Emily & Einstein (26 page)

But no one asked me.

“Freakin’ A! Thank you, Emily!”

“So, let me see the proposal.”

Followed by what I can only call a pregnant pause.

“You want to see it?”

“Jordan? Of course I need to see it.”

Honeymoon over.

“Well, it’s not done yet.”

Emily drew one of her deep, bracing breaths. “Okay,” she said, “so it’s not done. No problem. Just show me what you have.”

Jordan squirmed.

“Tell me you’ve something written, Jordan.”

“Of course I have. It’s just that…”

“Just what?”

“It’s a little rough.”

More deep breathing, then, “Rough is fine.”

Jordan debated before dashing to her bedroom.

“I never should have gotten involved in this,” Emily said to me.

Ah, yeah.

The younger woman returned holding a spiral-bound notebook, her face red with guilt.

Emily extended her hand. “Let me see it.”

From my vantage point all I could see was messy, large, looping script, and doodles up and down the margins. Emily pressed her eyes shut and I felt certain she was praying.

“I’ll let you read in peace,” Jordan said.

She slipped away while Emily read one page, then another. She read without stopping, Jordan peeking her head in every few minutes. When Emily didn’t acknowledge her, the younger Barlow looked at me with a question in her eyes.

“Can’t help you.” I shrugged.

And I couldn’t. I had no sense of what Emily was feeling. She put off no scent whatsoever as she read. When she came to the end of what Jordan had written, she closed the notebook and bent over the table, pressing her forehead to the front cover.

I smelled her tears before I heard her crying.

“Emily?” Jordan said, tiptoeing into the room.

Emily sat up slowly, her eyes red.

“You hate it,” Jordan said.

“I don’t hate it.” Though she certainly didn’t look like she loved it.

“Then what is it?”

Emily stood to face her sister. “I never thought about how living with our mother affected
you
.”

emily

“Don’t let the world force you to be someone you’re not,” my mother used to tell me. Little did my mother know that in her own oblique way she had forced me to be like her, and that it wasn’t necessarily what I wanted. At twenty-two, I had spent my whole life trying to be who my mother wanted me to be—to be like her, not like Emily. At twenty-two, I was fighting battles, my mother’s battles, as if my legacy was to carry on her dream rather than any I might have had on my own.

—
EXCERPT FROM
My Mother’s Daughter

chapter twenty-six

My mother was a puzzle. Actually several puzzles whose pieces were so shuffled together that it was impossible to form a cohesive whole. Reading Jordan’s pages brought that home to me more than ever.

Lillian Barlow fought for a woman’s right to have a career, but she gave up her own to stay home with her daughters. She might have needed her admirers, but she didn’t respect any of them as they lined up at her parties looking for a handout of her attention like beggars at a soup kitchen.

“You can toy with men,”
she often said,
“but you can never need them.”

If she was free with her attention, she was selfish with her affection. I had hated that fact about her.

I had spent my life wrapped up in my own problems with being my mother’s daughter. With Jordan seemingly so like her, it had never occurred to me that my sister’s life had been difficult as well. In hindsight, I realized I had been blind not to see it. But more than that, for the first time I understood my mother’s ability to be selfish. Sitting there with Jordan’s scribbled pages, I selfishly didn’t want her story to see the light of day.

“You hate it!” Jordan cried. “I never should have mentioned it.”

During my time in publishing, I had seen many authors expose raw nerves of insecurity about their work. But it was disconcerting to see any sort of insecurity coming from my sister, who had been traveling the world alone since she was a teenager.

“Jordan, I don’t hate it.”

She bit her lower lip. “Then what?”

I hesitated. “It’s just that I hadn’t given any thought to what this book is about. Living in the shadow of Lillian Barlow.”

“But look at you, Emily. You moved out from the shadow. You created your own life.”

I was equally touched and frustrated by this, because I hadn’t moved out from Mother’s shadow. Not really. Wasn’t I trying to find a place for myself at the new Caldecote Press with a book about her? Wasn’t it a very real possibility that Tatiana was in some way keeping me on because she had known my mother? Would Hedda have offered me a job had she not known Lillian Barlow? But that wasn’t my biggest concern right then.

“Jordan, what is really going on with you?”

Since Jordan had appeared on my doorstep she had been acting even more combative than usual, but I had been too wrapped up in my own concerns to give it much thought.

Jordan blew out a breath.

“Talk to me, please.”

After a second, my sister wrinkled her nose, then said, “I’m not exactly taking a break from Homes for Women Heroes. I got fired.”

“What?”

“It wasn’t my fault.” Jordan scowled. “Okay, so maybe it was my fault. But, well, there was this guy. Serge. He was totally cool, or at least I thought he was. He’s all into helping people, and he was completely into me.”

She hesitated.

“Go on.”

She raised her chin, part defiance, part anxiety. “The deal with Heroes is that you have to pledge that while you’re working on an assignment you can’t, well, hook up with other members of the team.” She cringed. “We were sort of caught, you know, hooking up, and that ass blamed it on me! And let me tell you, it was totally a mutual thing. We got reprimanded and kicked off the project. Then he dumped me!”

I could hardly believe it when my tough little sister started to cry. But when I reached out to her, she brushed me away.

“I am not crying,” she said, crying even harder. “He’s a jerk. But I was really into him. Me! Me, who never gets in a twist over any guy!”

“Jordan, don’t beat yourself up because you fell for someone.”

“He was everything I didn’t think I would ever find. So many of the guys I meet fall into nonprofit because they think they won’t have to work hard, or they do it because they think it’s a free pass to cool places. But Serge believed. He believed in what we were doing. He was willing to work his butt off to make things happen.

“Plus he was good looking and massively sexy.” Her voiced trailed off. “How could Lillian Barlow’s daughter be one of those girls just like the rest, the pathetic loser who gets all broken up over a guy? And even if I did fall for him, how could I possibly be the kind of person who whacks out over it?”

This time when I pulled her close she didn’t resist. “Oh, Jordan,” I murmured. “You’re only human. Everyone makes mistakes.”

“Mom would be totally mortified.”

I hesitated. “Mother’s way isn’t the only way to live.”

Jordan pushed back and looked at me. “Are you happy, Em?”

“Touché.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just that I’ve always thought of you as being happy despite that prick you married.”

“Jordan.”

“Well, it’s true. But since I’ve been here, sorry, but you don’t seem all that happy.”

“I lost my husband. What do you expect?”

She didn’t back down or even look contrite. “I don’t know. Something different. You don’t seem sad, like
grieving
sad. It’s more like you’re angry and … lost.”

Jordan was like that, young and oblivious, then all of the sudden very smart. If I was truthful with myself, at first I had covered up my feelings by throwing myself into work. After the journals, I had felt more angry and lost than sad. Had those emotions gotten in the way of true grief? What would happen if I finally managed to deal with the loss of my husband, deal with the loss of the man who I had to believe once loved me, and also deal with his actual death?

I realized I was afraid to really look at what I would find. If I had patched over the loss of my mother by marrying Sandy, then patched over the loss of Sandy with Einstein and work and even anger, when I finally let go what would be left of me? Who would I be?

“You’re still going to publish my book, right?”

My sister’s face was earnest and for the first time in years her hard edges softened. I didn’t know how to disappoint her. More than that, I didn’t see how I could backtrack. What she had written was good enough that another publisher would pick it up. If I lost this book to another publisher, Tatiana would have my head. The world might not care about the life of a former women’s activist, but it did care about a woman who had led an unconventional life, only to give it all up for the kind of conventional existence that she had fought so hard against.

The surprise was that my little sister had understood that about our mother when I hadn’t, and had captured it on paper.

“When can you have the whole thing done?” I asked her.

She squealed, then danced me around the kitchen. She even leaned over and gave Einstein a hug. My dog looked at me in consideration. And while there was no way to turn back, I had a bad feeling that I was going to regret the day I pitched
My Mother’s Daughter.

*   *   *

It was the next morning that I began to run in earnest. Not that I realized it at the time.

With the sun not even a hint on the horizon, Einstein nudged my door open and shook his dog tags to wake me. When I grumbled and tried to shoo him away, he jumped up on the bed, dropped the leash on my face, and barked.

“Okay, okay,” I muttered. “I’m awake.”

As soon as he jumped down, I rolled over and burrowed deeper into the mattress.

My dog was having nothing to do with this. He clamped onto the edge of the covers with his teeth, then pulled them off me.

“It’s too early to run,” I complained. But by then I really was awake. I rolled out of bed, glowered at him, and pulled on shorts and running shoes. Einstein pranced ahead of me, while I grumbled the whole way.

Once on the bridle path we didn’t run far, but I had to admit that by the time we staggered back to the apartment I felt a sense of hope I hadn’t felt in ages. It was the end of April, flowers starting to bloom. It was that same week that Max called.

“I heard from Bert Warburg. He’s gone over your prenup and wants to know when you can come in.”

“As soon as he’ll see me!”

“His message said that tomorrow, first thing, would work for him, or at lunch.”

I told myself I wasn’t disappointed that Max didn’t go with me this time. I hadn’t seen him since our ride uptown on the Number 1 train, and I hadn’t even been trying to avoid him this time.

As it turned out, I was massively relieved he wasn’t there when the lawyer gave me the news.

“This agreement is ironclad.”

“But it can’t be.” I spread out my meager stash of apartment photos and receipts. “My husband gave me a verbal promise. And look at all this work I put into the place.”

“Ms. Barlow,” he said with a sigh, “I’m sure you realize that this does nothing to negate the prenuptial agreement. And having only been married three years, your chances of getting the agreement overturned are beyond slim.”

He considered me for a second, tapping his pen on the blotter. “But listen, given the prominence of the family, I’m sure if we sent a letter, threatening to sue for reimbursement, while they would know the claim would never succeed in court, I feel confident the Portmans will settle for some amount of money rather than deal with any possible bad press.”

I had no interest in some monetary settlement from the Portmans. Despite that, I still couldn’t shake the sense that it wasn’t over. Something was making me hold on to the apartment. Something I didn’t understand told me that I still couldn’t give up.

*   *   *

The next morning I left the Dakota with instructions for Jordan to type up the pages of
My Mother’s Daughter
. When I got to the office Tatiana was waiting in the hallway talking to Nate.

“Emily,” she said.

I nodded. “Tatiana. Nate.”

I didn’t linger. I continued into my office, flipping on the light. When I turned back Tatiana stood in the doorway. I barely swallowed back a squeak of surprise.

“Did you get the delivery date from your sister?”

“I did.” Thank God. “She said she should have the whole thing done in four months.”

“Good.” She turned to leave then stopped. “I want to read the proposal. E-mail it to me.”

“Now?”

“Yes, Emily. Now.”

Before I could come up with some excuse not to send it, she was gone. Not that I could keep it from her forever. But as long as no one else saw the pages, somehow I felt I could find a way out.

By the time I got home, Jordan had managed to input the pages. She still wore the jeans and sweatshirt she had pulled on that morning. Her long hair was pulled up in a messy twist, pencils stuck into the updo at odd angles.

“I did it!”

It was the first time I had ever seen her really work, and my confidence grew over the prospect of what we were doing together. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea.

“Good! Tatiana wants to see it.”

“Tatiana? As in your boss, Tatiana?”

“The one and only.”

“Cool!”

I read through the pages, was impressed, and sent the file attached to an e-mail.

The next day Einstein tried to drag me out of bed for yet another run. “You expect me to do this every day?”

He ignored me and dropped a T-shirt on my face. But when I was dressed and ready to go, he rolled over on his back.

“Oh, I get it. You’re taking the day off, but not me.”

He leapt back up, nodded his head, then returned to the kitchen where he curled up in his bed.

I nearly dove back under my own covers. But I was up, and what the heck.

With the sun just brightening the sky, I made my way to the bridle path with a yawn, did a halfhearted job of stretching, groaning with each movement, and started to run. Or at least I started to jog.