Pictures of Us Page 11

  Even seventeen-year-olds can be extremely melodramatic.

  We hadn’t courted, if such an old-fashioned term was applied then. We hadn’t gotten to know each other, not in the slow, tentative way some couples do, over time. We’d devoured each other in just under a week, talking until our throats were dry, our bodies always touching, even if it was only our hands, or our ankles hooked one over the other as we pushed the creaky old swing on my porch into motion. We memorized each other, swallowing each other up in our eagerness, and by the time we slept together, I couldn’t remember what life had been like before Michael’s kisses, his comfortable weight on top of me or his shuddering body beneath me.

  Our plan had been for me to ride up to Cambridge with him and his mother, of course. We wanted every minute we could have together, even if it was chaperoned by a parent and a little sister. But before Mrs. Butterfield could weigh in, my mother vetoed the idea.

  “Absolutely not,” she said, and she didn’t even glance up from the hem she was finishing on the sewing machine. I’d found her, as usual, in the dining room, fabrics and trims mounded on the table beside her sewing machine. “Maureen will have her hands full enough between the drive and getting Michael settled in. She certainly doesn’t need you along—”

  She stopped short, something else on the tip of her tongue. Something unflattering, I was sure. Something about me weeping or being a drama queen—she’d blown up at me just the day before because I burst into tears at the dinner table when Will teased me about how many pretty Radcliffe girls Michael was bound to meet.

  “I can help,” I argued. It was difficult not to fidget, to keep still, when I wanted to plead and scream. “I can keep Melissa busy in the car and the hotel room, and I can help carry things up to the dorm…”

  Mom didn’t bother to say no again. She simply turned that resolute, impatient glare on me, a threaded needle clenched between her teeth, until I gave up and walked away. Well, stomped away. There was no sense in presenting the calm adult facade when she’d said no.

  “There’s always Lucy’s car,” Cath said a month later. We were sprawled on the living-room floor at my house, with General Hospital on in the background and a litter of empty diet soda cans and Pringles crumbs on the coffee table. She was tackling AP calculus, while I pretended to study French vocabulary. A letter from Michael had come in the mail, and I had spent the past twenty minutes alternating between reading bits of it aloud to her and moaning about how long it would be before I saw him again.

  “What does Lucy’s car have to do with anything?”

  Cath arched her pierced eyebrow at me. A delicate silver hoop was in place today. “It’s transportation, you idiot. As in, it could transport you to Harvard.”

  “Like my mother would ever let Lucy and me drive up to Boston,” I snorted, and flopped over on my back on the carpet.

  “She doesn’t have to know.” Cath tossed her notebook on the table and leaned over. “Think about it. You could tell her you’re sleeping over at her house, and then the next night you call and say we’re all sleeping at my place. Meanwhile, you’re in Michael’s dorm room.”

  Round robin. A time-honored tradition, but one with risks. Especially when I wouldn’t be just across town at a party, but four states away.

  “And where would you and Lucy be?” I sat up, frowning, and tried to figure out how the plan could work. “In the dorm room with us?”

  “You need a remedial class in evil plotting, immediately.” She sighed. “We’d be here at home, dummy. You’d take Lucy’s car.”

  “And you think Lucy would let me do that why exactly…?”

  That stopped her cold. She reached into the tall red tube and withdrew another Pringles, then bit into it thoughtfully. “I could twist her arm. You’d have to practice with the VW, though. You suck at stick shift.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and hugged my knees tightly to my chest. Excitement had rippled through me like a gust of wind—if I didn’t hold on, it would blow me away.

  I could do it, I thought. Sure, I did kind of suck at driving a stick shift, but I could practice. How hard could it be, really? And if it meant being with Michael for a whole weekend—before Thanksgiving, which would involve way too much family time, way too much food and nowhere near enough opportunities to touch each other—I’d learn how to fly, if that was what it took.

  “This could work,” I said, and grinned at Cath, who nodded at me as if I were a six-year-old finally grasping a concept as simple as one plus one. “I’ve got money saved, I can pay for gas, I can drive up there on a Friday afternoon and then—”

  “Drive where?”

  Shit. My mother stood in the arch between the living room and the front hall, an overflowing basket of laundry in her arms and her eyes blazing fire.

  “Um…” Hadn’t she been upstairs?

  “Cath, you’ll be going home now,” Mom said evenly, and Cath didn’t hesitate. She scooped her books into her bag and managed only a brief sympathetic glance at me before she was out the front door, her combat boots thudding down the steps.

  Showdown time. Just me and the immovable force that my mother had become—at least, when Michael was involved. “Mom, I don’t know what you heard, but I can—”

  “I don’t have to hear anything else, Tess.” She set down the laundry basket and balanced on the edge of the coffee table, nudging my homework out of the way, elbows on her knees. Her jeans were just as faded as mine, and her hair was knotted messily on top of her head. In her plain white button-down shirt, she looked young, I thought, so much younger than other moms. But even as I had the thought, I noticed the lines around her eyes, the shadow of anxiety beneath them. For the first time her eyes looked old.

  “I know you miss him, Tess. I know you…love him, and believe me, I think Michael is a wonderful boy. Really, I do. But I’m worried, honey. You’re eating, breathing and sleeping nothing but him. You’re talking about taking off in a car by yourself and driving hours away when he’ll be here for Thanksgiving in just a matter of weeks. I don’t want to restrict you to the house, but there’s no way you’re driving up to Harvard, I can tell you that right now.”

  Amazing how excitement could flare into hot, smoldering ash so quickly. “You didn’t seem to care when dancing was all I thought about.”

  She groaned and shook her head. “Yeah, well, I’m scared that’s part of the problem. Ballet was a passion for you, baby. A calling. Let’s face it, if it wasn’t for your knee, you’d still be dancing. So what scares me is that you simply replaced one love with another.”

  I felt as if she’d slapped me. I loved Michael because of who he was, not because he was convenient. He was so much more than that to me. He was.

  I couldn’t answer her—tears were stinging my eyes, escaping even as I fled up the stairs to my room. In that moment, I hated her. Flopped on my bed, my flushed cheek against the pillowcase and the window wrenched open to let in the early-October chill, I cried until there was nothing left.

  And I hated myself when I was done. Maybe my mother was the first person to suggest out loud that Michael was nothing more than a distraction while I figured out what the hell my life would become now that ballet wasn’t a part of it. But she wasn’t the first person to suspect it. If I was going to be completely honest with myself, I couldn’t deny that sometimes I was scared of the same thing.

  EMMA REFUSED TO COME down for dinner, claiming she didn’t feel well. I didn’t have the energy to argue with her, and Michael blew off her rebellion. “She’s entitled to a few tantrums right now,” he said, sitting down across from me.

  “You really believe that?” I set his plate down a little too hard, and a cherry tomato rolled onto the place mat.

  He stared at me as he picked up the tomato and popped it into his mouth. “Yeah, I do. She’s had some pretty major news the past few weeks, none of it what you could call good.”

  “Do you think I don’t know that, Michael?” I dished some of the pasta primave
ra onto my plate and grabbed my glass of iced tea before I sat down. “Somehow that’s not keeping her from obsessing about this kid Jesse, or the dance or how late she can stay out Friday night.”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say, Tess.” He dropped his fork and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, a giveaway that he had a headache. “Do you want to ground her for being angry at you? Do you want her to completely lose it, or would you rather she was at least still doing all the things normal teenage girls do?” He raised those dark, wounded eyes to mine, and for the first time I swore I saw accusations in them. Did he think I was overreacting? Did he even care how I felt about all of this? Did he understand how terrified I was that this would pull us apart, irrevocably?

  The silence hummed between us, broken only by a dog barking somewhere in the neighborhood. I pushed my plate away and got up, and managed to make it to the bedroom before the tears fell. I was asleep when he came to bed hours later, and when I got up in the morning, he had already left for the airport.

  It was the first time we had ever parted without saying goodbye. It was the only time since we’d been married that we had parted without saying I love you.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “ISN’T SHE BEAUTIFUL,” MY MOTHER said Thursday afternoon, sitting amid the rumpled covers on Emma’s bed.

  Emma twirled in front of the mirror fixed to her closet door. “It’s awesome, Nana. No one else will have a dress like this.”

  It was gorgeous, not that I’d expected anything else. My mother hadn’t made a name for herself designing clothes for nothing. It was elegant without being too mature, it was formfitting enough to show off Emma’s budding curves without being obscene and, of course, it looked as if it had been made for her. A deep creamy satin with a square neckline and one-inch straps, the dress had a skirt that was two layers, with a film of embroidered cream tulle on top—embroidery Mom had mimicked in beaded detail on the bodice. I had been worried the dress would be too pale against Emma’s fair skin and blond hair, but Mom had covered that. She’d beaded the delicate leaves on the bodice in black and echoed them on the hem of the satin skirt. With black heels and a pair of black pearl earrings Mom had loaned for the occasion, Emma was radiant. I knew just which red lipstick I would give her to wear Friday night.

  “It’s lovely,” I said, and smiled into the mirror at Emma, who was still admiring herself. I nudged my mother’s arm playfully. “You should do this for a living, you know?”

  “There’s a thought.” But she was pleased with herself, and scooted backward on the bed to lean against the pillows. “Quite a race, though. I haven’t beaded that fast in years. Next time a little more notice would be nice, please.”

  “Done.” I sat down beside her and fought back a sudden lump in my throat when Mom wound her arm around my shoulders and stroked my hair. No matter how old I got, it would always be tempting to let her hug away my problems.

  “You okay?” she murmured. “Did Michael get to Boston all right?”

  I nodded, answering the second question if not the first. Michael had called when he landed at Logan, and we’d apologized to each other by the time we said our goodbyes. Even so, the conversation was stiff, a little forced, and I was relieved when we hung up. It was an awful feeling.

  “I should wear this every day,” Emma said with a sigh. “Every where. It’s, like, the most perfect dress ever.” She turned one more time, the skirt flaring just enough to qualify as “twirly” without appearing as if it had been made for a ballroom dancer. “Can I borrow your little black bag, Mom?”

  “Absolutely.” I held up a finger. “If you let me take pictures before you leave.”

  “As if I have a choice,” she groaned. “Unzip me?”

  I stood up to help her out of the dress, and Mom followed, kissing Emma’s cheek before she said, “I’ll make some tea. I think I deserve a cookie for my efforts. Or possibly cake.”

  “I’ll be down in a minute,” I said, and Emma called out her thanks for approximately the fourteenth time. When the dress was properly on its hanger and in her closet, I took her chin in my fingers and leaned in close. “You are beautiful, sweetheart. And entirely too grown-up.”

  “Mom.” But she was grinning when I closed the bedroom door behind me.

  “I found your secret stash,” Mom said as I walked into the kitchen, and held up a box of Girl Scout cookies.

  “They’re Emma’s,” I said primly, and shook tea bags out of the box since the kettle was about to whistle.

  We let the quiet envelop us for a minute as I poured the boiling water into a teapot. Walter was dozing at Mom’s feet. Already, drowsy carpenter bees buzzed in the wisteria climbing the trellis, and somewhere outside little girls were chanting the familiar words to “Ring Around the Rosy.”

  As I reached for mugs, Mom spoke up. “I wish you would talk to me, honey. I feel so helpless. And you look, well, awful.”

  She surprised a laugh out of me. “Thanks, Mom.”

  “Well, it’s true,” she protested. She frowned as I carried the mugs of tea to the table, her brow furrowed in concern. “You look like you haven’t slept in weeks. And you must be apprehensive about what Michael’s going through up there.”

  I’d finally told her about the weekend in Cambridge, meeting Drew, and Sophia, face-to-face, and of course Drew’s illness. I’d told her why Michael was in Massachusetts, and while she approved of his efforts to help, it didn’t worry her any less that it was the right thing to do.

  “I’m not apprehensive.” I blew on my tea, sending steam curling away toward the ceiling. “The initial test is easy—apparently it’s just a swab in his cheek. The results of that will determine whether they do more specific testing. And even that won’t cause anything more than a little discomfort.”

  “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

  I played dumb, which was childish, but I wasn’t about to spill my guts, not when Michael and I hadn’t even talked about half the things on my mind. “No, I don’t. What did you mean, Mom?”

  I might have been six years old again, squirming as she stared at me, eyebrows raised as she patiently waited for me to admit that I’d spilled the orange juice or broken the dish.

  “Maybe apprehensive was the wrong word,” she said finally. Her clipped tone made it clear she wasn’t pleased with my lie. “Maybe I should have used angry or resentful instead.”

  I sighed, and glanced out the back door. In my head, I could see Michael knocking on Sophia’s door, his overnight bag slung over one shoulder, his hair mussed the way it always was when he was restless, the three of them sitting down to dinner in that bright little kitchen…

  Shutting my eyes to erase the image, I met Mom’s gaze again. “I can’t be resentful that he’s helping to save his son’s life, can I? Who would be angry about that?”

  “No one, honey. But if I were you, I would be goddamn pissed off that he had to do it at all. That he had to be away the night of his daughter’s first prom.” She stopped and took a deep breath, gathering her thoughts and leaning forward to lay her hand over mine. “I love Michael very much, and I understand that you two were…apart when Drew was conceived, but that can’t make the consequences any easier to deal with. If you’re mad, you need to let it out. Cry, scream. Just get rid of all the worry, even for a minute. You’re walking around like a ticking time bomb, and if you think the people who love you can’t see in your eyes how much you hurt, you’re wrong.”

  So much for not crying. A stray tear dropped into the mug I was still holding to my mouth, and I watched as it rippled into a widening circle. I’d made a choice twenty years ago, a difficult, completely personal choice I never imagined would affect anyone but Michael and me. Instead, suddenly everyone I loved was involved in some way—and a boy who might not have existed otherwise possibly wouldn’t survive the year.

  I managed to put my mug down before I spilled it, and let Mom hold me while I sobbed.

&n
bsp; I ANSWERED THE DOOR WHEN Jesse knocked Friday night. A classic black limo was idling at the curb, which surprised me. He was a year older than Emma, probably at the far end of sixteen, too, but I had expected one of his parents to drive them to the dance. The idea that he didn’t have his license yet had seemed like a good thing yesterday. Imagining my daughter and this very charming boy in the big back seat of a limo was a whole other story.

  “Hi, Mrs. Butterfield,” he said as I pushed open the screen door to let him in. “I’m Jesse.”

  “We met once,” I reminded him, and suddenly wanted to smack myself for not insisting that Emma have him over before tonight. I was supposed to be vigilant about this stuff, and here I was letting her go off with a boy I didn’t know at all, even if it was only to the high-school gym across town.

  He was truly a golden boy, I decided as he sat down on the living-room sofa, more comfortable than I would have guessed for a kid his age. Blond and already tanned, with huge brown eyes and shiny white teeth thanks to some genius orthodontist, he was tall and leanly muscled, the standard dreamboat. I hated him, in his classic black tux and shiny confidence, just a little.

  “I’ll go get Emma,” I said, furious that Michael wasn’t there to grill him with some clichéd fatherly questions. That he wasn’t there to see his daughter off to her first big dance with a hug. Before Jesse could reply, I fled up the stairs.

  Emma was ready when I knocked on her door, zipped into her dress, wearing my mother’s earrings and her own black heels, warm red lipstick on her mouth. She whirled once, already giddy with excitement, and struck a showroom model’s pose.

  “How do I look?” The pink in her cheeks wasn’t entirely due to cosmetics. And the contrast of my daughter in her very grown-up dress against the happy lilac walls of her room and the bedspread with its pop-art daisies was a jarring one.

  “You look beautiful,” I said. It was true. It was also somehow heartbreaking. At that moment I could envision her as a young woman of twenty, twenty-five, thirty, and I longed to snatch her up in my arms and hold her until this boy gave in and went away. “Jesse’s waiting downstairs.”