As we pulled onto Mark’s street in Peachtree Bluff, I finally said, “Let’s go inside and open a bottle of wine and really get it all out on the table. I have a lot to say, and I’m sure you do, too.”
Mark took my hand and nodded. He seemed relieved. But as we made our way to the driveway, it became abundantly clear that it was not going to happen. Because she was here. In all her glory. In a Pucci caftan with marabou trim, a skinny belt accentuating her minute waist, a martini in one hand, Botoxed within an inch of her life, cigarette hand motioning to a mover to take her Louis Vuitton trunks upstairs.
“This is who is going to be taking care of our children?” I asked Mark under my breath as we stepped out of the car.
“Mom!” he called loudly, ignoring me as she scurried to him without spilling a drop of her martini. It was quite impressive.
“Darling, darling, darling,” she said, kissing him three times. “Oh, you get more handsome every day. I absolutely swear you do. And Emerson,” she said to me, giving me a critical eye. She smiled, and I almost thought she was going to compliment me. “Aren’t you pinching yourself? You must be the luckiest girl in the world to have snagged my prince!”
I was thinking, I can’t, I absolutely cannot, as Mark said, “I am the luckiest man in the world to be marrying Emerson Murphy. I can’t believe it.” He squeezed my hand supportively.
“I’m just back from the south of France with my new gentleman friend, and I think you two should have your honeymoon there,” said Mark’s mother. “It’s absolutely fabulous. And I know everyone who’s anyone there now, so I can fix it all up.”
I looked at Mark. I couldn’t imagine what his childhood must have been like. His mother was always gone, flitting off to Paris with this man, Provence with that one, being swept into the arms of a Saudi prince this week, an Israeli prime minister the next. It was shocking how many men this one had accrued. But she was beautiful and poised, and I could see why men liked her. I wasn’t sure if they never kept her, but I believe it was that she never kept them. She had a collection of engagement rings that could rival the crown jewels. I wondered if the new ruby on her left hand was an addition to the set.
If I hadn’t hated her so much for putting Mark through hell as a kid, I would have loved her. Despite her tendencies, she could be quite a bit of fun. But Mark carried scars so deep from a neglected childhood that even I couldn’t heal them. And I felt a warm tenderness rise up for him then. All he had ever experienced was women leaving him. Of course he didn’t want me to leave Peachtree for LA. At that thought, I snuggled into his side, wrapping my arm around his. He was like a stray dog. All he needed was someone to love him, someone to make him feel playful and fun, not so beaten down. That person was me. I was very lucky.
“Mrs. Becker,” I began, ready to play nice and help her get settled in.
But then she said, “No, darling, it’s Duchess now.” And I knew then that I couldn’t help her. No one could.
I looked up at Mark, and he looked down at me. And I wondered again how he could possibly have turned out normal at all.
* * *
MY UNCLE SCOTT WAS the one who made me wish I had a brother. He had always been super-protective of Mom.
When we got home from New York, Scott claimed he was coming to Peachtree Bluff straight from his latest humanitarian-aid-slash-reporting project in Puerto Rico because he wanted to help Mom go through the rest of Grammy’s things. But we all knew better. He just wanted to check on his sister.
Our trip had given Mom an excuse to keep all of Grammy’s things sitting in storage for a bit longer. She didn’t have any use for them, but she also couldn’t bear to part with the relics of Grammy’s life. It made sense to me. It drove Caroline absolutely insane.
I was walking into the kitchen that morning when I overheard Caroline saying, “I mean, it’s borderline hoarder behavior. She needs to hire one of those estate-sale companies and get it over with. People would be thrilled to have all that beautiful furniture.”
I had rolled my eyes and turned to walk back upstairs, not interested in Caroline in this mood this early in the morning, when I heard Sloane say, “If Jack is any indication, Mom isn’t great at cutting ties with the past.”
“Lucky for us,” Caroline whispered.
Sloane laughed. “Yeah. I guess it is.”
Now my interest was piqued. On the one hand, the sneaky little sister in me didn’t want them to know I had overheard their conversation. But the other part of me wanted to investigate, so I walked in, saying, “Why is that lucky for us?”
Sloane visibly winced, which was my first clue something was up. But Caroline, always quick on her feet, just said, “I mean, do you want to be looking after Mom forever?”
I pursed my lips and looked from one of them to the other. They were hiding something.
I crossed my arms. “That is not what you meant.”
Before I could delve deeper, Scott burst through the door. “Favorite family member has arrived!”
Truth be told, Uncle Scott had always been our favorite, but after he helped find Adam and bring him home safely, we had all decided, definitively, that favorite-family-member status was his forever after. We even had a T-shirt made for him with his face on the front and Favorite Uncle for Life on the back, which he was currently wearing.
Scott was staying overnight, and I noticed he had only one backpack. I would never understand that man. Whatever packing gene he had, I did not get it.
“Em, you want to help me unpack?” he asked, totally distracting me from what my sisters had been saying before he walked in.
“Well, someone has to,” I said lightly.
When we were out of earshot, walking toward the guest room, he asked, “How you holding up?”
After our dual confessions, we were partners in crime, with a bond that we didn’t really share with anyone else. He was the only one who knew my secret, besides Mark. And I planned to keep it that way.
Instead of answering him, I shrugged. I thought about it ten times a day, that moment when Grammy was breathing and then she wasn’t. And it was because of me. It was because of the glass of water I poured her. The pills I handed her.
“OK, I guess. I don’t think about it as much. How about you?”
He nodded. “Doing mission work makes me feel like I’m atoning for my sins.”
“Do you think it works like that?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Who knows? Can’t hurt.”
Scott set his backpack on a chair in the corner of the downstairs guest room. Grammy’s room.
Before I could say anything, I heard Vivi screaming from the other room, “I’m not going to, and you can’t make me!” Her voice was promptly followed by the sound of the front door slamming.
“What the hell?” I asked, walking into the entrance hall and finding a mystified Caroline.
“It’s like the hormones have kidnapped her and taken her forever. I thought I had until she was a teenager before I had to deal with all this.”
“What is she not doing and you can’t make her?” I asked.
“Having a twelfth birthday party.”
I burst out laughing, and so did Scott.
“You bitch,” he said. “Why would you even suggest she have a birthday party? Of all the cruel and unforgiving things.”
“I know,” Caroline said, lightening now. “I am a total monster.”
“I’ll talk to her,” I said. “She still seems to like me.”
“So you say,” Caroline said.
“Maybe she’s having anxiety about getting older,” Scott said. We all laughed again.
I walked out the front door to look for Vivi, but she was nowhere to be found. So I walked upstairs and out onto the second-floor deck, where she seemed to be spending quite a bit of time lately. I had been planning to head to the beach earlier, before all hell had broken loose, but I figured this was as good a place as any to admire the view. I took off my cover-up to catch a few rays whil
e I waited for her.
I leaned back on the chaise and placed my sunglasses over my eyes, ready to relax. A few moments later, however, I heard voices downstairs. I opened one eye to peer through the slats in the railing and saw Mom and Jack, their backs to me on his downstairs porch next door, looking through old photo albums. The way the houses were built so close together and the way the wind was blowing, I could hear their voices almost better than if I had been sitting beside them, which was super-annoying. I was trying to sneak in a nap if I could. My doctor had said I needed rest, right?
I was feeling stronger every day. Every other week, I had an iron IV, and on the off weeks, I got what was known as a Myers’ Cocktail, a fun little intravenous bag filled with vitamin C and other great goodies. I felt absolutely amazing. I was trying to eat regularly and exercise a normal amount and generally take care of myself. I would be on set again two days after the wedding, and I needed to feel my best.
“I wish I had been there,” Jack was saying to Mom.
She laughed. “Yeah. That’s because you’ve never done middle-of-the-night feedings and colic. It wasn’t all fun and games.” She pointed to another photo. “Oh, I love this one,” Mom said. “Caroline wouldn’t leave the house without that pink tutu.”
“Whoa,” Jack said.
“Oh, my gosh,” Mom echoed. “Sloane looks exactly like your baby pictures in this one.”
I shot up in my chaise, all the hairs on the back of my neck standing up, though I couldn’t piece together what I was hearing just yet.
“Do you think now that we’re engaged, it’s the right time to tell them?” Jack asked.
My heart started pounding. I wanted to run inside at top speed, because I knew whatever I was overhearing was something I would wish I hadn’t.
“I don’t want to ruin Emerson’s wedding,” Mom said.
“Right,” Jack said. “But it seems like she would care least of all.”
Oh, my God. I felt frozen to my chair, my blood cold. My mind was catching up to my heart now.
“I don’t think that’s how she’ll see it. I think she’ll think it affects her most of all because then she’ll be the only one without a living father.”
I jumped up off the chaise before I could hear the rest and ran into my room and shut the door. I sat on the edge of my bed, catching my breath, and then decided that I had to go down there right now to confront them. I sat for a few minutes, trying to reason it out, trying to decide if this could possibly mean anything other than what I thought it did. I would be the only one without a living father . . . which could only mean . . .
“Oh, my God,” I said out loud. “Oh, my God.”
After what felt like an eternity of gathering myself, I swung the bedroom door open with conviction and then, looking down, realized I was wearing only my bikini. I stepped back out onto the porch to grab my cover-up, pulled it over my head, and saw Vivi and a friend there, on the floor of the porch, huddled around something that, when I got closer, I realized was a cigarette.
“Vivian Louise Beaumont!” I said sharply. “What on earth do you think you’re doing?”
She and her friend both looked up, wide-eyed.
I held out my hand. “Give that to me right now.”
I realized it was neither good for my health nor a good example when I put the cigarette to my mouth, cupped my hands around the flame, and inhaled. But if anyone had ever needed a cigarette, it was me now. I had just accidentally found out that Jack was Sloane and Caroline’s biological father. A cigarette was in order.
“Smoking is the worst thing in the world for you,” I said, as the two girls looked up at me. “You aren’t even twelve years old.”
“Actually, I am,” the friend piped up.
I looked at her sternly. “Smoking stunts your growth, ruins your lungs, and keeps you from getting boobs.” The last one wasn’t true, per se, but I could tell from the looks on their faces that it was way more effective than any lung-cancer photos.
Their eyes went straight to my chest, and Vivi whispered, “Is that what happened to you?”
Bitches. I inhaled again and said, “Yes. Yes, it is.” I exhaled slowly and said, “Your mother never smoked a cigarette in her life, which is why she’s tall and her boobs are huge. Let that be a lesson to you.”
It now occurred to me that Sloane and Caroline had boobs and I didn’t because Jack was their father and Dad was mine. On the bright side, they would never be able to play boys onstage with their C and D cups. My barely A cups were very versatile. I knew that Vivi’s drama was helping me procrastinate about focusing on my own. But also, her health and safety would always come first, even above soul-shattering, life-changing revelations.
I sat down on the porch beside them, taking the last drag and then flicking it expertly so that the butt detached from the ash in one swift motion, the light going out and both pieces sailing into the bushes downstairs. You could say this wasn’t the first time I had smoked a cigarette on this porch.
“What is going on with you and your mom?” I asked Vivi, realizing that something pretty major would be going on with my own mom and me in short order.
“I don’t want to be who she wants me to be, and she can’t get that through her head. I’m not her, and if I don’t want to have the kind of party she wants to have, that doesn’t make me crazy.”
I nodded. “Look, no one understands being controlled by your mother better than I do. But she loves you more than anything, and she only wants to make you happy. Sometimes people only know how to make people happy the way they like to be made happy. Does that make sense?”
Vivi nodded sullenly.
“So what do you want for your birthday? If it’s not having a party here, I mean,” I asked.
“To stay in Peachtree Bluff and not go back to New York,” she rolled off.
Yikes. This was going to be harder than I thought.
“Um,” I said, looking out over the water, realizing that this parenting thing seemed pretty tough after all. “You know that’s not realistic. Your dad works in New York, and your life is in New York. Peachtree Bluff is the best place in the world to visit, but it’s not the kind of place you get to stay forever.”
“Gransley gets to stay forever.”
“I get to stay forever,” the brunette friend said.
I glared at her. She wasn’t helping my cause. Plus, she was trying to give my niece stale cigarettes. Not cool. Not cool at all.
“And I hate my dad,” Vivi said. “I don’t want to go back to live with him anyway.”
“I hate your dad, too,” I said before I could stop myself. I grinned sheepishly. “Look,” I said, “I’m kidding. Take it from me, you only get one dad, and when he’s gone, you’re always going to wish you had him back. He made some mistakes, but you’ll make some mistakes, too.”
And then I realized that, yes, Vivi would only get one dad. I only got one dad. But it seemed my sisters got two.
I held up the lighter in my hand. “You almost ruined your boob chances, so you get what I mean.”
She finally smiled, and I put my hand under her chin.
“So, besides staying in Peachtree Bluff forever, what would your second birthday wish be?”
“I don’t want a big party,” Vivi said. Then she lowered her voice and said sheepishly, “I want to come to LA to see you film your new movie.”
My heart felt like it would burst. That was the sweetest thing in the world. I tapped her on the head. “Wish granted. I heard the Francie Nolan character in the movie I’m filming, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, needs a few friends. Do you think you could say a couple of lines and look dirty and disheveled?”
She nodded enthusiastically.
“Perfect,” I said, feeling better about the whole day. “Read the book first. You’ll love it.” I got up but turned back to the girls before I headed into the house. “And don’t forget: beer makes your hair fall out.”
They both gasped, putting their hands up to thei
r long, flat-ironed locks.
They’d probably only buy that one for another couple of years, but it was worth a shot.
“That must be why my dad is bald,” Vivi’s sidekick whispered.
I muffled my laugh as I walked inside, realizing that I was getting ready to do something very, very unpleasant. And I knew all at once that nobody in the Murphy family would be laughing again for a long, long time.
* * *
FAME IS A LITTLE like love. When it happens slowly, it’s more likely to last. Sure, there are those overnight success stories, the ones who make it big right off the bat. But I like to think that they’re one-hit wonders and that the way I’ve done it—or have been forced to do it, really—is better in the long run. That climbing the ladder slowly, one rung at a time, will eventually lead to something long and prosperous. I love the idea of being sixty years old and still being on the screen or the stage, being someone’s idol.
So, despite how mixed up and frustrated and overwhelmed I felt about my career, I couldn’t help but realize that there was the tiniest bit of joy mixed in there. Because while I didn’t have that Oscar sitting on my shelf that I thought I would surely win before my thirtieth birthday, I did have fans, and I was someone’s idol. Even if it was just my niece. And I couldn’t believe my sweet Vivi would trade what I was sure would be the party of anyone’s dreams for a chance to be with me on set. Despite all the bad that was going on, that was something to be grateful for.
After the Vivi cigarette fiasco, I had wanted to go straight over to confront Jack and Mom. But I decided against it. Maybe it was because I chickened out, but I told myself it was because I needed to tell Sloane and Caroline first. It seemed sort of like sisters’ code.
I made my way very slowly toward Sloane Emerson, where I knew Caroline was working on my wedding. I had helped with all the big-picture items. I had picked the florist and the food and the band and the location and the photographer. But when it came to details, I was a mess. Caroline would come up with a whole list of ways we could transport the cake to Starlite Island, while I would nod and hum along, realizing I would never have thought of that. And she would figure out how many pieces of silverware we needed to rent and spend hours scouring the state for the right wineglasses, while I wouldn’t even realize that choosing wineglasses was part of the wedding-planning process. I was beyond lucky. I had recommended hiring a wedding planner so Caroline wouldn’t end up doing all the work, but she had looked at me like I had suggested we give vials of Ebola out as favors.
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