Allegiance and Betrayal: Stories

Friends

105 Friends “That felt good,” said Lynne, coming out of the water. She toweled her blonde-streaked hair and sat down at a table with Rick and Vivian. The deck of their neighborhood pool overlooked the narrow Tar River. They were drinking premixed gin and tonics under a big blue umbrella. It was four o’clock, the sun still fiery. Owen, Lynne’s husband, had just arrived from several emergency cases and was still floating in the pool, his belly above water. Lynne leaned back in her chair, took a deep breath, and watched droplets of water slide down her arms. What Rick was saying finally shifted her focus. “I don’t get it,” he said. “I mean, how do friends of twenty-two years sell their house, move to Florida, and not say good-bye, leave an address, phone number, anything?” She watched his features harden. He slowly shook his head and looked toward the smooth black river. College students were drifting downstream in kayaks, canoes, and clownish rafts they had thrown together— some kind of fraternity/sorority thing. Beer cans floated in their wake. There was yelling and laughter. Lynne watched two girls in a silver canoe lift T-shirts and flash their boobs. Guys on a barely floating raft yelled, “Wait, come back!” “See that?” said Rick. “Sorority girls didn’t do that when I was in college.” “But you wish they did,” Vivian said. “Mr. Perfect. At their age, I suppose you never did anything questionable?” 106 | Allegiance and Betrayal Rick refilled his plastic glass from the thermos jug. “What’s questionable,” he said, taking a sip, “is that Scott and Angie Tapper, our friends of twenty-two years, walked out of our lives and never said good-bye. Twenty-two goddamn years!” Lynne and Owen had moved here from other states, left friends behind, and had themselves been left behind. Lynne recalled her parents’ reactions, ages ago, when she announced that she was leaving home for Chicago. She could still see the tear-boosted color of her mother’s brown eyes. Her father’s cheeks slowly reddened, and he rose from the kitchen table to look out the window. Her sister wouldn’t answer Lynne’s letters and refused to talk to her for more than a year. Vivian said, “It hurt me too, but—” “But what?” Rick’s laugh was strangled. “You’re hooked on forgiveness . What a masochist!” Vivian smiled, shaking her head. “Nothing is as it seems. Judging other people is more than just risky.” Lynne sometimes found it hard to believe that Vivian had been a nun before she met Rick. Vivian rarely if ever got churchy, but what was attractive about her and Rick was their openness. They didn’t play mind games. No subject was taboo. Vivian was still slim with a model’s shapely legs and not a wrinkle on her face. Her auburn hair alone was enough to inspire envy. Rick had a lanky tennis build, was nicely tanned, but today his face was overly red and glossy with sweat. Owen climbed out of the pool, walked to the table, then woofed and shook himself like a dog. Lynne always wondered at this need of his to entertain, but everyone laughed. Vivian said, “What got you called out on a Sunday?” “I can’t answer that,” he said, “until I have drink. Free at last! No longer on call!” Lynne poured him a gin and tonic and, from a Ziploc of slices, dropped in a lime. Sitting down, he took a sip. “First case was a golden retriever hit by a car. Beautiful creature. A few bad lacerations, some stitches, but the worst was a broken front leg that needed pins in two places.” Friends | 107 “Full recovery?” “I should think so, if the owners can follow instructions.” “What would you rather work on, cats or dogs?” Owen said he had no favorites. Dogs were socialists, cats were anarchists, and human beings were probably a bit of both. Lynne watched the black water pull a red kayak out of sight under a live oak with dangling boas of Spanish moss. She wondered about the Tappers, why they would do such a thing, deliberately hurt the feelings of old friends. “My second case was a cat,” said Owen. “It was bitten by either a moccasin or a diamondback, probably the latter. Sad. A cat’s too...