by Laura Dave
Then Maddie looked at me.
“Can we put the movie back on as soon as we get back?”
My mother gave me a look. “Pick your battles,” she said.
And like that, I agreed.
The Violet Café did have the world’s best chocolate chip pancakes. They were made with five different kinds of chocolate chips. Dark, milk, white, bittersweet, espresso. And they came in a stack of five large pancakes that were impossible to finish.
Maddie, in a feat that I hadn’t seen since my own brothers would attack their plates, managed to do just that. She moved slowly through them, eating a pancake at a time, dipping each piece in maple syrup, in a dollop of powdered sugar. The waitress came over to ask if she was done, and she waved her away. She was a professional.
“I love pancakes,” she said.
“Are these up to your standards?”
She nodded enthusiastically. “Yes,” she said. “They are.”
She looked like she might throw up, the effort of eating and making conversation too much, but then she rallied, and reached for her milkshake.
“Mum takes me every Sunday for pancakes to a café near our flat. The pancakes there have lemon in them. Lemon and lots of chocolate chips. If that sounds bad, they aren’t.”
I smiled. “If you tell me they’re good, I believe you.”
She smiled back. “These are better though. Daddy would love these pancakes . . .”
Maddie looked down, realizing something. Probably something as simple as this: I’d know that too. I’d know many of the things that she knew about her father.
“We could bring him some if you like?” I said.
She smiled. “And more for me?” she said.
“Sure,” I said.
Maddie went back to the business at hand, scraping her fork along the plate. “Mum told me that you were a nice person,” she said.
I looked at Maddie, surprised. “She did?”
She nodded. “She said you’re Daddy’s friend, like Mum’s friend Clay.”
She took another bite while I considered that. Michelle stepped outside of herself to help. Didn’t that mean she had good intentions?
“Clay took me out for my birthday. We were visiting California for Mum’s movies, and he took me to a restaurant where they have spicy lettuce. And lots of burger. Korean food. If that sounds bad, it was.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. It was all I could do not to reach over, touch her little face. “We won’t go there, then.”
She looked up. “Clay lives in California now, in Los Angeles. Near Daddy.”
“Well, then you have to introduce us to him.”
Her eyes got wide. “Clay and Mum aren’t good friends since he moved to California. But we still are good friends. So maybe he’ll come here. For my next birthday.”
Then something occurred to me, something I didn’t want occurring to me. I understood why Ben hadn’t wanted me to know the circumstances around how Michelle reached out to him.
Maddie shook her head. For a second I thought she had made the connection that I had. That her young mind was astute enough to know where Clay had gone and why he had.
“No,” she said, tears springing to her eyes.
I moved closer to her. “Maddie, it’s okay.”
She shook her head from side to side, the tears falling. “No, it’s not.”
Then she pointed down and I realized the depth of her sadness. Her plate was empty.
On the way out of the restaurant, Maddie ran into a pretty woman with thick, dark hair, wire-rim glasses. Fireman hat first. The woman was sitting at the counter, eating a bowl of oatmeal. A small container of chia seeds by her purse.
Lee. Why should I be surprised? Jacob had said they came here most mornings, but it was different to see her in person, spooning up her oatmeal.
Maddie raced for the door, sideswiping her, Lee swaying to hold on to her stool.
“Whoa there!” she said.
“Sorry!” Maddie said.
Then she reached for my hand, needing my protection from this strange lady who could yell at her, who could do anything. I took Maddie’s hand and gave Lee a smile.
“We are post-pancakes,” I said.
Lee laughed, throwing her head back. “Don’t worry about it for even a second.” Then she pointed at her healthy breakfast, picking up her spoon. “I wish I was post-pancakes too.”
Maddie jumped up, the fireman hat falling over her eyes. “If you get some, I’ll share with you.”
Lee gave Maddie a sweet smile. And I took her in. Up close, behind those glasses, her skin was porcelain—like a doll. Which maybe was why Maddie couldn’t take her eyes off of her either.
Lee looked back up at me. “She’s adorable,” she said.
“I can’t take any credit. She’s my fiancé’s daughter.”
Lee nodded. “A good thing to come with the deal,” she said.
Maddie smiled at Lee, her new fan. She was used to being told how cute she was and milking it after. She was, after all, the daughter of a movie star.
Maddie picked up Lee’s package of seeds. “What are these?” Maddie said.
“Those are chia seeds,” Lee said.
Maddie looked at them, confused, putting them down. “Yuck,” Maddie said.
She laughed. “Yes, that seems to be the consensus. She sounds like my fiancé.”
I must have cringed, hearing those words. Lee tilted her head, as if noting it, considering something.
“Is that why you look so familiar? Did I meet you through him? He’s a local winemaker. Jacob McCarthy?”
I shrugged. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t an answer either.
She adjusted her glasses, looking confused. “Maybe you look like someone else I know,” she said. “I’m Lee. For the next time I confuse you with someone that you’re not.”
I laughed, feeling guilty about withholding from her. I pointed at the chia seeds. “I’ve heard a lot about those recently,” I said, wanting to tell her something true.
“You need to try them, then . . .”
She licked her spoon to clean it—and then dipped it into the oatmeal, making me a seedy bite. I didn’t want to take it, though there didn’t seem to be much choice. It was such a familiar gesture—as gross as it was—so openhearted.
I took the spoon, swallowing it all at once—her oatmeal and her seeds and her licked spoon—the slimy, gooey mix.
“What do you think of the chia seeds? Friend or foe?”
Maddie started tugging on my shirt, done being hospitable. Done with any more adult conversation. “Come on!”
That saved me from answering. I smiled and handed her back her spoon.
And Lee waved good-bye as Maddie took my hand and ran out of there.
Perfect Red
When we got back to the house, there was a large SUV parked out front. It seemed odd, but not for long—as soon as we walked into the house and Maddie ran upstairs, back to her movie, I went into the kitchen. And found Ben standing by the coffee machine, holding a mug and laughing.
With Michelle.
Michelle Carter. In my kitchen.
She was gorgeous, and effortlessly stunning, wearing a long silk dress and cowboy boots, her red hair pulled up into a loose bun. She held a mug herself. My mug. Like it belonged to her, like she belonged standing in my family’s kitchen, leaning comfortably against the countertop, leaning comfortably, hips open, into Ben.
Ben looked up, noticing I was there. “Hey,” he said.
Then he motioned toward Michelle.
“Michelle came to pick up Maddie a little early,” he said.
My heart was beating so hard, I actually thought they could hear it. I forced a friendly smile. “Is that right?”
“I apologize for just arriving!” s
he said. “My phone is useless in wine country.”
Ben smiled at me, his eyes apologizing. “They have to get back to London, but she wanted to come by the house so you two could meet.”
“Or meet again,” Michelle said.
She spoke in this powder-soft voice, which forced you to lean forward just to hear her. I drilled her with a look, disliking her powder-soft voice, disliking that she was trying to add levity to the awkwardness of that meeting on the street. At another moment that would have been what was called for, but after my conversation with her daughter, it was the last thing that was called for.
Michelle gave me a smile, which lit up her face, making her seem younger and older than she was, almost like a different species. As pretty as she was when she wasn’t smiling, when she did—smile at you—it was trancelike. Making it hard to avoid being mesmerized by her. Michelle knew it. Of course she knew it. Every man in the world told her.
And if I wasn’t intimidated enough by the idea of her, the perfect woman standing territorially close to my fiancé—and staring at me post-pancake, un-showered—certainly sealed the deal.
“Benjamin has told me wonderful things about you.”
She put her hand on his arm, as though she had ownership over Benjamin, whoever he was. As though I was someone they were meeting.
“Did he?” I said.
“He did,” she said.
Michelle smiled, and it wasn’t lost on me. She didn’t want it to be lost on me—her eyes piercing me, like a challenge.
Michelle held my gaze, until I turned back to my fiancé. “Ben, can I talk to you alone for a second?”
Ben glanced at Michelle, embarrassed. “Of course.”
“It’s nice to see you,” Michelle called out as I stormed out of the kitchen, the softness of her voice rising just enough that it was impossible to miss it.
I walked out the back door, toward our patio, as Ben followed behind. I didn’t know where I was leading us, which might explain why the two of us ended up in our wedding tent.
We ended up where we were supposed to be married in five days, the sun shining down on it, burning through.
“I’m so sorry, Georgia,” he said. “She showed up early.”
I tried to catch my breath, the chill from the vineyard rising up behind me, making little sense with that sun.
Ben shook his head. “She insisted on coming over and saying hello.”
“You didn’t want to give me a heads-up?”
“I tried to call, you didn’t pick up your phone.”
My phone was upstairs. I hadn’t brought it to breakfast and I didn’t have it now. Another thing I didn’t know about having a child. You always had your phone. Ben had assumed I had mine.
“I thought that it would make it less weird for the two of you to meet, but obviously that was a mistake. I’ll tell her to go.”
He shook his head, looking a little bit angry.
“Michelle wants you back. That’s what you left out.”
He tilted his head, confused. “What did you say?”
I started to tell him how I’d done the math based on when Maddie had said she’d last seen Clay. Michelle and Clay had ended their relationship, Michelle had reached out to Ben. She’d made a decision to make herself available to him, she’d made a decision that she wanted that.
“That’s what you haven’t told me. And then you just let her come here?”
“No . . .” he said.
“Why aren’t you looking at me, then?”
Ben shook his head. “She’s . . . Michelle is complicated. She’s confusing wanting to take a shot with me and wanting to take a shot with Maddie’s father. It’s not the same thing.”
“It is, actually. That’s who you are, Ben.”
Ben’s eyes got cold. “Why do you care what Michelle wants from me?”
“She is the mother of your child. That has weight.”
“Not to me, just you,” Ben said.
It didn’t feel appropriate to say the obvious, which was that it mattered to Michelle too. Apparently, it mattered to her more than anything, including her own relationship and whatever hurdles she had to overcome to tell Ben the truth.
“This is a woman that eviscerated you. And now she wants you.”
He shook his head, frustrated. “I never said she eviscerated me,” he said.
I looked at him in disbelief, that word locked in my brain from the time he’d volunteered it. Even if he was choosing to forget, it had power that she had disappeared on Ben. And that she wanted the opposite now. This was hard enough when I imagined that Michelle was still with Clay, like the magazines said she was, like Ben had let me believe she was.
“Look, let’s focus on what matters, okay? Michelle knows that the best thing we can do together is be good parents to Maddie. She knows that. She knows that I love you. She knows that I’m marrying you.”
“Why?”
“Why am I marrying you?” he said.
It didn’t feel like a great time to ask that question. But I wondered: If what I’d thought was connecting us—honesty, friendship, a deep understanding—was gone suddenly, then what was between us?
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Ben said.
“Why are we moving to London, Ben? Is it for the job? Or did you find the job so you’d have a reason to be near them?”
“I wanted that job long before I knew about Maddie. You can’t really be suggesting I’d be that duplicitous. You can’t suggest you don’t know how long I wanted that job.”
Ben wasn’t wrong. It was a low blow. He had wanted that job and I knew that. We had talked about it late at night, many times. This was his dream job—working for the London firm, designing homes all over Europe. We had talked about whether my career would allow the move. The firm’s new London office made it easy. My desire to live abroad, to live in one of the greatest cities in the world, made it preferable.
But when he reminded me of that now, it just felt like another thing he was trying to prove.
Ben moved closer to me. I moved away.
“It’s hard for me to turn my back on Maddie,” he said. “When she needs me.”
“Who’s asking you to?” I said.
“Well, being there for Maddie, that means not turning my back on Michelle, either.”
“Meaning what?”
He shrugged. “I’m still trying to figure that out.”
That stopped me, especially when Michelle’s version of his being there probably meant I wouldn’t be.
Ben shook his head. “Let’s relax for a second,” he said. “Let’s take a walk.”
I heard a knock and looked in the direction of the house. We both did.
My mother stood by the sink, waving at us through the window to come inside. Michelle and Maddie were visible behind her, Michelle kneeling down so she and Maddie were eye level with each other.
My mother waved again as though the reason we were stuck in place was that we hadn’t seen her. Her words ran through my head. Be careful what you give up.
Still, I met his eyes, taking in his smell, his sweetness. “I think you should leave.”
“You can’t be serious,” he said.
He reached forward and held my face, trying to make me look at him. Except I couldn’t look at him and not see all the stories he had kept private about his life this last year. There were breakfasts with Maddie, secret cards and phone calls, a million stories that he hadn’t shared—including the story about how much Michelle still loved him.
Wasn’t the ultimate form of fidelity whom you told your stories to? Ben had stopped telling me his.
Ben leaned forward. “If the situations were reversed, I would look to understand as opposed to the opposite. You know that I would. What does that say about what you want from me?”
&nb
sp; I had no answer for him. All I knew was that my heart had moved in my chest, right into a place where it felt heavy and stuck.
“We’re getting married in five days, Georgia. Five days. Don’t you still want that?”
Ben met my eyes, asking me to say yes.
I didn’t say anything.
Then he walked out of the beautiful and empty wedding tent.
Sebastopol, California. 1999
When she reached for his arm, Dan followed her into the dining room, irritated and tired.
“I just need to talk to you for a minute,” Jen said.
It was the night of the harvest party and he didn’t have time for this conversation. In a couple of days, Dan would have endless time. He was closing down for the season. The grapes had come in early. He was already putting chamomile on the vines. He would take her, his lovely wife, down the coast. He would take her to Los Angeles, a night at the symphony. He was ready to give her what she needed, just not tonight. Except tonight was when she wanted his attention.
“I got an offer,” she said. “To go to New York for five months. And substitute.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the symphony. It’s not in the city. It’s outside, but it’s a good symphony. And they need a cellist. I’d be working with Henry Morgan again. Do you remember Henry?”
Dan did remember Henry and he didn’t like him. Jen had dragged him to Portland when Henry was in town, a guest conductor at the prestigious symphony there. They had drinks afterward at their hotel, Henry and Jen talking about music into the early morning hours. Dan would have excused himself and gone up to sleep, but he felt like he couldn’t leave them alone together. He didn’t like the way that Henry looked at his wife. He didn’t like the way Jen seemed to enjoy it.
“He’s a fantastic conductor.”
He bit his tongue, staying quiet. This was a trope of Jen’s—Henry’s brilliance. A trope that presented itself every so often. Not regularly enough to cause alarm, but enough to cause irritation. Jen noting any new symphony he moved to, Jen sharing a photograph of his son with a gorgeous model. As if that proved Henry’s brilliance.