London Is the Best City in America (10 page)

“Anyway,” Josh said. “I don’t see how this documentary is really your story to tell. How is at all related to what you really wanted to do? You know, finding an uplifting outcome. A happy ending. Isn’t that your thing?”

“I don’t have a
thing,
” I said, even though that wasn’t entirely true. One of the reasons I’d gotten interested in the idea of making documentaries in the first place was because I was intrigued by the idea of the “Hollywood ending,” people always associating the term with meaning a happy ending, when in reality it seemed to me that the truly classic Hollywood films—like
Casablanca, The Graduate, Chinatown
—often had endings that were, at the very least, more uncertain than happy. More mixed than any one way. I had always been interested in the idea of trying to make documentary films, chasing around real-life stories, that would have the happy ending I couldn’t seem to find anywhere else. I wasn’t about to admit that now.

“Besides,” he said, “I’m not only talking about this
project.
I’m talking about how you used to be funny. Funny and real and tough.”

“I’m tougher now than I was.”

“Not even a little,” he said.

We were all the way in the right lane. If Josh didn’t get over right now, he was going to miss the fork for the interstate. We’d have to turn around at the next exit and circle back. We’d lose a half hour or twenty minutes, at least.

I started to tell him, but he interrupted me. “It’s like you’re waiting for Matt or something,” he said. “It’s like you’re just staying there because you’re waiting for him to come back and get you.”

I felt something tighten in my throat, hard and round, numbing me from the inside out, making it very hard to swallow. Making it hard to do much of anything. I didn’t know how to explain it to Josh without sounding crazy that I did, for a while, have this recurring fantasy of opening the front door and seeing Matt standing there, his hands down deep in his pockets, looking back at me. Us picking up—not where we left off, but a little before that. When things were still good between us.

Did it matter that Josh used to like Matt? I felt like reminding him of that, but I knew Josh didn’t want a catalog of days Matt had spent with our family: the basketball league they had been in together, the time we all ran a half-marathon, the Chicago trip Matt came on to celebrate my mom’s birthday. Josh only cared that Matt wasn’t a part of our family now—only cared about my accepting that, once and for all.

“I don’t get it, Emmy,” Josh said. “You’re the one that left him, remember? Even if you didn’t get too far afterward.”

I wanted to fight back and ask him exactly how far
he
had gotten since things had ended with Elizabeth. It couldn’t be that far if, the day before his wedding, he was still going to see her now.

I felt like I was about to cry. Josh was right. I wasn’t tough, not anymore. You said a few words to me—a few things that hit wrong—and I was a wimpy ball of emotions. Someone tapped on me, and there I’d go, bouncing.

Josh looked my way, and even though I was averting my eyes, he must have realized he had gone too far because I saw his shoulders slump, and he quickly changed his tone.

“Look,” he said. “I’m not trying to be a jerk here. I just don’t like you being at this standstill. You could do a hundred different things. Go back to film school, or move to London for a while. You used to love London, remember? Why don’t you try to get a job there? Or move somewhere else, and actually get a real job. I’m just saying . . . there’s not only one way to go.”

I made myself swallow, clearing my throat. “Well, I’m glad to hear that, Josh,” I said. “Because you just missed the exit.”

A little after nine, we pulled off into a truck stop for breakfast and coffee. We were only about fifteen minutes south of Narragansett, less than sixty miles from Pascoag. But I wanted to stop then, as opposed to any closer to where I lived. Or exactly where I lived. It would be too much to take Josh to the one dinerlike place in Narragansett, Dad’s Breakfast Shop, which was a small single-room restaurant just down the street from my house: bright flower paintings, long countertop, regulars who came in every morning and ordered the exact same thing—a #1 (two pancakes, three eggs, and juice), or #2 (corned beef hash and onions, large coffee), or #3 (banana waffles and whipped cream, apple-sauce on the side).

I could just picture Josh staring at Dad’s front door—simultaneously hoping and not hoping that someone would walk through it that I would say hi to, someone that would signal I had something of a situation there resembling a life. Either way, it was inevitable that both of us would have been disappointed.

But this anonymous truck stop was packed with people I wasn’t supposed to know. We sat in the corner booth, and Josh ordered a platter of eggs and turkey bacon. I said I wasn’t really hungry, but then I ate half of his and got my own order of mini-pancakes and raspberries. I had eaten the night before right before the fireworks. And then at the fireworks, I had eaten that hot dog. And, still, it all felt like a very long time ago.

Right after my food showed up, the cell phone rang. MOM came up flashing on the caller ID screen. I held up the phone so that Josh could see it for himself. We were in trouble. I knew it. I knew
she knew
that something was going on.

“Pick it up,” he said.

“You pick it up,” I said, trying to hand him the phone.

“No way.” He pushed the phone back toward me. “Don’t be paranoid. Pick up the phone and find out what she wants. She probably just wants to tell you something about the caterer being late, or last-minute guests canceling. Or how messy you left your room.”

It was ring four. He didn’t say anything else, but he kept looking at me, waiting for me to do what he said. I gave him a dirty look, but then I picked up the phone anyway.

Our mom was midway through a sentence before I even said hello. She was whispering. “ . . . The Moynihan-Richardses are broiling chicken. On the caterer’s grill in the backyard. I’m watching through the kitchen window.”

I tried to picture her huddled into the corner, leaning up against the window frame—incognito in her green sweat suit—the curtain pulled back just enough so she could get a solid peek.

“You’re lying,” I said.

“Would I lie about something like that? And can you tell me, please, where did they even get the chicken? Not from me.”

I didn’t know what to say to her.

“Who eats chicken? For breakfast?”

I put my hand over the receiver. “You need to talk to her,” I mouthed to Josh.
“Please.”

He shook his head, and pointed toward the stick-figure sign marking the men’s restroom. Then he got up and headed that way.

I took my hand off the receiver.

“Not to mention the fact that your father’s a mess,” she was saying. “What did you give him to drink last night? He had a beer for breakfast and is saying crazy things about hairs of dogs.”

Dogs. Crap. I didn’t want any further reminder of where Josh and I were headed. We’d be there in an hour now, less than an hour, and who knew what was waiting for us after that? Who knew what was waiting for him?

“You two should just stay away from here this afternoon, okay? Stay away until five or so, if you can. The fewer people here, the better.”

I let a deep breath out, glad for some good news. At least we weren’t going to be suspicious for staying away from the house all day, wouldn’t be missed. We’d just be following the rules.

“Now, what’s going on with you?” she said. “How is everything? How is Meryl holding up?”

“Oh, well, you know Meryl,” I said. “She tries not to let these things really get to her.”

“You know, that’s funny,” she said. “Because that’s exactly what Meryl said when she called here a few minutes ago looking for you guys.”

I felt my eyes opening wide in disbelief. Total panic. She knew we weren’t with Meryl. She knew! I looked in the direction of the bathroom, but Josh had disappeared inside. I considered hanging up the phone, pretending later that we’d just gotten disconnected. She would keep calling back, though. I knew this. I knew she would leave a good seventeen messages on my voice mail if she couldn’t get through.

“I can’t believe you lied to me,” she said.

It didn’t seem like the ideal time to point out that it was Josh’s note, Josh’s lie. But I wanted to. I wanted off the hook. Twenty-six years old, and—inside—I was still a tattletale.

“But you know what? It doesn’t matter,” she said. “You don’t need to tell me. Because I already know. What do you think? He’s my son. Obviously I would know something like this. And don’t give me any of your niceties about how Josh doesn’t want to worry me. Since the twenty-one and a half hours I was in labor with him, I’ve lived the majority of my life worried.”

I moved my now-empty plate farther away from me, the smell of leftover syrup starting to make me queasy. “Easy with the imagery,” I said.

“The point is,” she said, “if Josh didn’t want to worry me, he wouldn’t be off easy-riding.”

“Easy-riding?”

“You know, getting on a Harley. Cruisin’ down the highway.”

I looked at the receiver as if it would explain to me what the hell was going on here. “Who is this?” I said.

“All I’m saying, Emmy, is that I saw Josh’s face when we were watching that movie the other night. The
Erin Brockovich
movie with Julia Roberts. Josh was looking at that motorcycle rider who played her boyfriend. Talking all about Harley engines, and how taking care of one of them properly was like taking care of a patient. Like I was supposed to be excited that he could talk intelligently about such things. I knew what he was thinking. When can I get myself on one of those? And let me tell you, I wasn’t impressed.”

Josh sat down at the table and gave me a look of disbelief that I was still on the phone.

I put my fingers to my lips for him to stay quiet.

“Just one question. You’re not planning on going also, are you? You know what that’s called? Enabling. What you need to do is try to stop him. Because he thinks this is his last window of opportunity. God knows Meryl won’t let him go. But he’ll listen to you. He’ll listen to you before he’ll listen to me.”

Josh was staring at me. “What’s going on?” he mouthed. “What is she saying to you?”

“I hear you, Mom,” I said, looking at Josh.

“Good. Because if you tell him not to do this,” she said, “he won’t.”

We passed the Pascoag town line right around 11:00 A.M., the sign for Hamilton Breeders not long after that. The sun was shooting down strong, and we had all the windows open, the air conditioner on us. Josh took a left onto the long dirt road right beyond the Hamilton announcement—a little blue arrow, directing us to there. Everything around us seemed to be getting woodsier: thick trees and long, broken branches, logs covering the thin road. But eventually we came upon a second blue arrow directing us left and then a third one pointing us right, and before I knew it, we were pulling into this large clearing and underneath a tall archway into wide open space. The sky hit down on acres of land, little hills, the forest now just a canopy in the distance.

To the left was a large fenced-in field, several low-riding chain-linked dog pens, matching white dog runs. To the right was a large white farmhouse, and—behind it—a misty lake. As we pulled in, the dogs all ran out, in succession, barking loudly. It was the first time I’d ever seen a bullmastiff, let alone several. They kind of looked like small horses. Protecting their empire.

I turned and looked at Josh. “This is where she lives?” I said.

“This is where she lives,” he said. And he was nodding his head, proud, like he was responsible, like it was his home too.

I’d anticipated him getting more nervous now that we were actually here. But for the first time that whole weekend, Josh had a smile on his face. A real smile. He was just sitting there nodding and smiling. And he looked totally relaxed.

“Hey,” I said. “You know what? Why don’t I make myself scarce for a while? I’ll go back into the town, get a cup of coffee or something. There was that happy-looking place Mr. Dough-boys. I’ll go back there and get myself a doughnut and wait a bit.”

“There’s no reason to do that,” he said. But he wasn’t even looking at me anymore. He was already unlocking the car door, getting out. I wasn’t sure he knew what I was saying.

Then I heard yelling, and I looked up to see a young woman emerging from the house, telling the dogs to calm down. She was wearing baggy jeans and a white tank top, her hair pulled back in a long blond braid. Even from a distance, I knew she couldn’t be a day over twenty. She was heading toward our car, and then, when Josh stepped outside and she saw who it was, she started to run. Josh started running too, and when he reached her, he picked her up in his arms, hugged her to him.

I wasn’t sure what to do, so I got out of the car too and walked toward them. Up close, I could see that my estimate had been wrong—Elizabeth wasn’t even close to twenty. She was more like fifteen or sixteen,
maybe
seventeen. Soft blue eyes. Young skin. Immediately I had this feeling that this couldn’t be happening. I wasn’t really here in Rhode Island with these huge dogs and beautiful, baby-style Elizabeth and Josh—who was apparently a very dirty old man. I stopped a few feet away from them, crossing my arms across my chest, standing on the sides of my feet awkwardly.

But then he introduced us.

“Emmy,” he said, “I’d like you to meet Grace Hamilton. Also known as Princess Grace.”

Princess Grace started laughing, and held out her hand to me. “It’s very nice to meet you,” she said.

I shook her hand back, and attempted to say something like nice to meet you too—though my throat was kind of closed up, and it came out wrong, came out only about half-finished, much closer to just, “meet you.”

Josh kept smiling at her, thoroughly enjoying, apparently, seeing her laugh. “Grace is Elizabeth’s daughter,” he said.

Elizabeth’s daughter. Her
daughter.
I felt myself take a breath, unaware that until then, I hadn’t. This wasn’t Elizabeth. I felt so much relief—so deep-seated and complete—that this wasn’t turning out the way it looked at first that it took me a minute to focus on the implications of what I’d just found out. Elizabeth had a daughter. I was shaking this girl’s hand. All of which meant, that at the very least, this complicated situation had just gotten even more complicated.