Chapter Five
Like so many other cafés throughout the city, Grinders was rustic and cozy. The wooden floor was scuffed, and the small round tables were surrounded by mismatched chairs. In one corner, two overstuffed orange armchairs observed the rest of the room. A large blackboard hung behind the register, listing coffee and tea flavors.
Grinders was Eliza and Mo’s favorite meeting spot because, despite the name, the tea brand they stocked was one of the best, and the aroma of coffee was moderated by the scented candles that were always lit, emitting the fragrance of vanilla and maple.
Eliza arrived first and ordered her Darjeeling, which was served in a large, bright yellow mug. About half the tables were occupied, mostly by people alone with their drinks and their electronic devices, but she was able to snag a spot near the window. She was just sitting down when Mo swept through the front door. A few minutes later, they were both seated, Mo’s hands cupped around her own bright green mug.
Eliza bit her lip. “Before you say anything, I have to apologize for last night. I was out of control.”
“Just a little.” Mo held up her thumb and forefinger, about an inch apart, and then widened them. But quickly her face grew more somber. “But, seriously, Eliza, how are you doing? I can’t even imagine what this week has been like for you.”
Eliza snorted. “Yeah, I can’t imagine what it’s like for me either!” Sober, caffeinated, freshly showered, and having slept a decent number of hours, she was feeling more clearheaded than she had in days, despite the lingering hangover.
Mo pushed her shiny hair?—cropped chin-length and razor sharp, much different from the long sheets she’d had in college?—behind her ear. “So, what’s the story about your dad?”
Eliza told her about the letter Claude had given her, and then passed her phone across to her friend so she could read it for herself. She’d taken a photograph to make sure she wouldn’t lose it.
Mo’s eyes widened as she read, and then she silently passed the phone back. “What are you going to do? Are you going to look for this guy?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. It’s crazy. One minute, my dad is dead, and then the next minute, I have a different dad. I mean?—obviously my dad is my dad. The dad who raised me. This other guy doesn’t even know I exist.”
Mo nodded and sipped her tea. “For what it’s worth, I think you should wait. I mean, once you contact him, you can’t take it back. And you don’t have any way of knowing what he’s like. If you even want him in your life.”
This was one of the things she loved about Mo. She didn’t hesitate to speak her mind and offer advice?—but somehow it never came out bossy. It was clearly from a place of caring?—and almost always made sense.
“I did Google him already,” she admitted.
Mo raised her eyebrows. “And did you find him?”
She shook her head. “Ross Sawyer isn’t a super uncommon name. And I was sort of afraid to dive too deep, I guess.”
Mo nodded. “It’s got to feel weird. Aside from everything else, you just lost your dad. It must feel like you’re... I don’t know... looking for his replacement.”
“Yeah, especially since I wasn’t always his biggest fan.” She was aiming for a quip, but her throat clogged at the end of her words. Mo reached across the table and squeezed her arm.
“Was I too hard on him, Mo?”
Her friend drew her hand back and pinched her own bottom lip. “You felt what you felt. He couldn’t be anyone other than who he was, and you couldn’t be anyone other than who you are.”
“Yeah, a bratty daughter.”
“Don’t do that. That’s not you talking. That’s Carol. You were grieving. You handled it the best you could. And your dad was grieving. He handled it the best he could.”
By finding a new wife. The thought was one that she’d had many times before. But now it was followed by Perhaps to replace the one who cheated on him?
“Anyway, the first thing I need to do is talk to Scott. If he’ll even talk to me.”
Mo grimaced. “Of course he’ll talk to you.”
Eliza raised her eyebrows. “Would you be eager to talk to your sister if she lost it in the middle of your living room and announced that your mother cheated on your father? And then ran out?”
Mo’s eyes searched her face. “Okay, true. It wasn’t one of your finer moments. But Scott’s a good guy. He’ll accept your apology.”
Eliza wasn’t so sure. Scott was always the steady one. She was always the screwup. He had to be getting tired of picking up the pieces. And that display of hers had been... bad .
“What about your aunt? Have you talked to her?”
Eliza shook her head. “I don’t even know how to start.” She laughed ruefully. “I guess that was the advantage of getting drunk. It gave me a place to start.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t advise that again.” Mo’s voice was solemn, but her eyes twinkled.
“Thanks for the tip.” Eliza’s smile faded. “But it’s so weird. Aunt Claude was my mom’s little sister. The way she’s always talked about her?—you’d think my mom walked on water. How do I tell her what she did?”
“Maybe she already knows. Maybe your mom told her.”
Eliza rearranged the sprig of flowers in the small bud vase in the center of the table, her hands looking for something to do. “Maybe. It’s all so... hard. My mom was always the one who did the right thing, you know? Bringing brownies to new neighbors. Writing thank-you notes. Making me invite all the girls in my class to my birthday parties?—even the ones I didn’t like.” She sighed. “And I always thought that if she hadn’t... if she were still alive... we’d have this happy family. But now...” Her voice trailed off.
Mo sighed. “It’s hard for us to think of our parents as people, right? They’re our parents. The idea of them... I don’t know, having a crush on someone... it’s hard to wrap your head around. God knows I can’t imagine my parents being anything other than my mom and dad, wanting me to do well in school, get a good job, get married...” Mo waved her hand around to indicate all the many things her parents asked of her. “And now you’re having to face your mom being human .”
Mo was right, but it was also so much more than that. Suddenly she had to face the fact that everything she thought she knew about who she was was a lie. How could she expect Mo to understand that? Instead of trying to explain, Eliza just nodded. “And making the kind of bad decision she tried to raise me not to make. Not that that worked out so well.”
Mo was already shaking her head before Eliza stopped speaking. “You have to stop being so hard on yourself. You’re not the disaster you seem to think you are.”
Eliza shrugged, picking up her mug to take a sip before realizing it was empty.
“Seriously,” her friend continued. “Look at you! You’re only five years out of college and you’re director of development at a respected nonprofit. You own your own apartment. You’ve got an amazing best friend...” Mo grinned.
“Agreed on the best-friend part. But I wouldn’t be a director if Johanna hadn’t crashed and burned.” Eliza wished she’d felt ready for the job, but she was promoted from her assistant position when Johanna?—the prior director?—had suddenly left. She didn’t know all the details, just that it had something to do with Johanna having a torrid affair (as described by their colleague Davin, sotto voce , with his characteristic gift for linguistic flourish) with the corporate giving manager at one of the financial institutions she had been “courting.” After Johanna’s departure, it became clear that Eliza was the only one who understood her prior supervisor’s systems. “Systems” being a word that could be applied only very loosely to the chaos in which Johanna had operated.
“However you got the job, you’re kicking ass at it. And if they didn’t think you could handle it, you wouldn’t be running this year’s gala, would you?”
“I suppose,” she said grudgingly.
“No supposing. You’ve told me yourself that this is their biggest fundraiser. And you’re going to knock it out of the park. You want another tea?” Mo nodded at Eliza’s empty cup.
“Darjeeling.”
“ Obviously. ”
She watched Mo go up to the counter, where the barista with spiky hair and an eyebrow ring gave her a big smile. When she returned, she had two cups of tea and a croissant. “On the house,” she announced.
“And does that mean you have a date, too?” Eliza raised her eyebrows.
“Ha. Can you imagine what my parents would say if I brought home a barista?”
“Since when do you care what your parents say?”
Mo laughed. “True. But speaking of men...”
Eliza blew on her tea before taking a sip. “Don’t you mean inappropriate men?” she asked over the rim.
Mo rolled her eyes. “Well, it was nice to finally meet Carter,” she said dryly.
“He’s not so bad...”
“Exactly. Don’t you think you deserve better than ‘not so bad’?”
“Come on, Mo, we’ve been through this before. I’m not looking for anything serious. He’s hot. He’s fun. It’s fine.” But even as she repeated the words she’d said so many times before, Eliza wondered if they were still true. The hot part definitely was. The fun part?—well, maybe. But fine? Was “fine” really enough?
Shortly before Laura died, Eliza’s heart had been bruised by a boy she thought she could trust. Then, in the wake of her mother’s death, boys weren’t really on her radar. High school became a matter of survival?—getting out of bed in the morning was sometimes an insurmountable challenge, especially once Carol was on the scene. But ultimately, it was Carol’s presence that compelled her to pull herself sufficiently together to get into college?—a way for her to escape a home that had become too painful.
In college, she discovered sex. It wasn’t that she slept around?—not that there would have been anything wrong with that, she would insist in a post-feminist, control-your-own-orgasm, woman-power way?—but the boys she pursued (or who pursued her) weren’t, as 1950s movies might have called them, “the marrying kind.” Well, except for Pete.
Mo had loved Pete. He was kind, and smart, and funny. He joined them in the cafeteria for lunch, and he fit in well with their friends. When he discovered Eliza’s weakness for dark-chocolate-pecan clusters, he started surprising her with a bag of them “just because.” Once before a sociology exam she was worried about, once on the five-week anniversary of their first date, once on a random Tuesday afternoon.
Pete was from Oregon, and as spring break approached at their Connecticut college, they planned that he would go home with her for a few days. It was just about ten days before they were due to make the trip, while they were studying together for midterms?—a public-sector economics class for her, biology for him?—that Eliza suddenly felt like she couldn’t breathe. She was struggling to get some theoretical constructs straight in her head, and Pete offered to help. She started to pass her notes to him and then pulled them back. “I think I really need to get this myself,” she said.
“It’s no problem,” he replied amiably. “I can take a break from my stuff.”
“I know, I just have to figure it out on my own. I’m going to head back to my room.”
He looked at her quizzically. “See you later, then?”
“Maybe. Let me see how this goes.” She couldn’t even look at him as she scrambled to push her books and papers into her backpack. All she could think about was getting air into her tight lungs.
After that, without consciously deciding to do so, she started to avoid him. After a few days, Mo?—who by then was her roommate?—stormed into the 144 square feet they shared demanding to know what was going on. “He’s like a lost puppy. What happened?” Her long hair was tangled in her scarf, her hands on her hips.
Eliza, cross-legged on her bed, pressed her hands into her eye sockets. “Nothing. Nothing at all. I just?—I don’t know. I can’t do this anymore.”
“Do what? Be with a nice, predictable guy who cares about you?”
She knew it made no sense. She had what most of her friends were looking for. And Pete truly was lovely. That day in the library when he’d offered to help, she felt such an overwhelming sense of relief, riding on top of a wave of what might actually have been the beginning of something big. Something like love. And then a minute later it was like someone had squeezed a fist around her heart, all the good feelings oozing out. Suddenly there was a solid lump in her throat, blocking her words.
Mo sat down beside her on her green-and-blue-striped comforter, still wearing her parka. “Eliza?” She took her hands between her own tiny ones, her darker skin contrasting with Eliza’s paleness. “Did something happen?”
Eliza shook her head wordlessly and shrugged her shoulders.
“You know, sometimes even when you’re not looking for something, it sneaks up on you. And that’s okay.”
She knew Mo was trying to understand. Eliza had certainly told her often enough that she wasn’t looking for a serious boyfriend?—particularly after she’d hooked up with someone new. But the truth was, she didn’t understand it herself. She just knew that being with Pete wasn’t working for her anymore. If she didn’t know better, she would have characterized the feeling that rose in her gut when she thought of him as terror. But what could be terrifying about kind, sweet Pete?
And here she was, some six years later, having the same conversation, yet again, with Mo. “What about you?” she asked, changing the subject. “Anyone interesting in the online sea?”
Mo shook her head, her shiny hair swishing. “Sometimes I think I should tell my parents I want an arranged marriage after all. Except I don’t want to be married to anyone who wants an arranged marriage.”
Eliza laughed. “That would be a problem.”
“Anyway, work is nuts right now. We won that new business pitch, so you’re looking at the project manager for the most innovative, integrated marketing campaign the next-level smartphone has ever seen.” Mo grinned, a single dimple appearing in her right cheek. It only made an appearance when she was especially proud of herself.
“Mo, that’s fantastic! Congratulations! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Um, your week was a little busy, I think.”
“True,” Eliza acknowledged before they dissected Mo’s news as they shared the complimentary croissant.
“Hey?—maybe you can throw some social responsibility into the marketing mix. Provide those next-level smartphones for the swag bags at the gala.”
Mo pursed her lips. “I know you’re kidding?—but it’s actually not a bad idea. Not phones, but maybe something else.” She pulled out a fabric-bound notebook and pen from her bag and jotted a note. “Anyway, what’s your plan for the rest of the day?” she asked as she slipped her notebook back into her bag.
Eliza looked at her phone to see the time, noticing a text from Claude. But none from Scott. Somehow, they had whiled away more than two hours. “Not sure. I may go back to bed.”
Mo’s eyebrows drew together. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
She wasn’t wrong, but Eliza suddenly felt tired. As if someone had dropped a weighted blanket around her shoulders. Focusing on the bombshell news and on work had pulled her out of her grief, but now it was back. An old friend she knew too well. Despite whatever had been lacking in her relationship with her dad, he was her dad. Biology be damned. And for the first time, she realized the word orphan applied to her. Or does it?