Chapter 16 Liz #2
Piper was thirty-seven, a good three years shy of the milestone Tripp impugned her with.
“It is a shame, though,” Cricket said with a sigh.
“Wait, you knew about this?” Preston asked his parents. Their expressions didn’t give anything away, but their lack of denial spoke volumes. “You could’ve given me a heads-up,” Preston said. “I wouldn’t have sprung it on her like that.”
Cricket took another sip. “We didn’t know Piper would react that way.”
Liz questioned what other way Cricket thought her daughter possibly would’ve reacted. With joy and pride that her younger brother had knocked someone up, while she was being crushed by the singular pain of trying and failing to get pregnant?
“I guess she’s sensitive about it,” Tripp said.
You think? Liz wanted to say. It was like the Lancasters could mimic the range of normal human emotion but didn’t, in fact, feel anything.
For so long, Liz had wanted Angela to feign normalcy; now that she was on the receiving end of such a charade, she wasn’t sure this was better.
“How long has this been going on?” Preston asked.
“About a year, I suppose. Yes, since the regatta, so about a year,” Cricket said. “Don’t mention anything when your sister comes back, though. Piper didn’t want anyone to know. It’s a private matter, after all.”
“Did Brooks have his swimmers checked yet?” Tripp asked Cricket under his breath, but also loud enough that the next table over could probably hear.
Cricket silenced him with a splintery look. Or tried to, anyway.
“I know he played water polo at Yale, but still,” Tripp said, cocking his head suggestively.
Cricket glanced at Preston and Liz. “Let’s focus on more pleasant matters. How is the nursery coming along?”
Cricket offered to send her decorator to Los Angeles, Piper and Brooks came back to the table wordlessly and didn’t mention anything, Tripp tried to push the Caesar salad on Liz, they avoided any talk of babies for the rest of the meal, and Piper offered several book recommendations.
From what Liz could tell, Piper only read historical fiction set in the equestrian world in which she had spent most of her youth.
She loved sweeping epics about racehorses and jockeys overcoming challenges.
Liz pretended she’d check out one of Piper’s suggestions, with zero intention of ever following through on the story of a horse who had triumphed against all odds.
The afternoon stretched on in the frigidly air-conditioned dining room of the country club, and various friends and golf course foes came over to say hello to the Lancasters.
No one mentioned the pregnancy. Liz’s bladder was about to burst, but she didn’t dare stand up and show off her expectant state.
Finally, Preston told his family that he and Liz needed to get going and head back to LA before traffic hit.
Liz excused herself to the bathroom, shuffling off quickly in the hopes that speed would offer a disguise of sorts.
They all met at the entrance to the club to say their goodbyes.
Liz died a thousand deaths while embracing Piper and trying not to feel where her belly pressed up against Preston’s sister’s trim frame.
“Congratulations,” Piper said crisply, finally acknowledging the pregnancy.
“Thank you,” Liz said. “And…it was nice to see you again,” she finished lamely.
Piper cleared her throat. “Sorry for running off like that and causing a scene.” She gestured vaguely behind her, as if the hostess stand represented the past. “Brooks and I are starting IVF.”
Liz didn’t know whether to offer condolences or good luck. This was one of the shortest and hardest conversations of her life. “I hope it goes well,” Liz said.
“Thank you. So you see, pregnancy is on my mind. And I was a bit surprised—” Piper motioned to Liz. “I didn’t know you and my brother were that serious.”
Liz blurted out, “We didn’t either!” Piper gave her a strange look, which Liz returned with a silly one, to suggest that she was kidding.
“Anyway, safe drive back,” Piper said breezily. “We should do this again soon.”
There was nothing in Piper’s voice to suggest sincerity. Liz decided it wouldn’t be a good time to bring up the baby shower. Maybe she would read the horse book after all. She could use a crowd-pleasing David and Goliath tale.
Liz didn’t turn her phone back on until halfway into Monday, when she was about to depart for her daily trip to the coffee shop.
She wanted to keep the phone off and avoid any more of Victoria’s attempts to contact her, but she also couldn’t risk missing an unlikely but much desired call from a potential employer responding to her application.
Liz saw, with dismay, that she had six more voicemails and texts from Victoria.
They ranged from sad—I’m devastated too.
Please call me back—to confused—I don’t understand why you’re shutting me out—to mildly indignant—I’m as surprised as you are, so please don’t take it out on me.
It’s not fair, Liz. I didn’t know Ace had a child. We need to talk.
Liz slipped her computer into her tote bag and considered whether it was fair, not that it mattered.
Why did Victoria think she was owed fairness, of all things?
Even if what Victoria was saying was true, that she hadn’t known about Ace’s secret love child and hadn’t knowingly married a man who’d abandoned his daughter, Liz still couldn’t be friends with her.
Liz couldn’t hang out with the wife of the man who hadn’t wanted anything to do with her, the person who had carved a hole in her childhood, who happened to be expecting her half brother at the exact same time she was having their grandchild.
Liz fired off a text to Victoria: I don’t want to talk to you. Please stop texting me.
Liz put her phone back into her pocket, hoping maybe that would be that, even though she suspected Victoria wouldn’t give up so easily.
Victoria was someone who had mettle and persistence in spades, like she stocked these qualities alongside the sea of Manolos in her closet.
So Liz wouldn’t have been surprised if Victoria had shown up at the coffee shop.
She didn’t, though. Several hours later, when Liz closed her computer, said goodbye to her favorite barista, and drove home down Sunset, she thought she was in the clear.
Liz wasn’t expecting what awaited her when she pulled into the driveway: Ace sitting on the front step.
Liz hit the brakes too hard and the car jolted to a stop.
No part of her wanted to deal with this, but she was trapped.
Liz turned off the ignition and thought about the irony of her father figuring out a way to get her address when he hadn’t been interested in her whereabouts for decades.
Then she stepped out of the car to confront him.
“You have some nerve,” Liz said, knitting her brows together.
“If you never want to see me again after this, that’s fine. But please—ten minutes. There’s never one version of the truth, Liz, and you deserve to know all the sides.”
Liz hesitated, then looked at her father’s face. He had a strong jawline, slightly hooded chocolate-brown eyes, and salt-and-pepper hair. People probably called him youthful and distinguished. Liz didn’t want to notice this, but they had the same chin and face shape.
“Fine. Ten minutes. We can go around back.”
Liz marched to the side gate and around the house to the backyard, then sat down in a chair by the firepit.
Ace took a chair across from her. Liz looked at him again and thought how bizarre it was to be in the company of a person she had wept for, then shuttled to the side of her thoughts and resigned herself to never know.
“It was summertime, and I met your mom when we were out one night,” Ace began.
“You can call her Angela. I do.”
“Okay. Angela was in town for a few months and she was fun and wild and carefree,” Ace said.
“Interesting rebrand of a loose cannon, but go on,” Liz said dryly.
“I had just lost my mother. I barely had a penny to my name, and I met this girl who was full of life and passion, who didn’t give a damn about answering to convention. I don’t know if I wanted to be like her or be with her, but it was intoxicating.”
“Until it wasn’t, I’m guessing.”
“I admired what a free spirit she was, but ultimately I wasn’t built the same. I was an orphan—no fallbacks, no safety net, desperate to make a name for myself and do something with my life.”
“So you tried to end it and she got herself pregnant?”
“No,” Ace said. “As far as I know, your mother didn’t do it intentionally.” Liz felt her throat go dry. She wasn’t sure if she was imagining a flash of judgment on her father’s face: What sort of person would trap a man like that?
“I’m going to be completely honest with you, even though no one likes radical transparency. They might say they do, but no one actually likes the truth,” Ace said.
“Easier to live in a fantasy,” Liz muttered.
“It is, and there are truths we shield the people we love from.”
“Are you making a case for honesty or against it?” Liz asked.
Ace smiled mournfully. “I’m starting to realize that even if they’re hard to hear, there are some truths that need to be brought to light.”
“I can take it.” Liz squared off like a boxer in the ring, ready to take her blows.
“Neither of us was ready for a baby. Angela wanted to travel the world, not be tied down. She told me she was going to terminate the pregnancy.”
Liz swallowed hard. She wasn’t surprised. After all, she had often wondered why Angela hadn’t opted out, but Ace was right—the barefaced truth was still a bitter pill.
“I said what you’re supposed to in that situation, and also what I believed: that it was Angela’s choice and I’d support her in whatever she decided,” Ace said. “I gave her money for the procedure and offered to take her, but she said a friend was going to. Then she disappeared.”