The Best Friend (Sister Series, #3), page 2
“You’re mistaken on that front.”
Donny grinned. “What? About Tony having a crush on you? No. I’m not. He liked you, always. From seventh grade on. But you were always hung up on Will, so he had to settle for just being your friend.”
“He told you that?”
“Yeah, right. No. It’s just a fact. I knew it. My parents knew it. Will knew it.”
“Will did not.”
“Will was not dumb or blind. He sure as shit knew; he just ignored it so he could still be Tony’s best friend. Just as Tony ignored it so he could still be Will’s. And yours.”
Her brain felt like it would explode in her head. In five minutes, Donny managed to rewrite her entire teens and early twenties. Those were not her truths and experiences. There was just no way.
“Well, he sure doesn’t want to see me now.”
“He doesn’t want to see anyone. Don’t take it personally. In fact, try to be different than everyone else. Don’t let him pull that shit with you. It’s all shit, designed to protect his injured, fragile ego because he lost his arm. The thing is: he lost his arm, not his life, but he’s living as if he did, and seems prepared to keep living the rest of his life that way.”
She pressed her lips together, her heart twisting at the tragic circumstances of Tony and his former personality. He used to grin all the time. He liked to drink beer and throw darts. He liked to dance. He liked to play golf. He liked to shoot his guns at the shooting range. He liked to do a million things.
“I’ll come. If you can convince him to let me, and clear it beforehand with your mom. Here’s my number. Call me if you really think I could help.”
Donny turned towards his cart with a shrug. “Well, you sure as shit can’t hurt. Nothing could get worse for him.”
****
Stupid fucking brother. What was he doing? Why was he taking so long? Just finish eye-fucking Gretchen and come already. He wanted to leave. He was tired of being there. He was tired of being stared at. He was tired of watching his brother’s cheerful, happy flirting. He would, no doubt, get her damn number. Well, sure. Fine. Great. She was probably a great lay. Good for Donny. He just wanted to go… and now.
Donny finally rounded the corner of the aisle, pushing the cart and coming to a stop where Tony stood waiting by a cash register.
“Took you long enough. What did you do? Get her number?” Tony snarled. He turned his face so his brother couldn’t see the disgust. As if he cared. Why should he care whom Gretchen went out with? Or fucked? Or screwed? He’d already tolerated her doing his best friend for years. He even discussed it with Will. And often heard them, for Christ’s sake, any number of times he stayed overnight in their then, very small and thin-walled, apartment.
Will Hendricks. The name tasted like ashes in his mouth. Will and he had been best friends their entire lives. Even after Gretchen Moore entered their sphere. They were young, hormone-filled boys and both of them liked her. They got into a fistfight over her in eighth grade. But… Gretchen simply chose Will, and they started dating their freshman year, and never broke up. That was that. Tony drove them to dances and double dates with women he never could remember the names of. He toasted their engagement and spoke at their wedding.
When Will joined the Army, so did Tony. He followed Will because he and Will were inseparable and both wanted to serve their country. It seemed the only thing to do beyond high school and Will always talked about it. That was all there was for Will: being a soldier. And Tony had no other prospects, so why not become a soldier? His grades sucked; there was no college in store for him. He thought about entering a trade school, and becoming a plumber like his old man, but it never resonated with him. Going to war to kill the enemy seemed a lot more interesting to him at the age of nineteen.
His mother wept when he came home and told her he joined up. It went on for days, and every time he returned after a furlough. She worried about him year after year. She never got used to it. She was proud, but nonetheless terrified for him.
He didn’t understand her. Nothing could happen to him. No way. Surprisingly, especially to him, he became a damn fine soldier. Not a Will Hendricks perhaps, but a solid, trustworthy, hardworking soldier. Will went on to join Special Forces; and Tony served proudly as an infantry soldier with the 82 Airborne. He became a sergeant and was proud of it. He wasn’t like Will, who was a heroic, accomplished soldier with plenty of ambition to climb as far up the Army command chain as he could. Tony had no such designs or desires; he just wanted to be a good soldier.
He loved Will. As if he were his own brother.
But then…Will quit. He fucking quit the Army. The day Will announced it, Tony turned and walked away without another word. How could Will just quit? He was the reason they chose to do it. He was the one who loved it. He was destined to become a great, high-ranking leader in the Army. He was that good at it. But he just up and quit.
After that, he moved to butt fuck nowhere, and now had a wife and kid. He worked a nine-to-five job as a civilian. Will became a hard-working family man that Tony never imagined he’d ever be. Will never even attempted to be that way for Gretchen, but only for his second wife.
Tony had no opinion of her. Jessie Bains was merely the name of the woman his best friend married before he checked out of life, and the Army. He never really heard or understood the entire story. There had to be more to it than Will told him. Maybe he just didn’t want to know. What mattered was that she made Will quit the service, abandoning the only life and calling he ever knew. And now, it was the lifestyle and career that Tony also wanted. But Will left it behind, and Tony ceased any further correspondence with Will since that day.
He sure as fuck didn’t try to explain to Will how it felt to have your arm blown off while tossing a football back and forth with half your platoon. One moment, he was laughing, watching the ball twirling towards him, his arms outstretched to catch it, the sun frying his eyeballs, and the next… everything was black.
He woke up in a hospital bed with his left arm gone.
What does one say after discovering that? Nothing.
He sometimes wished it had happened in a nobler way. Maybe if he’d had a gun in his hand, instead of a football, or he was fighting at the time, it might’ve felt different. Maybe even a little better.
He scoffed, yeah, right. As if the circumstances could make the sensation of your flesh melting off your bones feel any better.
Still, returning home, and trying to live amongst civilians again wasn’t going very well. People ran around, worried about their Halloween costumes, what to buy for dinner, whether to go organic or not, or what color to paint their overpriced houses. It was all so stupid to him. He couldn’t get over how mundane they seemed. His own parents and his brother too were worried about mortgages on houses they didn’t need. They worried about traffic, or if it might rain tomorrow. What shit! It was nothing real and nothing that mattered. Nothing about his existence here mattered.
Donny shoved the cart into the line for the cashier. He rarely scowled, glared, or even ceased smiling, except with Tony. “I invited her to dinner. With Mom. I thought Mom would like to see her. Don’t worry your sorry ass, since you most likely already scared her away.”
He flinched. Gretchen. He really never wanted to see her again. Not with his empty sleeve hole, and his lopsided shirt. Fuck no.
Still… “What did she say?”
Donny started assembling groceries onto the conveyor belt, only stopping to glower at Tony. “She said yes. Yes, if it was okay with your sensitive, little-girl ass. So is it, Tony? Is it okay? Do you think you could let an old friend come over without letting the usual crass bullshit spew freely from your mouth?”
Tony spun on his heel and stormed out of the grocery store. Let Donny bag his own stupid groceries. That was beside the point; most of the groceries were for him; and his mother was paying the bill.
Chapter Two
“You won’t believe what happened to me.”
Gretchen sighed deeply, stepping back as her younger sister burst through her front door as she was opening it. Trailing behind her was Tracy, her other sister.
“Hi Tracy. And hello to you too, Vickie,” Gretchen muttered to Vickie’s back. She was already pacing Gretchen’s living room in agitation as her blond curls, similar to Gretchen’s own, bounced around her shoulders. Vickie stopped and waved her hand in the air. “Don’t be so prudish. We’re sisters. We don’t have to be polite to each other. Anyway, do you want to know what happened or not?”
She rolled her eyes and shut the front door. “I don’t know? Do I want to know, Tracy?
Vickie glared while Gretchen and Tracy exchanged a weary glance. Tracy stifled a smile.
Something was usually happening to their youngest sister. “Well, you’ll tell me either way. So what is it?”
Vickie was back to pacing. “They cut up my credit card! Right there. In the store. In front of everyone.”
Gretchen winced. Not at the news her careless sister, once again, wasn’t paying her bills, but that she should feel sorry for her. “Where?”
Tracy rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t everyone. It was one other person. She was at The Clothes Closet, downtown.”
“It was more than one person. How dare they?”
“Have you paid your bill?”
Vickie stopped pacing and glared at Gretchen. “It’s a credit card. What good is it if you can’t use it for credit? You’re supposed to get some time to pay.”
Gretchen shut her eyes. Lord, the economics of paying for one’s purchases totally escaped Vickie, in addition to her inability to keep any job, ever. Vickie never saw it as her fault, however.
“We’ve talked about this. Why were you even at The Clothes Closet? That place is way beyond your budget.”
Gretchen, Tracy, and their parents spent years taking turns and trying to get Vickie’s lethal spending habits under control, while encouraging her to keep a job. She got them easily enough, she could just never hold onto them. She never worried about them or how she’d pay her bills. Somehow, some way, Vickie usually landed on her feet.
Vickie stiffened and cast a dirty look at Gretchen. “You shop there.”
Tracy saved Gretchen from having to point out the obvious. “Gretchen works full time at a high paying profession. You don’t even have a job.”
Vickie nearly screeched. “Well, how am I supposed to get a decent job without decent clothes? It’s an investment in me, and how I project myself.”
Gretchen coughed to cover her laugh. As if Vickie ever got an interview at any kind of place that would care how she “projected” herself.
“Tell her the rest of it.”
Vickie frowned at Tracy. “Why do you sound so sarcastic? Well, I just used another credit card.”
“You still bought the stuff? Even after one credit card was declined?”
Vickie rolled her eyes. “Of course. I told you, it’s an investment in me. I deserve it after all I’ve suffered from Parker.”
Gretchen wearily turned and started for her kitchen. There was no arguing or reasoning with Vickie. Her twenty-eight-year-old sister never learned, never matured, and never got a clue. She had a four-page resume of past employment listings. She managed to work in every conceivable retail job, from beauty consultant to fast food. There was nothing Vickie hadn’t done. She had also been married three times, so far, with three divorces under her belt. The first was at age twenty, and lasted less than a year. The second was at age twenty-four, and lasted a year-and-a-half. Her most recent nuptials lasted less than nine months. For each wedding, she had all the trimmings, and loudly claimed that “this was it,” so didn’t their love deserve the grandest of celebrations? After all, it was the last wedding she’d ever have. Each of her poor, unsuspecting grooms was never married before, so for all of them, it was their first wedding. That was how Vickie justified it; didn’t her grooms deserve to experience a first big wedding? Gretchen’s parents quit footing the bill after the second one. The last groom, Parker, paid for it. Parker’s family was overjoyed at the news Vickie was joining their family and marrying their son. She was a charming, delightful, and beautiful girl. Everyone liked Vickie. Most however, didn’t realize, until it was far too late, that she invariably bled them dry of their money, their love and their patience.
The worst part was: she didn’t even know she did it. She didn’t mean to be so materialistic, flighty, manipulative, careless, or lazy. She just was.
Gretchen didn’t feel like arguing the same old battle again. Vickie left Parker, claiming he was too boring and set in his ways. She needed more color and excitement. He was currently paying alimony for her boredom. “You guys want some coffee?”
“Sure.” Tracy set her ginormous handbag down on the couch and wandered closer to the breakfast bar. Tracy was thirty years old with two kids, ages nine and eight, and a loving husband of ten years. She could not have been any more different from Vickie than if they were born to different mothers. Then again, neither could Gretchen.
Vickie was a preemie baby and almost died due to lung complications. She stayed in the hospital for five weeks. From the time she came home, their parents never once treated her like the other two older girls. Vickie was fragile, vulnerable, and therefore, special. Unfortunately, that label never changed, not in her twenty-eight years.
Gretchen loved Vickie. Both sisters also babied and protected her. Not until she was divorcing her third husband did they begin to really see the narcissistic, needy, forever unhappy, always seeking what she didn’t have, monster they all helped to create. But hating her was like hating a young child. No matter how mad they got, or how much she screwed up, and how fed up they got with her theatrics, it never stopped them from trying to help her. They couldn’t turn their backs on their sweet, kind-hearted, almost stupidly naïve, and selfish, little sister.
Vickie rummaged around her fridge. “Got any diet pop?”
Gretchen poured the coffee. “There’s some in the back.”
“So, what’s new with you?” Tracy asked, sipping the coffee and watching Gretchen over the rim of her cup.
Gretchen walked over to the bank of windows that flooded her condo with natural, bright sunlight. The big squares looked like warm puddles over the light carpet. Looking through the windows, she stared down at the grass, trees, and specks of people now enjoying the green city park below her.
“I had an interesting day at the market, too.”
Tracy swiveled on her stool. “Oh, yeah? What happened?”
“I ran into Tony Lindstrom.”
“Oh my, that’s a name from the past. Will’s best friend? How is he?”
Gretchen nodded. “Yes, actually, he was both Will’s and my best friend,” she said blowing out a deep, weary breath before she continued. “The thing is, he… he lost his left arm. And I was so shocked by it, I froze up and acted like an immature jerk. I pretended it didn’t happen. I never even asked him about it.”
Tracy’s jaw dropped open in disbelief. Vickie stopped pouring her can of pop into a cup and blinked in stunned shock, asking, “Gone? What do you mean gone?”
“Like he lost it in the war. Like it was amputated. What else could I mean?”
Vickie stuck her tongue out. “You don’t have to get so bitchy. I just wasn’t sure you meant that. Wow. Holy shit.”
“That’s so tragic,” Tracy said, much more appropriately.
Gretchen stared down at her hands. “He isn’t well. I mean, he is nothing like the Tony you remember.”
Vickie wandered out and sat on the loveseat, pulling her legs up underneath her. “He was so hot and so sweet. Remember? He always tagged along with you and Will. He was always the first to help you with anything. That’s so awful.”
He was? Gretchen frowned and tried to envision her past. She couldn’t get a mental picture of Tony doing such things for her. Did he? Had she really never noticed before? He had always been there for her… for years and years. He and Will came over together to hang out with her; to do anything from going to dinner, to the movies, to simply hanging out and doing nothing. The three of them used to spend all their time together. Will was never one to ditch his friends just because he had a girlfriend. Gretchen and he used to fight about that, even after they were married. She needed more one-on-one time with him, although he didn’t with her.
“Not well? How?”
Gretchen shook her head and sat down across from her sisters. “His whole attitude, I guess. I mean, he’s fine mentally. He just seemed… so angry. The rage fairly dripped off him. His disdain in talking to me was as obvious as his arm being gone. He made it pretty clear he did not want to see me.”
“That’s weird. Vickie’s right. He was always so solicitous of you.”
He was? Where was this all coming from? And if Vickie even noticed it, how did she fail to see it?
“His brother, Donny, was there too. He was exactly as you remember.”
Vickie suddenly sat up. “Donny Lindstrom? I haven’t seen him in years. Oh, he was to-die-for-hot. Remember?”
Gretchen rolled her eyes. Vickie thought every man who breathed was to-die-for-hot. “Donny? Yeah, he’s cute still. Funny. Nice too. He invited me to dinner.”
Vickie frowned. “You? What? No! You can’t date Donny Lindstrom.”
Gretchen glanced at her sister. “Well, I’m not. But if I were, why would you object so?”
“Because you’re like old and responsible, and shit. Donny is fun and the life of the party material. He can’t be interested in your type, no offense.”
“Oh, no offense taken. Besides, he doesn’t appear that way anymore. Donny is all grown up. He was nice, normal, and sounded much more responsible.”
“Vickie! You can’t talk like that to Gretchen,” Tracy admonished her sister.
Vickie looked around, her eyes big. “What? I didn’t mean anything negative by it. Just that Donny was the guy to date. I never even stood a chance with him. And yet, you do?”
