Chapter XIII
XIII
The four of us manage the delicate dance of working together in the kitchen, a potentially disastrous endeavor.
This mostly involves Reid and me actually making the food, while the girls perch on the stools and monitor the playlist and sip peach-flavored sparkling water.
We cobble together some kind of pantry-dump chili garnished with tortilla chips, plus a green salad mostly made of herbs.
Reid makes guacamole. “The secret is in not putting a bunch of unnecessary shit in it,” he says.
“Just the avocados, a little bit of sweet onion, salt, and lime juice.”
Watching Reid confidently move between the stove and a cutting board triggers the memory of cooking together in my East Village apartment. It was less a kitchen proper than it was a row of semibroken appliances, but it felt more substantial with Reid maneuvering in it.
Him here, now, unlocks a whole new genre of competence porn. My mouth literally waters as I watch him peel and dice an onion, neatly pile the uniform cubes onto the edge of a big butcher’s knife, and slide them into the pot with one finger.
When the food is almost ready, the girls set the table, complete with cloth napkins, which Emme and I never bother with when it’s just the two of us.
Then Emme switches off the overheads, turns on the collection of table lamps scattered around the room—our one rule in the house: no big lights after 5 p.m.—and brings a few taper candles to the table.
Gracie produces a sterling-silver lighter that looks like a piece of heavy jewelry from the doll-sized pocket of her low-rise jeans and ignites them.
We sit at the table just as the sun sets.
The kitchen floods with rose-gold light.
The girls tell us about stumbling upon the anarchist book fair at Judson Memorial Church, where a grandmotherly type in a homemade crocheted vest extolled the virtues of community structured around mutual aid.
Emme shares how the woman had stitched each minuscule yellow petal of each of the countless daffodils adorning her vest. Gracie opines about the differences between old New York hippies and old LA hippies.
And I watch Reid. I love the way he regards his daughter when she speaks, with genuine interest and care, and that he offers the same respect to Emme.
I know something dangerous is happening here: We’re playing house. It’s seductively easy to imagine doing this every night, to all come together at the end of the day and commiserate around the kitchen table.
I know this delusion is a symptom of my almost-orgasm-addled brain, and it’s ridiculous to entertain it. But I also can’t deny how good it feels to allow myself to want more. To thrust myself into this moment, unburdened by reality.
As Emme shows us the sunflower pins the woman doled out after her lecture (Action, Freedom, Unity, they read), my phone rings from where I left it, face down on the island.
When I step away and see it’s James calling, all the goodwill I’d just cultivated vanishes, a swollen balloon popped with a scalpel.
I excuse myself to take the call in my bedroom, and as I turn toward the stairs, I see that Emme’s expression has melted in worry, like she already knows what’s coming.
Protective anger grows inside me, flushing my face with blood.
“Hi,” I say briskly when I answer and close my door. “What is it?”
As Emme would say, today I’m choosing violence.
James breathes a laugh like steam. “Hello to you too. How’s your evening going?” In the background, I hear the muffled machine beeps and efficient murmurs of the hospital.
“I have guests over, so I don’t really have time to talk,” I say. “What’s going on?”
“OK, then.” The rustle of papers, a whispered aside to someone passing behind him. “So, listen, I know Emme and I have been trying to make this Broadway thing work, but—”
“Actually, Emme has been making it work. She’s rearranged her schedule and adjusted her expectations twice now. You’re the one who hasn’t been able to figure your shit out.”
When we first got divorced, we made an agreement that if James’s schedule changed, he would communicate that through me. Not Emme. I am her primary caretaker, and the onus should be on me to bear the burden of her father’s volatility.
So I’d always thought.
But now that she’s fifteen, and I’ve left her downstairs with that look in her eyes, I’m beginning to think that this arrangement is unfair to all three of us.
I don’t want Emme to have to navigate these conversations with her father, but I wonder if I’m doing a disservice to her maturity by depriving her of the opportunity to do that.
And why should I continue to be the bearer of James’s bad news? If he was the one to hear the hurt in Emme’s voice, to see the disappointment on her face, would he be so quick to let her down? By trying to protect Emme, have I just made it easier for James to hurt her?
“So I know we have tickets to tomorrow night, but unfortunately I’m going to have to—”
I sit down on the bed and hold the phone away from my ear while James goes on.
If I have to hear every word, I will break a fragile object.
Instead, I let his speech mix with fragments of what’s happening downstairs: Emme’s laugh, Gracie groaning at some invisible offense, the playlist ramping up from a soft country mix to bossa nova.
And anchoring everything, Reid’s deep, steady voice.
Now I put the phone back to my ear.
“I really don’t need to hear whatever complex excuse it is,” I say.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Lil. You know what my work is like.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and bring my voice down an octave.
I want him to receive what I’m saying, not dismiss it as an overemotional rant.
Which, I can admit, I’ve been known to dole out.
“I know you have lives to save, and you know I respect you for it. But at this point, you are consciously choosing your work over your daughter.” I take a breath, shoring myself up to say what I should have told him years ago.
“And I won’t cover for you anymore. From here on out, you need to call her directly if you change your plans. I can’t keep being the middleman.”
“I am sorry, Lil.” When James speaks, I can hear the pain in his voice. So he heard me. A Pyrrhic victory, I suppose. “And I’m sorry to put you in this position. You know I get caught up in this . . . intensity.”
“I do know that,” I say. “But our time with Emme is . . .”
“Dwindling? I know that too. Last time she was with me, she told me she wanted to look at Bennington. Like, bumfuck-Vermont Bennington. Four-hour-drive-away Bennington.”
“She told me that too. She’s in a Donna Tartt phase.”
James laughs. “Explains why she asked to borrow one of my ties.”
“It pains me to admit it, but I do think she could be happy at a smaller school, outside the city. Apparently Bennington has a student-run farm she’s interested in working on.”
“Yeah, but Vermont? Sarah Lawrence is a small school. It has grass. And it’s, what, a thirty-minute train ride away? I don’t like the idea of her driving alone for hours. She doesn’t even have her license.”
“Of course she doesn’t have her license! She hasn’t even started driver’s ed.” I laugh through a sigh as I process what James and I are doing right now: Talking about our kid like two concerned parents. “You know, it’s sweet that you want her close. I think she’d appreciate hearing that from you.”
“Yeah,” he says. He takes a deep, jagged breath. “Unfortunately, about tomorrow, I really have overextended myself, and I don’t see a way to back out of it. But Emme and I can do something fun this weekend, when I have her. Whatever she wants.”
“You’ll call her and tell her that yourself.”
“I will.”
“And we’re using those & Juliet tickets for tomorrow.”
“As you should.”
We hang up, and I head back downstairs, where Reid, Gracie, and Emme have started a game of Uno at the table, their bowls pushed to the side. When I come in, Reid’s concerned eyes lift to meet mine, and he puts his cards down.
I sit next to Emme, who pulls her knees to her chest. “Was that Dad?”
I pour the last of the wine into my glass. “It was Dad.”
“He’s canceling again,” she says.
I try to put my hand on her back, but she wriggles away. “I’m sorry, sweetie. He’s going to call you later and talk about it. But you and I can still go to the show tomorrow, if you’re up for it.”
“Mm-hmm.” Emme picks up her spoon and looks down into her bowl, pushing the remnants of her chili around in a swirling pattern.
I always think she looks like a baby at this angle, all cheek and lash.
I wish I could gather her up in my arms. I would, if she didn’t clearly want some space, if I wasn’t afraid of embarrassing her in front of Gracie.
From across the table, I catch Reid sink back in his chair and cross his arms over his chest like he’s holding something in. I lift my shoulders at him: This is how it goes. To which he tilts his head and huffs a laugh under his breath: Jerk.
“Which show were you planning to see?” Reid directs this question at Emme, but she gives no indication of responding. She’s stewing, separating the corn kernels from the kidney beans inside her bowl.
“& Juliet,” I say.
“Supposed to be great, I hear.” Reid glances over at Gracie.
Her cards are still fanned, and she’s observing this exchange like a tennis match.
“Why don’t Gracie and I see if we can get tickets, tag along?
I haven’t taken her to a Broadway show yet.
It’s a gross oversight in her New York education. ”
“Musicals make me want to die,” Gracie responds. Reid shoots her a look. She puts her cards down and sighs. “But I am here to collect new experiences, so I would be willing to sacrifice myself. For the plot.”