And for a second, I figured she was right about that, because my limbs felt heavy as stone and incapable of running after them as they turned their backs on me and walked toward the house. But then I realized . . .
My mouth still worked.
“So you’re not planning on telling him all my secrets, Veronica? All our secrets.”
Veronica started walking faster, tugging James along with her. I could hear her saying, “Ignore her.”
At that point, another eighties movie came to mind, one that didn’t have anything whatsoever to do with Molly Ringwald. Fatal Attraction. And I even thought to myself, I will not be ignored.
“You’re not going to tell him about your daddy and my mama?”
James turned around, and now Veronica looked desperate. “Just ignore her.”
“What did you just say?” he asked, walking back toward me.
Veronica had gone from all-powerful to pleading. “Please James, she’s crazy. She’ll say anything to keep you.”
“Oh, I’m not trying to keep you,” I said to James. “I promise you that right now. But I am trying to enlighten you some more, since your sister seems to think it’s so very important that you know everything.”
“Shut up. Just shut up, you bitch,” Veronica screeched. Then she bit her lip like a pouty little girl and said, “You promised.”
For once I had the truth on my side. “I never promised you anything,” I reminded her. Then I turned back to James and said it straight-out before I could lose my nerve for like the millionth time that night. “Your father and my mother slept together. They had a short affair. And that’s why your sister hates me.”
James stared at me just the same as if I had hit him, then he looked at Veronica, who refused to meet his gaze. That’s when he knew I was speaking truth.
He shook his head, his body almost humming with the anger of somebody who had been kept in the dark so long and about so many things.
But in the end, he really was the gentleman I had believed him to be from the beginning. He didn’t scream at me. He didn’t advance on me and beat me into the ground like my mother would have.
He just said, “Paul, take her home.” Then he turned back around and walked away.
Veronica ran after him, teetering a little in her high heels.
And that was it. My time with the Farrells, I realized then, my almost-Molly-Ringwald-Ending sequel, was now over.
I didn’t call after him again. I mean, what could I say, really? It was all just so fucked up.
I turned to Paul. A few moments ago his head had been swiveling back and forth among us like he was watching a nighttime soap.
But his face was expressionless now. “I will take you home.”
Pride is something that I can take or leave most days. I let most of it go during my high school and Nicky years, but every once in a while it flared up, demanding that I do the heroic thing even if it meant putting my entire secondary education on hold and hitching a ride across the country to a state that I had only ever read about and seen in movies.
And right now my pride was telling me to leave James’s suitcase and toiletries behind, and to just walk away with nothing but the eight dollars in my purse to get me back home to Hollywood.
But then I looked at James’s retreating back again, and I felt so tired.
I got in the car.
We drove home in silence, except for my whispered “thank you” when he pulled up in front of the club. Paul didn’t answer, just popped the trunk. That’s when it occurred to me. Paul had known. He had known all along, because he had chauffeured Congressman Farrell to his Saturday night dates with my mother, so that Mr. Farrell wouldn’t have to risk somebody seeing his nice car in Cora’s driveway.
But I didn’t have any more confrontation left in me. I didn’t ask Paul about this, I just got out of the car and pulled my suitcase out of the trunk.