Entry-Level Mistress (19 page)

He was silent. The air in the room grew thick and uncomfortable and heat rushed to my cheeks again. But I was afraid to speak, afraid that something else would break if I did.

“You can’t frame a man who isn’t susceptible to vice, honey.”

Like a string on a violin plucked, I vibrated, and the air vibrated too, shifting from perfect silence to sudden cacophony.

“What are you saying?”

But I thought I knew what he was saying. Rather than setting my father up for some false crime, all Daniel had to do was entice him into committing a real one. Or had he even done that much? From the perspective of the circular chair, everything came together. The past, my childhood memories, newspaper articles, the few details Daniel had actually dropped when he wasn’t avoiding the discussion.

“I deserved to go to jail. I’ve served my time and I’ve paid the—”

“Are you saying you’re to blame?” I cut him off, my voice rising with the question. I wasn’t a violin; I was some cubist, distorted painting. I was a mouth screaming and an eye somewhere else, staring, stunned. “Are you saying that Daniel didn’t ruin you? Make you lose all your money? Force me to go live with mom and that psycho nutjob she calls a husband?”

“Not entirely, sweetheart. Daniel set me up, but he had good reason to be angry with me. The past, it’s complicated—”

“No!” I interrupted, standing. “I don’t want to hear ‘it’s complicated’ anymore. I’ve heard bits of pieces of this story my whole life, and there’s your side, and there’s what mom says, and there’s what the papers said and then what Daniel’s told me.” My voice wavered and I hated the watery sound of it, the weakness. I couldn’t cry again.
Wouldn’t
. “What’s the truth, dad? Did you drive Mr. Hartmann to suicide or were you the victim trying to make the best of a bad situation? Maybe you loved Lucille or maybe you’re the reason she overdosed on meds. Or
is
there a truth to this? I don’t think there is one.” I whirled around, unable to look at him, unable to look at a life that was so different from what I had thought it was. The past should have stayed in the past. It was too ugly and too complicated and no one was innocent. I just needed to figure out what was real about the present. Who I was, what I wanted to be. I just needed—

“I can’t do this.”

“Emily—”

“You should have told me before.” My voice was high and still rising on each note and I hated it. Hated it! “My whole life I grew up thinking that you were wronged, manipulated and hurt. I blamed Daniel for everything. Until I met him, and then I couldn’t make it make sense. He’s not some evil horrible person.”

“He did try to hurt me.”

“Yeah, maybe he did. But why did Mr. Hartmann kill himself? Were you committing adultery?”

“There are things you don’t understand, Emily. You shouldn’t be speaking to me this way.”

No, I shouldn’t be speaking to him at all.

“Stay out of my life!” I yanked open the front door. Didn’t look up until my father had left. Until I shut the door behind him.

Images of the past flooded through me, dizzying me with their disjointed rhythm.

I felt betrayed. Disillusioned. The last vestiges of childhood finally gone.

“So Gabe’s bringing the truck by at ten tomorrow.”

I didn’t look up from the box I was taping shut. Box number 15.
Storage
. I had no idea how I had accumulated so much stuff in the two years I’d lived in the apartment. I had known it was cluttered but there were little papers and things stuffed here and there that I had completely forgotten about.

Leanna stepped further into my room, her tan legs coming into view, as well as the fringe on her cutoff jean shorts. “Let’s take a break, have some cold water, sit by the fan.”

The reminder made it even worse. The air conditioner was set to its highest setting but it wasn’t enough to counteract the wet heat of August in Boston. I stood, twisted my hair up and held it on top of my head as I followed her into the living room.

Which was filled with Leanna’s boxes. This was it. The real end of college, of my life in Boston. The end of my childhood. My friend was going off to grad school in Manhattan, and I was going to upstate New York.

“Sit down. I’ll get us water.”

I stood for a moment, taking in the cool breeze from the fan.

“I should really keep packing.”

“No, what you should do is take the damn test.” Leanna handed me the cold glass, punctuating her statement with a pointed look.

“I’m not pregnant.”

Leanna brightened for a second and then her eyes narrowed. She sat down on the papasan, pressing her own glass to her forehead.

“Ignoring the situation won’t make it disappear, Em,” she said. “You can’t will yourself to not be. And if you are, you need to take care of yourself. Or deal with it.”

Deal with it
. I wasn’t pregnant. I didn’t have to deal with anything. But my shoulders were tight with unspoken tension.
I wasn’t.
Life could not be that cruel. Except, there had been that time on the beach, when wrapped up in love and the magic of the night, I hadn’t given a single thought to protection. I let out a deep breath and finally crawled onto the futon. I couldn’t lie to Leanna. She wouldn’t let me anyway.

“Listen, I’m taking the vitamins, just in case. But I don’t want to know right now. I don’t want to make decisions based on something like that. I’m about to start
my
life and if I am … ” I looked up helplessly. “Then—” I stopped. I couldn’t say it. A baby would tie me to Daniel in a way no memories, nothing else could.

“He’s rich, Em,” Leanna reminded me needlessly. “If you are pregnant, and you keep it, he should be responsible. You wouldn’t have to be some reality TV episode,
21 and Pregnant
.”

If I were pregnant then it was yet another pattern. Single woman walks away from wealthy businessman. My mother had done it. Made her own life until my dad had come back in and stomped all over it.

I wouldn’t let anyone stomp on me.

And I
wasn’t
pregnant.

I placed my glass on the coffee table, drew my knees up to my chest. I didn’t want to talk about it or hear about it. It wasn’t as if I didn’t have my own incessant thoughts. I still needed to get over the stupidity of letting myself fall in love with a man I knew could only hurt me.

Between my fingers, I played with strands of my long hair. I’d stopped dying it and the black was slowly washing out. The strands that had once been purple were now a funny orangey-yellow from the bleach.

“It’s been three weeks since I last saw him. That’s half the time we were actually together. A whole lifetime really. So … it’s over, and I don’t want to talk to him or speak of him ever again.”

“And when your kid asks who his daddy is?”

“I’m not pregnant, damn it!” I exploded. I stared at Leanna, shocked at my own outburst, shocked at the angry energy that still coursed through me.

“All right,” Leanna said, in a tone far too complacent, “we won’t talk about it. But calm down. What you need right now, Em, is Zen.”

“For the baby, right?” I asked sarcastically. I couldn’t stop the hot sting of tears, as if all the anger were turning into weakness. I hated it. I hated everything about my life right then, even the fellowship at the colony. What should have been a triumphant next step felt like a detour.

But sadness was not the way I was going to leave Boston, to say goodbye to four years of fun. That night, after another argument in which I agreed I wouldn’t drink, we went to a club.

Paladin was the sort of swanky dance venue that boasted a long line, a young professional crowd and a ridiculous cover charge, but Leanna knew the bouncer on duty and we were waved past the ubiquitous red velvet rope with a few kisses on the cheek.

In my short white shorts, silver sequin halter top and heels, I stepped into the fray of the dance floor, reveling in the pounding of the music and the crowd of humanity. I moved my feet, swiveled my hips, designed patterns in the air with my hands and arms. The night was hot, sweaty, and energizing, and I grabbed it with a fierceness I hadn’t felt in weeks.

Tossing my hair back, I smiled at Leanna, who seemed equally infected with the need to feel alive, to feel young and sexy.

An hour later, sweaty and hot, I zigzagged through the crowd to one of the bars. I leaned on the edge as I waited for the bartender to make his way down to my end.

“Can I buy you a drink?” I heard the words behind me faintly over the pulsing music, turned my head to see who was talking.

And stared.

Julian grinned back at me.

I smiled even though everything inside of me was freaked out by the sight of him.

“Haven’t seen you around much.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you’ve heard … ”

“That you broke up, yep. It’s too bad. I actually liked you.”

“Thanks. You kind of grew on me,” I teased.

“He misses you.”

“Whatever. Are you here alone?”

He laughed. “No, actually I’m here with Tatiana.”

“I guess Boston’s a small town.”

“She’s a very attractive lady.”

“And she knows it.”

“That’s attractive too.”

I laughed at that.

The bartender came over, pointed at Julian and then me with his eyebrows raised. Julian ordered a scotch and soda and a lemon drop martini. Then he looked questioningly at me.

“Just a bottle of water, thanks.”

“I’m buying.”

“I know. Just water.” I watched him place the order, but my thoughts were full of Daniel and my emotions were far from the joyous reveling of dancing. Julian turned back to me.

“I mean it, Emily. Daniel cares about you. I know he’s hurt.”

“Hurt?
He’s
hurt?” I stared at him, mouth open.

The bartender placed a glass in front of us, the wet bottom sliding on the wooden bar. Julian pulled his wallet out of his pocket, extracted two twenties from the leather folds.

“He isn’t a bad guy.”

“Right. He’s one of the good ones,” I mimicked. “Listen, I’m not an idiot. I get it. I do. Kid abandoned by parents. One by suicide, the other via pharmaceuticals, and that may as well have been suicide. Revenge is easier than grief.”

Julian looked surprised.

“What, I’m wrong?” I demanded.

“No. I think you’re right.”

The fact that Julian didn’t deny that Daniel had sought revenge pulled at me painfully. I’d thought I was numb already. I set my jaw against the unwanted emotion.

“Yeah, so I get it. But that doesn’t mean he can go around hurting people for the rest of his life. It doesn’t mean he can hurt
me
.”

“No. It doesn’t. But revenge is also easier than love.”

What was this? Armchair psychology day? As much as once I’d wanted to believe that Daniel loved me, now it was the last thing I needed to hear. He’d had his chance when I came to the office.

Another glass in front of Julian, this time the martini-shaped one with its sugared rim. The bartender slammed a cold bottle of water down as well.

“Love has nothing to do with this,” I said, lifting the wet bottle, propelling myself away from the bar. “Thanks for the water. Now I’m going to go dance.”

I didn’t know if Julian would tell Daniel that he’d seen me, but if he did, I wanted the story to be that Emily was doing just fine on her own.

•  •  •

Two days later, with nearly everything I owned in storage, I accompanied Leanna to Manhattan and helped her settle into her new apartment. In those few days I also rekindled my friendship with Lila, who commandeered our nights in such a way that, except for brief moments in line for the restroom or seconds before falling asleep, I didn’t have time to think.

At the train station, when I said goodbye to Leanna, the tension was thick with everything we
would not
talk about. Everything I refused to consider.

“I’m excited,” I said, thinking about the art colony. “It’s going to be like having the type of resources I had at school but without having to share. Can you imagine?”

Leanna smiled, agreed, but the expression in her eyes was less than enthusiastic. Which I ignored with forced cheer.

Three hours later, Agatha Newman, the fellowship coordinator, was driving me and Don, another Barrows fellow, out to the farm. Don was a screenwriter who talked about his MFA and the film he’d written that had placed at the Sundance Film Festival. As he spoke, he flirted, and when he heard I was a sculptor he discussed how wonderfully sexual the pottery scene in
Ghost
had been. Agatha kept her eyes on the road but she seemed amused.

In some ways the moment felt like
Real World: Artist Colony
and I wondered if Gordon Fillmore’s joking about orgies and decadence would turn out to be the truth. Not that I had any desire to know first-hand.

The two-lane road wound through rolling green hills that made my heart rise into my throat at the beauty of it.