Our eyes lock, and I’m actually feeling proud of myself, until his gaze moves over my shoulder, and suddenly I realize the mistake I made.
I don’t turn. I know what’s behind me. I feel the drunken smiles and squinting eyes of the hundred-year-old Chinese revelers naively partying and celebrating their good fortune, utterly unaware of the sudden danger.
Life needs an undo, a reset button. Desperately, I’d like to rewind the last minute of my life, but like so many things, it’s too late.
I make a superhuman effort not to react, but I know I have by the smirk on Gordon’s face.
“Go put on your makeup,” he says. “Go on, Jill, everything’s fine.”
He steps toward me and brushes my cheek with the back of his hand, tracing my jaw, then my neck, his hand coming to rest on my shoulder.
I eye him warily, my heart thumping.
“Gordon, I’m sorry. You’re right, I shouldn’t have said anything about Drew.”
He kisses me on the forehead. “Don’t worry about it. Everything’s fine. Go on now.”
“You’re not mad?”
“Jill, I’m fine.”
I feel the faces behind me. “You’re not going to do anything?”
“Jill, go get ready. It’s forgotten.”
He’s lying, and I’m terrified to move.
My preoccupation with lying goes back to when I was a kid and the ridiculous game of Truth or Dare. Being painfully shy, it was imperative I become a very astute player of the perilous game.
What I discovered was that everyone has a “tell” when they lie. Most fibbers are betrayed by the obvious—their eyes slide or stare unnaturally long, or their posture shifts, becoming defensive or stooped, or their voice changes, or their smile becomes frozen or forced. The subtle tells are more interesting, small ticks that anyone with a conscience has. My mom talks fast and repeats herself. My dad is brusque and abrupt. Harris rubs his forefinger and thumb together—he does this so often that he has a callus.
The most difficult lies to detect are those the liar believes. For example, if I ask my mom if her ridiculously expensive sunglasses are new, she’ll lie and rapidly tell me several times she’s had them forever when she only bought them that day—she repeats the answer and says it very fast and I know she’s lying. But if I ask the same question the following day, she’ll tell me the same thing and the lie is undetectable. She’ll have convinced herself that a day qualifies as forever.
Gordon’s the best liar I know, and before we were married, I believed he was simply unwaveringly honest. His expression never changes, his posture never falters, his voice is always even. He also believes everything he says.
It’s only after years of study that I’ve discovered his tell. It’s subtle and inconsistent, but if you catch it, you know he’s lying. It’s in the phrasing of his answer. If he uses your name, he’s lying.
“Drew, I have no idea where you left your glove.”
It was in the dumpster because Gordon wanted him to use the new one he’d bought.
“Bob, great car.”
It was a Dodge Caravan.
“Jill, I’m sorry. I would never hurt you on purpose. You know I love you.”
He kisses my forehead and gives me a loving nudge toward the bathroom.
“Go on, Jill, everything’s fine.”
* * *
The first diorama hits the floor as I put on my foundation. The sound chills my blood. I tremble and listen as the other ten follow, unable to help, unable to save them.
When I stumble from the bathroom, Gordon’s gone, and porcelain pieces cover the floor, broken figurines and smiles among the rubble.
I kneel before the pieces, crying in near silence, my head resting on the broken shards. And since I’m already on my knees, I pray.
I believe in God, but not in the superhero version. He has larger issues to attend to than the mortal messes of fools like me. My prayer is more of a plea. I pray for some divine inspiration to strike me, an epiphany of how to set things right, to save myself and Addie and Drew.
Instead of inspiration, my mind fills with the impulse to flee, of leaving for work in the morning but driving to the airport instead. Just leave. If I cash in my retirement, I’d have enough for a fresh start. I’m only forty; there’s still half a life waiting for me.
Guilt rushes over me like a tsunami until I’m drowning in self-loathing. I’m a terrible mother, a terrible daughter, a terrible person. What kind of sick sociopath has such easy thoughts of abandonment?
My hand reaches to retrieve the head of a singing man with a Fu Manchu mustache, but before I reach him, I’m distracted by a noise outside the window.
Thwap.
Pause.
Thwap.
Again, and again—thwap, pause, thwap, pause.
I don’t need to look. The sound is unmistakable, leather slapping leather. Gordon and Drew are in the backyard playing catch.
As always, I’ve made things worse.
S
apphire is the latest, greatest culinary delight in Laguna Beach. Housed in an old pottery factory, the structure is rustic twentieth-century barn and the flounce is twenty-first-century hand-blown glass and leather.
“Mom,” kiss, kiss, “Pops,” hug, slightly longer than standard.
He smells of Partagas cigars and coffee. I turn into it, my eyes closing in comfort as I breathe it in so it will stay with me. It’s my dad’s smell and reminds me of my childhood.
“You look tired,” my mom says as Gordon holds the chair for her. I reach beneath the table and rest my hand on my dad’s good leg, and he taps it twice with his good hand to assure me I look fine.
The server arrives, curly blond with celery eyes. Sapphire is famous for good food and young male waiters who look better than they serve. It’s why my mom likes the place so much.
“Gibson,” my mom says before the young hunk opens his mouth.
“Actually, ma’am, my name is Henry.”
In one sentence, Henry’s committed two sins, and the boy’s tip diminishes before my eyes. He doesn’t have a clue what a Gibson is, and one more use of the m-word to my mom and he’ll be lucky to get ten percent.
Feeling bad for the kid, I try to help out. “A martini with an onion instead of an olive.”
He writes what I said in his notepad, then turns from me to my mom. “And for you, ma’am?”
Beside me, my dad groans.
“I’ll have what she’s having,” my mom says.
I don’t want a Gibson. I hate martinis. What I want is a glass of wine, but my dad’s already ordering his drink, so I let it go.
“She’s not drinking,” Gordon says beside me and nodding in my direction. “So only one martini.”
My mom’s painted-on brows rise, and my dad’s single brow that works descends.
The blood leaves my face completely. I forgot I’m pretending I might be pregnant.
“That’s wonderful,” my mom says as she ignores me and kisses Gordon on the cheek.
Henry, our server, still stands beside me waiting.
“I’ll have a Perrier,” I say, and he scuttles off. Desperately, I’d like a glass of wine. An evening with my parents and Gordon without alcohol—a tooth extraction without Novocain would be less painful.
My mom and Gordon chatter on about the grand news of our expanding family, then about the kids, then about his job. Her adoration always teeters on flirtation and always sits wrong with the other two of us at the table.
I tune it out and turn to my dad. Since his stroke, he’s self-conscious about talking in front of others. It tears me apart. I miss his company.
But he still knows me. “Dessert first?” he asks, the T’s not quite making it.
When I was a little girl, if I was dragging, he’d always say, “What my girl needs today is a little dessert first,” and he’d take me out for dinner, starting with brownies or ice cream at the old soda shop in Orange before moving on to a second restaurant for the main course.
I offer a small smile. I want to nod and take him by the hand, as I had when I was seven, and run from this ridiculous restaurant and straight into the nearest diner to order us both apple pie a la mode followed by two greasy burgers. And tell him everything until I’m so full and empty that suddenly the world is right again.
“Nick, did you say something?”
Both Gordon and my mom have interrupted their dynamic dialogue to attend to ours.
Thankfully, Henry returns. He hands my mom her drink, then gives Gordon and myself our Perriers. Gordon’s working tonight, so he’s not drinking.
“Oh, God! Vodka, yuck!” My mom thrusts the offensive drink back onto Henry’s tray and the kid almost loses it, but in a graceful dancer spin, manages to recover, only losing a few drops.
“Gibsons are made with gin,” my mom barks.
Beside me, my dad’s hand tenses in mine. Married forty-two years in a month, and for the last twenty-five of them, he’s suggested, requested, pleaded, and argued that my mom should just order a gin martini with an onion instead of an olive. But Grace Cancelleiri is who she is and so Gibson it is.
Henry delivers the rest of the drinks, then speeds off on the verge of a breakdown. “Excuse me,” I say.
Gordon, always the gentleman, stands to help me with my chair.
I pretend to move toward the restrooms, but instead make a quick detour to the bar.
I slip a twenty in front of Henry, who stands at the well staring blankly at the computer order screen. “This will pay to replace the martini with a Gibson,” I say. “A Gibson is a drink, like a martini, but always made with gin, and it comes with an onion instead of an olive.”
His hands fly over the screen, and he points. “There it is,” he says.
He’s young, probably twenty. I glance at the bartender who he sent the order to. He could be Henry’s twin.
“You might want to tell him.” I thumb my hand at the boy behind the bar, who squints at the screen with the same perplexed look Henry had a moment before.
“Thanks,” he says, walking past me to the bar so he can explain the drink.
My BlackBerry buzzes. I continue to the restroom, hiding the cell from view and glance at the text. “Looking forward to tomorrow. Pick you up at seven? xxx, Jeffrey.”
My heart beats too hard as I fumble with the pads.
“Absotootely.”
Stupid. I erase it.
“Tomorrow, tomorrow, I’ll love you tomorrow.”
Even worse.
“Dinner and dessert, wink, wink?”
I don’t even bother to type it. I feel my own desperation; so much was broken tonight, so much more than the sculptures.
“Sounds good.”
Send.
I return to the table, and the conversation has moved to dangerous territory, the tension thick enough to taste.
“I’ve got the space picked out and am shopping for the equipment now,” Gordon says.
My mom is oohing and ahhing in all the appropriate places.
“Who pays?” my dad says. It comes out, “Who hays?” and I feel my dad’s blood pressure dangerously rising.
This night was a very bad idea.
I try to put my hand back on my dad’s knee to calm him, but in its place is a tightened fist.
Gordon takes a moment to sip his water before answering.
“Are you referring to the initial capital?”
My dad nods.
Twice before, our life savings has been obliterated by Gordon’s grand ideas, and Gordon’s mishandling of money was the reason I gave for leaving him a year ago. The stroke erased my dad’s memory of that night, including the strangling, and all he remembers is that the day he had the stroke was the same day I left Gordon, and the reason I gave was that Gordon had spent our savings.
“The up-start’s minimal,” Gordon says. “That’s the beauty of it…”
“Who hays?” my dad repeats.
Across from me, my mom fidgets with her bread, moving the butter around in circles.
Gordon smiles, then does the unthinkable; he turns from my dad. “So, Grace, as I was saying, the way it will work…”
Stress will kill him.
The doctor’s repeated it so many times in the weeks following the stroke that I dream about it in my sleep.
“Gordon,” I say, “my father was speaking to you.”
Bad move. The only thing worse than being ignored by his son-in-law is being rescued by his daughter.
With great difficulty, my dad stands, the trembling taking over his whole body, the left and the right. He reaches for his wallet.
“Pops, please,” I say as I stand to steady him.
“Nick, sit down,” my mom adds, still rooted in her seat. “What are you trying to do, kill yourself?”
Gordon watches with a hidden grin on his outwardly concerned face.
My dad lays too much money on the table, and with his walker, hobbles toward the exit.
My mom, in no great hurry to assist him, takes another sip of her now-perfect Gibson, kisses Gordon on the cheek, frowns at me, then moves to her husband’s side to support him out the door.
G
ordon savors his dinner at a painful pace as I count down the morsels left on his plate. He makes conversation about the wine, the weather, and the food as though we are enjoying a perfect birthday dinner.
When dessert arrives, a strawberry panna cotta with mascarpone, he says, “How much is in our four-oh-one-k?”
My blood freezes.
My 401(k).
Since I was twenty, I’ve steadily contributed to my retirement with the hope I wouldn’t have to work past sixty. It’s the only savings we still have.
I sip my water to keep my mouth closed.
“I figure it’s enough to get things going then we can borrow if we need more.”
More? How much more?
His idea is a crackpot concept about elite training for young athletes—conditioning kids to reach their maximum sports potential. Even if enough fanatical parents exist to fill the memberships, the business has limited upside potential considering the investment required and the liability involved.
“Call tomorrow and let me know how much there is and when it will be available.”
I’m still not talking, but my head shakes back and forth.
Gordon’s head tilts, and his features darken.
Henry’s “Happy birthday” slices through the moment. “Enjoy the rest of your evening,” and he smiles as he drops off the bill.