by Abbi Waxman
Mom had fallen asleep in the back. Helen was singing along, enthusiastically warning the world about the man-eater. Watch out, boy, she’ll chew you up is pretty much the only lyric I know, but I joined in on that one.
Helen looked over at me. “Is your mom asleep?”
I nodded.
“She fell asleep pretty much every time she rode in the back, it was a known thing. She was one of those kids who liked to work late at night, despite the fact that class was early.” She smiled at me. “Are you like that?”
I shook my head. “No, I’m a ‘get the homework done as soon as possible and early morning’ kind of person.”
Helen grunted. “How unusual.”
“Yeah, well, not all teenagers are the same.” I gazed out the window at the other cars on the freeway, wondering what everyone else was talking about. “What was she like, at college?”
Helen flicked on her turn signal, which made an incredibly loud clicking sound, and changed lanes. “She was fun. She was challenging. Argumentative.”
I nodded. “She’s still like that.”
“Is she happy, do you think?”
I shrugged. “I have no idea. She doesn’t seem very happy with me.”
Helen looked over and frowned. “How do you mean? She’s very proud of you, and she loves you to pieces.”
I shrugged again and said nothing. Then, “She wants me to go to college and be a career woman like her, and I don’t want to.”
“Has she said that?”
“She doesn’t need to.”
“Have you told her you don’t want to?”
“No, because the thing I want to do she probably wouldn’t like. I’m not even sure about it myself.” I sighed. “Can we talk about something else?”
There was a silence, and then Helen said, “What’s your position on gene editing and the relationship between for-profit medicine and pure research?”
I coughed. “Uh . . . I’m not sure I have one.”
She grinned. “Perfect, let’s work it out. Think out loud.” She paused. “And turn down the music a bit, I want to hear you wonder.”
* * *
• • •
When we walked into the Manhattan hotel lobby later, many of the kids were sitting there, waiting for me.
Alice was among them, and she saw me first.
“She’s free on bail,” she called, causing a lot of head turning. “I guess her mom sold a kidney after all.” She turned to Casper. “You owe me twenty dollars.”
“You’re lying,” he replied.
Mom squeezed my arm. “I’ll go check in,” she said. “See you up in the room.”
Will stood up and walked over to me, pulling me into a hug. Casper and Sam were right behind him.
“Are you okay? What happened?”
I nodded. “I’m totally fine, it was all a mistake.”
That was the story Mom, Helen, and I had decided on, at least publicly.
“Are you going to sue?” Alice hadn’t gotten to her feet, but as we drew closer, she did reach up for a hug. I was surprised enough to give it to her.
“No,” I replied. “It was a genuine mistake. They apologized.” I looked at them. “So, what did I miss?”
Casper answered. “Well, Bard was gorgeous, Vassar was pretty, and the trip to NYC was enlivened by a massive argument between this one”—he jerked his thumb at Alice—“and her mother.”
I made a face at Alice. “Sorry to hear that,” I said. “About what?”
“You, actually,” said Alice. “But now you’re here and everything’s okay, so I’m going up to my room.”
“I’ll walk you up,” said Casper.
I watched, doing my best to keep my mouth closed, as she smiled up at him and took the hand he offered. They walked off to the elevator bank, and I turned back to Sam and Will.
“I’m off, too,” said Sam, looking at his phone. “My mom and I are going to the opera.”
“Of course you are,” said Will.
Then it was just the two of us.
We sat there and looked at each other for a minute.
“What really happened?” he asked. “If it was a mistake, why did it take all day?”
“It didn’t,” I replied. “The FBI part was the beginning, then Mom and I played hooky from the tour and got our nails done.” I waved my nails at him.
“Why do girls paint their nails? I totally don’t get it.”
“You’re not supposed to, it’s not for you.”
He frowned at me. “And you’re sticking with your FBI story?”
I shook my head. “No, I can tell you the truth, but you have to swear you won’t tell anyone, or text it, or put it out on social media in any form.”
“Agreed.” His eyes were steady. “Unless this is one of those stories that is going to result in my getting chased across four continents by international law enforcement.” He tried an uncertain smile. “I’ve seen Enemy of the State, knowledge can be dangerous.”
“No promises.”
He sighed. “I’ll take the risk.”
I checked there were no other kids in the lobby, and lowered my voice. “I found out about the girls at school, right, the ones who were going to cheat?”
He nodded.
“I knew it was stupid, and I knew they were risking everything, so I told the school.” I shrugged. “That’s really all there is to it.”
He frowned at me. “Liar. Why did the FBI get involved?”
“I’m not lying. It turns out there’s a whole cheating thing, a whole organized conspiracy, and our little part was somehow connected. They wanted to know if I knew anything else.” I suddenly found my lap very interesting. “I didn’t.” I decided not to mention the idea that there was someone on this tour who was involved; we didn’t know if it was true, and talking about it was out of the question, even with Will. There was a long silence. I looked up at him. “You hate snitches.”
He nodded. “Sure, we all do, right?”
“Yes. But this was different. This wasn’t vaping in the bathroom.”
“I see that. But . . . it’s still snitching. You still went to the teachers and got your friends in trouble.”
“Only to save them from getting in even bigger trouble.”
“Why didn’t you tell them not to do it?”
I felt hurt suddenly. “I tried that, for crying out loud. What, you think I overheard them and scuttled off to the principal’s office? They told me about it, asked me what I thought, I told them what I thought, they decided to do it anyway.” I clenched my fists in my lap. “I’m not Alice. I’m not a big shiny star at school. I’m just another kid, and they didn’t listen to me.”
He stood up. “Well, I’m glad everything is okay now.”
Then he walked away.
24
JESSICA
I left Emily in the lobby to reunite with her friends, and headed up to the room. I’m not sure why, but for some reason we were given a suite, and I spent a few minutes marveling at how big the bathtub was. Whenever I’ve stayed in New York before, I’ve always been surprised by how small they can make a hotel room and have it still count as a room and not a closet. But this time they clearly threw caution to the wind.
I called Frances and told her everything. She was pleasingly horrified, impressed with Emily’s bravery, and delighted I’d gotten my nails done.
“About time,” she said. “Your hands remind me of the school nurse, all those years ago. Incredibly clean and sensible.”
“Isn’t that a good thing, in fingernails? I’m not a model, I’m a lawyer. I’m supposed to radiate reliability and competence.”
“Well”—her voice was dry—“you certainly do that.”
Emily walked in. She did not look good. I made a quick goodbye and hung up. “What’s the matter?�
��
She shook her head. “Will thinks I’m a snitch and now we’re not friends anymore.”
She started to cry. “I’m always the good kid, the reliable kid, and sometimes that sucks so badly. I want to be the fun kid.”
I gathered her into a hug, and she let me. “Baby, you are the fun kid.”
“No,” she said, wiping her soggy face on my sleeve, making me glad I hadn’t changed for dinner yet. “I’m the kid who stands by the side and laughs at the fun kid. I’m not even a toady sidekick, I’m just one of the background kids. I don’t get picked first or last, I get picked somewhere in the middle. I’m ordinary. In twenty years when people look at school photos, they’re not going to remember my name. I’m going to be that kid who did school paper, or who won the stupid penmanship thing. I’m going to be nameless.”
She was working herself up. I decided to let her blow off steam.
“And I’ve even ruined my safe spot in the crowd by snitching on my friends, so now I’ll be remembered as the girl who snitched. Th . . . this is going to be my defining high school moment.” She was starting to hyperventilate a little.
“No,” I said, “you’re going to be the girl who was questioned by the FBI. That’s much more fun.”
No dice. No laughter setting available. Emily shook her head, sniffed, and stepped back. “No, I told Will the truth and he called me a snitch and walked away.”
I watched her turn away, and asked, “Will he tell everyone?”
“No,” she said, wise with experience. “But eventually everyone will know, because that’s how information works. It leaks to one person, then trickles along to another, then everyone knows.” She sat on the desk chair, looking around for the first time. “Why do we have such a big room?”
“Baby, the people who know you will understand . . .”
She was annoyed suddenly, smacking her palm on the desk, deciding anger was more comfortable than sorrow. “Mom, it’s not about the people that know me. It’s about everyone else, don’t you get it?”
“Well, I . . .”
“And what do you know about it, anyway? You barely pay any attention to my life. The only reason you know about this is because the freaking authorities got involved.”
“Well, you could have told me.” If she’d wanted to, but she didn’t, said the voice in my head.
“When? In the three minutes you’re home every day? I guess I could have sent you an email. Or asked your assistant to pass along a message. Like that time I got her to email a permission slip to school because you were in a meeting.” She pulled her leg up under her, curling like a snail.
Her tone was so scornful, I recoiled. “That was one time.”
“I’m such a huge disappointment to you.”
I was stung, and sad that the comfortable closeness of the nail salon had apparently dissipated. “That is completely untrue. I’m incredibly . . .”
Her face got redder. “I don’t want to be a lawyer, I don’t have a patent, I don’t have a million followers, I don’t plan to go to an Ivy League, I don’t want to be like you, and you hate me!”
I stood up and reached for her. “Baby, I don’t hate you, how can you think that?”
She rolled the chair back, out of reach. “I know it! The other day at dinner with Grandpa you didn’t even notice I was gone for, like, twenty minutes.”
I frowned. “What?”
“I was in the bathroom and lost track of time and when I got back you were chatting away, probably about your fabulous Valentina.” She made a frustrated gesture. “She’s the daughter you wish you had, right? A fancy, supersmart, really ambitious woman like you.”
“Um, well, first of all, she’s too old to be my daughter, and . . .”
“I’m speaking metaphorically!” She stood up again, nearly tipping the chair. “I’m mediocre in every way, compared to Alice, compared to Valentina, compared to you, Mom! I’m a total fuckup, and you’re ashamed of me.”
“Emily Burnstein, watch your language . . .” This argument was getting completely out of control. “Now sit down and take a deep breath.”
Amazingly, she sat, this time on the bed. I went to sit next to her on the bed but thought better of it. I pulled the desk chair around and sat facing her.
“Listen to me. From the moment you were born, you’ve been the very best thing about my life. Yes, I work hard, because we need to eat and because I love my work. I won’t apologize for that. But you come first, you’ve always come first, and no one and nothing on earth even comes close to how much I love you, and marvel at you, and am blown away by you every single day.” I leaned closer. “You’re completely your own person, Emily, you’re not like anyone else, and I wouldn’t want you to be. Least of all like me. I’m boring.”
She sniffed. “You’re not boring.”
“I am. I follow my little path, putting one foot in front of the other.”
“You’re strong.”
“I’m inflexible.”
She smiled, a little bit. “You’re passionate.”
“I’m opinionated.”
“You do what’s right.”
I shook my head. “I do what’s expected of me.”
“Not lately. You’re ready to throw your career away for a principle.” There was a silence. She hiccupped a bit. “I’m sorry I swore.”
“It’s totally fucking fine.”
She laughed. “I’m jealous of Valentina.”
“I noticed that.”
“She sees you more than I do. Everyone in your dumb office sees you more than I do.” Her eyes filled with tears again. “What if I leave home and you don’t even notice?”
My vision spangled, too. “What if you leave home and don’t even miss me?”
She stood suddenly, and sat in my lap. She said, in a strangled voice, “I miss you already, Mom.”
I wrapped my arms around her. “I miss you, too, baby.”
“I love you, Mom.”
“I love you more.”
It was at that precise moment my phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket and looked at it. It was my boss, John. I turned it to show Emily, then powered off the phone and threw it on the bed.
We sat there for ages silently. It was a big, pathetic mess of tears and dripping mascara, but neither of us wanted to be anywhere else at all.
25
JESSICA
Once we’d both calmed down, we got dressed and headed out to dinner at Robert and Amanda’s house. I’d suggested to Em we stay in the hotel and order room service, but she wanted to go.
“I love Amanda’s place. Besides, I haven’t seen Chloe in years.”
I closed the hotel room door and headed down the hall. “I’m not sure Chloe will be there, isn’t she still in school?”
“It’s spring break, remember? She might be there.” Emily was visibly pulling herself together. She reminded me of my mother when she did this. My mom was the queen of the quick recovery. She frequently broke things or attempted something she shouldn’t have (like replumbing the country house on her own, at seventy) and Things Happened. But she would always survey the damage, wipe whatever needed wiping, and shake her feathers back into place.
Onward and upward, she would say. And onward and upward she would go. I suddenly missed her, that sharp sudden inhalation of cold air, the slice of memory lodging in my throat.
“Well,” I said, waiting for the elevator doors to close. “Onward and upward, baby.”
She looked at me and smiled. “I was thinking about Grandma, in the shower. That’s funny.”
“Do you remember her very well?” Emily had been still quite young when my mom had passed away, maybe twelve or so.
Emily nodded. “Of course. She was the best. She had a lathe.”
I laughed out loud, having completely forgotten that. “That’s r
ight.” I frowned suddenly. “She didn’t let you use it, did she?”
Emily stepped through the opening doors into the lobby. “Grandma? Let me play on a deadly high-velocity tool? With blades?” She snorted. “Of course not.” But then she grinned at me over her shoulder. “How do you think I made you that Mother’s Day mug rack?”
I stopped. “You made that?”
Emily shrugged and headed to the street.
* * *
• • •
Amanda and Robert lived, as I have said, in a brownstone they bought at the end of the nineties. I don’t know what they paid for it, but let’s say they got lucky. Mind you, back then 148th Street between Broadway and Riverside was not a fancy neighborhood. Now it was a stone-cold hipster paradise, and Amanda and Robert would sit on their stoop and tut over how much the neighborhood had gentrified, despite the fact that they were among the first to start the process.
“No, we were here long before it was cool,” they would say, and maybe they were right. Anyway, now the house was looking pretty lived in, which is what happens after three kids make their way through both the place and the parents’ decorating budget. Chloe was their youngest, but she was still a few years older than Emily. We’d visited every couple of years, usually before or after seeing my parents, and Emily and Chloe had always gotten along. Chloe, being the baby of her family, enjoyed the novel sensation of being an older sister, and Emily enjoyed everything about Chloe. Which explained her squeal of delight when it was, in fact, Chloe who opened the door and welcomed us in.
“Em!”
“Chloe!”
Repeat that a few times in a pitch only dogs and dolphins can hear, and you’ll have a perfect re-creation.
Amanda was in the kitchen, as usual, a pen tucked behind her ear, her hair sticking up at the back like always. She looked up as I came in but kept stirring her cooking.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” I said, sitting down at the counter and dropping my bag on the floor. As always, it was as if we’d seen each other yesterday. We’d lived together the last two years of college, and that kind of intimacy doesn’t wear away. Amanda’s dog, Harvey, wandered over and blundered into the chair. He was some kind of middle-sized poodle mix, with hair that stuck up like Amanda’s. When he was freshly washed he was like a camel-colored dandelion clock, but the rest of the time he was more . . . clumpy.