by Abbi Waxman
Nina was surprised. “I don’t think she thought about it that way, to be honest.” She shrugged. “It’s hard to know, with her; she’s not super forthcoming about her motivations. She said, when I asked her essentially the same thing, that she didn’t think your dad would have been a good father.”
“He was your dad, too.”
“So you all keep telling me. I’m not sure that simple biology makes someone a father, though. Don’t you have to do some actual fathering? I mean, yeah, he provided a sperm, but after that nothing. I always thought parenting was more active than that.”
Archie paused while Andi put down their coffees. “You said your mom was away a lot when you were a kid.”
“She still is.”
“But you consider her your mother, even though someone else did most of the mothering.”
“Yeah, true.” Nina shrugged. “I guess there are as many ways to mother someone as there are mothers. Mine wasn’t there physically, but she sent a lot of cool postcards.” The postcards had been a regular feature of Nina’s childhood she’d mostly forgotten. They would show up once or twice a month, with a brief message (You’d hate it here, or Everything smells of cheese, or Been throwing up for days, weather’s good, though), and signed Mum in big, loopy handwriting. Louise and she would examine the stamps, look at the photo, and stick the cards to the fridge. She wondered where they were now, then remembered she’d cut off all the stamps and given them to a fifteen-year-old boy she’d had a crush on. Epic fail in terms of dating strategy; he’d looked at her strangely, thanked her, and never spoken to her again, and now she couldn’t remember what she’d done with the cards themselves. She dragged her attention back to Archie.
“But your . . . our . . . father wasn’t even heard from until two weeks ago. For a serial cheater, he was a man of his word.” She smiled ruefully.
Archie didn’t. “I’m really struggling to get my head around it, but I’m also finding it hard to understand why I’m struggling to get my head around it, if you can follow that. He cheated on his first wife . . . Why would I think he wouldn’t cheat on my mother?”
Nina made a face. “Because he loved her?”
Archie shrugged. “I don’t think his cheating was actually anything to do with his wives, or how he felt about them. I think he liked other women and was selfish about it. We talked about it once, when I was older and about to get married myself. My wife is . . .” He blushed, suddenly. “Very beautiful, as you saw the other day. I was deeply in love with her when we got married, still am, actually. But my dad took me out to dinner and told me that I would cheat on her one day.”
“How did he know that?”
Archie’s mouth twisted. “He didn’t. He genuinely thought every husband cheated, maybe every wife, too. He said the lure of fresh flesh was too strong. He implied it was pointless to resist it.”
“That seems to be kind of an overstatement. What made him so certain?”
“I’m not sure. He had this central belief in the importance of sex, I think. He thought it was the driving force behind every great story, every great event.”
“You disagree?”
“I don’t know. I think it was his driving force.” Archie looked at her. “Mind you, he had lots of them: sex, women, cigarettes, money, booze. He drank a lot—you know that, right? He was an alcoholic. I didn’t realize it when I was a kid, but it was obvious looking back. He was very anxious in the mornings; he woke up shaking and would hide in the bathroom a lot. My mother said he had low blood sugar and would bring him orange juice and treat him like a baby.” He drank his coffee. “But actually, he was hungover, and waiting until he could get to the office and have a drink.”
“Great,” said Nina. “It’s probably just as well I don’t drink very much then.” A sudden flash of the kiss with Tom crossed her mind.
Archie nodded. “I think Becky and Katherine both stopped drinking pretty young; not sure about the others.” He finished his coffee and looked around for Andi. “It’s genetic, you know.”
Nina nodded. “And did you?”
Archie frowned. “Did I what?”
“Did you cheat? On your wife?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. But now that I know about you, I worry that it’s predetermined, like the drinking. If he couldn’t control himself, maybe it will be the same for me. I didn’t think so, but you kind of messed up a lot of what I took for granted.” He caught Andi’s eye and mimed a request for more coffee for both of them. “Sorry, I know it’s not your fault.”
Nina shrugged and pressed on. “But you thought he didn’t cheat on your mother. You thought there could be exceptions.”
“Yeah, because she died pretty young, right? I thought maybe he’d managed to keep it in his pants long enough. But he didn’t, not at all. He cheated on her with your mom, and who knows who else, and that was years before she got sick.”
“Yeah, but look at me. My mom can’t stay in one place for more than a month, and I’ve barely left the state. Just because he was a jerk doesn’t mean you have to be.”
“Maybe not.”
Nina tried changing the subject. “When is your baby due?”
“Next month.” He pulled out his phone and flipped through some photos. “This is my son, Henry, and there’s Becca.” The photo showed an adorable little boy with tiny glasses on, and the beautiful blond woman she’d seen at the lawyer’s office, both grinning at the camera like idiots.
“They look happy,” said Nina.
“They are,” replied Archie. “Long may they stay that way.” He put his phone away and rubbed his face with his hand. “Do you ever worry that you are going to mess things up?”
“What kind of things? I mean, yes, of course, all the time, but what specifically?”
“I worry I’m going to lose control of my life, that I’m going to make a massive mistake and it’s all going away. I don’t know why, but things have been hard, with Becca pregnant and Henry being only two and work . . .” He put his hands on the tabletop, but not quickly enough to prevent Nina from seeing that they were shaking.
“Do you get anxiety?” she asked.
He nodded. “I do. I used to get it worse, but I take medication for it now. You?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I have Xanax for when it’s really bad, and sometimes it does get really bad. As long as I keep on top of things, it’s manageable, but I don’t do well with surprises.” She took a breath. “I’m easily thrown; I guess you could put it like that. I feel like I don’t have a deep well of calm. I feel like I was lightly misted with calm, and it doesn’t take a lot for it to evaporate.” She grinned. “Not sure this metaphor is going to last all that much longer, either.”
He smiled at her. “My wife has the deep well of calm in our house. She’s like Lake Calm, in fact. I’m more like you.” He shrugged. “Dad was not in any way calm; he revved very high indeed, and then his blood, mixed with the cyanide that runs through Alice’s veins, produced Katherine, who is truly horrible, but also Becky, Peter’s mom, who is the kindest woman on the planet. One more generation down you get Peter and Jennifer, who are awesome in every way, but also Lydia, who’s a total nutjob. Genetics are funny things, right?”
Nina put her hands flat on the tabletop, across from his. “We have similar hands, look.”
“Mine are bigger.”
She looked up at him. “No shit, Sherlock.”
He laughed. “I don’t know why I’m even telling you all this.”
“I’m your sister?”
“Yeah, I guess. And you can’t stop being my sister, even if you know how anxious I get. I . . . I felt like maybe you would understand.” He studied the tabletop.
Andi delivered their coffees. Nina took a sip and wiped the foam off her lip with the back of her sleeve. “Understand why you’re wigged out about suddenly discovering something upsetting about a guy who, let’s face it, had already caused a lot of trouble even before this all came out?”
He nodde
d.
“Wouldn’t anyone understand? A week or so ago I thought I was the child of a brave, creative, brilliant world traveler and never understood why I was shy, nervous, and basically unwilling to travel outside my zip code. Now I know where some of that came from, but I’ve also inherited potential alcoholism and an inability to remain faithful, so, you know, not exactly a win-win.”
Archie grinned suddenly, and anyone watching them would instantly have known they were related. “Yup, that’s about the size of it. You’ve probably inherited money, too, of course.”
“Unconfirmed. And not if Lydia has her way.”
Archie rolled his eyes. “Lydia’s angry all the time; you’re just today’s focus. It’s a pity, because she’s really brilliant. Brain like a steel trap but, sadly, she mostly uses it for storing up imaginary insults and injuries.”
“That’s awesome. What a lovely family you all are.” Nina arranged a small pile of sugar packets into a tower.
“We all are,” said Archie with a grin. “It’s your family, too.” He stuck out his finger and knocked over her tower of sugar packets.
“Not if I don’t want it to be.” Nina smacked his hand and started rebuilding.
Archie called for the check. “Good luck sticking that cat back in the bag.” He looked at her hands. “You’re single?”
“Very much so. I don’t have time for a boyfriend right now.”
“That’s sad.”
“Is it?” Nina thought about Tom. “I meet people, but no one I want to give up anything for.”
“Your life is so full of excitement and adventure?”
“Are you kidding? I have a weekly book club, a regular movie night, a dedicated physical wellness practice at least one night a week, a cat . . . I am living the dream.”
He laughed and signed the check. “You’re a lucky woman.”
“Yeah. And now I have you lot to contend with. A man would have to be pretty special to squeeze into my life.”
Archie got to his feet and stretched the exact same way Nina usually did. “Well, maybe one of us will introduce you to someone worth canceling book club for.”
Nina followed him out of the café. “I seriously doubt that. You’ve heard the phrase fact is stranger than fiction?”
“Of course.”
“Well, it’s also much less attractive. I’ll stick with my fictional love life, thanks. In both senses of the word.”
Archie stopped on the sidewalk. “I’m parked up there. Do you want a lift home?”
Nina shook her head. “No, thanks, I like walking.”
“Cool, we’ll talk later.” He hugged her, and in that brief embrace she felt a warm, reassuring acceptance. However mean Lydia might be, Archie and Peter were certainly making up for it. She’d never had brothers, obviously, and had never dated a man long enough to reach the point where she could take him for granted, and hug for no reason beyond affection, and she suddenly felt elated to have it in her life now. I have a big brother, she thought again. I am a little sister.
She watched her brother disappear up the street, his walk strangely familiar. She flicked a glance at her watch; great, the yoga class was completely over, so now she could go home, feed the cat, get into her are-they-pajamas-or-are-they-just-comfy-pants, and head to her friend’s house for book club.
Yup. Nina Hill was living the dream.
Fifteen
In which Nina is too organized for her own good.
Thursdays were Nina’s favorite day. After work on Thursdays she had nothing scheduled. Literally, from 6 to 10 P.M. she had written Nothing in her planner. Which actually meant reading, because when she had nothing to do, reading is what she did. Sometimes people tried to get her to do something instead, but she was fiercely defensive of her nothing.
So when she looked up from the pile of books she was reshelving and saw Tom entering the store, her first thought was she couldn’t go out with him that night, because she had nothing to do. Her second thought was that he hadn’t even asked her out, and she had no reason to think he was going to ask her out. Her third thought was that she was apparently getting a little full of herself and needed to pull herself together. And her fourth and final thought in this parade of small thoughts was that he was walking toward her and she should probably say hello.
“Hi there,” she said. He was taller than she remembered. Or she had shrunk, one or the other.
He smiled at her. “Hi.”
“Are you looking for a book?”
He shook his head. “I’m not a book person, remember? I’m not illiterate; I just don’t read much.” He turned up his hands. “Sorry.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Maybe you haven’t found the right kind of book yet.”
“I’m not trying very hard,” he said, easily. “Anyway, I came in to see if maybe you’d like to go out for dinner?” He was impressed with his relaxed, assured tone. There was absolutely no way she could guess he was as nervous as a shortsighted fly at a spider convention. Crushed it.
“Uh . . . sure.” Nice, Nina, way to sound enthusiastic.
OK, well, she doesn’t sound all that interested, but let’s press on. “What day works for you?” He remembered the feeling of her in his arms, the kiss, the invitation . . . It didn’t look like that girl came to work today.
“Let me get my planner.” Nina carried the remaining books back to the counter and dug underneath for her planner.
“Wow,” said Tom, once she’d pulled it out. “That is a serious planner.” He thought about his own planner, which was a small section of his brain that rarely had anything to do. If he had more than two or three things to remember, he might jot them on a Post-it, but that was about it. This girl might be a little hard-core organized for him. What would she be like in bed? Two minutes on this nipple, please, then forty seconds of . . .
Nina looked at her planner as if seeing it for the first time. It was big and heavily accessorized. It had bookmarks sticking out at various points; it had ribbons and tabs; it had a pocket full of special, planner-sized equipment.
“I enjoy being organized,” she replied. “It’s just . . .” She opened the planner to that week, and Tom frowned when he saw how full the page was.
“Wow,” he commented. “You’ve got a lot going on.”
“Yeah.” Nina nodded, suddenly a little embarrassed. “Uh, this week isn’t good. How about next week?” She flipped over a few pages. “No, that’s pretty full, too.”
Tom watched her face as she looked through the planner. Her nose was straight and delicate, with a speckling of freckles. Tom had a relatively active love life—he was an attractive thirty-year-old man in Los Angeles—but he hadn’t fallen for anyone in several years. He liked the women he dated, but none of them had captured his imagination the way this woman had. He thought about her, wondered how her skin might feel, how his hand might fit on her waist, about holding her against himself . . . He frowned and tried to focus on the actual person in front of him rather than the adult version he suddenly had in his head.
Nina looked up at Tom and found him gazing intently at her. She blushed. “Uh, how about three weeks from now? I have a Friday night . . .”
Tom clunked back into reality, hard. “Three weeks?” He was nonplussed, taken aback. “Really?”
“Yeah . . .” She looked down at this week.
He craned his head to look at the page. “What about that?” He poked his finger at the page. “It literally says you have nothing to do tonight.”
Nina shook her head. “Nothing actually means something.”
He looked at her.
“I mean, it means something to me; it means reading.”
“You have enforced reading?”
“It’s my job.” And I’d rather be reading than anything else, but that’s not relevant.
“Wait, what about that?” He pointed to the entry that said Movie Night. “We could go to a movie together.” He looked triumphant. “You already have a ticket.”
“How about the week after?” Suddenly, Tom was embarrassed. If Nina didn’t want to go out with him, he wasn’t going to keep pushing it. It wasn’t that he expected her to clear her schedule for him completely and immediately, but a little bit of mutual interest would be nice.
She had flipped ahead. “No, I’m going to a Jane Austen movie marathon with Liz, my boss.” She looked up and smiled. “Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility. Awesome, right?”
“Uh, sure.” This was maybe not the good idea he had thought it was. Maybe this girl wasn’t a good fit for him after all. He hadn’t read Jane Austen, hadn’t seen any of those movies, didn’t like reading, didn’t like being organized, didn’t like knowing what every minute of every day held for the next week, let alone the next month. Then she moved her head and there was that scent again, honey and lemons, and he knew he still wanted to take her out. Wanted to see if he could get under that organized layer.
Nina was still flipping through the planner. “But I can do the week after. Probably.”
Probably? “Do you have a piece of paper?” Tom asked, his smile fading.
Nina found him one and handed it to him, frowning. He took a pen from the pot next to the register and scribbled on the piece of paper. He handed it to her.
“That’s my number. If you get a cancellation, text me. I’ll see if I can fit you in.”
He turned and walked out of the store, trying to cover his disappointment and—at least from where Nina was standing—being completely successful.
“Well, that’s a load of balls,” said Polly, when Nina told her about it later.
Nina looked dubiously at her. “Is it? Or is it that I’m lame for being too wedded to my schedule.”
Polly was nothing if not fair minded. “Well, there’s that, too. I mean,” she added quickly, “I’m not saying you’re lame; I’m saying sometimes you get a little anal about your schedule.”