Chapter 6 Liz
Liz had hoped that something—a turtle migration, a peyote harvest, a NXIVM meeting—would call Angela away and require her to reschedule her visit, but no such luck.
While Preston uncorked bottles of orange wine, Liz shoved boxes of random belongings into the second bedroom, out of the way, and tried to mentally prepare herself.
She heard the first notes of mystical flute music stream through the speakers in Preston’s (now their?) house and stopped short.
A line had to be drawn. Northern Plains Flute Key G was that line.
Liz rushed into the kitchen, where Preston was wiping down counters.
“Please tell me this is a joke and you’re going to change the music before my ears start to bleed,” she said.
“Your mom loves this flutist! Flautist?”
“She also loves occult magic and fringe theories.”
Preston listened to the music for a second. “But it’s kinda nice, no? Relaxing?” Liz just looked at him. “Okay, I’ll switch it.”
“Thanks. And honestly, we don’t have to make a fuss,” Liz said, gesturing to the fruit platter, wineglasses, and gift box on the counter that actually contained a sonogram photo.
“It’s your mom!” Preston replied. “We never get to see her.”
“We don’t roll out the red carpet for your family.”
“They live two hours away.” Preston switched the music to a Pandora yacht rock station.
Liz bit her tongue to keep from saying that yes, Preston’s family lived in Orange County, less than two hours away, but she had only met them twice.
She told herself that this said more about Preston’s relationship with his family than it did about how serious their relationship was.
It seemed like Preston’s interactions with his parents, his older sister Piper, and his sister’s husband Brooks were fine…
but also like they were actors in a play instead of real people?
The whole dynamic reminded Liz of the way she spoke to a cashier at the grocery store.
Did you get your holiday shopping done? You see the game last night?
Preston’s family had been perfectly pleasant on the two occasions they had dinner, but Liz also couldn’t escape the idea that they wouldn’t have noticed if she had gotten up to go to the bathroom and never come back.
“She’s going to be here soon!” Preston announced, and Liz snapped out of it to see that he was looking down at his phone.
Liz wondered whether Preston had received a text from her mother or if Angela had enabled location-tracking services for him.
“Do you want to set up the cheese board while I straighten up the living room?”
Liz mustered a smile and crossed to the fridge to get some Camembert.
“Don’t put out the Camembert!” Preston reminded her. “Stinky cheeses remind Angela of bathroom mold.”
“Does Her Highness have any other likes and dislikes we common folk should know about?”
Preston shot her a look. Ha ha.
Liz opened the fridge and pulled out some inoffensive cheeses.
As far as she knew, Preston hadn’t told anyone else about his bizarre, secret guilty pleasure: the royal family.
He could name every one of Queen Elizabeth’s beloved corgis.
He had watched each episode of The Crown at least twice.
And Preston had told Liz that when England’s longest-reigning monarch passed away, he had taken it hard, been downcast for weeks.
Now that Preston was making a fuss over Angela’s visit like she was Camilla’s long-lost cousin, Liz had another reason to be worried: She needed their conversation to stay within domestic borders.
She didn’t want to freak Preston out with a laundry list of topics to avoid, but the royals—and really, Great Britain overall—fell under that umbrella.
Liz knew from experience that her mother would be only too happy to launch into a tirade about colonialism, the monarchy’s pedagogical hierarchies, or its longstanding systems of oppression.
Liz remembered standing in the Painted Desert in Arizona, age ten, on the way to her new home in an intentional lesbian community in Santa Fe led by a woman named Ocean whom Angela (going through a sapphic phase) was enamored with.
Liz had been trying to take in the pastel brushstrokes of nature, but Angela was ranting about caste systems and sociopolitical overlords.
It was tough to relax and enjoy the view when your adult needed a benzo large enough to topple an elephant whenever anyone used the word princess.
Liz sighed as she lined up seed crackers like obedient soldiers on the marble cheese board.
She promised her unborn child—for what wouldn’t be the first time—that she would do things differently.
Liz wouldn’t allow the same mistakes to tumble down the generational line; she would use personal history as a primer instead of a playbook.
Even though she was becoming a mother, she could not, would not, turn into her mother.
Given that Liz didn’t consult tarot cards for major life decisions, there wasn’t much danger of that, but Liz still had to make the point to herself.
The doorbell rang. “She’s here!” Preston exclaimed as he bounded over to the entrance. Liz tried to mentally prepare herself to walk on eggshells for the next hour; she’d never developed an emotional callus thick enough to contend with Angela.
“We’re set with the plan?” Preston yelled over his shoulder.
“We’ll give her the gift box when we sit down,” Liz confirmed, and braced herself for carnage.
The door swung open. “Angela, hi!”
Liz watched from the kitchen as her mother stepped inside and opened her arms, the familiar jingle of bangle bracelets announcing her arrival like a wind chime at Spahn Ranch.
Angela swept Preston into a fond embrace and Liz couldn’t help but watch with fascination.
Angela was big on physical touch with everyone except the person she had once shared a body with.
It was like Liz had hit her quota in the womb.
“You look great. Are you getting younger?” Preston said. Thrilled, Angela waved this off in a faux show of humility. “Seriously, you gotta tell me your secret,” Preston said, laying it on thick.
“Only if you tell me yours,” Angela teased. Code word: tiara, Liz thought.
“Deal.” Preston grinned.
Angela giggled. Was she flirting? Liz wouldn’t have put it past her, but given Liz’s expectant state, the idea left a particularly sour taste in her mouth. Liz stepped out into the foyer at the same time Angela whispered to Preston, “I’ll tell you my secret: tantric sex.”
Liz stifled an eye roll. That was hardly a secret. Neither Preston nor Angela could qualify for a discussion on secrets, however. Liz was haunted by the image of those three pink pills. But Preston and Angela had stopped fawning over each other and were walking towards her.
Liz stood awkwardly, unsure whether to go over and open her arms. “Hmm…” her mother assessed. “I’m picking up on a new vibe. Did you do something to your hair?”
“No,” Liz said. “It’s the same.” Angela narrowed her eyes and kept them trained on Liz.
“Something’s different.” Liz squirmed under her mother’s penetrating gaze until she couldn’t take it anymore.
“I’m pregnant.”
Angela’s eyes widened.
“Liz!” Preston turned to her, disappointed.
Liz mouthed, “Sorry!” It had taken all of thirty seconds for Liz’s resolve to evaporate; the news had slipped out as if it were a burden she needed to unload rather than a source of joy to be heralded. Liz glanced over to the gift box on the kitchen counter. She had blown it.
“Pregnant!” Angela repeated, stunned. Liz had never managed to throw her mother for a loop…until now. Liz allowed herself a tiny moment of satisfaction.
“At least that explains it. I was going to say you look a bit…” Angela made a meal of searching for the right word. “Sturdy.”
Liz absorbed this with the stoicism of a Secret Service agent and refused to take the bait. “Do you want some wine?” Liz asked brightly.
They sat down in the living room and Liz hoped her mother was impressed by the accomplishment she had added to her résumé: live-in girlfriend.
“Knocked up,” Angela commented, sipping greedily from a glass of orange wine and nodding at her surroundings, like now the change in address made sense.
“She’s twelve weeks,” Preston said. “We’re waiting to find out if it’s a boy or a girl.”
“Thank God you’re not doing one of those horrendous gender reveals,” Angela opined. “Those people in Virginia who got their legs blown off by the blue smoke from that cannon deserved everything that was coming to them.”
Liz pursed her lips. She was tempted to suggest that suffering the loss of a limb might be a tad punitive for a questionable party choice, but they were far too early into the visit for her to risk provoking Angela.
“We’d never do a gender reveal,” Preston assured Angela. “So tacky. Finding out is going to be the best surprise.”
“Plus, this way, you’re allowing the child to make decisions about what gender he, she, or they identify as rather than letting society decide ‘You’re a boy, you’re a girl,’ ” Angela sniffed.
Liz’s brow furrowed. “I’m all for someone deciding their own identity, but this is less of a political statement and more like, we’re not finding out if it’s a boy or girl until the baby is born.”
Angela’s face hardened. “You’re going to pander to an antiquated social construct that doesn’t honor individual choice? I always hoped you’d think outside the box, Liz…” Angela shook her head.
Liz should have known that if a gendered baby came out of her uterus instead of a they, she would be a de facto disappointment to her mother.
“You should try the leaf rattle,” Angela advised.
“The what?” Liz asked, baffled by this non sequitur.
“The chakapa? From Peru?” Angela replied as if she were explaining the basics of life to a complete moron.
“Unfamiliar with the chakapa,” Liz said tightly.