Ten
Ten
JULY 1996
“Lower your voice. Grant is upstairs,” my father said.
“I’m done following your instructions, Richard.” Her slurred speech echoed down the hallway.
I’d been sitting on the steps for fifteen minutes, waiting for my parents to leave. They always attended Madeline Milton’s summer solstice party, but for some reason, my mother wanted to stay home.
“Pout if you want, but we have to attend Madeline’s party. There is no way to explain your absence.” The door slammed as my father left, his frustration reflected in the roar of his engine as he revved it once and then twice, waiting for my mother to join.
A long beat of silence was interrupted by the piercing sound of breaking glass, followed by a primal scream. I rushed into the kitchen. My mother’s wineglass was in pieces, an empty bottle remained on the counter. Her eyes were glassy as she looked up. I scanned her body for physical injury, but there was none, only a wounded expression across her face.
“Mom?” I wanted to know if she was okay or if she needed me or if she’d finally had enough. But I never asked any of those questions out loud. Instead, I stared at my mother’s quivering chin and watched as the tremors eased away, replaced by a plastered smile and a dismissive tone.
“Go back upstairs, Grant. Your father and I are heading out,” she said with annoyed resignation.
I wanted to punch the wall. When would it stop? When would my mother finally stand up to the man who made her miserable?
“It doesn’t sound like you want to go,” I said.
“My wants became irrelevant years ago.” My mother took a deep breath, smoothing her black evening gown. “I’ll be fine,” she lied.
She kissed my cheek and walked outside. I heard the slam of a car door and the scattering of gravel.
I’d been waiting all day for the moment when my parents finally left and Tess and I could meet up. I should have been excited, but instead I couldn’t shake the feeling of unease. Something was wrong with my mother. She’d always been moody—periods of joy followed by days holed away. But lately, it seemed as if any trickle of happiness or confidence disappeared into never-ending fights with my father and glass after glass of wine.
My mother always described Madeline Milton’s summer solstice party as the social event of the year. The fact that my father was forcing her out tonight made zero sense. Usually, she was pleading with him to attend and he was complaining about “unnecessary demands on his time,” but tonight he seemed eager to leave. My parents cared more about social obligations than they did about each other, but maybe that was how all marriages ended up.
I took a moment to clean up the shards of glass before I headed out. No matter what was happening with my family, I wasn’t going to let it ruin my night alone with Tess.
She insisted on keeping our relationship secret, especially from her mother, who would be working the party. When the barn manager got fired earlier in the summer, she said her mom grew even more anxious, constantly reminding Tess that any mistake, no matter how small, could ruin this job with Ms. Milton.
And I knew Tess took this threat seriously. She was afraid of how her mother would react to our relationship. Even though Tess resented her mom’s intensity and desire to shape her into something she wasn’t—a feeling I completely understood—she never wavered in supporting her mother’s insistence that they protect this opportunity.
I once asked Tess why this particular job was so important. She immediately got quiet and pulled away, eventually saying, “I know you don’t understand, and I don’t think it’s something I can explain to you.” It was the one time I felt a crack in our connection, so I dropped it and never asked about it again. And reluctantly agreed to keep hiding in the shadows.
When I finally made it to Tess’s cottage, I knocked softly. My knuckles barely finished brushing the edge of the wooden door when it was flung open, her bright face filling the room. It should have been impossible to hear my knock over the laughter and music streaming out of Madeline Milton’s home, but Tess must have been waiting.
“Hi,” she chirped, raising onto her tiptoes to kiss my lips briefly before grabbing my arms and pulling me quickly inside. Tess’s dark hair spilled down her back as she looked over her shoulder, her chestnut eyes sparkling. She smiled and I felt my pulse quicken.
I’d heard people describe a feeling of coming home, a comfort I’d never associated with any physical structure that my parents occupied. But I had that feeling when I was with Tess Murphy.
She was giddy as she showed me around the cottage, but it was only one open room, with a small loft, full of discarded furniture. Nothing matched. It was the house of the broken and forgotten. I couldn’t imagine sharing a space this small with my mother. Space was a prerequisite for our family.
But it was evident Tess loved it. She made me take my shoes off before giving me “the tour,” which took approximately forty-five seconds. My hands were on her waist as I trailed behind her, smelling the shampoo in her long hair, finding it difficult to concentrate on the amazement of a “real claw-foot tub” when her body was inches away from mine.
We ended up at the window, looking out at the lights glowing from the main house and the noises of partygoers piercing the night air.
“What is this party?” Tess asked. “My mother said they flew in lobsters from Maine and the basement was filled with crates of champagne. Have you ever gone?”
One of my eyebrows raised as I responded, “A party with a bunch of drunk old people? No thanks.”
Tess sighed as she said, “I wonder what it tastes like.”
“Champagne?”
“No. Lobster.”
“You’ve never had lobster?”
Tess turned around, putting her hands on my chest. She craned her neck upward as she said, “No. Where would I ever eat lobster?”
I leaned down and kissed her lips. “You’d like it. Lobster’s sweet. Surprisingly so. Like someone else I know.”
Tess rolled her eyes. “No one would ever describe me as sweet. Rude, smart, outspoken, reckless. That’s how I’m described.”
“All of those are true,” I replied, feeling Tess’s fingers playfully tickle my ribcage before I continued, “but you’re also sweet, Tess. Not many girls would spend an hour with somebody’s mom discussing new hybrid rose varietals. You made her day. She seemed almost excited this afternoon, which is a rarity.” I didn’t mention that my mother’s excitement vanished the moment my father pulled into the driveway.
Tess’s face scrunched up as she considered her words. “She seems lonely. And sad? I don’t think she likes her life, but she’s afraid to leave.”
“I know,” I said, pausing, because talking about my mother seemed like a betrayal. Tess saw that my mother was unhappy, but there was so much more she didn’t know. I was conditioned never to reveal the deeply hidden secrets of my parents’ marriage. We did not discuss the screaming fights I overheard or the marks on my mother’s arms. We smiled for photographs and made jokes at parties about family vacations that never happened. I was so used to pretending that the darkness didn’t exist that it seemed impossible to talk about, even with Tess.
I looked out the window, my voice quiet as I continued, “She used to laugh all the time. Now I only see her smile in her garden. Or with you. You make her feel better, and sometimes I think I make her feel worse.”
“I can’t imagine you ever making someone feel worse,” Tess said as she squeezed my hand.
I thought for a moment, about how Tess was always so excited to see me, her eyes sparkling, the electricity of her body vibrating before she melted into hugs that lasted longer and longer, glances across the room that conveyed entire paragraphs of meaning without any words uttered.
We’d spent every day of the last five weeks together. We’d talk about easy stuff like the fact that Scottie Pippen was the true MVP of the Bulls. But sometimes we’d slip into conversations about more serious stuff. Tess would ask me what I wanted to do in life. She didn’t expect me to rattle off the elite schools I needed to attend to ensure a future of success like my father did. She didn’t accept my vague reference to a career in finance, the same answer delivered by dozens of other kids at St. Albans. Instead, she pushed and prodded, asking what made me happy and whether I wanted to change the world or disappear into a completely different identity.
When I answered her honestly and said, “I have no fucking clue,” she smiled and said “Totally.” And then we would talk about the possibilities in front of us and the dozens of ways our lives could evolve. For once, I felt like the person listening to me cared about what I had to say.
Being with Tess made me realize that I didn’t have that kind of relationship with anyone else in my life. Stuart was a good friend, but we never talked about anything other than lacrosse scores and the idiots on our team. Most kids had people in their lives, parents, who showed interest and wanted to connect with them. Not me. I got forced smiles when I walked into a room, exasperated sighs at every question I asked and every suggestion I proposed. My parents made me feel like a burden they shifted back and forth, oftentimes strategically depending on the dynamics in their battles. I didn’t know how to fix them.
But Tess I cared about. When she said she’d never had lobster, that seemed like a problem I could fix.
“I have an idea,” I said. “Come with me?”
Tess eyed me suspiciously but nodded. “Okay. But I hope this doesn’t take too long. We have one night with our parents all out and I want to take full advantage of it.”
I swallowed slowly, my mind swirling with the possibilities for how this evening could unfold. Ever since our picnic at the river, I’d been slow and careful with Tess. And every day she tested my restraint in ways akin to torture. The way she was looking at me right now made me realize that my restraint didn’t stand a chance tonight.
On a lobster hunt, we walked around the back of the Milton house. The place was busy, people coming and going. They had a temporary kitchen set up in the barn and waitstaff were moving back and forth, bringing platters of food to the main house. I was wearing a white IZOD polo and khaki shorts, blending in with the waitstaff uniforms. Tess waited beside the barn as I grabbed a plate and filled it with lobsters. No one noticed, or everyone was too busy to care about two lobsters when there was an ocean of food to be served.
“Grant, what if someone sees us?” Tess asked as we walked back to her cottage.
“No one is paying attention to us. They are all too wrapped up in themselves.” I scanned the party. Most of the guests were inside, the early-evening temperatures too hot to be enjoyable. But I looked up and found my father standing on the stone terrace. He was smoking a cigar, his standard smugness visible from across the property. I was too far away to be noticed, and besides, I looked like the staff. In my father’s world, there was never a reason to acknowledge the people he found beneath him. I knew that most days, I was in that category.
At least he was giving my mother some space, I thought, relieved that she was nowhere in sight. Tess’s eyes were glued on the entrance, taking in the guests’ arrival. The driveway was full of cars, a team of valets moving vehicles into the south field. Most people really dressed up for this party, and as Tess’s eyes got bigger, I realized that she’d probably never seen anything like this.
I elbowed her side. “You’re staring.”
“Look at those cars, Grant,” she said, pointing at the line of Jaguars and Mercedes parked in the circle. “Can we watch for a minute?”
“Watch what?” I asked.
“The outfits. Look at that dress,” Tess squealed, pointing to a bright pink gown that seemed to swallow its resident.
“Kind of ridiculous, huh?” I said, wondering how a dress like that made sense in the middle of a bunch of hayfields.
“Ridiculously amazing,” Tess said and sighed.
I glanced back at the terrace and saw Madeline Milton walking toward my father. He smiled in her direction, and Richard Alexander rarely smiled. My father said something and Madeline’s head rolled back as she laughed. How could my father charm everyone around him except for the people he was supposed to love?
“Come on. I’ve seen enough,” I said.
I could tell by the dreamy look on her face that Tess disagreed. She wanted to stay and take it all in because she hadn’t been around these people long enough to watch the luster fade and understand their vicious circle of masking flaws with finery.
Tess pulled her eyes away from the guests and looked into mine. “Are you going to show me how to eat those things?” she asked, pointing at the lobsters.
“Of course.”
Back inside the cottage, we sat at the table and I cracked the shells, removing the lobster meat. She took a few bites and I asked, “What do you think?”
“It’s chewy. Kind of like shrimp, but a little sweeter. You were right about that.” Her mouth pulled to the side and she gulped forcefully, indicating how she really felt about the food.
“Not your favorite?”
“I guess I’m more of a fried-chicken girl.” She picked up a lobster and looked at its face as she said, “You are not my thing.”
I laughed. “What else is your thing, Tess?”
She thought for a moment before responding. “My mother’s Brunswick stew is pretty good.”
“What’s in that?” I asked.
“A little bit of everything. Pork, chicken, lima beans, corn.”
“That sounds awful,” I said, cracking a claw. I watched as Tess’s face fell. I tried to recover quickly. “I mean, not awful. Just not the same as lobster.”
The conversation turned silent as we finished the rest of the lobsters. Once it was clear we were done, Tess picked up our plates and brought them over to the kitchen. She grabbed a garbage bag from under the sink and poured in the shells. She was removing the evidence of our dinner, and her elongated silence killed me.
“I’m sorry about what I said, Tess. I’m sure your mom’s soup is great.”
Tess sat on the couch and I walked over to join her. She looked at me and sighed. “I’m fried chicken and you’re lobster. You get that, right, Grant?”
I nodded and shrugged. “Yeah. It’s one of the things I like the most about you.”
“Why?” Her arms were folded tightly across her chest and her eyes were focused. I didn’t want to fumble an explanation this important.
“Everyone in D.C. is trying to be someone else. Everyone at those parties”—I gestured toward the Milton house—“is pretending that they are more important than they really are. That world is exhausting. You are not.”
“You like me because I don’t exhaust you?” Her eyebrow shot up and I knew I hadn’t gotten this right.
I swallowed before I continued. “Yes, because being with you is the most natural, the most real, I have ever felt in my life. You don’t put on an act, Tess. You’re confident and fearless. I feel like the best version of myself when I’m with you. Like there is a world where I don’t have to pretend to want the life my father demands. Where I can make choices and mistakes.”
Tess’s eyes danced as she asked, “You feel all of that because I like fried chicken more than lobster?”
“Probably half the people at that party like fried chicken more than lobster. I feel all of that because you aren’t afraid to admit that you like fried chicken more than lobster. You aren’t afraid of saying the unpopular thing.”
“Some people, my mother in particular, would say that I talk too much. That maybe I should keep these opinions to myself.”
I shook my head. “No. Please don’t ever change who you are, Tess.”
“We’re really different people, Grant.”
“Different is not bad, Tess. Besides, I need more fried chicken in my life.”
“I don’t try to be anything else because I don’t know any better. This summer is a whole new world for me.”
“Do you like it, Tess?”
She looked down at the floor. “Not the food. Or the rules. Or the fancy furniture. I’ve never been more uncomfortable. I’m always on edge that I’m going to mess this up for my mother. I know how important this job is to her. And I guess it’s important to me too. I’m ready for her to have a regular job, not wondering if her hours are going to get cut, and whether we can afford stuff.” Tess turned her head away as she said, “Stuff that you never have to think about. We have big differences, Grant.”
She was right. She did things, like wrapping up half of her sandwich in a paper towel and putting it in her bag. Or smoothing out the tinfoil and folding it into a neat square. I’d notice her doing these things but never stopped to think about why. Especially when I would so easily have thrown a half-eaten sandwich into the trash.
Tess leaned her head on my shoulder as she said, “But the thing I like the most about this summer is you.”
I laced my fingers with hers and lifted her chin as I said, “I love you, Tess. I love you exactly the way you are.”
She swallowed, the weight of my words seeming to sink into her brain.
I had never said these words to anyone before Tess. It wasn’t a phrase my parents used, not with me and not with each other. I’d certainly never told a girl that I loved her, and I didn’t completely know what it meant to love another person, but I couldn’t imagine feeling more for someone than I felt for her.
I held my breath waiting for her response. The same reaction I always had after I said those words to Tess. I wondered if she felt the same way. I wondered if I scared her with how I felt. I wondered if it was a mistake to say those words out loud.
She grabbed my hand and led me upstairs to the loft, where she slept. We climbed the ladder without speaking. At the top, I was surprised to see a space that was purely Tess. The walls were sloped with white-painted boards that she had covered in pictures ripped from magazines, held up with strips of masking tape. There were pictures of her favorite bands, Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots and Alanis Morissette. There were pictures of New York and Paris and an article titled “Things to See and Do in Washington, D.C.” She had a whole collage of gardens and flowers. There was a shelf overflowing with books and stacks of them beside her bed. I saw some novels she’d mentioned as her favorites and a few books I grudgingly suffered through in high school English class. There was also a whole stack of history books about U.S. presidents. Half of those books were ones my father had been nagging me to read for years. There was a pile of clothes in the corner and three empty Dr Pepper bottles on top of her dresser.
I realized I was staring at the room and Tess was staring at me. I turned toward Tess, my face full of joy at getting to see her space. She smiled, leaning in to my body, reaching her arms up so she could loop them around my neck.
I swallowed nervously. For once, she had her arms around my body and she was completely calm. I knew what that meant, because I told Tess she had to set the pace. There had been a few times when we’d gotten close, when I’d wondered whether this would be the day, but then I’d see Tess hesitate. And I would stop. Because the last thing I wanted in the world was for Tess to have any regrets when it came to me. I wanted her to trust me completely.
That night could have been like those other times, except it wasn’t.
Tess looked into my eyes and whispered into my ear, “I am 100 percent ready.”