by Sloane Tanen
“She bought it for herself for my father to give her. I would have preferred to buy you something on my own but she wouldn’t let it go. She insisted.”
“She did?”
“She did. You know how she is.”
“I don’t, actually.”
“She’s difficult and pushy but quite decent once you get around all that. I’ve grown fond of her lately. All her criticizing has its upside, it turns out. She’s helped me sort things out a bit.”
“So she approves of me?”
“Oh, she’s an enormous fan.”
“Of mine?”
“Mm.”
“When did you decide you were going to propose?”
“Somewhere between being hopped up on Percocet at your father’s and your vomiting episode. I knew that if, after that display, I still wanted to see you naked, then there must be something to my feelings for you.”
She wrinkled her nose.
“I hoped you’d come around eventually. Underneath all my churlishness lies the heart of an optimist.” Henry cleared his throat and pointed to the ring. “And Mother thought that might help smooth out the kinks.”
She laughed. “But I’m not mad anymore. You don’t have to marry me.”
“I know I don’t have to marry you, you fool. I want to. Why is that so hard for you to understand? I’m not exactly an impulsive fellow. I’ve just been waiting for the right time. Then your dad passed and I figured you needed space, so…”
Janine looked confused. “Did my dad know you were going to propose?”
“Mother has a tendency to overshare.”
Janine bit her lip hard. “When? When did she tell him?”
“I don’t know exactly. Before Italy. She told me he’d tried to convince you to stay in LA. I think he was hoping. I can’t say for sure…”
Her face was red and blotchy now. Henry wasn’t sure if she was crying about her father or his proposal but realized it didn’t matter. Marty’s gravitational force had expired, leaving all his moons and planets spiraling in senseless orbits.
Janine looked down at the ring. “It’s ridiculously huge.”
“You don’t have to wear it.”
“Can we slow things down a little? It’s just a lot all at once.”
“Mm. Bit of a damp squib, but all right. Can I at least put it on you? No pressure. I trust you’ll give it back if you decide to run off with your old friend Teddy.” She nodded and Henry slipped the ring on her finger. “How does it feel?”
“Heavy.” She reached for him and held him tightly. “You smell like a snack bar, Henry.”
“Yes. Pickled cucumbers. Mustard.”
“Henry?” she asked, looking up at him.
“Mm?”
“If it’s a boy, I want to call him Marty. Marty Kessler.”
Henry nodded. “That’s a good name.”
“It is a good name.”
“So none of this ‘going back to New York’ nonsense. We’ll see what happens, but in the meantime you’ll come live with me. Yes?”
She took his hand impulsively, as though she couldn’t believe she was agreeing to his mad plan.
“Can I call you Mrs. Holter? Just one time?” Henry asked. Then he frowned, questioning the wisdom of saddling someone he loved with a name he had such mixed feelings about. “Sorry,” he said. “Never mind.”
“I always wondered what it would be like to have a different name. I wanted to be Amy Tanner once.”
“Who’s Amy Tanner?”
“Nobody. It was a long time ago. Let’s hear it,” she said. “As an experiment.”
Henry’s heart was beating so quickly he could hear it rapping to a steady rhythm in his ear. “Do you want to get some chili fries, Mrs. Holter?”
“Yes,” she said, tightening her grip on his hand as she looked down at the ring. “But I won’t be changing my last name and you can’t say things that sound like the last line of a bad romantic comedy.”
His relief was visceral, almost painful. “I’ve never been accused of that before,” he said and emptied some chopped onions out of his shirt pocket with his free hand.
She looked him up and down with a laugh. “No, I bet you haven’t.”
Janine
“Janine, it’s Jim Keating.”
She was driving from the pool to meet Amanda at Henry’s for dinner. Amanda had agreed to go over lines with her for the movie. Filming started the following week. Janine was nervous, nauseated, and, because of the pregnancy, completely unmedicated for the first time in twenty-six years. The last person she wanted to talk to was her father’s attorney. Janine couldn’t imagine how her dad, a man who wanted only the good news, had put up with Jim Keating and his bleak biweekly forecasts.
“I have news,” Jim said quickly. His Irish brogue still unsettled Janine, always reminding her of their first conversation, when he’d called to tell her that her dad was dead. Nothing Jim Keating had said subsequently had been anything Janine wanted to hear. She gripped the steering wheel tightly.
“You’ve settled on a firing-squad execution for me and Amanda?”
Jim laughed enthusiastically. Janine had never heard him laugh. “Delivering good news this time,” he announced.
She took a deep breath. “Okay, Jim,” she said, channeling her father, “tell me the good news.”
“As you know, your father’s house was bought quickly.”
“I know that. That’s not good news.”
“But the buyer is interesting. Very interesting. The whole thing is as mad as a box of frogs, really.”
“Please, Jim,” she said, braking softly as the traffic slowed. She glanced down at the ring on her finger. She had things to do and she was tired of Jim Keating, tired of his formalities and instructions, tired of the indignities he’d made her and Amanda suffer without a thought to their emotional well-being. She wanted to focus on Henry and the baby now, on Amanda and the girls, and especially on getting through her part in the film before her stomach popped. Ransom had been so nice about the whole thing. He’d even offered to shoot all of her scenes first, as if she were somebody who mattered.
“The buyer is Bunny Small. The author!”
Janine felt her heart slide into her stomach and slosh around. Her eyes went blurry. She put the blinker on and started to pull the car over to the right shoulder. This was easier said than done on the 10 Freeway at five thirty in the evening. Cars started honking. “Watch it, dumb ass,” a guy with a beard and a baseball hat yelled while giving her the finger. Janine tried to block him out as she jerked the car in and out of traffic. Someone threw an empty coffee cup at her car just as she eased onto the shoulder.
“Janine?” Jim asked. “You there? Are you driving?”
“Just give me a minute.” She was struggling to catch her breath as she put the car into park. She’d have given a kidney for a Klonopin. She sat in silence, trying to focus. She forgot Jim was on the line until she heard him breathing. “Jim?”
“I didn’t have permission to tell you until the sale officially closed, which it did, this morning. It never went on the market. Ms. Small paid cash. Twice the estimated value! Twice!” he said, repeating the word as if it were a poem or a song.
“Why would she do that?”
“She wanted you and your sister to have the house and then some.” He laughed out loud, as if this were the strangest thing he’d ever come across in his many years of dealing with very strange people. “She didn’t think your dad would like the idea of its being sold out from under you to pay the estate taxes.” He cleared his throat. “My guess is she was afraid you might say no to an outright gift.”
Janine was quiet.
“She said she wants you both to have the option to keep it. She thought that’s what your father would have wanted. I can’t disagree. Not in the least, Janine.”
She was aggravated at Jim’s sudden solicitousness after weeks of his detached condescension. “I thought we couldn’t afford to keep the house u
p even if we’d had the money to buy it. You made that clear enough.”
“That’s the kicker,” he said with enthusiasm. “Ms. Small’s supplied a provision to pay for the entire maintenance of the house—insurance, yard, pool, pest control.”
“For how long?” Janine asked, incredulous.
“In perpetuity.”
“Are you kidding?”
Jim chuckled, his tone much more ingratiating now that Janine was a person of substance, or at least a person who knew people of substance who could potentially become new clients. “I can’t say for certain, but it seems she was very fond of your father. Apparently they’d known each other a long time?” He was fishing for information.
“I couldn’t imagine living in his house without him. That’s weird.”
“That’s entirely up to you and Amanda.”
“Does Henry know?” Janine asked. She was sure Henry didn’t know. He’d be embarrassed, probably. Janine didn’t get the sense that he appreciated grand gestures, especially from his mother. She was completely, as Henry would say, gobsmacked.
“Who’s Henry?” Jim asked, doing very little to maintain his professional distance now. Janine could practically feel the pull of his curiosity through the phone. She wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of responding.
“Does Amanda know?” she asked Jim.
“I just phoned her. Yes. Who’s Henry?”
“Okay,” she said, ignoring the question. “Thanks.”
“Of course, you can sell it and take the money,” Jim continued. “The estate taxes have been covered. The house is in both your names. All proceeds from the sale would be yours to split free and clear. And the market’s strong. If you want my advice—”
“I don’t. But thanks.”
“Oh.”
“I gotta go,” she said and hung up the phone.
She sat there another few minutes thinking things over. Then she called Amanda.
“Oh my God,” Amanda said. “Did you talk to Jim?”
“I just did. I’m in shock. I’m thinking.”
“About the house?”
“Mm.”
“Your boyfriend’s mom is a peach, Janine. I mean, who does that?” Amanda sounded elated but hesitant. “It’s crazy!” Amanda went on. “Can we even accept it?”
Janine knew Amanda was afraid that Janine wouldn’t accept it, and in truth, she wasn’t sure how she felt. “I think it’s done.”
“What do you want to do with the house?” Amanda asked.
“Sell it, I guess. I mean, what do you want to do?”
“It’s not really up to me,” Amanda answered. “She obviously did this because of Henry. Because of you and Henry.”
“I don’t think so. I think she did it because of Dad.”
“Really?”
Janine bit the inside of her cheek and nodded. “Henry would never take money from her and it’s not like we need a place to live. I bet he doesn’t even know.”
“Maybe she wants you to have the kid there or something?”
“No.” Janine turned the key in the ignition. “Jim said she put it in both our names. It doesn’t have anything to do with Henry.”
“Both our names,” Amanda said in a far-off voice. “Wow. It’s just…I don’t know. I can’t believe she’d do that.” Janine could feel Amanda weighing her right to such kindness, probably feeling that somehow she didn’t deserve it. There was a long pause as the full significance of the gesture settled. Neither one of them had ever been on the receiving end of such a gift.
Despite how their father had left things, Janine was sure he would have wanted them to have the house. He would have wanted his family to have the option to be together. How he would have reacted to his ex-wife saving the day was unclear, but Janine had no doubt that he would have been pleased at the outcome.
“Do you want to live there?” Janine asked Amanda. “With Hailey and Jaycee?”
Amanda made a strange, high-pitched noise and then burst into tears.
“Do you?” Janine asked again, finally understanding that having her own home in which to raise her daughters without having to worry about money was the thing Amanda wanted most.
“I do,” Amanda said, her voice almost inaudible. “Can you imagine what it would mean to me, to them? To have that beautiful home? Dad’s beautiful house. They’d have their own rooms,” Amanda went on, trying to calm down. “You should have heard Hailey talk about the place while I was gone. She loved being there.”
“It wouldn’t creep you out? You wouldn’t feel like it was, I don’t know, haunted by Dad or something?”
“No way. I don’t want somebody else living there, decorating it with their bullshit midcentury-modern furniture. And I can probably pay for college if I don’t have to worry about housing.”
“Then do it.”
“It would be half yours, of course,” Amanda said, rambling on, “if you ever needed the money or wanted to sell it or whatever. But at least we could keep it for a while. It would mean a lot to the girls. And I don’t know. We’d have our family home.”
“You can have it for more than a while.”
Amanda started crying again, the little squeaks punctuated by loud, wet sobs. Janine didn’t say anything. She didn’t want her sister to hear her own voice break. She was undone at the prospect of being able to help Amanda and her girls in a real way.
Amanda exhaled in a long, low whistle. “I miss Dad.”
“Me too.”
“Too bad he won’t meet baby Marty,” Amanda said.
“Let’s just hope it’s a boy,” Janine replied, happy to change the subject. “Actually, let’s just hope it doesn’t have flippers or webbed toes. You know this is considered a geriatric pregnancy? That’s what my chart said. Who thought of that term?”
“A man,” Amanda said.
“I’ll pick up food,” Janine said. “Henry’s joining us after work. But you have to help me with these lines. You promised. It’s such a long scene.”
“Stop obsessing. I’ll make sure you don’t blow it,” Amanda said with affection. “See you soon.”
Without thinking, Janine turned the key in the ignition again and the car made a loud grinding noise in protest. The engine was already running. Henry would be teaching but she would leave him a message telling him what an amazingly kind thing his mom had done. She dialed his number but then quickly hung up. It would be better in person.
She checked the rearview mirror. Behind her, the sun was setting over the Pacific Ocean, illuminating the endless lanes of crawling cars. The drive to Henry’s would take her over an hour, she thought, checking her impatience with the realization that she had somewhere to be. Somewhere she wanted to be. She turned on her blinker and merged her car into the slow flow of traffic.
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to my agent, Sarah Burnes, for all she’s done for me and this book, to Colin Dickerman for his loyalty and friendship, and to Lee Boudreaux for seeing the promise in an early draft and giving the manuscript a home. Enormous gratitude to Judy Clain, Reagan Arthur, Jayne Yaffe Kemp, and everyone at Little, Brown, especially super-editor Asya Muchnick, who is the kindest, sharpest, coolest editor around. I really couldn’t have asked for more. I am very grateful to those who read the book along the way: Coralie Hunter, Carina Guiterman, Amy Scheibe, and Tracy Roe; your suggestions and input were invaluable. Thank you to my friends who put up with me through this process, notably Brooke Dunn Parker, for always answering the phone to listen; Colleen Wellman, for screening my calls only once in a while; and Ruth Woodruff, for whisking me away when I needed a break. And, finally, a giant hug to my family: Ned Tanen, my incredible father; Kitty Hawks and Larry Lederman, for their unconditional love and for always keeping the faith; my sister, Tracy James, for being my companion on the journey; Gary Taubes, my amazingly supportive husband, for reading the manuscript sixteen times and crying and laughing every time; and my boys, Harry and Nick, for reminding me always wh
at’s truly important.
About the Author
Sloane Tanen is the author of nine illustrated and YA books, including the bestseller Bitter with Baggage Seeks Same: The Life and Times of Some Chickens and Hatched! The Big Push from Pregnancy to Motherhood. This is her first adult novel. Tanen graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and holds master’s degrees from both NYU and Columbia University. She lives in the Bay Area with her husband, the writer Gary Taubes, and their two sons.
Also by Sloane Tanen
Bitter with Baggage Seeks Same
Going for the Bronze: Still Bitter, More Baggage
Where Is Coco Going?
Coco All Year Round
Coco Counts: A Little Chick’s First Book of Numbers
C Is for Coco: A Little Chick’s First Book of Letters
Hatched! The Big Push from Pregnancy to Motherhood
Appetite for Detention
Are You Going to Kiss Me Now?
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