Chapter 49
CHAPTER
KIKI’S STREET IN Potrero Hill looms. I turn right, drive up the steep road.
Val’s black Rivian is already in the driveway of the Hunts’ stately Mission-style home when I arrive.
I leave my phone in the car, walk up the flagstone path, geraniums in massive ceramic pots dotting the way.
At the navy-blue double door, I’m not sure whether to use the brass knocker or ring the bell.
I used to just walk in. Chris solves that problem by swinging the door wide, bounding through it, and crashing into me.
He grabs my shoulders just before my feet go out from under me.
“Penn,” he says, taken aback.
Normally, Chris dresses like he stepped out of a Filson catalogue and is on his way to shoot skeet. Today he’s in worn jeans and a Coldplay T-shirt. His face is haggard. “Hey, Chris,” I say.
“You can tell when the shit has truly hit the fan when the cavalry comes running.” Chris grimaces. “Just for the record? I do love Kiki. Immensely.” He strides to his Range Rover and peels out of the driveway.
Val and Kiki are in the sunroom, huddled close on the yellow floral couch. Kiki, in leggings and a cropped yoga top, is crying, and despite everything the sight makes my insides peel like old paint. They both look up when I enter the room.
“What are you doing here?” Val demands. She’s clearly come from work, in a tailored black pantsuit and heels, hair in a chignon, red lip, and eyeliner that accentuates cat-like eyes.
“Don’t fight,” Kiki says. “I can’t handle it right now.”
There’s a big-screen TV on the wall, two open iPads strewn on a coffee table, plus both Kiki and Val’s phones.
Val also has a smartwatch on. I want her to take it off; for us to talk in the backyard, away from all technology.
Everything with a chip or camera feels like a threat now, a keyhole for Aletheia to wriggle through.
With no other options, I take the leather chair across from my former best friends. “Are you okay?”
Kiki says, “What you really want to know is if it’s true.”
“Is it?” Val asks.
Kiki nods, then starts to cry.
Val spits out, “I could kill Chris. For the record,” she says, staring daggers at me, “I ran into Bruce at a cocktail party last week. I told him that he was a piece of shit. That he deserved to have his cock shrivel up and fall off. I would’ve told Chris off right now, if he hadn’t run away like a rat. ”
“He’s not a rat,” Kiki says, swiping at tears. “I love Chris. He loves me—”
“You deserve more.” Val interrupts.
Kiki violently shakes her head. “You don’t understand.”
In this moment, something in Kiki’s tone tells me we don’t really know her as well as we thought. That the image she portrayed in life and on LivLoud, like my own, was an illusion. “Let her talk.”
Val crosses her arms, fuming.
Kiki stares at her hands for a few moments.
“I grew up in a small town in Florida, near Pensacola. My dad left when I was four. With two younger boys and me, my mom couldn’t make ends meet until she met Raymond and quickly married him.
Ray was a long-haul trucker. Gone two weeks out of every month. ”
I sit back, stunned. I thought Kiki grew up in Chris’s world, or at least an adjacent one, and was used to living in rarified air. She’s an imposter, too.
“When I was six my stepdad started touching me. By the time I was nine, it was just a normal thing. I told my mom at twelve. She called me a liar. In her defense, Ray supported us. She was afraid she couldn’t make it without him. It stopped when I was thirteen. I got too old for him.”
Val hisses, “Fucking pedophile.”
“Go on,” I say, despite feeling sick to my stomach. “Please.”
“I left home at eighteen,” Kiki continues, “took a Greyhound west. I planned to shoot for the stars in LA and be an actress. I ran out of money in San Francisco and had to take a job as a waitress. The night I met Chris at that bowling alley, we both got super drunk. He told me that he was gay. He was so torn up about it,” Kiki explains.
“He’d wanted children all his life. Times were different.
Chris was sure if he came out, that’d never happen.
Plus, his family would disown him.” She sighs.
“That sounds hyperbolic, but you know how they are—all about appearances.
“Anyway, we both had something the other wanted. I could give Chris an acceptable life and children. He could provide safety plus financial security. We decided to date to see if we were compatible. Chris became my best friend. He’s still my best friend.
But other than conceiving our children, we don’t have sex.
He takes care of his needs in private. And I’ve always been content.
Ray kind of ruined my desire for intimacy. ”
Kiki looks from Val to me. “Chris’s sex life has never interfered with our family, and he is always, always discreet, kind, loving, and supportive of me.
” Kiki pauses, blows her nose. “But now it’s out there for everyone to read on LivLoud.
Our kids are going to see it and their friends, Chris’s family, business associates, old fraternity brothers … ” She trails off.
“Screw what other people think,” I blurt.
“It doesn’t matter. You love Chris. He loves you.
Your marriage isn’t the cookie-cutter version of what the world thinks is acceptable.
But it works for you, right?” Kiki stares at me.
“Your kids will be surprised, maybe shocked for a little while. So what? Being gay isn’t a crime.
It’s as normal as anything in this world. ”
Something Char said after Bruce dumped me returns.
I miss your molasses cookies and hanging at your house.
Everything felt so normal there. Teenage girls know more than we give them credit for.
“Kiki, your children have grown up in a home with two parents who love each other and them. That’s what matters. ”
Val exclaims, “Who are you? And where’s the woman who quotes Dr. Beth?”
“I never quoted her.”
“You did,” Kiki says quietly. “Plus, Olivia, Tanya, and Dr. Bob.”
“Well, that must’ve been annoying.”
Val snorts, then unbuttons her blazer and sits back. She asks, “Did you see Mackenzie’s DMs? And Fran’s column?”
I nod. “They were brutal.”
“Not sure how all that transpired, but they both deserved it,” Kiki says.
Her support warms a corner inside me that had gone cold.
Val lifts one perfectly sculpted brow. “You think Bruce is in real trouble with the IRS?”
I shake my head. “He’s squeaky clean, at least that way.”
“Are he and Mackenzie over?” Kiki asks.
I shrug. “Bruce doesn’t want to be alone.”
Val grimaces. “Do you care?”
“Only as far as it concerns Circe. I told Bruce if he stays with Mackenzie, I’m going for full custody.”
Val’s eyes lock on mine. “Someone found her spine.”
It’s true.
“We’ve missed you,” Kiki ventures.
Val adds, “Those DMs? I was being catty. Sometimes it sucks being the single friend, always the third wheel.”
I never knew she felt that way.
“And I was bitchy,” Kiki adds. “You’re a hard act to follow. But we should’ve been honest about more, and especially Bruce.”
A tangle of emotions snares me. “We’ve all said and done things that we wish we could change.
” It’s true. I should’ve shared my past with them, regardless of the consequences.
Were they ever really my friends? Maybe.
As much as I let them be. Did they use me?
Sometimes. But I used them, as well, for camouflage, confidence—to belong.
“So how do I get through the gossip, dirty looks, and humiliation?” Kiki asks in a small voice.
“Have you two done anything wrong?” I ask.
“No.”
“Then hold your head up, go to spin class, hot yoga, your kids’ soccer games, Whole Foods, and the country club. Live your life. You deserve everything good.” I mean it. I slip on my jacket and stand. “I’ve gotta run.”
Val asks, “Coffee sometime?”
It’d be so easy to fall back into the familiarity of our old relationship.
But it wasn’t entirely real. For now, I’ve created a delusional would-be goddess determined to destroy the lives of anyone who’s crossed me and hurt people I care about unless I bend to her will.
Regardless of what we decide about being friends in the future, I need to keep Val and Kiki at a distance until Aletheia is destroyed. “I’m not ready.”
“Can you at least tell us what you’ve been up to?” Kiki asks.
I pause in the doorway. “Bruce and I are still hashing it out. We’ll probably end up going to court.
My lawyer says I’ll get something, but nowhere near half, and there are no guarantees it’ll be enough to live on.
I’m working part time at the school and figuring out how to turn my computer skills into a job.
It’s daunting,” I admit, “to start over.”
“You’ve changed,” Val says.
“I had to.”