You Didn't Know What a Good Thing You Had When You Had It
Helena
That Gigi's introduction of Myka to her boss was more, much more, than the meeting of a politician with a potential supporter didn't escape Helena. It was hard to read those departures from the campaign script because when Gigi made them, they were barely noticeable, and that was because Gigi had had lots and lots of practice. But Helena had had a fair amount, if not lots and lots, of practice observing her, more than anyone else at the party, with the exception of the mayor himself. Gigi had spent years as Larry Jenkins's indispensable assistant, and she was indispensable because relatively few humans could attract as much attention and as expertly deflect it. The brilliance of every dazzled smile she garnered was just another light to be shone on Larry. Every admiring comment became an opportunity to praise her boss's greater charms (for the businessman who wanted to take her out to dinner, Larry's support for tax incentives for business development; for the community activist who wanted her number, Larry's push for more affordable housing in the city's red-hot downtown). That she had any meaningful life outside her promotion and, as necessary, protection of the mayor was only a rumor, and one she would quash with the half-joke, half-election slogan that she would take a vacation once he told her their work was done. "In his nearly 20 years of serving this great state, as a city council member, state senator, and mayor, he's not told me that the work is done." Helena knew what went through people's minds when they heard Gigi claim that she hadn't had a vacation since she started working for Larry because it had gone through hers, which was equal parts disbelief, smutty fantasy about what Gigi would do to unwind, and wonder at how Larry Jenkins, a mere mortal, had won Venus's devotion.
Of course Gigi had taken vacations. She had a meaningful life, or at least a life, outside her work. Helena had not only borne witness to it, she had experienced it as well, but she was almost as sure that Larry never knew they had dated. Yet there he was shaking Myka's hand, and as if that weren't earth-shaking enough, the roguishly teasing glances he was shooting at Gigi, who was standing between them like a minister officiating at a wedding or a power broker sealing a deal, were clearly telegraphing "Oh, how the mighty have fallen." No, that wasn't what his glances were saying because Larry never communicated anything that wasn't couched in terms that his constituency of the moment was familiar with. Something like "You've been bitten by the lovebug," something cutesy and Midwestern, that was what his glances were saying.
Gigi wasn't beaming adoringly at Myka or smiling the smile of the terminally infatuated. The measurement of just how far she had fallen was in the tilt of her head, the slight leaning of her body, as if somewhere in the dress that fit Myka like a second skin, Myka had hidden a magnet and Gigi, Larry's indispensable assistant, couldn't resist the pull. She wasn't first putting a possessive hand on the small of Myka's back and then inching that hand around her, squeezing her close and subjecting her to its cold, clammy touch, as though that hand had been wrapped around a bourbon on the rocks, or two, and the oxygen-killing scent of the cologne -
"I take back what I said about the dress," Nate apologized in a bourbon-laced gust of air close to Helena's ear. "You look terrific, and not a man here has been able to stop staring at you."
- that Addie had given him as a Father's Day present. She should be more appreciative; it was the most romantic thing she had heard from him in weeks, yet she wished that he were on the other side of this ersatz ballroom of theirs. He was moving them, propelled more by bourbon than intention, behind an elderly couple who were comparing this year's canapes with last ("Ed, the shrimp smells fishier than last year. Do you think it was frozen?" "He knows corn, dear, not seafood.") and thoroughly obstructing her view of Gigi and Myka.
"You have Jim Watkins slobbering so badly that he's offered to sell me a minority interest in his new venture, a company that's developing a cheaper ethanol than anything currently on the market. Maybe if you stand close enough to him, he'll give me a seat on the board." He wasn't swaying from the effect of the bourbon, he was purposefully moving her. She should have known better. Nate never let anything go to his head. He was teasing her, sort of, about the board seat, but Jim Watkins was straight ahead of them. Teasing her, squeezing her, and not above pimping her. It was Nate's unique mix of affection and deal-making.
Some might think that Nate's undisguised and unapologetic appreciation of her as an asset wasn't the kind of love one settled for, not without a very, very generous prenup. But that always nameless and oh-so-sanctimonious one against whom she imagined she was frequently compared hadn't lived through what "a true love," "a love written in the stars," "an eternal love" meant in practice. Let one be shuttled between grandparents, aunts, and uncles as one's parents threatened, not divorce, but the wreaking of hellfire and damnation upon each other, utter destruction, total annihilation. Let one experience that on, say, an annual basis, sometimes even more frequently. At least Nate's morally compromised understanding of love was honest. She didn't have to fear he had illusions about her that she would inevitably fail to live up to. She knew exactly where she stood.
Which was directly in front of Jim Watkins's eyes as they struggled not to lose themselves in her cleavage.
Myka
It was harder than it should have been to keep her attention focused on Larry Jenkins. The fact that he was spending five, make that closer to six minutes, of his time chatting with her (it was a talent, wasn't it, to be able to keep time in your head within a second or two of Greenwich Mean Time?) was no small thing. She was sure that Gigi, smiling at the two of them with a pride that better suited the occasion of Larry being sworn in as president, would tell her he never spent so much time chatting when it wasn't an election year. Granted, it wasn't hard to enthusiastically agree that Gigi was a wonderful woman or to blush, becomingly she hoped, when he winked, nodding at Gigi, and said, "She's pretty choosy, but she may have found her own running mate." Yet Myka couldn't not see that flash of red out of the corner of her eyes, Helena's dress, like the sun, having permanently overexcited her retinas. She would be doomed for the rest of her life to tracking a splash of red that was not quite out of view.
It was that unflagging, peripheral monitoring of Helena's location that slowed her responses to Larry's fondly teasing observations about Gigi, that had her chiming in a beat too late when he complained about the shrinking sources of funding for higher education. It was an unforgivable distraction on her part since Gigi had introduced her to Larry not solely or even primarily to get his seal of approval on a "running mate" but to enlist his support, ideally his active participation, in networking Nate Robinson's other guests. Finally collecting herself enough to make her pitch, she found that he had already drifted away, attaching himself to a passing group of businessmen like a pilot fish to a whale.
"Don't worry," Gigi said consolingly, "you got the essential thing down, which was to charm Larry. We'll work on him later."
Myka wasn't easily consoled. "How did I manage to charm him? My most memorable contribution was 'I agree, higher education should be better funded.'"
"By being yourself." Gigi's smile had a deep lovestruck dip to it. "Your Myka-ness."
Unable to deny the lovestruckness of that dip, Myka wondered how odd she would look if she closed her left eye to blot out that flash of red. "You're being kind, not to mention incomprehensible. What in the hell is Myka-ness?" Divining a more effective solution than closing her eye, she took a tiny step to her left and raised herself on her tiptoes to kiss Gigi on the lips.
Gigi broke the kiss only to hold her close. "Myka-ness is telling Larry, when he's joking about how I don't know anything about kids because they're not old enough to vote, that I've made a friend of her daughter. Myka-ness is agreeing with him that I never stop working by pointing out that I'll return from a gathering of his supporters to help her strip wallpaper or old paint or join her at a volunteer event."
"I was simply telling him the truth." Myka didn't see how correcting a misperception, even one jokingly offered, or agreeing when Larry's views corresponded with her own distinguished her in any way. Gigi may not have earned Maddie's undying devotion after giving her a few simple lessons in maintaining eye contact, carrying herself with confidence, and accessorizing her outfits with what she had at home, but Maddie didn't escape to her room when Gigi came over, and Myka wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry when Maddie took the latest edition of Vogue from her backpack and asked Gigi's opinion about the clothes.
Gigi seemed unaware of the number of heads that had turned in their direction after the kiss, or maybe she didn't care, because she tipped Myka's chin up for a second kiss. "For Larry, that's a rarity. More importantly, you weren't appreciating me as an extension of him. You were appreciating me as me." One more kiss. "That's a rarity in this business, too."
"I'm not sure about Larry, but it seems I succeeded in charming you." Another flash of red at the very limits of her peripheral vision. Damn. "Maybe I need a tougher challenge."
Gigi adopted a mock thoughtful expression and tapped her chin with an exquisitely manicured finger. "A tougher challenge than a battle-hardened former-model-turned-political-operative? I don't think so. But let's put the Myka Bering charm offensive to the test."
Myka Bering charm offensive? Surely a contradiction in terms. Gigi, however, wasn't deterred by the illogic, guiding Myka from businessman to businessman, and the occasional businesswoman, in a well designed path that took her from the merely helpful to the highly influential. At the end of it, Myka was only a few CEOs away from where Nate and Helena stood talking with a former governor and his wife. The splash of red that she had managed, thankfully, to lose sight of as she touted all the university could offer to those shrewd-faced executives was before her laughing, gesturing, flirting and all but dominating her vision. Now that was a charm offensive.
Helena
She wasn't exactly sure how she and Gigi had ended up in the kitchen, which, with its massive appliances, multiple islands and seating areas, and rows of cookware gleaming almost as brightly as the guests' professionally whitened teeth, was more five-star restaurant than the beating heart of the Robinson home. Of course Nate's critics would say that this kitchen was proof, if more proof was needed, that he didn't have a heart. The beat in this room was the beat of machinery, conveyor belts, fleets of Robinson trucks on the road delivering everything under the sun – and more – that corn could be turned into. The beat was the inexorably climbing stock price of Nate's company.
Helena's own heart was thumping erratically, as if it were trying to psych itself for a leap that would carry it outside her ribcage. It hadn't been thumping like that while she had almost charmed Jim Watkins into offering Nate a seat on his new company's board. She wanted to believe that her powers of persuasion – "Darling, sell your other directors on the synergies having him on the board will bring, his distribution channels, his manufacturing capacity. No one has his vertical integration when it comes to ethanol." – had convinced him to consider it, but she also hadn't failed to hook her arm around his arm and lean into him, her hip pressed against his. Nate's reputation for taking a minority position or a seat on the board and, in short order, taking over a company was too well known for her not to use every advantage she had to combat it. Even then, touching Jim, pressing against him, looking up at him with feline superiority, which the tilt (some might say seductive tilt) of her eyes over the genetic gift of high cheekbones allowed her to do, weren't enough to launch her heart into a victory dance. It went about its work in much the same manner that Christina got ready for school, ploddingly and utterly deaf to exhortations to "speed things up."
Yet the minute Gigi deftly inserted herself and Myka into their little circle, not so little since it had expanded to include, in addition to the not-quite-besotted-enough Jim Watkins, Tony Hudson, the CEO of a large regional bank headquartered in the city and one of Nate's golfing partners, and Karl "Schmitty" Schmidt, a former governor, and his wife, Helena's heart had shaken off its lethargy. It pumped so hard that Helena thought she could feel her pulse in her hair. With winks and smiles and little flutters of her fingers, Gigi managed to greet everyone while steering Myka ever closer to Nate. Only after a significant look from Gigi did Helena realize she needed to do the introductions. Although Myka had been a guest in their house more than once over the past few weeks, she and Nate had never met.
"Nate, darling." Leaning away from Jim Watkins and resting her hand on Nate's arm, not really a possessive gesture so much as a means of preventing herself from running her hand through her hair in frustration, Helena said, "I'd like you to meet Myka Bering, an -." She nearly stammered over how to describe her. Old friend. Ex-lover. Both were true but inadequate. An old friend was someone who once held your hair back as you vomited into a listing toilet bowl during a frat party your freshman year. An old friend wouldn't have suffered her picking at the calluses on her feet in bed (back when she lacked the means and the desire for intensive pedicures) or cleaned the hair trap in her ancient bathtub shower when the tub wouldn't drain. Myka had seen her through a weekend lost to a norovirus's assault on her digestive system, the campus equivalent of weathering a trenchmate's bout of dysentery during World War I. Helena had had lovers who had turned green at picking up an old tissue that had failed to make its way into a trash bin.
"An old friend from college," Myka interjected smoothly, shaking Nate's hand. "She's probably told you that we reconnected recently. Our daughters met at summer camp."
Helena had, in fact, told Nate something very much like that, but the bland smile he was giving Myka suggested that he had no memory of it, just as he would have virtually no memory of meeting her by the end of the night. "Right, that's right," he said, the lack of inflection in his voice contradicting his seeming recollection. Helena hoped he might stop there, but, perhaps as the result of a belated impulse to make a better showing in front of his fiancée, he added, "She's mentioned it a number of times, telling me what a great kid you have."
If she were ever worried that, like certain other business men, Nate fantasized about running for president, she had only to witness his complete inability to engage with anyone who wasn't able to further his interests. He didn't jeer or ridicule or puff himself up at their expense, he simply didn't see them. Once Gigi steered Myka toward someone new, if Helena were to ask him the color of Myka's hair or her last name, she knew that Nate wouldn't be able to recall it. As if she had the same realization, Myka said, "What Helena may not have told you is that I'm head of development at the university, and we're interested in finding out how we can work with the top business people to expand economic growth and opportunity, not just here in the city but in the state at large."
Nate's gaze, already drifting away from Myka, refocused on her more sharply. "I attended your main rival, you know. My heart's with the Canvasbacks."
"Divided loyalty isn't at issue here," Myka pressed, softening her insistence with a smile. "You can remain true to the Canvasbacks, although the Prairie Falcons own the football field. We want your business acumen and experience, and our ag department is the best in the Midwest. I'm hoping there's a time we might meet to discuss how our strengths could mesh."
"Feel free to call my assistant and get on my calendar."
That would be a lesson in futility, Helena knew. When she and Nate had started dating, she made the mistake of trying to schedule a "surprise" romantic afternoon, hoping to charm his Cerberus of an executive assistant into finding a day with a limited number of appointments. With no hint of humor, the assistant had crisply informed her that the earliest Friday afternoon she could wangle was eight months out – "Or, if you have to have something earlier, we could look at the afternoon of Christmas Day." "Get on my calendar" was the business equivalent of "I'll call you." If Myka wanted to swim with the big fishes, Helena mentally shrugged, she needed to keep afloat in their wake.
Then someone said something utterly ridiculous. "You host a party for the teams' match-up. Why don't you invite Myka? You always say you're bored by halftime." She was the one making that utterly ridiculous suggestion, ridiculous, in part, because Nate allowed no one but a Canvasback follower to attend and ridiculous, in the main, because the party was primarily an opportunity for Nate and his college friends to gossip, reminisce, and indulge (briefly) in the cheap beer of their youth. They palate-cleansed with Jameson and Bushmills.
He gave Helena a withering look, but before he could ignore or deflect her suggestion, Myka said, "I know everyone thinks this is going to be Lawrence Felton's year, but he doesn't have a strong arm, and he doesn't read defenses well. The Falcons' pass rush will be all over him."
"You recognize that those are fighting words to a Canvasback fan," Nate said.
"I can take of myself," Myka said with cool assurance. "Will you let me into the clubhouse if I bring a bottle of Macallan?"
"That and a white flag. You'll need it when the Falcons are lit up by Felton's passing attack," Nate said pugnaciously.
"Helena has my email address when you're sending the invitations." Linking her arm through Gigi's and nodding at Helena, Myka all but swaggered away.
Maybe it had been the swagger or the feral desire in Gigi's eyes, or both, but Helena, after a teasing finger wag at Jim Watkins and a peck on Nate's cheek, followed by the mock warning, "I'm coming back to sacrifice myself on the altar of your macho competitiveness," trailed Gigi and Myka, hoping for a moment when they separated. Seizing the opportunity of Myka's tacking from group to group like a sailboat in search of a favorable breeze as she hunted for the nearest powder room, Helena grabbed Gigi's hand and instinctively headed toward a dark, private room away from the noise of the gala. So of course they ended up in the kitchen, large, bright, and frequently visited by the catering staff, not to mention nosy guests. She could take it as a metaphor, and not a comforting one, for how she had lived her life thus far, as a series of wrong turns. Or she could blame the gala and its endlessly arriving guests and the palatial size of Nate's house for their ending up in the kitchen instead of in the little-used main floor guest suite that she had had in mind.
Gigi seemed to find no significance in their standing in the kitchen, metaphoric or otherwise. She rested a hand on the island nearest to them, her fingers on the verge of drumming its imported marble countertop as she waited for Helena to reveal why they were here. "I thought this was a conversation we should have in private," Helena began, disliking the stodgy, cliched phrase she was taking refuge in but failing to come up with anything better. Her heart was hammering out "Don't hurt her don't hurt her don't hurt her," but she couldn't make herself say the words. They would sound territorial, and she wasn't. It was impossible to be territorial after almost 20 years. She knew Gigi, that was all, and she was reminding Gigi that she knew her, her history, her preferences . . . her. A caterer, two, three, slipped into the kitchen and out onto the terrace where the meal was being kept warm. "In relative privacy," she amended.
"It's a conversation we don't need to have," Gigi said curtly, her hand flattening on the countertop, as if she had stopped it just in time from slapping the marble in decisive punctuation. No need! No talking! "She doesn't need protecting from me and certainly not by you." As Helena colored, Gigi said dryly, "You were glaring and stalking us around the room like what you are, an ex who hasn't completely worked through the break-up."
"Don't bother being subtle. Say what you're really thinking," Helena demanded sarcastically.
"It might surprise you," Gigi warned.
"I doubt it. I'm sure you're about to tell me that she's different, that you believe this relationship might be the 'one,' that you've become a fan of monogamy and fidelity," Helena paused, strangely afraid to say what was coming next, "that you're falling in love with her."
"That's all true," Gigi said with no discernible hesitation, "but it's not what I was going to say."
"Dear God, don't tell me you've asked her to move in with you." Helena cupped her ear. "I think I hear the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse galloping up."
Gigi's headshake wasn't a denial. Helena's heart, exhausted from its earlier effort, had been quietly recuperating, but at the ambiguous movement of Gigi's head, it picked up its pace, lunging from one side of her chest cavity to the other. "She's been watching you, too." Gigi made a circling motion with her arm, encompassing more than the kitchen, Helena realized. "If you were willing to give this up, if you were willing to tell her that you still care, she'd leave me in a second. Here's your chance, Helena, tell me that you want her back. Tell me that you're going to do whatever it takes to make her happy. I'll step aside."
Helena stared at her, too surprised to hide her bafflement. This was Gigi Fourier, who used every asset she had, without hesitation and seemingly without regret, to advance her boss's political career. This was not a woman who stepped aside. Without her, Larry Jenkins wouldn't have survived his first term as mayor. As someone who made over people and corporations for a living, Helena knew the work it had taken to turn a former high school history teacher with no media presence and a bad habit of betting on the wrong horses at the race track south of the city into a multi-term mayor and, now, a viable candidate for governor. "I think I've seen this movie before," she demurred. "Are you expecting Myka to burst in, swooning at your display of selflessness?"
"I'm only playing the odds, Helena. If there's still something between the two of you, I'm not going to fight 20 years of pent-up emotion."
"Eighteen," Helena automatically corrected. Only she was allowed to round up. With the help of surgery and witchcraft, Gigi might be able to look 35ish until the casket lid was closed, but mere mortals didn't let others add two years to their age.
"Can you count the days and hours, too?" Gigi asked dryly.
Helena flushed, embarrassed. "That's not how I meant it. Myka's a lovely woman, a truly good woman. Too good, in fact, it's why our relationship couldn't last. I'm not allergic to virtue, but I can't sustain prolonged exposure. You're the same, Gigi, so why pursue her when you're only going to hurt her in the end?"
"You're right. She's a good woman, but she's also bright, strong, and sexy. I think she's up to taking me and all my wicked ways on." Gigi stepped away from the island, ready to return to the party . . . and to Myka. "You haven't given me an answer, Helena. Do you want her back?"
She hadn't given her an answer because, first, Gigi hadn't asked a question but issued a demand, and Helena Wells did not respond well to demands. Second, Myka had made the answer clear three years ago when Helena had seen her, in a very much not-pining-for-a-past-love sort of way, literally throw herself into the arms of another woman. There was no going back, there was only going forward, and Helena's future was in the environmentally unsound but enormously profitable Robinson cornfields. For Gigi to be uncertain about whether the object of her interest wasn't wholly smitten with her was, if Helena allowed herself to think about it, a better testament to the possibility that Gigi's involvement with Myka was something new for her. Maybe Gigi was in love, and if the end of the world this heralded was upon them, then maybe it was time for Helena to fully embrace the Corn King and every blighted ecosystem and case of Type II diabetes that he represented.
"I stepped aside a long time ago. I have no claim on Myka, and I have no desire to return to the past."
Instead of looking relieved or satisfied, Gigi looked oddly combative, her body tensed, her mouth compressed into the scowl she usually reserved for Larry Jenkins's political rivals. Despite the white flag she had waved, vigorously waved she thought, Helena uneasily realized that war was about to be declared. "Then stay the hell out of our business," Gigi growled and stalked out of the kitchen like only a former model, and an affronted one at that, could, leaving behind her a trail of expensive perfume and high dudgeon.
Helena surveyed the kitchen for an open bottle of wine. There had to be one; there were so many flutes of champagne and other wines, both white and red, circulating through the house that the pope could arrive and preside over a mass communion. She would even stoop so low as to drink from an abandoned glass, uncaring that Larry Jenkins might have been the one to set it down with an appreciative smack of his lips. Any mood-altering substance would do, anything to make this awful party go away. Would it be exceptionally bad taste to score some weed from the younger members of the catering staff?
Before she had time to work through the consequences of it, a baby-faced caterer hurried in from the terrace. He was relieved to find her. "Mrs. Robinson? Everything's ready. How close are you and Mr. Robinson to being ready to start the dinner?"
She didn't correct him, and she didn't ask him if he had a spliff in a pocket of his black pants, which, frankly could have done with some tailoring. Why would a catering company let its employees wear ill-fitting uniforms? It reflected poorly on the elegance and professionalism the company must want to promote. The hems of his pants were frayed and dirty from his constant walking on them. Oh, for her phone and some shots of the staff below the knee, she could have attached them to the email she would send tomorrow gently suggesting that the company hire an image consultant. She would recommend one.
"Mrs. Robinson?" He looked at her imploringly.
Mrs. Robinson. It was such a simple solution, and Nate wouldn't object because, after all, it was only another deal to be sealed . . . .
Christina
Once she had gotten used to the noise, she had enjoyed sliding into a room and peeking around the corners or brashly sidling up to a group of guests, observing them observing her with dismay or amusement and then looking around for Helena to intervene and send her daughter to her bedroom, somewhere children were both not seen and not heard. It was even more enjoyable to watch her mother's eyes scanning for her – when they weren't firmly fixed on Myka – like searchlights in old timey movies, when the prisoners busting loose wore striped shirts and pants. She would have preferred slipping in and out of the rooms with Remy at her heels instead of an anxious Maddie constantly reminding her, "Your mom wants us upstairs, not down here," but letting Maddie stew about getting punished, like the game Christina was playing with her mother by popping up and startling guests into spilling their drinks, with any luck on their fancy dresses and suits, was an attempt to make the best of having all these strangers in Nate's house. She was having a pretty good time, actually, until the polka band started playing and her mom grabbed the mic from Nate, who had just invited everyone to "dinner at the Robinson Supper Club," whatever stupid thing he meant by that. Did he mean they were all part of some super-secret society because they shared supper? A supper that didn't sound all that great – prime rib, baked potato, garden salad, rolls. The desserts sounded like they sucked, too – pie and ice cream or bread pudding. Maddie was trying to explain to her that a supper club was a kind of restaurant – "My grandma said there were lots of them around when she was a girl" – but it sounded like a restaurant for old people, so, thank you very much, Maddie, not interested, don't care. Still, she would probably try to get some ice cream later. Even if it was vanilla, she could drown it in chocolate syrup and almonds and eat it while she tried to recapture everything she had seen.
The colors mainly, which weren't the best colors because they were old people's colors – black, dark blue, gray (a ton of gray), peach, white, nude (it always made her giggle to call that beige-y color "nude") – but the colors were more interesting than the people. The faster she ran around, the more the colors jumbled together, like in a kaleidoscope only she didn't have to twist the barrel. As the women moved here and there, their dresses were reduced to lines and cut into weird shapes as other guests, also moving here and there, partially obscured them. She would turn away and then, in just that second, the colors would blossom into full view again as the crowds parted and the guests formed new groupings. Funny, how when it came to people, women were the ones with the crazy tail feathers and the striking colors and men were drab, like hens. One time when her mom had been dressing for a party, her mom had said to their reflections in the mirror with a snarky bite to her voice, "Yet more proof, Christina, why the animal kingdom is superior to ours. The males are the ones who do all the work of attracting mates, and the really lucky females get to eat them afterwards."
Her mom was smart, which was why Christina had felt a growing dread when she grabbed the mic from Nate. Her smile was almost feverishly bright, which was the way her mom had been smiling when she came home one day and told Christina they were moving to the Midwest and also the way her mom had been smiling when she told her that it was time for her to meet "the man who's become very important to me." Christina had liked their life in New York and, though she eventually forgave her mother for moving them out here, she had promised herself that she wouldn't let her mom disrupt their lives again without a good fight – or a good bribe. Of course that man had been Nate, and she had been powerless to prevent her mom from uprooting them once more. She sensed something equally disastrous was about to occur.
Her mom was clutching the mic as if it were all that was holding her head above water. "For those of you who have been breathless with anticipation," she said, pausing to laugh some horrible, fake happy laugh, "Nate and I have finally set a date for the wedding. Mark your calendars and save the third Saturday in June for the Wells-Robinson nuptials."
The guests were whinnying just like her mom. None of this was funny. Nuptials. Like "supper club," another word she could have lived her entire life without hearing. Christina couldn't help herself. As the polka band started wheezing out "Here Comes the Bride," she spun around and glared at Maddie. "Thanks a lot," she said sarcastically, "you were a big help." When Maddie looked confused rather than crushed by shame, she added, "I was tired of pretending we were friends, anyway. Now we don't have to." That got her the look she wanted, wounded, as though she had kicked her. The triumph was fleeting, however, and, as it faded, Christina felt a little sick, as if she had really kicked Maddie. No worse, like she had kicked Remy. Remy and Maddie.
She knew she ought to say she was sorry, but all she could see was the terrace decked out in streamers and balloons in nine months' time and these same guests in the same clothes holding up the same champagne glasses and calling out just as they were now, "Congratulations!," "About time!," "Kiss her, Nate!" This stupid deal she had struck with Maddie had done nothing but guarantee that her mother would marry Nate. She would never be able to stop the wedding now. Christina started running, bumping into guests as she struggled against a late press of guests onto the terrace. She would shut herself up in her art room for the rest of the night, but she knew she would find no solace there.
Myka
Helena's announcement had obviously been unscripted but not unexpected. She and Nate had been engaged for months. A party was a natural occasion for the announcement of a wedding date, but there had been something about Helena's expression and gestures that seemed off-kilter, her enthusiasm coming off forced rather than genuine and her grip on the mic more white-knuckled than confident. Myka was uneasily reminded of how Helena had announced "their" summer trip to Spain a month before graduation, with all the joyful anticipation of someone whose heart, deep down, wasn't in it. The tramping around Spain was classic Helena, the being accompanied by a girlfriend wasn't. Whatever might be Helena's doubts and anxieties about marriage – or Nate – they weren't hers to worry about, so Myka politely clapped and turned her head to look at Gigi instead, who was smiling as serenely as if she had known the announcement was coming all along.
Gigi leaned in, resting her forehead against Myka's. "What do you say," she said softly, "to making a quick exit after dinner? You've charmed the powers-that-be and gotten yourself invited to Nate's inner sanctum. I think you deserve a reward."
"And you're my reward?" Myka teased. In the glow of the terrace's thousands of temporary lights, the highlights in Gigi's hair sparked a white fire and the light gray of her eyes borrowed the heat. Yes, Myka silently affirmed, I do deserve a reward. Unfortunately it was at that moment that she glimpsed Christina running into the house, colliding with guests, her face stormy. Automatically Myka drew back, searching the crowd for Maddie, finally spotting her standing uncertainly on the edge of the terrace, looking as woebegone as Christina had looked furious. She wanted to go to her, but she counseled herself to stand down. The last time she had "interfered," as Maddie had put it, she had been firmly rebuked with "I can handle it on my own, Mom." If she wanted Maddie to grow into an independent woman who was confident in the decisions she made, she had to give her daughter the space to make them.
Her eyes met Helena's across the terrace. Helena was surrounded by women eager to offer their wedding planning advice, but her attention wasn't on them. A slight shift in Helena's gaze let Myka know that Christina's dramatic exit hadn't been missed, but the almost imperceptible hitch of her shoulder told Myka that she, too, was going to let their daughters work out their problems. As Helena's eyes steadily fixed on her again, Myka recalled the last time they had seen each other, eighteen years before she had entered Nate Robinson's house, blissfully unaware that the girl who had been Maddie's cabin mate was her ex-lover's daughter. When Helena had tried to coax her with more energy than enthusiasm into booking a cheap flight with her to Madrid, Myka had put her off, saying she needed time to figure out whether she could afford it. She had waited two weeks to respond to Helena's proposal, pleading end of the semester assignments and extra shifts at the library, but she had known what her answer would be. Not just no to Spain but no to any possibility of "them" surviving after Helena's graduation. She would let Helena go, but she wouldn't do it with the hope that Helena would come back. She knew better. Helena had telegraphed virtually from the beginning of their romance that she wasn't the staying or coming back type. Receiving the "No" in silence at first, Helena had then protested, she had shouted, but behind the tears and the stream of self-recriminations expressed in a British that reminded Myka they really did speak two different languages, there had been relief.
Yet she saw no relief, no satisfaction in Helena's making her engagement with Nate a true prelude to marriage rather than an end state. Myka saw a weariness that a more cynical person would call resignation. Maybe it was only the residue of the nervous energy that had characterized her announcement, but the upturn of her lips at a guest's suggestion to have a destination wedding and leave the carpers and wet blankets behind was polite reflex. In the place of joy, Myka thought she spied an emotion at once achingly familiar and impossible to accept after so many years, certainly not in this mansion and with Nate's imposing engagement ring on Helena's finger. She had been mistaken, that was all, taken a reflection of the light for a softness in Helena's regard, a palpable regret and more. Myka turned her head, putting Helena literally out of view. She reached for Gigi's hand, lacing their fingers together.
"l'll want to check in with Maddie before we go, but once that's done, I'm yours for the rest of the evening."
Gigi grinned. "Promise?"
She had meant it as a promise, but their after-dinner escape was delayed, first, by Larry drawing Gigi aside for a "five minute conversation, tops," which turned into a 15 minute conversation that threatened to go longer, and then by her search for Maddie. Myka finally found her in the vast downstairs family room, curled up in a theater-style recliner with her Kindle. The monosyllabic responses and shrugs told Myka that "handling it on her own" was still in progress. When she tried to reassure Maddie that if she changed her mind about the overnight to call her no matter the time, her daughter put down the Kindle in exasperation and exclaimed, "I'm not a baby!"
Chastened, Myka teetered on her heels back up the stairs (it had been worse going down them), relieved to see Gigi coming toward her. "I've said our goodbyes to Nate, so I think we're clear –." Before she could finish, Larry swooped upon Gigi again, his bald head and ungainliness reminding Myka more of a vulture than a sleekly dangerous bird of prey. "I'm imposing, I know, but, Gigi, I need to borrow you for five minutes more. After that, you're free of me for the rest of the evening."
Up to that point, Myka would have said she and Gigi were equally to blame for the failure to make their escape. Going on half-an-hour later, she was afraid the scales had tipped toward her. Nate Robinson didn't have the carbon footprint of an ordinary mortal, he had a footprint the size of Sasquatch's. How did he heat this behemoth in the winter? What was his and Helena's monthly electric bill? Her search for Maddie had nothing on her search for Helena. Initially she looked for Helena on the terrace, where she had last seen Helena laughing and gossiping with friends at a table they had dragged close to the pool, which had been covered for the party. Helena had seemed noticeably more relaxed, her laughter unchecked and riding easily over the mock gasps of "I dare you to tell him" and "Wait 'til he sees the bill for it." Not finding her there Myka explored rooms she had previously visited on the main floor. She even braved the stairs to the lower level again, but Maddie was alone in the family room and the hallways opening off it were dark. If Helena had retreated to the second floor, Myka wasn't going to track her down to the master bedroom. She had spent too much time as it was trying to find her, especially since all she meant to do was offer some trite expression like "A June wedding will be beautiful." Helena didn't need her good wishes. Yet Myka kept looking for her long after the desire to add her congratulations to the ones Helena had already received had died. She kept looking because she was helpless to make herself stop.
Far, far away from the ballroom and beyond rooms that served as offices for Nate and Helena, she slowed as she passed a room through which a breeze was gently eddying around her, tugging at her dress. The far wall was mainly a large, sliding glass door. It was open, the vertical blinds that would block the afternoon sun pushed to the side. She had thought it was a guest bedroom, but as Myka went farther into the room and her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, she realized she was in a kind of mother-in-law's suite. This was the sitting room, furnished with a loveseat and two easy chairs; in the wall adjacent to the sliding glass door wall were doors to the bathroom and bedroom. It was strange to think of Nate Robinson having a mother, self-made men seeming so self made. If someone told her that Nate had emerged one day from a cornfield fully grown, she wouldn't find it hard to believe. Maybe it was Helena's parents who stayed in the suite. Myka didn't remember Helena talking about them much, except to observe, with a mixture of scorn and begrudging appreciation, that their "yanking us hither and thither" parenting style taught her early the values of self-reliance and traveling light. Which didn't at all explain why she had become the chatelaine of a home in which the apartment that had been Myka's childhood home could fit dozens of times over.
Having trespassed this far, Myka ventured onto the patio, which was a continuation of the back terrace. If she looked toward the main part of the house, she could see the catering staff cleaning off the serving tables and moving them together. Guests were crossing the lawn, talking and laughing; some were even dancing across it as the polka band played an accordion-heavy version of "Love Will Keep Us Together," accompanying a country western singer gamely singing covers. She and Gigi were leaving before the festivities were over, before Nate and Helena danced, before Nate announced the charity that his company would partner with for the year. Too bad the university couldn't be that charity. Myka sighed, ready to give up the hunt, and there she was, shrouded in the darkness, silent, the blood red dress more shimmer than substance. The scene would have struck Myka as spectral if it were anyone other than Helena. She was the least ghostly person Myka knew. Existing only as a memory for 18 years, she still had more presence than most of the people Myka saw every day.
"I've intruded, I'm sorry – " Myka began.
"I wanted a few minutes to clear my head, get away from the noise." Helena moved closer, but she stayed at a circumspect distance, and Myka felt that, despite the denial, she had intruded. She had been foolish, more than that, presumptuous to think that Helena cared what she had to say about the wedding or Nate.
"I didn't want to leave before saying thanks for the assist with Nate and . . . congratulations on setting the date."
The feline tilt to Helena's eyes always seemed more pronounced when she was curious or teasing, or, as Myka keenly recalled, both in her case. "You know, you are coming back out here tomorrow to pick up Maddie. And that game you're going to watch with Nate and his friends, whatever ridiculous thing it's called, it's only three weeks away. You're not setting sail on the Titanic."
Myka quirked her mouth in exasperation. "The game is called the Battle of the Birds, and if I sounded serious, I am sincerely grateful that you've given me another chance to make a pitch to your fiancé."
"The university must be in dire straits if you're willing to hobnob with someone you think is a MAGA Republican and corporate shark."
"Are you talking about you or Nate?" Myka dryly asked.
Helena laughed, but Myka heard the wincing note in it. "Have I changed that much?" She turned her head, touching her hair, a gesture Myka knew well. Helena like to pretend she was suddenly struck by a thought when it had been uppermost in her mind all along, especially if revealing it made her feel vulnerable. "I came back. Tramping around Spain by myself wasn't nearly as fun as I had expected, but I was proud, I didn't want you to think that I couldn't live without you, so I brooded at my parents' house for nine months. I maxed out a credit card to fly back to the States so I could be there when you graduated." She paused, turning her head around again, and Myka felt rather than saw Helena's eyes bore into her. "But you weren't there. I wandered the campus, I talked to your friends. I learned that you didn't come back for your senior year. I was never sure if I had so broken your heart that you couldn't bear to return, or if our breaking up had caused you to do something dramatically different with your life. Maybe you were writing your first novel in New York, or maybe you were working for an NGO in some war-torn country."
Would it have made a difference? For years Myka had asked herself if everything that happened after she said No to Spain would have happened had she said Yes, and Spain slowly became less a place than a possibility that would never be realized. She had asked the question when she gave what comfort she could to her father in his last months. She had asked it when she hustled from job to class and back again, sometimes so tired she would fall asleep in her car, waking five or ten minutes late for class. She had asked it when Lauren would pull her into a bathroom or bedroom – the fiancé talking with the other guests or cooking in the kitchen – and slip a hand between her thighs. She had asked it the night before she married Sam. Then, she wasn't sure when, the moment eluding the tenacious grasp of her memory, Myka stopped asking it. There came Maddie, her recognition that, despite almost six years of marriage with Sam and her relationships with the few men who had preceded him – or maybe because there were so few – she wasn't that into men, and her acceptance that the career that had grown out of a part-time job with Irene was something she could take both satisfaction and pleasure in, even if it wouldn't change the world. The question got lost in the busyness of living her life.
She had never once asked herself whether it would have made a difference if Helena had stayed, and she had never once imagined that Helena would have come back for her. Yet here was Helena telling her that she had come back . . . seventeen years ago. It shouldn't make a difference now, and it didn't. It didn't, not at all. The only reason Myka wanted to stumble back into the sitting room and fall onto the loveseat was because if she stood on these heels a minute longer she would faint. Shifting to redistribute the pressure on her feet instead, she took a steadying breath she hoped wasn't audible. "I intended to finish my senior year at Walton. As miserable as I was that we had split up, I had worked too hard to give it all up." She added lightly, "I didn't need a working heart to graduate, just a brain." The lightness, which she felt hadn't been convincing, deserted her as that summer in all its heat and grimness displaced the cool breeze on the terrace and enveloped her. "Two weeks before the fall semester began, my father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He died in November. The bookstore had been barely profitable at the best of times, and we only found out after he died that the store was so far behind on its loans that the bank was ready to foreclose. We managed to find a buyer and pay off the debt, but there were all the medical expenses. Walton tried to work with me, but I couldn't promise them when or if I would be back, so I withdrew." Myka's laugh was short and pained. "I lost touch with my friends. When all you can say is 'My dad died. I'm working two jobs and we're just scraping by. My life sucks,' you aren't very motivated to keep in touch."
"I'm sorry," Helena said quietly, "I'm sorry you had to go through it, but I'm sorrier that you felt you had to go through it alone, that you felt you couldn't reach out to my parents or Charles. We parted badly, Myka, but had I known you needed me –"
"You might have come, but you wouldn't have stayed, and, to be honest, I wouldn't have had room for you." At Helena's scoff, Myka said, "My bedroom was the sleeper sofa after we moved out of the bookstore apartment. You would have had the floor. But that's not what I meant, Helena, I couldn't have handled you, us, back then. You would've been only another burden." She took another long breath, this time not caring whether Helena heard it. She hadn't needed eighteen years to have this realization, but it had taken her a long time to admit the truth of it. "We weren't arguing about backpacking in Spain and whether it was how we ought to spend our summer together, and we didn't break up because we were too different. We broke up because it was less painful to break up when we still loved each than to break up when we knew that we didn't anymore."
Myka expected to feel much better for having said it, for having reduced their break-up to its proper proportions. If it also reduced the proportions of their grand romance, turned it into a very good romance, memorable, even defining, but not once in a lifetime, maybe she and Helena would be the better for it. She had told Irene that Helena was an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink kind of love, but, just possibly, that mysteriously missing kitchen sink was what she should be looking for. An utterly fabulous kitchen sink kind of love could be waiting for her, could be right under her nose, but to see it, she needed to be looking past Helena, not at her. It was going to be impossible to start doing that if she stayed in this little visited area of the house and on this very private part of the terrace, close enough to draw Helena to her, who was never lovelier or more romantic than when she could use the night as her theater. Like the night they had first kissed . . . .
"We're where we're supposed to be, you and I," Helena murmured half in question, half in conclusion.
Myka couldn't bring herself to answer the question or agree with the conclusion. "I'll see you tomorrow, Helena."
When she limped back to the foyer, which was almost deserted except for a guest trying to close a business deal over the phone, Myka was surprised to see Gigi sitting on a stair in the middle of the big staircase to the second floor. She had expected to see her still talking with Larry in the ballroom or, if not talking with him, then talking about him to whatever closet liberals or uncommitted libertarians she had been able to find on Nate's guest list. However, the only potential Larry Jenkins for Governor supporter whose ear she was bending was Maddie, who was sitting beside her, but as Myka approached them, she saw that it was Maddie, alight with enthusiasm, who was bending Gigi's ear with comparisons of the party to the parties in The Great Gatsby. Myka felt a flare of pride in her little nerd followed by a flare of alarm. The Great Gatsby wasn't Fifty Shades of Grey by any stretch of the imagination, but that didn't mean she wanted her 11-year-old daughter reading it. Gigi's long legs were extended over the stairs immediately below, her feet bare and toes twitching with freedom. Her shoes with their rapier heels were pushed to the far side of the stair she and Maddie were sitting on. Her head was tilted attentively toward Maddie, and she appeared to be as absorbed in Maddie's breathless plot synopsis as she would be if she were listening to Larry strategize. Here, Myka suddenly decided, here's where I'm supposed to be.
The moment passed, if not the peace she felt, when Maddie spotted her and held up her hands in surrender. "I know, I know, go to bed." Before Myka could embarrass her with a hug, Maddie charged up the stairs and disappeared down a hallway. Gigi much more slowly pushed herself up, making a face as she grabbed her shoes. "I feel as old as the Jazz Age," she groaned, descending. She seemed unaware of the admiring glance from the man on the phone, and Myka glared at him until he sauntered from the foyer, phone still pressed to his face. Myka thought their exchange of looks had gone unobserved by Gigi until she caught the smug expression on Gigi's face.
"He was leering," Myka said, scowling.
"You were being territorial," Gigi countered. "I kind of liked it." With a swiftness and balance that left Myka gape-mouthed she slipped on one sandal and then the other. "One of the few tricks of the trade I retained." When she met Myka in the center of the foyer, she held out a hand. "Ready?"
"What do you think about kitchens and, in particular, kitchen sinks?" Myka asked with airy casualness.
"I was a working model before owning your body shape became popular. For me, kitchens are a cross between a meth lab and a luxury spa." As Myka's expression showed her struggle over how to fit a meth lab into her conception of a kitchen, Gigi relented, adding, "That said, I think if someone who has empathy and who has her own troubled history with kitchens is willing to work with me, I can overcome my irrational fear of them." The memory of Myka's recent attempt to provide a home-cooked dinner was still fresh for the both of them. That it had ended in a run to McDonald's and pans soaking on the stovetop and in the sink was the best possible outcome, considering that Gigi had walked in while Myka was wielding a fire extinguisher. "To be honest, I've never given a lot of thought to kitchen sinks. It strikes me that they're pretty crucial, and I'm perfectly fine with the standard stainless two-sink model, one for washing and one for rinsing."
"Exactly," Myka said enthusiastically. She already felt freer, lighter out of the house. A valet jogged down the driveway to bring Gigi's car to them. "Granted, I might have been able to save a pan or two if I'd had a farmhouse sink to immerse them in, but I like the order and efficiency of two sinks. Washing then rinsing. Washing and rinsing. It all works together, goes together, do you see?"
Gigi blinked at her. "Myka, why are we talking about kitchen sinks?"
Myka lifted and dropped her arms helplessly. "I don't know. I was going to make this segue into how my kitchen has a waffle iron and a toaster and then very sexily invite you to stay over for breakfast." I'm trying to find out if you can be my kitchen sink love, the one who succeeds where everyone else who followed Helena failed. "Despite how I look tonight, I'm your typical nerd. We're not smooth, we're not sexy. So I'll just ask, will you please stay with me tonight?" She had registered that Gigi's car had purred to a stop in front of them but not that the valet was springing out, ready to give Gigi the keys. Thankful that Gigi – and the valet – couldn't see the blush suffusing her from head to foot, Myka tried to speak over, or at least through, her embarrassment, but the valet cut in cheekily, "I've had worse offers." He handed Gigi her keys and smiled knowingly at them as he pocketed the tip. "You two have a very good rest of the evening."
Gigi held the passenger door open, saying lightly, "My putting an overnight bag in the trunk wasn't in vain."
Myka swayed toward her. "Am I that easy to figure out?"
"Not at all. I was just that hopeful."
Myka was fascinated by the movement of Gigi's lips. They might purse for a kiss or bare fangs ready to be plunged into her neck. Myka would work with either one, although the heat burning just under her skin – it wasn't the blush any longer – had her fantasizing about what a vampire's kiss would feel like. For a second, but only a second, she thought she saw a flash of red dress; she fiercely concentrated her gaze on Gigi's lips and her eyes. "What's in your overnight bag?"
She hadn't consciously tried to make it sound sexy, but Gigi's eyes almost fluttered closed as she leaned over the door and breathed next to Myka's ear, "A toothbrush."
"You overpacked. I have extra at home."
Maddie
She heard the tread on the stairs; one of the stairs even squeaked. She sat up straighter in the recliner and furiously rubbed her eyes. She didn't want to look like she had fallen asleep, and she hadn't, not really. Her attention had drifted from her book, and her eyes had closed briefly. That wasn't sleeping. It was . . . refocusing. Maddie didn't think the person coming downstairs to the family room was her mom, but she wouldn't be completely surprised if it was. For a while, her mom had been this beautiful, elegant swan, and she would have been proud to confirm that she was the swan's daughter, if anyone had asked. But no one had, and the swan had become her mom again, checking up on her like she was still a little kid. She could handle staying in the big house, even though it got kind of creepy at night, and she wasn't going to cry about Christina not wanting to be her friend anymore. Christina was kind of hard to deal with, anyway. It would be just like her mom to turn around when she was almost home and race back to make sure that her Maddie Muffin (and that name was going to go with her to her grave) was okay.
But the person on the stairs was coming down them too quickly and confidently to be her mom. It might be Christina, and the thought briefly lifted Maddie's spirits. She hadn't seen Christina since her flight from the terrace. The last time that Maddie had been on the second floor, the door to the art room was open but the room itself was dark. The door to Christina's bedroom was closed, and Maddie couldn't spy any light underneath it. She had hadn't been able to work up the courage to try the knob. She didn't want to fall asleep in the family room, even though the chairs and the sofa were comfortable. She would look so pathetic if Christina or Helena found her asleep.
The steps were too heavy to be Christina's. It had to be an adult. Maybe it was Nate, and Maddie shrank deeper into the recliner. He wouldn't remember her. He would probably shout for Helena. He didn't seem mean, despite what Christina said about him, but he seemed like the kind of adult – and they were usually men – who was always having to be reminded that there were supposed to be other kids in the house. His type never remembered the birthday party or sleepover that had been on the calendar forever. The lights overhead came on, and Maddie heard Helena's gently inquiring "Maddie?" She sounded curious and relieved but not mother-y. Maybe this could be just a conversation, and then Helena would go back upstairs without having asked her if she and Christina were fighting or if she was sure that she wanted to stay over.
With a small groan of relief, Helena sank into the sofa that was kitty-cornered to Maddie's recliner. She was still wearing her vampire dress, but her feet were in slippers. "One of Adelaide's friends stayed here for a week, and I didn't know it. I'd thought Mariel was staying only until Sunday, but I found her having breakfast in the kitchen the following Friday." Helena waved toward the far end of the room, where the casual seating gave way to pool and foosball tables, vintage pinball and video game machines, and a wet bar. "Somewhere, past all of Nate's toys, not to mention the theater, is a bedroom tucked into a hallway inhabited only by spiders. That's where Mariel was, and I never knew." Her tone grew arch and a miniature version of her wicked smile dimpled a corner of her mouth. "I can't develop a reputation for losing children entrusted to my care. Mariel's father thought she was staying with her grandmother, and Mariel's mother was at a San Diego spa, leaving the responsibility for knowing where their daughter was to her husband. I don't think your mother is comfortable delegating responsibility, so I'll have to promptly produce you tomorrow. Don't make me take on the spiders."
Maddie wasn't sure how much of what Helena had told her about Adelaide's friend was true, but she understood the underlying message. It was time to go to bed . . . upstairs. If Christina hadn't locked her out of the bedroom. The archness descended into a gentle teasing as Helena said, "All of the guests are gone, and the ogre is asleep. I'm hoping we'll find that the ogre has been banished and my daughter returned to us in the morning, but if not, we'll leave the ogre to fend for itself and go out for a lovely brunch."
Helena knew her dilemma and wasn't going to let her take the easy way out. Maddie also suspected that Christina, post-party and post-ogre, would be on the receiving end of her own life lessons. Helena wouldn't be an easy mark like the camp counselors. Maddie almost felt sorry for Christina, which maybe was why the words were out before she could stop them. "Christina was upset that you announced a wedding date. She doesn't like, you know, . . . ." Maddie faltered, unable to say his name under the intent look of Helena's very dark eyes. They were really dark in the dimness of the room.
Yet the vampire that Maddie had half-feared might rise from the sofa, enraged at what might seem like a criticism offered by an 11-year-old girl and no less awe-inspiring in her power because she wore bedroom slippers, didn't emerge. Instead Helena looked decidedly unHelena-like in her bewilderment when she said, "I know."
Maddie wanted to tell her not to try so hard to understand Christina, but she guessed that's what moms always wanted to do, to figure out what crazy things their kids were going to do next and prevent it, when what moms really needed to do sometimes was get out of the way. Feeling the need to console Helena, Maddie diplomatically volunteered, "Christina's kind of unpredictable, and that makes her a . . ." she suddenly thought of a word her grandmother used, "a handful."
Helena quickly recovered, lifting an eyebrow at her and laughing appreciatively. "That's exactly what she is. It's what all Wells women are, handfuls."
More confident after having found the right thing to say, Maddie confided, "I didn't like my mom's old girlfriend." She felt a little guilty saying it out loud because while it didn't sound so bad thinking it, saying it out loud made Michelle appear to be worse than she was. She wasn't awful, just not the right person for her mom. Trying to explain and offer an apology to Michelle at the same time, Maddie said, "I wanted someone more fun for my mom." That didn't get at all the things that had gotten on her nerves about Michelle, the worrying about Ethan when he wasn't with them, the worrying about Ethan when he was with them, but Helena was nodding like she understood that too, all the unsaid stuff.
"I may have run into her once," she said vaguely. "Tall, brown hair, and you can tell from the far reaches of the moon that she's clearly not right for your mother?"
Maddie nodded back vigorously. "One day Michelle caught me playing around with some of my mom's make-up. She didn't get mad, but she sat me down and told me how make-up was like a gateway drug. Soon all I would think about was how I could become the perfect doll. The only thoughts I would have would be what a man told me to think. I'd be a willing victim of the patriarchy." Maddie paused, gazing earnestly at Helena, hoping that she had managed to convey Michelle's Michelle-ness. She left out the part about how Michelle had left her bedroom, taking the blush and mascara with her but holding it out in front of her like it was Remy's poo. "It wouldn't have been half as bad if she'd just gotten mad at me."
At first, Helena had looked appalled and then she had hooted with laughter. But she quickly sobered when Maddie said, "I'm pretty sure that Gigi wouldn't lecture me about the patriarchy. She'd probably say I was too young to put on make-up but if I had to do it, I should do it right." Maddie exhaled a wistful little breath. "She'd probably give me lots of tips. She's already given me a few. She said women who have long, elegant necks like mine need to carry themselves with their heads up, to show them off, you know, their necks, I mean." Another wistful breath. "She's already tons better than Michelle." Helena didn't respond right away, and Maddie wasn't sure what to make of her silence. Helena had the same sad, preoccupied air that she had worn when they had been talking about Christina and Nate. Maybe she didn't think that Gigi was any better for her mom than Michelle.
"I don't have a crystal ball, so I can't predict whether Gigi will make your mother happy, but I do know that she likes Myka very much. And she's also right about holding your head up. You should be proud of all that's inside it." The clouds had passed, and Helena was smiling at her. "Come on, it's time for bed." She held out her hand, and Maddie let her pull her from the chair. "While Michelle might consider Gigi a tool of the patriarchy, I beg to differ. She'll rule us all one day."
Maddie wasn't quite sure what Helena meant by that, but there was something regal in how Gigi carried herself, walking around in her high, high heels as if she found walking in shoes as comfortable as Helena's slippers. Gigi was silver and gold like you'd expect a queen to be, too, but Maddie thought there had been one woman even more stunning. "She was really pretty tonight, wasn't she?"
"Mmm, yes," Helena said indifferently. Her tone becoming drier, she added, "She'll maintain that a daily regimen of moisturizing soap, eight hours of sleep, regular exercise, and a fastidious monitoring of calories will turn any Midwestern housewife into a lingerie model. What she happens to leave out is winning the genetic lottery. Oh, and surviving on a bottle of Ensure a day. Throw in a few spells and maybe a special portrait hidden in the attic."
"I meant my mom," Maddie said patiently.
Helena stopped, one foot frozen in the act of planting itself on the next step. She turned around, hand grabbing at a rail in support, and said with a seriousness that Maddie had never heard from her before, "Your mother is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."
Maddie instinctively tipped her head, searching for the joke hidden somewhere in Helena's face. Maybe it was under the high cheekbones or lurking in her eyes. Maddie couldn't locate it; the cheekbones and the eyes were drooping with exhaustion, and the rest of Helena's face looked too tired to hold back anything, either. Yet what she had said couldn't be true. "You have to be joking," Maddie protested. "I've seen the pictures from when she was young. That hair and those yucky glasses. She wore braces!" Maddie shuddered. "I bet you're going to tell me that none of it mattered because she's beautiful inside." She said it with all the scorn of a girl who had been on the receiving end of that bit of sophistry one too many times.
Helena didn't flinch. "Inside and outside. I was gobsmacked from the very first moment. I was rooted to the ground. Stunned. How many people can evoke that feeling, Maddie?" She didn't wait for Maddie to answer the question. "One in a million, and you're her daughter. You'll do the same someday."
It might have been an exaggeration, another way adults had of skirting an uncomfortable truth, especially when they had to tell it to a kid, but Maddie believed her. About the being gobsmacked part, not the part about her overwhelming JP Lattimer with her beauty. Then why are you with Nate instead of my mom? Maddie clapped her hands over her mouth, but since Helena had begun trudging up the stairs again, Maddie decided she had only thought it, but it sounded as powerfully in her mind as if she had said it. When Helena said goodnight to her outside Christina's bedroom, Maddie didn't worry about the door being locked. There were important matters that needed to be discussed, and she didn't have time for Christina's tantrums or her own hurt feelings.
The mound of bedding on Christina's bed shifted and, in the quiet of the room as Maddie tiptoed in, Christina's puppy snores indicated that someone had had no difficulty in sloughing off the storms and cares of the night. Maddie noticed that her duffel bag was exactly where she had left at the foot of her bed. Christina didn't seem like the petty type of who would strew her clothes all over the room or pour maple syrup into her bag, but Maddie hadn't survived six years of elementary school (if you counted kindergarten) without learning to keep her stuff close by and to always look through her backpack before reaching into it. However, there was something on the bed that hadn't been there earlier. On any other night she would have considerately taken the piece of paper into the bathroom with her or strained to make out what was on it hunched over the night light, but she wasn't feeling very considerate. Besides Christina had only a few more minutes to enjoy her sleep.
Maddie turned on the lamp that was on her night stand. The light brought out the artwork with which Christina had decorated the walls, but the room felt like a hotel room. Two double beds, two night stands, an enormous bureau. She was beginning to understand why Christina was so obsessed with Remy. A dog might make this room – not to mention the house – feel lived in. Maddie held the paper, reluctant to turn it over. It was thicker than ordinary paper and longer, too, torn from one of the big sketch pads in the art room. Christina wasn't petty, maybe, but Maddie could imagine her making some dire threats. She sighed, expecting to find a stick figure version of herself being thrown out of an airplane or being eaten by lions. Or was it tigers that ate people? She turned the paper over. The girl in the drawing looked like her. It was even a flattering representation. The Maddie in the drawing had her arms wrapped around Remy, hugging the dog to her. So Remy was three times larger and crowded her to the margin – it was more than she had expected. At least she was in the picture.
Maddie put it down. She flung off the comforter and sheet covering Christina. The puppy snores became a discontented growl, but Christina didn't open her eyes. "Wake up," Maddie said, nudging her. "Wake up," she repeated, nudging Christina harder. "Wake up!" Possibly she crossed the line between nudging and shoving. Possibly crossed it with a little too much enjoyment, but she was only human and Christina had been a real . . .handful.
"Wha-? What's going on?" Christina pushed herself up, screwing her face into a scowl against the light. "Do I need to get my mom? Do we need to call yours?"
Maddie sat next to her. "I want to go back to the original terms of our deal."
"Why?" Christina demanded rudely. "You got what you wanted, plus you got Gigi." She flopped back down on the bed and tried to pull the comforter over her head. Maddie grabbed the comforter and started tugging it towards her.
"Because Gigi isn't the one. Your mom's the one. I'm back on target about us getting our moms together again, but we need to come up with something else, something that works, and we need help." Christina stared at her sullenly. "We don't have a lot of time. Your mom's marrying Nate in June, and my mom's already giving Gigi gooey eyes." Maddie had the luxury of sighing much louder now that Christina was awake. "My mom's smart about everything except relationships."
"Are you really all in this time?" Christina asked suspiciously.
Maddie nodded. "All in."
"I like your mom," Christina said, shrugging, "and anyone's better than Nate." She turned on her side, as a sign that, for her, the conversation was over.
"No you don't," Maddie said warningly. "We've got planning to do."
The sun had risen by the time Maddie began to drift off. Christina had come up with all sorts of wild ideas, like faking a marriage license and showing Nate that Helena and Myka had been married for 50 years. "They weren't alive 50 years ago," Maddie had said witheringly. Just more proof that planning wasn't Christina's strong suit. The last thing Maddie remembered before she fell asleep was Helena talking about her mom. She had sometimes thought about whether Helena kept a box of old photographs and grew sad when she looked at them like her mom did, but Helena wasn't mushy like her mom. There was no pet name like "Christina Cookie," Maddie would bet. Yet when Helena had said "beautiful" and "your mother" together and equally reverently, Maddie understood. Helena didn't need a box of old photos because a part of her still lived on a college campus dumbstruck by the wonder that was Myka Bering.
