The Pact (16 page)

But while the majority of Harvard’s student body was on financial aid, Hilary was the only one among us whose parents were completely unable to contribute to her tuition. She was the only child of a single mother, and her father was nowhere in sight, having deserted her mother when Hilary was still a toddler. She made jokes about the times she and her mother had been on welfare and made do with clothes from Goodwill, but it was clear that these experiences had shaped her. Her mother blamed her father for their impoverished state, and her bitterness was not lost on Hilary.

These seeds from her childhood manifested themselves in her fierce independence and her tendency to view men not as potential soul mates but as conquests. She derived no small satisfaction from the act of seducing a man and then tossing him aside in an explicit assertion of her power. Her early experiences bore themselves out in her choice of profession as well. As a journalist, she’d flitted from one dangerous place to another. Her bylines had come from Afghanistan and Bosnia, Indonesia and Colombia. She seemed to court danger out of spite, eager to show that she was master of any situation.

“Relax,” said Jane, following my gaze. “He’s not her type. And I don’t think she’s his type, either. She’s not interested. And she knows that you are. You don’t have anything to worry about.”

I flashed her a grateful look. It was remarkable the way she could still read my thoughts. “On a rational level, I know you’re right. It’s just that she’s gorgeous, and I’m—well, me.”

Jane laughed. “Don’t be an idiot, Rach. You’re gorgeous, too. And he completely has a thing for you. It’s just that Hilary needs continuous affirmation.”

“I don’t mind affirmation. In fact, I actually sort of like affirmation.”

“It’s not the same. Sometimes I worry that Hilary doesn’t know who she is if she’s not getting attention from men. I mean, most of the time she’s the one doing the breaking up, but the few times when she’s been on the receiving end it’s really been a mess. She doesn’t handle rejection well.”

“Nobody handles rejection well,” I argued. “Rejection sucks.”

“I know, but with Hil, it’s totally out of proportion. When Richard dumped her in Los Angeles—”

“What?” I interrupted. This was too much. How had I missed out on this, along with the prenup and everything else? Within any group of friends, there were clearly some relationships that are deeper than others. After all, Emma had remained my closest friend of all of our roommates, no doubt due to sharing a room freshman year. Still, I was always surprised when I learned that somebody else knew things about one of my friends that I didn’t.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know about Richard and Hilary?”

“Know what?”

“They dated. When she was in journalism school at USC, after we graduated. You didn’t know that?”

I searched my memory. Right after college, I’d been in an entry-level position at Winslow, Brown. If my hours were bad now, they were unspeakable then. The two years I’d spent there before returning to business school were a blur to me, a montage of sleepless nights, too much caffeine, and piles of paper swimming with numbers. Weeks would go by without having the time to have a conversation of any length with my friends or family.

“I think I was sort of AWOL right after college,” I confessed when my recollection yielded nothing.

“Well, Hilary dated him for a while when she moved to L.A. They went out for about six months, and then he dumped her, and I assure you, it wasn’t pretty.”

“And I thought she just hated him for the reasons the rest of us did.”

“I’m sure she does. But she also has a reason of her very own.”

Great, I thought. Just great. I felt my stomach churn as I made a mental note to add Hilary to the list of people who had an extraspecial grudge against Richard. I rolled onto my side and propped my head up. “This isn’t good, Jane.” My voice sounded shaky. I hadn’t meant to share my various suspicions with anyone until I’d gotten to the bottom of Richard’s murder, but Jane was one of the least likely suspects among us, and I needed to unburden myself.

“What do you mean?”

“Look, Richard’s dead, and it wasn’t an accident. I told you all about Emma arguing with her father. And apparently Emma met Richard last night after everyone else went to sleep.” I related what Peter had said about Richard’s rendezvous and seeing Emma from his window. “That’s bad enough, but then Luisa said…” I trailed off, not sure I had the right to tell Jane about what Luisa had confided.

“That Richard raped her?” asked Jane.

“How do you know?” I asked, shocked. Luisa said she’d never told anyone.

“I guessed. I mean, it never made sense—Sean and I saw them together that night, and I knew how she felt about Richard. And then the way she rushed off the next morning. It’s true, though, isn’t it?”

I nodded. “And then, finding out about Richard and Hilary…it’s just too much. One bad thing keeps piling on top of another, and no matter how much Richard had it coming, I don’t want to think that someone I care about was the one responsible.”

Jane sighed. “Well, here’s something else to add to the pile. You know that Sean and I are staying in the room next to the one that Luisa and Hilary are staying in?”

“Yes?”

“Well, I couldn’t sleep much last night. Sean was making an unholy racket with his snoring. And I heard them.”

“Heard who?”

“Luisa and Hilary. Not what they said, but I could hear their voices.”

“So?” I asked. It wouldn’t be the first time Hilary had kept someone up half the night with one of her monologues.

“They left their room. Around three-thirty. And they didn’t come back until around four.”

F
rom the corner of my eye, I saw Sean and Luisa come out to the end of the dock. “Jane,” called Sean, “you’re up.”

“Okay,” she answered. “I’ll be right there.” She sat up reluctantly, combing her hands through her damp hair. “Yuck. I was sort of hoping they’d forget about me. But I guess it’s probably time.” She paused and turned to me, taking in my tense expression. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to say anything about Luisa and Hilary last night. And relax, Rachel. I’m sure it was all nothing. I know it looks bad, but there’s probably a very simple, very innocent explanation for everything. There usually is.”

I wished I was as sure, I thought, as I watched her dive cleanly into the water and swim off. It must be nice to have such a confidently benign view of the world.

Sean helped her climb up onto the dock, and Luisa handed her a towel. I saw Hilary steal up behind them, and I knew what she was going to do before Luisa even hit the water. She surfaced spluttering and indignant, a stream of Spanish epithets pouring from her mouth.

“Dammit, Hilary! This bathing suit isn’t supposed to get wet.”

“Brilliant, a bathing suit that’s not supposed to get wet. Where do you find these things?”

“Chanel,” said Luisa as if Chanel was the most natural place to shop for swimwear. “You wretch,” she added, almost as an afterthought. She began swimming towards the raft with a ladylike breaststroke. Hilary dove in after her, and a moment later Peter followed from the shallows. They all joined me on the raft, spattering drops of icy water as they pulled themselves up the ladder.

“Geez, Rach,” said Hilary, poking me in the leg. “You really need to get more sun. You’re practically see-through.”

“Not all of us can be bronzed goddesses,” I said.

“True,” she agreed, plopping her nearly six feet of long, tanned self down.

Luisa carefully lowered herself into a sitting position on my opposite side, safely out of Hilary’s reach. “Do you think we can convince someone to boat out to bring us back to shore? The water’s freezing.”

“But at least the cold water keeps the sharks at bay,” said Hilary.

“Funny,” said Luisa, still peeved. “I don’t know how, and I don’t know when, but I’m going to get you back, Hilary.”

“Okay, I guess there aren’t any sharks. But there’re probably fish and snakes and eels. And leeches. Definitely leeches. Leeches are good, though. There’s nothing like a close encounter with a leech for building character.”

“I have more than enough character, thank you. And it’s so soon after lunch—what if I get a cramp when I swim back?”

“Don’t worry,” I said, “I earned a gold medal in lifesaving at Camp Hiawatha.”

“See, you’ll be fine,” said Hilary.

“Camp Hiawatha, my foot,” grumbled Luisa. “That hardly inspires confidence.”

“Rachel,” explained Hilary to Peter, “was the star of Camp Hiawatha. She earned gold medals at the Camp Hiawatha Olympics in just about every single sport.”

“I have a feeling there were lots of gold medals given out at Camp Hiawatha,” said Luisa.

“They were big on building self-esteem,” I agreed. “Sometimes you got a medal just for participating.”

Peter chuckled and sat down facing me. Beads of water glistened on his arms and legs.

“So, how do you guys think we can get O’Donnell to take a break and come swimming?” asked Hilary. “I would really like to show him my bikini.”

“What there is of it,” said Luisa.

“It seems to have shrunk since I bought it,” said Hilary happily.

“Well, let’s just hope it doesn’t shrink anymore. You’ll get arrested for indecent exposure,” Luisa replied.

“Do you think O’Donnell would do the arresting?”

“For your sake, Hil, I definitely hope so,” I said. She giggled and rolled over onto her stomach, propping her head up on her hands.

“So, Peter,” she said, a mischievous glint in her eye, “why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself?” I groaned inwardly. For a writer, Hilary didn’t place much value in segues, and I had a pretty good idea what was behind her abrupt change in topics. Peter was about to be interviewed for the position of my boyfriend, whether he was ready or not.

“Sure,” he answered. “What do you want to know?” Poor man. He had no idea what was coming.

“Well, tell us about where you grew up, and where you went to school, and what your family’s like, and what you do for a living. And if you have any pets.” She might as well have asked for copies of his grade school report cards, medical records and tax returns.

“You already know he’s from San Francisco,” I protested.

“There are millions of people from San Francisco,” she retorted.

“Indeed,” added Luisa, but I held out little hope that she wasn’t going to play an active part in the interrogation.

“Well, that’s where I grew up. My family’s still out there, too.”

“Do you have a large family?” asked Luisa. “Brothers, sisters?”

“Two brothers. I’m the youngest.”

“So is Rachel,” cried Hilary. “She’s the youngest, and she also has two brothers.” Thatta girl, I thought. Subtle to a fault.

“What a coincidence,” said Peter. I smiled. He was being a good sport.

“And did you go to university in California?” asked Luisa.

“Yep. At Stanford. I did a double major in history and engineering.”

“How interesting,” said Luisa. “You know, Rachel did a double major, too—economics and English.”

“Wow,” I said. “Maybe somebody cloned me at birth and Peter and I are actually the same person.” They ignored me.

“She was the only one of us to graduate summa,” added Hilary. “But she always made it look easy.” I shot her a threatening look, which she blithely pretended not to notice. “And how do you like San Francisco?” she continued, unabashed. “Have you ever though about moving to New York? Rachel’s very attached to New York.”

I couldn’t handle it anymore. Another couple of minutes and they probably
would
be requesting bank statements and medical records.

“I’m getting hot,” I announced to no one in particular. “I think I’ll take a dip.” I stood up and dove from the raft into the water. As I flipped onto my back I heard Hilary asking him why he didn’t have a girlfriend. At least the water was cold enough to promptly freeze any beginnings of a blush.

I swam away from the raft in the opposite direction from shore. Once I got used to the water, it actually felt refreshing.

I remained in the water until I felt my lips beginning to turn blue and then made my way back to the raft. As I climbed the ladder I heard Hilary discoursing on her most recent assignment in Pakistan. I smiled to myself. Peter had clearly realized that the best way to distract her from interrogating him was to get her going on her favorite subject—herself.

“—nuclear capability,” she was saying. “If most Americans only knew the half of it, they’d be terrified.”

“How was your swim, Rachel?” asked Luisa. We’d had an earful from Hilary on Pakistan and geopolitics on the drive up from New York the previous day.

“Brisk,” I said, lowering myself down next to Peter. Hilary seemed to take that as a cue.

“Well,” said Hilary. “I’m going to go in, too. Come on, Luisa. I’ll race you back to shore.” She jumped to her feet.

I could see Luisa weighing her options. Did she value my friendship enough to voluntarily brave the lake water? Was it worth it, simply to leave me alone for an intimate tête-àtête with Peter? She slowly rose and inched over toward the edge of the raft, peering at the water suspiciously. “It still looks awfully cold.”

She should have known better than to stand so close to the edge, especially when she’d been pushed in once. Hilary grabbed her around the waist and leaped off the raft, pulling Luisa in with her. She let out an even more blistering stream of curses this time, some of which I’d never heard in either Spanish or English. Hilary took off for the shore with long, effortless strokes, a California girl to the core. Luisa swore again and followed.

My laughter joined with Peter’s. “Your friends are really…” He searched for the appropriate words.

“Insane?” I asked.

“
Inquisitive
is the word I was looking for.”

“How did you bear up?”

“Under the interrogation, you mean? Let’s just say that I’d rather be interviewed by the police for the rest of the weekend than face down those two again.”

I appreciated his good-natured answer. I surmised from my friends’ willingness to leave me alone with him that he’d passed their exam with flying colors.

“I don’t know if you could pull that off,” I warned. “I think Hilary’s already staked her claim to any of O’Donnell’s spare time.”

“I don’t know if he’ll have any. They seem pretty intent on the investigation.”

“Hilary’s always loved a challenge.”

“Well, I think she’s found one. O’Donnell seemed all business to me.” His tone remained pleasant, but I sensed a note of tension.

“Did they give you a hard time?”

“The police? Let’s just say that Emma’s mother isn’t the only person who’s curious about the matter of Richard’s will. I guess they found copies of both the old and the new one in his room. And they also seem to have discovered that my company’s desperate for cash. They seemed pretty hung up on the idea.”

“They can’t honestly believe that you would have…” my voice trailed off.

“Who knows?” He shrugged. “The irony, of course, is that I don’t think Richard had much money to speak of. His mother did a pretty good job of running through his father’s estate, and Richard himself was the master of the highly leveraged lifestyle.”

“I keep hoping they’ll decide the entire thing was an accident and pack it in.”

“Richard wasn’t the sort to meet with accidental death. Untimely death—certainly. But accidental death? I don’t think so.” He seemed to be talking to himself as much as to me.

“How—how are you doing?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

I chose my words carefully. “Well, everyone’s so casual. It must seem sort of inappropriate to you since you and Richard were actually close. And it must be hard, to be upset when the rest of us have barely skipped a beat.”

He paused before answering. “You know, I told you last night that Richard and I weren’t really in touch. To be candid, we haven’t been really close since we were teenagers. I felt incredibly awkward when he asked me to be his best man, but I would have felt even worse refusing him. That’s not the sort of thing you say no to.”

“No,” I agreed. “It’s not.” I had briefly thought about refusing Emma’s request to be her maid of honor. It had seemed so dishonest given how I felt about the groom. But her friendship was more important to me than taking a stand, and I’d realized that she was intent on going forward with the wedding, regardless of whatever stand I took.

“Richard didn’t seem to have endeared himself to Emma’s friends.”

“No, I’m afraid he didn’t.” I liked Peter too much to try to get by with a platitude.

“I guess that all of the qualities that were so much fun when we were kids didn’t make him a lot of friends as an adult.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, curious as to what Richard had been like as a child. I’d always wondered whether he had been born an utter jerk or evolved into one.

“Oh, stupid things, mostly. He always had a plan up his sleeve, a scheme of some sort. Not just silly pranks, but ways to get good grades without doing a lick of work, ways to get extra money from his mother, that sort of thing. He was always looking for shortcuts. And he had this incredible ability to pull anything off, because he could talk his way out of any situation. Our teachers loved him. They would fall for all of his lines. And he just sort of skated along on the basis of his charm and his wits.”

“That sounds a lot like the Richard I knew,” I said, as noncommittally as I could.

“It’s funny—my parents never liked him much. I think they were relieved when he went away to school and I wasn’t spending as much time with him. They thought he was a bad influence.” He gave a small laugh, remembering.

“Well, it sounds like he didn’t have much of a family life to ground him in any way,” I commented, referring to the conversation we’d had in the kitchen before lunch.

“No,” agreed Peter. “He didn’t.” He was quiet for a bit, but then he continued in a firmer tone. “Still, there comes a point when someone has to take responsibility for his own actions—you can’t just keep blaming your mother for screwing you up.”

I thought about that, silently agreeing with him. I’d never had much patience for Freud or the endless analysis of one’s childhood experiences that seemed to constitute so much of psychotherapy. So many people just seemed to use whatever happened in their childhoods as an excuse to keep them from moving forward. I thought about my most recent ex-boyfriend, a guy who spent more time with his therapist than he did with me. I’d heard the story about how his mother had lost him in the park one day on seven different occasions. Surely, thirty years later, he should have been able to get beyond that? And then, of course, there was all of that stuff about penis envy. What a hoax.