The Seven Month Itch (5 page)

My stomach and I go home happy, our troubles almost forgotten. Everything wedding is ready for lift-off and, this time next week, Holly and Marc will be back home, the guests will be in town and we’ll be all set to begin the countdown for launch.

I can’t wait.

It’s an easy walk home (maybe that’s because the lunchtime crowds part for me with my Nico’s garlic breath) and I trip down our block and back upstairs to the apartment hardly noticing the heat. Just before the elevator doors ping open, I wonder what I’m going to do with the rest of my day. Maybe I’ll just hang around at home, or maybe I’ll call Toby to see how ‘busy’ he is, or …

Or maybe not, I think to myself as I walk down the
hallway and spot Susannah and Dad sitting at the dining table eating City Bakery cupcakes.

‘Hello, pumpkin,’ my dad sings out as he turns around. He has frosting on his beard. ‘Did you order cupcakes today?’

I shake my head, standing stock still in the hallway.

‘That’s what I thought, but the delivery boy wouldn’t take no for an answer. He said he had his orders and he wasn’t going to take them back. You can’t argue with that. I can’t think why City Bakery sent them.’

I frown. I can. It’s because they’re going to comprise your WEDDING CAKE, Dad. Your wedding – remember that?

‘They’re lovely, Nessa. Really good,’ Susannah pipes up now. ‘Did you want to come and have one with us? We’re having a little cupcake break,’ she giggles.

Now I really frown. In fact, smoke might be coming from my ears. Or lemon spaghetti. Or something. I can’t believe Susannah is inviting me over for one of
my
cupcakes. My special-surprise City Bakery wedding cupcakes. I keep frowning, but neither Susannah nor my dad notices, because they’ve returned to the call of the creamy cupcakes themselves. And I’m really starting to fume as
I watch Susannah, until, for some reason, Vera’s words from this morning ring in my ears:

The devil – he is not so frightful as he is painted.

I twist my mouth again as I stand there and keep right on watching
her
. Susannah. Okay, to be fair, I don’t have any real basis for my dislike of Susannah. I know that. But there’s no doubt about it: it just feels so
wrong
her being here. Living with us. Eating Holly’s favourite cupcakes. Dad and Holly’s
wedding
cupcakes.

‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like one, sweetheart?’ My dad looks up from his cupcake and papers once more.

‘No,’ I say sulkily.

‘How’s the planning coming along?’ He must’ve noticed my tone, because he starts to study me a bit harder now.

‘Fine.’

I get an assessing look. ‘Are you sure?’ he asks.

‘Yes.’

‘Nessa?’

I laugh slightly. ‘I just don’t want you to get any of the details out of me. Don’t ask any questions.’ I have to force the few jolly words out.

My dad nods, happy at my answer. ‘I see,’ he says
before turning back to his papers. ‘I don’t know how you can pass these cupcakes up, though, sweetheart. They really are superb.’ The piece of frosting stuck on his beard falls onto his plate and, beside him, Susannah laughs another giggly girlish laugh.

Thankfully, my cell beeps at me, telling me I have a text, which gives me an excuse to look away.

Aaaggghhh! Guess who?

I stick my cell back in my pocket and leave the room. Fast. Trying not to look back up at Susannah, who’s still giggling away like a fool. What is it with good-looking women and Dad? I mean, I like my dad, he’s a reasonably nice guy as they go, but there’s no denying he’s not exactly eye candy. He’s a bit … geekish. But they like him. They really do! Check out Susannah there, laughing because food is falling off his face. What’s that about? How can they think things like an iced beard are cute?

I’d spoken to Holly about it once, why she was so into my dad. She thought about my question for a while before answering – almost for so long I was wondering whether she was going to get up and leave us, realising it had all been a big mistake. But, finally, she did answer, asking me (rather weirdly, I thought) if I’d noticed all of Dad’s sociology journals lying around the apartment. Well, of course I had. And not just here. More like at every apartment or house or whatever we’ve lived in since I was born. If I didn’t throw them all out from time to time, by now I would have been smothered by piles of them falling on me in my sleep. So, anyway, I answered yes, I’d seen them. Then Holly asked me if I read them. Not likely, I answered, and Holly nodded. No, she said. Neither did she. She then went on to explain that, in the same way Dad’s work was a mystery to us, her work was a mystery to him. Of course he was totally supportive of what she did, just like we are of Dad’s work, but her work, being a Hollywood star, didn’t impress him like it impressed most members of the public. Neither did her money.

‘You know he’s not very into
things
,’ she continued.

My eyebrows raised at this. ‘Unfortunately,’ I added. It
was proving difficult to convince him I needed an iPod like every other child living in the developed world.

Holly laughed. ‘He doesn’t care if I earn thirty million dollars per movie, three million or just three dollars. He likes me for me, not for who everyone thinks I am. And, Nessa, that’s really rare. I’m very lucky.’

I watched her carefully as she said this. Holly really believed what she was saying. She believed every word. And what she’d said, it reminded me of a Marilyn Monroe quote I’d read once. ‘I don’t want to be rich. I just want to be loved.’ I think that was it. Maybe what Marilyn had said was true for Holly as well.

‘Plus,’ she added, ‘he’s got a cute butt.’

And that was when I stopped listening. (I had to; I was busy throwing myself off the balcony. You really don’t want to hear things like that about your dad. Among other things, it’s likely to cause childhood deafness.)

The phone rings now, forcing me out of my daydream and back into reality. I think of Susannah and Dad again and sigh. ‘I’ll get it,’ I call out. I wouldn’t want them to have to get up from their cupcakes and flirting.

‘Hello?’ I pick up the cordless in the hall and duck into
the room next to me – Holly and Dad’s bedroom – so noone can hear me.

‘Hi, sweetie.’ It’s Holly.

‘Hey!’ I say. ‘How are things going over in LA?’

Holly sighs. ‘All right.’

She doesn’t sound so good. ‘Do you want me to get Dad?’ I offer.

‘No, no,’ she says quickly. ‘I spoke to him last night. I wanted to talk to you. To see how things are going for the wedding. And how you are, of course … Sorry to sound so down.’

‘That’s okay. Um, I’m fine. Everything’s … fine.’

‘Nessa?’ Obviously I didn’t sound convincing enough.

‘No, really,’ I tell her. ‘It’s all fine. Great. Dandy …’ I poke my head out the door and take a quick look over at Dad and Susannah in the living room. Still there. Still cupcake stuffing. Yeah, everything’s just dandy.

And I don’t
want
to say everything’s great and dandy, etc., but what else can I say? Like I was thinking before, I don’t have anything on Susannah. Just a feeling that her being here is wrong. I don’t have any real evidence that she likes my dad, as in
likes
likes him. (Honestly, what am I –
five years old? I can’t believe I just said that.) I don’t have anything concrete. So, yes, what can I say? I want to yell:
People are eating cupcakes here. They’re eating cupcakes, and I don’t like it! I don’t like it one little bit!
But as if. I’d sound like I really
was
five years old and didn’t want to share my treats, wouldn’t I? So I come out with something entirely different instead. ‘I just want you to come home,’ I say miserably. This is true enough.

There’s a pause. ‘Oh, sweetie. I really want to come home too. Don’t you worry. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Now, you’re not fretting about any of that planning, are you? It’s not getting to be too much for you?’

‘No,’ I tell her. ‘It’s been really easy.’

‘Well, if you start feeling a bit swamped, you just tell your dad. Or call me. You know you can call me any time, right? You’re more important to me than any film.’

‘Right. Thanks,’ I say.

‘Okay. I have to run off, but I’ll talk to you soon. Kisses.’

Kisses. You’ve got to love her. Only a Holly could get away with saying that and not sound affected. I hang up the phone and look around me at Holly and Dad’s
bedroom. At the huge, king-size cherry wood sleigh bed, at the matching bedside tables stacked high with books, the cherry wood storage chest and the plasma-screen TV on the wall. I wish Holly was home. We could spend the day lying sprawled across the bed watching bad TV and eating the rest of those City Bakery cupcakes (if there are any left after my dad’s beard has finished eating). I remember one evening, when Dad was at a conference, and Holly and I had a whole meal in bed – a margherita pizza from Nico’s and then a carton of Baskin & Robbins peanut butter and chocolate ice-cream (because, like Holly said, I’m a growing child who needs three serves of dairy a day, and she’s a grown woman who needs to watch out for osteoporosis) – and watched back-to-back episodes of
The Simple Life
. It was truly disgusting. And some of the best fun I’ve ever had. I smile now, just thinking about it.

My eyes keep moving around the room until they hit the rocking chair that sits beside the cherry wood dresser. Whoops. The dry-cleaning … I forgot about that. I was supposed to tell Vera it needed to go out yesterday. I walk over and pick up the bundle of clothing and, as I do, I catch a few words of Susannah and Dad’s conversation as it
floats up the hallway. It’s not very interesting – project talk – but it’s enough to make me want to walk the two blocks to the dry-cleaner’s myself, and right away, heat or no heat.

I head for the door, in my rush brushing my arm up against the dresser. Double whoops. A few of Holly’s bits and pieces fall to the floor: an earring and a little box, to be exact. I bend down and scoop both of the items up, standing again to place the earring in the little glass dish on top of the dresser, where it should have been. And I don’t want to pry, but I open up the little box as well, just to see that nothing’s been damaged.

Holly’s engagement ring is inside. Her gorgeous sapphire engagement ring. The one that Dad bought her, even though she said she didn’t want anything.

The one that she never takes off.

Seven months
, Toby’s words come back to me.
Seven months
.

Oh man. I don’t think my stomach can take any more of this roller-coaster ride …

I don’t even glance Susannah and Dad’s way as I leave the apartment. I’ve got to get out of here. As in, five minutes ago.

On the streets, it’s still hot, hot, hot. I stand for a second, in front of our apartment block and look around me. Tribeca. Sometimes I forget we’re living this far downtown and, when I get outside, I have a bit of a head spin. I don’t know if my dad realises it or not (you never know with him) but Tribeca is kind of a weird place for us to be living. He had it right the first time when he picked out our apartment on the Upper West Side. An academic dad with a kid, we were
very
Upper West Side. The Upper East Side was too expensive (read: snobby), the West Village was too bohemian cool (for my dad, anyway) and anything below that was, well … who lived down there? Not people like us, that was for sure.

Tribeca (technically, it’s TriBeCa, ‘the triangle below Canal Street’) isn’t really ‘anybody’ and seems to change as the hours move through the day. By day, it’s drug stores, gourmet delis and celebrities slinking in and out of Bobby DeNiro’s Tribeca Bar & Grill. (Like Holly, lots of celebrities hide out in renovated lofts in Tribeca, thinking no-one will notice them here. Oh, and how cool am I – Robert
DeNiro asked me to call him Bobby, just like Holly does!) By early evening, the place is desolate, like a waste ground, because there aren’t any parks or green spaces for people to hang out in, so they go home. Or elsewhere. Who knows where? Then, later on in the evening, it’s nightclub central. Like I said, Tribeca’s weird.

I drop the clothes off at the dry-cleaner’s, then trawl around, walking along Franklin Street with its cobblestones and looking up at the converted warehouses, wondering which stars live where. I push my nose up against the glass of the art galleries and antique stores, window shopping, and generally mooch around for a good hour or so, not wanting to go home. Eventually I find myself down at the World Trade Center site. Wow. I must really be depressed. I tend to gravitate towards the place when I’m feeling a bit down, and here I am.

I sit around and watch the tourists. Everyone looks kind of depressed, thinking about all the poor people who died here. I look at the chain-mail fence directly in front of me, where there’s a guy selling pictures – before, during and after shots of the two towers. They’re huge, those towers. The thing is, to me, it hardly seems real. I was
living in Sydney with Dad when it happened (I’m actually Australian, at least that’s what it says on my almost stamped-to-death passport) and we’d never been to NYC then, so I never saw the towers standing. Holly says, with them gone, it’s like living in a different city. To explain it to me, she asked me to imagine what it would’ve been like to wake up one morning and have someone tell you the Sydney Harbour Bridge was suddenly gone. The strange thing was, I couldn’t. I couldn’t imagine it at all.