Chapter Twenty-Nine
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
After Tokyo, Lee and Marc dated long-distance. Once he proposed, Marc wanted to live together. “We’ve been apart too much.”
Lee was unsure. In her experience, relationships were rarely improved by being together all the time.
“Should I ask Mom what to do?” Lee asked Jamie on the phone.
“It’s cliché, but I think it’s crazy that I’m supposed to wake up and go to bed with the same person for the rest of my life. That can’t be natural , can it?”
“Mom’s only going to say you’re complaining,” Jamie said. Joan would have no sympathy—sympathy wasn’t what you went to Joan for.
Marc was starting a new job in London. He worked in banking, like Jamie had, although in a different specialty, which was the extent of Lee’s understanding. She wasn’t sure she wanted to move to London. It was far from her family, and she didn’t know how she would get a job.
“You’ll find something,” Marc said. “A company can sponsor you for a work visa. And until then, you can just kick it.”
“I need to do something.” Lee reached over and mussed his hair—she liked how he used phrases like “kick it.” “I can’t just do nothing.”
“You won’t be doing nothing,” Marc said. He pushed her playfully and they rolled onto the couch.
They settled on her staying with him through Christmas as a trial.
Marc signed a lease for a flat in Chelsea, and Lee brought three suitcases.
Almost immediately she regretted the move.
Late twenties, unemployed, living with your mother (when your mother was Joan) was bad enough, but soon Lee discovered that swapping the scenario with London and Marc brought its own distinct gloom.
Every few days, it seemed she would receive a call from an old friend informing her of a new job, dog, house.
“And what are you doing?” they would ask, and Lee, compulsively honest, would tell them she was doing nothing.
She spent her first months learning the bus routes and occasionally walking to Waterstones and reading entire books in the aisle (an activity she felt was marginally less acceptable abroad than in the States).
She overspent on lunch, eleven pounds for simple cheese sandwiches, and was in a rage when she discovered supermarket meal deals.
And then at some point the guilt and anxiety fell away, and Lee woke one morning and found she was in love with London.
It’s easy to fall in love with London in early summer.
On most days Lee could walk to St. Paul’s in clear weather and eat her tomato sandwich on a bench in the shade.
She browsed the boutiques, where she had enough muscle memory from shopping with Joan to garner service from snooty salespeople, and occasionally allowed herself a late-afternoon cocktail at one of the chic bars on Mount Street.
As she walked, Lee would surreptitiously raise her hand to admire her engagement ring in the sun.
The ring was a modified square on a platinum band, and gazing at it was like looking down a staircase.
When she returned to the apartment, sometimes Marc would be there.
He worked long hours and at times sneaked home for a midday nap.
Marc was an angelic sleeper who didn’t sleep with his mouth open (as Lee did, embarrassingly); his long eyelashes were still, and he often slept with a smile, as if he had only good dreams.
In November, Lee made plans to travel to Virginia to celebrate Thanksgiving with Marc’s family.
Lee felt guilty about this, as she always spent holidays at home with Joan and Jamie.
Joan didn’t prepare the traditional dishes anymore; instead they would make hot pot, tossing in great platters of sliced beef and fish cake and tofu.
“Well, I hope you’ll be here for Christmas,” Joan said. “I plan to buy a very big tree. And I’ll decorate the café with all sorts of goodies. It will be beautiful!”
“I might spend Christmas with Marc,” Lee said, although she wasn’t sure, she only wanted to hedge. “Or you could come visit me in London?”
“I’m busy with the café,” Joan said. “Very busy. I’m there now.” There actually was the sound of busyness, of dishes clinking and people talking.
“Is that Jamie? I want to talk to him.”
“No, Jamie’s at home. It’s another host. Pierre.”
“Another one? Do you have enough work for them all?”
“That is my policy. I meet a good host, I hire them.”
This didn’t seem to Lee a sustainable practice, but she didn’t want to argue, as she would then risk Joan shouting “Huh?” and repeating loudly whatever Lee had just said.
There was a knock at the door behind Lee. “Housekeeping!” a voice called.
“What was that? Where are you?” Joan asked sharply.
“A hotel. Marc’s parents treated us to a weekend away.”
“Which hotel?”
“Claridge’s.”
Silence. Lee suspected Joan thought Marc’s parents were snobs; she also knew her mother would never say so out loud. “You should send them a thank-you present. A nice one.”
“I know.”
“But with your own money. Maybe it’s time you get a job. I don’t know what you do all day.”
“I’m exploring—”
“It’s important for a woman to support her own living. It’s a signal to herself as much as to others. Anyway, you get to see Marc’s parents at Thanksgiving,” Joan said. “So you will come visit me for Christmas.” She hung up.
“All mothers are difficult in their own fashion,” Toni said when Lee confessed her frustrations over Thanksgiving. Lee and Marc had arrived in Virginia on Wednesday, and Lee had warmed immediately to Marc’s young, elegant stepmother.
“She’s just worried,” Lee said, acting the good child. She was fascinated by Toni, who was young but not too young, and who, like Joan, possessed an excellent jewelry collection. Her arms bore matching bangles in a watery silver, and when she gesticulated, they made a pleasant clinking sound.
“You should take time to find the right career.” Clink clink. “Marc is obviously going to be successful. Why stress yourself?”
“It’s not like I don’t want a job,” Lee said. She left out her chief complaint, that it wasn’t as if Joan had made her own living for most of her life—since this applied to Toni too.
Lee and Marc had been placed in a bedroom on the first floor of his childhood home, next to what appeared to be former nanny’s quarters.
Having grown up in Falling House and visiting the mansions of her JJS classmates, Lee was no stranger to opulence, but the Lewis place was on another level.
The house had three floors and what she’d been informed were eleven bedrooms. The interior had been chosen originally by Marc’s mother, though half had already been redone by Toni, who Marc said was working through the house at the precise allowed pace of a new wife tearing down a beloved former regime’s (Marc’s mother had died a decade earlier) monuments.
As a result, there was a disjointed feel to the rooms: a bedroom of French toile was followed by an office of stark white.
The furniture was the same, a mix of acrylic chairs and heavy jacquard.
Lee wondered if Marc was ever bothered by Toni’s removal of his mother’s footprint, but she never asked and he gave no indication of caring.
The Friday after Thanksgiving, Lee and Marc walked the grounds with Toni and Marc’s father, Peter, before dinner.
“Did you ever visit China?” Toni asked as they strolled through what was described as miles of preserved forestry.
“I understand your mother is from there.” Lee knew Marc had told his parents about Joan and Bill and a little of Misty (for she had told him only a little of Misty).
Lee could tell from Toni’s manner that she and Peter had discussed it privately and were resolved to treat the situation as completely normal.
“I went to Beijing and Shanghai when I was younger.” Lee watched Marc and Peter up ahead. She was embarrassed that she sometimes felt jealous when Marc spoke to his father—they had hour-long phone conversations, and afterward Marc would recount the highlights, worship bright on his face.
“Peter and I stopped in Hong Kong on our way to Bali. It’s a fascinating city. Do you speak?”
“Some Mandarin,” Lee said, though in truth her fluency was poor. She was less adept than Jamie, although their schooling had been the same. It was only that people were impressed when Lee spoke any Chinese at all, and thus she had coasted for years.
“A valuable skill,” Peter remarked. He and Marc had dropped back to join them. “Some might say the most valuable, given the direction of global economies.”
“Oh boy, Dad swooping in with the opinions.” Next to Peter, it was clear how close Marc was to his father physically—they not only were the same height but also had the same coloring and posture. “Careful. He’ll debate your ear off.”
“I’m sure Lee can manage,” Peter said, smiling. Lee smiled back. She could tell Peter and Toni were determined to like her.
When they returned to the house, Marc checked his messages and said he had to fly to New York.
“It’s the weekend,” Lee said.
“I’ve been off most of the week.” Marc folded a single pair of boxers and a white undershirt and dropped them into his backpack.
“But that means it’ll just be me and your parents.”
“I’ll be back in less than twenty-four hours. Besides, my parents are nice ,” Marc said, nuzzling her shoulder. “Aren’t they?”
The next evening, since it was only Lee and Toni and Peter, they ate in the kitchen instead of the formal dining room. Lee said she liked it this way because it was what they did at home. “The chicken is delicious,” she added.
“I wish I’d had time to get the seabass,” Toni said. “But work has been crazy. We’re finalizing our holiday issue.”
“Toni is extremely invested in her magazine,” Peter said, standing to refill Lee’s glass. “It’s important to Toni that you admire her career.”