Hanging by a Thread (25 page)

I sit there, staring across the street and thinking about Jason's comment, about how he couldn't stand the thought of spending his whole life “living a lie” like I had. I'm not entirely sure what he meant by that, since there's an awful lot he doesn't know, but that doesn't negate his comment's accuracy.

“Why do we waste so much energy on being afraid to admit the truth?”

I can feel Luke's gaze veer to my face, the intensity of his expression sending itty-bitty shock waves coursing over my skin. Then he looks away.

“Because sometimes,” he says softly, “we know the truth is gonna hurt. So we think it's better to keep things to ourselves.”

“Or from ourselves?”

“That, too.”

I sigh, knowing what he wants me to say.

“This is about wanting to tell Tina about Starr, isn't it?”

He nods. “I know you said you needed some time, but…I'm sorry, El. This is gonna eat away at me until I come clean.”

I think about what
I
know that I can't talk about, and feel sick.

“There's no sense telling her anything without finding out for sure,” I say, annoyance rising like bile in my throat.

“Then we'll find out for sure.” His voice seems very far away. “But don't you think she deserves to know?”

That, I can't answer. But Luke certainly deserves to know. As does Starr. And I suppose, on some level, I do, too. Yet here
I sit, getting more pissed by the minute. And hating myself for it because I don't understand
why
I'm so pissed.

I get up, brushing off my butt. “Fine. Whatever you want.”

“El? What's wrong?”

“Nothing,” I say, heading for the door. “I just don't want to stay out here too long, in case Starr wakes up and comes looking for me—”

I gasp when Luke's hand tightens around my arm. “Why the hell are you so upset? I thought this was what you wanted, to finally get this out in the open?”

“I never said that!”

“You didn't have to.”

Even in the weird orangey glow from the streetlamp, I can see remorse camping out in his eyes. For some reason, this makes me even crazier.

“Oh, so now
you've
decided everybody should know, it doesn't matter what I think?”

“What are you talking about? Of course it matters what you think! It always did—”

“Did it? Did it, Luke? When I told you I was pregnant, whose idea was it not to tell Tina?”

His brows dips. “It was both of ours—”

“No, it wasn't. Not at first. You asked me if we could keep it a secret, and I agreed, because I loved—” my voice catches “—both of you. And now—”

I stop myself, before I say too much. Before I feel too much.

“Ellie…” His breath leaves his lungs in a rush. “All I'm tryin' to do is fix things.”

“Why?” I say, my eyes burning. “Because now that Tina and you won't be making babies, it's safe to acknowledge Starr as yours?”

Like tiny, poisonous darts, the words are out of my blow-gun of a mouth and embedded in their target before I even knew I was taking aim.

Just what I needed tonight, to connect with my inner bitch.

“Shit, Luke, I'm sorry, I didn't mean—”

But the devastation in his eyes stops dead in its tracks whatever I thought I was going to say.

A second later, he's gone.

See, this is why we keep the truth to ourselves, if we even acknowledge it at all: because it simply hurts too damn much. It hurts to hear it, it hurts to say it…

It just hurts. Period.

O
kay, I've got a question: When the hell did my daughter and my sister bond? How did I miss this?

I've clearly been spending way too much time in this basement. But when I asked Starr about it, all she said was, “Because she looked like she could use a friend.”

Oh, to be five again.

Anyway, I made this rather startling discovery this morning when Jen asked me if she could take Starr to the mall with her, and Starr said, “Please, Mama?” and before I could mutter, “Uh, sure, I guess…” they were gone. I was half concerned Jen would forget she had a child in her care and leave her someplace, but since they both returned an hour ago—whispering and giggling—I guess my worries were groundless.

Some things, you don't try to understand, you just accept. Like gravity. Or that strange redheaded dude who does the 1-800-CALL-ATT commercials.

Now, as I sit hunched over the cutting table (Dolly went home an hour ago), pinning the size Large pattern to many layers of chiffon and trying to ignore the cramp in my gut brought on by my conversation with Luke last night, my daughter is imploring me to “come see what Aunt Jennifer's doing in the kitchen.”

I remember the kitchen. Sort of. That's where the coffeepot and microwave are, right?

“Come
on,
” Starr says, grabbing my hand to drag me off the stool. I trudge behind her, yawning, fabric fluff and thread bits clinging to my T-shirt and hair.

My house smells like Heaven. And my sister, when I reach the kitchen, looks…happy. If a little possessed, flitting from counter to table to oven, mixing and checking and peering at cookbooks. So somebody really does use those things. I always wondered about that.

“Don't worry,” she says, grinning. “You'll never even taste the arsenic.”

“I didn't know you cooked,” I say, standing in the doorway since I'm afraid I'll get trampled if I step any farther inside.

She glances up, her smile…shy? Something. “One of the few things I
can
do. But I hadn't felt much like it before now. Besides, I didn't want to intrude.”

I frown.

“It's your kitchen, after all.”

Starr and I look at each other and burst out laughing. Jen smiles. I think she gets it. Then she says, “Everything should be ready in about twenty minutes. I thought maybe we'd eat in the dining room?”

“With candles and the pretty dishes?” Starr pipes up.

“If it's okay with your mom.”

Honey, right now I don't care if I eat in the street.

Twenty minutes later, all I can say is…my sister sure knows her way around a chicken breast. The chicken's been pounded thin and is rolled around a stuffing with…stuff in it. Cheese
and crunchy bits and things. Whatever, it's terrific. Even Starr's eating it (I guess if you deprive a child of real food long enough, she'll eat anything). When Jen brings out a bottle of wine, though, I shake my head.

“None for me, I have to work tonight.”

“No, it's okay, it's nonalcoholic,” she says, expertly uncorking it and pouring it into a pair of Waterford wineglasses that were my grandmother's pride and joy. “I seem to recall you and alcohol don't do very well together.”

“How would you know that?”

Jen glances at Starr, who's busy picking the mushrooms out of her green beans, then says in a low voice, “Like I didn't know what was going on that night when you were fourteen? You know, when Tina brought you back home?”

“Ah. And I suppose you took great delight in ratting on me.”

“Oh, absolutely. Only Mom said your misery was punishment enough.”

“That would have been my take on it.” I hold up my still-clean bread plate, a simple ivory Lennox pattern with gold trim. “These were the meat dishes, remember?”

“Ohmigod, you're right, I'd forgotten. From the Kosher phase. How long was that, anyway?”

“Two years? Three?”

“No, it must've been four, because I remember it was two years before Mama died that Nana went into Jewish overdrive.”

I don't say anything, not wanting to spoil the mood. I mean, not only am I enjoying the food, but I'm actually enjoying my sister's company. Since I have no idea when the potion's going to wear off, I intend to make the most of it.

“I'm done,” Starr announces. “C'n I be excused?”

I glance at her plate. “You ate three bites.”

“Four. And I'm full.”

Swear to God, the kid is an airfern. How I've managed to keep her alive this long is beyond me.

“Yeah, okay,” I say, waving her off. As she scrambles down out of the chair, Jennifer calls out, telling her there's chocolate mousse for dessert.

“You do realize,” I say when Starr's gone, “you're making it very hard to remember why I don't like you.”

She looks genuinely hurt. “Still?”

“Jen, get real. It's gonna take more than one meal and a couple of noncombative conversations for me to trust you.” I take a sip of the wine. It's good, but even I can tell it's missing something. Like fat-free ice cream, it's just not the same thing. “I mean, can you blame me?”

“No,” she says on a sigh. “I suppose not.” She takes a small bite of her Chicken Whatever—I've noticed she doesn't eat much more than Starr, which is why I suppose she's not much bigger than Starr, either—and says, “I'm not here because Stuart lost his job.”

I tense. “You're…not?”

Sad eyes meet mine, a second sigh drifting across the table like goose down. “No. Oh, he lost his job. And he's somewhere in the Midwest. Well, I suppose he is. Actually, he could be on the moon, for all I know. Since the divorce papers came from an attorney in Syosset.”

“Oh, Jen…I'm so sorry.” And I am. No, really. As much as I can be for someone I don't totally trust, anyway.

Judging from the look on her face, there's more.

“And there's more,” she says, getting up from the table and disappearing into the kitchen, returning seconds later with a glass and my grandfather's bourbon. Yes, the same bottle from nearly six years ago. Should be
real
potent stuff by now. She pours herself a ladylike inch in the glass, only to knock it back like a trucker. “When I first came here, though, I had no idea what was on his mind. Which was, apparently, to dump me. And clean me out. Everything was in both our names, and he took it all. And canceled the credit cards. Except for my jew
elry, my clothes and the car, it's all gone. I wouldn't have any cash at all if it weren't for the money from Leo.”

“So…the money from the sale of the house…?”

“Gone.” She pours herself another shot, downs it in one. “Honest to God, I didn't plan on staying here for more than a week or two.” Her eyes get all teary, although whether to the booze or her situation, I'm not sure. “But now I've got no place else to go. I'm
homeless,
Ellie. I'm fucking
homeless.
”

No, you're not, your home is right here with Starr and me,
is what I should be saying, right this very minute, my hand over hers, soothing and reassuring. Except right this very minute, a little me is running around inside my brain screaming
Aiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Oh, poop. Now she's crying. Big, honking sobs into one of the linen napkins I never use because they're a bitch to wash and iron.

Damn. I'd really wanted to finish my dinner.

Oh a sigh, I get up and go around the table, kneeling beside her and taking her hands. I can't believe I'm about to say this, but here goes:

“You've always got a home here, you know that. You can stay as long as you need, until you figure out what your next step is.”

I figured I might as well plant the idea that there needs to
be
a next step, although my comment is met with a wailed,
“What the hell kind of ‘next step' is there for an unemployed t-t-trophy wiiife?”

Hey, she said it, not me. But I'm guessing a liberal arts degree from Queens College, followed by ten years of hosting charity dos and business dinners have not exactly rendered my sister a hot commodity, employment-wise.

My knees are killing me, so I get up while I still can. “We'll figure something out.”

“You sure?”

Oh, God. She looks so hopeful. So naive. So miserable.

“Sure I'm sure,” I lie, returning to my seat. If I hurry, I can finish up my meal before the chicken gets that icky, gooey stuff all over it. Does this make me a cold, unfeeling bitch? Or just starved—and grateful—for decent food?

Over the next several seconds, her sobs turn to sniffles, then hiccups. She belts back another shot of booze and says, “Maybe I c-could write a bo-ook.”

I tell myself not to go there. If she thinks I didn't hear her, maybe she'll move on to something more practical. Like becoming a paratrooper. But nooo, apparently
this
is the idea that catches fire in her underutilized brain.

“I could get an agent, and he—or she—could get me an advance, and then I could get my own place, nothing too fancy, maybe a cute little one-bedroom on the Upper West Side, where I could look out at Central Park while I write.”

I'm not making this up, I swear.

“What would you write about?”

Her brow crinkles. For about two seconds. Then she brightens like the sun coming out after a storm. The classic symptoms of alcohol-induced manic depression. “My life as a trophy wife, what else?”

And with that, she pops up from her seat and begins snatching dishes off the table (when she goes for my plate, I grab it and growl at her), prattling away about titles and chapter headings and God knows what else, ending with, “Can I borrow your computer? I might as well get started right away, while the idea is still fresh.”

Wow. I didn't even know she typed. Except then she says, “It does have Via Voice, doesn't it?”

“What the hell's that?”

She sighs, but it's the sigh of someone confronting an unexpected, but otherwise minor, obstacle to her goal. “I suppose I'll just have to make do,” she says, then sweeps into the kitchen, her hands full of plates, only to turn back and say, “But
don't think for a minute I'm going to mooch off you and not keep up my end of the workload. From now on, think of me as…as your housekeeper!”

I just manage not to choke.

 

Heather's wedding is two weeks away.

Jen is now the fastest hunt-and-peck typist on the Eastern seaboard (and cooking fabulous meals every night—this, I could get used to), I'm up to my eyeballs in chiffon and taffeta, and I keep shoving the Luke/Starr issue to the back of my brain like that sparkly sweater on the top shelf of my closet that Leo gave me five Christmases ago. The one I either need to give away or wear, already.

I called Luke and apologized for being an unreasonable, hysterical, pain in the can. He said it was okay, he understood, but considering he immediately said he was busy and rang off, my guess is he hates me. Since I'm none too thrilled with myself these days, I can't exactly blame him.

And it's hot. The first week of June and the temperature's already hovering around ninety. With humidity somewhere in the thousand percent range. Rain forest without all the pretty birds. I put in a small window air conditioner down here out of deference to Dolly, but the cool air stops precisely ten feet from the appliance. My work area is precisely a foot and a half beyond that. Even with a six-foot tall industrial fan blowing right on me, it's like sitting in a vat of stew. Why would anyone in their right mind love summer? Call me crazy, but I prefer seasons where I don't worry about mold growing under my breasts.

Except for Jennifer, who, even without the booze, is in a state of euphoria with this book of hers, my black mood has apparently infected everyone around me. The cat won't even stare at me anymore. Starr spends more and more time at the Gomezes', or with Jennifer, which is making me feel more and more guilty—about dumping on Liv, about being too busy to
play with my child, which was the whole reason for my staying home to begin with—which in turn is making me even crankier.

Even Dolly is making me cranky, which only goes to show how close to the edge I am. Being cranky with Dolly is like being cranky with Mrs. Santa, for God's sake. Besides being a crackerjack seamstress, she's one of those people who just never seems to get upset about anything. Which is probably what's annoying me about her. Bitching is meant to be a group sport, dammit.

I glance across the room, where we've rigged a pipe over a pair of ladders to hang the dresses that are nearly finished so their hems will “grow” before we finish them, and some of the crabbiness dissipates. I have to say, seeing the gowns all in a row like that, they're really pretty. And I'm proud of them, that I made them from scratch. Of course, it's a fluke, this design—remember all the ones I tossed?—but all the girls look good in it, and Heather's happy, and that's all that matters.

What's strange, though, is that, as much as I'm looking forward to getting this project out of my hair, I think—I can't believe I'm saying this—I'm going to miss it, too. In other words, I wouldn't mind taking on another wedding, or making a prom dress now and then. At least until I figure out what I really want to be when I grow up.

You can stop laughing now.

My cell rings; at the sight of Liv's number, my heart jumps into my throat. I was never like this before I had a kid, always expecting the worst. And what's crazy is—knock on wood— Starr's never had anything worse than a skinned knee or a cold. Liv has boys, Liv sees gushing blood on a regular basis, yet she doesn't get as flustered with her three as I do with my one—

“Aren't you going to answer your phone, sweetheart?” Dolly asks.

“Hey, Liv,” I say calmly into the phone. “What's up?”