Gingerbread (15 page)

She hustled past me over to the dining table and spread out a garment bag she had been carrying in her arms. She turned to me and announced, like she was a military general, "I brought something for you."

I admit I was curious about the very old-looking garment

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bag. LisBETH did not seem the crazy night out on the town type.

She unzipped the front of the bag and I half expected her to pull out a hideous prom-type puke princess dress as some kind of see-how-hip-l-am type of gesture, but instead she pulled out a glorious, narrow-cut, vintage silk Chinese gown in a soft lilac color with small ivory and jade embroidered flowers. It was very simple, elegant, and exquisite.

I said, "I don't understand."

LisBETH walked over with the dress and held it up in front of me. "Just as I thought, the right length," she said. She looked up at me--I am about four inches taller than her--and said, "This dress belonged to my... to our grandmother, Daddy's mother. Grandma Molly was quite the character. She ran a liquor joint during Prohibition, married five times, cursed like a sailor, and smoked three packs of cigarettes a day. God, she was an incredibly astute businesswoman, though. She made a fortune on the stock market from her divorce settlements. You look a lot like her, you know? Surprised the hell out of me when I first saw you. I think Daddy sees it too--must terrify him! He deserves it, though. That
should
be his cross to bear, that his secret child should be the image of the mother whose shadow he's spent a lifetime trying to come out of."

I was starting to see what Danny and Aaron had meant about lisBETH not always being so bad. I said, "Do you have a picture of her?"

"Not with me. Some time you'll come to my apartment and I'll show you." Maybe in lisBETH's book, I was starting to become not such a despicable character as well. She said, "Grandma Molly was exceptionally tall, like you, and

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sort of elegant in spite of herself. This was her favorite dress. I've had it cleaned and stored away for years, but you know what? When I feel this dress, I can still smell her Lucky Strike cigarettes! I can practically see her standing here now, in you, a cigarette in one hand and pointing her finger, bossing us around--'Go make me a sherry!' 'Take Mister Poodle for a walk!'--with the other hand." LisBETH let out a little giggle--a feat I wouldn't have thought possible. "Grandma Molly wanted me to have this dress, but let's be honest here, it was never going to fit me, no matter how much I had it taken up or taken out. This dress is meant for a lovely, lithe, tall girl." Dramatic pause. "Like you."

I looked lisBETH squarely in the eyes and said, "Thank you."

She recognized the moment and said, without a single trace of nastiness, "You're welcome. I thought we could go shopping for some shoes for the dress. Sound good?"

"Oh, yes please," I said.

"Cyd Charisse, for all that you come across as a wild child, I must say, you have impeccable manners."

'Ain't that the truth!" I said as we walked out the door together.

"Shall we make our first stop the Gap?" she asked in a hopeful tone in the elevator. When I made a horror movie face, she said, "But I thought all teenagers like to buy their clothes at the Gap!" She probably picked up that piece of information from some guidebook like
How to Mentor Your Illegitimate Teen Sister
.

"Not this one! I am more of a Tar-jay slash thrift store freak kind of gal. But posh shoes, them's I can go for."

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"If you say so," she said, and you know what, as we ventured outside together, I would almost say she was having fun. Almost say I was too.

As we walked toward Madison, I asked her, "So lisBETH, any special guy in your life?"

She sighed, pretty impressively I might add. I'd give her sigh an 8.6. She said, "No, all the men I know are either gay, married, complete imbeciles, or have no money."

I said, "Sometimes the ones with no money are the nicest ones of all."

"You can't own an apartment in a desirable neighborhood and raise a family on nice, Cyd Charisse."

"Yes you can, if you want to," I said.

"Oh," she said, laughing, a little bitter, a little amused. "You
are
naïve. I wish I could be that sure of things." She stopped walking and turned to me. "Listen, I dated a boy in college. Nice guy, from a good family, not terribly bright or a go-getter, but we got on fine. When it came time to graduate, he wanted to get married. I wanted to get a job on Wall Street and then go for my MBA. I thought I had all the time in the world. I told him, we're too young, let's wait, let's see other people. That was Daddy telling me what to do! And you know what? That boyfriend, he married someone else, and funny, I had no idea then he would be the last serious boyfriend I would have. Had no idea the pool would dry up so quickly."

Yikes!

I said, "LisBETH, I think if you really wanted to meet someone, you could. There are like personals and dating services."

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She said, "You don't understand. If I marry, it has to be to someone who makes as much money, or more, than me. Who has a respectable career. A professional woman who is poised to become a managing director at a major Wall Street firm cannot just date anybody."

"That's your rule," I told her, resuming our walking. "If I were like some cool painter or electrician guy with a heart of gold, I would think twice before asking you out, with an attitude like that."

"Oh, aren't you precious and wise," she said. 'Anyway, what does it all matter? I have resigned myself to being single and I have a wonderful career that takes me all over the world, and if I turn thirty-nine and find myself still single and childless, well, there are ways to have a family without having a husband, you know. You of all people would know that."

That's Rhonda lisBETH, I guess: Give with one hand and take away with the other.

Suddenly I connected the dots to her crush on Aaron. I thought, Aaron and his little swimmers better watch out when Rhonda lisBETH's biological clock strikes midnight, because someone is going to be asked to do lisBETH a very, very special favor, one that would keep her future wee'un "all in the family," quite literally.

I shuddered at the thought and said, "Ya know, maybe now is a good time to go to the Gap?" Because fondling identi-clothes in the Gap was surely a good way to bypass lisBETH's detour down Too Weird Street.

This is America, so of course there was a Gap store within blocks. Do you know that creepy feeling of being watched? That's the feeling I was having while lisBETH and

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I were going through the racks of capri pants at the front of the store. Then lisBETH sidled up to me and said, "Don't look now but there's a very hunky young guy standing outside the window who can't take his eyes off of you."

Figure on lisBETH to have the word "hunky" in her vocab. Well, of course I had to look!

And how much do I wish I hadn't. Standing on the other side of the windows at the Gap was Justin.

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Thirty-four

Once our eyes
locked, there was no turning back. Now he wasn't looking through the window at someone he thought might be me. It
was
me. Lucky me.

He came inside. He seemed smaller than I remembered, although he was still beautiful, in that way that young actors are in movies about rebel boys who are on the brink of manhood and are probably going to die tragic, senseless deaths. He had the kind of deep eyes you could get lost in, chiseled cheeks, and full, sensual, extremely kissable lips.

"Wow," he said. "You look great."

What, you mean I look happy, and content, and not all tortured and panicked? I was speechless. When I didn't say anything back, Justin checked out my b-ball shirt and said, "I didn't know you were a Knicks fan."

LisBETH said, "You know each other?" Her voice was very pleased. Not only was Justin gorgeous, he was wearing a lacrosse shirt from like the snootiest prep school in all of Connecticut.

He introduced himself to her. She said, "Oh, I know that name. Your family lives in Greenwich, right?"

Justin smiled in that smug way. "Yeah," he said. "But I'm hanging out at our apartment in the city for the weekend." He turned to me. "How are you? How have you been? Did you ever get the phone messages I left with your housekeeper with the weird Celine Dion accent?"

I mumble-shrugged. "Mmm."

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He asked, "What are you doing here?"

There was a petite, pretty girl with long, straight blonde hair held back by a headband who was casting nervous glances at us from the other side of the window. You just knew she was wearing a pleated skirt and cutesy lace-up shoes with ankle socks and probably Love's Baby Soft perfume.

"Is that your girlfriend?" I said, pointing to her.

He didn't answer, which meant yes. He said only, "I've thought about you a lot."

Point score for lisBETH. She must have realized this was an awkward scene with bad history so she discreetly stepped aside to browse the button fly jeans.

There was only one thing I had to say to Justin. "You let me go there all alone."

And worse, I thought, I continued to sleep with you after that. And I probably would have continued to even longer if the headmaster hadn't found us, expelled us, and returned me home, where I would find out about true love, about kindness and good people.

Justin's hollow beautiful eyes looked away, then back at me. "Cyd, when I called you, the thing I wanted to say was..." He stopped cold, paused, then said, "I can't believe you're standing here. I thought you moved back to Frisco."

"Nobody calls it Frisco."

"Um, okay..."

"What did you want to say?"

He could not look me in the eyes but he did say it. "Sorry," he mumbled.

I swear my heart was palpitating so fast I thought it

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would spontaneously zoom out of my throat and land with a giant red splotch onto a pile of precisely folded white cotton ribbed tees.

Maybe he said it, but I wasn't going to congratulate or thank him for his admission that he was the asshole of the century. I just called out to lisBETH, "I'm ready to go," and bless her, she fell right into line, no questions. We left without so much as a good-bye to Justin.

I did flip him the bird behind my back as we walked out the door.

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Thirty-five

LisBETH:
"Want to talk about it?"

Me: "No."

LisBETH: "What was that all about?"

Me: "Nothing. He's just some guy."

LisBETH: "If you need to talk..."

Me: "I'm okay. Thanks."

Thinking, just keep moving, don't think, just walk, don't think.

I was not okay. I begged out of our shopping adventure, saying I was tired from the humidity and wanted a nap.

When I got back to my room at the Real Dad Corporate Suites, I shut the heavy drapes and snuggled into bed with Gingerbread, lying on my side in a crunched position, getting lost in the quiet hum of the air conditioner.

Frank had gone to New Jersey for the day for a golf tournament his company was sponsoring, not like I would have turned to him for fatherly wisdom. LisBETH was great, actually. She didn't pry, she just said, "I'll be at home if you need somebody." I think she almost wanted me to unload on her, to give her something juicy to dwell on, but I just couldn't. I didn't even call Danny. I guess there is such a thing as getting to know your biological family and making connections with them, but when it comes down to it, a couple weeks of knowing one another does not trusted confidantes make, at least not at times like these.

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Perhaps the only time in my life I have ever felt more alone was that day I had the cab come and take me home from the clinic. Justin couldn't be torn away from his lacrosse game with our school's biggest rival. He also couldn't be bothered to come up with the money to help, so I don't know why I was surprised or disappointed.

It had been almost a year since the shit went down. It had started last September, when we returned to boarding school after a summer apart and we could not get our hands off each other. The first time back together we could not even wait long enough to use protection--we didn't care. And the next morning, I knew: trouble. I just felt it. By the beginning of October, I could not deny the changes in my body: sudden cleavage, morning nausea, deepening sense of panic and hysteria that I could share with no one.

I had liked being Justin's girlfriend. I did not want this trouble. I wouldn't say I fooled myself that we were in love--even then, I understood the diff between love and lust, even if the love part I'd yet to experience--but I liked that when I was with Justin, I was Somebody. I was not the weird girl with the unsmiling face and strange mannerisms. I was a pretty girl who people chose on teams and sat with at lunch, the girl hanging on to the varsity jacket of practically the most popular guy at school. I was admired. I could have done without the drugs and alcohol, but those were part of the Justin package, a price I was willing to pay. Believe it, I was the girl I would pass by on the street now and go, "Yuck."

When I told him, the first thing he said was, "But you know I'm planning to, like, go to Princeton. My dad'll kill me over this." Not, "How are
you
doing?" Not, "How are
we
going to take care of this situation?" It was all about him.

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The one thing he did do for me was arrange for this girl who was eighteen to lend me her birth certificate. I gave him a picture of me and he got a fake ID made with her name on it. So technically the record states that a certain Allison Fromme, two months past her eighteenth birthday, was the girl who showed up alone at the clinic with a birth certificate and picture ID to back it up and did not need any kind of parental consent to have an unwanted baby torn from her body.

Afterward, the lady at the clinic said, "Is there somebody here to take you home?" and I pointed to a car waiting at the curb outside, which I knew was waiting for a girl who had gone at the same time as me. I said, "There's my ride," and I would have run out, but the cramping in my stomach made it hard even to walk. So I kind of hobbled to the 7-Eleven across the street and called a cab to take me back to school. And may I just say, that was not the first time that cabdriver had picked up a girl from that 7-Eleven and driven her back to that fancy boarding school. You could just tell by the way he kept looking at my pale face in the mirror and asking, 'Are you gonna be all right?"