The Real Liddy James

by Anne-Marie Casey

  “Be good, be safe, obey the rules, text me every night, and your dad and I will be there for the family visit in three weeks’ time. Okay?”

  He grunted and headed off into the kitchen in search of food.

  “I love you,” she said, but his head was buried inside the fridge.

  Liddy and Peter looked at each other.

  “Ring me and tell me what it’s like,” she whispered. “If it sucks bring him straight back home.” She reached out her hand to him, he took it, and they both felt incredibly sad for a moment. This was something complicit between them as parents that they could not share with Rose.

  “It won’t, Liddy,” said Peter firmly, and the next day he duly reported that the camp was freshly painted and eerily tidy, full of good-humored athletic young men running around in shorts, building campfires they clearly intended to sing songs around, and Matty had given every indication that he would, indeed, enjoy it. Liddy was glad. She said farewell to the back of the manny’s muscular thighs, hired an obedient and enthusiastic young woman named Sally to look after Cal, and threw herself into work.

  She had to.

  Liddy did not consider herself to be a materialistic person, but when her accountant presented the total amount of her monthly expenses in accusatory black and white, she was shocked.

  “Your mortgage interest payments have gone up, you’ve got two sets of private-school fees, monthly child support to Peter, the service charge on the apartment, the allowance to your parents, a full-time nanny, housekeeper, dog walker, and . . . sundries. . . .”

  At this the accountant waved a weekly bill for yellow roses.

  “Shall I go on?” he said, but because he was a kindly man who had known Liddy for many years, he trailed off, as he feared he was sounding spiteful (he had not even added that he had no clue where the money for the roof repair could be found).

  When she came home, she saw a large crack had emerged from the window frame and spread across her white supporting wall, like a scribbled arrow pointing toward her overdraft.

  Most evenings she staggered into the apartment in time to kiss Cal good night, and then she sat alone, the dog on her lap, a glass of whiskey in her hand, and got nostalgic for the days when she was a Mistress of the Universe. She drank too much, and she slept too little, and one night in the gray twilight before dawn she awoke screaming from a dream of death. She had seen the crack on the wall spread violently across the ceiling, raining chunks of plaster down on her, the lights fizzling and sparking, and had thrown herself out of bed and crawled on all fours to escape. She shuddered into consciousness curled up in a corner of the room, her cheek resting against the cool radiator, and afterward, heart palpitating, she closed her eyes and prayed to sleep and feel nothing. When she awoke again, she did feel reassuringly numb.

  The next morning, she reached the office to see a note, handwritten by Curtis, stuck on the ornamental elevator doors saying OUT OF ORDER. She walked up the three flights of steep stairs, but when she asked Sydney if the repairmen were on their way, Sydney giggled.

  “There’s nothing wrong with the elevator,” she said. “Curtis has got an opposing attorney coming in for a settlement meeting.”

  “So?” asked Liddy.

  “He’s very overweight,” whispered Sydney. “Curtis wants to exhaust him before the negotiations begin.”

  “That’s evil,” said Liddy, though it was not the first time she had made this observation.

  “I know,” said Sydney.

  Sydney was in fact vibrating with the aftershock of an unexpected visitor. She told Liddy she had looked up from her desk to see the newly single Sebastian Stackallan standing right in front of her, his black hair slightly curly from sweat, his bicycle clips removed, and his settlement papers in his hand.

  “Did he ask if I was in?” said Liddy, trying to sound casual.

  “No. He was only here for a few seconds,” said Sydney. “But I managed to ask him if he was speaking at the Equitable Distribution and Maintenance conference next week, and he is, so I said I’d see him there.” Sydney could hardly contain herself, and the strange honking laugh erupted out of nowhere for no discernible reason other than lust.

  “Anything else,” said Liddy, trying to be indulgent as well as admonishing, “important?”

  “Curtis has some files for you to review.”

  “Right.”

  “Tea, Liddy?” said Sydney quickly, desperate to get back to her desk and call her best friend, Jenny, to talk about synchronicity.

  “Coffee,” said Liddy, and headed purposefully into her office to the unpleasant discovery that Curtis had moved the magazines on her ottoman to make room for three bulging file boxes. She shifted them onto the floor, then fell onto her knees and fixed the magazines, Allure on the top, Vanity Fair on the bottom, measuring the distance around them so they sat in the exact center of the upholstery. As she hauled herself up, a muscle memory of the bruises on her ribs erupted, and she collapsed down again hard. She yelped in pain.

  Sydney returned with a mug and some papers. Liddy put on her glasses, scanned, and signed, as Sydney told her that she had to appear on a network daytime TV show that afternoon.

  “It’s an item about celebrity custody battles,” said Sydney helpfully. “Mary Jane and Jolene talk ‘Celeb Splitz!’”

  Before Liddy could say no, Sydney explained that Mary Jane had personally called Curtis and he had accepted on Liddy’s behalf.

  “They’re biking over some information and the researcher will call you later. You can keep your nine thirty with the summer interns, and you have to be at the company audit meeting at ten, but I’ve rearranged your other appointments, apart from the two you can do on video conference from the car. Curtis says it’s good for business, Liddy. The show has three million viewers.”

  Liddy looked at the file boxes. She would not get home tonight until after eleven o’clock.

  “I’ll need to get hold of Sally. And I’ll need my hair done. Will you call the salon for me and tell them to fit me in at noon?”

  Strictly speaking, this was outside of Sydney’s administrative duties, but as Liddy did not seem quite herself, Sydney let it go.

  Liddy put on the tailored jacket that always hung on a hook in the corner of the room and pulled on a pair of pointed court shoes with commandingly spiky heels.

  The phone on Liddy’s desk beeped. Sydney picked it up and put it on hold.

  “It’s Cal’s school, Liddy. Miss Andrews.”

  “I’ll take it,” said Liddy, gulping her coffee and nodding at Sydney to leave the room. She was trying to remember which teacher this was: the slightly stern bossy one with the khakis and the military manner, or the fluffy, smiling assistant with the gingham and the open-toed sandals?

  “Steph Andrews here,” the teacher said, and Liddy knew it was the slightly stern bossy one, the one who was not scared of her.

  “Liddy James.”

  “I’m sorry to say Cal’s a little upset, Liddy. It’s the last-day-of-school party today and the children were asked to invite a relative for lunch. Cal says he’s got no one coming.”

  “Oh,” said Liddy, playing for time.

  From the desk, her mobile phone rang. She glanced over to see a number she did not recognize that started with 802. Vermont. It must be Matty’s camp, she thought, remembering that they had left a message the day before about an issue with a permission slip. She let it ring.

  “There was a note last Thursday in his bag, it was in the weekly newsletter and on the school website, and we sent out a text reminder yesterday,” Steph continued.

  Because Liddy could not bear to reopen any discussion of family with Cal, she had thrown away the weekly newsletter, hidden the note in an old shoe box in the bottom of her wardrobe, and deleted the text. Unfortunately, in this frenzy of ignoring, she had forgotten to mark the date on the wall
planner and had accidentally let Cal go into school today.

  “What time is the lunch?” she said to Miss Andrews, rather more feebly than she intended.

  “Twelve thirty. Will we see you there?”

  Liddy made the calculation. If I move the hair appointment to 11:45, they put that colored powder on the roots instead of dye, and I get made up in the salon chair, I can make it to the school by 12:45, stay for half an hour, and still get to the TV studio with five minutes to spare.

  “Yes, I’ll be there,” she said.

  “Anyone else you can bring? We’d love to meet a grandparent, an aunt, or a cousin?” said the teacher, glancing at Cal’s file and being tactful. “We believe children are best reared in a shared, convivial environment.”

  “Thank you, Steph.”

  Liddy managed to put the receiver down without throwing it. Or throwing up. She turned to see the two new interns, one male, one female, scrubbed, suited, and earnest, standing in her office, staring at the pictures artfully pinned on her wall. She too looked at the collage of her fabulous life, which now included a framed copy of her interview in the Style section of the New York Times (the one in which, beaming and airbrushed, she had proclaimed her lack of guilt) that hung next to Cal’s scribbled drawing saying BEST MOM IN THE WORLD. Liddy was aware that today, with her skin pallid with sleeplessness, a shade that no makeup could cover, and the stress tremors in her arms, she did not represent any tableau vivante of magnificent midlife. She hoped the summer interns would not find this disappointing.

  “That was my son’s teacher,” she said brightly, motioning them to sit down. “The balls are all in the air today!”

  The two interns nodded politely, but they didn’t understand. Oh to be young, she thought, looking over and glimpsing Curtis in the lobby as he handed a glass of water to a rotund, red-faced, and very sweaty man in a navy suit, who appeared to be clutching his heart. For one desperate moment, she considered asking Curtis to pretend to be Cal’s godfather.

  Her mobile phone beeped that a message had been left. She switched it off.

  “So—Brent and Brianna. Welcome to Oates and Associates. Where shall we start? What can I tell you?”

  “How do you like your coffee?” said Brent, very pleased with himself, his egg-shaped face flushed pink. Brianna nodded, and Liddy saw that unless the girl smiled, she looked angry. She made a mental note that she must find a polite way of telling her this.

  “It’s Rose on line one!” said Sydney, appearing in the doorway.

  “No,” said Liddy, waving her finger. “I can’t speak to her.”

  “She says it’s very important,” said Sydney.

  “Tell her the camp has the permission slip.”

  Turning back to Brent and Brianna, Liddy did not miss a beat.

  “You will both work with me on one complex, long-term case, but your primary duties will be writing and research.”

  But they were looking past her. Liddy followed their gazes to the doorway, where Sydney was hopping nervously from foot to foot.

  Liddy lifted her finger for a second time, a sight calculated to strike terror in a junior associate, but Sydney just gesticulated toward the phone.

  “Excuse me for a moment,” Liddy muttered.

  She lifted the receiver and stabbed at the red flashing button.

  “Yes, Rose?” she hissed.

  Rose knew she had a limited number of seconds to get the very important information across so she spoke too loudly and exaggerated the consonants in the sentence.

  “They found marijuana edibles in Matty’s pocket.”

  “I’m sorry. What are you talking about?” said Liddy. “What are marijuana edibles?”

  Brent and Briana eyeballed each other and sniggered. Liddy eyeballed them.

  “They’re sweets made of hash,” said Brent quickly.

  “They can look like gummy bears,” said Brianna.

  “That’s right,” said Rose, who had overheard this. “Matty says he took them from Josh’s rucksack, and he didn’t know what they were, but the camp doesn’t believe him. He shared them with two other kids, and they all got stoned out of their brains last night. They were running around screaming, then they threw up everywhere, and . . . look . . . he’s okay, but . . . he’s got to leave.”

  “He’s got to leave?”

  Liddy’s mouth sagged open. She gripped the phone so hard her knuckles bleached pink and white.

  “Yes,” said Rose. “They’ve kicked him out for taking drugs.”

  Liddy snapped her jaws together and started to think. She looked at Brent and Brianna. “Please wait outside while I finish this call.”

  She stood up, scurried over to the door, opened it, waved them out, closed it, and ran back to the phone.

  “Rose, we have to get Matty home,” she said.

  Rose lowered her voice, although the tense distress in it remained. “I know, but Peter’s really angry. He says he won’t go.”

  “He has to. I am up to my eyeballs at this moment. Is he there?”

  “He’s upstairs. Liddy, don’t talk to him.”

  Liddy kicked off her shoes, exasperated. “What is the point of him getting angry with Matty?”

  “He’s not angry with Matty,” replied Rose slowly, and at that moment Liddy heard Peter’s crashing entry into the room and his voice shouting, “Is that her?”

  Then he marched over and took the phone. “This is your fucking fault!”

  “Calm down, Peter.”

  “How could you employ a fucking pothead?”

  His voice was cold and hate-filled, but Liddy countered, regardless.

  “How was I to know? Josh had impeccable references.”

  “My God, Matty could have choked on his own vomit. Or one of the other little fools could have. Why do you think he did this?”

  “I don’t know!” shouted Liddy, her own fear and confusion now at the same level as his.

  “Do you spend any time with him at all, Liddy? What the fuck have you been doing?”

  Liddy’s leg started juddering violently, her shoe tapping insistently on the floor.

  “Oh, I don’t know, Peter. Earning the money to pay the mortgage, the private school fees, the child support to you, the service charge on the apartment, the allowance to my parents, not to mention the nanny, the housekeeper, and the fucking dog walker.”

  “I always said you could never look after a dog!”

  “What has the dog got to do with this? What do you expect me to do?”

  “Be Matty’s mother!”

  Liddy flinched and fell silent. In the background, Rose pleaded helplessly about the need for someone to go to Vermont.

  There was a long pause. Peter calmed down. “It’s your turn, Liddy. I took him there. Go and get him. We’ll talk tonight.”

  Outside the door, Sydney was ushering the company auditors into the conference room.

  “I can’t,” said Liddy quietly.

  “Why?”

  “I have to work!” she screamed.

  There was a thud, the line went dead, and she knew he had thrown the phone onto the floor.

  She sat very still for a moment.

  There was a tentative knock on the door.

  “Come in,” she said.

  She looked up to see Sydney standing in the doorway.

  “Are you okay?” said Sydney.

  “I’m fine,” said Liddy, and she put on her fake smile.

  Sydney closed the door.

  Liddy started laughing because she didn’t know what else to do.

  And because Sydney and the summer interns, listening outside, were young and had no understanding of what heartbreak looked like, they believed Liddy really was laughing and did not understand that Liddy’s fall was coming. And because Liddy was Liddy, her fall
did not come in an ordinary way.

  At two p.m., after successfully walking into the TV studio in her heels to the theme music from Jaws (the researcher had told her they were “having some fun” with her reputation), Liddy successfully navigated the discussion on some recent “Celeb Splitz!,” during which she commented on such, striking an appropriate balance between perky and serious and eliciting an appropriate balance of laughter and nodding from the already excited audience. (Before Liddy’s appearance they had watched a major film star learn how to stack a dishwasher, an item Liddy found very interesting because she was a Virgo.) But then, as Liddy recited two perfectly judged lines on what New York State law might mean for the children of such celeb splits, she noticed in her anterior vision that Mary Jane, the younger of the two enthusiastic presenters and the one farthest away from her on the sofa, was listening earnestly to her earpiece and glancing at the typewritten notes on the coffee table.

  “Let’s talk about you for a moment, Liddy,” she said, leaning forward with her orthodontically perfected smile. “You’ve said many times that you don’t believe in divorce, particularly when there are children involved, but sadly your own marriage ended. How did your experience shape your view?”

  Liddy blinked a couple of times before ignoring the question and concentrating on her well-rehearsed answer.

  “Well, Mary Jane, when settlement negotiations become unstable, there’s a tendency for children to be used as bargaining chips by one or both parties.”

  (She thought of Peter, tired and sad and gray-faced, sitting alone on the train to Vermont.)

  “So my new book, which will be available later this year, is about how parents should work together for the practical and emotional welfare of their children during a separation.”

  (She thought of Matty, his jaw set bravely but terrified inside, sitting alone in some log cabin.)