I laughed, then was immediately silenced by the sight of the foyer I was standing in. Easily the size of half my entire house, the room was three stories of white-painted federal paneling with an elaborate, curving staircase that reminded me of Twelve Oaks. I’d never seen anything so extravagant in real life, but I tried to sound unaffected when I remarked, “This place is a real shithole, huh.”
He just rolled his eyes.
I was going to ask which direction I should head in, when a light flicked on from the hallway upstairs and Mr. Wilmington’s voice yelled down. “Terrence, is that you?” It was easily two in the morning and I hoped that Trip’s parents were up because they’d just gotten home themselves, not because we’d woken them.
Trip started to shuffle me into the next room, saying, “Yeah, Dad. It’s just me and Layla.”
I shot Trip a guilty look, hoping he wasn’t going to get in trouble for bringing friends home in the middle of the night when his father chortled out, “Layla? The Warren whore’s girl? What’s she doing in our house?”
I don’t know how long I stood in that foyer, my jaw dropped wide open and my eyes bugging out of my head, but it was probably no more than a second. It felt a lot longer. It felt like I’d been slapped.
Trip looked as though he’d been punched in the stomach. His posture deflated instantaneously at the burden of his father’s words. He turned toward me, all broken empathy, but I was only able to catch his eye for an instant before making a break for the front door.
I flew down the front steps and bolted down the walkway, my only goal to get as far away from the scene as possible, when I suddenly realized I had nowhere to go. Trip drove me there and I was miles from home. I didn’t even have the comfort and sanctuary of my own car to assist in the escape.
I ran the length of the long driveway, my heart beating wildly even though it felt as though my blood had frozen in my veins.
When I hit the iron gate near the street, I stopped running. I sank to the ground at the curb, the full force of Mr. Wilmington’s words sinking in and finding purchase.
Whore.
I guess I always knew that there had to be whisperings around town about my mother. Norman’s a small town, after all. But the fact was, up until that point, no one had ever been so blunt as to actually say anything to me about it. I’d been suffering under the delusion that maybe, just maybe, everyone didn’t know the whole story.
People always describe small towns as quaint or cozy or familiar. “You know who your neighbors are,” they always seemed to say. But what you won’t find depicted in a Norman Rockwell painting is how cruel those same neighbors can be. I suppose living in a small town isn’t for those that have something to hide. I guess that realization is what made my mother finally leave.
At the time, I remember being so grateful that at least my father chose to keep the family right where we were instead of uprooting us and moving away. But I can’t imagine what he must have endured in order to do so. Aside from the ghost of his wife that lurked in every familiar corner of town, he had to deal with the sewing circles, the store owners and the PTO. All those wagging tongues and “tsk, tsk, tsks” behind his back had to drive him batty. Oh, sure, there was sympathy. But I guess sympathy takes a backseat to a juicy bit of gossip any day of the week around here.
Where did those people get off? Wasn’t it enough that my poor father was left to raise my brother and me all by himself? That Bruce and me were suddenly motherless? That the three of us had to endure the guilt, the unanswered questions, the hole that my mother left behind when she went away?
Whore.
Of course that’s all anyone thought about my mother. Why wouldn’t they?
No one knew her as I did, for too brief a time, dancing in the kitchen or frosting a lopsided birthday cake or singing showtunes at the top of her lungs to wake me up in the morning. The way she’d stand at the window and open the shades, the morning sun backlighting her honey hair and making her look like an angel.
No. To Mr. Wilmington and most likely the entire town, Kate Warren’s entire existence can be summed up in one word: whore.
I swiped my arm across my dampened face and looked down at what I was wearing; unexpectedly assessing my clothes with new, albeit blurred eyes. Suddenly, my dress seemed too short, the sleeveless top showed too much shoulder. I loved that dress only a few short hours ago, but Mr. Wilmington’s outburst had me feeling overly self-conscious. Exposed.
Whore.
I heard Trip’s sneakers pounding against the blacktop and coming to a stop at my back. He blew out a heavy breath and silently sank onto the grass behind me.
I didn’t lift my face from my hands.
“It’s true,” I said.
“What?”
“It’s true,” I reiterated before explaining. “About my mother. What your father said. That she’s... she’s a...”
“Layla, stop it.”
I lifted my head, but I still couldn’t find it in me to turn and look him in the face. “No. I told you my mother wasn’t around, but you don’t know the whole story. She left us, Trip! She was probably screwing half the town when finally, she just up and left us for one of her boyfriends. And everyone knows it. Including your father.”
“My father is an asshole.”
“Yeah, well, he may be an asshole, but at least he’s still around. At least he’s still here.”
“Oh, you think that’s better?”
“Better than being left behind? Better than watching your father overcompensate every single day because he’s trying to make up for whatever part he thinks he played in her leaving? Better than being left to deal with the fallout of my mother’s stellar reputation? Yeah. I think that’s better.”
Trip didn’t know what to say, I guess, but it’s not as though I was giving him a whole lot of air to respond, launching into a hysterical rant. “You don’t know what it’s like, to be a girl without a mother! Having to do things like go on your first date, or start high school or get ready for the prom, knowing she’s not going to be there. You don’t know what it’s like to stare down a random woman on the street, wondering if maybe this time, it could really be her. You don’t know how impossible- how completely freaking impossible it is- to try and make sense of any of it, every single solitary day of your life, just wanting to know... WHY?”
I took a huge shaky breath into my lungs, trying to calm myself down. I’d gotten my crying under control, but I’m sure I was a puffy, red mess. “You just can’t possibly know. I mean, your mom is so great!”
“Yeah, you’re right, Lay. I don’t know. And she is. But I look at it like she’s the saving grace for the fact that my father’s a total dick.”
“But he seems so...”
“Nice?”
“Yeah. The way he smiles and jokes around and stuff.”
“Well, he is. Nice, I mean. When he’s not drinking.”
Drinking... Wait- what?
I couldn’t make sense of it at first. Trip was trying to tell me that his father was... an alcoholic? But it was just too weird that someone I knew was actually dealing with a thing like that, something you normally only see on TV. Yet there it was.
“He’s like, multiple personalities or something. One minute, he’s my dad, the guy that shows up to my hockey matches and is able to run a billion dollar company.”
The word “billion” almost made me choke, and I hoped Trip was just throwing it around to exaggerate his point.
“The next, he’s got a few scotches in him and he turns into the meanest, snarliest asshole you’d ever want to meet. I never know which guy is waiting for me when I get home.”
I took the confession as something hard for Trip to tell me. It sucked that he seemed so embarrassed about something he had so little to do with. I finally glanced over my shoulder to see him sitting sullenly at the edge of the yard. His shoulders were slumped as he picked at the blades of grass between his feet. My personal concerns left me as I realized I wasn’t the only one hurt and embarrassed back in the house.
I swung my legs around as modestly as possible, no easy feat while wearing a skirt and pivoting on my backside. Under normal circumstances, Trip would have reveled in the opportunity to catch a flash of girl panties, but he was a little preoccupied with his own thoughts at the time.
We sat in silence for a moment until Trip said, “I’m sorry about what my dad said in there. He had no right to talk to you like that.”
I gave a shrug, touched by his words, but not knowing what to say. I mean, it wasn’t his fault that his father said what he did. Why should Trip have to be the one to apologize?
I started picking grass along with him, arranging the occasional blade between my thumbs and blowing, trying to make it whistle. I always sucked at that. Trip decided to join me, with more success, showing off yet another of his innumerable skills. Always showing off. I rolled my eyes and flung my grass back from whence it came.
It was nice being there with him, sitting on the cool lawn in the dark; unspeaking and calm, sharing our secrets and trusting each other to keep them. Funny how our platonic status was bringing me comfort instead of anguish for once.