Ugh, what I wouldn’t give for a time machine.
“Anything that happened while I worked for you guys is confidential, you know?” he asked, his eyes briefly meeting mine in the rearview mirror.
Not for the first time, I wished they made these cars with ejector seats.
“No, I get it. I don’t think you’d… I mean, I’m sure Mom doesn’t want to know—”
“Not at all,” he agreed. “Not that I would say anything. I mean, who wants to hear that kind of stuff about their kid? And why would I even want to talk about it?”
“Exactly.” I felt like we were in a scene in a mob movie where we were both trying to stress that nobody saw nothin’ and we were all going to keep our snitch mouths shut. “I appreciate your discretion.”
“Good. And I appreciate yours, too,” he said, and this time, I didn’t quite pick up on the knowing tone.
“Excuse me?”
“Come on. I know why you sent us to Vegas while your friend was here,” Tony said, almost reluctant to say it. “You don’t want your mom to know about him or the little place out in the woods.”
My face blazed. Tony had driven Neil and me to the Pavillon Français on our wedding night, so he knew it was there. I guess it was naive of me to not realize that he’d know what it was all about. But I’d never have suspected that he would know about El-Mudad, or what we got up to with him.
“I don’t—” I began, even though I didn’t have to defend myself.
He cut me off. “Look, like I said, I’ve been driving Mr. Elwood for a long enough time that I know the kind of stuff he gets up to. In the abstract. And I got nothing against people being adventurous. But your mom is kind of innocent, you know? She’s not like us.”
Us? Oh, god, no. I did not want to think about my mother being “adventurous” with Tony. “I’m not sure what you mean by ‘like us’, but—”
“Hey, you come from the same background as her. Small-town girl, not a lot of wild things to get up to. But you, me, Mr. El— Neil, we’re worldly people. You live in this city, you see some things. You get a real education. But a lot of stuff still shocks Rebecca.”
I didn’t need particulars about what, exactly, he’d shocked her with.
Thankfully, he didn’t provide them. “I know you didn’t want her there while your friend visited. And she doesn’t know that I know what goes on. But if I keep working for you, what happens if she asks me about it? If she says, ‘Hey, is Sophie cheating on Neil with that guy?’, what, am I supposed to lie to her?”
“No, you can’t do that. It’s not a fair position to put you in.” I would have much rather this conversation had gone down between him and Neil, but I fully understood him. “Is this your two weeks, then?”
“It’s my ‘hire another driver soon’ warning.” He guided the car into a different lane. “I don’t want to leave you high and dry, but I gotta look for another job.”
“Another job?” I blurted in surprise, before my logical mind could catch up.
“Well, yeah. I need a job. Gotta keep up with Becky’s QVC bill. She can’t live off of you forever.”
“Right, but…” I hadn’t thought about any of this, and it was going down a road I didn’t like very much. “Won’t you have to move?”
“She didn’t tell you we’ve been looking at places?” he asked, his eyebrows shooting up.
“No!” I would have offered to buy them a place, or help with a down payment.
Maybe that was exactly why they hadn’t mentioned it.
“We want to stay on Long Island,” he went on. “So, it’s not so far from you guys that getting out for Sunday dinner would be a pain in the ass. But it’s really going to be down to where Becky can get a job.”
Mom had been living rent-and-carefree in our guesthouse for a while. The thought of her returning to work boggled my mind, especially considering all the times in my childhood where she’d fantasized about winning the lottery and never working another day in her life.
“I didn’t know she wanted to go back to work,” I mused aloud.
Tony shrugged his big shoulders. “I can’t say that I would, if my daughter were willing to put me up in a mansion for free. But everybody wants to make their own way, right?”
“I guess so?” Even before I’d been with Neil, the thought of turning down free money and no bills would have sounded stupid to me. Then again, when I did get together with Neil, I hadn’t wanted to be seen as a gold-digger, so I’d done everything I could to keep working on my own. And even when it was stuff that didn’t pan out, like beauty vlogging, I’d needed it to keep from being bored and directionless.
Maybe that’s what Mom was going through. Feeling useless and kept really wore a person down.
“I had no idea any of this was going on,” I admitted. “If she was unhappy, why didn’t she tell me?”
“She’s not unhappy.” Tony sounded confused as to how I’d arrived at that conclusion. “She just wants to do something different.”
I nodded, but I still didn’t really understand. “So, you’re going to get a job, Mom’s going to get a job, you’re going to move out, and…”
“And maybe some other guy will get the apartment over the porte cochere,” he suggested, giving me a pointed look.
He’d said “some other guy”, not “some other driver”.
I didn’t really want to discuss El-Mudad with him or anyone who wasn’t me or Neil or El-Mudad. “Maybe. But it’s going to be hard to find another driver who meets the high standards you’ve set.”
“Did I set a high standard?” he asked with a laugh. “I thought the chauffeur marrying a member of the family was a scandal.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re no Tom Branson, Tony.”
He pulled the car over and checked the address on the GPS, again. “And we have arrived. You want me to get your door?”
“No, I got it.” I paused with my hand on the handle. “Thanks for being cool and not mentioning our…lifestyle to Mom.”
“Thanks for being cool and not caring that I’ve broken a Downton Abbey rule,” he replied, and made a shooing motion with his hand. “Have a good time. Call me when you need to be picked up.”
Yeah, coming from my stepdad-to-be, that did sound a little weird.
Chapter Thirteen
Holli jumped up from the table the moment she saw me.
I waved to the hostess to indicate I knew where I was going and crossed the floor. Public Kitchen’s patio was a light and airy space with cement walls, lush greenery, and the furniture of a Victorian tea room. The foliage and tin candle lanterns created a feeling of seclusion in the throw pillow accented wooden booths. Holli and I met there when we really wanted privacy to share juicy details.
“I can’t believe I didn’t talk to you for a week! I almost died!” she squealed, throwing her arms around my neck. For someone as slender as Holli was, her grip was positively crushing when she got too enthusiastic.
“I never asked you to not talk to me!” I reminded her, giving her a squeeze. As I slid into my seat, I added, “You took it upon yourself.”
“I didn’t want to interrupt the banging,” she said as she scooted across the booth.
“You could have called me at work.”
“I didn’t want to interrupt you working.” She waggled her eyebrows. “So. Give it to me. Are we talking double penetration? Double vaginal? Double anal?”
“Excuse me.”
The waitress had appeared beside our table like a ninja, and now, she stared at us like we’d just stripped down to leather bras and started slathering mayonnaise on each other right at the table. It was not difficult for me to place her white face, mousy hair, and pinched expression onto the body of a Christian summer camp counselor who’d just found a hickey on a camper.
Holli chose to ignore all of the reality around us and placed her order like she’d been saying very normal, public appropriate things all along. “Yeah, I’ll have a G and T?”
I followed her lead and smiled innocently up at the server, even though I wanted to crawl under the table until the coast was clear for me to run out the door. “Sparkling water, please.”
My brain shut up, but my mouth kept going, and I hurriedly blurted, “And no one had double—”
“I’ll put those in for you, right away,” the waitress cut me off, before high-tailing it to the kitchen.
I turned to Holli, my fake smile still frozen on my face. “Thanks, Holli.”
She half-heartedly saluted me. “Yeah, yeah. Spill.”
“Okay, well, there were more important things that happened this week than sex,” I began.
She shook her head. “No. I have something very important to tell you, but we’re not going to skip over the sex to get there.”
“Fine!” I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest. “First of all, there was no double vaginal or double anal, thank you very much.”
“You shouldn’t be thanking anyone for that,” she grumbled. “It’s a tragedy.”
I leaned forward. “But obviously, there were a lot of group shenanigans.” I added, “And some not-group ones. But that’s not the exciting part.”
“Disagree,” Holli pronounced flatly.
“Oh, just wait.” I glanced around the table to make sure the waitress wasn’t on her return trip with our beverages, then leaned in. “We’re not just sex friends, anymore. We’re a…trio? I guess that’s what you would call us?”
Holli’s eyes went wide, and her head bobbled on her neck. “Um, what?”
“We’re all in love with each other.” The fact that it sounded so natural, so normal, warmed me inside, like someone had plugged a nightlight into my heart.
Knowing that my best friend could understand made that warmth and light quadruple. She covered her mouth and nose with her hands, her eyes shining with tears above them. “Oh, my gosh, Sophie! I’m so happy for you! Are you going to all move in together or—”
That was a bucket of cold reality I did not want sloshed over my joyous moment. “We haven’t figured all of that out, yet. We’re taking it slow.”
“And it’s not like you can have him move right on in with you, with your mom just down the hill,” Holli grumbled, seeming even more disappointed than I was at the arrangement. “I love Becky, but this seems like one of those things that she is just not going to understand.”
“Not for a second,” I agreed. “But get this. Tony just told me that they’re going to move out.”
“What? When?” Holli gasped, a hand flying to her chest. “Oh, my god! What about the hot tub?”
“I own the house,” I reminded her dryly. “We can still hot tub.”
“Thank god.”
The server placed our drinks in front of us, asked if we’d had time to look over the menu, and forced herself to appear polite when we admitted that we hadn’t. As if hearing Holli practically shout, “double anal” hadn’t already sealed us as worst customers of the day. We bent our heads and focused on our menus like we were studying for the SATs, only stopping to chat, again, once we knew we’d have an answer for her when she returned.
“Where are they moving to?” Holli asked, bringing the conversation back around.
I shrugged. “I guess they’re looking for a place but haven’t found one, yet. They said they’re going to stay on Long Island so that they’re close to us, but they’re not going to be able to afford to be really close to us, so I guess that’s good.”
“You could always just tell them El-Mudad moved into the guest house,” Holli suggested. “Remember that Kato Kaelin guy?”
“Let’s maybe not model my life after a true crime story.” I fiddled with the straw in my water, pushing ice around. “And that would never work. My mom already thinks there’s something up with me and El-Mudad, from when Neil was in the hospital.”
“That’s because your mom is a smart lady, and she knows that having a guy who looked like El-Mudad just lounging around your house shirtless—”
“He was never shirtless in front of my mother.” I interrupted.
“—would be impossible for most women to resist. Moi included.” Holli gestured to herself boldly. “Seriously, if I wasn’t a married woman, he might be worth wrecking our friendship.”
“Oh, my god, like seventy-five percent of the time I cannot even believe I’m friends with you,” I said with a snort.
The server came back and took our orders, and when we were alone, again, I was pretty sure Holli would badger me for better sex details than just “no one did double anal”. Instead, she took a deep breath, leaned her elbows on the table, and said, “So…I have something I have to tell you.”
It was hard not to panic, hearing my best friend say those dire words. It could be something bad, like, “I’m dying.” It could be something good, like, “I got a huge part in a movie.” Or it could be a little of everything: “I got a huge part in a movie, but we have to move to India so I can really establish my sudden Bollywood career. Also, we’re all dying. Death is inevitable.”
It might have seemed foolish to tack on that last part, but it was surprising how many conversations with Holli ended on that grim note.
I forced myself to smile when I said, “Okay, tell me.”
She breathed in through her nostrils and closed her eyes then breathed out through her mouth before saying, “Don’t judge me. But Deja and I are having a baby.”
“Don’t judge you?” I shrieked automatically, almost flying up from my seat. “Holli, that’s amazing! Why would I judge you?”
“Because you don’t want kids,” she said, then amended, “except for Olivia, obviously.”
“Just because I don’t want something doesn’t mean you can’t ever want it.” I did not tack on, duh. “Is this… Are you pregnant or—”
“Oh, god, no. I’m not the one having it. Deja is. And she’s not pregnant, at least, not yet. We’re using my egg and her friend Easton’s sperm, and she’s going to carry it.”
“That is a lot of steps,” I observed.
“And let me tell you, not a single one is pleasant. I already had the eggs harvested, and it hurt like a bitch. They take this big ass needle—”
“Nope,” I warned, one hand over my mouth.
“Whatever, the point is, it’s a pain in the ass. I wanted to tell you, though, because this is a long process, and we’re finally, finally underway. It just feels like…now, it’s really going to happen. All we’re waiting on, now, is finding out if the embryo implanted.”
“I can’t believe you haven’t told me before now.” Did I have a right to feel a little hurt? That seemed kind of foolish. I didn’t clear major life decisions with Holli. And lots of people liked to keep pregnancies under wraps until things were more certain. Like, until they were pregnant, for example.
Holli shrugged. “If it had been just me, I would have definitely told you. But Deja didn’t want to announce all of our business to everyone.”
“I get that. But what changed her mind?” I hoped Holli wasn’t breaking Deja’s confidence to me, though I didn’t think she would ever do that.
“I am a total mass of raw nerves and anxiety, and she thought that talking to you would put me at ease. Because I have questions.” She opened her purse and took out her phone. “Hang on, I have a list.”
“I don’t think I’m going to be much help with your current situation,” I said cautiously.
“Not the current part, no,” she said, scrolling her finger determinedly across the screen. “But the part comes when we have a baby, and I fuck up as a parent.”
Though I couldn’t exactly imagine Holli as a parent, I couldn’t imagine her fucking it up worse than most people. And while that might not have sounded like a ringing endorsement, now that I was actually responsible for a child, I realized that it wasn’t a low bar to set at all.
“I don’t think you’re going to fuck your kid up,” I said firmly. “Take that from someone who is pretty sure she’s fuckin
g up parenting every single day.”
“Just humor me, okay?” She squinted at her phone. “How can you tell if a baby is hungry or needs its diaper changed?”
“You check and see if its diaper is wet, and if it isn’t, you feed it.” I thought back to last year. “But it could be tired, or bored, or gassy. But always start with hungry or wet. Those are the two easiest.”
She looked at me doubtfully. “Tired, though?”
“Yeah.”
“If they’re tired, they just sleep, right? They’re babies.”
I didn’t want to laugh at her, because I didn’t want to scare her out of her mind. “Not always. For example, you know how you get when you’re out at the club and you’re drunk off your ass and I have to drag you home?”
“Hasn’t happened in a long time, but yes. Continue,” she said.
“That’s the stage Olivia is at, right now. Wasted Holli, who either wants to sleep wherever she falls or fights her roommate because she doesn’t want to go to bed. There’s nothing in between.” Just describing it, I felt like I needed a drink. “Infants are actually pretty easy, compared to toddlers.”
“Are you trying to comfort me? Because you’re not.”
I screwed up my face. “Fair. Next question.”
“How much puke is involved?” she asked without hesitation.
“I don’t know. Any puking Olivia did, like normal infant puking, was mostly over by the time she came to live with us.” I wouldn’t tell her about the spaghetti incident.
“Poop.”
“So much poop. Sorry, I can’t soften that up. And even if you have a nanny, you’re not going to escape it. They do not wait for the nanny to show up.” I fixed her with a grave stare. “Promise me, promise me, you will not become one of those moms who talks about poop all the time on Facebook.”
She blanched. “Or one who’s like, ‘I know you just got your degree in nuclear psychology or whatever, but wait until you have a kid, that’s so much more fulfilling.’”
“I. Hate. That.” I punctuated each word with a slap on the table. “I posted a picture of Olivia on Facebook and wrote ‘love this little girl’. One of my friends from high school comments that she’s happy for me now that I ‘really’ know what love means, and she always knew I would change my mind.”
The Sister (The Boss Book 6) Page 23