Page 64 (1/2)
Kate was relieved beyond hter's presence She moved to the middle of her bed and patted the empty place beside her
Marah sat opposite her instead, leaning back against the silk-upholstered footboard, with her legs drawn up Ragged holes in her favorite jeans showed the knobby curl of her knees
Kate couldn't help longing for the tihter into her arms and held her She needed that now "You knew about the show, didn't you?"
"Tully and I talked about it She said it would help us"
"And?"
Marah shrugged "I just wanted to go to the concert"
The concert It hurt Kate deeply, that siotten about the concert and Marah's running away The trip to Kauai had cleared her mind of all of that
No doubt as Tully had intended It had also gotten Johnny out of the way so he couldn't stop the plan
"Say so," Marah said
But Kate didn't quite knohat to say, how to handle this She wanted Marah to understand how selfish she'd been and how deeply that selfishness had hurt Kate, but she didn't want to load guilt on her The weight of this debacle fell on Tully "Did it occur to you when you and Tully were hatching this plan that I ht be hurt and embarrassed by it?"
"Did you think that I'd be hurt or eo to the concert? Or rockin' ? Or to--"
Kate held up a hand "So it's still about you," she said tiredly "If this is all you have to say, you can leave I don't have the strength to fight with you now You were selfish and you hurt s, and if you can't see that and take responsibility for it, I feel sorry for you Get out Go"
"Whatever" Marah got off the bed, but she moved slowly At the door, she paused and turned around "When Tully co over"
"What do you y That's not so else you two have in common"
For the first ti Tully
"You better think about how you're treating led to sound in control "I love youme on purpose"
"It's not hed "How could it be, Marah? Nothing ever is"
It was exactly the wrong thing to say Kate knew it the second she said it, but she couldn't take it back
Marah yanked open the door and slammed it shut behind her
Quiet came instantly Sos barked at each other She heard people walking around downstairs The floorboards of this old house creaked with thefor it to ring
"I think it was Mother Teresa who said that loneliness is the worst kind of poverty," Tully said, sipping her dirty martini
The man to whom she spoke looked startled for aon some dark, empty stretch of road and a deer had suddenly bounded into his path Then he laughed, and there was so much in the sound, a shared cae No doubt he'd learned to laugh like that in the hallowed halls of Harvard or Stanford "What do people like us know about poverty or loneliness? There must be one hundred people here, at your birthday party, and God knows the chane and caviar didn't co--to reht to knoho in the hell he was
And why had she er?
Disgusted with herself, she finished the martini--her second--and walked over to the makeshift bar that had been set up in the corner of her penthouse Behind the tuxedoed bartender, the glittering starburst of the Seattle skyline was a hts and black sky
She waited i small talk with the bartender The minute the drink was ready, she set a course for the terrace, sailing past the table overfloith foil- and ribbon-wrapped gifts She kneithout opening a single package the kind of gifts she'd received: chalasses from Waterford or Baccarat; silver bracelets and frames from Tiffany; Montblanc pens; perhaps a cashlass candlesticks The kind of expensive presents that strangers and co-workers gave each other when they'd reached a certain econo personal in any of those beautifully wrapped packages
She took another sip of her , she saw the barest outline of Bainbridge Island Moonlight painted the forested hills silver She wanted to look away but couldn't It had been three weeks since the broadcast Twenty-one days Her heart still felt cracked beyond repair The things Kate had said to her kept running on an endless loop through her et, she saw theazine or on the Internet Her own mother didn't even love herthere's your icon: a wo, she's probably never said I love you to another hu
How could Kate have said that? And then not called to apologizeor to say helloor even to wish her a happy birthday?
She finished the drink and set the e out across the black expanse of water Behind her, she heard the phone ring She knew it! She ran back into the condo, pushed through the people crowded in her living roo the door shut behind her
"Hello," she said, a little out of breath
"Hey, Tully, happy birthday"
"Hey, Mrs M I knew you'd call I could coht now We could--"
"You have to ht with Katie"
She sat down on the end of her bed "I was only trying to help"