North of Beautiful (15 page)

“And to think I actually thought I missed you guys,” I grumbled, grabbing for my phone. Naturally, Claudius tossed it to Merc.

“Brothers can be so mean,” murmured Elisa, but she smiled indulgently at Merc before plucking my cell phone out of his hand and setting it back in mine. “I have five.”

“Five? God, you deserve some kind of lifetime achievement award.”

“Are you kidding?” Merc nudged a plate closer to her. “She’s their little princess. You can’t go to her condo without stepping on one of them.”

“That’s not true,” Elisa laughingly protested.

“Oh yeah? She’s practically running a boutique hotel, they’re always flying in for a visit.”

Resentment pricked me like a fine sliver I hadn’t noticed until I brushed against it. Why hadn’t my brothers called to check on me? Merc had clocked out of our family long ago, but Claudius I could usually count on talking to at least once a week until he had mysteriously stopped returning my calls at the beginning of the school year. Didn’t they want to see if I needed anything? To make sure I was surviving Dad?

The garage opened, creaking angrily as if channeling Dad’s constant state of irritation. Mom and I exchanged a bewildered look: what was Dad doing home so early? He never broke from his weekend workout program.

No matter how long my brothers had been away, they both fell back into our routine, ingrained by habit and one too many unpleasant consequences. We could have been the inner gears of a delicate chronometer, our movements practiced and dependent on the others. I rushed to the kitchen island, brushing all the crumbs from the counter into my cupped palm while Claudius hauled to the mudroom to put away his boots. Merc inspected the kitchen to make sure nothing else was out of place — not a plate, a fork, or a newspaper. Meanwhile, Mom rewrapped the white cheddar cheese in Saran while she bustled to the refrigerator. I was about to fix Dad a plate when I spotted the butter cubes I had removed that morning to soften at room temperature for baking. Hastily, I handed them to Mom. Neither of us spared a sigh for the butter that had reached the perfect consistency and would just harden back to normal inside the cold confines of the fridge.

Not once had Claudius ever brought home a girlfriend. And for good reason. After all, it had taken a scant millisecond for Dad to dismiss my friend Karin. The reason? She had come over once when she was twelve, her fingernails painted bright red. Apparently, that was a sign of her inner slattern. This, after years of seeing Karin and her doll at our house in matching pigtails, dropping me off at hers with my stuffed bunny. Further proof of Claudius’s wise decision was unfolding fast over hors d’oeuvres served in our great room. As usual, Dad was skipping Mom’s crab-stuffed mushrooms (“You didn’t think to use low-fat cheese?”) and whetting his appetite instead with pointed questions that may have been directed at Elisa, but were really aimed at Merc.

“So what exactly do you do in China?” asked Dad where we were gathered around the fireplace, Mom bustling alone in the safety of the kitchen. I eyed Claudius enviously, where he sat apart from us nearest the stairs for a quick getaway, palming one of the glass orbs from a rattan basket Mom had displayed on a side table.

“That’s a good question. I’m taking some time off from law. Unlike Merc, I don’t thrive on reviewing documents for corporate financings.” Elisa speared an olive, popped it into her mouth. “So I’m deciding my next step.”

“Your next step,” Dad repeated, his mouth downturned, magnetically drawn southward to hell. He shot me a meaningful look. “That’s quite a law school bill you racked up to” — he made quote marks in the air — “decide your next step.” Chuckle, chuckle.

“Better now than never.” Elisa grinned, obviously expecting Dad to grin back.

Wrong answer. Dad leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, displeased.

I glowered at Merc, who sat stoically beside Elisa on the sofa like one of the terracotta warriors I had read about when he announced he was moving to China, standing guard for the dead but doing nothing for the living. Since Merc wasn’t checking his cell phone or messaging compulsively on his BlackBerry, obviously, Elisa mattered to him. So what was with him not briefing her on what constituted an appropriate response to one of Dad’s loaded questions?

Mom staggered into the living room under the weight of yet another tray, this one overflowing with freshly baked bread, warmed brie, and prosciutto-wrapped shrimp. Immediately Elisa made room on the coffee table, nudging aside the platter of mushrooms while I set the heavy basket filled with pinecones the size of loaves next to the fireplace. Claudius was staring at the floor, tossing a cobalt blue globe of glass from hand to hand.

“Sit down,” Elisa urged Mom, holding her hand gently so she couldn’t leave. “Relax awhile.”

Relax? Who was relaxing? Mom glanced at Dad as though she was having the same reservations as I was. Despite his leisurely swirling of a glass of red wine — a four-ounce pour, no more, no less — not even Dad was relaxing. He was waiting.

“Oh,” said Mom nervously, casting a look that bordered on wistful at the kitchen, “I still have a few things left to do.”

I stood up. “I’ll help, Mom.”

“It can wait,” said Elisa, smiling earnestly.

After a beat, Dad pointed his wine glass at the empty spot next to Merc. “You heard her. It can wait.”

Reluctantly, Mom sat on the other side of Merc, so we were lined up, four prisoners on the execution block of the sofa. Elisa sliced herself a tiny wedge of baked brie, settled it on top of bread, and bit. Her eyes closed in food ecstasy.

“You really need to try this,” she said, leaning back to give Merc a bite.

Mom scooted to the edge of her seat, reaching for the cheese herself.

No, Mom, don’t.

Tonight she was wearing a holiday red sweater. The unfortunate effect of the too-tight sweater was that it accentuated her bulges, more fodder for Dad.

With a smile that was a smidge too smug to be courtly, Dad asked, “So, Elisa, how do you keep your girlish figure?”

Mom’s lips pursed from the tart aftertaste of Dad’s comment. God. I hated it when he did this, diminished Mom with compliments aimed at other women.

“Yoga,” Elisa replied.

“Hmmm, you should try that, Lois,” Dad said to Mom.

Either oblivious or determined to ignore the undercurrents, Elisa peered closely at the swag draped on the mantelpiece and coiled like an evergreen boa around the burning soy candles. She turned to Mom, waving around the room. “Merc said you made all of this?”

“Oh, it’s nothing.” Still, Mom smiled, pleased, and she set her morsel of brie onto a tiny plate. That, she perched on the precarious ledge of her lap that wasn’t already claimed by her stomach. “Terra helped out so much.”

“No, this is all you, Mom,” I corrected her. Unfortunately, there was only one man Mom would ever be tempted to leave Dad for, and that man was a myth. I don’t mean a mythic romantic hero, such as Mr. Darcy or even Orlando Bloom. But Santa Claus, the red-suited wonder. I bragged, “Give Mom a few accessories, and she could make any place feel homey.”

“I can see that,” said Elisa, glancing around appreciatively. “There’s just one thing missing.”

I frowned. “What?”

“Your art.”

Swallowing hard, I set down the glass of sparkling cider I had just picked up. Not this, not now, not with Dad listening.

“Your mom told me about your show, Terra,” explained Elisa. “You all must be so proud of Terra.”

I almost choked on that thought. Proud? Dad had yet to look me in the face since my laser surgery.

“Your collages are going to look so wonderful up,” Mom said, putting her arm around me, hugging me close to her soft body.

“Oh, not really,” I demurred. She was completely unaware that her second cracker, piled with an even larger wedge of cheese, came dangerously close to scratching my exposed cheek. I could smell the cheese, the rich, slightly rank scent making my stomach churn.

“Terra’s first show,” Dad boomed for the listening benefit of Elisa. I tensed. I couldn’t help it. The cut couldn’t be long from now. He smiled, teeth showing, a human hyena — all chuckle, chuckle — while preparing for the kill. “Too bad she didn’t think to do this a couple of weeks ago. She could have included it in her college applications.”

I shot Elisa a sharp look: Don’t say anything. But she murmured, “I’m sure Terra will get in wherever she applies.”

That was a bragging opportunity any normal parent would seize: Why, yes, she already got into her top choice, Williams. Mine were silent, Mom nibbling on her cheese, Dad scanning the newspaper in his lap.

“So does anyone want anything?” I asked. Mom was the only one without a beverage. “Mom, something to drink?”

As soon as I uttered the words, I wanted to take them back. They were a beacon, directing Dad’s attention to the half-eaten wedge of brie in Mom’s hand.

“Should you be eating that? Your diabetes and all,” he said, concerned husband.

“I don’t have diabetes,” Mom said softly.

“Your doctor warned you.” I’m warning you. He looked over at Elisa with a helpless shrug, implying: Gosh, it’s hard to be the responsible one, isn’t it?

I couldn’t stand it: Mom eating what she shouldn’t. Dad pointing it out to her. All of us pretending we were a normal, healthy family. Every one of my repressed retorts to Dad’s piercing comments felt ready to burst free, here in the living room.

“Still eating?” he asked Mom softly, the cobra ready to strike. He looked at me again, meaningfully: Take the food away from Mom.

Impulsively, I opened my mouth to tell Dad where he could stuff the cheese. I wasn’t his personal garbage disposal.

But Elisa interjected, “Merc framed the piece of art you made for him last Christmas, Terra. It’s the first thing you see when you walk into his apartment.”

“Really?” I said. Merc had never even acknowledged he’d received the collage, much less thanked me for it. He was too busy, I had told myself. Now, he nodded briefly as if that admission had cost him, as if he knew what this conversation was going to cost me.

The smirk on Dad’s face deepened like he was enjoying his own private joke. “I have one of Terra’s kindergarten pieces up in my office.” Chuckle, chuckle.

“I’m sure she was the best of her class then, too.” Elisa leaned over to slice another wedge of brie cheese, placed it on a cracker, and offered it to Merc. He shook his head, no thanks. So she urged it on me. “I would love a Terra original. Do you have anything I could buy?”

Dad scoffed, “You mean, pay for her cutting and pasting?”

Only now did Elisa’s smile waver, finally feeling Dad’s verbal bullets hitting closer and closer to their mark. Finally understanding that hubris was never a threat in the Cooper household with him on the watch. It was like witnessing Joan of Arc prepping for a battle she hadn’t consciously set out to lead, the role thrust on her. She first eyed Merc, then Mom, Claudius. Me. Cowards, we all found something else to focus on. Coming to each other’s defense usually worsened things, like the time when Merc backed Claudius’s decision to major in English, and Dad threatened to stop paying for Claudius’s education, period. (Claudius was now majoring in chemical engineering.) So Elisa charged forward with a mild “A lot of experts consider collage one of the most important art forms to come out of the twentieth century.”

Dad made an impatient motion with his hand. “They also call paint splotches art.”

“Oh, you should come by Nest & Egg tomorrow and see some local art,” I told Elisa, hoping to derail her and diffuse Dad’s rising anger.

“Picasso, Man Ray, Miró, Motherwell — they all used collage,” Elisa continued relentlessly. “Just like you, Terra.”

There was a deadly pause. Never box Dad in, never make him look bad, or worse, ignorant. Now he leaned forward, hands clenched into fists. For a second there, I thought he was going to lunge for her, but he swiped the Economist magazine from the shelf beneath the coffee table.

“We should go,” Merc said in a low voice, standing up.

“What?” Elisa cried, her eyebrows furrowed. She ignored Merc’s outstretched hand. “We’re just having a healthy discussion.”

She looked over at Dad for confirmation; he ignored her just as she had Merc’s lifeline of a hand. See, that was it; there was nothing healthy about a discussion at our house. There was only one opinion that counted: Dad’s. He snapped the covers of the magazine open, busied himself with reading about this week’s news. Tonight’s was in the making, right here before our eyes.

“Come on, Elisa,” Merc urged. I could hear the please in the weighted silence after his words.

She studied Merc, then nodded. This time, she took his hand and followed him out of the great room, cold now despite the wood blazing in the fireplace. I shivered. Boreas, the brutal North Wind, had made his icy presence known.

As soon as Merc’s bedroom door closed, Dad’s accusatory gaze roved the great room and stopped on Mom like a hawk spotting a hapless rabbit. I was surprised to see she had actually trailed Merc and Elisa to the edge of the hall, a stormchaser who had turned her back on the real storm advancing stealthily.

As Dad’s mouth opened, Claudius stood, glass globe in his big hand. He said flatly, “You’re crazy.”

Dad’s jaw worked as he leapt out of his leather chair to his feet. “What did you say? What the hell did you say?”

“I said, you’re crazy.”

That was the worst possible insult Claudius could have leveled at a man who prided himself on being, above all else, highly rational, always logical, supremely fair. And completely delusional, but none of us told him that. Dad quickly closed the distance between him and Claudius. A year ago — a summer ago — Claudius would have cowered. He would have teared up. He would have apologized. Today, they stood facing each other — no longer nose-to-nose. Dad was a complete inch shorter. When had he shrunk? When had Claudius grown?

“Claudius,” said Mom softly, cowering, an apologetic expression already creasing her forehead, curving her lips.

But Dad stepped even closer to Claudius, who didn’t rear back. Instead, my brother pulled back his fisted hand. It hovered there, Polaris the North Star in our living room.