Chapter 11. Molly
“We’re here!” Dezzie calls as she lets herself in through the kitchen door of my mother’s huge, vulgar mansion.
“Desdemona!” my mom says, rushing to embrace her on a cloud of jasmine perfume, trailed by the silk swirls of her flamingo-printed caftan. “You look stunning as always.”
Dezzie’s wearing a severely low-cut black one-piece bathing suit under a sheer cream linen dress. Her only nod to the fact that this is a Christmas party are her shoes, a pair of towering crimson espadrilles. Rob, by contrast, is sporting reindeer swim trunks and a Santa coat, complete with a bulbous belly.
“Merry Christmas, Miss Marks,” he says, setting a box of Dezzie’s elaborate Christmas cookies and a huge bag of liquor down on the kitchen island. “I brought ingredients for my famous polar punch.”
My mom gives him a kiss on the cheek and hands him a cut-crystal pitcher. “Mix it quick. Alyssa just texted Molly that they’re almost here.”
Every year on Christmas Eve afternoon, Dezzie, Rob, Alyssa, Ryland, and their kids gather at my mother’s house for a cookout. Ryland grills steaks and veggie burgers, Dezzie brings fancy desserts, my mom buys the kids a sickening number of presents, and Rob hands them out in a tropical Santa costume. At sunset we pile into my mother’s eighteen-foot speedboat, and she captains us across the bay to the marina, so the kids can see the sailboats decked out in holiday lights.
It’s a capitalist fantasy come to life, and one of my mother’s great joys of the year. Given that I am her only child, she is bitterly divorced, and I have not provided her with grandchildren, she likes to spoil my friends with her great stores of affection and material wealth.
“Punch?” Rob asks, holding out the pitcher. I decline, knowing this concoction is mostly Captain Morgan with a dash of Sprite and maybe a thimble of cranberry juice. I’m not trying to get torn up for a kids’ party and fall off my mom’s boat.
Rob shrugs and chugs a glass of it.
“Jesus, slow down. It’s eleven a.m.,” Dezzie says, taking the glass.
“Santa has to stay toasty up in the North Pole,” Rob says, waggling his eyebrows.
Outside, there is a bloodcurdling shriek.
“The kids are here!” my mom says.
She throws open the door, and Frankie and Amelia run in, passing all of us in favor of jumping on Rob. “Uncle Santa!” they cry.
Ryland is close behind them, juggling a stack of presents. “Whoa, guys, slow down,” he says. “What did we talk about? Don’t break Aunt Kathy’s house.”
My mom waves this away. “Oh, they’re fine. How are you, darling?”
“Fantastic, now that I’ve seen you.” He shoots her his killer smile—at once charming and sincere, like it emanates straight from his heart. She practically swoons. Not even Kathy Marks can resist his striking good looks—olive skin, expressive eyebrows, and just the right amount of stubble.
He looks over his shoulder. “You good, Lyss?”
Alyssa’s walking toward the house very, very slowly with a hand on her belly, which is even bigger than Rob’s.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” she calls.
Dezzie and I rush out to meet her. She looks amazing, her skin all glowy from hormones or the Florida humidity or the effort it is taking her to walk.
“Look at you!” Dez cries.
“Yep. Fourteen months pregnant.”
“Mama, come on,” Amelia yells, sticking her head out the door indignantly. “Santa’s here.”
The next six hours are a flurry of Christmas-scented chaos as the kids open presents and the adults try to keep them from diving to their deaths at sea. It isn’t until we get back from the marina, and the kids pass out in the guest room, that the adults get a chance to catch up in peace.
“So we have some news,” Rob says. He’s been steadily working his way through the polar punch and seems a little on the tipsy side.
Dezzie gives him the side-eye. “Hey. Don’t—”
“Oh, come on. We’re all family here.” He raises his glass in the air. “Ms. Chan here and I are officially trying to get pregnant.”
“Aww, guys!” I say. “That’s amazing.”
Dezzie and Rob have wanted kids forever, but they’ve been waiting for him to finish his master’s in social work first.
“You should follow their example, Molly,” my mother says. “Some of us aren’t getting any younger.”
“Um, I’m single?”
“Let’s work on that,” she says. “Do you all know any nice men?”
This question surprises me. My mother has never given me shit about my spinster status before. Given her own romantic history, I thought she was relieved I’ve never shacked up with anyone.
But actually, she’s been acting funny all week. She keeps wandering off to take mysterious phone calls and coming back all distracted. And when a massive bouquet of holiday roses arrived, she snatched the note before I could read it and would only say it was from “a client.”
Either she has a disease she’s not telling me about—which seems unlikely, as she’s in very high spirits—or she has the unthinkable: a crush.
“We don’t know any single guys anymore,” Alyssa says. “We’ve somehow become those people who only have parent friends.”
“Well, Seth says hi,” Rob says impishly.
“Seth?” my mom asks.
“Rubenstein,” Dezzie says.
“Seth Rubenstein?” my mother repeats, like she’s said something ghastly. “Well there’s a name I haven’t heard in a while. Whatever became of him?”
She never warmed up to Seth. We dated during the worst years after her divorce, and she thought we were too serious too young. That he would either get me pregnant or break my heart.
She was relieved when I broke up with him before he got the chance to do either.
“He lives in Chicago,” Dezzie says. “Molls didn’t mention we saw him at the reunion?”
Mom gives me the eye. “She did not.”
“They had a nice, long chat,” Alyssa says. “Didn’t you Molly?”
“You didn’t!” my mother yelps, because Alyssa is evil, and my mother is not dumb.
“No!” I lie. “We just caught up. And get this: he’s a divorce attorney.”
She narrows her eyes into slits. “He isn’t.”
“Yep. A partner at some big firm.”
“See. I was right not to trust him,” she says. “To think he could do that when he saw what happened to you.”
I don’t disagree that it’s kind of a weird life choice, since I was a walking case of divorce trauma for four straight years. But whatever. Seth’s career is not my business. Even if I have thought about him a somewhat alarming number of times since we saw each other.
A very small part of me was tempted to email him to ask if he was going to be here this month. But I don’t want to give him the wrong idea about our trajectory. Bet or not, his assertion that we’ll sleep together again implies he thought that night could be more than a fling—that he read it as a meaningful beat in a romance narrative that will have an ongoing arc.
It wasn’t.
I don’t fraternize romantically with nice people. I’m not built for it.
And I don’t want to hurt him again.
Alyssa yawns, apologizes for yawning, and yawns again. “I think that’s our cue,” Ryland says. Everyone stands up and half an hour of hugs, last-minute asides, holiday wishes, inside jokes, and more hugs commences. When everyone’s gone, my mom kisses me good night and goes up to bed.
I go to the kitchen and check my phone, which I left to charge while we were out on the boat.
There’s a missed call and two texts from my father.
Dad:Hey tootsie.
(He knows I detest being called tootsie.)
Dad:I need a rain check on tomorrow. Call me.
I was supposed to go to his house at eleven for brunch with him and his (fourth) wife, Celeste. Canceling Christmas is ice-cold, even for him.
Not that this is surprising. He’s the kind of parent you always have to call first (unlike my mom, who would happily call me five times a day if she thought I’d pick up), and the kind of human who thinks nothing of flaking on long-term plans, or, for that matter, marriages. He’s been this way since I was a teenager, and for the most part I don’t take it personally.
But blowing me off on the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ is a new one.
I don’t call him back, because if I do, he will hear the dismay in my voice. Instead, I send him a text.
Molly:What’s up?
There’s a flurry of typing bubbles, which I guess is a compliment. Usually, it takes him days to reply.
Dad:Celeste is sick and I feel a little under the weather too—can’t do tomorrow.
Dad:Let’s try for drinks on the 26th instead.
Try for drinks?I am this man’s only child.
Molly:I’m leaving on the 26th
Molly:My flight’s at 8am
Dad:OK—I’ll be in LA next month for meetings. I’ll take you to dinner.
How lovely.
Part of me wants to call and yell at him to, like, at least pretend he is disappointed by this. But if he knows I’m angry, he’ll just be defensive, and that will make me angrier, and I’ll start crying, and hate myself for crying, and he’ll tell me I’m being childish, and I’ll hang up on him.
Speaking speculatively, of course.
So I just type “ok.”
Dad:Merry xmas!
I don’t reply. Suddenly, I’m gripped with anxiety. Nothing triggers me like my father’s rejections.
I consider waking up my mother to commiserate with me on what an incurable asshole he is—her favorite subject outside of real estate prices—but then I’ll end up ruminating all night.
I don’t want to think about him; I want someone to hold me and make me forget.
Fuck it,I think.
I pull up my email and search for Seth’s address.
From: [email protected]
Date: Mon, Dec 24, 2018 at 9:02pm
Subject: Hey
You in town?