All the bruises are hiding now.

Blair let Amanda sleep. She took a Vicodin and tried to float through the day, tried not to think about Luke, where he was, what he was thinking, what he had done. Or not done.

But Amanda wouldn’t lie, and she wouldn’t keep lying. He must have been drunk. Blair must have been wrong about him. He was just a guy, like any guy, lusting after a sixteen-year-old girl.

But then she would think about the Luke who came with her to doctor’s appointments and sat by her bed and held her all night. He wasn’t the same man who slipped into bed with her daughter, who pushed himself at her, terrifying her.

She hated the noise in her head, and the Vicodin did nothing to quiet it.

The phone rang, but she didn’t answer it.

She took Sweetpea for a walk—Luke had left Sweetpea, and she wasn’t going to give her back. She walked slowly—every muscle in her body ached. Sweetpea urged her forward gently, as if the sweet dog knew Blair was sick. They made it to the video store, where she rented movies—mysteries, detective stories, thrillers—anything to keep her mind busy. She sat alone in her bedroom, eating popcorn, watching film after film, waiting for Amanda to emerge from her room.

The next morning, Amanda still didn’t get out of bed, still refused to go to school.

“You have to get over this,” Blair said. “You can’t hide in your room, sweetheart.” Eerily, her mother’s voice echoed in her head. She remembered telling her mother, “I’ll never get over this.” Had she? Can you get over rape? Or does it become a permanent wound, hidden deep inside your body?

“I’m not leaving,” Amanda said, curled around a pillow, hiding her face in her hair. Blair held her shoulder, felt like shaking it.

“At least get out of bed,” Blair urged her. “Take a shower. Get dressed.”

“No,” Amanda said.

“What can I do for you?” Blair asked, exasperated.

Amanda didn’t answer.

“Come walk Sweetpea with me,” Blair suggested. “We’ll go to the beach.”

“No,” Amanda said.

“Tomorrow you’ll go back to school,” Blair told her.

She left her in bed, and Blair walked with Sweetpea back to the video store, rented more movies, bought more popcorn. She took a Vicodin and bought a bottle of wine. She didn’t answer the phone.

When Amanda refused to go to school the next day, Blair told her they needed to do something. “I’ll take you to a doctor,” she said. “A therapist.”

“No,” Amanda said. “I just want to sleep.”

“You can’t. You have to get back to your life. I know it was awful, Amanda, but you’ve got to be strong enough to recover from this.”

Amanda didn’t answer.

“What if we went away for a few days?” she suggested.

Amanda looked up at her from the bed.

“I’ll get Luke’s cabin. You have spring break next week. I’m done with work. We’ll go live in the woods for a while.”

“No,” Amanda said. “Not Luke—”

“We won’t see Luke,” Blair said. “I’ll tell him I’ll kill him if he shows up. He owes us this.”

Amanda didn’t argue. Blair left her room and headed toward the phone. She found his number in the woods and dialed.

“Hello?”

“It’s me.”

“Blair.” She could hear the sadness in his voice. She could hear him breathe deeply, and she felt for a moment that he was next to her. She could almost smell him.

“I don’t want to talk to you. I want your cabin. Amanda’s a mess. She won’t go to school. Just give us your cabin for a week or two. Maybe that will help. I don’t know what else to do.”