The Book of Essie

by Meghan MacLean Weir

“We,” she reminds me. “We will make a lot of money. So much more than we have already.”

  “And that’s why you’re doing it?”

  Essie shakes her head. “No. Of course not. It’s never been about the money. Not really.”

  “What is it about, then? Getting even? Getting out?”

  Essie looks thoughtful, draws her bottom lip beneath the top one. “Maybe a little bit of both. But I think that mostly I just want to get to a place in my life when I can say out loud, ‘This is what happened,’ and not have to hide from it anymore, not have to be ashamed. He’s the one who should be ashamed. Not me.”

  I take Essie’s hand and draw it into my lap. There are footsteps out in the hall. They grow louder and then they trail away again. I listen to make sure they’re gone, still uncertain what to say. Then, slowly, I offer, “He should be ashamed. We both know that. It’s not that I disagree with you. Please don’t think that. But I guess I just want to know what you think will happen after everyone buys the book, after they read it, after Caleb raping you becomes all that anyone can talk about, at least for a little while. What happens then? Does he go to jail? Do you press charges? Or does the state, since you’re a minor? Do you expect your parents to renounce him? Do you really think they’ll be on your side after everything they’ve always done to keep this quiet?”

  “Everything Mother’s done, you mean. The things she’s said that make it clear she thinks of this as my fault, not his. I shouldn’t have tempted Caleb. I should have known how to keep him away. But the wedding was her idea, not my father’s. I was eavesdropping when it was decided. Maybe Daddy just went along. Maybe he didn’t know,” Essie says uncertainly.

  “You don’t believe that,” I tell her gently.

  “Well, then they both deserve whatever fire and brimstone comes their way.”

  “Fine,” I say. “Again, it’s not that I don’t agree with you. It’s just that I want to make sure you’ve thought about it, and not just from your viewpoint or from mine, but from everybody else’s. Because if you do this, there will be no going back. It will be out there. Forever. And this baby of yours, of ours, will never be able to escape from that.”

  Essie stands. “Would you rather that I lie? That we pretend that you’re the father?”

  I spread out my arms and lean back in my chair. “I thought that was the plan. I thought that was why you needed me.”

  “That was why I was allowed to need you, at least as far as Mother was concerned. But that wasn’t ever what I really wanted.”

  She crosses to the piano, plunks out a few notes, and pulls the cover over the keys.

  I stand and face her, the piano between us, and ask, “So what do you want? And remember, Essie, I will be this child’s father, no matter what you choose. I already promised that. Whether or not he or she knows the truth or some other kinder, redacted version of all of this, I’ll be there. You just need to decide what it is you want.”

  She sits down on the piano bench and leans her face against the instrument, then closes her eyes. I almost don’t hear her when she finally speaks. “What if I still don’t know?”

  * * *

  —————

  We drive together to the rehearsal dinner, which is basically a pregame wedding reception since all of the out-of-town family and friends have been invited. Essie continues to look troubled on the drive over, twisting her hands in her skirt or tapping her foot against the door. I let her fidget and don’t press her to talk.

  She seems a little less distant once she’s enveloped by a swarm of friends and relations. It seems everyone has come out of the woodwork for this event. Even so, I can tell that her heart’s not in it. Her eyes don’t really light up again until she spots her cousin Adam, whose late father, Cyrus, was Celia Hicks’s brother in that other life she had before. Essie tells me that Adam is a sophomore at NYU, and he excitedly begins to recite a list of places we have to visit once we’re living in New York, where to get the best pizza or the most authentic Ethiopian food, how to wrangle free tickets to plays or musicals or museums. Not long after Essie has introduced us, she excuses herself and heads toward the ladies’ room.

  Adam asks me what I’m thinking of studying at Columbia and then tells me about one of his professors this semester who seems like he’s drunk more often than he’s sober, how he once fell off the stage at the front of the lecture hall.

  I laugh and then before I have even really finished laughing, Adam tells me, “It’s been really nice talking with you. Seriously, man, thanks for playing the gracious host and all, but don’t you think you’d better move on? Mingle? I’m fine by myself. You know what they’ll think of you if you spend too much time with me.”

  I try to work out if this is part of the joke about the drunk professor but for the life of me can’t figure out what the punch line is supposed to be.

  “What will they think of me?”

  “Well, it won’t be so much a thought as a feeling. You’ll be contaminated as far as they’re concerned. The stain will pass to you from me.”

  This isn’t really an explanation and I manage a halfhearted chuckle and spread my hands and say, “I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “These people are my family, but that doesn’t mean I can’t call out stupid when I see it. They’ve been avoiding me ever since I came out, so I was probably only invited because welcoming me back into the fold will make an excellent topic for one of Uncle Jethro’s sermons. It’ll be about hating the sin and not the sinner, or some such doublespeak.”

  “Since you’re gay,” I say, testing out the combination of words as a statement rather than an insult.

  He stares at me for a moment as if reconsidering, then says, “Are you sure you got into Columbia? You’re not so quick on the uptake.”

  I must look embarrassed, because Adam quickly claps a hand on my shoulder and says, “It’s all right, man. I assumed that Essie had told you. There’s no reason you should have known. Our ability to masquerade as straight has allowed us to infiltrate the enemy camp on more than one occasion. It’s one of the driving themes of the gay agenda.”

  “You’re joking,” I say, though suddenly I’m not entirely sure.

  “Of course I am.”

  My shoulder is warm beneath the weight of Adam’s hand and the heat lingers even after he removes it.

  “Anyway,” he says as he lifts his glass to his lips, “I totally understand if you want to bail. No need to feed the gossip mill.”

  I scan the room. Celia Hicks is fawning over an older, well-dressed cousin from Florida with a small dog in her purse. Pastor Hicks is not far away, surrounded by a group of women from the parish. He has his back to the wall and it almost looks like he’s been trapped by wild animals. A small part of me feels sorry for him. A very small part. Over on the other side of the room, Caleb moves through the crowd, stopping every so often to shake hands as if this is a campaign event. We’re so close to the end that I can almost taste it, but all at once I’m tired and I don’t have the energy to play their games, not for the next fifteen minutes or so at least. Swallowing hard, I pull out the stool next to Adam’s and sit.

  “Actually, I’m fine right here.”

  Esther

  I am still angry with Roarke when we walk into the rehearsal dinner. Not as angry as I had been when he was kissing me or in the moments right after we broke apart, but I can still feel it, the resentment, the powerlessness at being touched in a way that was not wanted. Again. It was not the same, not exactly, but it was not really all that different in the end. Roarke at least had apologized. That was something Caleb had never done, not even that first time when he left me bleeding. The closest he ever came to saying he was sorry was when he left a bruise he knew would show, but he did not sound sorry even when he said the word. He sounded defiant. He sounded proud.

  I think I w
ould have let the anger linger, I would have wallowed, except that almost as soon as we walk into the function room, I see my cousin Adam. I can tell just from looking at him that he does not want to be here. He does not look uncomfortable. He just looks bored. Bored with all the whispers, the looks, the need for constant vigilance. And who can blame him, really? If I’d had the option, I would have stayed away as well. But he had come anyway because I asked, even though he had planned to let his mother come on her own. So I bring Roarke to Adam and introduce them and then I walk away because I think that what I need is to be alone, even just for a few minutes, to finally let that anger go.

  They are laughing when I look back from the other side of the room, their bodies angled toward each other, and for a moment I feel my anger swell again. Then I remind myself that Roarke too is here only because I asked him. I asked and he said yes. He would have been fine all on his own. I’m certain of it. Sure, he would not have been able to afford Columbia, but he would have managed. He would have washed dishes or delivered pizzas or tutored rich high schoolers in order to pay for State. He would have been happy. He would have graduated and become a doctor or a lawyer or an investment banker. He would have made all the money he could ever need entirely on his own. And he would have done it all without ever having to walk into this pit of vipers I have led him to, without risking everything for a girl he barely knew. All at once I realize something and I feel the anger fall away, the kiss entirely forgiven if not forgotten.

  Roarke is the first real friend I’ve ever had, the only one who has ever really known me, and that means something. It means that he never needed me the way that I needed him.

  * * *

  —————

  Libby is standing just inside the entrance to the function hall when I come out of the bathroom. I catch a glimpse of her through the throng. I cut around the periphery to avoid the bodies and she raises a hand to indicate that she’s seen me coming and then ducks back outside.

  It is raining, but only just. A sort of mist floats over the parking lot, moving neither up nor down but swirling gently from side to side, illuminated by the lights of a car that is parked nearby. Libby walks toward the car and the lights cut out. A young man climbs from behind the wheel and stands with one hand atop the open door, ready to make a getaway if one is needed. He shifts nervously, his eyes on Libby, which is when I realize just how on edge Libby looks herself. When she leans against the hood of the car to face me, she does not meet my eyes. Her fingers drum on the metal beneath her hips, tapping to some inner melody that I cannot hear.

  “What happened? Did someone find out what we’re planning?”

  I do not realize until I hear my own voice how terrified I am.

  I remember then how when I was about nine years old, a man had tried to break in through the kitchen window. He had a camera. Daddy was in the papers a lot at that point, even more than now. Some question about his tax returns. Eventually it was buried, but for a brief but memorable span of a few months there was great interest in capturing candid pictures of our unscripted, off-television life. Most of the time the paparazzi left us alone. There were too many pictures of us already out there. Anything extra just wouldn’t be likely to sell. But this period of time was different for some reason. They wanted to catch us eating with diamond-encrusted forks, slurping soup with golden spoons. There was a sudden and burning interest in just how we lived, how much we spent, how much was taken from Daddy’s various ministries and quietly skimmed off the top. Just as quickly, the press lost interest. But not before the man with the camera climbed through the window over the kitchen sink.

  Lissa locked us in an office in the basement and then she called 911. The recording of that call starts as soon as the three numbers were dialed, even before the operator picked up. Later, when the detectives played us the tape, you could hear Lissa’s ragged breathing and another sound, a muffled whimper that was me crying from beneath Candy’s desk. When the operator did speak, Lissa answered with forced calm, but you could tell that her voice was breaking. It is that voice of Lissa’s that I hear when I speak to Libby, worried that we’ve come this far only to fail, to be found out, the finish line erased now that it is finally in sight.

  “No, no,” Libby tells me hurriedly, “nothing like that. No one’s found out anything. At least they haven’t found out from me. But we need to talk about this book you’ve written.”

  “You mean it’s finished? Can I see it? Do you have it here?”

  Libby nods slowly and takes a flash drive from her pocket and holds it out to me.

  “I have it and of course you can see it. It’s your story, after all. And it’s a good one too, as stories go. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It has a villain and a heroine. I’m grateful that you shared it with me. I’ll even upload it for sale if that’s what you ask me to do. But maybe this is where it all should stop.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “This will destroy your family, Essie. Not just Caleb. All of them. It will be the end of everything if this ever gets out.”

  “I know that.”

  “I don’t think you do.” Libby holds the flash drive higher and turns it as if to examine the object from all sides. “You think you’ve thought it through. You think your mind has teased out all of the many potential repercussions, but it’s just not possible to do that. It’s not possible to predict every eventuality. Or to imagine each of the million tiny ways the people you once cared about will be hurt by what it is you plan to do. So I’m here to give you this, but I’m also here to tell you that I think you should bury it. Put it in the back of your underwear drawer or in a safe-deposit box somewhere. But keep it hidden. The things that are in this story, they aren’t things you want the whole world to know.”

  I stiffen. Then I reach out and snatch the flash drive from Libby’s hand.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” I tell her.

  Libby looks down. She pulls at the lining of her coat where it has separated from the seam and begun to wear.

  “I know,” she answers in a small voice. “But that doesn’t matter. Sometimes the truth is blamed on whoever was unlucky enough to deliver it. Trust me, I know. If you put this out there, if you make that choice, then everything that comes after, all of that will be on you. Not him.”

  “It isn’t fair,” I say, my eyes filling with tears.

  Libby straightens and begins to move around to the passenger-side door. “Of course it isn’t fair. It was never going to be, from the very beginning. Fair was something Caleb took from you along with everything else. You’re fooling yourself if you think there’s a way to get that back.” She looks across the car at the man standing there, who has not moved at all while we spoke. “We should go,” she tells him.

  “No,” he answers. “Not until you tell her the truth.”

  The air I suck into my lungs is wet and heavy and makes me feel as if I am drowning.

  “What truth?” Libby asks him. Her eyes are flashing.

  “The truth about how none of this has anything to do with her or with her family. It has to do with yours.”

  “That’s no one’s business,” Libby spits. My whole body is trembling and I feel the shaking grow more violent as they fight.

  “What? You don’t think it’s the tiniest bit relevant to the matter at hand? You told the truth and something bad happened and now you blame yourself. But the real truth is bigger than that. The real truth is that there were times that I thought not telling would kill you. That right there is what you’re asking her to do. She pays a price whether she buries the book or not.”

  As he says this, I can practically see Libby’s anger melt away and his own furrowed brow gives way to tenderness and worry.

  “I wouldn’t have let it kill me,” she says.

  “Maybe not physically, but there are other ways a person can die.”

 
; I speak mostly to remind them that I am there, but it is possible that I am talking to myself. “What should I do?”

  The man shrugs as if deciding how to answer. “Maybe you can keep this secret forever and not let it eat you up inside. Libby couldn’t. I was watching her suffer and I couldn’t stand it. The truth had to come out. No matter the consequences. Maybe it would be different for you. Maybe you could walk away and manage to be happy. Maybe you could hold on to the pieces of your past that were good and just let go of all the rest. But that’s easier said than done. If the truth will out, so to speak, you might as well get it over with and move on to the real hard part.”

  “What’s that?” I ask him.

  “Putting the pieces back together again.”

  * * *

  —————

  I am not conscious of walking back into the function room. I remember being outside. I remember watching the brake lights of Libby’s car as it pulled away, so startled that I no longer felt like crying. I splashed water from an ornamental fountain in the garden onto my puffy eyes, patted them dry using my shawl. Then I faced the entrance, knowing that I had to go back to the party but not able to take a step toward the door. Even when I do force myself to go inside, a sort of blur continues to hang around me. Everything feels out of focus. Then Mother takes the microphone and calls out for someone to dim the lights.

  “Y’all will have to bear with me,” Mother is saying from her place beneath a spotlight. “I’m not really one for public speaking. It should be Jethro up here instead, but he’ll have his chance tomorrow. In the meantime, you’ll have to make do with me.”

  There are several shouts of protest, some scattered clapping to reassure my mother that she is adored just as deeply as her husband, which I know is exactly what she wants. She blushes and waves her hand up and down in front of her as if to quiet the crowd, which only makes them cheer all that much louder. Mother laughs and raises the microphone to her lips again.