Night Road (6 page)

Outside, a car horn honked.

“That’ll be my mom,” Mia said. “She texted me last night. We’re going to visit my grandmother today. I better go.”

Lexi followed Mia to the front door. In her mind, she blurted out her secret several times, and they laughed about it; in truth, she said nothing, just stared at Mia’s long blond hair.

At the front door, Mia hugged her fiercely. “Thanks, Lexi. I mean it.” She drew back, looking a little uncertain. “I’m sorry, you know. I shouldn’t have lost it like that. You’ll come to the dance with Ty and me, right?”

“Like I’m not lame enough already,” Lexi said.

“Don’t say that. We’ll have a blast.”

Outside, the car horn honked again.

“She’s so OCD,” Mia said, opening the door.

The white Mustang was parked out front, its engine purring, exhaust melting into the fog.

Zach got out of the car and stood there, staring at Lexi over the Mustang’s white roof. Rain pelted his face, made him blink.

Mia flung her hoodie over her head and ran down to the car, getting in.

Lexi was certain she saw Zach shake his head slightly, as if to say,
it never happened … it can’t happen.
Then he got back into his car.

Lexi watched them drive away, then went back into the trailer, closing the door behind her. He didn’t want her to tell Mia. Was that what he’d meant?

Eva sat at the kitchen table, her hands cupped around her mug. “His car woke me up last night,” she said, looking up. “So I went to the window. I din’t expect you to come home.”

Lexi tried to imagine the scene Eva had witnessed: Lexi practically carrying Mia up the stairs; Mia collapsing on the floor, singing. “I thought we’d be staying at the Farradays’.”

“I’m pretty sure I know why you din’t.”

Lexi sat down across from Eva. “I’m sorry,” she said, too ashamed to make eye contact. Aunt Eva would be disappointed in her now, maybe she’d even wonder if Lexi was like her mother after all.

“You want to talk about it?”

“I didn’t drink anything, if that’s what you think. I saw … my mom drink, so I’m…” She shrugged. There was no way to put all of that emotion into a few careful words. “I didn’t drink anything.”

Eva reached across the table and took hold of Lexi’s hands. “I’m no warden, Alexa. You wouldn’t know it to look at me, but I remember what it’s like to be young, and I know how the world works. A girl can get in real trouble when she’s in that condition. She can make a bad decision. I would hate for you to get hurt.”

“I know.”

“I know you know. And one more thing: Mia and her brother aren’t like you. Those two got choices you don’t. They’ll get breaks you won’t. You understand me?”

Lexi knew that; she’d known it from the first time she walked in the Farraday house. Mia could afford to make mistakes. Lexi couldn’t.

“I’ll be careful.”

“Good.” Eva looked at her. “And about that boy. I seen the way he ran after you. You be careful there, too.”

“He doesn’t like me. You don’t have to worry about that.”

Eva studied her carefully. Lexi wondered what she saw. “You just be careful around him.”

Four

Jude loved her garden in October. It was a time of organization, of planning for the future. She lost herself in the work of planting bulbs, imagining how each choice would alter the garden next spring. And she needed that now, to find a kind of peace.

The past five days had been stressful for her, although she couldn’t exactly say why. She hadn’t wanted the kids to go to the party, but they had, and it had gone uneventfully. Zach had come home right on time, and she’d hugged him tightly (smelling his breath) and sent him to bed. She’d seen no evidence of drinking, and Mia had spent the night with Lexi and come home smiling the next day. Apparently, nothing had gone wrong. So why did she think something had? Maybe Miles was right, and she was seeing problems where none existed.

She sat back on her heels and clapped her hands together to release the dirt clinging to her gloves. Tiny black particles rained down, creating a lacy pattern on her thighs.

She was just about to reach for the clippers lying in the dirt beside her when she heard a car. She looked up, tented a gloved hand across her eyes, and saw sunlight glint off the silver hood of a brand new Mercedes.

“Crap,” she muttered. She’d forgotten about the time.

The car pulled up in front of the low stone wall that outlined her front garden.

Jude pulled off her dirt-caked gloves and stood up as her mother got out of the car. “Hello, Mother.”

Caroline Everson walked around her bullet car and into the vibrant garden with the bearing of an ice pick. She was dressed, as always, winter or summer, in a pair of black wool pants and a fitted blouse that showcased her toned, fit body. Her white hair was drawn back from her angular face; the severity of the style offset her bottle-green eyes to perfection. At seventy, she was still a beautiful woman. And successful; that was what mattered to Caro. Success. “Have you agreed to be on the garden tour yet?”

Jude wished she’d never revealed that little dream to her mother. “It’s not ready yet. Soon, though.”

“Not ready? It’s beautiful.”

Jude heard the derisiveness in her mother’s tone and tried not to let it wound her. Caroline saw no point in hobbies. The end game was what mattered to her mother, and until Jude showed this garden on the island tour, she would somehow be a failure. “Come inside, Mother. Lunch is ready.” Without waiting for a response, Jude led the way toward the front door. On the porch, she slipped out of her gardening clogs, brushed the dirt off her pants, and then went inside.

Sunlight poured through the home’s twenty-foot-tall windows, made the exotic wood floors glow like burnished copper. An immense granite fireplace dominated the great room, which was decorated in soothing neutrals. The real star of this room was the view: soaring glass panels captured a swatch of emerald grass, a layer of steel blue Sound, and the distant Olympic Mountains.

“Can I get you a glass of wine?” Jude asked.

Her mother set down her purse so carefully it might have held explosives. “Of course. Chardonnay, if you have it.”

Jude was glad for the excuse to leave the room. She passed through the dining area, created by a long bird’s-eye maple table and ten chairs, to the open kitchen beyond. The only time she couldn’t see her mother was when she opened the wood-paneled door of the Sub-Zero refrigerator.

When she returned to the great room, her mother was standing at the end of the sofa, looking up at the huge canvas that hung above the fireplace. It was a gorgeous, abstract work of art—swiping, curling streams of amber and red and black that somehow managed to convey a buoyant happiness. Mother had painted it decades ago, and Jude still had trouble reconciling the work’s glorious optimism with the woman standing in front of it now.

“You should replace that piece. The gallery has some lovely work now,” her mother said.

“I like it,” Jude said simply, and it was true. This piece had been her father’s favorite—she remembered standing with him as a little girl, her small hand tucked in his bear-paw grasp, watching Mother paint it.
Look at the way she does that, it’s magic,
he’d said, and for a time Jude had believed it, believed there was a kind of magic in their home. “I remember watching you paint it.”

“A lifetime ago,” her mother said, turning her back on the painting. “Why don’t you go clean up? I’ll wait.”

Jude handed her mother the glass of wine and then left the room. She took a quick shower and changed into a pair of comfortable jeans and a black V-necked sweater and returned to the great room, where her mother was seated on the sofa, her spine straight, sipping at the wine like a hummingbird.

Jude sat opposite her mother. A large stone coffee table separated them. “Lunch is ready anytime you’re hungry,” Jude said. “I’ve made us a Waldorf salad.”

At that, they lapsed into their usual silence. Jude couldn’t help wondering why they continued this pretense. Once a month, they met for a meal—trading locations back and forth as if it mattered where they were. During a lunch of healthy food and expensive wine, they pretended to have something to talk about, a relationship.

“Did you see the article in
The Seattle Times
? The one about the gallery?” her mother asked.

“Of course. You sent it to me. You said how important motherhood is to you.”

“And it is.”

“Nannies notwithstanding.”

Mother sighed. “Oh, Judith Anne. Not that old whine again.”

“I’m sorry. You’re right,” Jude said, and not because it was the only response that would end the conversation. It was true. Jude was forty-six years old. She should have forgiven her mother by now. Then again, her mother had never asked for forgiveness, never thought it necessary, even though she’d checked out of motherhood as if it had been a cheap motel. Fast and in the middle of the night. Jude had been seven years old and suddenly upended by grief, and yet, after her father’s funeral, no one had thought to reach out for her, certainly not her own mother, who went back to work the very next day. In all the years that came after, her mother had never stopped working. She’d given up painting and become one of the most successful gallery owners in Seattle. She nurtured young artists while entrusting her daughter’s care to one nanny after another. They’d had no relationship whatsoever until about five years ago, when Caroline had called and scheduled lunch. Now, once a month, they pretended. Jude didn’t even know why.

“How are the children?” her mother asked.

“Wonderful,” Jude said. “Zach’s grades are phenomenal and Mia has become a talented actress. Daddy would have been proud of her.”

Her mother sighed. It didn’t surprise Jude, that small exhalation of breath. Dad as a topic was off-limits. Jude had been a daddy’s girl; neither one of them wanted to acknowledge that now, all these years after his death, although Jude still missed him and his bear hugs. “I’m sure you’re right,” her mother said, smiling tightly. “I assume Zach can go to any school he wants. I hope he continues with his plans to become a doctor. It would be a shame if he quit his studies.”

“I suppose that’s another reminder that I quit law school. I was pregnant and Miles was in medical school. We hardly had a choice.”

“You lost the baby,” her mother said, as if that was what mattered.

“Yes,” Jude said quietly, remembering. She’d been young and in love, and honestly, for most of her life, she’d been afraid of motherhood, afraid that she would discover in herself some genetic anomaly that had been passed down from Caroline. She and Miles had gotten pregnant accidentally—too soon, when they weren’t ready—and Jude had discovered from the inception how profoundly she could love. The very
idea
of motherhood had transformed her.

“You have always loved your children too much. You care too much about making them happy.”

Parenting advice from her mother.
Perfect
. Jude smiled thinly. “It’s impossible to love your children too much. Although I wouldn’t really expect you to understand that.”

Her mother flinched. “Judith, why is it that you give that girl from the trailer park the benefit of every doubt, and you give me none?”

“Lexi—and you certainly know her name by now—has been like a part of this family for the past three years. She has never disappointed me.”

“And I have.”

Jude didn’t answer. What was the point? Instead, she stood up. “How about we have lunch now?”

Her mother rose. “That would be nice.”

They spent the rest of the appointed time—exactly two hours, from twelve to two, talking about things that didn’t matter. When it was over, Mother kissed Jude perfunctorily on the cheek and went to the entry, where she paused. “Good-bye, Judith. Today was lovely. Thank you.”

“Good-bye, Mother.”

Jude stared through the open door at her mother’s slim figure, walking fast through the garden, not bothering to look at any of it. As hard as she tried to feel nothing, Jude experienced the free-form depression that always accompanied these lunches. Why was it that she couldn’t quite stop wanting her mother’s love? The Mercedes came to life with a throaty purr and drove slowly up the driveway.

On the entry table, a cordless phone lay next to a glass bowl filled with floating roses. Jude picked it up and punched in her best friend’s number.

“Hello?”

“Molly. Thank God,” Jude said, leaning against the wall. Suddenly, she was exhausted. “The wicked witch was just here.”

“Your mother? Is it Wednesday?”

“Who else?”

“You want a drink?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

“Twenty minutes. Dockside?”

“See you there.”

*

On Friday, after school, they went shopping for dresses. Jude was ridiculously pleased about the whole thing. She knew it was just a dance, nothing earth-shattering, but it was Mia’s first real date, and Jude was eager to make the whole experience perfect for her daughter. To that end, she’d set up manicures and pedicures for both of them—and Lexi, of course—and an evening of shopping at the mall.

She heard her bedroom door open and she turned. Miles stood in the doorway. He leaned against the doorjamb, wearing a pair of well-worn Levi’s and an Aerosmith T-shirt. In the pale autumn light, he looked ruggedly handsome. A gray stubble had grown out during the day, giving his face a sculpted look. “I come home from work early and you’re leaving?”

Smiling, she went to him, let him take her in his arms. “Why is it, Dr. Farraday, that you don’t shave and your hair starts going gray and you manage to look more handsome, but if I forget makeup for one day, people mistake me for Grandma Moses?”

“They only call you that behind your back.”

“Very funny.”

He touched her jawline, a featherlight caress. “You’re beautiful, Jude, and you know it. It’s why things go your way.”

It was true for both of them. Miles had been golden from childhood. Good-looking and brilliant, with a ready smile, he seduced people without even trying. His nickname at the hospital was Doc Hollywood.

“Take Zach out for dinner. I’ll be home as soon as I can. Maybe we can sit on the beach tonight and have a glass of wine. We haven’t done that in a while.”

Miles drew her in for a kiss that meant something. Then he swatted her butt. “You better go before I remember how much I like afternoon sex.”

“As opposed to morning sex and evening sex, which you hate?” She twirled playfully out of his grasp and headed upstairs.

At Zach’s bedroom door, she knocked, waited for a “come in,” and opened the door. He sat in that expensive new game chair of his, playing something on his Xbox. She touched his head, scratched his hair. His hair was still damp from football practice. He lifted up into her touch, straining like a flower toward the sun.

“We’re going to the mall to buy Mia a dress for the dance. You want to come?”

He laughed. “I’m not even going to the dance, remember? Amanda will be in L.A. with her family.”

Jude sat down on the bed. “I hate that you’re not going. It’s senior year. And Mia tells me you’re a shoo-in for homecoming king.”

Zach rolled his eyes. “Big deal.”

“You should take a friend to the dance. Someday you’ll look back—”

“If I care about that crap in the future, shoot me. Really.”

Jude couldn’t help smiling. “Okay, fine. But at least come shopping with us. It would mean a lot to Mia.”

“I thought Lexi was going.”

“She is. What does that have to do with it?”

“Mia has a friend with her. And I am
not
sitting outside a dressing room while my sister tries on dresses. No way.”

“Okay, but I’m not giving up on the dance.”

“There’s a shock,” he said with a grin. “You’re not giving up on something. And do
not
buy me jeans again. I mean it, Mom. You don’t get what I like.”

“Fine. Fine.” Jude scratched his head one last time and turned away from him.

She left Zach’s room and met Mia in the hallway. Together, they went out to the garage. In fifteen minutes, they had picked up Lexi and were on their way to the mall.