Cohen raises his eyebrows and takes a long pull from his beer bottle. “Well, he acted like he was a crotchety old man. Damn, Grandpa Beckett even bitched to me that Richard was too much of an old, whiny dick for him to deal with.”
“But what does this all have to do with you not being at work?” Cece asks, bringing the conversation back to the topic I least want to talk about. “If you were both caught, why is he at work and you’re not?”
“It’s…really, it’s complicated,” I say, exhausted before I start.
Cohen drags a lawn chair over, sits, nestles Maren onto his lap, and holds his arms out. “I know I’m not as brilliant as you, smarty pants, but I’m pretty sure I can keep up. Just go slow and don’t use too many big words.”
My family stares at me, and I have no choice. I try to make it like ripping off a Band-Aid.
“He was supposed to drop some important client papers in the mail. But he forgot them in the hotel. I told him I’d drop them, and I’m the one who signed for them. It wound up he didn’t follow protocol and the paperwork wasn’t registered correctly. It looked like I messed up because I signed off on it.” I twist my hands, now slick with sweat and shaky. “And the client whose case we were working on saw me at the hotel with Richard, but she didn’t recognize him. Only me. And that was the day we messed up the paperwork, so she accused me of having an affair while I was supposed to be on her case.”
“But Richard fucked it up?” Cohen asks, sitting up and looking at me with hot, angry eyes. “And he was there with you. Why didn’t he step forward and take responsibility?”
The amazing thing is, this question truly baffles Cohen. He just can’t bend his brain around the idea that some men are so self-centered, it would never occur to them to risk their necks for someone they see as expendable.
Conveniently, wonderfully expendable.
Richard, I’m sure, is happy he got away with it and even happier to have a patsy who took the fall for him and kept her mouth shut.
“The firm suspended me for the client’s benefit. This case is pretty huge, and they don’t want any feathers ruffled. I’m collecting my salary, though I have no option for overtime or bonuses. I’ll probably be brought back on soon.”
I close my eyes like a kid making a wish. Damn, I hope I’ll be brought back.
“They suspended you, but not him?” Cece asks between gritted teeth.
“It’s an ‘all hands on deck’ situation with this case. They need him. Hell, they need me. I was the unlucky one who got recognized.” I look at their faces, and see a varied mixture of shock and anger. I feel like a bigger loser than I did before. “It will work out. It will. I’m a good lawyer. I play by the rules. They know I was on my personal time when Richard and I were at that hotel. They know this was all just a huge misunderstanding.”
I mean, I hope they know all that. The smart thing to do would be to go find out, but I’m in this very, very stupid ‘ignorance is bliss’ trance right now, and I just…I don’t want to find out anything that will shake me more than I’ve already been shaken.
“So they know Richard is the one who actually fucked up the paperwork, right?” Cohen asks.
“Um…” I look down at my beer.
“Lydia,” Cece says, her voice heavy with disappointed. “You didn’t tell them? You let them think it was you? This is your reputation on the line. Your work.”
“I know,” I say, nodding along in part because I really do agree with everything she’s saying. I also want her to stop talking, because knowing she’s right doesn’t mean there’s a damn thing I can do about it. “When I was standing there, in the room with my coworkers and my boss—Richard included—it just felt like tattling to reveal what Richard did. Especially because I wasn’t sure he’d back me up, and, technically speaking, my signature was the last on that envelope.”
“If it came down to ‘he said, she said,’ you didn’t have the evidence,” Maren says softly.
“Exactly. So I’m just riding it out right now and hoping that my work and my diligence speak for itself.” And maybe that Richard gets involved in some shady case and has to be put into a witness protection program somewhere remote…like South Dakota or Wyoming. Or maybe that he falls hard for a Vegas show girl and decides to give up law and deal blackjack professionally.
I drop my head into my hand and try to stop myself from playing out the many, many worst case scenarios that are clawing through my brain.
“Isn’t there something we can do?” Cohen asks, holding his beer up and out like he wants to rally us all to action, storm my law office, and hold Richard hostage until he confesses.
I shrug. “I don’t really know, Cohen. I never considered anything like this happening to me. Now that it has…I just don’t know what to do other than wait.”
“Which is why you’re taking classes at campus,” Cece blurts out before she pinches her guilty lips shut.
I put my beer bottle down slowly. “How did you know that?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “It’s stupid. You have every right to take a class without announcing it to everyone. I just assumed it was a night class or a recertification kind of thing. I never realized—”
“But who told you?” I ask, my thoughts immediately going back to the way Samantha stormed away when she saw Isaac and I walking at the gallery.
I hold in a deep breath. I really don’t need to deal with that kind of conniving.
Cece tugs on one of her curls and finally lets it bounce back into place before she answers. “It was Adam’s lab partner, Cody. He mentioned in passing that he shares an office with Isaac Ortiz, and I guess he mentioned you were in his class.”
“Isaac mentioned me?” I ask, my entire body going hot and sweet over the thought of him and those magnetic green eyes.
“You call your professor ‘Isaac’?” Cohen snorts. “Please don’t tell me we’re gonna have to break in another nerd-boy like Adam.”
Maren rolls her eyes. “Don’t be irritated just because your sisters weren’t dumb enough to fall for a lazy beach bum like I did.”
Cohen drags her closer to him, snarling and gently biting her neck while she laughs and pushes at him. I want to roll my eyes. I do. I’ve always thought that those big, silly public displays of attention were ridiculous. Richard would never have dreamed of doing more than holding my hand or pecking my cheek in public.
Hell, he wouldn’t have done much more in private unless we were actually having planned sex. And, yes, we did write it in our day-planners, coded as ‘popcorn’ for no reason I can remember.
But, watching the easy way Cohen and Maren tangle limbs and press against each other’s skin, I realize I want that. I want what they have. Or my own version of it.
“I’m going to get some, uh, ice. You want to come with me, Lyd?” Cece asks, eyeing our brother and Maren, who are paying no attention to us at all.
I’m glad whatever crap Cece and I had between us has smoothed over. I’m also not interested in watching Maren and Cohen christen our parents’ lawn furniture. My sister and I head into the quiet house. Our parents are in the den, watching movies snuggled on the couch. Ugh. Love is all around me, and I hate feeling like that kind of contentment is out of my reach.
Lydia gestures me to her room, the one we shared for years growing up. I got my own space when the addition was added, but there were many long, giggly night where Cece and I strung frozen juice can phones between our beds and whispered secrets long into the night. Since Cece got her on-campus place and stripped all the posters and knick-knacks she could actually use, what’s left makes the room feel very childish. I sit on the narrow twin bed with the flouncy cream bed skirt and run my hands over the rosebud wallpaper.
“Why didn’t you ever change the wallpaper? Or just paint?” I ask, suddenly wanting to know like it’s the most important question in my life and I absolutely need to know the answer.
Cece drops on the floor, reaches under the bed, and finds a pack of American
Spirit cigarettes. She pulls one out, pops it between her lips, and fishes under the bed for a lighter. “I guess I wanted it to stay the same.”
“Why?” I press, accepting a cigarette she hands me. I really don’t smoke at all, but this feels illicit and secretive. Not all that far from hearing Cece’s thin, raspy confessions through the orange juice can when we were just girls.
She lights up, holds the flame out to me, and takes a drag. The cigarette seems stale to me, but I puff on it anyway. “Because it was our room for so long. Maybe I just wanted you to know it was still your room. If you wanted to come back to it.”
I think about my chic teal and black room in the new addition, the one Cece wrinkled her nose at and called an ‘eighties horror show.’ I felt so grown up back then. I take another drag and cough a little.
“I forgot the smoke bothered you.” Cece pops her window screen out and blows the smoke out in a dispersing cloud. “You don’t have to smoke.”
“I want to,” I lie. “I’m sorry I was a bitch at the art show. I was just worried. You know, with the internet, things are forever and all that.”
Her smile is weary. “That’s kind of the point, Lyd. Think of all the art that’s been lost because there was no way to mass share it. I love that what I did will still be around, getting stumbled on, for years to come. Hopefully.” She holds her smoldering cigarette between her lips and ties her hair up in a loopy ponytail. “Forget it anyway. I overreacted. I was being a brat. You know champagne makes me edgy.”
“I’m glad you’re not pissed,” I say, letting my cigarette burn close to the window as I avoid smoking it. I flick a long cylinder of ash and watch it float down into the backyard.
“Not about that.” Cece pulls her knees up to her chest and frowns. “Lyd, what the hell is going on at work?”
“I don’t know,” I whine. “I feel like I have no option but to wait it out.”
“Are you going nuts?” she asks, taking a long, deep drag. I’m worried about the health of her lungs. How much does she smoke? “I know you like to be in control of stuff.”
I roll my eyes. “You mean I’m anal retentive?”
“You’re focused. You graduated magna cum laude and made junior partner by the time you were twenty-four. When I was twenty-four I decided to get off my ass after a two year break post-undergrad degree and stop procrastinating about filling out my PhD program paperwork.” She blows out a long breath. “I know we haven’t always gotten along that well, and it’s probably my fault. You’re intimidating, Lyd! And sometimes you’re a goddamn know-it-all.”
“Sometimes I feel like the rest of you have this secret language. Like you rag on each other and joke around, and when I try to get in the mix, I come off sounding like a stuck up egomaniac.”
I think back to the many quips and pokes I was sure would be hilarious, but wound up sending one of my sisters stomping away furious or in tears. Or one of my brothers shaking his head and telling me to tone down the asshole.
Cece stubs out her cigarette, grabs mine, and takes a last, long drag before she stubs it out too.
“It hurts to watch you pretend to smoke. You’re like a horrible after-school special.” She unwraps a Lifesaver and hands it to me, then crunches on two. “Maybe when we were younger, you did come off that way. You can be really tough. And I think things were super hard for us girls when Gen was finding her way. You know how sensitive she is, and you could be a little callous when it came to her feelings. I tended to side with her because it felt like she needed someone to defend her.”
Cece’s gentle tone doesn’t make her words stab at me any less intensely.
“I know.” I trace my finger over the ornate stitching on Cece’s sari bedcover. “A lot of times, I felt like I had nothing to offer. You know? I’m not this reliable go-to person like Cohen. I’m not this crazy intellectual like you are. I don’t have Gen’s sweetness or Enzo’s charm. I feel like I’m the least Rodriguez-like out of all of us.”
Cece snorts. “I always felt like you were the most Rodriguez-like, and the rest of us just never measured up.” She tugs on the edge of my skirt. “You know, things are changing now that we’re all getting our shit together. I love my friends. But you’re my sister. It would be really cool if you could also be my friend.”
“I’d like that,” I say, trying not to sniffle too hard.
Damnit! The pitbull lawyer part of me seems to drift further away every second.
“And friends are honest with each other.” Cece clears her throat and raises her eyebrows at me. “You need to confront Richard. You need to get your job back. You worked too goddamn hard to just let him rip it away from you.”
“I know.” I press my fingers to my temples. “But how?”
Cece’s laugh cuts through my burgeoning headache. “If anyone could figure it out, it’s you, Lyd.” My sister hands me another Lifesaver. “And while you’re coming up with your master plan, there’s something kind of personal I need to talk to you about. I want you to keep a very open mind.”
I suck on the minty candy and nod. “Go ahead.”
“It’s about Isaac.” She tugs her curls down and starts shaking them, the way she does when she’s super nervous.
“Cece, I have no idea what you’re going to say, but could it possibly be worse than what I confessed about my stupid career disaster?” I laugh. She doesn’t. My eyes go wide, and I’m very thankful these lifesavers are equipped with a hole in case you swallow them accidentally. Otherwise I’d be very dead. “What is it?” I wheeze.
“Isaac is a brilliant artist.”
“I know that.” My heart punches in my chest.
“He’s a genius. I heard from the girl I share an office with that he’s a card-carrying member of MENSA and all that.”
“I did not know that,” I say, mint mixing with the sour taste of nerves on my tongue. I knew he was smart, but beyond brilliant? That’s another bonus. These are good things. So why the nervousness?
“A lot of people would describe him as an old soul,” Cece says with this bright kind of hope in her voice. Like she hopes I’ll agree with her, but isn’t sure. She’s not looking at me, but at the paint peeling off the window ledge. “I mean, now that I met him, I get why. And it makes perfect sense—”
“Cece!” The lifesaver lodged in my throat aches. My curiosity aches. My patience is a frazzled, aching mess. “Please. Just tell me.”
“I think you two have incredible chemistry. It’s undeniable.” She says it like she’s pleading a lost cause. “When you’re together, you’re about to set the room on fire. He brings out something in you I’ve never seen before. And I think that might be a really good thing.”
I blush. And stammer. And think of him, his white shirt, the buttons sliding out of their holes, my fingers creeping places they have no business creeping…and wanting to creep to other, more expressly forbidden areas…
“I…he’s very…we—”
Before I can finish flopping around, looking for words, Cece interrupts me.
“He’s nineteen!”
I stare at her face, but she doesn’t look back. Her eyes are squeezed tight and she’s tensed, like she’s waiting for me to explode or weep or break down in front of her.
But I can’t muster a single reaction because the shock is so profound and so damn embarrassing. I’m thoroughly numb.
“The cougar comments…” I say slowly, numbness replaced by deep shame.
The kind of shame that comes when you realize you’re the pathetic butt of someone else’s joke.
Cece shakes her head, her eyes glinting. “That was uncalled for on my part, Lyd. I’m so sorry. I was drunk, and I honestly thought I was being funny. Now I realize I was being crass. And an asshole. I should have told you that night.”
Nineteen?
I think about those green eyes, drinking me in like he knows what to do with a woman’s body.
Nineteen?
I think about the soulful, educated lectur
e I took diligent notes on, delivered in that rich voice tinged with that gorgeous accent.
Nineteen?
I want him. Want him so badly, my body takes a running start and butts my mind out of the way just for the chance to get one more grab, one more touch.
But I can’t.
I absolutely cannot. My first instinct was the right one: he and I are trouble. Not a risk I’m willing to take.
This new fact is as much a relief as it is a letdown. Nineteen is way too young to even consider, so I won’t.
Because I can’t.
But I can pretend that the lump in my throat is just a trapped circle of candy, and not my rising, growing regret.
And so I do.
9 ISAAC
California beaches are all ragged coast and luminous, breaking waves. The artist in me should want to paint them, but they don’t appeal to my eyes as much as they do my body. They call to my muscles, my bones, my flesh.
My father fancied himself the Ernest Hemingway of the art world. I was twelve the first time he ordered me to go shot for shot in a midnight rum drinking contest with him. Six months later he let me smoke a Cuban cigar so strong, it was all I could taste for days even after I was sure I’d puked the last remnants of it into my mother’s lavender bushes. He took me to Sicily and pushed me into the churning water, spear gripped in my hands, when I was thirteen, telling me not to come up for air till I had a fish. By fourteen, I was being treated for altitude poisoning when he wanted to keep climbing a mountain in Tibet against the guide’s strict instructions to stop.
My mother encouraged me to go on these “father/son bonding” outings. My uncles took me aside and told me my father was a lunatic and a masochist. That I had nothing to prove and could stop at any time.
But I wasn’t doing it to bond, like my mother assumed. And it wasn’t because I was being bullied, like my uncles thought. I did it because I couldn’t stand to have him look at me with those mocking eyes. The ones that said, Ah, I thought you couldn’t handle it. And I was right!
I guess, in the end, I did have something to prove.
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