Madly

by Ruthie Knox

  “You don’t believe in past lives.”

  “I’m not speaking literally. But you must see what I mean. What are the odds that of all the people she might run into in New York, she ran into the one person who can set up a meeting with her dad?”

  “It is a coincidence, in some ways. However, Justice always goes to Pulvermacher’s, which means it’s one of the only bars I know in that neighborhood. If you recall, I was in that neighborhood because we were supposed to meet, and you blew me off.”

  “It’s so important that I blew you off! If I hadn’t, you would never have met Allie, could never help her reunite her family, and you would never get off your sofa and fall in love! I should blow you off more often.”

  “Any more often and I would never see you at all.” Winston allowed her remark about falling in love to pass him by. It didn’t bear thinking about.

  Beatrice made a perfectly Rosemary sound in her throat that meant the same thing it meant from her mother. Thank you. I am done with this conversation.

  “Have you talked to your mum lately?”

  Beatrice made the noise again.

  “Have you? She texted me to say that she had sent you a birthday present but hadn’t heard if it suited.” Rosemary sent a very expensive video camera, and had been hurt not to receive a phone call or thank-you note in return. Her complaint had made Winston feel defensive and sullen.

  “When will you see Allie again?”

  “Beatrice.”

  “Dad.”

  The waiter arrived just in time to force the stalemate into an agonized thirty-second silence as plates were cleared and his daughter avoided his eyes. She picked up her purse, sifted through it, and put it down again twice. No doubt the only thing keeping her from freezing him out with her phone was years of her mother’s insistence that under no circumstances were phones for the table.

  This was the part of every encounter he dreaded. It was perfectly easy to get along with his daughter as long as he gave her what she wanted and avoided giving her anything she didn’t want. She’d insisted he stop asking her if she needed spending money, so he’d stopped. She’d insisted she couldn’t see him every week, so he’d acceded to an irregular schedule of catch-as-catch-can meetings. She’d insisted she could choose her classes without his input, find work without consulting him, arrange her life as she wanted to.

  Every concession made him feel he was letting Rosemary down, failing in his duty to care for his daughter.

  When push came to shove, he had no authority over his daughter, and she knew it. He’d lived here nine months, during which she’d done what she had a mind to do at all times, regardless of whether he was hovering over her or giving her space or trying something out he’d read about in a parenting article on the Internet. She made him feel useless and irrelevant and besotted with love, and he couldn’t decide whether he ought to crack down, somehow, or if it was time to give her more of the space she wanted and move back to London.

  Was it possible that his daughter, at eighteen years old, was past the need for any parental guidance whatsoever?

  It seemed unlikely. Especially because he knew that she loved her mother, that she missed her mother, and that her refusal to pick up the phone and talk to her mother was actively breaking Rosemary’s heart.

  “I want you to help Allie.”

  “Well. I’ll see her again. I hope. At least while she’s in town.” He hadn’t told Beatrice, of course, about the list. The list that was currently smoldering in his wallet. He didn’t, truly, exactly know if Allie meant to pursue this list, to madly check things off of it, and he couldn’t, of course, insist. Last evening she had been obsessed, then frantic, then sad, then drunk, then very, very tired. They had talked until they were mawkish and punch-drunk, and any healthy pair in such circumstances flirt. A gentleman would never insist she hold to such an agreement.

  He was absolutely a gentleman. Of course. Always. Had always been. Would always, absolutely be a gentleman.

  He wondered if she was using his car.

  “No, I mean really help her. I don’t see why you can’t just call Justice up and tell him, ‘Hey, there’s somebody you’ve got to meet.’ ”

  “Among the myriad reasons I can’t do that, there’s the fact that I’m his financial advisor, and acknowledging the existence of Allie Fredericks could cost him millions of dollars. There’s a distinct conflict of interest.”

  “There is a distinct stick up your bum.”

  “Beatrice.”

  “Dad.”

  He tried giving her a look like her mother used on her, but it breezed right off of her.

  “Where has playing by the rules in every single circumstance gotten you?”

  “I can tell you where it’s avoided getting me. In jail. On white-collar charges.”

  “Playing by the rules has also meant that your most significant relationship in the last few years has been with streaming videos.”

  Second most significant. He wished, sometimes, that she would acknowledge the effort he’d made to be there for her. He’d moved across an ocean to ensure she felt safe and loved. He didn’t want her gratitude, but it wouldn’t be terrible if a few of the movies he watched had been with her. Something.

  “I think that’s where my sparkling personality has gotten me, actually.” His joke fell flat, and he could feel Beatrice’s frustration.

  “You are so…annoying.”

  “Of course I am. I’m your father.”

  “No. This is more than that. This is more than your boring white shirts and exotic animal- murdering leathers and stupidly fat bank account and corrupt corporate values. And boringness.”

  “Tell me more, please. And by the way, the most exotic leather I have ever owned goes moo. And you just murdered one of those at breakfast when you enjoyed that terrible hash you ordered alongside your eggs.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “What.” He tried to imitate her flat slang but succeeded only in eliciting another very British Rosemary noise from his daughter.

  “This is her whole fucking life! Her mom, her dad, like, her dad in Wisconsin, the one that raised her and loved her and everything, and probably misses her. Like, she probably has some job way more important, too, than trying to get her mom to listen, and to come home. And Justice, Jesus, like, her mom’s baby daddy, is totally confusing her mom and getting her drunk. It’s worse than awful. And all you care about is if she’ll watch another movie with you or ‘come ’round for tea’ while she’s in town. She’s right in the middle of the worst part of her life, and all you care about is…dates. I don’t even know what. You ‘gave her Jean,’ good for fucking you, Dad. Like a car is really going to help her put her whole life and heart back together.”

  Beatrice slammed her napkin on the table and stood up. Didn’t look at him. Worse, reached into her bag and pulled out two twenties and threw them on the table.

  “I’m late for…whatever. I’ll see you.”

  He thought of all the things he could say that wouldn’t fix it.

  Keep your money. I’ll pay for breakfast.

  Allie could hardly expect me to put her life back together for her. We’ve only just met.

  This isn’t about me and your mother.

  Stay. Stay.

  But he knew better than to say anything at all.

  In seconds Beatrice was nothing more than a rainbowed blur in another crowd of people in a place a long way from home.

  Chapter 7

  May and Ben’s apartment was ridiculous.

  It was too small, crowded with furniture and cookbooks and sketchbooks and pots and pans. All of which might have been okay if it weren’t so fucking hot.

  Ben had installed some kind of Scandinavian six-burner gas range in the middle of the teensy-weensy kitchen, and double ovens, and Allie’s arrival—which had been carefully timed to interrupt neither breakfast nor lunch, for maximum escapability—had inspired him to run to the corner store for provisions and then prom
ptly fire up every goddamn burner in the place.

  She shouldn’t have come on a Monday. His restaurant was closed on Mondays. If she’d come on a Tuesday, Ben would have been at work.

  Instead, her sister’s boyfriend was cooking furiously, his forehead furrowed so deeply that small children could get lost in the crease between his eyebrows, leaving Allie and May to catch up on “sister stuff.”

  So far they’d toured the apartment, which looked pretty much exactly as it had in the virtual tour her mom insisted she watch when May shared it several months earlier. May had pointed out all the exciting features, like crown molding and original leaded glass, and Allie pretended to be excited by them while noticing that her sister’s work space for doing art consisted of a chair shoved into a nook by the bedroom window and an end table too small to hold her oversized sketchbook.

  Now they were on to small talk, interrupted every few minutes by Ben delivering something new to eat and Allie dutifully consuming it, even though she wasn’t hungry.

  She was too nervous to be hungry. And Ben made weird food.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to stay here?” May asked for the third time. “The couch is really comfy, and we wouldn’t mind at all.”

  “No, seriously, it’s great. I’m at this hostel near Times Square. It’s over the YMCA. There’s all kinds of interesting international travelers, and like this club music going all night long.” May was making a terrible face. “No, but it’s great. The music doesn’t bother me. I like being able to see so many people and feel like I’m really in the heart of the city, you know? For my first trip.”

  “I still can’t believe you just got on a plane.”

  “You know me. Always so impulsive.”

  May nodded, almost imperceptibly. “Because you wanted to see me,” she said, repeating Allie’s own words.

  “I just realized when I saw the fare deal thing come through that it was nuts I hadn’t been here yet to visit you guys.”

  Ben put a plate in between them. “Cornmeal blueberry muffins.”

  Allie reached for one. It was too hot, and blueberries occasionally gave her hives. Melted butter ran between her fingers as she pushed half of it into her mouth. “Mmm.”

  “When did you set up the fare watcher?” May asked.

  “Hm? Oh. I don’t know, a while ago?”

  “Did you fly out of Milwaukee or Green Bay?”

  “Milwaukee.”

  “To La Guardia or JFK?”

  “Newark.”

  “You got a seventy-nine-dollar screaming deal on a fare from Milwaukee to Newark?”

  Allie hadn’t swallowed the first half of the muffin yet, but she didn’t see any choice—she shoved the whole of the rest of it into her cheek pocket and nodded, her eyes wide and innocent.

  She watched May and Ben exchange a look.

  Oh, fuckity.

  She didn’t know how, but May and Ben just fit. May should have fit with her last boyfriend, Dan Einarsson, an actual Green Bay Packers quarterback. May looked like a football wife, even. Tall. Blond. Stacked. Her braces had produced three yards of white, Chicletlike teeth, whereas Allie still had to wear a retainer at night to keep her bottom teeth from collecting like dice in a Yahztee cup. Except May had been miserable with Dan, for years and years. Until she met this miserable New York chef who glowered and huffed and just happened to look at May like she was a four-pound white truffle or something.

  Allie was afraid of their love and its silent mind-meld telepathy.

  “No way you paid eighty to fly into Jersey.” Ben put down a pile of bacon on the little table between her and May. Then watched her with that furrow between his eyes while he expertly drizzled some kind of sauce on it.

  “Yep. What’re you putting on there? Something delicious, I bet.”

  May and Ben looked at each other. Ben didn’t look at Allie. “Maple reduction.”

  “That’s so funny, since maple’s already a reduction, you know? From sap.” Allie grabbed two pieces and folded them in, burning every surface of her mouth. “Mm-mmmm.”

  “She’s lying.”

  “Ben, come on. Not now.”

  “She is! Jesus fucking Christ, May.”

  “Just, maybe go out for a bit.” May stood up and grabbed Ben’s shoulder, leaned her forehead to touch his. “I’m okay, babe. Seriously.”

  “Take the bread out when the timer’s up.”

  “You bet.”

  Ben stalked to the door, giving Allie one last glare, which Allie answered with a cheerful thumbs-up. “Thanks for breakfast, Ben! Best ever!”

  Ben slammed the door.

  Allie knew she was in trouble. So much trouble. Real trouble. Lying to May, her big sister, was the worst ever. Knowing that May knew she was lying was complete hell. Dropping in for Monday brunch at her sister’s Queens apartment without notice, and lying—Allie seriously considered running away.

  But she couldn’t be certain Ben wasn’t lurking in the stairwell, ready to attack.

  “The thing is, Allie, I’ve gotten, like, ten texts from Matt asking where you are. He had some question about the dogs and went by your place and you weren’t there, and you hadn’t picked up your mail, and he said you always did. So then he dropped by and asked Elvira where you were, and she said you’d flown to New York. Yesterday. Yesterday morning, Allie.”

  Allie was having a hard time thinking past her anger after May said Matt, her ex, had texted her sister ten times. The anger made her whole brain go blank. She didn’t have access to the higher parts of her brain she needed to answer any of the rest of what May was asking.

  “Matt has no business…” she managed.

  He did this all the time. All the time. Dropped in at her mom’s house for lunch. Stopped by Elvira’s and grilled her about Allie’s finances. Texted her, texted her parents, texted her friends.

  May made a gesture with her hands like she was clearing a cloud of lake gnats. “Look, I know. I know. I—”

  “He doesn’t…I’m not with him. I haven’t been with him for almost a year. He’s not…family. He’s not fucking family. You’re not his to text ten times about where a fully grown adult has gone for a few days.”

  “I know that. Listen—”

  “No, for real, May.” Allie felt every cubic inch of Ben’s rich breakfast, lurching and acidified in her stomach. “I’m not with him. I’m not with him. I don’t belong to him, and he doesn’t belong with us, I’m just—”

  “Like, I know. Damn it, Allie.”

  Allie took a breath and looked at May without any idea where to put her rage. This was terrible and frustrating and she wanted to go home. And it was so hot in here, how did May stand it?

  “Matt’s an…Matt’s an asshole.” May said this with a little nod.

  Allie wasn’t sure she’d ever heard May use the word asshole. “You like him. You always liked him.”

  “Did I? Always? I don’t know. I mean, you liked him. And you’re my sister, so that’s kind of that, but I remember when we first met him in college, when I brought him home because of that lab project we had together and he started hitting on you, and I distinctly didn’t like him.”

  “But that was a thousand years ago. You liked him when I was going to marry him.”

  May looked away. A timer went off, and she rose to pull Ben’s bread out of the oven. She placed the pan on a metal rack, reset the timer, and started running water in the sink. “I don’t know what happened,” she said. “I don’t know if I made you mad or what.”

  What do you mean? That was the obvious question.

  But she knew what May meant, and she was too ashamed of herself to pretend not to. May meant that she had disappeared from their relationship. May meant that she had flaked out, fucked off, and abandoned her.

  She would do better. She was trying to do better, right now, but making a hash of it.

  “All I know is last fall you were going to get married and I was home,” May said, “trying to help you with your
flowers, and you were pissed at me for falling in love when I was supposed to be paying attention to your problems, but even so we were talking. I could tell there was something wrong. I could tell Matt didn’t make you happy. And now you’re just…did I do something to you?”

  “No. No. Of course not, why—”

  “Because I moved here, with Ben, and then we’re not talking. We’re not talking at all. We’re—”

  “We text every day. We probably talk on the phone a few times a week.” Even as Allie said it, she knew she was lying again. Do better. She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. It’s just been a really hard year for me. And things are going so good for you.”

  “So you just don’t tell me anything? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “No, it’s just complicated. All I ever hear from Mom is how much you love New York, and how great your new job is, and how you’ve got this big book deal that makes it so you can take time for your art, and I don’t want to call and complain to you about the same fucking thing I was complaining about last time, and the time before that. I broke up with my boyfriend. Nine months ago, May. Nobody cares anymore. Everyone has moved on.”

  “It doesn’t seem like Matt’s moved on.” May had taken a butter knife out of a drawer, and now she was sliding it around the edges of the bread pan.

  “But I’m supposed to have. And Matt says he has, and that this is what a civil breakup looks like, where everyone can still get along. I dump him the day of our wedding and he wants us all to show up at the reception and dance together, because we still care about each other, and it makes me crazy, but I can’t talk about it with him, I can’t talk about it with Mom, I can’t talk about it with anybody, and you’re like a thousand miles away, as happy as you’ve ever been in your whole entire life, so I can’t talk about it with you, either. It wouldn’t be fair to you.”

  “Fair to me?” She sawed the butter knife with renewed vigor. Her nostrils were flaring—never a good sign with May.

  “Yeah.”

  “Fair? You’re telling me the fair thing to do is just not tell me anything, ever? It’s fair to stop talking to me so I have to call Mom and ask her how you’re doing just to get some semblance of news about my sister?” She turned the bread pan over and dumped the loaf onto the cooling rack. “Like I’d tell Mom that Ben’s started this restaurant and he’s hardly ever home, and we’re spending every dime we’ve got so I can sit in this apartment and be a writer and an artist even though I’ve never done that and I don’t have a book deal, I have an agent, which sounds awesome but he’s made me rewrite my first book and redo all the concept drawings six times, and maybe if I come up with something good enough he’ll shop it around—and even then we’re talking a year, maybe, before I see any money, if I turn out to be any good. It’s scary, but I can’t tell my sister, because she’s punishing me for moving away, but it’s not fair to talk about that, maybe air it out a little, no, it’s more fair to pretend it’s not happening and then show up in New York without any warning and drop by for a chat, drop some bullshit story about why you’re here, that’s really fucking fair, Allie, thanks for being so goddamned fair.”