“I told you last night, I won’t talk to you alone.” A long pause, and Lana could not hear what Dom was saying but the grumble of his voice carried across the room. “I don’t care if you think it’s too personal—I won’t talk to you without someone there.” Another, shorter pause. “Because you’re a bully, Dom, and I’m tired of being harassed into doing things I don’t want to do.”
Lana grinned and gave Kathryn a thumbs-up before she poured a tablespoon of olive oil onto the hot skillet and swirled it around until the bottom shone. She waited another few seconds and then dropped in a handful of chopped ham.
Over its sizzle she heard Kathryn say, “For starters, I don’t want any more babies. I don’t care. This isn’t 1700 and we aren’t Catanian peasants. I want my tubes tied.”
Lana turned around in time to see Kathryn holding the receiver out from her ear and rolling her eyes.
Micki and Beth clattered down the stairs and a moment later came into the kitchen, arguing about music and the Grammys. Micki wanted to know since when was Beth into Goth.
Lana shushed them and all three eavesdropped.
“I don’t want to get divorced, I never said I did.” Kathryn’s voice softened. “The gun was to get your attention, Dom. You were going to kill Jacaranda.”
The girls looked at Lana. She just shook her head.
“Honest to God, if you ever threaten me or anything I love ever again . . . Dom, I never said that, don’t say I did. You know I never would have hurt you.”
We are our mothers all over again, Lana thought. Mars knew how to get what she wanted, and from whom had she learned that if not Stella? And exactly like Stella, Lana had become adept at putting a bright coat of paint over bad moods and miseries and going on about her business as if she were the happiest woman in the world. Beth had called her dishonest. Lana had said the same of her own mother more times than she could count. Stella bent and twisted and avoided the truth to escape blame or get what she wanted, to make the world into what she thought it should be.
As Kathryn continued to argue and Micki and Beth continued to listen, Lana’s two or three square feet of the kitchen, the area right around the stove and greenhouse window, suddenly seemed apart from the rest of the room. She stood in a patch of morning sun and felt a fingery heat, a palmy warmth on her shoulder. For a flying moment, Jack was right beside her.
“Forget breakfast, Ma.”
Beth’s voice shattered the glass ball around the moment, whiplashing Lana back to reality. She looked at the frying pan and stirred the ham.
“Just a few mouthfuls of egg.” Her throat felt tight. “And a piece of toast.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You will be if you don’t eat.”
“Jesus H. Christ.” Beth threw her pack against the back door. “I’ll eat, I’ll eat.”
Lana stood where she had been a moment before; she had not moved. She tried to think herself back into the protected moment and to feel again the hand on her shoulder.
Nothing.
Into the phone Kathryn said, “I married you because I love you and I still love you but I’m telling you, Dom, we have to have a different kind of marriage. I just can’t live like that anymore.... See? That’s what I was saying. You’re mean. That’s why I want us to see Jessie. She can help us both. . . .” Her voice rose. “This isn’t just about you, Dom. I’m not saying I don’t have faults, too.”
Lana fed the girls, trying to ignore Beth’s petulance, and saw them off to school. Tinera, Colette, and Nichole were staying home. Earlier she had sent them into the playhouse with a tray of cinnamon toast, oranges and bananas, and milk. And just as well. Kathryn’s conversation was none of their business. She made more toast and two more cups of coffee. All the while, Kathryn and Dom went over the same, cratered territory. No sooner had she hung up than the phone rang again.
“If it’s him, I’m through talking.”
But it was Jessie Ward calling to say she had a cancellation and could see the Firenzis at ten A.M. Kathryn got on the phone again to tell Dom.
Next came a call from Stella.
“You’ve been on the phone for over an hour.”
“Don’t blame me, Ma.”
“I hope you’re going to do something.”
“Me?”
“Kathryn listens to you. She’s always trusted your opinion.”
“She knows my opinion.”
“Which is?”
Lana looked directly at her sister sitting three feet away across the table drinking coffee. “I think she should leave the son of a bitch. I think he’s beyond redemption. She should get as big a settlement as she can and start over.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You don’t know,” Kathryn’s eyes filled with tears. “You just don’t understand.”
Lana made a loony-face at her.
Stella said, “She wants to stay with him—not a bone in her body wants to take those girls and go off on her own. Do you think she could run a Hollywood Cafe somewhere? Not a chance. Kathryn is not an independent woman.”
And whom should we thank for that?
“This is just an upset. All marriages have them.”
Though Stella thought she and Kathryn were tight as tuna in a can, she knew nothing about the gun, the miscarriage, or Jacaranda. Lana had not said a word about the subtlety of Dom’s abuse. Her mother changed the subject and told her how encouraging Lana’s Realtor friend had been when she explained her financial situation.
“Make sure you tell her the truth,” Lana said. “Don’t cover things up to make them look good.”
Stella told Lana she always told the truth. Scrupulously.
“I know, Ma. It’s a core value.”
Lana wanted to go into her bedroom and close the door, sit on the bed, and try to remember what it was that had happened during that peculiar, still moment by the stove. But there was no time for reflection. As soon as she hung up the phone, Kathryn had demanded her undivided attention, saying that if Dom decided to go to an attorney, one of the litigious superstars he lunched with at the City Club twice a month and with whom he owned joint shares in a Baja duck club and a Canadian fishing camp, Kathryn would almost certainly lose her daughters. This made her start to cry.
“Lana, all that stuff you threatened, the bad publicity, you can’t really do that, can you?”
“That’s not the point. This is all up to you now, Kay.”
“What about Jacaranda?”
“And it’s not about the horse. It’s about you and the way you choose to live.”
Lana had left her sister crying and gone to work. No sooner had she gotten to Urban Greenery and put her hands in the ground, than Grace Mamoulian’s office called.
Lana leaned back in the driver’s seat of the Toyota, closed her eyes, and again tried to remember that moment in the kitchen, but as if she were chasing a dream, it grew vaguer the faster she went after it. Until she knew, finally, that nothing had happened.
At that instant Micki emerged from Arcadia School at a run, her book-heavy pack slung over one shoulder and bouncing against her side. She used one hand to steady it, and with the other held high, she waved a square white envelope the size of a wedding invitation.
She climbed into the Toyota, tossed her heavy pack into the back seat, and tore open the Crane envelope on which her name had been printed in a labored Old English script. She and Lana sat in the car and looked at the enclosed printed card. The Sisterhood of Fives is pleased to invite you to join them in a particular and private relationship.
Lana laughed aloud. “I’m sorry, Micki. It’s just so . . . pretentious.”
“No kidding.”
“So, what do you think?” Particular and private—good God. “If you want, I can go back in and tell Grace we’ve changed our mind. You can take the suspension and—”
Micki’s eyes opened in astonishment. “Ma-a, get real. Why would I want to do that?”
“You don’t want to be
a Five?”
“Duh.”
Which meant no.
Lana put her hands to her cheeks and laughed. “You are a rocket, girl. I can’t keep up with you.”
“They kiss ass, Ma. It was so not cool, after they heard about Eddie. The way they started dogging me with questions. And I didn’t tell you this—it was so phony. Before school even started today, this senior girl who’s never even spoken to me once in my whole life comes up and asks me—she’s got this slow, lazy voice like they all have—and she asked me to have lunch with them.” She laughed and shook her head. “Fives never eat with anyone but Fives, Ma.”
“Amazing,” Lana said.
“That’s why Tiff’s been leeching onto me. She said they told her she had to convince me to join even though they dinged me.” She waved the invitation. “I knew this was coming. And I already knew I didn’t want it.”
Micki’s good sense stunned Lana.
“So, fill me in here. Are you and Tiff still friends?”
Micki shrugged.
“Maybe if you’re at Balboa and she’s at Arcadia—”
“Whatever, Ma. I don’t really care. Eddie says—” She stopped.
“You can tell me what he says, Micki. It’s okay.”
“Well, he says I’ve had some experiences that make me kind of older than girls my age. He says it’s not so strange Tiff seems like, you know, silly now.”
“You told him she’s silly?” Before you told me?
“Yeah, I did.”
“Well, he’s right. Absolutely.” And I should have told you so myself.
Lana put the Toyota in gear and drove out of the school parking lot and onto Washington Street, heading for home.
“What you did back there? With Mrs. Mamoulian? That was hot, Ma.”
“It’s a stupid rule.”
“Yeah, but I don’t mean that. I mean how you stood up for me. You could’ve backed down but you didn’t.”
Praise from a teenager, precious as strawberries in December. Lana’s cheeks tingled with pleasure.
“I love you, Mommy. I know, the other night, I said some things—”
“I’ve forgotten them, honey.”
“I wanted to make you feel bad.”
“I know.” Lana almost left it at that but there was something Micki needed to know. “And you succeeded. You did make me feel bad.”
“I’m so sorry.” Micki pressed her fists against her mouth. “Do you forgive me?”
Lana signaled a sudden right turn and pulled into a red zone around the corner. She undid her seat belt and reached across the gearbox to wrap her arms around Micki.
“Of course I forgive you. I will always forgive you. And I will always love you. Nothing can change that.” She held Micki’s sweet face between her hands and kissed her cheeks. “Don’t ever forget, even when we have fights and you hate me, you’re still my darling daughter. Forever and ever.”
Chapter Thirty-two
At the open air food court in Fashion Valley Mall, Beth snagged a round table and spread out her books and notebooks to discourage company. Not that she really had to worry about getting hit on. Damian was the only boy who had ever been interested in her, which was probably the most insulting thing she had ever thought about herself. The times she imagined her first serious boyfriend, she thought of someone with clean hair and good skin, handsome and probably an athlete, absolutely a good student and school leader, someone her father would have liked. Not Damian, the son of Satan.
When Beth told Kimmie this, she laughed in her high, squeaky way and said Beth was hopeless.
Kimmie and her opinions had seriously begun to irritate Beth. The girl was flat stupid. Half of what she thought came from The National Enquirer, the rest from conspiracy assholes like Strider who believed Neil Armstrong never walked on the moon. He said it was all a trick by the government to raise taxes. Plus she had no sense of the future. She talked about living every day like it was her last, but really she was just throwing her life away, smoking weed and cutting school and boosting cheap tee shirts and jewelry for excitement. Beth had been along on some of these sprees. To prove it, she had a crappy pink plastic puppy key chain in her dresser drawer. She only lifted it to show Kimmie she could.
Images of Kimmie alone in that dreary condo without any furniture came to her mind. Apart from Strider and Damian, Beth was her only friend, and she might as well be an orphan because weeks went by without her sister, Jules, making an appearance. And her mom was slow about sending money for food and other expenses. Beth was the only reliable person in her life. People left Kimmie, they abandoned her. Beth didn’t want to be one of those.
She had been drawn to Kimmie because when she was with her she did not think about her father, but Beth saw now that she could not drop her father off at the bottom of the stairs and expect him to stay there like a duffel, waiting to be picked up on her way out. Over the last week or so a reasoning voice in her head had been gaining volume and she had come around to thinking that her father was inescapable. When she was slapping Damian’s sweaty hands off her breasts, when she got drunk on peppermint schnapps, and when she smoked pot, his voice whispered that life was too precious to waste. Not in spite of how quickly it could end, but because of it.
She wished she could talk about this to her mom, or to Micki, but Micki was obsessed with her birth father. Beth wanted to slap her for being so disloyal.
The crowd in the food court was still mostly mommies and babies in huge strollers, stately as yachts. It had been another warm, dry day but the sun was only an inch above the roof of the mall and when it went down, the air would quickly chill. The mall would fill up with other teenagers then and civvie-dressed sailors identifiable by their bristle cuts and erect posture.
Beth had bought herself a Starbucks clown drink, sweet and foamy and no coffee at all, the kind of drink she could slurp down without taking her mouth off the straw even once. When it was gone she would want another, but all she had left from her allowance was a dollar and change. Even Kimmie usually had more money than Beth did. Maybe she would ask her mom if she could get a job. She could say she needed money for school activities, and she would automatically believe whatever she said because she trusted her. Kimmie was right. It was easy to lie when people trusted you.
These were the lies she had told today: she’d be late getting home because of a yearbook staff meeting; she told the basketball coach she couldn’t play anymore because she’d hurt her ankle; she told the school nurse she had cramps so she could lie down during second period and miss the algebra test she had not studied for.
When he remembered, Kimmie’s father sent her an allowance of two hundred and fifty dollars a month as part of the divorce agreement. Kimmie tried to act as if his generosity sprang from love, but Beth knew better. Her own father would never forget to send her money if he promised he would do it. He always kept his word.
Beth sucked up the sweet caramel-and-cream drink. The sun dropped below the mall and the heat lamps came on, spreading circles of warmth. The place had crowded up since she got there. Children and parents, groups of men and women headed for early movies, military guys. When they walked they bounced on their toes like they were grateful to be let out. At the table a few paces away from Beth a couple argued in Spanish. Something about money.
She opened the top of her drink and ran her index finger around the interior curve of the plastic cup to get the last of the cream. If she didn’t exercise she was going to get fat, but so what. Damian wouldn’t care; she might as well be invisible, for all he really saw or knew about her. Same for her mom. Beth could be a behemoth—great word—and her mom would never blink. If her father came back from the dead he wouldn’t recognize her.
She wished she had enough money for a cinnamon roll. Sweets weren’t as good as pot and booze for distracting her, but sleep was the best of all. She could barely get out of bed these winter mornings, even with the sun pouring through the balcony doors, creeping toward the bed.
She used to like the warmth of sunlight on her face in the morning, and she remembered when she had jumped out of bed like a happy cricket and could not wait to get to Arcadia, to get her hands on a basketball. Now she hated the sound of her alarm and buried her head under the covers and prayed she’d get sick so she could stay home. Maybe she’d try to get suspended like Micki.
Beth had fallen asleep in Ms. Hoffman’s class twice this week. After the second time, which was today, she had asked Beth to come in for a little lunchtime chat.
“You’re in for it,” Kimmie had said with glee. “I’ll wait for you at the ninth-grade entrance.”
Beth liked Ms. Hoffman’s untidy office where the walls and shelves were crowded with mementos of past classes. On the wall behind her desk, half a dozen diplomas were arranged in two neatly squared off-lines. She was a graduate of Boston University and had a master’s degree from Harvard; there was something up there about Oxford, too. So much work so she could end up teaching teenage girls, the sweat running down her sides.
On the corner of her desk in a crystal vase she had arranged a dozen daffodils.
“I spent a fortune for them,” she had told Beth in a confidential tone that sounded half guilty, half amused. “They’re worth it—they tell me spring is coming. Keep my spirits up.”
Beth had never thought of Ms. Hoffman’s spirits going down. She always seemed so enthusiastic, especially about lit’rature. At the same time there was a solidness about her, too—like a big oak tree.
“What time did you get to bed last night, Beth?”
“I’m sorry I fell asleep in class. I can’t help it if I’m sleepy all the time.”
Ms. Hoffman nodded agreeably. There was probably nothing Beth could say or do that would get a rise out of her. She had probably heard just about everything since she started teaching.
“Beth, do you know what a syndrome is?”
This was not a vocabulary word, but recently Beth had heard her mom on the phone telling Wendy that Aunt Kathryn suffered from learned helplessness syndrome. “I think it’s like a whole bunch of things that mean something. When they’re all together.”
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