The Book of Essie

by Meghan MacLean Weir

  “Whatever happened, it amounts to pretty much the same thing, doesn’t it?” He stands up and then turns back and leans over me before going on, “It all makes sense now. I feel so stupid. I should have seen it before. I’m the perfect cover-up. You needed a husband. My parents need the money. It’s a shame that I’m not straight. Then you could have screwed me too and convinced me it was mine.”

  I rise to face him then, scrambling to my feet quickly, and he has to jump back to avoid having my head knock into his nose.

  I say, “I wouldn’t have had sex with you and tried to pass this baby off as yours, even if you were straight. I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Forgive me,” he tells me, bowing slightly. “I guess I’m just a little behind on what you would and wouldn’t do. So you were just going to blackmail me, then? I keep your secret or else you tell the whole country that I’m gay?”

  “No,” I breathe. My voice is barely a whisper. “No, of course not.”

  “You know, you actually had me fooled. Your whole ‘I’m different from my parents’ routine was convincing. But you’re not any different. You are all exactly the same.”

  “I’m not,” I manage, but I can hear the desperation in my voice.

  I stumble backward until I bump into the trunk of the tree that we are standing under. Its bark is smooth, but there are deep cuts where someone has carved his or her initials. I run my fingers along this groove to anchor myself, to stop this feeling of falling, but it is no good and I feel like I might throw up again.

  Roarke raises a finger and points it at me. His words, when they come, are slow and accusing. “You are, all of you, manipulative, self-centered, egomaniacal phonies. You use people up and you toss them aside. There is no amount of money that could ever convince me to marry you. Not now.”

  I am silent. It is over. I can hear it in his voice and I know that there is nothing I can say to change his mind. What’s more, I do not blame him. Not even a little.

  Roarke starts to walk away and I almost let him, but then I say, “They had a meeting. Did you know that? They had a meeting to decide what they should do. Mother didn’t talk to Daddy, not the way that normal parents do. She talked to Candy and to Gretchen. I was a public relations nightmare. I wasn’t her daughter. I wasn’t even a person. I was a problem to be solved.”

  “You think that makes it acceptable, what you tried to do to me?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “What you did to me wasn’t any different, except that instead of being the problem, I was the solution, wasn’t I? I was your way out, your path to legitimacy, your Hail Mary. I was the only way that no one was going to call you a whore.”

  I feel the tears start to gather and I tell him, “Now you’re just being mean.”

  “Maybe I am mean. After all, you don’t really know me. Maybe mean is who I really am.”

  “I don’t believe that,” I say, and now the tears begin to fall. I bite my lip to stop them while my throat makes an ugly snuffling sound. In the branches above my head, a bird jumps from branch to branch. “Libby will be here in a few days. What am I supposed to tell her?”

  Roarke shrugs and begins to walk away and this time I let him. As he goes, he turns his head to tell me, “That’s not my problem, is it? None of this is my problem. It never really was.”

  * * *

  —————

  Roarke does not talk to me for the next four days. If Gretchen notices, she doesn’t let on. In fact, she is probably relieved that we are not trying to make out or sneak into each other’s rooms at night. During this time, we finish the construction projects at the school and move on to a local church where they have plans to raise a guesthouse for visiting clergy. I doubt very much that the lengths of wood we nail together into a frame could be considered up to code, but we do the best we can. I suspect they will take it all apart and start over as soon as we are gone, but it looks good on camera since Jesus was a carpenter. Daddy would say that segments like this lend an air of humility to the show, but he says it while wearing a three-hundred-dollar tie, so I’m not entirely sure he knows what the word humility really means.

  Liberty Bell flies in on Friday with Margot. Roarke has not officially said that the interview is off, but probably only because he hasn’t said anything at all. I ask him if he wants to come in the car with me to pick up Libby from the airport, but he pretends not to hear.

  At first Gretchen objects to my being driven out to the airport alone, but when I remind her that Mother is paying her to make sure Roarke and I behave appropriately in public and in front of the other missionaries, not to babysit, she leaves the lobby and heads toward the pool. I stare blankly out the window as the car moves out of the city. I am not nervous about seeing Libby. In fact, I don’t feel anything at all. I am numb. I feel almost exactly the same way I did when I first realized that I was pregnant.

  It’s odd, I think now, how calm I was. I should have felt some panic. I should have cried or stomped or beat my fists against my bed and buried my face in my pillow in a soundless scream. But instead I felt almost relieved, that it was decided, that now at least something would have to happen, that my life would not go on just as it always had. Roarke’s not speaking to me is like that. It is not the way that I wanted things to happen, but then again, none of this is what I wanted. If he won’t marry me, then I am still one step closer to all this being over, even if I don’t yet know precisely how it will end.

  Margot chats excitedly in the front seat from the moment she slides into the car. She knows some Spanish, which she inflicts upon our driver, who looks at me pleadingly in the rearview mirror for a while before he gives up and starts to answer Margot’s questions using the smallest words he can.

  Libby speaks so quietly that I almost don’t hear her when she says, “She promised that she’d be there. The interview at the Hyatt. Lissa says she’ll come.”

  Her eyes flicker toward the driver and it is clear she is concerned that he might be under orders to report anything he hears.

  “I’m looking forward to the pool,” she says after a pause, her voice louder than it needs to be, her smile like something drawn on her face. “And dancing. Please tell me we’re going out tonight.”

  “You feel free,” I say to her. “There’s no way that Gretchen will let me go.”

  But Gretchen does let me go, much to my surprise, primarily because she gets to tag along and it seems that Liberty Bell has been her hero since she was a little girl, that there was a time she absolutely lived for Libby’s blog. I never pegged her as quite that type. It must have been wishful thinking, but I always thought she was exaggerating her fanaticism to please Mother, that she talked about “the gays” and “the immigrants” at her first interview just so she would get the job. I guess her bigotry was real.

  We claim a group of tables at a club recommended by the concierge. As soon as we arrive, a married couple in their sixties who are with our group, Lyle and Martha from Grand Rapids, immediately head toward the dance floor. Martha’s hips move like a much younger woman’s and it is clear that she has danced to music like this before. Probably she listened to Buena Vista Social Club with her book group while discussing The Havana Quartet. I laugh as Lyle struggles to keep up.

  Then Libby leans forward to Roarke and tells him that he and I should be dancing. She calls me his fiancée.

  “She’s not my fiancée anymore,” Roarke says, but it is too loud and Libby doesn’t hear.

  She waves him toward the dance floor and he grudgingly stands, having decided that this is easier than protesting, and leaves the table. I scurry to catch up.

  “This doesn’t mean I’ve changed my mind,” he tells me as he puts his hands on my hips.

  I do not answer, but I let him lead me haltingly around the floor. Occasionally we bump into other couples and Roarke looks embarrassed, but eventuall
y we find our own rhythm. I feel his arms loosen and his waist relax as he gives himself over to the music. He spins me out, then back again and Libby gives him a thumbs-up from the table.

  By the time the song has ended, I have nearly forgotten that he hates me, but then he asks, “Why are you smiling? What could you possibly have to smile about?” and I remember.

  “I’m happy,” I say. “This right here is my very last moment of happiness and I’m going to enjoy it. Tomorrow my world may come crashing down, but tonight, well, tonight is mine. I’m not going to let anyone take it from me.”

  I cannot read Roarke’s expression in the dim lights, but I feel the tension return to his shoulders. He breaks away from me.

  “I need some air,” he says.

  “I’ll come with you,” I offer.

  “No, I’d rather be alone.”

  I weave my way back through the moving bodies to our table and reclaim the small stool next to Libby.

  “Where’s Roarke?” Margot asks.

  “Outside,” I answer.

  “Needed to cool off?” she asks conspiratorially.

  I hold a glass of ice water to my face.

  “Something like that,” I say.

  * * *

  —————

  Roarke does not blow my cover while we are at the club and instead spends the rest of the night getting dancing lessons from Grand Rapids Martha. I know that this does not mean that he has reconsidered. I can see plainly that he does not plan on doing any explaining. He’s leaving that job to me. But I am grateful that I will at least get to do it in private and avoid a public scene.

  The next day is rainy, but it is not the sort of rain we have at home. Gale-force winds blow down an electrical pole, and the shutters in the hotel library rattle with the gusts. Libby asks if we wouldn’t mind rescheduling the interview for tomorrow so that it can be shot outside on the lawn. If it’s still raining then, or if the garden has been completely and utterly destroyed by a hurricane, then we’ll move to Plan B and shoot it inside, but she needs to scout out locations. Roarke raises his eyebrows and looks at me.

  “That’s fine,” I tell her.

  “Why don’t we grab some lunch?” Libby suggests, but Roarke is already walking away.

  * * *

  —————

  The wind dies down a little after three, though it is still raining hard. From the window it looks like a solid sheet of water has enveloped the world outside. Gretchen leaves the billiards room, where we have both been reading, and tells me she’s going upstairs to take a nap now that the wind has stopped howling quite so insistently and I am saved the trouble of having to slip away.

  The group is supposed to meet for pre-dinner cocktails at five, so there are less than two hours before I need to be back by the time I step out onto the street. I do not bring an umbrella, since I’m certain that it would not survive the smaller gusts of wind that still persist. Instead I pull the hood of my rain jacket up and keep my head bent down and face into the breeze.

  The sidewalks are empty and I break into a jog as I turn off the main streets in favor of a narrow alley. I know the way by heart. I memorized it months ago, even before there was a need. Libby’s Plan B is an interview inside instead of out and this is mine. This is the plan I made before Roarke said yes, the plan I hoped I would never need, but that I had worried it would come down to all along.

  Maritza lives in a second-floor apartment with her grandmother. She graduated from the New Light School last year and is taking classes at the university. We have been friends since I was ten, the first year we ran the trips to Havana, back before Lissa left and everything changed forever. At thirteen, Maritza was partway between Lissa’s age and mine. The three of us were inseparable from that point on. We wrote letters in between our visits and begged Mother to let her come stay with us during our summer holidays, a notion Mother immediately rejected. I have not seen Maritza in nearly a year, but I know that she will help me now—not just because of our friendship but because she knows the truth. Aside from Mother, she is the only one who does.

  Her grandmother, who has always insisted I call her Lita, bustles around the narrow kitchen. She tells me I am too thin and, without asking if I am hungry, holds out a plate of plantains. I eat without complaining, but Maritza knows why I’ve come—I called before I left the hotel—and she hurries me outside as soon as she is able.

  The rain is still coming down and we splash through puddles hand in hand for several blocks until she guides me to a doorway and tells me I should stay there. Then she breaks away, pulling her fingers out of mine, and runs into a building across the way. An eternity passes while I wait and the rain begins to soak through my jacket at the seams. Soon my back is wet. A car lumbers by, its tires rolling through a puddle and throwing up a wall of water that splashes over my bare legs and the hem of my skirt. I shiver despite the heat and then Maritza emerges, the package clutched against her chest for protection.

  She does not look in my direction but instead walks back the way we have just come. I follow half a block behind and wait to catch up with her until we have left the neighborhood. When we reach her street, Maritza hugs me close to her, one arm thrown around my neck while the other guides the brown paper bag up underneath my jacket. She presses her lips against my cheek. A taxi honks. Startled, I turn my head and jump back from the curb. When I look back, my friend is gone.

  * * *

  —————

  It takes the hot water some time to penetrate my chilled skin. Maritza’s gift sits in its damp brown paper bag beside the bathroom sink. I stand in the shower and try not to think. Instead I lean forward into the spray and let the scalding jet pour over my head. I do not hear the knocking until I twist the shower handle and step onto the bath mat. I dry myself off quickly and squeeze the water out of my hair and then put on a robe. Roarke is standing at my door when I pull it open.

  “You don’t have to do this,” he says.

  “And just what is it that you think I’m doing?” I ask.

  “I saw you,” he tells me, “outside the pharmacy.”

  “You have no idea what you saw.”

  “I can spell it out for you, if that would help, though it would be a shame if Gretchen is snooping from just inside her door.”

  I hiss at him to be quiet and pull him into the room.

  “Why do you care? It doesn’t have anything to do with you. You’ve made that abundantly clear.”

  “But it’s not what you want or else you would have done it already.”

  I throw my hands up at my sides. “Maybe this is the first chance I had. Maybe this was my plan all along. You were just a bonus, a way to rake in some cash.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “I don’t care what you believe.”

  “You want this baby,” Roarke insists. “Or you would have already taken the pills that girl bought for you.”

  He points through the bathroom door to where the bag sits unopened. I close my eyes and shake my head.

  “No,” I say. “I don’t want this baby.”

  Roarke sits down on the edge of the bed and leans forward slightly.

  “Well, then go ahead and take them. I’ll stay with you. You shouldn’t have to go through this alone.”

  “So you’ll hold my hand if I do this but not if I decide to keep it?” I say. My voice is bitter.

  “That’s not fair,” he says, and he is right. It is not Roarke that I am angry at.

  “I know,” I answer and let myself collapse onto the bed beside him.

  We are silent for what feels like an eternity and then I offer, “I never wanted it. I never wanted any of this. But taking those pills won’t undo what’s happened. Taking those pills will just be another thing that I will always be sad about.”

  “But if you keep it, if you keep t
he baby…” He stops as if piecing something together. “That’s why you need the money. It’s not just about a cover-up. You need to get away.”

  I do not even realize that I’ve reached for Roarke’s hand until I feel my fingernails pressing into his skin.

  “This child can’t grow up in that house,” I say desperately. “I have to keep it away from them. I have to keep it safe.”

  Roarke considers this for a moment. “That’s where I came in,” he whispers.

  I am so exhausted by everything that I actually laugh. “You were perfect,” I admit. “One of only ten boys in your graduating class accepted to a school that was out of state, and Columbia, no less. Family in dire financial straits. The gay thing, at first I wasn’t sure it would work, but then I realized that you’re probably the only person in the entire town who needs to escape as much as I do. More, even.”

  “How long have you been planning this?” Roarke asks slowly.

  “Ever since Lissa left, in one way or another.”

  “No,” Roarke tells me and waves his hand back and forth between us. “How long have you been planning this?”

  It does no good to lie, now that everything is ruined anyway, so I tell him, “I’ve known for a long time that this might happen. I’ve been watching you for years.”

  He lets this sink in, then he stands and crosses to the window. Small drops throw themselves against the pane with a steady thud, but I can tell that the storm is passing. The worst is over. It will be sunny by the time morning comes. Then there will be no way to avoid Libby any longer and the truth—or some version of it, anyway—will have to come out once and for all.

  Roarke is still looking out the window when he asks me, “Why would you have been watching me even before you knew that you were pregnant?”

  I can see that he is rolling this question over in his mind, that there are still holes in the narrative that he has stitched together from all the things I’ve said. My mouth opens, but no sound comes out. There is no air left inside me; at least not enough to speak. I feel my vision darken and I bite down on the inside of my cheek. By the time I can see properly again, Roarke has turned to face me.