Getting Even Read online

  “Annie?” Ashley squealed. “Is that you? Is that really you? Where are you?”

  “At my grandmother’s,” Annie replied. “How are you, Ashley? How are you feeling?”

  “I’m feeling better about things, actually,” Ashley said. “Not great, of course. We shouldn’t expect miracles in Missouri. But better. More human if you know what I mean. How are you? What’s new? Did you get my letters?”

  “All of them,” Annie said. “Well, I assume all of them. You write a lot of letters, Ashley. I’m sorry I’m so slow about answering them.”

  “This phone call counts for twenty letters,” Ashley declared. “And a couple of mailgrams as well. I can’t get over your calling me. I feel so isolated out here, and the summer just seems to be slipping away, and I send out my letters and wait for answers, which rarely come, although Torey is pretty good about it, and I’m complaining again, aren’t I. I’ve made a solemn vow to stop complaining so much, and here I am doing it anyway. That’s just like me. Complaining and jabbering. So I’ll stop. You complain instead.”

  Annie laughed. “It’s fun to hear you complain and jabber,” she declared. “Actually it’s fun to hear anybody complain and jabber who isn’t me, if you know what I mean.”

  “You have problems?” Ashley asked.

  “Big ones,” Annie said. “And one of them is Torey.”

  “I’m listening,” Ashley said, so Annie told her about the fight she’d had with Torey. She tried to remember what they’d both said, and she was reasonably sure she was being fair to Torey.

  “Something’s going on with Torey,” Ashley declared when Annie had finished her story. “I’m not quite sure what it is, but I get the feeling things aren’t going well at home.”

  “Things are never going well there,” Annie said. “There are always problems with Torey’s family.”

  Ashley laughed. “Torey’s family might have problems,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean they don’t get worse sometimes, or better others. And Torey might feel less able to handle things right now.”

  “Because of Image,” Annie said. “Boy, if it was hard for me to go back to my happy middle-class life after a summer there, I can’t imagine what it must have been like for Torey.”

  “No, you can’t,” Ashley said. “You can’t begin to imagine.”

  Annie got the uncomfortable feeling she couldn’t imagine how things were for Ashley either. “I forget sometimes,” she said, “that my life isn’t the only one that’s changing.”

  “You’re one step ahead of me, then,” Ashley said. “I’m only just learning that. I haven’t begun to forget it.”

  “I feel terrible,” Annie said. “I acted as though we were back at the Abigail Adams, and we were forcing Torey to join us, because we knew she’d enjoy herself if we did. Only we’re not there anymore, and her life isn’t anything like what it was last summer, and she must hate me for acting like it is. Do you think I should call her right now to apologize?”

  “No,” Ashley said. “I don’t. You didn’t mean to hurt her feelings, and it sounds as though Torey overreacted. Torey isn’t perfect, you know. She has to grow up too, same as the rest of us. But the next time you call her, try to remember that things are real bad for her and her family, and that’s her reality, whether we like it or not. It isn’t always easy to remember that, that we all have our own different universes, but that’s the truth of the matter, whether we like it or not.”

  “Tell me about it,” Annie said. “Want to hear about the mess I made with my boyfriend?”

  “Are you kidding?” Ashley said. “Of course I do. What a silly question.”

  “His name is Chris …” Annie began.

  “I know all about him,” Ashley declared. “Robin wrote to me about him. He goes to Harvard and he’s gorgeous. But she didn’t mention any mess.”

  “She didn’t know about it,” Annie said.

  “And you’re telling me instead?” Ashley said. “I’m flattered.”

  “You might understand better,” Annie said. “Ashley, your family is kind of weird …”

  “Thanks, Annie,” Ashley said. “That’s very tactfully put.”

  “Oh,” Annie said. “I mean, well …”

  “My family is colorful,” Ashley said. “How’s that?”

  “Colorful,” Annie said. “And Chris has a father who’s real colorful too, and he and I got into a fight over him, and I honestly don’t know what I did wrong.”

  “Well, if you told Chris his father was weird, that might be a start,” Ashley said. “Tell your colorful Aunt Ashley everything.”

  Annie did. “Was it my fault?” she asked, once she’d finished.

  “Not completely,” Ashley replied. “It sounds like Chris had a lousy time with his father, and was dreading the wedding, and needed somebody to get angry at, and you won. Congratulations.”

  “But I was partly wrong,” Annie said.

  “What do you think?” Ashley asked. “Oh, Miss Innocent.”

  “I was partly wrong,” Annie admitted. “I guess I did flirt with Chris’s father a little, and then I made matters worse by telling Chris what I thought about his father.”

  “Good thinking,” Ashley said. “I wasn’t thrilled when you said my family was weird just now, and we certainly are. Families are off limits, Annie. I may know my mother’s a drunk, but if anybody even hints that to me, they’re dead meat. Those are the rules.”

  “I know,” Annie said. “You’re right. I lost track of the rules.”

  “Believe me, I understand,” Ashley said. “Rules are very shifty things.”

  “So you think I should apologize to Chris?” Annie asked.

  “I don’t think you should apologize to anybody,” Ashley said. “I never apologize, and see how far it’s gotten me.”

  Annie considered saying ten different things, and chose not to say anything.

  “If you still care about Chris, you should let him know,” Ashley declared. “That’s all. And thank you for not saying anything.”

  “You’re welcome,” Annie said. “I’ve been speaking a lot without thinking lately. It’s about time I thought first.”

  “A lovely sentiment,” Ashley said. “Work it up in needlepoint, and I’ll be the first to buy it.”

  Annie laughed. “Were you always this smart, Ashley, or is this something new?”

  “A little of both,” Ashley said. “You were too awed last summer by my flashy exterior to notice just how brilliant and insightful my interior was.”

  “Well now I know,” Annie said. “Next time I need somebody to straighten me out, I’ll know where to turn.”

  “If you behave yourself, you won’t need anyone else’s help,” Ashley said, whooping with laughter. “Oh, if I only followed my own advice, my life would be so much easier!”

  “Life is a mess,” Annie said. “I have that on excellent authority.”

  “It’s certainly true for me,” Ashley said. “Do you think you might call me sometime, when things are going well?”

  Annie had a quick image of Ashley flash through her mind. Was Ashley angry? Did she feel used? No, Annie decided. Ashley was grateful to be needed, in a way Annie would never have been. “I promise I will,” Annie said. “Or answer some of your letters, or generally do a better job of staying in touch. Maybe we’ll even get together soon.”

  “I’d like that,” Ashley said. “And I want to know how things go with Chris.”

  “I’ll be sure to tell you,” Annie said. “I owe you that.”

  “And take it easy with Torey,” Ashley said. “You might even write, rather than call her. Whatever it is she’s going through, she isn’t ready to share it, and you know how she cherishes her privacy.”

  “Remind me to ask your advice more often,” Annie said.

  “Remind me to take it myself,” Ashley said. “Give my love to Robin.”

  “I’ll do that,” Annie promised, and after exchanging goodbyes they hung up. All she had to do
was find exactly the right words for Torey and Chris and Murray and her father, and things would be all right again. Maybe not the same as they had been before. Maybe worse, and just maybe better. But certainly all right.

  “Are you mad at me?” Robin asked Annie later that night.

  “Absolutely not,” Annie said. “I’ve been mad at the world lately, myself included, but you were the one exception.”

  “I’m glad,” Robin said, sitting on Annie’s bed. “I thought you might be, because you’ve hardly been speaking to me since I got here.”

  “Be grateful,” Annie said. “All you missed was endless ranting from me about my problems.”

  “Sounds like fun,” Robin said. “Want to talk about them now?”

  “No,” Annie said. “Because now I know what I have to do to solve my problems, and the only thing that remains for me to do is solve them.”

  “I wish my life was that simple,” Robin said with a sigh. “Easy-to-define problems with ready-made solutions.”

  “What’s the matter?” Annie asked.

  “Nothing,” Robin replied. “Everything. I miss Tim so much, and then we tried to cram everything into three hours tonight, and all we ended up feeling was harried and frustrated and ill at ease.”

  “Sounds great,” Annie said. “Not unlike my own life lately.”

  “We had this fabulous summer, practically unbelievable in its wonderfulness, and then we go back to our worlds, and things just stink,” Robin said.

  “I don’t know that I’d go that far,” Annie said. “For a few weeks there, my life was as good as it was last summer.”

  “But then things got bad again,” Robin said. “Right?”

  “I made some mistakes,” Annie said. “Not irreversible ones, I hope.”

  “Well I haven’t made any mistakes, and I’m ready to scream,” Robin said. “I go to school and I’m bored, and some boy asks me out, somebody I’d have been thrilled to be asked out by last year, and half of me wants to say yes, and the other half thinks of Tim and wants to say no, and I don’t know that Tim isn’t dating anybody else. He told me tonight he isn’t, but even if he’s telling the truth, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t go out with other people. Girls. He should go out with girls, and I should go out with boys, because after all, we’re seventeen years old, and live hundreds of miles apart, and it’s crazy for us to remain faithful. What do you think?”

  Annie laughed. “I think you and Tim had better work that out for yourselves,” she said. “The way I’ve been running my life lately, I’m the last person to be giving advice.”

  “Do you think things are ever going to get back to normal?” Robin asked. “The way we were before the internship?”

  “Do you want things to be like that?” Annie asked.

  Robin shook her head. “I thought I was happy, but I was half dead,” she declared. “I had been ever since Caro died. I did everything I was supposed to, and I fooled a lot of people into thinking I was the average American girl, great demographics and all that, but I didn’t care. Image forced me out of that. Sure, I’m bored this year, and discontented, and I don’t have the slightest idea what to do about Tim, but that’s all because I’m alive again. My mother can see the difference. She’s the only one I know who can, but a couple of days after I got back, we were just talking, and I guess I was telling her about the fashion shoot I went on, and she started crying.”

  “Really?” Annie said, trying to picture the scene.

  “I got really worried,” Robin said. “Mom cried all the time after Caro died, but since then she’s hardly cried at all. Not even at sad movies. And there I was, telling her about getting up at that ungodly hour and Torey whispering ‘have fun’ to us, and she started crying. I got panicked, and Mom started laughing, which only made me worry more, but then she said it was because I sounded so happy. Happier than I’d been in years. And she was right, and I started crying then too, and it felt good. We were both total messes, but it felt good.”

  “Life is a mess,” Annie said. “But not all messes are bad.”

  “You’ve been talking to your grandmother again,” Robin declared. “You’re always a lot smarter after you’ve been talking to her.”

  “I’ve been growing up too,” Annie said. “Isn’t that funny? I didn’t realize it until just this moment. I’ve been stretching lately, and it isn’t always easy, and I haven’t done a consistently great job of it, but I’m definitely growing up.”

  “So that’s what this is,” Robin said. “Growing pains.”

  Annie nodded. “Think you can learn to live with them?”

  “Do I have a choice in the matter?” Robin asked.

  “Not that I know of,” Annie replied.

  “Then I might as well stretch,” Robin said. “Just as long as you promise to stretch along with me.”

  Chapter 14

  Dear Torey,

  I called up Ashley a couple of days ago, and she told me, maybe not in these exact words, that I had a big mouth (actually, those might have been just the words she used, but I hope not).

  I think she has a point. It’s hard to remember that what was acceptable last summer might not be in the fall. Sure, we teased each other a lot while we were at Image, but that doesn’t give us the automatic right to keep teasing each other (even though we might continue to like each other just as much as we ever did).

  What I’m trying to say is I know I got out of line, and I feel bad about it. I was being selfish, wanting you to join Robin and me this weekend, and I wasn’t thinking about your needs at all.

  I hope my foolishness won’t affect our friendship.

  Love, Annie

  P.S. There’s a lot more to my grandmother than her swimming pool. I hope you have a chance to get to know her someday.

  Annie read the letter one last time before putting it into the envelope, and sealing it. It was the first step in getting her life back in order, and she was fairly confident it would work. If she knew Torey at all, then Torey was as upset about their fight as she had been, and would be grateful for a chance to forgive and forget. And that was all Annie wanted to have happen.

  It had been a great weekend after all, she reflected, as she checked her seatbelt. She, Robin, and Tim had all had brunch together on Sunday, and that seemed to ease things between Tim and Robin. Then the three of them had gone into New York City for the afternoon. They had no particular plans about what to see, but almost without talking about it, they walked towards the Image building. Even on the Sunday of a three-day weekend, midtown Manhattan was crowded, but that didn’t stop them from standing in front of the building and posing for pictures. Robin used the expensive new camera she’d purchased with her Image salary.

  “These pictures had better come out,” she muttered, as she fussed with light readings and apertures. “It would be embarrassing if the only pictures that came out were the ones from Annie’s disk camera.”

  “I wouldn’t be embarrassed,” Annie declared. “I’m not even embarrassed posing in front of this building like the failed cover girl I am.” She gave Robin her best Image smile, while Tim obligingly ogled her.

  “I don’t suppose there’s any point in going in,” Robin said, once her urge to take photographs had worn off.

  “It’s Sunday,” Annie said gently. “There’s nobody there.”

  “Next time we’ll have to come during the week,” Robin declared. “So they can make a big fuss over us.”

  “Assuming they even remember us,” Annie said, and then she realized just how much that sounded like her father.

  “They’ll remember us,” Robin declared. “They’re bound to remember Ashley and Torey, after all, and we can just remind them that we were there that same summer.”

  “Good thinking,” Annie said.

  “Anybody for the Abigail Adams Hotel?” Tim asked. “On our little nostalgia cruise.”

  “There’ll be people there,” Annie said. “Probably staying in our rooms at this very moment.�
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  “They have to be neater than Ashley was,” Robin said. “Your room always looked so much better than ours.”

  “Torey didn’t own anything,” Annie said. “That made it a lot easier to keep things clean.”

  “I’m sorry Torey couldn’t make it this weekend,” Tim said. “I would have liked to see her again.”

  “She had to work,” Annie replied, glad that Robin hadn’t told Tim the whole story.

  “I miss work,” Robin said. “Isn’t that funny? Last summer, there were times I would have given the whole experience away, even you, Tim, just to get out of the office a few hours early. My boss would be in one of his grouchy moods, and all I’d have been doing all day long was lugging things around, and my muscles would ache so, and there was no glamour to it, absolutely none, and all I’d want was a shower and an air-conditioned bedroom, and three more hours of sweating and grunting would be staring me in the face, and I’d think how I never wanted to work again. And now, sometimes, when I think about what I miss most from this summer, it’s the sense of actually accomplishing something. Do you know what I mean, Annie?”

  “I know exactly what you mean,” Annie replied. “That’s why I liked working for Murray.” She only hoped she’d be able to work for him again. “School’s fine, but I just feel like I’m killing time there, until I get to be a grownup again.”

  “I think you’re both crazy,” Tim declared. “I’m in no rush for all those adult responsibilities, thank you very much. I have every intention of enjoying school for as long as I can stretch it out. We’ll all be spending forty years or more in the marketplace. No point jumping in before we have to.”

  “I’d dive right in this very minute if I thought I could get the job I wanted,” Annie said.

  “Oh, yeah?” Tim said. “And what job is that?”

  “Dictator of a small Latin American country,” she replied, and joined Robin in a burst of helpless giggles.

  Tim drew the line at their going into the lobby of the Abigail Adams. “I spent too many awful moments being scrutinized there last summer,” he declared. “No force under heaven is going to make me walk in there again.” So the three of them stood outside the building, and then they posed for some more photographs.