Chapter 2 #2
“I dunno. To raise even more? Teach teenagers the value of money? Who knows.”
Marlow could see Betty and Stan in their backyard, barbecuing, talking, flirting. They were in their eighties and still clearly in love. Marlow crumpled a bit and downed her bubbly.
“Not that I don’t totally adore your SNL-worthy sketch of Peyton and Rachelle,” said Marlow, “but it’s fair that people want to celebrate big events. Mark moments, so they can feel their lives. Don’t you want to mark life’s big moments?”
“Maybe. Just not like that, I guess.”
“Eat your sushi,” she said. “It’s getting cold.”
Sabine rolled her eyes as Noah stepped through the gate below and called up. “I come bearing pomegranate mousse cake and an alcoholic beverage.”
“God bless you,” said Marlow to her brother. “Get your ass up here.”
Noah walked up the stairs, frowned at their bargain bottle of bubbly, popped his chilled bottle of far superior champagne, and reached for sushi.
“Tax for bringing dessert,” he said, dipping a salmon nigiri in soy sauce and popping it whole into his mouth.
“What’s shaking?” Marlow asked.
“Other than the mousse cake and my spare tire, not much. But you, young lady,” he said to Sabine, “have graduated from high school. Bravo.”
“Yeah, don’t let the door hit you on your way out,” said Sabine. “High school, I mean. Not you.”
“You passed, right?”
“Passed.”
“Phew,” he said, feigning relief.
“Ask her which university she’s saying yes to before July first because the scholarship offers will get yanked if she doesn’t,” said Marlow.
Noah eyed her and said nothing.
“Hey,” she said. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”
“I’m Team Sabine all the way. Gonna make T-shirts.”
Sabine leaned her head on her uncle’s shoulder. Marlow had to hand it to her brother. He always knew just what to say.
After sushi and divine cake, Sabine went to her room to watch some escapist show. Noah helped with the dishes.
“Any job prospects?” Marlow asked.
“Probably,” he said. “The phone rings, but I can’t bring myself to listen to the messages.”
“Then it’s door-to-door encyclopedia sales for you.”
“That’d make Mum and Dad sooo proud, wouldn’t it?
” They chuckled. Their parents had always bragged about Noah’s five-star chef career.
He’d been covered in the press—The Globe and Mail, Toronto Life, even The New York Times.
But over his twenty-year career, the constant adrenaline, the demanding customers, the dissatisfied restaurant investors, the absurd hours, had built up unbearable pressure, and one day he’d just quit.
“Selling encyclopedias might not be so bad,” he said. “No full-body anxiety shakes. Zero threat of impending stroke or heart attack. Cool, easy way to make a mil.”
“Still got cash?” she asked. “Not that I have any to give, just asking.”
“Yeah. Living with the folks is helping, though it’s crushing my soul.”
“That’s what I’m worried about,” said Marlow. “Are the antidepressants working?”
“Almost. Doctor’s playing with the dosage. I personally think a boyfriend would help.”
“Ditto—for both of us.”
“But enough about my perfect life. What about you?”
She told him about the Summer Summit presentation to Victor, how it had taken weeks to create, how it hadn’t flown for obvious reasons she could have predicted long ago but how Oscar was trying to save it because it was his first outing as senior director of the industry office, and how it had boomeranged back to her.
She was just about to tell Noah about the sudden reappearance of Yves when he said:
“Why’d you agree to redo it?”
“The PowerPoint? Because it’s my job. Also, Oscar dangled his old job as manager of the industry office. The interviews are a month away. How could I say no?”
“Uh, how about by saying no?” Here we go, thought Marlow. Why didn’t she ever get to lecture him? Noah’s life was a wreck, too, but she spared him because, despite his bravado, she knew he was a bit fragile.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “The job is full-time, includes benefits, would help pay for Sabine’s university—whenever she deigns to settle on a program—maybe even score us a mortgage in this city’s ridiculous housing market.”
“Dangling job or not, you let yourself get railroaded.”
“Just because you don’t have a gig doesn’t mean you can chastise me for keeping mine.”
“Watch me,” said Noah. “You created this situation. Took a job you didn’t want, stayed there, do nothing but complain about it, and go back for more the next day. It’s boring. We said we’d do a lot of things with our lives, but being boring wasn’t one of them.”
It felt like she’d been slapped.
“How many times have you and I done this exact thing?” he asked, tossing the clean chopsticks into the drawer.
“You complain about work, we talk about how to change things up, but next time I come, you’ve repeated the pattern without sticking up for yourself.
You wanted to be a filmmaker, now you coordinate an industry office.
You went from planning your feature to ‘would you like butter with that?’ ”
“I’m not the popcorn girl, asshole.”
“Might as well be. You had all these dreams, but you checked out.”
“Newsflash: I have a teenager I’m raising alone.”
“Don’t hide behind that. You could kick her out now, and she’d be fine.
Sure, she hasn’t chosen a university. Sure, she’s worried about the planet—all teenagers are.
She’ll pick a school, get some café job, and meet a nice human to date.
As for you, find something you want and go for it.
Future Marlie will thank me for saying so.
Boring, present Marlie is about to tell me to fuck off.
Fine. Just don’t wait around hoping someone else will make things better. ”
“You’re one to talk,” she spat back. “Unemployed, single, soon to be penniless, living with the parents but buying ninety-dollar champagne for your niece’s high school graduation.”
She could feel the tears rising and wasn’t interested in how long it would take for Noah to apologize for being blunt and say nice things to make up for it.
This was, in fact, a pattern of theirs. Noah insisted he was different from their judgy parents, but he was pretty freewheeling with his unsolicited advice, just like them, and often opened his mouth and said stuff—stinging stuff—before he’d really thought it through.
What almost made his comments harder to take than theirs was that (a) he was quick-witted and had a way with words, having wanted to be an actor for much of his youth, so whatever he said was clever, sharp-tongued, and sounded like indefatigable truth, and (b) he was supposed to be her ally.
They’d grown up in the trenches together, standing as a unified front against their condescending, imperious parents.
He was not supposed to skewer her or stab her in the back.
Each time it happened, it put a pinprick through her heart.
“Shit,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m an asshole.” There it was.
“Apology not accepted. Go home.”
He left. Marlow had herself a good cry, keeping one eye on Sabine’s closed door to make sure she didn’t see her mother a snotty, blubbery mess. Then she brought the champagne and her laptop to the couch to get going on the presentation. Drinking would help this situation. Significantly.