“What?” Emma made a beeline for the hummus platter on the island. She shoved a baby carrot into her mouth before she asked, “When?”
“We were out shopping for baby stuff. Which was, like, the worst time to run into her.” I brightened. “She’s pregnant, though! Or, maybe she’s already had the baby, I have no idea. I didn’t ask her due date.”
“She did. She emailed me.” Emma went to the cooler for a water. “She wants to stay in touch, but after what my dad went through…”
“No, I get it, totally.” I gestured to the platter with my head. “Grab that, and we’ll eat in the living room.”
“Eating in the living room? Ooh, Dad will be furious,” Emma snarked as she followed me out. I held the door for her with my foot.
“Don’t tell him, but I painted my nails in here once.” I shifted Olivia to my shoulder, one hand over the back of her wobbly little head. I sat in Neil’s favorite chair, and Emma settled on the couch, criss-cross applesauce with the plate of hummus and veggies balanced on her knees.
“All right,” Emma said, taking another bite of carrot. “What is this big, important thing you’ve all been conspiring to tell me?”
It was terrible, knowing that I was about to give her some potentially very upsetting news while she sat there looking so relaxed. What was worse was that even though I’d carefully considered how I should tell her, my mental script suddenly seemed in dire need of a rewrite. Luckily, the fact that Elizabeth had come up gave me a much more natural way of beginning a difficult conversation. “So…speaking of Elizabeth… Remember how your mom told her that your dad was bisexual and he’d slept with your uncle Stephen?”
“Yeah?” She scooped up some hummus on a slice of jicama.
“Well, she wasn’t trying to sabotage your dad’s wedding. She told Elizabeth because it’s true.”
Emma froze mid-chew.
I couldn’t stand the silence, so I went on, “I mean, maybe she was trying to sabotage. I don’t know, you’d have to ask her. But that’s not the important part. The important part is that your dad really is bisexual, and he really did used to sleep with your uncle Stephen.”
She blinked, and her jaw worked slowly. With a painful-looking swallow, she choked out, “Well. I’m not sure why I need to know that, but…thank you?”
“There’s more. That’s just the first part.” I refrained from saying, “It only gets worse.” I patted Olivia’s back and smoothed her little pink romper. “The thing with your dad and Stephen ended badly. And, now, your uncle has written his book—”
“Mom mentioned that,” Emma interjected. “I take it the book has something in it about Dad?”
“Yes. And your father would rather you not read it.” I shifted uncomfortably. “It’s not an entirely truthful account.”
Emma nodded, still looking shell-shocked. “Okay. Dad and Uncle Stephen dated. That’s incredibly weird. The fact that my dad is bisexual and has been apparently since the nineteen eighties—”
“Probably his whole life, Emma,” I corrected her.
She rolled her eyes. “Pardon my poor phrasing, Sophie, but I am learning some very shocking family secrets at the moment. Why didn’t Dad ever say anything? I understand why he wouldn’t want to tell me about Uncle Stephen, of course, but he never brought any men home, if he was dating them.”
“According to Neil, he didn’t bring home anyone he wasn’t very serious about. He dated a lot more than you realize.” My own words stunned me into realization. My mom had probably vetted her dates the same way Neil had, with regard to Emma. When my mom had brought home a guy, had it been because it was someone she was really into? A guy who’d had permanent potential? I’d run all those men off.
I was the worst daughter ever.
Well, one foot in front of the other. Right now, I was on the foot that was about to break some very bad news to Emma. “The thing is… your uncle Stephen… he…”
When I couldn’t quite get the words out, Emma prompted gently, “Go on, Sophie. Whatever it is, just tell me.”
“He raped your father.” It was the worst sentence I’d ever had to say. Despite the fact that Neil had told me to talk to Emma about all of this, I felt like I’d betrayed his confidence by using that word with someone else.
“Um.” She laughed, a sound of disbelief and confusion all in one. Like she thought she’d misheard me. Like she was hoping she’d misheard me. “I don’t understand.”
“Your dad and Stephen were…engaging in an activity. Neil asked him to stop, and he didn’t.” God, could I sound more stilted? This was probably the most uncomfortable conversation I’d ever had with anyone.
I noticed that Emma was trembling. It was only just a slight shake, the obvious result of holding back her rage. “And this is in Stephen’s book?”
“No. And that’s the problem.” Olivia stirred against my shoulder. “I haven’t read it, but from your father’s reaction, it seems like the details weren’t presented in the most honest light.”
Emma stood as Oliva began snuffling at my neck. I handed the baby up to her and waited while she processed the information. She deftly whipped a nursing blanket over her shoulder and put Olivia to her breast after a little fumbling.
“You haven’t read the book?” Emma asked finally, looking me in the eye for the first time in a while.
“No. He doesn’t want me to read it. And he doesn’t want you to read it, either.” I rubbed my hands on my jeans-clad thighs.
“Why would I want to read that?” A tear rolled down Emma’s cheek. “I don’t even want to know this much. Is Daddy okay? I know this was years ago, but is he okay?”
“He’s seeing someone about it.” That was the only reassurance I could give her. Neil sure wasn’t “okay” with what had happened, by any stretch of the imagination. “He never really dealt with any of it. I don’t think he intended to.”
“That sounds like him.” She shook her head, more tears spilling as she closed her eyes. “I understand why he wouldn’t have told me this, but why didn’t he tell me he was bi? Was he just not bringing guys home? Because of me?”
“I don’t know that for sure.” It was times like these that I wished I’d inherited my mom’s talent for comforting words. “There’s one last thing.”
Her eyes widened. “Sophie, I don’t know if I can take any more today.” With her free hand, Emma swiped at the wet track on her cheek.
“I’m sorry. It’s just one more tiny thing.” I tried to remember exactly what Neil’s words had been. “Your dad is afraid that you knowing this will change the way you think of him. And he doesn’t want that.”
“My dad is an idiot if he thinks I’m going to be angry or hurt over any of this. With him, at least,” she added. “I don’t know that I’ll ever be over what Uncle Stephen has done.”
“That’s between you and your family,” I said, holding my hands up. “I’m going to stay out of it. But, for what it’s worth, I’m really sorry, Emma. Nobody likes hearing that their loved ones aren’t the way they seemed to be.”
“This is a little more than that.” Emma held Olivia tighter. “The fact that Dad has been walking around with this for years…and, now, to have it written in what I frankly thought was a tacky-sounding book in the first place… I can’t imagine what he must be going through.”
“He’s going to be okay. He’s stopped drinking, and he’s going to therapy. That’s really all that we can do at the moment.”
“He stopped drinking?” Emma’s eyebrows knitted together. “Dad has a drinking problem?”
Oh boy. “Emma…there is a lot of stuff your dad doesn’t tell you, because he doesn’t want to hurt you. I know that’s insulting because you’re a grown adult, but you’re always going to be his little girl.”
Olivia squawked, and Emma adjusted her position. “Is there any other secret my father is hiding from me? Is his cancer back? Is he being indicted for tax fraud? Are the two of you moving to Malaysia?”
“I promise, he’s not hiding anything else.” Now that we’d had the big, awkward discussion, my appetite had returned. I reached for the platter she’d slid onto the coffee table. “I think you should probably give your dad a call today, though. Let him know that we talked, and tell him how you feel. But, I have to warn you, he’s extremely fragile, even though he’ll play it off like he’s fine.”
“I would expect no less,” Emma said with a roll of her eyes. “Thank you, Sophie. I really appreciate you telling me, since my dad couldn’t. Does Mom know?”
“She does. But, if you need to talk to her about it, I would appreciate it if you asked your dad’s permission, first.”
“I don’t know if I can forgive her.” Emma’s gaze darted to mine. “All these years, we’ve still been having Christmas and birthdays and flying out to Scotland to visit him…and she knew all this time? How can she look him in the face?”
That, I couldn’t answer for her. I couldn’t even think of it. I wanted to be mad at Valerie, but I didn’t know when she’d found out, or what the circumstances were with her brother. I didn’t want to know. Were it me, I would have cut ties with Stephen immediately. “I don’t know. That’s something you’d have to ask her.”
As for myself, I had questions of my own for Valerie. That evening, after a tearful phone call to Neil, Emma headed home with a tired baby. I decided I should be with Neil, no matter the late hour or the fact that I had to be back in the city at ass o’clock in the morning.
In the car, I dialed the number I really didn’t care to dial. Valerie’s voicemail picked up immediately.
“Hey, Valerie. It’s Sophie. Scaife. Neil’s girlfriend, um…” God, why did I always sound like such a moron trying to talk to this woman? “Anyway, I have something really important I want to see you about. I was hoping you could fit me in sometime this week. It won’t take long We’re obviously both really busy, but I do really, really need to talk. Just give me a call or something.”
I hung up and weighed my phone against my palm. Whether or not I had a ton of crap going on this week, I couldn’t move on to my future with Neil if I didn’t clean up the shit in our past. Making peace with Valerie, especially over this, was next on my to-do list.
* * * *
The next morning, Valerie’s assistant responded to my voicemail with some very clipped sentences about “Ms. Stern’s impossible schedule”, and “limited availability”. She tried to shut me out with times like, “Wednesday at four, for fifteen minutes” or “Tuesday at ten-thirty, for five minutes”. I strong-armed her into later that day, at noon.
I arrived at Porteras with my laminated “VISITOR” tag clipped to my blouse. When the elevator doors opened and I saw the familiar lobby, the reception desk and modern white couches, I realized that whether I’d worked there in the past or not, I was stepping into enemy territory.
Though many of my colleagues from Porteras had left to go with Gabriella Winters to work for her new magazine, some had stayed, and it seemed like everyone knew who I was. Unfortunately, I was the devious whore who’d slept her way from the beauty department to my own magazine, funded by my sugar daddy’s money. I held my head high as I approached the desk. “Sophie Scaife for Valerie Stern.”
“Sophie,” Valerie called across the lobby. She stood with the door to her office—once Gabriella’s office, then Neil’s, then Rudy’s—and invited me inside.
“Hi,” I greeted her awkwardly as we walked through the doors into the room where I’d done my former dream job. My old desk was covered with someone else’s things, like it was flaunting jewelry from a new suitor to make me feel inferior.
Valerie led me to the inner office, saying, “I only have a very few minutes, so if you’d like to come in…”
“Of course. This won’t take too much of your time.” Well, it might. It would depend on her reaction. I stepped into the room and froze.
She’d kept Neil’s desk. The one that he’d fingerbanged me over and eaten lunch from between my legs on. I might as well have caught her rolling around in our bed.
It took me a moment to recover. “I wanted to talk to you.” I sat in the plush new chair across from her, uncomfortable in the office, the magazine, the whole environment.
Valerie got this weird smile/glare combo she sometimes had when she was losing patience with my perceived stupidity. “I gathered that from your rambling voicemail.”
Okay, my Miss Congeniality act was not worth it. Too many other things demanded my energy. “Look, it’s an awkward subject, and I’m nervous, so maybe retract your claws a little.” I took a breath, and before she could respond or call security, I said, softer, “You told Elizabeth about Neil and your brother.”
She paled.
“You told her,” I went on, “because you were afraid that he wouldn’t tell her. Because you knew how broken he really was. And you were worried he wouldn’t get better.”
Her features froze. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You told Elizabeth what your brother did to Neil, and when she didn’t take it well, you let Emma think that you’d jealously tried to sabotage the wedding.”
“Are you sure?” She forced a laugh. It wasn’t even half convincing. “I was expecting you to say I did it to sabotage their engagement.”
“I think you were aware that it could. And I think you’d have been okay with that.” I felt my temper stir, and I pushed it back down. Now was not a time to indulge in my grudge against her. “But I know that, deep down, you still love Neil, and you were looking out for his best interests.”
“I…don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her smile was more frozen than Queen Elsa’s snow dress.
“Yeah, you do.” I wasn’t going to back down here. All of the pain and recriminations, all of the scheming and passive-aggressive barbs between us, all of it could have been avoided if we’d just been open about that one simple fact. “Emma once told me that she thought you didn’t love him, you were just unwilling to let him be happy.” Hurt flared in Valerie’s eyes, so I kept going in an effort to gloss past it. “But that would mean you put an awful lot of work into keeping me away from someone you don’t even care about.”
She rolled her eyes. “Is that what you wanted here, Sophie? To give me your little speech and walk out the better person?”
There was too much pain; she was a bonfire of it, burning up right in front of me. That wasn’t why I came. “No. I wanted to thank you. For caring so much about him. And that I know what it’s like to love him like that. I’m never going to hurt him, Valerie. I swear.”
“Well, I hurt him, so you’ve won,” she said, standing and moving around her desk furiously to grab a tissue.
“It isn’t about winning.” My voice rose, and I forced myself to calm down. Valerie was hurting. It wasn’t the time to pick a fight with her. There’s never a time to pick a fight with her, I reminded myself. “I came here because things have been nasty between us before. I just wanted you to know… I think it’s really awesome, the way you’ve handled all of this. You’re in a difficult position, but you’re still helping your friend out. I admire you, Valerie.”
For a long moment, she didn’t say anything. Then, “I’ve decided not to come to the wedding.” She looked down then swung her head up to meet my gaze with sad eyes and a smiling mouth. The combination caused a little flutter of sympathy pain in my chest. She shrugged. “I didn’t fill out an RSVP card.”
“Don’t feel like you’re not welcome. You’re Emma’s mother, you’re—”
She cut me off. “I’m Emma’s mother. And Neil’s friend. But I’m also a woman who’s lived for the past two decades with a broken heart. It’s too much to ask me to sit through another wedding, biting my cheek and trying not to cry.”
“That’s fair.” I didn’t know what else to say.
She took a step away from me, as though being too close to me pained her. “Did you know that he told me about you? Way back, when you’d first met?�
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“I didn’t.” Though it made sense. Neil had been head-over-heels in love with me ten minutes after I’d introduced myself, or so he said.
“He told me he’d met the most amazing girl. He called you a girl, so naturally, I assumed that this was just a fling, and he was enthralled with the younger woman who’d found him attractive.” Her sad smile twisted into a grimace as she remembered. “I always believed, in my heart of hearts, that Neil and I would be together. I knew Elizabeth wasn’t permanent, the way you can tell when a friend is with someone who’s wrong for them. When Neil told me they were divorcing…”
I couldn’t tell if the situation was awkward because it was more than I’d come here for, or if it was because I didn’t want to feel sympathy for Valerie when she’d just admitted that she loved my fiancé.
“And between then and Christmas.” She held up her hands.
“Neil and I were already together.” The sympathy I felt for her was weird. “I’m sorry things couldn’t work out for you.”
“No, you aren’t,” she said, catching the sentiment I’d accidentally expressed.
“You’re right, I’m not.” It had been insensitive of me to blurt out something I hadn’t thought through “But I wish…I wish there was a way that I could be happy, and you wouldn’t be hurt.”
“I’m not hurt. Neil’s divorce wasn’t my second chance. I had to accept that. We’ve known each other . We both had plenty of opportunities.” She shrugged. “I’m not proud of the way I treated you.”
“Well.” There was so much I could have said, but nothing seemed right. “I appreciate that.”
Her expression hardened a little. “But, in the interest of us getting along in the future, let me recommend that you never bring personal business into my professional setting again.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Would you have agreed to meet me somewhere else? Somewhere you couldn’t lie about having a busy schedule?”
“I do have a busy schedule, Sophie. So, I’ll have to see you out.”
Since the queen had dismissed me from her throne room, I got up and walked ahead of her. She stopped me at the outer office doors that led to the lobby. “Wait.”
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