Recipe for Disaster (39 page)

“Well, that is something.”

The bell rings and I find the girls mugging on the front porch. They pile in, and ooh and aah over the changes in the house. We take the sandwiches and other treats that Caroline has brought into the kitchen, where the girls greet Liam warmly. He agrees to man the door while I give them the tour, just as Emily comes upstairs looking like Jessie from Toy Story, and after hugging all the girls, she quickly announces that she will stay with Liam to hand out candy. Because of course she would.

“Oh, honey, this place is spectacular,” Caroline says as I show them the dining room and butler’s pantry. “It’s going to sell in a hot minute.”

“I want to decorate it sooooo badly,” Hedy says, when we get up to the second-floor den.

“I would live here forever,” Marie says when I show them the master bathroom.

This is when I burst into tears.

The three of them rally around me, hugging me and rubbing my back and telling me it will all be okay. Soon the four of us are sitting on the floor leaning against the big freestanding tub, and everything pours out of me. How much I want to never leave this house. How scared I am about my career and my future. My mother coming and everything that dredges up for me, and the fact that now that Emily is staying, what do I do about that? The whole time I’m disgorging my secret sorrows, the doorbell is ringing off the hook, and I think about Liam downstairs giving away candy because he likes to see the kids in their costumes, and knowing he is there with adorable Emily, and I want so badly to tell them about my fake marriage, and Grant and the money, and the Liam kiss and my confusion, to get everything out. But I can’t go that far, and having to carry the weight of those secrets feels like a space between us that will never close, and my heart aches even more.

So I say the last thing that I can. “And I spit in the cider.” I finish, throwing my hands in the air, completely spent. Truth telling is completely draining, especially when it’s incomplete.

“I’m sorry, you spit in the cider? On purpose?” Marie asks.

“THIS is the thing you’re worried about?” Hedy shakes her head.

“Well, it is a valid question,” Caroline offers. “Why exactly did you spit in the cider, darling?”

“Stupidhead Liam snuck up behind me and scared me and I accidentally sprayed the cider in my mouth out like a
Three Stooges
episode, and mostly it ended up back in the pot.”

“Good lord, none of us care about drinking your spit,” Hedy says. “What are we going to do about the rest of it?”

“Bird by bird,” Marie says quietly.

“We don’t really know what that means, dearheart.” Caroline pats Marie’s arm.

“It’s a book I read. Anne Lamott. It’s like, her brother had to do a report on birds and had all the encyclopedias around him and he was totally paralyzed by how to do it and where to start, and their dad was like ‘just take it bird by bird, buddy,’ you know, don’t look at the whole picture, just take it piece by piece. Like that old joke, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”

“That actually makes a weird bit of sense.” Hedy bites her thumbnail. “You have to sort of think about the problems in order of magnitude, you know? Like, the Mom visit thing is the most imminent, right, because she’s coming in a few weeks, and that is connected to the Emily thing. And then the house, because once you sell it you are unemployed, and have to see what that is going to mean.”

“That’s smart.” It’s all I can think about managing.

“We’ll have dinner next week. Put our heads together on the Mom thing, see what you need from us,” Hedy says.

“Okay.”

“It’ll all be okay, sweetie,” Marie says.

“I need some spit cider,” Hedy says, hauling herself off the floor.

“Me too,” Caroline says, offering me a hand to help me up.

“And lots of chocolate,” Marie says.

“Thanks, you guys. You’re the best.”

We do one more group hug and head downstairs to soothe our souls with fun-sized chocolate bars and cider. Because sometimes all a girl needs is the kind of friends who will drink your spit. And for now, I’m ignoring that Liam is, like it or not, in that category.

When we come downstairs, Liam and Jacob are drinking beer on the porch, and entertaining the huge groups of kids that come in an endless flood, while Beanie and Schatzi romp in the front yard. They’re bro-bonding hot and heavy when we arrive, but once introductions are made and Caroline and Jacob play Real Estate Six Degrees of Separation, she deftly leads him to the seat next to Hedy, and the two of them stop talking to anyone else. Caroline grins like a fool every time she looks over at the two of them, since you can practically see cartoon electric bolts flying between them. Liam is amazing with the kids, can recognize most of the costumes, especially the superheroes and cartoon characters. He jokes with the older ones, gets down on one knee for the shy ones, tells the princesses that they are the most beautiful in all the land. Emily watches him with a sappy look on her face, and for the first time, I really just completely get it, her longing for him, the way she looks at him, and I hope like hell that I don’t look at him that way. A family arrives with a very shy little boy in a Walter Payton jersey, hiding behind his mom’s legs, and Liam drops into a squat, and starts telling him with total sincerity that he is his favorite Chicago Bear of all time and asking for an autograph, until the kid is giggling and trying in vain to convince him that he isn’t actually the REAL Walter Payton. I can totally see him as a dad, and for the first time in my entire life, my womb aches.

I always thought that I would never be a mom. I know a lot of people who have a shitty childhood choose to have kids to right those wrongs, but for me, I just figured that I wouldn’t bother. Wouldn’t risk becoming my own mother. Considering Grand-mère, and Anneliese, it isn’t unlikely that the damage is on a cellular level. Plus I never really connected with kids, not even when I was a kid. Anytime my friends with children assured me that even if you don’t like kids as a group, you always love YOUR kids, that it happens instantaneously, I can’t trust that. After all, it’s clear my mother never fell in love with me. But I look at Liam and the way he is so easy with these tiny people, and out of nowhere, I suddenly wonder.

I’ve had a tremendous amount of boozy cider, and the turkey sandwiches Caroline brought and the eleven zillion chocolate bars I’ve eaten are not exactly soaking it up entirely. I’m shy of drunk, but happily tipsy, just pleasantly fuzzy around the edges, and despite my earlier meltdown, I’m having a good time. Also, I have to pee like a moose. I head inside, and avail myself of the bathroom. When I come out, I decide I can risk one more little nip of cider and go to the kitchen.

“Hey,” I say to Liam, who is putting the remaining sandwiches in the fridge.

“AHHHHHH!” he yells, dropping the platter on the floor. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, you’ve stopped my heart, girl.”

“Serves you right.”

“I promise to try to be louder in future.”

And before I even know what I’m doing, I cross the room and stand in front of him. “I promise to try to keep your heart from stopping.”

“You’ll have to stop dressing so provocatively for a start.” He gestures up and down over my fabulously dowdy outfit.

“Well, we can’t all be Emily.”

“Nor should you be.”

“Did you sleep with her?”

“What on earth?”

I know it’s not my place to even ask, but the cider in my veins has taken over my mouth. “The night of my birthday party, did you sleep with her? She was supposed to stay over at Caroline’s, but she didn’t and she didn’t come home and she’s so into you, and you were her date for the evening. Did you sleep with her?”

He shakes his head. “Of course not.” His voice gets husky. “She’s not what I’m interested in.” His eyes tell me the rest.

And then the cider takes over my arms as well, and I reach up and pull him down to me, kissing him with everything I have. His hands grip my hips, and pull me into him, the kiss matching and then exceeding the one from my birthday. My hands slide into his hair, as my tongue explores his mouth, sweet with recent chocolate. Every cell in my body is sparking with electricity, I’ve never wanted anything this badly. The first one wasn’t a fluke, Liam is the best kisser on the planet, and all I want is more. And then his hands come up and pull mine away forcefully, and he stands up straight, breaking the exquisite connection.

“I should go,” he says, his voice low and ashamed.

“Liam, I . . .”

“No. We can’t. And we won’t. Last time was on me, and I’m sorry for that. But this was you, and I need your word you won’t. Not again. Full stop.”

My heart cracks in two, and my eyes fill, but I nod.

“I’m going to go. I’ll see you Saturday. And for what it’s worth, everything else aside, I would never do anything with Emily. She’s like a little sister to me.”

And then his hands drop mine, and he is gone. I’m left in the kitchen, sandwiches exploded all over the floor, fridge gaping open. I hear a noise behind me, and turn to see Emily, standing in the shadows looking utterly brokenhearted, and everything is completely ruined.

C
an I come in?” I knock on Emily’s door after everyone goes home. She gets major points for keeping it together and rejoining the gang on the porch after leaving me to clean up the kitchen, but as soon as they all left, she stomped downstairs and slammed the door.

“It’s your house,” comes the muffled reply. I turn the knob and enter. Emily looks like she’s packing up. Her clothes are exploded all over the room, and she’s still in her cowgirl getup.

“Can we talk, please?”

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell Jag. But you should. It’s just so unfair and horrible to him.”

I sigh. Now I know how much she actually saw. “I’m not worried about Jag, I’m worried about you.”

“Nice. What is it, like the seven-MINUTE itch? YOU JUST GOT MARRIED!”

“Emily, please, sit down, you need to let me explain.”

She plops on the edge of the bed, and I feel her pain, and it cuts me to the core. The good thing about having no family is that you don’t have to worry about being a disappointment to them, but I’m slowly beginning to understand what Caroline struggles with, why she says that there is no worse feeling in the whole world than disappointing or hurting your family.

I take a deep breath. “Emily, first off, I’m so sorry that I hurt your feelings. I know that you care for Liam, and you must think I’m the worst person on the planet right now.”

She shrugs. I look at her, and around the room, and I think for a second. This could be the answer to everything. She’ll be hurt, but she’ll get over it. And she’ll move out, so Jag and I can get the house back, and not have to worry about my mom coming and what to do about that whole mess. It would solve a million little problems, and help things get back to some semblance of normal. She is sitting next to me, hands fidgeting in her lap, her hair still in pigtails and fake freckles painted across the bridge of her nose. I know what I have to do. I know I need to rip the Band-Aid off fast so that we can all move forward.

“I need to tell you some things, and I want you to know that I’m taking a huge risk, I’m putting many people in jeopardy by sharing this with you, but I’m doing it because I trust you, and because I care about you, and because I don’t want you to leave.”

This makes her look at me with a little less animosity, and I keep going. I tell her about Jag’s visa problems and my decision that we should get married because I didn’t really believe I was someone who needed a romantic partner. I tell her about him falling in love with Nageena. I tell her about my history with Liam, and the switch that happened that day at Home Depot, and the kiss and everything it meant to me, and how worried I was for not only her feelings, but for my own. I tell her how completely fucked up I am about everything, and that for the first time in my life I feel like I have to admit that I don’t know my own heart, but that I want so badly to figure my shit out, and I feel like now I’ve dragged everyone I really care about into my mess. I tell her how scared I am about the whole Grant business, and she’s still the only one who knows. I tell her that I haven’t been able to tell the girls, and I feel like the only friendships I really can count on in my life are now going to be irrevocably damaged by the lying, and I’ve never felt more alone or more lonely.

She listens like a champ and I watch her angry glare slowly dissipate and become a soft look of sympathy. She tells me that Liam just reminds her of her ex-boyfriend who broke her heart and that she just wanted to be with someone who was a grown-up, even though she knows it probably means she has some unresolved daddy issues since he never dated after my mom left him, and she sort of became as much a wife as a daughter, not in an icky romantic way but just in a keeping house and cooking and taking care of him and being his primary companion and playing hostess at his parties kind of way. She says she understands about the Jag thing and promises cross her heart not to tell a soul, and that I’m a really, really good person to make that sort of sacrifice for a friend, and that she is sure the girls will understand. She says that she is still hurt about the Liam thing, but more because she’s embarrassed by her own obvious behavior, and that she totally forgives me, and pretty soon we are both crying and holding each other.