“Mom, I sent a text saying I was going to a movie. That’s almost the same as a call. And there is also such a thing as overly checking in on someone. Every fifteen minutes, it felt like. I had to turn off the phone.”
“Which movie? You never answered. Were you really at the movies, Ember? And what were you doing before?”
“Of course I was. And before? Before I was just…around.” Obviously, I hadn’t told them anything about El Cielo. I couldn’t. The idea that I would now balance schoolwork, yearbook, and my physical therapy with an after-school job might tip them both over the cliff of parental outrage.
“We worry about you. We worry a lot.” Dad’s voice was a tiny bit accusing, and yet at the same time he was entreating me. As if he couldn’t make up his mind which attitude to own. “You’re so far away from us lately—and it feels like it’s getting worse and worse. Locking yourself in your room, or driving off to the beach, or out till all hours.”
“It’s becoming just the way it was before,” added Mom, and yet she, too, was conflicted—there was weariness along with the quiet reproach that by now I was used to. “Just exactly the same patterns. Last time, when this happened, we didn’t step in, we didn’t do anything. We felt helpless, of course, but we left you alone. We made that mistake. But this time, please, Ember, please don’t lock us out. Let us help. We want to help. Dr. P says that you should call that woman, that colleague of his; he said he sent you—”
“If you really, truly want to help, you need to stop micromanaging me,” I interrupted. “And if you’d really look at me, you could see I’m making progress—real progress. Not just talking out my emotions to sock puppets, or progress the way you think it should be happening. Like trust-falls with Dr. P’s contacts.”
“Ember, you’re all we have,” Mom protested. “How do you expect us to behave?”
“But it’s like you’re punishing me for being all you have. I’m sorry I almost died in February, and I’m a million times sorrier that someone else did! But you can’t fix anything here by guiding me along what you think are the right ways I’m supposed to heal. All you’re doing is smothering me, if you want to know.”
“Smothering you?” Mom’s face was crumpled in hurt. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”
“It’s not that I’d think you’d want to, Mom,” I told her. “But yes. Sometimes you do, anyway. You really do.” And while I knew we hadn’t talked it through to Mom’s satisfaction, hadn’t come to any kind of family resolve, I also knew there wasn’t a solution. The rest of my life did not get fixed in one night, and it wasn’t fair that my parents wanted me to pretend that I could make that happen for them.
Instead I pushed past them—plowing up the stairs, leaving behind yet another situation that would have to mend eventually, but I just couldn’t deal with it right now.
29
Inner Circle
Holden hadn’t been in touch since our bumbling, semi-mistake hookup at Drew’s engagement, and I’d waited a few days to call him. I had to see him again, to make things better, even if I couldn’t make them all the way perfect. I was finding myself in this situation a lot, it seemed.
Another offshoot of last night was that after I’d gone to bed, my parents had contacted Linda Applebaum themselves. When it seemed they couldn’t get to her through me, they just went around another way. They couldn’t resist.
So far, she’d left two messages on my cell phone plus one in my in-box. So much for “my own steam.”
I needed Holden. I needed his reliability. But apparently he was needing me, too.
“Listen, I’m glad you called. I’ve got a favor to ask,” he began. Less than two minutes into our call, and he’d jumped into it. “We’re doing this family dinner at the River Café tonight for Nana’s eightieth birthday. I know it’s short notice, but can you come? Just as my bud? It’d sure as hell take the edge off.”
“Oh.” This was not what I’d wanted.
“Please? Eight sharp but we’ll make it quick; Nana gets tired.”
“Um…well, sure. Who am I to blow off your eighty-year-old grandmother?” Stilted events never seemed to stop being part of the deal with Holden. His family was so ceremonial. In the years I’d known him, there’d been a cousin’s christening, a couple of high school graduations, the ballet, a Broadway revival, and once, even, a painfully boring family trip to the opera for Mr. and Mrs. Wilde’s anniversary.
I’d also sneezed my way through Mrs. Wilde’s fund-raising event at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and I’d walked through at least a half dozen fussy furnished town houses when she’d chaired the Brooklyn Historical Society’s private homes tour. In these situations, Holden had always reached for me, as if the best option was for us to endure it together.
I’d seen old Mrs. Boughton—or “Nana,” as all the Wildes called her—briefly at Drew’s engagement party, and had kept out of her sight. She was the twenty-five-years-older original version of her daughter, bright and false and practically humming with judgment.
That evening at a quarter past eight, her hard eyes followed me as I walked across the restaurant in the same black dress I’d worn to Drew’s engagement party.
Another thing I was reminded of, when it came to being part of Holden’s life: I was often required to wear a party dress.
“Hello, everyone.”
“Ember,” said Mrs. Boughton, in her trademark withering tone. “You’re late. We’ve ordered drinks without you.”
“That’s fine,” I said, knowing that she didn’t like that answer, because it sounded friendly but semi-implied that it was fine that I was late. I’d always enjoyed needling Mrs. Boughton, who wasn’t as claws-out mean as her daughter—mainly because she was always so shocked anyone would dare be rude to her.
Next I presented her with my birthday present—an overpriced lavender candle, specially gift wrapped at the store. “Here you go. I’m afraid it’s not very useful,” I said. “But I remembered how much you liked lavender. So, happy birthday.”
She inclined her head to acknowledge the gift, though Mrs. Boughton was the type of person who would almost rather be irritated to receive a rose or vanilla candle than accept that someone had attempted to be considerate. Meantime, all of the Wilde men had stood formally as the waiter pulled out my chair. I remembered how that always used to unnerve me. Still did.