The Friendship Pact

But it hadn’t been fine. It would never be fine. She might have to work with the man on occasion, but she would never forget or forgive the fact that he’d abused his power and killed her mother as surely as if he’d pointed a gun at her head and pulled the trigger.

Koralynn hadn’t said a word when Bailey said she’d be fine, but, as always, her best friend had known exactly how she felt.

And somehow she’d come through again, protecting her from the evils in her world. Whether Kora had actually asked him to leave, or had someone call him away on some pretext, she didn’t know, but she knew the Mitchells had been prepared; they’d handled the situation.

As Bailey walked around that magical-looking room, which was brimming with conversation and congratulations, the judge’s presence lingered. She finished one glass of wine and stopped at the bar for a second, wishing her mother could see her—could know that she’d really made it through law school. Know that her daughter would be everything she’d ever wanted her to be, everything she’d ever wanted to be herself. Bailey was going to live the dreams her mother had given up for her and Brian.

A second glass of wine became a third.

Thankfully Jake took his position of escort seriously and stayed beside her. He even asked her to dance, which he’d shied away from when, as a favor to Danny, he’d escorted Bailey to their senior prom. And anytime since, at college homecomings, or an evening at a club.

He’d been saved from escort duty during their high school junior prom because he’d had a girlfriend.

And from having to accompany her to a college graduation party for the same reason. Different girlfriend, though.

“I’ve got something to ask you,” he said, about four drinks into the evening as they danced their first ever dance together.

“Yes, you can have a ride home in the limo,” she said, unusually chipper with him. The Mitchells had rented a limo for her and Kora and Danny, in case they wanted to go to a club after the party.

“Danny already offered and that wasn’t the question.”

“What?” Her come-hither smile as she looked up at him, her arms looped over his shoulders, was alcohol induced. But damn, it felt good.

“Are you gay?”

Her come-hither went south, but her gaze didn’t falter. “Absolutely not.” How could he even ask? They’d had sex—more than once.

“I didn’t think so. I mean...I’ve...ah, forget it.”

He’d been her escort twice as often as any of Danny’s other friends over the years. She’d had her own dates, too, but among Danny’s crowd, he knew her best of anyone—apart from Koralynn.

“No,” she said, telling herself she wasn’t hurt. “You asked me if I’m gay. Is that what you think?” Okay, after the first time they’d done it she could maybe see him thinking that. But after that night at Wesley during junior year Homecoming?

“Hell, no!” He pulled her closer, leaving no doubt as to what he was thinking—right where men’s thoughts usually went.

“Then why ask?”

“It’s just...Danny wondered.”

“You’re asking for Danny?” Did her friend’s husband really believe she was attracted to women?

The thought was followed immediately by another. That she was attracted to Koralynn?

Was that what had created the walls between them?

Bending until his forehead rested against hers, Jake sighed. “I’m asking for myself,” he said. “We aren’t kids anymore, Bailey. I’d like to give us a try. For real. I said something to Danny and he said something about wondering if you were gay.”

“He didn’t ask you to check me out?”

“No.” The reply was adamant. “Not at all. He just didn’t want me to waste my time....”

She wasn’t gay. Not even a little. Not even tempted. She got turned on by guys.

She just didn’t want a full-time man in her life.

She also didn’t want her best friend’s husband to continue to hold her at arm’s length. She wanted to be close to him—because it would make Kora happier. She wanted to be a full-fledged, completely accepted member of Kora’s family, the way she used to be.

“I’m confused,” she said now, smiling again—but not as openly. “Are you asking me out? As in just you and me?”

It would be a first. She and Jake spending an entire evening alone, not as part of a group that included Danny and Koralynn.

“I’m bungling an attempt to do exactly that.”

Wine was good. Graduating from law school was good. Having a room full of people there to help her celebrate was good. The Mitchells kicking out the judge was great.

And Jake...was a definite turn-on.

“Would you like my answer now, or after you get around to actually asking?” If she hadn’t had so much to drink she wouldn’t have flirted.

“I think now.”

Koralynn would be thrilled. Danny might warm up to her. And Bailey...

“Then, yes, Jake. I would like to go out with you.”

For a while.

Just as long as he understood that she wasn’t like Koralynn.

Because Bailey didn’t do exclusive. Or believe in happily ever after.

Not even when she was drunk.

Chapter Five

March 2010

I drove as fast as I could, feeling that if I could get there quickly enough, I could prevent what had already happened.

I drove with the urgency of one who was watching a train about to wreck and couldn’t stop it, but couldn’t not try.

I drove because I didn’t know what else to do. My best friend was on a slow train to self-destruction and I had to save her.

I’d gotten out of school that afternoon, four days before spring break, when I got Danny’s phone call. He called me every afternoon within five minutes of the last bell, to ask how my day was and catch me up on his. As a financial analyst for a marketing firm, Danny’s hours usually didn’t fluctuate all that much, but he had to make a lot of decisions he’d talk to me about. And we’d discuss what we wanted for dinner, too. That Monday was different. Danny was calling to tell me he was meeting Jake, a certified financial planner now, for a drink after work. Bailey had just broken up with him and he was taking it hard.

I didn’t like the edge to Danny’s voice when he mentioned Bailey, but I understood his frustration. Jake had been on a crash course to nowhere for most of the past year while Danny and I watched our friends stagger through a relationship strewn with choices that weren’t exactly conducive to being lifelong partners. Needless to say, we were unable to prevent the inevitable disaster.

Still, I didn’t blame Jake and Danny shouldn’t blame Bailey, either. Yeah, she was difficult sometimes, but she’d been honest with Jake from day one. Even after she agreed to date him exclusively, she’d told him that it was only for the time being. That she had no intention of marrying.

I knew better, of course. Bailey wanted a family even more than I did, or as much as I did, and that was saying a lot.

But Jake pushed her, and that never worked. You had to let Bailey come to you. Let her make her choices in her own time.

Danny didn’t get the finer points of dealing with someone as complicated as Bailey. And he’d grown weary of my friend. Resulting in a couple of the biggest fights we’d ever had. One on Christmas night, of all times. Christmas of 2009 had gone down in history as the worst Christmas of my life.

After a big family dinner with my folks, including both of Danny’s parents, their respective spouses, and Jake and Bailey, too, Danny and I had gone home and spent the entire evening alone. In separate rooms in our three-bedroom house.

Jake had asked Bailey to marry him in front of the whole family. Which wasn’t something you did to Bailey. You didn’t put her on the spot like that. Publicly and without warning. And particularly when it involved something as far-reaching and personal as marriage.

Shocked, she’d said the first thing that had come to mind. No.

I cared about Jake. Cared that he was hurting.

But I loved Bailey. And knew that Bailey’s breaking up with Jake now, three months after the disastrous proposal, meant only one thing. That she loved him and was scared. So, just as Danny was meeting Jake, I had to get to Bailey.

I found her alone in the tiny office she’d been allotted in the family law firm she’d hired into even before she’d passed the bar exam the previous summer.

“You really should lock the door when you’re here alone,” I told her, wishing she wasn’t sitting there so prim and proper and lawyerlike behind the desk that was almost as big as the room. I wanted to give her a hug.

Because I could tell she needed one.

“Diane just left.”

I knew Diane Langdon, Mayer and Mayer’s receptionist, due to my frequent visits to the firm. Bailey had turned into a regular workaholic and more often than not, I had to drag her away to spend any time with her at all.

“All the more reason to lock up,” I said now, dropping down into the small leather chair across from her.

“We share the floor with the offices of two private security companies and the building has a doorman and a guard as well.”

People still walked in off the street, and creeps didn’t all look creepy. But I let it go. I had a different battle to fight at the moment.

Bailey pretended to study the brief open on her desk. I say pretended because I saw the way her eyes moved quickly across the page. Bailey was precise and deliberate in her study. Her eyes didn’t dart like that when she was focused.

But I gave her a second to pretend anyway. To prepare herself to hear me. She looked beautiful; with her dark brown hair and big brown eyes, Bailey would always be striking, but right now, she was in her prime. Her body was even more perfect than it had been in college—a little fuller, and yet not an ounce heavier. Her skin was soft with a hint of tan. I knew how fascinating she was to men—I’d seen their reactions. Which brought me to Jake.

“You’ve finally admitted to yourself that you’re in love with him.” I didn’t bother with any preamble. This was Bailey. And me. And as we got older, as we ventured separately into the world, into our own careers and societies, I realized, more than ever, the incredible value of our friendship. Of the instinctive way we understood each other’s thoughts and feelings. In a world of subterfuge and keeping up appearances, having Bailey in my life was one of life’s greatest miracles.

“Let it go, Kor.”

“I can’t do that.”

She glanced up then to catch me staring at her. Hard. I was wearing my “I mean business” expression. I was careful not to overuse it, so I reserved it for only the most critical situations.

This was clearly one. My husband and I were heading for another of our rare fights—over Bailey and Jake, as usual—but I didn’t care about that as much as I cared about Bailey ruining her life.

“You’re in love with him and it scares you, so you broke things off. You’ve been cutting off your nose to spite your face since we were six years old.”

She’d know exactly what I was referring to.

“You can’t still hold me accountable for saying I didn’t want to be your friend.”

“But the point is, you’re still doing it. You were afraid I’d only be your friend for a little while, remember? That I’d get tired of you.” Because she hadn’t lived in a beautiful big house like I had. Even back then, in our innocence, we’d recognized the differences between us. “You told me you cried yourself to sleep that whole weekend,” I reminded her.

“I’m not six years old anymore.”

“But you cried after you had lunch with Jake today, didn’t you?”

She’d reapplied her makeup. I could tell because she’d used the eyeliner she carried in her purse, which smeared more than the expensive department store liner she used at home. “He’s a nice guy,” she said, shuffling papers and folders as though she had an important court date to get to. Court had been out of session for more than an hour. “I hurt him and that’s exactly what I’ve been trying to avoid for most of this past year.”

“I know.” I could feel her pain on Jake’s behalf. Shared it, even. But I couldn’t worry about Jake, nor could I worry about Danny right now. Bailey needed me. At twenty-eight we were still young, but that wouldn’t last forever, and if she didn’t find the courage to live soon, she’d run out of time. “Tell me you don’t love him and I’ll drop this.”

“I’ve told him since day one, before day one, that I am not going to get married,” she said, dropping the papers and looking me straight in the eye.

It was a look that begged me to trust her. To support her while she made the choices she had to make.

That look had always worked on me. Until now.

“What happened?” I asked while I tried to figure out how to help her. Something was telling me that we were breaking new ground and I had to step carefully so I could help Bailey have the life she wanted. I’d known for a long time that I was the only person who really knew her. Everyone else, including my parents who adored her, thought she should be left alone to pursue her own course. But Bailey had made me promise, the night her mother died, that I’d never do that—never leave her alone in the hell of her own thoughts.

She’d been so good at convincing everyone that she was strong and capable and self-sufficient that I was the only one in her life who knew the real, bone-deep Bailey Watters. I was the only one who saw all her insecurities.

Jake was privy to some of them.

Which was why he’d held on for so long.

And would continue to hold on. I just had to get Bailey to ask him to come back to her.

Climbing Mount Everest might have been easier.

“Did he show you the ring?” I’d seen it—on Christmas Day, after Bailey had left and the rest of us tried to pick up the pieces of a meal gone awry. And again on Valentine’s Day. We’d double-dated with Jake and Bailey on an overnight trip to Atlantic City. Jake had been planning to propose and then get Bailey to an all-night chapel to seal the deal. Danny and I were to have been their witnesses.

Anytime he’d gotten close to asking, Bailey had preempted the request with one diversion after another until Jake, figuring that he was setting himself up for another rejection, had dropped it. The entire trip had been exhausting beyond measure. For all four of us.

“What ring?” The sharpness in Bailey’s tone told me I’d misstepped. Shit.

I held my tongue between my teeth.

“He bought me a ring?”

I tried so hard to read that dark expression on my friend’s face, but her signals were more scrambled than usual.

I was confused. And frightened. For both of us.

“Damn him,” Bailey said, throwing herself back in her seat, elbows on the arms of her chair, fingers steepled. Like a certain judge we’d both known used to do at the dinner table when he was displeased.

Not that I was going to tell her that. At least not then.

“What gives him the right to put this kind of pressure on me?” she said, her tone just short of biting.

“I’ve told him repeatedly not to build us into more than we were. I wouldn’t move in with him even when it looked like I wasn’t going to be able to make my rent last summer before I started getting paid. I pay my way when we go out. I make life decisions without consulting him....”

All things I’d heard Danny list, too. What Bailey saw as fair play, honesty, kindness, Danny saw as insults and grievances against his friend.

“But you love him and he loves you, Bail,” I said softly, wishing I could promise her that she’d never be hurt again, that her heart would be safe with Jake, that there’d be a happily ever after.

Her eyes narrowed as she studied me and for the first time I felt...less. Like I wasn’t as good as Bailey was, or as smart. I felt that way because she seemed to be looking at me that way. Like I was some kid who just didn’t get it. Some naive little girl who couldn’t see reality.

Bailey and I...we saw things differently a lot. Our different perspectives were part of what made our friendship so strong. But we were always equals. “Love isn’t enough.”

“It can be,” I said, struggling to get through to her. As we grew older, she’d also gained an ability to hold me at bay. Or her skin was thicker. Or something.

But I knew she was in there. And my job was not to give up on her. Even now, I didn’t doubt our connection. Or our commitment to each other.

“I saw thirteen clients today,” Bailey said, her eyes shadowed but completely dry. “Ten yesterday,” she added. “And I’ve got another eleven scheduled for tomorrow.”

She was busy. I understood that. Was proud as hell of her abilities. If she wasn’t such a great lawyer, the partners wouldn’t let her, the junior member of their firm, take so many cases.

“This isn’t about time, Bail. Jake understands your schedule. He works a lot, too.”

“Time wasn’t my point.” The anger in her eyes struck fear in my heart.

I was losing her slowly, hour by hour, day by day, Bailey’s spirit was evaporating and I didn’t know what to do. “I’m sorry,” I said. “What was your point?”

“These are all separation and divorce cases, Koralynn. Every one of these couples was in love. Do you think they started out hating each other? Disbelieving everything their partner said? Do you think they expected all their dreams to turn into ashes?” Bailey’s voice gained momentum as she spoke and the fear nearly choked me. “I’d guess that every one of these couples had romantic wedding pictures, Kor. They had magic and passion and love. They walked down the aisle, or stood before the judge, with the best of intentions, with the belief that they’d stay together for life.”

I wanted to argue with her. To find fault with her logic. Usually, when it came to emotion, I could find the answers. For both of us.

But not this time.

“I just can’t do it, Kor,” Bailey said, her voice sorrowful, but firm, too. “I’d rather lose Jake now, while we still care for and respect each other, then go through the months or years it takes for hate to set in. I don’t want to hate Jake, ever. And I can’t bear the thought of him hating me.”

I wasn’t the least bit surprised to find out that I’d been right. She’d broken off with Jake because she’d finally admitted to herself that she was in love with him.

The rest...I wasn’t prepared. Had no idea what to say to counteract her lack of faith. To reinstill lost hope.

Worse, I was scared now, not just for her, but for me. Danny and I, we’d had two horrible fights. I worried there might be a third that evening. Oh, I knew couples fought. Danny and I fought. But those two times weren’t the same. He’d said things, I’d said things...the words lingered there, between us, like a screen that had never been there before.

Was that what Bailey saw? What she was trying to avoid?

“My mom and dad don’t hate each other.” The words came out of my mouth as they occurred to me.

“I know.”

Okay. Good. We were on our way out of the muck Bailey had pulled us into.

“I think they’re the exception that proves the rule.” Her words sank us again.

I was getting desperate. So I asked, “What about Danny and me?”

Her silence left my ears ringing.

“Bailey?”

“What?”

“You don’t think Danny and I are going to make it?”

“Actually I do.” My friend’s smile was reminiscent of an eleven-year-old Bailey with an added decade of maturity. It was soft and vulnerable and completely sincere. “You’re blessed, Kor,” she said, her voice more than her words falling over me, around me, encompassing me in the bubble where only Bailey and I existed and everything would be all right. “Not all marriages fail,” she went on. “But let’s face it, my luck isn’t as good as yours and the percentages aren’t good enough for me to take the risk.”

“Why not?” Leaning forward, I pleaded with her. “Even one chance in a million would be worth the risk. Just to have that chance—”

She shook her head. “My chance would be more like one in a trillion,” she said. And before I could open my mouth to voice my vehement denial, she continued. “I’m not relationship material, Kor. I’m too cynical. And too analytical. I know too much. I expect too much.”

“You don’t expect anything at all.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” she said. “I just don’t trust people to meet my expectations.”

“What are you saying?”

“In a committed relationship of any kind—from business to...to the personal—I’d need those expectations to be met.”

Personal? The room was cold. I was cold.

“What about us?” I asked.

Her entire face changed. Softened. From the look in her eye, the tautness of her skin, the set of her shoulders...Everything about her suddenly relaxed. “You, my friend are my one piece of good luck. I have faith in us.” I started to breathe easier again.

“I’d give you a kidney, Bail.” My voice was thick with tears, but I didn’t have anything to hide from her. With Bailey I could be completely and wholly myself.

“I’d give you two,” she said in return, her eyes tearing up.

We were fine. With that bond strengthening me, I could do anything.

And that included helping Bailey trust in her own ability to love and be loved. I had my work cut out for me. Jake might not wait to be “the one.” But someday, somehow, I would be standing next to this remarkable woman as she promised to love and to cherish until death did them part.

Or some version thereof.

Bailey was going to have the family she wanted and deserved. She was going to have joy.

One way or another. That was my vow.

Chapter Six

“...aaanndd arm to the back, swing, keep your abdominals tucked in, pull up through your middle. Good and repeat....”

Lori Hildebrand, fitness instructor extraordinaire, snapped her fingers to the beat of the music as she walked through the rows of mats dotting the sprung wood floor of her studio. Bailey swung back, around, forward and down, rolling up through her center right on cue. Snap and back. Snap and around. Snap and forward....

Beside Bailey in their Thursday night class, Koralynn managed to make her movements look more like dance. Where Bailey was tight, Kora was loose.

Fingers snapped. Back. They were both flexible. Snap and around. And could both still tear up a dance floor. But Bailey had lost a lot of the expression in her movements. The heart and soul that used to emanate through her limbs because she couldn’t express them any other way. Snap and roll up.

“Good, three more times,” Lori called out to the twelve or so people spread across the room.

Snap and back. Bailey wanted to be able to express herself again. Or Koralynn was going to leave her far behind on their trek through life. Snap and forward. Oh, not as in desert her, of course. Snap and roll up. The one thing Bailey didn’t worry about was Koralynn deserting her. That would never happen. She was as certain as clouds in the sky.

Snap and back. And then around. In mental and emotional growth, Kora was light-years ahead of her. And if Bailey didn’t catch up soon, they weren’t going to be able to help each other. They weren’t going to be simpatico anymore.

“Good, last rep!”

Music swelled, as though in perfect timing with their exercises and Bailey let go of her thoughts for the moment. A rare experience these days. Losing herself in the music, she did what she was told.

* * *

“Okay, everyone, remember to listen to your parents, be safe, and have a great summer!” I spoke to the wriggling bodies that had taken over my classroom five minutes before the last bell rang on the last Friday afternoon of the 2009/2010 school year.

I pasted on a smile as the final seconds ticked past, my insides scrambling with a combination of their excitement and my own nostalgia. After nine months with the third graders I’d developed a sense of connection with them. I knew them. Their good and their bad.

And after today, they’d be all but gone from my life.