The Smart One and the Pretty One (27 page)

“Lots of sedating drugs,” Nancy said, and her daughters and Russell laughed.

“My parents were married for sixty-two years,” Lana said. “Can you imagine? Sixty-two years.” She wiped her mouth daintily on the edge of a napkin. “Of course, they loathed each other.”

“Kind of makes you feel all warm inside, doesn’t it?” Russell said to the girls. “Sadly, I’ve never made it past the third year of loathing.”

“Don’t give up,” Lauren said. “I have faith that you and Ava will one day celebrate your golden loathing anniversary.”

“Him and Ava?” Lana said, looking at them. “Is there something we should all know?”

“Actually,” Lauren said with sudden animation, “it’s really funny. I found this contract that—” She stopped with a sudden yelp as Ava kicked her in the shin.

“Sorry,” Ava said with a warning look. “Didn’t realize that was your leg.”

“That
really
hurt.”

“What were you saying?” Lana asked Lauren.

Lauren pushed her chair back a little so she was out of kicking range. “I found this contract that you and our parents made when we were little. It said that Ava and Russell had to marry each other when they grew up.”

Lana gave a little scream. It took Ava a few seconds to register it as mirth rather than distress. “Oh, my dear Lord, I had forgotten all about that!” she shrieked, holding her napkin in front of her mouth, presumably to preserve feminine modesty by hiding the interior from view. “But we
did
do that—I remember! No wonder Russell’s marriages didn’t work out! He was already promised to another! Oh, it’s too wonderful.” She dropped her napkin so she could grab onto Nancy’s arm. “Why didn’t we get these two together long ago? We’ve wasted so much time! Ava would have been the perfect daughter-in-law. Not like those other girls.”

“Thank you,” Nancy said. “I’ve always liked her.”

“But not as much as me, right?” Lauren said, and Nancy gave her an admonishing look that was also amused.

“They make a gorgeous couple, don’t you think?” Lana said, looking back and forth rapidly between Ava and Russell, who both shrank down into their seats.

The fact that Lana Markowitz thought she and Russell belonged together felt to Ava like the final nail in the coffin of her almost-relationship with the guy. The woman was five and a half feet of solid bad judgment.

“Imagine how cute the grandchildren would be,” Lana added.

“Adorable,” Nancy said, “but if I’ve learned anything over the past couple of decades, it’s that we parents don’t actually have much control over any aspect of our kids’ lives, starting with toileting and continuing on to pretty much everything else, and
especially
not their love lives.”

“But isn’t that the shame of it?” Lana said. “We could choose so much better for them than they choose for themselves.”

Russell raised his hand. “On behalf of the entire younger generation, I’d like to say that we appreciate your faith in us.”

She shook her head at him, smiling. “Oh, you. You know what I mean. You can’t deny you haven’t made a complete mess of it all with your marriages and divorces and Lord knows what in alimony payments, and have you even learned anything from it all?”

Russell said, “No. I can’t deny that. I can’t even parse it.”

“Don’t you think Ava would have been a much better choice?” Lana said. “And don’t go giving your father any credit for it—it was me and Nancy who came up with that idea, wasn’t it, Nancy?”

“Yes, I’m afraid it was,” Nancy said with a slightly apologetic glance at Ava. “But only as a passing joke. Who’d have thought we’d all end up sitting around our table talking about it decades later?”

A burst of a loud, unintelligible song interrupted the conversation. “Oops,” Lauren said. “That’s me.” Her cell phone was lying next to her plate. She picked it up and looked at the screen. “It’s Briana.”

“Oh, how is she?” Nancy said at the same moment that Jimmy said, “Phones do not belong at the table when we’re eating.”

“I’ll call her back later,” Lauren said, pressing a button and putting her phone back down. “We’re supposed to go for a hike later this afternoon.”

“But you made plans to go hiking with
me
this afternoon,” Russell said to Lauren, and Ava’s heart gave a little painful hop. So that was the plan they had been making on the phone.

But Lauren seemed confused. “I did? Really?”

Russell grinned. “Nah, just joking.”

“I would have believed you,” Lauren said with a good-natured laugh. “I’m always messing up plans and double-booking.”

“I’ve noticed,” he said. “Hence the joke.”

Ava looked back and forth between them. So that
wasn’t
the plan they had been making on the phone? What was, then?

“I’m going to make some more coffee,” Jimmy said, pushing back from the table. “Who wants another cup? Lana? Russell?”

Everyone said yes to another cup except for Lana, who said that she was cutting back on caffeine—“I’m jittery enough without it—at least that’s what my doctor says”—and Nancy, who couldn’t stomach coffee at all at the moment and had been drinking hot tea with lemon.

After Jimmy had left the room, Lana laid her hand across Nancy’s pale wrist. “There’s something I need to say.” Everyone waited while she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She opened her eyes again with a flutter of her heavily mascaraed eyelashes. “Nancy, I want you to know that I completely understand why you behaved the way you did back when things were so hard for me. I want you to know that I understand and I forgive.”

Nancy looked down at the slashes of red lying across her arm. She said slowly, “I’m sorry. You forgive me for—?”

“You know.” Lana’s fingers flexed slightly so her fingernails dug gently into Nancy’s skin. “For cutting me off when I needed my friends the most. Believe me, you weren’t the only one. So many of my friends abandoned me after the divorce. And I was angry at first—I have to be honest and tell you that. I was just so hurt and lonely. With all I was going through those years, a phone call would have meant so much—” Her fingers relaxed and she tapped their tips lightly on Nancy’s wrist. “But then I realized that none of you really understood the whole situation. In a way, it was
my
fault for always being so circumspect—maybe I should have confided in people more about what was going on, how he treated me . . .” She shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s easy to have hindsight. And of course I had to protect my boys. That was first and foremost. I couldn’t say anything that might have come back later to haunt them.”

“He didn’t beat you,” Russell said. “You’re making it sound like Dad beat you or stuck you in a closet or something. He didn’t. He didn’t,” he repeated to the rest of the room with a slight edge of desperation. The Nickerson women all nodded sympathetically.

“I never said anything like that at all.” At least the interruption had made Lana take her hand off of Nancy’s arm. For some reason, that was a huge relief to Ava. “All I’m saying is things went on in that house that no one outside of it could know about.” She turned back to Nancy. “So of
course
you had confused loyalties. And later I realized you had also completely cut off my ex—never saw
him
anymore either—and let me tell you, that went a long way toward helping me forgive and forget.” She sat back in her seat and flattened her hand expressively against her half-naked chest. “And today has completed the healing process. I feel whole again, thanks to you and your beautiful family and the warm welcome you’ve all given me this morning.”

“Mom,” Russell said.

“What?” She looked at him, her hand still glued against her chest.

“Nothing.” He shook his head. “Nothing.”

Nancy said, “I’m sorry I wasn’t a better friend to you during that difficult time, Lana. I really am.” She looked awfully tired, Ava thought, with a sudden flash of anger at Lana for wearing her mother out.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry about, Nancy,” Russell said. “We weren’t even living here then. We
moved
, Mom,” he said to Lana. “You can’t blame people for not calling when you move out of town.”

“Phones work long-distance, if I remember correctly.” She removed her hand from her chest and daintily smoothed out a wrinkle in the tablecloth. “And I’m not blaming anyone for anything. That’s my point. All is forgiven, all the wounds are healed.”

“Oh God,” Russell said and actually put his head in his hands. “Like these people need your forgiveness. Like anyone in the world needs Lana Markowitz’s forgiveness.”

“Someday,
you’re
going to want exactly that,” she said. “You’ll want it more than anything else and just because of moments like this one—because of
all
the moments when you dismissed and belittled me—it will be too late.” She appealed to Nancy. “It’s life’s great tragedy, isn’t it? That we don’t value our parents until they’re dead and gone and nothing can ever be fixed.”

“Oh God,” Russell said again.

Nancy said, “Oh, don’t be so sure of that, Lana. Look at us. My girls have been absolutely wonderful through my whole illness, helping out in any way they can. I don’t wish an illness on you, of course, but I’m sure that your boys would be there for you in a second if you needed them.”

“I’d have to be
dying
for them to pay any attention to me,” Lana said.

“The temptation right now is to suggest it’s worth a try,” Russell muttered.

“You’re so lucky you had girls,” Lana said to Nancy.

“I am,” Nancy said. “But if I had a son like Russell, I wouldn’t throw him out.”

“Thank you.” He smiled at her and then pushed back his chair. “Mom, we should go.”

“It feels like we just got here,” Lana said and waited. When no one urged her to stay longer, she said, “But of course we shouldn’t overtire you, Nancy. You have to promise me, though, that we’ll do this again next time I’m in town.”

“Of course,” Nancy said, a little feebly.

Lana picked up her fork. “Just two more bites of my melon,” she said gaily, “and I’ll be on my way.”

“Come on,” Russell said to Ava, with a jerk of his chin toward the door. “I need to talk to you before we go.”

Everyone stared at them both, and Ava flushed, but it seemed more awkward to protest than to comply, so she excused herself from the table and followed Russell into the front hall while the others settled back down at the table—although, now that she thought about it, her father still hadn’t returned from making the coffee, which seemed a little suspicious. How long could it take to measure out a few tablespoons and pour some water?

A few steps outside the dining room, Russell halted, and so Ava did, too. He took her gently by the shoulders and turned her a little this way and that, eyeing her clothing, until she broke away, annoyed. She was wearing an old, loose pair of jeans and a Catalina Island T-shirt that had been a giveaway at her law firm’s annual retreat. “You’re not wearing any of the clothes I gave you,” he said. “I’m disappointed.”

“It’s Sunday morning.” She had abandoned her plan to wear the shimmering dark pink top when Lauren had gotten the call from him. She wasn’t going to dress to please a guy she didn’t even trust. “The clothes you gave me were pretty fancy.”

“I know. But I wanted to see you in all your glory.”

“There was no glory. Just me in nicer clothes.”

“That’s glorious,” he said. “From where I’m standing.”

Lauren emerged from the dining room and joined them. “Sorry to interrupt,” she said, “but I’ve reached my limit. Your mother’s a pain in the butt, Russell. No offense.”

“Lauren!” Ava said.

“What? I said no offense.” She was wearing a miniskirt with her go-go boots and a long top that was cinched by a narrow belt. She had pinned her hair up in an elaborate, puffy bun that Ava knew for a fact had taken her twenty minutes in the bathroom to perfect.

Russell certainly didn’t seem offended. He laughed and said, “Did you see the clothes I gave Ava? Weren’t they great?”

“They’re awesome,” Lauren said. “When do
I
get to go get some?”

“Greedy little thing, aren’t you?”

She pouted. “I just want my fair share.”

He shook his finger at her. “You dumped us for the evening. If you hadn’t, you could have gotten some free loot too. That’ll teach you to blow people off.”

Lauren made her eyes wide and innocent. “I
wanted
to go. It’s not my fault my friend came in that day.”

Ava took a step back. They didn’t need her for the conversation. But Russell noticed her retreat.

“Hold on,” he said. “Don’t
you
start going anywhere. I need to show you something.”

“What?” It annoyed her that Lauren was grinning like she knew what he was talking about.

“Come here.” He took her by the arm. “Cover for us, will you, Lauren?” he said over his shoulder. He steered Ava toward the front door and through it. “Think we could just make a run for it?” he said as he slammed it behind them. “My mother’s plane leaves tomorrow at seven. If I could just hide somewhere until then—” He stopped.

“Then what?” Ava asked.

“I might actually keep my sanity.” He was moving them forward, down the walkway, still holding on to Ava’s arm in a way that was more authoritarian than romantic. “But it’s probably too late for that, anyway.”

“Where are we going?” she asked. “I should help clean up.”

“Why are you always in such a hurry to get away from me?”

“I’m not.”

“Anyway, we’re here.” They stopped at the side of his car and he dropped her arm. He got his keys out of his pants pocket and circled around to the back of the car, where he opened the trunk. Ava drew nearer to see what he was doing. He extracted a box and handed it to her. “For you.”

“Shoes?” she said, examining the box. “
Prada
shoes?”

He nodded, brown eyes glowing with anticipation. “Open it up.”

She took the lid off, pushed the tissue paper aside, extracted a shoe, and held it up. It was a black pump—shiny because it was patent leather—with squared-off toes and a touch of silver at the ankle. The heel was stacked and at least three inches high. “Wow,” she said, for want of anything better to say. She would never have picked the shoes out for herself—the heel was too high, the toe too unusual, the price, she suspected, too steep.