Forgiven (Ruined) Page 9

  Doesn't matter. Despite the heat of the day, I've gone cold. Maybe it's because the return address is nothing more than a PO Box. Which could mean nothing. People who send direct mail often try to make the pieces they send look like surely this is from someone I know. That way you open it.

  Yeah, Willow, but there's usually something on the envelope. Something intriguing if nothing else. Like the way Direct TV makes all their ads look like invitations.

  I look around for the letter opener. Bruce probably has one in his office but I don't feel like going all the way across the house to his home office and poking around there. There's supposed to be one in a basket on the sofa table where the mail goes but it disappears often enough, with everybody claiming innocence, that we all joke about having a poltergeist. Finally I take the envelope into the kitchen and use one of Mama Lita's knives.

  Inside the envelope is a single sheet of paper, wrapped around cardboard-hard squares, which scatter onto the kitchen counter when I pull out the paper.

  Photos. Someone bothered to print up photos? And send them. Anonymously. No way this was going to turn out good. The photos lie face down on the counter. I reach out to flip them over, gritting my teeth, preparing for what I couldn't say. My old house in Seattle? Pictures of my father? My old high school? Or –

  It's not actually that much of a surprise when I turn over the first. The photo is of me and Reed in the lane behind the house, talking while standing beside his car. I hadn't realized he had touched my arm or the way he leaned into me when he talked. For a second I'm lost in the attention he was showing me rather than the message inherent in the photos. There are two others. The next one I turn over shows me up on tiptoes kissing Reed goodbye. In the one after that, there's me and Kellan on the beach, lying on our stomachs side by side sharing his blanket, our bodies cocked toward each other, heads together as we kiss.

  This isn't about Kellan. This is about me. This is about Reed. My mind zips back to Sunday when I stood talking to Reed in the lane behind the house. There were all those people coming and going, beautiful beach day, all manner of people walking to and from the sand. And there'd been the guy who watched us so closely from the steps of the apartment building across the street, the guy with the camera strung around his neck and the sound I'd heard before Reed drove away, the sound I'd discounted as part of the ambient noise of the street.

  The sound of the camera.

  Henry Tate Miller. He's not done with me yet. It offends his delicate sensibilities that a girl like me with my past might get close to his son. His Son. Because Reed isn't just Reed. Reed is a reflection of his father.

  I had the reverse in Seattle, in a way. My father had been loved by the community, by the high school where he was a basketball coach. He held it together every day, and lost it every night, and the students and faculty and neighbors and friends who knew the everyday him loved him and hated me when I killed him. They saw the daily man, not the nightly monster who emerged after my mother went to work. The finding of self-defense meant nothing to them. There was never a trial. Not in the courts anyway. So I was judged for my father, the public father that everyone knew and loved.

  Reed is judged by his father based on the community Henry Tate Miller is determined to remain respected in. Miller will never understand that the community doesn't judge him by what Reed does, or that the community would accept Reed as a talented journalist with a promising future if Reed's father's dream wasn't that both boys would follow him into the law firm.

  And he'll never accept me. He'll also never believe that Reed and I aren't together. The photo of me kissing Reed should be obvious to anyone is the photo of a kiss between friends. The photo of me kissing Kellan? That's a different story and should tell the story to Reed's father.

  Instead, the sheet of paper that had wrapped round the photos bears the words "Slut." That should hit me like a slap but it just feels tiresome. Following that is the threat to tell everyone about my past, to ruin my mother in Charleston society.

  That's not just a threat. That's real. There's a divide between Charleston society, the opera and the museum and the other committees my mother so happily serves on, and those people who are even aware of the existence of DCTV, let alone the success of the documentary series on forgiveness that Deaton University's college television station has released. It's a tentative line. One that my mother herself is aware of. We haven't taken steps to keep it from them, but so far no one on any of her committees has said, "Hey, Mrs. Blake, saw you on television the other night, is it true your daughter – "

  It's still not an event I can think of lightly.

  That's still not something I want to have happen to my mother.

  I could write back to Henry Tate Miller. I could send him, what, notice of the emails from Dexter to Reed, asking for help with the station? My engagement picture in the newspaper, Miss Willow Blake, once but no longer known as Kate Lambert, announces her engagement to Kellan Bruce Avery. The groom expresses surprised delight, as he has yet to propose. Gifts may be sent to –

  The nearest mental hospital. Get a grip. But I'm smiling now. Because Henry can relax. Reed has gone back to Boston. I've got the station under control, break-ins aside. Having seen the photos of Reed with me I'll keep my distance even more. I wish the blond had been a fixture. I'd truly like to keep Reed as a friend. But he loves the job he has now and I don't think any good would come of his learning his father arranged it just to keep him away from me. If anything, he might look on my being "forbidden" as even more enticing.

  With that thought I sweep the photos back together. This has been a most indecisive day. I've managed to resolve to keep my eyes on Kellan, keep my eyes open for the woman I assume is Aimee Reynolds' sister, to keep my eyes, hands and everything else off Reed Miller, and keep looking for any kind of lurking photographers.

  Every decision I made today is to "wait and see." Good going, girl.

  Chapter 11

  "You're not eating," my mother says.

  She doesn't usually notice. After all, she doesn't usually eat. My mother is queen of the half an apple and a cup of coffee breakfast. In summer it changes to half a cup of strawberries.

  "I'm not hungry."

  She's still reading the paper on her tablet. Probably the society pages. Where I want her to remain happily embedded, seeing her name on committee lists and her picture in Who Was There columns,. She doesn't look away from the tablet when she says, "Kellan's not hungry either."

  Which from my mother could be the invitation to sit down and bare my soul, an accusation of What have you done to the boy? Or a simple observation.

  I choose to ignore it, yawning into my coffee. I've got to get to school. Despite everything with his father, I wish Reed was still here if for no other reason that I am never going to make it through math without him.

  Tutors. I could hire a tutor. Bruce would be willing to pay for it and since it's something I definitely don't consider a luxury – it's a necessity, and not one I even want – I'd probably be willing to let him.

  "Why aren't you hungry?" The question comes out of nowhere. She's still looking at her tablet. Has she changed pages at all?

  "I need to hire a math tutor." That ought to be obscure enough.

  My mother puts the e-reader down. "Are you having trouble in school?"

  Under the question I hear a host of other questions, most of them about the past. Did we wait long enough for me to start college? Did I need more time? Has something triggered memories of that time? What she doesn't know is there are no triggers – that night and the nights surrounding it on either side never leave me.

  "It's OK, mom," I say lightly. "It's just I have a required math class."

  She makes a moue with her mouth. "You definitely have my sympathy. And my blessings. Get a tutor. Get two."

  I laugh. "Take two, they're small." I lean down and kiss her cheek. "Just one. One who makes sense."

  "Good luck finding that," my mother says darkly. He
r opinion of math matches mine. I exit laughing.

  * * *

  After classes I head over to DCTV. All I really need to do today is admin stuff. I can probably study there, just being present. I'd like to see the news broadcast and I wanted to talk to Tabby about the documentary ideas, maybe both brainstorm and get her on my side.

  I'm more comfortable here now. Tabitha still glares a lot but Reed was right – she doesn't have a lot of follow through. I do. I've gotten one series off the ground, learned how to write programming schedules, learned how to talk engineeringese with the engineering students and I'm comfortable leading meetings which I'll prove as soon as there's a reason to have another.

  "You've got mail," Dexter tells me when I go in. The big important exec desk that still looks like a multipurpose room table is occupied by Tabby so I head into a corner and check my email there, then my physical mail.

  I wish I hadn't. "The crazies are coming out of the woodwork."

  Dexter, passing by, stops, studying my face. "Everything OK?"

  "Hard to say. Are we getting much of this stuff?" I wave a letter in the air. Man people still write a lot of physical US Post Office letters. Maybe because it's easier to be anonymous.

  He tries to read the letter as it shakes by his face, then stills my hand and takes the letter and scans it. "Oh. Yeah. People will write about anything."

  I stare at him. "We showed Seinfeld from first season through last for how many centuries and he – she? It's not signed, is it?" He shakes his head. "Is upset because we replaced it with Two and a Half Men?"

  He shrugs. "It's sad."

  I stare at the letter. "It's crazy."

  He nods, but he's more sympathetic than I am. "Imagine if the only thing you had to look forward to was reruns of a sitcom, shown in order, at the expected time every day, on a college TV station."

  I stare at him, then shiver. It's a horrible notion. "OK, OK."

  He gives me a goofy look. "So you're going to reinstate Seinfeld?"

  I glower at him.

  "Damn. I'll have to go write some more letters."

  "Go away," I tell him, grinning.

  I stop grinning when I open the next letter. Way, way too many people writing letters.

  "I know who you are," this one reads. "And I know what you did."

  On the same page, printed, is a picture of my old house in Seattle.

  The post mark on the envelope is Charleston.

  * **

  The math tutor is a tall skinny guy from India. His sense of humor seems to revolve completely around math, which means I don't understand a single one of the jokes he tells (I assume they're jokes, because he keeps laughing and saying, "Not really." Not helpful, since I have no idea what it is he's saying Not really about.) This also means he doesn't understand a single joke I tell, either, and I stop trying to make jokes very quickly.

  There is nothing funny about math.

  It's a normal school day, a Thursday. It's a broadcast journalism day, which is my favorite class. The day started off well. The only person stirring in the house was Carmelita when Kellan, musty and sleep mussed, tapped lightly on my door and came in. My alarm hadn't even gone off.

  I almost pretended to be asleep. Everything in me wanted to blurt out that I knew who had sent the box to him even if he didn't and I could help. I had no idea how but I was sure I could.

  The urge to talk at all passed almost instantly, though. Kellan slid into bed beside me, his body still warm from his own bed. Sometimes in the morning he seems to weigh more, not that he's heavy, just that there's a languid warmth to him, a sinuous heaviness, kind of a cat-like coil. It makes me want to curl into him and spend a long, dark, thunderstorm kind of day under the covers with him.

  An urge that soon passed. He didn't say much. Murmured something about missing me. I whispered back, "I've been right here."

  "I know," he said. "I'm an idiot." Spacing his words around soft kisses along my throat, my ears, in my hair, across my face. I shifted in the bed, pressing against him, feeling his excitement hard against me. I wrapped my legs around his and drew him closer and by the time my alarm went off, the day had already gotten off to a rousing start.

  Many hours later I'm finishing up with the straight-faced math tutor and my head aches from the experience. I keep thinking of my mother saying, "Take two." I may have to. One math tutor to explain math, the second to explain what the first is talking about. Joy.

  Walking out of the math lab where we met, it's the first time I've had all day to really sit and think.

  They're not happy thoughts. My mind keeps whirling. I sink down in a booth at The Coffee Mug, grateful not to see anyone I know, and stare into my coffee cup like it holds the secret to the future.

  Except that's tea leaves that tell the future. And everything I'm dealing with seems to come out of the past. There's the package that came to Kellan, probably from someone in Kellan's past and while I have no proof it's Aimee Reynolds' surviving sister, I'm still sure I saw her somewhere.

  Then there's the letter I got at the station, showing where I lived when I was in Seattle, when I wasn't yet Willow Blake, named for the tree that bends and flexes in high winds but doesn't break. The letter that said it knew who I was, that called me Kate.

  And there's Reed, who's supposed to be in the past and doesn't seem inclined to stay there.

  I sip my coffee, burning my lip. Am I crazy? Imagining things? Reading into situations that aren't what I think they are? The past doesn't come back like this, not all at once.

  That thought makes me sit up straight.

  The past doesn't come back like this. Not all at once. The past usually stays in the past, or else it isn't the past. It usually stays dormant.

  Unless you stir it up. Open up old wounds. Expose them to the world.

  "Hit it with a stick," I say aloud without meaning to and earn an odd look from the student sitting across from me in his own booth.

  Sure. Not everyone forgives, said the note to Kellan. The letter to me, OK, letters, one said I was a slut, but we can discount that one. It was never meant to be a mystery who that was from.

  But the other? Definitely stirring up the past. In response to something.

  My guess? In response to the documentaries. I put myself out there, thinking I'd defuse some situations and help some people with others.

  And found myself a stalker. I leave my cup on the counter, collect my stuff and head out the door.

  "Willow!"

  Emmy hurries to catch up with me, flushed and smiling. "Where have you been?"

  It's still always my first instinct to ask if we had plans that I blew. I'm not used to people wanting to know where I am just because they're being friendly or because they missed me.

  "Math lab!" I announce as if vastly pleased.

  Emmy just makes a face. "Enjoy it?"

  "Oh, yes." Sarcasm. "What about you?" We're walking side by side through the early afternoon. I have an art history class after this and I'm just wondering how mandatory attending would be today when Emmy answers me.

  "Something weird," she says. "I went looking for you at the station, see if you wanted to get dinner." She breaks off, which is not Emmy-like.

  "Ye-ah?" I prompt.

  She frowns. "I was sure I saw you right outside the building. Kind of dressed down, jeans and a t-shirt. Flats of some kind. When I called, you went away." She frowns at me.

  Gripping my books with one hand, I wave at what I'm wearing – sundress, light jacket, sandals. Not jeans and a t-shirt.

  "Right," Emmy says. "Going crazy."

  "Crazier," I agree, dodging the elbow to my ribs. "But seriously, everybody has a double."

  Emmy looks skeptical. "At the same tiny school they go to?"

  No. But my math skills aren't good enough to have to count any additional complications. "Why not? Otherwise you wouldn't know there was a double."

  She screws up her face and really squints at me. "Is that supposed to make sen
se?"

  "Anyway," I say, ignoring that. "You probably only saw her from behind. Height, weight, red-blond hair."

  "Nope," Emmy says, sounding like we're in some kind of contest. "Wrong. I saw her from the side. She's got your profile, Will. And your hair. And your height."

  I consider. "Could she have my problems, too?"

  "Fine, don't take me seriously." She tries to sound put out.

  I laugh. "I believe you. I just don't know what you want me to do about it. Tell her to stop looking like me?"

  We keep walking together, not saying anything for a couple minutes. The sun is hot and feels wonderful on my skin. Other students pass us, wearing sandals and shorts, sun dresses, mini skirts. There's a tiny, tiny ocean breeze, keeping the day from being too hot. The campus is small – it's just a small, liberal arts college – but I don't know everybody on it. there's a feeling of energy, of things happening, that sweeps me up with it and I realize I love it here. I'm happy in college, going to classes (except math), working at the station.

  Making friends. Emmy's bounding along beside me, talking a mile a minute about classes and the guy she's met and I suddenly realize how much I like her. She really is a friend, the first one I made here. She was the one who brushed aside all my efforts to drive off other people because I thought I was ruined, had ruined myself, and didn't deserve a life.

  I also realize she's always the one asking me to go do things. When she takes a breath, having just told me way more than any sane person needed to know about a term paper she's writing this semester, I ask, "Do you want to go see a movie tonight?"

  Emmy pauses, as if this is a trick or a test, and I hate myself for that.

  "What about Kellan?"

  I give her a look meant to be teasing. "Do you want to date him or something?"

  Emmy doesn't laugh. "I just meant – "

  I shrug as I interrupt. "Kellan and I aren't getting along." I take a deep breath and plunge on, determined to stop keeping secrets that don't have a reason to be kept. Whatever is going on with Kellan and his stalker, it will only fester in the dark. "Look, not everything is about Kellan. I like being with you!"