Chapter Seventeen
The Saturday after the funeral, Sam, Lucy, and Harold came over for the weekly barbeque/Red Sox party in our backyard. The television on the deck was playing the pregame show, which no one paid attention to, although we always switched it on out of habit. Kat was inside, preparing snacks.
Lucy, as usual, manned the grill, and Harold was off to the side of our fenced yard, messing with his phone, probably tweeting about books.
Sam nudged me with an elbow. “I still remember that time during our senior year when Roger rushed into the basketball gym for the playoff game.”
I smiled and took a swig of Harpoon IPA. “When I called to tell him about the schedule change, he promised he’d catch the next flight and wouldn’t miss it. I didn’t believe him.”
“Where’d he fly from?” She squinted up at a plane overhead, or was she just saying hi to Roger?
“Japan. He hired a private jet.”
“I can still see him running, his tie spilling out of his pocket.” She smiled.
“I doubt he slept for twenty-four hours.”
“All the cheerleaders used to call him our lucky charm,” Sam said. “He was our most supportive fan. By the end of that game, his face paint had melted. I always wondered whether he had to toss the suit out afterward.”
“He did. A custom-made suit, no less. Not that he gave a shit. All that mattered was we won. Do you remember the time he dyed his hair?” I laughed. “For a month his hair was green and yellow. I have that photo in my office.” I clutched my beer bottle and brought it to my lips for a long tug.
“It was a nice touch when everyone sang ‘Sweet Caroline’ during the service.”
I grinned. “He mentioned it once. I had to send him off right.”
“Oh, Vanessa emailed me to see how you were doing.”
“Really? Why didn’t she contact me?” I swatted a fly away from the lip of my beer bottle.
Sam shrugged. “She was always an odd one. Besides, she mentioned you were probably drowning in people expressing their sympathy. She just wanted to see how you were handling it.”
“That was kind of her. Tell her hello for me.”
Kat and Lucy brought platters from the kitchen and started organizing food on the table off to the side of the deck.
Harold barreled over and showed Kat something on the screen of his cell. Occasionally, super famous authors would tweet him or something, making him swagger for days on end. But this time, the animated way he pounded his finger against the screen made it seem like whatever message was on his phone wasn’t good.
Kat’s eyes darted over to me, panic clouding her face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. The sun broke through a cloud and I couldn’t see their faces well, so I shielded my eyes to get a better glimpse.
Kat and Harold stood frozen, staring down at me. Sam shifted awkwardly in her leather sandals.
Lucy craned over Harold’s shoulder, and her expression confirmed my fears. Whatever was on Harold’s cell phone was bad.
I stomped up the four steps and yanked Harold’s phone out of his hands to find out for myself.
“WAS BUSINESS TYCOON ROGER GINNETTI A SERIAL CHEATER?” blared the headline article of The Boston Globe. It cited dozens of tweets from those “in the know.” Ex-lovers. Spouses of his lovers. Spiteful business associates.
It wasn’t breaking news to me or Kat, but his affairs had never been outed before, not even when he was running for office, although of course that had happened ages before social media. Now, no one had privacy. And the public craved one scandal after another, no matter how untrue.
“No one will believe that,” Lucy said. “Everyone loved Roger. Who would start such a vicious lie?”
My eyes locked with Kat’s. Was it still possible to shield Roger’s memory from this? What about my aunt? How could I protect Barbara from the humiliation?
Sam joined us on the deck. She must have picked up on the truth mixed in with the fury of my expression, because she gasped and covered her mouth.
“Did your aunt know?”
Harold and Lucy remained mute. Harold gawked at his hairy Neanderthal-looking toes poking over the rim of his Tevas. His nails were in desperate need of a trim. Lucy continued to turn the same brat over and over on the grill.
“I need to call Mom,” I said, ignoring Sam’s question.
Everyone nodded as if I were asking permission. Maybe they didn’t know what else to do or say without pushing my hothead button.
I slipped around the corner in the yard, for privacy. “Call Mom,” I instructed my cell. The phone rang, and as soon as someone answered, I muttered, “What the hell?”
Mom sighed. “Come to my house tonight. We’ll talk. The press is all over Barbara’s.” She hung up.
I kicked the side of the house, loosening one of the Heron Blue boards. I remembered the exact color because Roger and I had picked it out and painted the house together last summer. “Fuck!” Hopping on one foot, I kept repeating the word.
“It always amazes me when you slip into your stupid jock mode.” Kat leaned against the cedar fence Roger and I had replaced two summers ago.
Cautiously, I put weight on my foot. Nothing was broken, thank goodness, or Kat would never let me live it down.
“You want to talk?”
“Not now. Mom wants us to come over tonight. The press is at Barb’s.”
Kat looped her arm through mine. “Come on. Let’s eat and try to forget this for a few hours.”
“How can I forget this? He hasn’t been in the ground for seventy-two hours and already the social media vultures are tearing him to shreds.”
***
“I’m not surprised it’s coming out now.” Mom stirred her bubbling homemade spaghetti sauce on the stovetop. Steam fogged the reading glasses that dangled on a silver chain around her neck. Occasionally, she would slip them on to read her grandmother’s handwritten recipe card. “How it was kept quiet for so many years is astounding, considering how often people update their social media feeds.”
“Do we know who leaked the story?” Kat asked as she chopped up carrots and cucumbers for the salad.
My father and I sat on barstools on the opposite side of the counter. Barbara was upstairs resting.
“There was that minor leak when he was in office.” My father stroked the two-day stubble on his chin.
“What?” I snapped my head in his direction. “No one ever told me that.”
“That’s why he didn’t seek reelection. For a time, he wanted to go all the way.” Dad strummed his fingers on the granite countertop.
“All the way? You mean, president?”
He shook his head. “No. Governor.”
Uncle Roger wanted to be governor? How did I not know this?
“What’s the plan?” Kat stayed focused on the matter at hand.
“Ignore it ’til it goes away.” Mom pinned me with her you understand glare.
“Ignore it?” My voice cracked, making it clear I didn’t.
“We can’t deny it, since it’s true, and Barbara doesn’t want to talk about it publicly. This is a no-win situation. So we ignore it. And if you so much as tweet or anything, I’ll cut your fingers off.” To emphasize her point, she wielded a paring knife. “The public will want a feeding frenzy, but if we don’t engage, they can’t have it. Not completely.”
The knife didn’t intimidate me. Her glower did.
I raised my palms. “I promise, but I have an interview in the next couple of weeks. What do I say if asked about it?”
“Say it’s a family matter and you have no comment. Who’s the interview with?”
“A writer from Huffington Post. Harold arranged it weeks ago. It’s for the Mother’s Day event coming up.”
“Oh, good Lord. Maybe you should cancel.” She dried her hands on a dish towel. “Can Harold reschedule?” She reached for her phone.
“No,�
� Barbara said, leaning against the doorjamb. “No one is changing anything.”
Kat and Mom exchanged worried glances. Dad rested his wobbly chin on his chest.
Silence screamed in my ears.
“You hungry?” Mom asked. “The sauce is nearly done, and the garlic bread is about to go in.” She wrenched her head to the hot oven.
“No thanks.” Barbara took a step to the counter and filled a wineglass to the top. “Smells good, though, Nell.” My aunt came from tough stock. It was clear she was doing her best to hold the overwhelming sadness in check. I still hadn’t seen her full-on cry, and I’d wondered if she ever would, if she’d ever allow herself to break down.
She and Roger had a different relationship, but I’d never doubted their love and companionship. The friendliness they showed each other made the situation bearable for the rest of us. I could count on one hand how many times Roger’s affairs were alluded to when both or one of them was present. If my memory served, no one had ever mentioned it outright.
“Have you two started preparing for London?” she asked.
“Getting everything together for the visas,” Kat said.
“Is there a lot?” Dad asked.
“More than I thought. Harold is all over it. He’s color-coded everything. I never knew he had a mania for organization—well, besides his book collection. He has every book he’s ever purchased and read listed in a spreadsheet. But not just any spreadsheet—it has dropdown boxes and other fancy shit. He even has spreadsheets for the characters, timelines, places, and quotes for his graphic novels.”
“It’s paid off for him. He’s landed an agent, and a book deal is on the horizon,” Mom said, a hint of pride in her tone.
I worried a thread on my sleeve. “Hopefully we get all the London stuff taken care of before he becomes famous.”
“Puh-lease. Harold will never leave us. We’re his family.” Kat shooed the idea away.
Barbara rested against the counter. “I’ve been doing some research. You can get a visa if you plan to run a business. Of course, you need to have some coin to prove you can support the business and yourself.” She shrugged off that concern.
Mom picked up on her meaning first.
“Are you referring to Kat and Cori or to yourself?”
Barbara met her sister’s eyes. “Me. I’m already invested in Anselm’s business, and he wants to open another studio. Kat and Cori could help me set it up this summer.”
“Wait a minute. Are you talking about settling there permanently?” I sprang off the barstool.
“Not necessarily. I’m talking about getting away for a bit. Staying busy.” She stared out the window.
“Define a bit?” Mom pushed.
Barbara sipped her wine and didn’t respond.
My father studied her face. “How long have you been thinking about this?”
“Since Anselm’s visit.”
“That was well over a year ago, and you didn’t tell me! Not once!” Mom whacked the countertop with a wet dishrag.
“I wasn’t sure about it. It was just a nice thought to daydream about. Now, I’m seriously considering. I need to get out of this house. Away from… away from the memories. I need a change, Nell.” She closed her eyes. “I’ve needed a change for years, but I was always needed here.”
Barbara had been the de facto head of the family even before grandfather died. She held everything together. She was the one who patched up any quarrels or misunderstandings, picked us up when we fell, and was the first to celebrate triumphs.
“It’d be great for Kat. She’d be close to Paris. Every artist should spend days or weeks wandering Paris, visiting the museums. Anselm has a lot of connections. Nell, you can visit whenever you want.” She rounded to me and placed a hand on my cheek. “And you can spend your time off from writing wandering the streets Charles Dickens explored. Imagine that.”
“So you’re suggesting we stay longer than the summer?” I asked, blinking excessively.
“If you’d like. My home will always be open to family—even if that home is in England. But if you want to come back to the States, I understand. All of you will get along fine without me.”
Everyone was stunned into silence. She made it sound like it was a done deal—that Kat, Barbara, and I weren’t visiting London this summer; we were moving to London. How could I say no, though? Even if she didn’t admit it, she needed family. And after she’d been there for us following the accident… I wasn’t sure what to think. With Roger’s death and this new information to process, my head was spinning.
Chapter Eighteen
Three weeks later, Kat and I were in the hot tub.
“How long have you known?” I asked.
Kat cocked her head. “About what?”
“Barbara’s London plan.”
She didn’t bother pretending. “We’d talked about it months ago. Barbara’s been so unhappy for years. She loved your uncle, but the relationship wasn’t fulfilling. You had to know that.”
I did, on some level. And I was sure my mother understood as well. Barb did what she did best: made lemonade out of lemons.
“But was she going to leave if…?” I didn’t have the heart to finish the sentence. Not that I needed to.
“I don’t think so. Her plan had been to travel back and forth. She wanted me to eventually run the studio in Boston. Roger was aware. He wasn’t thrilled, but he understood.” Kat prodded me with an elbow. “Talk to me. This is a lot to process. I’m not surprised it’s taken you this long to broach the subject. Ideas have to marinate quite some time in your mind before they sink in.”
I rested my head against the edge of the hot tub, taking in the vastness of the night sky. “Geez, Kat, I don’t know what to think right now. My initial thought was she wanted to run away from everything. The funeral, the empty house, the press… but she had that look about her, the one that said she’d made up her mind.”
“I believe she has. She wants me to be co-owner.”
I snapped my head up. “That’s huge. I have no doubt she’ll be just as successful in jolly old London as she is here.” My smile, I feared, didn’t hold much warmth.
“What about us?” Kat asked.
“What do you mean?” My voice brimmed with concern. “You don’t want to go alone, do you?”
She splashed water in my face. “No! How can you even think such a thing? How do you feel about us moving there for longer than ten weeks?”
I laughed. “Oh, God.” I placed a palm on my thrumming heart. “Now I see. This was your plan all along. You mentioned two months to get me used to the idea, didn’t you? Knowing if you sprung something so huge on me, my gut reaction would be to say no. But you and Barbara have been plotting behind the scenes. Is the Anselm part really happening?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Am I right about the rest?”
“Maybe.” She studied the gibbous moon as if she was trying to memorize the image for a future painting.
I positioned myself in front of her. “Tell me.”
“Maybe.”
“That means yes.”
“Maybe.”
“What about my classes?”
“How much would you miss them?” Her eyes quizzed me.
“Good question. Years ago, I hated teaching, but it’s grown on me.” I laughed. “The pay sucks and hardly covers a third of our bills.” I shrugged.
“I don’t care about the money. I want you to be happy. Successful. To follow your heart. What does your heart say?”
“You have my heart. Wherever you go, I’ll go. Barb’s right. Every artist should see Paris. But not just Paris. All of Europe. And if we lived in London, the continent would be our backyard.”
“Not just artists. Writers. Think Hemingway, Crane, Pound, Fitzgerald, and Miller, just to name a few.”
“Ha! Are you trying to alleviate my fear or intimidate the shit out of me?”
She took my pruned hand and placed it against her cheek. “You need to stop comparing yourself to others. Write the stories you want to write, no matter what.”
Her dark eyes gazed into mine. She wasn’t trying to seduce me, but the way the moonlight reflected off the water onto her skin… I wanted her. Her dark hair was pinned on top of her head, but a few strands hung down her neck and face. The water covered her naked breasts, lapping the freckles along her cleavage, tempting me.
We hadn’t made love since that awful night the cops had arrived on Barbara’s doorstep.
Kat leaned against my palm. Her soft lips kissed the base of my hand.
“Let’s do it,” I said.
The desire in my eyes must have confused her. “Do what?”
I grinned. “Help Barbara set up the studio. Let’s get away from here for a bit. If I’ve learned one thing from Roger and—” I broke off, still not wanting to say the word. “Life is short. I don’t want my life to be defined by the opportunities I skipped. We’ve had enough sorrow to last a lifetime, I don’t want to add cowardice to our woes.”
Her eyes widened. “Really?”
“Really! I think it would be good for you. For me.” I tapped my chest and then rested my hand on hers. “For us.”
Kat pulled my head to hers and we kissed tenderly. At first it was a celebratory kiss, but it soon turned into more. We were hungry for each other.
“Take me inside,” she panted in between kisses.
I hopped out of the hot tub and snatched up the bathrobes, holding one open for her to step into before I put mine on.
Kat gripped my hand and led me to the front room. I sensed Kat wanted to avoid the walk past the nursery. Roger’s death had stirred up too many emotions. However, this wasn’t a night for remembering. It wasn’t about forgetting either. It was about the two of us. Our love. Our commitment. And our wanting to make the other person feel good. Feel alive.
Confessions From the Dark Page 18