Reunion: A Novel Read online

  Somewhere deep down I feel like crying. Somewhere in this corpus of mine there are real emotions at work. I know it. I can feel them. I can feel the springs moving, the gears turning, the wrenches churning. Somewhere.

  I take a deep breath and just say it. “I was unfaithful.”

  “Unfaithful,” she says, but not like a question.

  “Yes.”

  She pushes me away from the house and toward the garage. “And is that why—” She’s hissing quietly in this spit-laden, overly dramatic way that makes me want to slap her. “Is that why you said Rita should just get it over with? That’s why you think adultery is such a good idea all of a sudden?”

  So listen. Things are getting overly polarized out here on this driveway, overly histrionic, overly black-and-white. But that’s not something I can point out to Nell. Not when she’s like this and not when she’s technically in the right. I say technically because she’s not the one I cheated on and she’s not the one I kept a secret from. But I also say technically and leave it at that because it’s also technically none of her business and technically not my job to fill her in on every aspect of my life immediately, as it goes down. All this to explain why I am willing, at least at this specific juncture, to give her overly simplified question an overly simplified answer.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Because suddenly adultery is okay in your book.”

  “No,” I say.

  “What about Dad?” she says.

  How did Stan do it? How did he keep so many secrets and tell so many lies? Maybe he had a notebook. He probably kept it in his back pocket. Every time there was something new, he’d just pop open the book and record it beneath the last entry. I wrote myself an email once. It said, “Thai, Himalayan, Giovanni’s.” It was a list. A list of the three places I’d eaten that month with Billy. It was a reminder not to look at Peter one day and say, accidentally, “But we just had Thai last week.”

  Nell again: “You didn’t learn anything from his bad habits?”

  I did! What I learned was this: It’s easy. It’s so unbelievably easy. It’s disgusting how easy it is. Until it isn’t. Until you need a notepad or an email just to keep the lies organized.

  What I say is this: “You two are the ones who want to be here for this. You two are the hypocrites.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Elliot?”

  “Yes,” I say. “It’s all for show. This is”—I search my brain for the word Elliot used so many years ago—“horseshit.”

  She shakes her head. “So your excuse for cheating is what?”

  “I think—” God, I want to get this right. “I think a certain type of person can learn something from it.”

  “Ha,” she says. “Double ha.” She jabs me in the clavicle and I slap her hand away.

  “And what,” she says, “did you learn from it?”

  The truth is, I hoped it would be like in the movies—where the man steps out just once and, in stepping out, realizes that everything he already has at home is all he wants, all he needs. I wanted the affair to make me feel so lousy with guilt that my love for my husband would suddenly and magically be renewed. I wanted to believe that he was right, that our lives were empty before and a baby would change everything. Instead, it appears I’ve learned that our marriage has an expiration date that we’re rapidly approaching. It appears that while I followed Bill Cunningham’s advice and didn’t take Stan’s money (and, yes, yes, I know, it wasn’t actually offered), I did take Peter’s money and help, which obligated me to him in a way that was not immediately clear to me. It further appears that there’s a very good chance that maybe I do want children, just not with Peter, but that maybe it’s now out of my hands. Maybe the choice is no longer mine. Maybe I’m on the same sad trajectory as Nell. But all this strikes me as too mean and too complicated for Nell’s black-and-white world. It strikes me as too difficult a thing to go into right now, and so I keep my mouth shut.

  “For how long?” she says when she sees I’m not going to answer. “How long did it last?”

  It’s a good question, actually. It’s a question I wish Peter had asked.

  “Long enough for me to have learned a lesson that I didn’t learn in time.”

  She’s shaking her head in this I am so very burdened by the knowledge I have been given kind of way.

  “Pithy,” she says. “Real pithy. Good for you. You should write that down. You should use that.”

  “I’m not trying to be pithy,” I say. And I’m not. I’m trying to be honest. More and more, I see that honesty is the only way out, but just because you make the realization doesn’t mean that it all of a sudden becomes an easy thing to do. Just because you trace the source of the addiction doesn’t mean the addiction magically vanishes.

  I’ve lost her. It’s too late. She doesn’t care anymore. In a matter of moments, I have transformed myself from sister to stranger.

  She picks up the grocery bags.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “Whatever,” she says.

  She gets halfway to the porch and turns around. “Do what you want,” she says. “You already have.”

  Now that, I think, is pithy.

  30

  the party begins

  Here’s what we’re dealing with inside the house: The twins, Lily and Stan Jr., who—I was right—look to be firmly in their twenties, are in the kitchen with Sasha, Mindy, Joyce—more ancient than ever—and Elliot. Lily, who looks kind of like me in that she is tall and big-nosed and big-chinned, is playing patty-cake with Mindy, who’s sitting on the counter over by the refrigerator. Stan Jr. and Elliot are standing on the other side of the refrigerator doing their manly man catch-up. They’re each holding a glass of red wine, and I understand immediately that Elliot is attempting to school Stan Jr. on this particular vintage or whatever but Stan Jr. isn’t having it. He’s holding his own. It’s gross—being in this kitchen with all these people who grew up with money and somehow retained it. I feel like a total phony.

  Joyce, who is—at this exact moment—the first to officially notice and acknowledge me (hug, hug; kiss, kiss; oh my goodness her skin is saggy and cold and loosey-goosey), pulls me to her side and escorts me to the stove, where she’s been watching Sasha cook. Nell is nowhere in sight.

  “Look at this one,” Joyce says, fawning all over Sasha while holding tightly onto my elbow. “Look at this beauty your father got his hands on. Can you believe he was ever married to me?”

  Joyce has a point. There’s a forty-year age difference between the two of them. It’s pure lunacy that one man would have had both these women. Pure lunacy that the man who pulled it off wasn’t a Hollywood exec but was Stan Pulaski, late-in-life hoarder and breeder of babies. Stan Pulaski, adulterer. Stan Pulaski, suicidalist. Stan Pulaski, my father. What must it have been like in that brain of his?

  I take a slice of carrot from Sasha, who gives me this conspiratorial look that kind of melts my heart and wins me over all at once. She’s lucky. She gets to hang out with Mindy whenever she wants.

  “Wine?” says Sasha.

  “Yes,” I say. “Please.”

  I suspect, from the camaraderie Sasha is showing me, that Nell has not yet told her about my marital shortcomings. Although, who knows? Maybe she’ll come down all hip and forward-thinking on my side. After all, she married Stan. Elliot, judging from his goofiness in the driveway a few minutes ago, doesn’t know either.

  Lily pries herself away from Mindy long enough to give me a hug, and it’s hard not to wonder if other people are as freaked out hugging me as I am hugging Lily. It’s off-putting when women are our height. It’s hard to know where to put your head. You always end up doing a kind of chest-to-cheek-to-chest press. It’s ugly.

  I start to walk over to Elliot and Stan Jr. to do the right thing, to say hello to the only other male in the litter and, as far as I’m concerned, the haughtiest of all the half siblings, when he—Stan Jr.—holds up his h
and and gives me the just a minute signal, and I think, You know what? Forget you. And maybe I’d even have said it aloud—or worse—but Sasha saves me by putting a glass in my hand and giving me a wink.

  “You and I,” she says, “need to talk later.”

  “Do we?” I say.

  She nods and winks again. “Oh yeah,” she says. “We do.”

  “Did Nell say something to you?”

  She cocks her head and puts a hand on her hip. “Did she say something to you?”

  “Wait,” I say. “I’m confused.” Maybe they really are lesbians! Maybe they’re about to make my day! Why have I not been taking notes already?

  Sasha bites her lip and scratches her head, which is something I thought only monkeys in cartoons did when they were confused. I’m not being catty. I’m not comparing Sasha to a monkey. I’m just genuinely surprised to see a cliché used sincerely. It’s charming, actually. It’s sweet, unexpected.

  Joyce sidles up next to me again. She grips my wrist with her knobby hand.

  “We’ll talk later,” Sasha says, and gives me a toothy grin. If it weren’t for the grin, I’d say she somehow knew I didn’t lose my credit card. But she’s being all loopy and goopy, which is not the way to behave when you’re about to introduce the discovery of a lie. No way, no how. What on earth could this woman want to tell me? The meaning of life? The secret to happiness? I’d take it. I’d gladly take advice from anyone just now.

  “I missed you,” says Joyce.

  Sasha slinks away from us.

  “Come sit with me,” says the second woman to call herself my stepmother. “Tell me about yourself. Tell me about being young.”

  She’s a skeleton, this one is, but she’s got a grip, and she pulls me with uncanny ease to the kitchen table to sit.

  “Golly, you’re young,” she says. “And so tall.”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “I missed you,” she says again.

  It makes sense—that Joyce would latch onto me. Nell and Elliot never lived with her. She never got to know them like she knew me. And now she’s here without children. She’s come by herself to remember my father, her onetime husband. It’s touching in some ways. But also a little wacky. It makes me think she must be very lonely, which makes me think that being very lonely must be very sad and, if possible, avoided.

  “You did not,” I say. “You couldn’t stand me.”

  She slaps her thigh and cackles.

  “Battle-ax,” she says. “That’s what I always called you.”

  No, I think. That’s not what you called me, but fine. I was a lousy daughter and my father was a lousy dad. But maybe there’s still time to be a decent stepdaughter.

  “Want some booze?” I say.

  “You read my mind,” she hisses, and grips my arm like she means it.

  31

  Dad’s favorite

  By three p.m., the entire gang is here. The ex-wives: Whitney, Joyce, and Louise. The widow: Sasha. The half siblings: Lily, Stan Jr., Lauren, Libby, Lucy, and Mindy. And us, the originals: Elliot, Nell, and me. It’s a bit of a madhouse in here. Nobody wants to leave the kitchen. All parties are like this. The living room, the den—it doesn’t matter how nice the house is or how nice the rooms are, people get nervous when they venture too far from the food and booze. Out there, with the sofas and couches and side tables, there’s too much opportunity to get lost. Or worse, to be cornered by a former stepmother. The half siblings, with the exception of Stan Jr., who is and always will be a monumental Republican pain in my side, aren’t really that big a deal. You can tell they want to be here even less than we do. They’re even more frightened of the living room and den, even more frightened than we are of being caught away from the others, being caught away from their fellow young.

  Lucy, the ten-year-old, is getting to be a pest. She and Mindy are just outside the kitchen, sitting on the bottom step of the stairway that leads up to the bedrooms. I’m trying really hard to maintain a conversation with Lily, who’s been telling me about her one terrible season in the WNBA a few years back. But I keep overhearing Lucy’s high-pitched voice behind me. She’s picking on Mindy—“There’s so much space on your face” and “Why does your hair look like that?” and “You have warts on your toes” and “This house smells bad”—and I keep trying not to notice. Mindy is not my responsibility. She has an advocate here—her mother, whose house this is. It’s not my job to look out for her, but this Lucy chick is eating away at my nerves. I’m trying really hard to stay out of it—and trying also to make reasonably intelligent observations about the WNBA—but when I hear Lucy say to Mindy, “I was Dad’s favorite. He didn’t like you at all,” I realize I’ve had enough.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I say, excusing myself from the conversation with Lily and going over to the staircase, where the girls are still perched.

  “Lucy,” I say. “That’s totally uncool.”

  Lucy is petite and blond and tan. She’s wearing fold-over socks with lace around the edges. Her hair is in two perfect braids. She is everything I hate about Atlanta.

  Mindy, who for the party has changed into lederhosen and a bow tie that I know for a fact belonged to my mother’s father, is close to tears, but she’s hanging in there. The little champ.

  “Uncool,” says Lucy. “Uncool, uncool.”

  “Are you taunting me?” I say, understanding that slapping a ten-year-old won’t go over well with this crowd.

  “Are you taunting me?” she says.

  Mindy reaches over and holds my hand. She gives me this baby-bird look of appreciation, as if to thank me for the masticated worm I’ve just offered her simply in being present. I pick Mindy up and look down at Lucy.

  “You’re a brat,” I say.

  “You’re a brat,” she says.

  “And you weren’t Dad’s favorite,” I say. “Not by a long shot.” There’s a chance I’ve gone too far. There’s no rule that says an adult can’t make two children cry in one day. Though I’m sure there are rules that say you shouldn’t. I won’t be surprised at all if this one breaks down in tears too, or if she rats me out to mass-producing Louise. But I’m not sticking around long enough to find out. I turn and with Mindy on my hip—Mindy, my six-year-old half sister who is fast becoming my favorite person in the world—I make a beeline for the back porch, where we find Elliot and Nell.

  “Beer?” says Elliot as we open the screen door. He holds up a bottle.

  “No,” I say. I set Mindy down and she clambers over to Nell and sits in her lap. Little monkey. She’s like a little monkey the way she does that—scoots from adult to adult like she’s going from tree to tree.

  Nell’s being icy, but with Mindy out here, she won’t say anything nasty. Note to self: six-year-olds come in handy when you’re looking to avoid confrontation.

  I take a seat on the swing next to Elliot.

  “This strikes me as fairly antisocial out here,” I say.

  Elliot shrugs. “What’s the scene in there?”

  “Lucy was beating up on Kiddo here,” I say, and stretch out my foot so that I can wiggle my toes in Mindy’s face. She scrunches up her nose and laughs.

  Nell turns Mindy toward her. “Really?” she says. “Are you okay?”

  Mindy nods. She seems unprepared or flat-out unwilling to tell on Lucy. Maybe it’s something about the proximity in age. Maybe a ten-year-old who’s closer in height is more threatening than a thirty-year-old who might as well be living up in the trees—that’s how foreign the perspective is.

  “Lucy was just saying how she was Dad’s favorite and how Mindy wasn’t even on the radar,” I say.

  “Man,” says Elliot. “Rough.”

  “It’s not true,” says Nell, holding Mindy close. “Anyway, you’re my favorite.”

  It’s probably a sign of shallowness that I like Mindy less when there are other adults around.

  Elliot says, “Doesn’t matter what Lucy says. I was Dad’s favorite.” I can’t tell whether or not
he’s joking, but it strikes me as a potentially inappropriate comment to make in front of Mindy regardless.

  “You were,” says Nell. “Totally.”

  “He was?” I say. “Really?” Probably in other families, families more nuclear than ours, this is a conversation that siblings have early and often. But I can honestly say that before this moment, it never occurred to me that our father had a favorite. It never occurred to me because I never cared.

  “Oh, for sure,” says Nell, momentarily, it seems, forgetting that we are not on perfect terms. “Firstborn, golden child and all that? Nobody else stood a chance.”

  Mindy is hanging on every word, but she’s smart enough not to speak. She knows speaking will remind the others—the grown-ups—of her presence and could therefore potentially stop the conversation. Eavesdropper, indeed.

  “What about Mom?” I say. “Who was Mom’s favorite?”

  “Nell,” says Elliot.

  Nell nods. “It’s true. I was. I really was,” she says. “I’m so glad you knew that.” She kicks Elliot’s foot with her own.

  “It was obvious,” he said. “She was addicted to you.”

  What’s obvious is that Nell and Elliot have considered this before. Just like Lucy had considered it, so have Nell and Elliot. It makes me feel left out—like someone forgot to give me the booklet on how to be someone’s child.

  “Whose favorite was I?” I say. I hate the sound of my voice.

  “No one’s,” says Nell, shaking her head.

  “That’s right,” says Elliot. “You weren’t anybody’s favorite.”

  I can’t tell if they’re pulling my leg or if they’ve suddenly become the most callous siblings in the world. If they planned this as some sort of joke, it’s not funny.

  I look to Mindy for some relief from this pig-piling. My face says, Just give me something, kid. Anything. Even a lie. Tell me I’m your favorite. Tell me I’m the best. You don’t even have to mean it.