When We Were Friends: A Novel - Softcover

Arnold, Elizabeth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0553592521 ISBN 13: 9780553592528

Verlag: Bantam, 2011

Inhaltsangabe

Lainey Carson and Sydney Beaumont were the closest of friends—until they reached high school and Sydney’s burgeoning popularity made it easy for her to leave the contemplative, ungainly Lainey behind.

Eighteen years later, Lainey, who lives at home caring for her mother, is an artist who’s never found the courage to live her dreams. When Sydney shows up on her doorstep with her infant daughter, insisting that Lainey is the only friend she can trust, Lainey reluctantly agrees to take temporary custody of the baby to protect her from an abusive father.

But that very night, Sydney appears on the evening news—claiming that her daughter has been kidnapped. Unsure of whom she can trust, Lainey is forced to go on the run with a child who is not her own—but whose bond with her grows stronger every day they spend together. In search of a safe place to stay, Lainey befriends a man who, concerned for their welfare, offers them a home. But as the two grow closer she starts to realize that he may be harboring his own secrets.

An utterly riveting story that will keep you turning the pages, When We Were Friends asks how we define motherhood and family, whether we ever truly overcome our pasts, and what friendship really means.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Elizabeth Joy Arnold was raised in New York, and has degrees from Vassar College and Princeton University. She is the author of several novels, including The Book of Secrets and When We Were Friends. She lives with her husband in Hopewell, New Jersey, where she is at work on her next novel.

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9780553592528|excerpt

Arnold: WHEN WE WERE FRIENDS

1

In high school I came up with fifty-eight ways in which Sydney might die. I wrote them in a spiral notebook, numbered them, even illustrated the possibilities that pleased me most.

• Number 18: Stomach penetration by swallowed toothpick.

• Number 24: Curling iron electrocution.

• Number 37: Asphyxiation under sewage.

Etcetera, etcetera, all written in angry black Sharpie. But high school—even when it resembles the seventh circle of hell—is only temporary. Eventually I’d burned the notebook, and in the years after, I’d tried to see Sydney as just an unfortunate chapter in an otherwise not-so-bad life; something I could look back on coolly, thinking only how we’d both had a lot of growing up to do. Tried but apparently had not succeeded, seeing as I was now in the bathtub, digging my fingers into a bar of soap in an attempt to clean the paint embedded under my nails. Not wanting the dung-colored ridges to detract from the gleam of my fake engagement ring. Which, yeah. I know.

But today, for the first time in eighteen years, I was going to see Sydney again.

•••

Sydney and I had been best friends since the second grade when she moved from Petaluma to Newport News, Virginia. We were best friends because we both needed glasses to see the board, which when we were seven was enough of a reason. Also because we both sucked at gym, and because neither of us had a father.

I remember her entering our classroom, escorted by Vice Principal Brooks, her reddish-blond hair lit from behind like the haloes in paintings of saints. Her Danskin pants were an inch too short and her T-shirt collar frayed, but still she beamed at us, turning her head loftily right and left as if expecting admiration.

I think the other kids sensed her desperation, because they mostly stayed away. But I felt bad for her and so that afternoon, seeing her standing alone at recess, I approached her. “My name’s Lainey,” I said. “I’m in your class.”

She eyed me warily, didn’t speak.

“I like your glasses,” I said. “They’re cool.”

In retrospect they weren’t cool, pink cat’s eye frames studded with rhinestones. But on Sydney they looked fierce somehow, gave her a tigress edge—a taste of what would, in later years, turn into sexiness.

“Want to try them?” she said, then plucked the plain, oversized tortoiseshell glasses off my nose and replaced them with hers.

I felt a sudden dizzy nausea—Sydney was farsighted and I was horribly nearsighted—followed by a wave of hilarity as I looked over the blurred playground. “I’m blind! I’m blind!”

She slipped on my glasses and snorted. “Your glasses suck.”

“Can you walk?” I said. “Pretend this, pretend this. Pretend we’re on a tightrope and there’s sharks under us, so if we don’t walk straight we’ll die.”

So that was how we spent the next half hour, arms splayed, drunkenly wobbling heel to toe across the macadam, howling whenever we stumbled to convey the agony of death-by-shark-attack. And when the bell rang to call us back inside, we exchanged glasses and I turned to her and smiled. “Want to be friends?”

She studied my face a moment, then gave a short nod. “Okay,” she said. And the rest, as they say, is history.

It wasn’t long before the other kids stopped trying to penetrate the wall we built around our friendship. We did everything together, got A’s in language arts and D’s in math, grew overbites and whiteheads on our chins. The years went by without anybody especially liking us or hating us, or paying much attention to us at all, which was okay because we had each other, and having one best-best friend is all anyone needs.

But when we were fifteen, Sydney saw an optometrist, an orthodontist, and a dermatologist all in six months, the same six months that I stopped growing and didn’t stop eating. That was the beginning of the worst year of my life.

Maybe I should’ve realized the sort of person Sydney would become; in retrospect the signs were everywhere. But of course I’d only been seven, a reckless, cavalier age, and at the time everything about her had seemed mysterious, from her red hair to her fascination with Fantasy Island. That this mysterious creature would want to be my friend was, in itself, mysterious, and I hadn’t let myself look any further than my own gratitude.

What would it be like to be seven again? To feel the magic of nightly baths, of plastic cups and propeller boats and the honey- floral smell of Breck shampoo, hair that floated a halo at my shoulders, Like a mermaid! Star would say, and I’d picture myself as Esther Williams in her scaly bathing suit.

But I’d lost all sense of that seven-year-old body. Today my head swam in the heat, and even under the water I could feel a furry coat of sweat. You didn’t sweat at seven, or if you did you didn’t care. You could slide from one end of the tub to the other on your butt until the water drained to a slippery sheen. Seven was good and I should’ve appreciated it more. I should’ve learned how to cartwheel and climbed some trees, and chased boys around the playground while that was still socially acceptable. But it was too late now; I couldn’t go back again, not even in this little way.

Ironic, then, that my feelings about seeing Sydney today were the same at thirty-six as they had been at sixteen passing her in the hall, her glance like a physical force wringing my insides with nausea, terror and behind it all—pathetically—hope.

She was working in an occult shop of all places, Six of Swords. When I’d called the shop last month to order candles and root powders and amulets for my mother, I’d recognized her voice immediately. After a minute of stunned silence I’d slammed the phone down and never called again. But last week when the owner contacted me to see if I’d consider doing a mural, I’d decided to think of it as fate and . . . a learning experience. “Well what a surprise,” I’d say when I saw her. It would have to be spoken with the right mix of nonchalance and sarcasm, and then I’d shrug and turn away like I had better things to do.

I pulled myself from the tub, screwing my face against the groaning in my knees. The reality of baths is always a little disappointing, but you tend to forget the disappointment when you aren’t actually in one. I didn’t know why I even bothered to take baths anymore, except that they seemed like they should be a good idea, like if I just knew how to do them right they would, in a New-Agey way, bring peace.

I dressed in a black skirt, a little dressy but not too dressy, a little slimming, but not enough. I look better without clothes on. It’s an unfortunate fact, since people don’t usually see me without clothes. But the way I’m built, muscular and curvy smooth, like something sculpted out of clay that’s a little too wet for precise sculpting, the clothes manage to drape themselves in such a way that you’d think my belly starts where my breasts end, and my head looks too small for my shoulders. I’ve read lots of articles on vertical stripes and A-lines and bias cuts, but the conclusion I’ve come to is that for my body type, the only way to emphasize the good points would be to strip and show them in all their glory. Not acceptable in most situations, so usually I’ll just wear black, which is what the articles recommend for...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Bantam
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2011
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0553592521
• ISBN 13: 9780553592528
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 384
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar