Hanging by a Thread (28 page)

Frances is quiet for a moment, then says, “You know, I always thought, what's the big deal? People are who they are, right? Until suddenly it's one of your own you're talking about.”

She takes my hand in hers, her wedding rings glinting in the overhead light. Her fingers are long and strong; she's recently started wearing false fingernails. Tonight they're polished a glimmering champagne color, putting mine (I was doing well to scrape a nail file across them before we left) to shame.

“You know what upset me most that night,” she says, “when Jason came out? Well, besides finding out about Uncle Carmine,” she says with a half grimace. “It wasn't so much that Jason was gay, but my reaction to it. I felt suckerpunched at how much I didn't want to believe it. Scared the hell out of me, like I didn't know who I was anymore.”

“And now?”

One shoulder shrugs gracefully under the gold fabric. “I keep telling myself, he's the same kid he was before.” A smile tilts her lips. “Better, actually, since he's not carrying around this huge, dark secret anymore.” Then the smile droops a little. “But I worry. Because he's still so young. And young males aren't known for always making the smartest decisions, you know?”

I notice her gaze has shifted back to Luke, still dancing with Starr, and a slight chill crawls up my spine. Is she talking about Luke's marrying Tina? Or his letting the marriage die? Or—grinning, Luke spins Starr around, making her giggle—does Frances suspect more than she's ever let on?

“Why is it,” I wonder aloud, “that nobody warns you
be
fore
you have kids how much you're gonna worry about them?”

Frances chuckles, a dark sound I've always loved. “Oh, they do. We just don't hear them. Otherwise, nobody'd ever have kids.” Then she squeezes my hand. “Things always have a way of working out, baby. Maybe not always the way we hoped, but they do.”

“Oh, no.”

“What?”

“You've turned into an old wise Italian woman, dispensing sage advice at the drop of a hat.”

“Bite your tongue, little girl,” she says as she gets up. “I've got a long way to go before I'm even close to old!”

With a wave, she's once again swallowed up by the crowd. I'm thinking of rousing myself enough to go find something else to eat—we already had dinner, but I can see there's munchies over by the cake—when Luke suddenly appears in front of me. Without my daughter.

I get to my feet, trying to see behind him. “Where's Starr?”

“Monica took her to the bathroom, she's fine.” He holds out his hand, his eyes huge and sexy and unreadable. “Wanna dance?”

“Luke, I—”

“Dammit, just come dance with me. Before somebody's fourteen-year-old cousin gets any bright ideas.”

I smile. “Maybe…that's not such a good idea.”

“Why?” One eyebrow cocks. “Afraid I'll try to feel you up on the dance floor?”

I laugh, as something goes “
Hel
-lo” inside me. “No. Afraid I'll keel over on the dance floor.”

“C'mon.” He comes around the table and takes my hand, placing his other one on the small of my back to steer me out to the dance floor. “I won't let you keel over. I promise.”

Underneath his palm, about a million skin cells have just
been startled awake and are now running around in confused circles and crashing into each other. “And about the other?”

“That,” he says on a grin, his breath teasing my moussed-to-death hair, “I won't promise.”

I tell myself—and my libido—to get a grip. This is Luke. Flirting is what he does. It doesn't mean anything, and never has. Please, we've been trading sexual banter since forever. Granted, there was a period there right after the shower episode during which we could barely look at each other, let alone banter. But once he settled into marriage, oddly enough, things eased up again. Even when Tina was around, he'd do this playful teasing thing with me. But he always kept it light and friendly, with absolutely no room for misinterpretation. He'd never do—and never did—a single thing to give Tina the idea that I was in any way a threat.

Which begs two questions: One, was she really not surprised when I told her about Starr, or did she just say that to save face?

And two, is she back in the picture?

Up until this moment, I hadn't realized just how weak my legs were. Logic tells me it's only exhaustion; my libido, however, is howling with laughter. The good news is, it's a slow dance, which requires a minimum expenditure of energy on my part. The bad news is, it's a slow dance, which requires bodily contact.

This is obviously not a problem for Luke, who pulls me close, tucking our linked hands against his chest, his other one still at the small of my back. Which, by the way, happens to be a major erogenous zone for me. A fact I'd totally forgotten until this very moment.

Keep it light, keep it light.

I look up and grin. “A word of warning—my hair could inflict serious injury, so you might not want to get too close.”

“Yeah, I kinda noticed that. What the hell did you use on it? Superglue?”

“As good as.”

“Women,” he mutters, pulling me closer. Uh-oh. I'm about a millimeter away from the there's-nobody-here-but-us zone. Not good. Then he says, “Don't take this the wrong way, but the bags under your eyes don't go with the dress.”

“Smart-ass.”

He grins, but his brows are saying something else. “You look like you're ready to drop.”

“Good call.”

“Starr told me she found you asleep in the basement this morning.”

I shrug. “No big deal.”

Luke doesn't say anything for several seconds. Then: “You know I don't know anything about sewing or dresses or any of it, but I know everybody's really happy with what you did for them. Heather, especially. You're good at this, El. Damn good.”

I try to smile, but it's getting wobblier by the second. Especially since my eyes are stinging. “You wouldn't kid around with a sleep-deprived person, would you?”

Suddenly, his expression goes serious. “I don't bullshit, Ellie. You know that. At least…” He takes a breath. “At least, not anymore.”

“Oh.”

Then his expression softens. “You can go ahead and lay your head on my chest, if you want. Unless you think your hair might make holes in the tux.”

“No, I think we're safe.”

Safe? Who the hell am I kidding? I'm slow dancing with a man I've had a thing for since I was six, a man with his hand planted firmly on an area of my body with, apparently, a direct link to my woefully neglected clitoris (Yeah, I know all about taking care of myself, but the thing about masturbation
is, there's no one to cuddle with afterwards, is there?) and I'm so tired I can barely stand up. But not so tired that I don't think to say, “Doncha think people will get ideas if we look, you know, too cozy out here?”

He glances around. “Yeah, maybe you've got a point,” he says, then leads me across the floor and outside a pair of French doors, onto this flagstone patio that overlooks the pool. It's nearly dark, the sky a luscious, diamond-studded violet edged in persimmon at the horizon. One of those summer breezes you can sense more than actually feel wicks the moisture off my skin; I shiver as Luke dances me over to a pocket of shadow, out of the line of sight.

“Now you can lean on me all you want, and nobody will know.”

So the question is, is he being protective of me (for whatever reason) or himself? And why can't I push that question from my brain to my lips?

I look up at him. “But
I'll
know.”

A funny little smile plays over his mouth, then he—cautiously—presses my head to his chest. My hair crunches like cellophane as I settle in. I should be thinking about all of this, trying to make sense of it, but my brain has gone night-night. So we just move slowly to the music, some ballad from before my time, my hair crunching, Luke humming (off-key), and this very pleasant warmth washes over me, a feeling of possibilities I'd never allowed myself to feel before, I realize.

I decide, because this is what I want to believe, that Tina's not back in the picture, because this is cozier than Luke would let us get if she were. Right? Of course, we
are
in the dark and he
hasn't
made a pass. A significant observation, I'm thinking. But then, why would he?

How's he gonna know it's okay to take a giant step if I don't say
Yes, you may?

I think of all that stuff Jen said about our family always
playing it safe, not taking risks. And to somebody on the outside looking in, maybe it seems obvious that I should just tell him how I feel, already. But aside from the fact that he's just come out of a
very
long-term relationship, there's the little matter of my not being hot on the idea of sounding like some pathetic loser who's been pining away for him for a million years. Not that I
have
been pining, although I'm not going to pretend the seed hasn't been lying there, dormant and waiting. But timing is everything, you know? And speaking of seeds…

“Did you know,” I say into his chest, “that we can order a paternity test kit online and get results in like a week?”

He squeezes the hand close to his chest. “You sure?”

“I checked several sites—”

“No. About doing this.”

“Yeah,” I say on a gust of breath. “And I really am sorry I freaked on you the other night. There's no excuse for how I behaved. Or what I said.”

“Other than my behavior over the last five years? Ellie, you had every right to say what you did. Especially as I'm thinking maybe you weren't all that far off the mark. Maybe, subconsciously, I dunno…maybe Tina and me splitting up did have something to do with the timing.”

There's that word again. I swallow.

“I have a confession to make—”

“You told Tina. That Starr might be mine.”

My eyes bounce up to his. “How'd you—?”

A dry chuckle sifts through the humid air. “I told her, too. Which is when she told me you already had.”

Shit.

“Oh, God, Luke—I'm sorry, I shouldn't've said anything without your knowledge—”

“Yeah, well, same here. So we're both blabbermouths.”

Like I can dance with all these questions zipping around my
sleep-deprived brain. So I stop, staring at the white glow of Luke's pleated shirtfront.

“When did you talk to her?”

“About a week ago. I would've told you, but Mom told me how busy you were—”

“She didn't sign the papers, did she?”

Luke lets out a harsh sigh. “She wants to get back together, El. And there's too much history between us for me to just blow her off. I figure it's time I start figuring out how to fix problems instead of running away from them—”

“There you are! God, I've been looking all over the place for you!”

Luke practically pushes me away as his pregnant sister-in-law, my daughter in tow, make their way across the patio toward us. “Poor kid,” Monica says as we emerge from the shadows. “She must've eaten too much and got sick.”

“Sweetie, ohmigod!” I drop to my knees in front of her, my heart twisting at the miserable look on her face. “Did you make it to the bathroom?”

At that, her face crumples. “N-no. An' now everybody thinks I'm disgusting.”

“Hey,” Luke says, bending down, close enough for me to feel his body heat. My brain does an instant replay of his last words, and I kinda feel like tossing a few cookies myself. “Everybody gets sick sometimes,” he says to Starr, “especially at things like this. Nobody thinks you're disgusting, okay?”

Holding my quietly weeping daughter, I look up at Monica. “Do I need to get it cleaned up?”

“Are you kidding? Like ten people swooped out of nowhere, had it taken care of so fast nobody even noticed, hardly.” She touches Starr's hair. “So don't you worry about this another minute, sweetie, okay?”

Starr nods in my arms, but I can tell she's not convinced. She looks up at me. “C'n we go home now?”

“Sure, baby, right away. Let me just go find my purse—”

“I'll call you later,” Luke says behind me.

I turn, just as the first clear thought I've had all night occurs to me. Which is that there are no absolute guidelines for how, or when, or even if, to tell the truth. That there's no point in saying
Yes, you may take a giant step
before, and unless, someone asks if he may. All I'd be doing is confusing the issue even more. If Luke's on the fence about this, then…then he's just going to have to decide which side to climb down on all by himself. Besides—and here's where being a basically honorable person is a real bitch—I did promise Tina I'd stay out of her way. So that's what I've gotta do.

“Luke, please—” Feeling my throat go tight, I haul my smelly daughter up into my arms. “Just…just leave me out of it, okay?”

Then I walk quickly away before I fall completely apart.

M
y mother absolutely adored Manhattan.

When Jen and I were kids, Mom used to take us into the city at least once a month, sometimes to shop, but mostly to go to the museums or to sightsee—she couldn't wait to take us up to the top of the World Trade Center the year it was finished; she insisted she could see our house from the observation deck. And of course, there was always the Radio City Music Hall Christmas show, with hot chocolate at the Rockefeller Ice Rink afterwards. Admittedly, all schmaltzy, touristy stuff, but I ate it up. To Mama, Manhattan was another word for “magic,” and my sister and I caught her enthusiasm like it was a benign, and incurable, virus.

And like all good little carriers, I fully intend to infect my child as well.

The tail end of a tropical storm swept through the mid-Atlantic states a couple days ago, leaving behind clear blue skies
and temperatures that feel more like mid-September than late June. “A perfect day to go to the Central Park Zoo!” I announced to Starr when I got her up this morning. “And while we're so close, you wanna go to FAO Schwartz?”

Most kids would have been hopping around like a flea at the prospect of going anywhere, especially anywhere that potentially involves animals, toys and/or junk food, but Starr simply said “Whatever” as she shrugged into a long-sleeved purple T-shirt with glittery butterflies on it and a pair of yellow capris. And the boots. Never mind that they must be hot as hell.

“But we're going into
the city!
” I said, wondering what I was missing here.

She patted my arm, solemnly said, “You'll make yourself sick if you get too excited,” then calmly went downstairs for breakfast.

How is this my daughter? How?

Anyway, we're on the train at last, me fidgeting in my seat, Starr still as a mouse next to me, impassively studying the other passengers. We'd invited Jen, but she said it would kill her to go into the city and not be able to go shopping (apparently it's harder to resist the flagship stores in Manhattan than their miniclones in the mall?), so she decided to stay home and go through several boxes of Leo's papers she'd found in the closet in his room. She actually asked if I minded. Like I'm dying to sort through forty years' worth of paid Con Ed bills.

“So what do you want to do first? The zoo or the toy store?”

Starr shrugs. “Whatever.”

This is her new word. Which unfortunately is much easier to work into the conversation than
esoteric,
which was last week's fave. Then my middle-aged baby snuggles up next to me, her arm threaded through mine. And I wonder, will she remember this moment twenty years from now? Or even five?

Memory's such a bizarre thing. When you're in the moment, you think it'll be emblazoned on your brain forever. But al
though I remember the fact of snuggling up to my own mother like this, I don't actually remember doing it. The
feel
of it. And other memories, especially from when I was littler, are fragmented and out-of-focus, like looking down through twenty feet of water at shards of pottery scattered along the ocean floor. Occasionally snippets of a conversation float through, or the vague impression of the look on her face or the sound of her voice, but very little that I can actually define. Which leads me to wonder just how much is actually memory, and how much is imagination.

The human brain is one bizarre organ, that's for sure.

For instance…when I finally recuperated enough from the weeks leading up to Heather's wedding to address cleaning the hellhole that used to be my basement, I realized that, despite the exhaustion and the craziness, I really had gotten a real kick out of making all those women look good.

And that, maybe, just maybe, I wouldn't mind doing it on a regular basis.

Do I perceive a collective rolling of the eyes? A chorus of “Oh, brothers”? Okay, fine. But here's the thing: I still haven't got what it takes to make a splash in high fashion. That's not fear, that's fact. My brain simply doesn't work that way. However (it occurs to me) there's a lot of real women out there, with real breasts and real hips and rounded bellies from having kids (or not) and not a whole lot of designers catering to their needs. And I think—maybe—my brain does work
that
way.

In theory, I could do this. In fact, the other night after I put Starr to bed I was suddenly attacked—that's the only word that fits—with a whole bunch of ideas. I was up until nearly three in the morning, sketching my fingers off. A lot of the designs were crap, but some of them weren't too bad, I don't think. A few more, and I'd actually have enough for a modest start-up line.

Even so, coming up with the ideas—even for me—is the easy part. It's making the damn clothes that's a killer. Hey, I
felt bad enough about basically ignoring Starr for the last few weeks while Dolly and I pushed to get those dresses finished. I sure as hell couldn't do that to her—or me—week after week. But as I sketched, and the more possibilities came into focus, so did that nebulous almost-memory that had hovered over my conversation with Jennifer several weeks ago.

I was still pretty little, maybe Starr's age, and we were all over at my grandparents'. I can't recall if Jen was there or not, which might account for why she didn't mention this when we were talking the other day. Either that, or her memory's crappier than mine. In any case, Nana was riding my mother about her failure as a performer—and taking great delight in it, as I recall—when Mom noticed me standing in the doorway, taking it all in. With a smile, she held out her arms to me, scooping me up into her lap when I ran over to her.

“I didn't
fail,
Judith,” she said calmly, her breath sifting through my hair as I cuddled against her chest. “I simply chose my children over something that would have taken me away from them more than I could bear. Maybe when they're older, I'll start up again….”

If my grandmother had a rebuttal, it's been mercifully expunged from my memory. And of course, Mama never got her second chance at a career. Did she regret her choice? I have no idea. I doubt she would have admitted it even if she had. But even though this may sound selfish, I certainly didn't. I interpreted her sacrifice as her not wanting to do anything that she saw as hurting Jen or me. Unlike Tina's mother, for instance, whose kids didn't even rank a distant second in her life, let alone first.

Of course, I now know there's a balance. That having a job or career has nothing to do with how involved someone is with her kids. Take Tina's mom, for instance—she was always around, but she sure as hell was never
there,
if you know what I mean. But there's a huge difference between starting up a clothing business, and a job that has regular hours and week
ends off and paid vacations and benefits. Nobody succeeds in the rag trade without working their butt off and putting in long hours. If I don't, I'll be lucky to last ten minutes. Aside from the tremendous financial risk (Start-up capital?
What
start-up capital?) there's an even bigger risk that I'd never see my daughter again. Her finding me asleep on the couch downstairs once might have been amusing, but any more than that…no damn way. Look at Nikky and her relationship with her kids, for God's sake. Do I really want to end up like that? Or worse, for Starr to end up like zombie-girl Marilyn?

Maybe I didn't choose to get pregnant, but I definitely chose to become a mother. A choice which, for better or worse, impacts all my other choices, for the rest of my life. I know this. More to the point, I've accepted it.

Then why won't this crazy, impractical, totally unfeasible idea simply lie down and die, already? The idea is to make my life
less
complicated, not more. The idea is…

I suck in a breath, willing the knot at the back of my throat to go away.

The idea is to not let myself ache for things I can't have.

 

By the time we reach Manhattan, I've talked myself back down off the ledge. Even if I hadn't, though, just walking into FAO Schwartz would've done it. There's just something about three floors full of nothing but toys that makes me feel all Christmasy and giddy and goofy inside. Even if most normal—and sane—people wouldn't dream of paying several hundred dollars for a life-size stuffed tiger, or as much for a toy car as a real one might cost. There's just something about the place that turns everyone who comes in here into a kid again.

Even, amazingly enough,
my
kid.

She's dragged me up and down the escalators three times, looking for the perfect (as in, I won't have to sell
her
in order to afford it) reward for her being so good while I was swamped
with work these past weeks. Of course, she doesn't know it's a reward, but far be it from me to pass up a guilt-assuaging opportunity. At last, she picks out a chubby, grinning stuffed hippopotamus (not life-size, unless there are foot-long pygmy hippos roaming around somewhere); the cashier's ringing up the sale just as I hear:

“Ellie?”

I turn, frowning, unable at first to link the voice—low, male, English-accented—to any of the roughly ten thousand bodies in the store. A second later, however, a smiling, familiar-looking dark-haired man appears in front of us.

“I'm sorry, maybe I have the wrong person?” he says. My brain dimly registers the open-collared black linen shirt, the casually rumpled Dockers, the expensive-looking tan bag slung over one strong-but-slim shoulder. That I'm looking
up
at him. Even in shoes that add half a story to my height. “It is Ellie Levine, isn't it?”

“Yes…”

“You don't remember me, do you?” Damn. His eyes—a stunning silvery gray, long lashes—actually sparkle. “We only met once, and for all of ten minutes at that. It's Alan. Stein? Daniel's brother? We ran into each other at the Met several years ago?”

Oh, boy. I now know you don't have to be staring
death
in the face for your life to flash before you. In a pinch, your former lover's brother will work just fine.

Okay, God? Not to be a pain in the butt or anything, but how is this less complicated?

“Alan!” I say, smile frozen in place like a ventriloquist. “What a surprise! What on earth are you doing here?”

“I'm in New York on business—”

(If I ever knew what he did, shock has totally eradicated it from my memory.)

“—and I thought I'd pop in here to get my nephew a gift.”

I'm guessing that's the little darling who made that life-altering trans-Atlantic call six years ago.

Grinning (the dimples now register. Oh, boy), Alan says, “You look fantastic! Your hair's…shorter, isn't it?”

I nod, simultaneously wishing the floor would swallow us up and thanking my grandmother for drumming into my head that you never know who you might see when you're out, so you should always look your best. Of course, her definition of “best” and mine probably wouldn't jibe (I can't exactly see Nana in baggy, bright red monkey print overalls), but that's neither here nor there. Then I realize Alan's smile has drifted down to my daughter, who has been quietly sizing him up. My hot dog (with everything) from lunch threatens to make an encore appearance. “And who's this?” he asks.

Since I've been holding her hand the entire time, I don't suppose he'd buy that I'd never seen her before.

“This is…Starr.”

“Is she yours?”

I can't exactly deny it. At least not while she's within earshot. So I nod, praying he won't ask her how old she is.

Alan tells her she's got a lovely name and promptly asks her how old she is.

“Five,” she says with all the ennui she can muster as the clerk hands me back my charge card and our purchase and I pray like hell the guy's math challenged. Starr cocks her head. “How old are you?”

Alan laughs while I make one of those embarrassed I-have-
no
-idea-where-she-gets-this-from faces. “Thirty-eight.”

It takes a second. Then, right on cue, platinum eyes bop back up to mine. Brows lift. Questions hover. Expletives burst like fireworks in my brain.

“Well, hey, it was terrific running into you,” I say, dragging my poor child through the throng and away from all the hovering questions, “but I'm afraid we've got to run—”

“Ellie! Wait!”

Alan stumbles through the revolving door and outside right along with us. I could make a run for it, I suppose, but Starr and I barely have one decent set of legs between us. So I blow out a resigned breath and squint up into a face creased with concern. A face obviously wrestling with how to ask those questions, since the object of the questions is standing right beside me with, I imagine, a few of her own.

“Daniel doesn't know, does he?”

“Who's Daniel?” Starr says.

I sigh. Remember what I said about wanting to forget my twenty-second year? Well, lemme tell ya—my twenty-eighth ain't exactly shaping up to be any great shakes, either.

“We were on our way to the zoo,” I say. “Care to join us?”

 

On a Monday afternoon in early summer, the zoo is crowded enough to muffle our conversation, but not so crowded that I have to worry about letting Starr skip ahead a few feet in front of us so Alan and I can talk. Would, however, that that was the only thing I was worried about. Aside from the still very real threat of the reappearing hot dog, I'm having the strangest reaction to Alan's cologne. As in, it's turning me inside out. That isn't supposed to happen.

Is it?

Well, I'll have to get back to myself on that one, since I've got just a few more pressing issues to deal with right now. We hit the sea lion exhibit right at feeding time; Starr's right up at the glass, but Alan and I hang back to continue our conversation. I've told him a truncated version of the truth, glossing over the bits that make me sound like a slut. Alan's listened thoughtfully, only occasionally interrupting for clarification. Now he says, kindness oozing from his pores, “And you've been beating yourself up over this ever since, haven't you?”