After a few seconds’ hesitation, Melanie patted the space. “I won’t bite. Or hit. Or try to choke you. Promise.”
Tennyson shrugged and sank onto the warm bench. The sun was hot, making sweat trickle between her shoulder blades, and there wasn’t much of a breeze between the two worlds the culvert separated. Felt like August, which meant it felt like waiting in line for a ticket into hell.
“Where’d you park?” Tennyson asked.
“In front of my old house. Thank goodness the Hamiltons still live next door. I told Mr. Marvin that I needed to take a picture because I wanted to paint the willow tree. He seemed a bit suspicious, but he let me go through his backyard.”
“I parked in front of my old house, too. Looks shitty. People just don’t care these days. My dad would be so upset to see his grass.”
Melanie’s mouth curved. “That man loved his lawn. Remember how he would sit out in his lawn chair and water the bare spots?”
“He was a bit nuts.”
For a few seconds they sat, looking at the August-dry culvert and the dead grass lining it.
“When did they put a bench here?” Tennyson asked, only because she felt more and more awkward sitting beside Melanie. Was the woman going to say something? Apologize for the attempted manslaughter the night before? Suggest a good cover-up for the bruise? Finish what she had started?
Melanie shifted to reveal the placard on the back of the bench. MARCUS JAMES (1968-1977). “I think it was the boy who drowned when there was that flash flood.”
“I remember,” Tennyson said, nodding. “My mom was always so afraid for me to come back here after it rained. I had to promise a million times I wouldn’t go near it.”
“Yeah, and then we did. Our parents were stupid to trust us. One time you fell in. Trying to get—”
“That cookie cutter,” Tennyson finished for her. “We were making animal cookies from the mud.”
Melanie chuckled. “Yeah.”
“Mel, why did you Code Hot Pink me?”
Melanie swallowed and then stared out at the scraggly grass gathered around a telephone pole. “You remember when we were little, and we would talk about our kids. I was going to have twin girls—Molly and Megan. You were going to have just one—good job on that goal, by the way—and her name was going to be Sunrise.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t so great at the name game. My mom obviously instilled the bad-name-choice gene in me.”
“Andrew’s a good name.”
“Stephen picked it,” Tennyson said.
“Well, anyway, back then we would have loved to be where we are now. You know, our two kids marrying each other.” Melanie stopped and looked down at her hands, which she’d been twisting in her lap. “I’ve made a mess of this.”
Tennyson wanted to deny it, but she couldn’t. They’d both made a lot of mistakes, but what happened yesterday wasn’t something Tennyson could claim. She may have unintentionally had a hand in it, but the rest was all Melanie.
Finally, Melanie looked up at her. “I’m sorry, Tennyson. For what I did to you last night. It was . . . I have no excuse. I am really bad at jumping to conclusions and making assumptions. Emma came by this morning. She told me the truth. That you had been trying to help me.”
“Okay, sure. I accept your apology.” Suddenly she felt nervous. Like Melanie was about to take her somewhere she wasn’t sure she wanted to go. Tennyson had been waiting for weeks for Melanie to broach the subject of their past and the mistakes they’d both made, but now she wasn’t sure she wanted to wade in. Their past was like walking into a house so old a stiff wind could knock it down. Inside were spiderwebs, broken windows, and weak spots that could send her plummeting. Better to accept the apology and return to a safe place. “You have a helluva right hook.”
“Oh God. Don’t remind me of how horribly I behaved.”
“You know everyone behaves badly sometimes. Some of us more than others.”
Melanie looked away, her face twisted with regret . . . pain. “I assumed you wanted to cause trouble between me and Kit, but the problem is, I’ve been the person causing the trouble. I’ve been looking to place blame for my rocky marriage on everyone but myself.”
“Bullshit. Did Kit tell you that?”
Tears had gathered in her eyes and silently leaked out. “No. But I . . . I don’t know. Things have been so difficult. And, no offense, but my daughter marrying the son of my former best friend turned enemy has been hard to deal with, especially on top of Hillary, my mother, and my husband’s business partner trying to climb his leg. Our marriage hasn’t been solid in a while. We’ve been disconnected from each other for so long that I don’t know if we can find our way back. For someone everyone says ‘has it together,’ my life is falling spectacularly apart. You were an easy target.”
Tennyson smiled. “I make myself an easy target.”
“You didn’t deserve what I did.”
“Yeah, I did. That’s why I didn’t fight back. I could have, but somehow I couldn’t because I knew that wasn’t just about Kit. It was about the senior party, your grandmother’s ashes, the broken baton, the calling ‘dibs’ first every time, and for essentially ruining your wedding and your father’s career. I deserved this,” she said, tapping her cheek.
Melanie looked over at her, the tears still coming, but questions were in her brown eyes.
Tennyson reached out and took Melanie’s hand. “I was never an easy friend.”
“But you were always a friend.”
“Until I took that away. That was on me, Melanie. You tried to change that, and I couldn’t accept you and Kit. You know me—I want all the toys.” Tennyson paused and looked out at the spot where they had acted out little-girl fantasies. Back then, they’d been fierce friends, joined at the hip, invincible. “I wasn’t sure why I came back to Shreveport. I mean, it was a weird choice.”
“Andrew’s here,” Melanie said.
“Yeah, but still. It’s not like I couldn’t fly in to see him on occasion, and he’s going to be busy making his own life. He has about twenty minutes a day, if that, for his old mom. No, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that subconsciously I couldn’t move on, couldn’t be happy, until I fixed what I did. But the thing is, that’s impossible. It’s like asking someone to empty an ocean one bucketful at a time. I can’t undo what I did to your family.”
Melanie turned her hand over, clasping Tennyson’s. “True, but I’m tired of the past. Tired of being angry about it. Anger does no good. Just festers. Maybe that’s why I’m where I am now. I didn’t say anything to Hillary. Never fought back against my mother. And even with Kit, I pussyfooted around the truth. I’m my own worst enemy.”
“We all are.” Tennyson wiped her face, which was a mixture of flop sweat and a few stealth tears that had found their way to the party. “So what do we do about us?”
Melanie reached into the hidden pocket of her athletic capris and pulled something out. When she uncurled her hand, the best friends locket lay in her hand. Tennyson felt something stick in her throat. She knew it was more tears. Maybe a sob. Something that needed to come out.