Tara Taylor Quinn - The Friendship Pact

Or could have given her. There was no way she was going to the competition now.

“You were with her all the time, Bail.” Koralynn’s voice wafted over her. And Bailey listened. After two years of law school, she trusted people less now than she ever had, except for Koralynn. But she still believed in Koralynn. Believed Koralynn.

Her best friend, and maybe Mama Di and Papa Bill, seemed like the only people left on earth who still honored the truth.

“I could tell by her tone of voice that she was struggling.”

“She was always struggling. You held off going to law school right after college because she’d just found out the judge was having an affair and she thought she was getting divorced. You took money from him for your first year of law school because she begged you to—so she could prove you were all one big happy family. Then last year when they separated you took her to live with you. You’ve spent every weekend with her for months. And some evenings, too. You’re in your last year of law school, with more on your plate than most of us could manage, and you think you haven’t done enough? She should be giving to you, Bail. Maybe that would take her out of herself a little. She’s your mom—you should be able to expect help from her, not constantly feel guilty for not giving her more!”

“I should never have encouraged her to file that complaint against him.”

“She did the right thing. It’s the judicial commission’s mistake that they ruled unethically. Besides, that was six months ago.”

“Yeah, but she never got over it.”

“Which is why you helped her write a request for reconsideration. And she could talk to the reporter from Political Times. Or go to Channel Six, since they do exposés. She has a lot of options.”

Like moving away from Pittsburgh, for one.

“I should’ve known tonight was different.”

“How was it different, Bailey? She’s been at the end of her rope for more than a year. For most of our lives, it seems. I’m sorry to sound harsh, especially now, but it kills me to see you try so hard and then lose so much of yourself because she doesn’t come through. Her journey is hers, and she probably does her best, Bail, but what I see is that you do everything for her, ask nothing for yourself, and then feel like you don’t do enough.”

Bailey told herself she should sit up. Hold the weight of her own head.

“I want you to promise me something, Bail.” Koralynn’s voice sounded more serious than usual.

“Of course. Anything.” She could give Koralynn everything she had for the rest of her days and never be even.

“Promise me that if you ever need anything, you’ll come to me. Promise me you’ll ask me for it.”

“Of course.” She always had. Didn’t Koralynn know that?

“Because I promise you, from the depths of my soul, that if there’s anything I have that you need, no matter what it is, I will give it to you.”

“You know that’s how I feel about you, too. Right?” Bailey asked, although she couldn’t imagine that Koralynn would ever need her in such an elemental way.

“Yes.”

“I’d give you a kidney,” Bailey said into her friend’s shoulder—something they’d started saying back in high school, when a classmate of theirs had donated one of his kidneys to save his father’s life. They’d spent long hours talking about the gruesome details of the sacrifice, the pain and inconvenience, the danger, and decided it was the supreme act of love.

“I’d give you both kidneys, Bail. I swear to you. You are not alone.”

But an hour later, when the doctor came out to tell them that Bailey’s mother had died from the overdose of painkillers she’d consumed the previous evening, Bailey had never felt more alone in her life.

Chapter Four

May 2009

“You want a drink?” Jake Murphy, dressed in a designer black suit with a red silk tie knotted perfectly at his starched white collar, slid an arm around Bailey’s waist as he came up behind her.

“I thought you’d never ask,” she told the man who’d escorted her to so many functions over the years she’d lost count of them.

“Tom Collins?”

Her drink of choice back in college—because it hadn’t tasted like alcohol. Not that she’d shared that piece of information with anyone but Koralynn.

“Red wine.”

Judge Weiner, the man who’d been her mother’s sixth and final husband, was making his way toward her and, catching his advance out of the corner of her eye, Bailey slipped her arm through Jake’s and accompanied him to the bar.

“This is quite some shindig the Mitchells have put on for you,” Jake was saying.

Most of the students graduating from her law class were having parties, the majority thrown by their families.

“They’re the best,” Bailey said, instinctively looking through the crowd for Koralynn, who’d been by her side for most of the past year while she simultaneously grieved for her mother and completed her last year of a very grueling law program.

Weiner had stopped for conversation. And was still looking at Bailey.

Not seeing Kora, Bailey stood next to Jake at the portable bar set up by the pool. Mama Di and Papa Bill had chosen a lovely resort for the festivities. They’d invited her father, who’d sent a card, a check and some flowers, and Brian, who hadn’t been well enough to make the trip. But she had Kora.

She kept her back to the room, but she could still feel those eyes on her. Boring into her.

He reminded her of Stan. And for a second there, out of the blue, she remembered the roughness of Stan’s fingers in her pants. It wasn’t the first time she’d remembered. Wasn’t even the hundredth. She pushed the memory away with the familiarity of long practice.

Weiner didn’t give a shit about her. It was all about appearances—his acceptance by his deceased ex-wife’s only daughter, a young lawyer who couldn’t afford him as an enemy. Their small world would have talked if he hadn’t shown up. And although he hadn’t been invited—and would’ve known why—he would also have known that she’d never make a scene. Not here.

Just as Stan had known she’d never tell...

Bailey listened as Jake ordered her wine and a scotch sour for himself.

In high school, he’d been a beer drinker. In college, when the four of them had met either at Penn State or at Wesley, it had been Jäger bombs. Not until Koralynn’s wedding had she seen him drink scotch sours.

The judge, who’d financed his stepdaughter’s first year of law school, was getting closer. She could hear his booming voice.

Jake handed her a glass of wine and held up his highball. “Here’s to you. I’m proud of you, Bail.” His grin did that crazy thing to her, and for a second she was willing to lose herself in sensation. To lose thoughts of Stan to something healthier.

Until she heard the voice again. The fake, professional tone. With almost no resemblance to the biting demands it had issued at home.

“You feel like a breath of air?” she asked, leaving the bar and making a beeline for the pool outside. A hundred or more strings of little white lights gave the outdoor area a festive glow.

But before she made it to her goal, Bailey was stopped by a close friend of Mama Di and Papa Bill’s. A woman she’d known most of her life.

And then there was a couple from the church she’d attended when she spent the weekends at the Mitchells’. Jake joined in the conversations and in some private ones of his own. A steady presence by her side. She wondered if he’d recognized Weiner. If he was purposely keeping himself between her and the older man.

It wouldn’t work for long. She knew the man. He got what he wanted. Always.

“He’s gone....” Koralynn’s whisper right behind her changed Bailey’s world yet again.