Back for more, p.21
Back for More, page 21
“Shit.”
“Don’t worry. I didn’t tell him about us. But I think he must know something anyway.”
“It was fucking D-bag Dan. Shit. I shouldn’t have asked you to meet me there. I mean, I really think you saved the deal, but…”
“I don’t regret any of it, Wes. It’s fine. Really.” I put my hands on either side of his face, and now that I’m comforting him, I realize that it really is fine. “I can wait tables. I’ll find a place with flexible hours so I can still do theater stuff.”
He rests his forehead against mine, his hands on my waist. “Baby…”
“And I’m sure it won’t be hard to find an apartment. They must be so much cheaper than in LA.”
“Did he kick you out?”
“No. I can’t live with him anymore. I’m sure Leesh will let me crash at her place until I figure something out.”
“Lily. Are you kidding? Stay with me.”
“I can’t do that to you.”
“I’m asking you to do that to me. I want you to do that to me. I want you to live with me. With me and Fanny Brice. If that’s what you want.”
“It is. It’s what I want.” I hug him so tight.
“Good. I only have one request.”
“What’s that?”
“I want you to let me watch you warm up your instruments every morning.”
Eye roll. “Bah dah gah pah dah gah hah hah hah.”
“You don’t have to work, you know. If you want to do theater stuff full-time.”
“I have to work. Trust me. But thank you. Taco dinners may have to be on you for a while, though.”
He snickers. “You got it. If you want to go home and get your stuff and say good-bye to Vicky before your dad leaves work, you can go now. I can answer the phones here. I think.”
“You sure? I don’t want to leave you hanging.”
“It’s fine, I got this. I don’t have an extra key on me, but take mine.” He reaches into his pocket for his keys.
“No, it’s fine. I’ll just hang out in my car until you get home or something.”
“Lily,” he says, pulling his house key off his keychain and placing it into the palm of my hand. “I love you. This is your key to your home now.” He closes my fingers around it, and I feel him gently squeezing my heart.
I empty out all of air from my lungs. “Wes. You just said the exact words I’ve needed to hear since I was fourteen years old.”
He pats me on the butt like it’s no big deal. “Go on. Get out of here. Feed the cat and let her outside. I’ll bring dinner.”
After going by Human Resources on my way out, I stop by the ladies room to send Wes three “I love you” texts to his personal phone, and then I take a quick shot of my boob and send it to his work phone, just because I can now. He immediately responds by telling me he deleted it and that I should send all boob pics to his personal phone. I make no such promises.
I drive back to the mansion. I guess I’ll be referring to it as “my dad’s house” now. But the garden will always be my mother’s. And Toby’s. I go out to the garden to visit the finished gazebo and cut some flowers to take to Wes’s house—my home. I pack up as much as I can into my car, including all of the framed pictures I had left behind the last time I’d left. Then I go to the kitchen to give Vicky a big hug.
“I’ll still see you, Vicky. I’ll just be at Wes’s house. You’ll come to my play at the school next month, right?”
She nods once, but she can’t stop shaking her head. She’s not a crier, this one, but I can always tell when she’s having feelings. “Please don’t go, Lily. I know he doesn’t show it, and God knows he doesn’t say it, but he worries about you when you’re gone. You’re his only kid.”
Now I’m the one shaking my head. “If he wants to know how I’m doing, he can ask Wes. Or me. But I can’t live with him. Or work for him. And it looks like we’ll never be able to understand each other. I wanted to. I really did.”
I’m sad, but this is so different from the last time I moved my stuff out of this house. Last time, I was running away. This time I’m running to.
A few hours later, Wes and I are eating takeout tacos on his sofa. Fanny Brice is curled up beside me, and Wes is running lines with me because I have to memorize every word spoken by every female character in the abridged version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream since I’m the understudy for all the actresses. It’s a lot of words to memorize, especially when the words I’m usually thinking now are: “I love you, Wes. Take off your shirt and kiss me.”
“How now, my love!” Wes reads aloud. “Why is your cheek so pale? How chance the roses there do fade so fast?” His serious expression and even deeper voice than usual make me laugh. He frowns at me. “Is it supposed to be funny?”
“No. It’s not supposed to be adorable either, but somehow you make it so.”
He scrunches up his face. “Acting’s hard.”
“Beats underwriting commercial real estate acquisitions. Although you do make it look easy. And sexy as hell.”
“Thanks.” He rolls his eyes. “I majored in sexy underwriting.” He shakes his head at me. “You used to be so prickly and thorny. I’m still not used to you being nice to me all the time.”
“Well, don’t get too used to it. I’m sure I won’t be nice to you all the time. Hey, I was thinking of applying to work at Limestone Coffee. I remember seeing a sign in their window. If I work there, then I can see you when you come in for your Americanos. And then once the play’s over, I can let my modeling agency know I’m available again.”
“Ooooh. You mean I’ll be one of those assholes with a girlfriend who’s a hot model? Yesssss.”
“More like you’ll have a girlfriend who’s a hot asshole. Good luck with that.”
“Baby,” he says, reaching over to run his fingers through my hair. “Are you sure this is what you want? You could have any man in any town.” With his furrowed brow and his dark eyes, he looks so serious and a little worried, and it’s so damn cute.
I take his face in my hands, kiss him softly, and say, “Thank you. But I’d choose you and whatever town you’re in. Every time.”
23
Wes
*Son of a Biscuit*
It has been a month since Lily moved in with Fanny Brice and me. A month of Shakespeare and tacos and morning sex and me wondering how it’s possible that a grown woman can look so put together at all hours of the day and yet leave a bathroom looking like it has been ransacked by an angry mob of toddlers. A month of shameless public displays of affection, our first official date, our first double date with Neal and Alecia, our first dumb fight about her terrible taste in music, our first real fight about her refusal to reach out to her father, and our first make-up sex marathon that was so hot we might have to start scheduling weekly fights to get things out of our system.
I have spent a month going to the office to work for a man who knows full well that I am not only boning his daughter but that she is shacking up with me instead of him. He puts up a good front at work, but I’ve noticed how weary he looks. Every day the bags under his eyes get a little heavier and his shoulders slouch a little lower. I appreciate that neither of them has put me in the middle of this and made me the go-between, but I do feel bad for both of them. It’s awkward for me, but it’s worse for them. There’s this unspoken sadness that’s tearing at my soul.
Although lately, I’m starting to wonder if it’s something else that’s quietly eating away at me.
It’s my birthday. It’s a Saturday. I’m still in bed, wondering where my girlfriend is and why we aren’t currently engaged in some form of horizontal morning birthday celebration. Instead, I’m lying here with a cat on my head, wondering what time the mail will be delivered and if I’ll be getting yet another card from my mother with no return address. Can I really go another year without at least finding out where she is? After five years of convincing myself that I was fine without Lily around and that it was up to her to come back if she wanted me, I know now how much better it feels when you’re not in denial. I don’t think it’s denial for my dad. But it’s different for me. Of course it is. I want answers. I want to know her. I want her to know me.
I’ll just fucking say it: I’m twenty-six years old, and I want my mom.
I hear sprightly footsteps up the stairs. Finally. Seconds later, the room smells a little better and gets a little brighter, even though the curtains are still closed.
“Morning, birthday boy.”
I try to tilt my head so I can see her and finally just move Fanny onto the pillow beside me. Lily is fully dressed and made up, leaning down to give me a chaste kiss on the lips. I grab her and pull her on top of me. She squeals and does the unthinkable—she puts her hands on my chest and pushes herself away from me. “Hey. You call that a birthday kiss?”
“I love you,” she says, her voice shaky. That’s when I notice she’s all teary-eyed and definitely not here to give me a blow job. “Get up. Get dressed.” She pats my leg. “Come downstairs. Breakfast is ready, and your present is waiting for you in the kitchen.”
“You telling me I not only have to get out of bed for my birthday breakfast, but I also have to get dressed? So far being twenty-six sucks ass. You’re the worst girlfriend I’ve ever had.” I’m grinning, and she knows exactly what I’m getting at.
She jumps up and says, “Don’t try to goad me into a fight so we can have make-up sex, you turd. Come on. Your birthday breakfast is getting cold. Dépêche toi.”
Hurry up, she says. “Do you have to work today?”
“Not at the coffee shop. I have rehearsal, though.”
“Are we meeting up with Nealecia tonight?”
“That’s the plan,” she says in a sing-song voice as she walks out and back downstairs.
She doesn’t hear me grumble about how I would have thought a little morning sex would have been part of the plan, and that’s probably a good thing.
I pull on a pair of jeans and a shirt, and the smell of coffee compels me down the stairs toward the kitchen, but the sound of whispered female voices stops me in my tracks. I wonder if Alecia and Neal are here to surprise me, but nothing could have prepared me for the surprise of who’s actually in the kitchen with Lily.
A tall middle-aged woman is leaning back against the counter and smiling at Lily, who’s whispering something in her ear. When she sees me, her crinkly warm gray eyes fill with tears. She puts her coffee mug down and covers her mouth.
Son. Of. A. Biscuit.
“Oh baby,” she says. “You’re all grown-up.”
She has salt-and-pepper hair framing her face now and she’s heavier than I remember, but she’s still beautiful and statuesque and mysterious, and I would have recognized my mother in a sea of people. That doesn’t make it any easier to comprehend what she’s doing standing in my kitchen. Giggling with Lily like they’re old friends.
I’m standing in the doorway with my hands in my pockets, and I do not know what to do or say.
Susan Carver walks over to me and puts her arms around my waist, leaning into me. “My goodness, you’re a big guy.” I am definitely a few inches taller than I was the last time we hugged. I can’t look at Lily right now because I can hear her sniffling. It isn’t until I finally take a breath and inhale the scent of my mother’s shampoo that I really put my arms around her and fully grasp who this woman is to me. She still smells the same.
My mom’s back.
Or she’s here, at least.
“Happy birthday, Wes,” she says into my shoulder. “You must hate me. I don’t blame you if you do.”
I still don’t know what to say to her.
She pulls away from me and pats me on the arm. “Should we have breakfast? Lily’s been cooking up a storm.”
I clear my throat and find my voice. “She certainly has been busy.” I finally look over at her. She’s not blubbering like I thought she would be. She’s looking at me expectantly, hesitantly. Waiting for a reaction. I don’t know what my reaction is yet. I’m not an actor. I don’t do exercises to help get in touch with my feelings. I’m in shock. I’m a little bit in awe. I’m definitely confused. But I still somehow love Lily even more right now, and I just hope she can see that in my eyes.
I take a seat at the kitchen table across from my mother. She started telling me to call her Susan when I was eight. Lily pours me a cup of coffee and puts her hand on my shoulder, giving it a little squeeze. Then she places a cupcake with a candle on the table in front of me. Susan smiles and winks at me, in that way that she does. Not a lot of women can get away with it, but my mom has always been able to smile and wink with the best of them. It’s little things like that that I missed.
“I think I’m gonna head over to the theater early,” Lily says to me. “Give you two a chance to catch up… Does that sound good?”
“Sure. Call me when you’re on a break.”
“I will.” She rubs my mother’s back, kisses me on the head, and she’s gone.
Susan and I are just staring at each other. If she’s waiting for me to say something first, then she may have to wait forever.
“This is a wonderful house,” she offers, clutching her coffee mug. “I love what I’ve seen so far.”
“Thanks.”
“I like Belford too. What a nice small town.”
“Cool.”
“You look good. You seem good. Happy.”
“I am. Thanks to Dad. And Lily.”
She sighs and, after a moment, says, “She hired a private investigator. Lily did.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Apparently I wasn’t all that difficult to find. Credit cards and mobile phone accounts and such. When she got my number, she called me directly. She told me she’s your girlfriend and that you’re doing very well and you’re a wonderful young man whom I should get to know. She said she didn’t want to email me because she wanted me to hear her voice and she wanted to hear mine. She told me she’d pay for me to fly out here to visit you for your birthday. This was a few weeks ago. We’ve been emailing ever since then. She’s very good at keeping a secret.”
She waits for me to respond, but all of a sudden I’m just angry, and all I want to fucking know is: “Where have you been?”
Her posture changes. She’s much less confident now. She takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. I don’t know if she thought this was going to be easy, and maybe I imagined it would be a fucking Hallmark commercial too, but they don’t make birthday cards that say, “Happy birthday, son. I left your father and you before you became a legal adult, haven’t spoken to you in over a decade, but let’s have some pancakes and work this shit out. What do you say?”
“I’ve been in Paris, mostly. Paris is my base. I travel around Europe a lot.”
“Does Dad know you’re here?”
She nods. “I rang him last night when I got to the hotel. Told him I’d be surprising you.”
“You talked to him last night?”
“For a little while. We’ll go visit him later, yes?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re angry with me.”
“I’m a lot of things. Angry is one of them. Are you still with that man you ran off with?”
“No. No, not for several years now.”
I shake my head and look away.
“Why didn’t I tell you this? Is that what you want to know? Why the fuck didn’t I come back to you and your father? You have every right to ask me this, Wesley. I could ask you both why you never tried to reach me…”
“Please tell me there are five hundred letters you wrote him that you just didn’t have the courage to send.”
“No. But there are five thousand letters I thought about writing. To both of you.” She pushes the coffee mug away and places her hands flat on the tabletop, staring down at them. She can’t even look at me right now. Christ, I don’t need her to feel bad, I just want answers.
“What I want to say to you, Wes, is…marriage can be hard. Being a mother can be hard. That’s not an excuse, it’s just… Everything is hard when you never got to at least try to be the person you thought you were going to be first. I didn’t find myself before I found my husband. I don’t regret the sixteen years I spent with you. I don’t regret the seventeen years I spent with Toby. I don’t know if you remember what I was like with your father, but…”
“I do. I remember.”
“Well, then, you know it was rough on him. And that made it rough on you… You and Toby are the best men I have ever loved… It just seemed like the only way to save the people I loved from me was to leave. Your dad has always been better with you than I was. I saw a way out, and I left.” She covers her face. “I may have been wrong. I may have been selfish. I have to live with the guilt every day of my life.” She runs her fingers through her hair and looks up at me. She’s not crying, but her eyes are filled with sorrow, and my stomach is in knots.
It’s killing me to see her like this, but we both need her to keep talking.
“If I hadn’t left, you and Toby probably wouldn’t have moved, and you never would have met Lily…” She gives me a halfhearted hopeful smile. “I would have been there for you if I thought you needed me. I’m here for you now.” She slaps her hand down on the table. “Fuck it. You know? I’m here for three more days. Let’s figure shit out. You’re my son. I love you. I want to know you. I’m sorry. Talk to me. Tell me who you are.” She reaches her hand across the table, palm up. She still wears silver and turquoise rings on almost every finger. But no wedding ring. My dad never wore his ring because he was always working with his hands. I stare at my mother’s fingers. They’re trembling.
Susan Carver didn’t used to swear. She didn’t like it when my dad and I swore. She’s the reason my dad and I started saying “son of a biscuit.” Apparently she’s spent the last decade or so in the company of marines, because she swears like one. I’m a little stunned, but she has a hint of a French accent, so it sounds kind of pretty.
