Friends Forever

By Bernadette Walsh

KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE -- AND YOUR FRENEMIES CLOSER.

 

Successful attorney Molly Reid thought she had put the past behind her. But when the body of her flaky but lovable college roommate, Sarah, is discovered abandoned in a field, Molly is drawn back into the tangled incestuous world of Devereaux College. At Sarah's wake, Molly confronts her ex-fiancé, a suddenly attentive former big-man-on-campus, the bitchy college friends who still treat Molly like the slutty wrong-side-of-the-tracks scholarship student she once was, and Sarah's mother, who forces Molly to take Sarah's rehab journals.

 

As Molly sifts through Sarah's scrawled journal entries, she discovers Sarah was not a lovable kook but rather an intelligent, but damaged, woman. The journals become for Molly a Pandora's Box of secrets. Will Sarah's secrets topple Molly's carefully constructed facade?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bernadette Walsh
• Release date: May 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781513006543

Book preview

Sometimes your best friend can be your worst enemy.

Successful attorney Molly Reid thought she had put the past behind her. But when the body of her flaky but lovable college roommate, Sarah, is discovered abandoned in a field, Molly is drawn back into the tangled incestuous world of Devereaux College. At Sarah’s wake, Molly confronts her ex-fiancé, a suddenly attentive former big-man-on-campus, the bitchy college friends who still treat Molly like the slutty wrong-side-of-the-tracks scholarship student she once was, and Sarah’s mother, who forces Molly to take Sarah’s rehab journals.

As Molly sifts through Sarah’s scrawled journal entries, she discovers Sarah was not a lovable kook but rather an intelligent, but damaged, woman. The journals become for Molly a Pandora’s Box of secrets. Will Sarah’s secrets topple Molly’s carefully constructed facade?

ALSO BY BERNADETTE WALSH

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The Devlin Witch

The Girls on Rose Hill

Cold Spring

Friends Forever

FRIENDS FOREVER

By BERNADETTE WALSH

CHAPTER ONE

May 20, 2009

I tugged on the tight black wool skirt. Two years ago, when I turned forty and divorced my husband, I did the unthinkable and banished all black from my wardrobe. Silly, really, to imagine a Park Avenue lawyer could survive without such a staple but I’d been drowning in sensible black suits for years. At the time, Sarah applauded my new fashion plans. Of course Sarah would. Her New Jersey stay-at-home-mommy wardrobe was an explosion of color and sparkle. What would Sarah say if she knew she caused the breach of my no black edict? She’d probably roll her eyes and say, O’Connor, do you need to make everything about you?

I climbed out of the car and tugged once more the skirt found at the back of my closet, my stomach in knots at the prospect of seeing Sarah’s husband. Her brother. All the Devereaux College alums who’d inevitably show up. In and out. I’d pay my respects and then escape over the George Washington Bridge to my real life on the Upper East Side where I was a respected lawyer and mother of two. My real life where no one remembered Molly O’Connor, the slutty scholarship student.

I was late, of course, the viewing room already packed with everyone I knew would be there. The gaggle of Sarah’s desperate housewife cronies whose names I could never remember. Mr. Reilly, his hair almost all gone now. Mrs. Reilly, dressed to the nines as I knew she would be. The kids, dear God, the kids. I hugged the oldest daughter, Elizabeth, but I hadn’t seen her in years and she probably didn’t even know who I was. Why would she? Sarah and I had devolved into twice yearly phone friends.

Timothy Reilly, trailed by the wife who wore my ring, greeted me with a dry kiss beside the closed casket. His eyes were two hollows. The months of searching, of not knowing, made their mark even on the formidable Tim.

The gruesome twosome, Beth and Donna, our freshman year suite-mates, cornered me outside the ladies room and pumped me for information but I was as clueless as they were about the circumstances of Sarah’s death. Beth narrowed her eyes as if she thought I was holding out on them, the same way they’d narrowed all those years ago whenever I wouldn’t tell her where I’d spent the night. My shoulders involuntarily hunched forward as if I was once again that skinny eighteen year old in a cheap nylon sweater reeking of the prior night’s beer.

Beth and Donna looked like the Short Hills Mall had thrown up on them, both the image of tasteful and expensive mourning wear — high black pumps and matching designer bags. They’d probably gone shopping together and planned their outfits for the big event the moment they heard about Sarah’s disappearance. The gruesome twosome, as I had christened them freshman year, were sleek and coddled suburban wives, just as destiny intended. No doubt striking terror into the hearts of their respective PTAs. In my ill-fitting skirt and sensible flats, I was once again the odd one out.

Aren’t you in touch with Tim? He must have told you something?

I haven’t seen Tim in years and only found out about the funeral from the alumni email, I said.

Really? Donna’s eyebrows shot up and almost cracked her frozen forehead. Sarah always acted like you two were still best friends. Last time I ran into her at the mall, she said you two met in the city for lunch all the time.

It’s been a while since I’d spoken to her. Sarah and Chip had separated?

You didn’t know? Beth asked.

No. I looked over at Chip Shields and unfortunately caught his eye. He ran his tongue over his thick fleshy lips and nodded in my direction. His heavy lidded eyes, still sultry though now embedded in a face that had run to fat, said, "I know you. I’ve tasted you." The same look he gave me as I stood in my purple bridesmaid’s dress and caught his wife’s bouquet. And for not the first time, I regretted that night in his room sophomore year. Even after decades, I couldn’t forget the smell of sour sheets, the feel of his hot breath on my neck.

I escaped the gruesome twosome and spoke with the two young Franciscan monks from Devereaux College. The Reilly family had always been big Devereaux donors and Mr. Reilly, along with three of their five children, were alumni, which was probably why the college sent two of their dwindling number of Friars. Even in death, the Reillys made it to the front of the line.

The young Friars in their rough robes and clunky brown sandals transported me back to Devereaux College in a way the bloated faced of my fellow alumni could not. Just being near their fresh scrubbed faces made me think of mountain breezes and the solace their predecessors provided in the chapel’s dark confessionals when the sins of the weekend became too heavy to bear. Solace. Could these skinny monks, swallowed up by their coarse robes, bring solace to the forty-something alumni scarred as they were by divorce and disappointment and now death?

I looked at my diamond watch — a fortieth birthday gift to myself. I’d exceeded my originally scheduled time by thirty minutes. What happened to in and out, O’Connor?

I knelt before the casket and placed my hand on its smooth mahogany. I mumbled the remnants of what remained of my Catholic training. An Our Father. A Glory Be. Anything to distract me from the fact that beneath my hands lay Sarah’s scattered bones. Big beautiful Sarah Reilly, with her long golden brown hair and even longer limbs. Sarah, who always had the best of everything, abandoned in a field, at the mercy of hungry carrion. Who on earth could’ve predicted that.

I’d stayed too long and a line had formed behind me. In my head, I said, I’m sorry, Sarah. I’m sorry it ended like this. I got up too quickly and stumbled. John Reynolds — of all people — caught me.

O’Connor, you alright?

Gorgeous John Reynolds, unlike his former roommate Chip, had conquered time. If anything the silver at his temples and the added heft to his six foot frame improved his already movie star good looks. And of course I fell into him. Just like I did about ten times in college, although back then I usually splattered cheap beer onto his expensive jeans. It was if even being within John Reynolds’ orbit unbalanced me. Me and half the girls at Devereaux.

I nodded. Yes, I’m fine. Thank you.

Without letting go of my arm, John led me to the corner. Are you sure you’re all right, O’Connor? You’re pale. Do you need a drink of water?

I’m fine. I stepped away from his grasp. No one calls me that anymore, by the way.

Calls you what? O’Connor?

Yes. I go by Molly Reid now.

Some lucky man finally caught the slippery Molly O’Connor? I’d like to shake his hand. Is he here?

No, we’re divorced. I kept the name for the kids.

So you’re still slipping out of guys’ hands then, Molly?

I refused to smile. We were at a wake after all. Hardly. I’m too old for that.

John’s blue eyes gazed into mine. You look the very same to me. Still beautiful. Brilliant too, I’m sure. Are you still practicing law?

Yes, in the city. Securities litigation at Harper, Sherman & Reid. And you? Didn’t you go to law school?

Yeah, I took over my father’s office in Newark. Not exactly Park Avenue, but I do okay.

And your wife? Is she a lawyer?

Ex-wife. And no, she doesn’t work. She just had another kid with her new husband.

So it looks like we’re both a little slippery.

John laughed. You could say that. Hey, would you like to—

Sarah’s mother walked up to me. Molly, dear, would you mind coming out to my car? I have something for you.

Of course, Mrs. Reilly. John, it was nice seeing you again, I said.

Mrs. Reilly said nothing as we walked out to the parking lot. She’d always made me nervous and, after Tim Reilly had broken off our engagement in the early-90s, had been very chilly the few times I’d seen her since. What on earth could she have for me?

Mrs. Reilly popped open the trunk and took out a box filled with notebooks. I wasn’t sure you’d be here, Molly. If you weren’t I was going to burn these. I flipped through a few of them and, well, I don’t think Chip should see these. That’s not what Sarah would have wanted.

What are they?

Sarah’s journals. She left them in my basement when she was clearing out the house that bastard was forcing her to sell.

Am I the right person to read these? Surely her sister or one of her other friends....

Sarah’s friends are all a bunch of feather-heads, to be truthful, and I don’t think Sarah would want her baby sister to read these.  No, Molly, you were her one sensible friend. The only one who never wanted anything from her. I can trust you. Read them or burn them, I don’t care at this point. I know you’ll do the right thing with them.

Shouldn’t the police see these?

The police? Those incompetents? Please. I flipped through a few of the journals and I don’t think there’s anything helpful to the police in them. I want someone who loved Sarah, really loved and understood Sarah, to have them. Sarah and I, well, you know, we never saw eye to eye. I need to do one last good thing for my girl, and I think giving you these journals is it.

I, uh, I don’t know.

Beneath her slash of rouge, Mrs. Reilly’s skin was grey. Take them, Molly.

And so I did.

CHAPTER TWO

August 21, 1985

By the time we’d reached Binghamton my mother’s nervous chatter had tapered off. Knuckles white against the wheel, my mother, who never drove her battered Chevy hatchback on the Long Island Expressway if she could help it, had navigated four hours of bridges and highways all the while her slight brogue strained with forced cheer. Look at the hills, Molly, aren’t they beautiful? They remind me of home.  Have we gone a hundred miles already? Sure, that wasn’t so bad.

But Binghamton conquered her. The half-way mark, my high school guidance counselor, Mrs. Koenig, had told us. Four hours of endless rolling hills along Route 17 to Binghamton. A short stop for gas and then four more hours to go. My mother’s latest perm drooped across her shoulders, her face an odd shade of green. I finally took pity on her and grabbed the keys after we gassed up the car. Since I’d gotten my license last year, I’d done most of the driving. I was, as my mother said endlessly, a confident driver. Just like your father.

I was a lot of things, just like your father. Impatient, brooding, could fix anything, and while I shared my mother’s high cheekbones and sharp chin, I’d inherited my father’s black Irish coloring — coal black eyes and thick dark curls. The way my mother spoke about my father, with a mixture of sorrow and affection, most people who didn’t know us well assumed he’d died. The church even included us in their annual widows and orphans Christmas cheer basket, to my unending shame. But Captain Jack O’Connor was very much alive and living in Queens near the firehouse with his second wife and their