Eliza Starts a Rumor

by Jane L. Rosen

  Rehearsals filled Amanda with an excitement she hadn’t felt in ages. The kids really took to her, and Pippa didn’t even mind her being around. More than that, miracle upon miracle, she sensed that Pippa was proud of her. It was like a space out of time for both of them. An escape of sorts where their pain was replaced with creativity and make-believe.

  Amanda loved watching Dean teach the kids—standing on stage doing his best Laurence Olivier. He had a youthful twinkle in his eye and a lightning-in-a-bottle type of energy. He was electrifying.

  Unbeknownst to Amanda, Dean found her electrifying as well, though in a different way. Ever since their coffee meeting, he found he was pushing back feelings for her, internally arguing over the appropriateness of the inappropriate thoughts running through his mind: She’s not my student now. She’s married, but most definitely separated. She would never look at me that way. And the worst of all, God, she is so beautiful. All of his thoughts collided in his brain on a daily basis.

  They both intentionally kept a physical distance from each other, but when they were alone in the close quarters of the costume closet or the wings of the stage, this was difficult to accomplish. He could list every time that they had brushed hands or caught eyes for too long and she could still feel his hand on the small of her back the one time he placed it there to guide her across the stage. If it weren’t for Pippa losing her phone, that encounter might have marked their closest intimacy.

  Amanda was home cooking dinner when Pippa came down in a tizzy, looking for something. She had seen this look of panic on her face before and called her out on it right away.

  “Pippa, did you lose your phone again?”

  She’d been looking everywhere and was more than happy to come clean and get help from her mommy. “Yes, I’m sorry. Please help me, Mommy.”

  As if on cue, her own cell rang. It was Dean Barr. Pippa had left her phone backstage at rehearsal. Whenever Pippa had left her phone somewhere safe in the past, Amanda had insisted she wait till the next day to retrieve it. It became a lesson to be more careful with one’s belongings. But this time she was out the door before Pippa could say “hypocrite.” Within seconds of driving away, the sky opened up.

  Dean ran out to her car with his jacket propped over his head. He got in and slammed the door behind him.

  “I can’t believe you went out in this. You’re such a good mom.”

  “It wasn’t like this when I left.”

  It was now teeming—the kind of rain that people pull off the highway to wait out.

  “I’m just gonna sit here till it lets up,” she decided. Dean looked out the window toward his car.

  “I’m gonna do the same, if you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  Amanda was barely aware of the awkwardness of being alone in a car together, she was so charged up about the play.

  “You know, I’ve been thinking about something a little daring,” he said, a playful look on his face.

  “Pray tell,” she said, with a Shakespearean vernacular.

  Dean got right on the Bard bandwagon. “Word has cometh to me from the other players that your fair offspring, Pippa, is quite adept at the electric harp.”

  Amanda laughed. “Methinks that is true, my fine gentleman.”

  “Well, if it is so, why doth us not set her soliloquy to song?”

  “Hark! No finer idea have I ever heard!”

  They both laughed. When they stopped, Amanda made a mental note to have Carson ship Pippa’s electric guitar. Thinking of that interaction dampened her mood and the change registered on her face. Dean noticed.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Nothing.” She paused. They had never spoken about much else than the play, but it felt odd not to be truthful with him.

  “It’s just, as great as this has all been, sometimes my reality creeps back in. And it’s not pleasant to think about.”

  “I’m sorry. It must be awful.”

  They both sat back and took in the curtain of water enveloping the car. The lull in conversation filled with the sound of the rain pummeling the windows.

  “Should we check the weather to see when it’s supposed to let up?” he asked.

  Amanda looked on her phone.

  “It should be stopping in ten minutes.”

  “Ten minutes,” he repeated aimlessly. “It’s really coming down.”

  “It is,” she responded.

  “I’ve wanted to kiss you for weeks,” he admitted.

  “I’ve wanted to kiss you for years,” she admitted back.

  It was impossible to tell who made the first move. It was so different from kissing Carson. Even with Dean’s strong shoulders and squared jawline, it was somehow gentler, more sensuous. Carson was sloppy in the bedroom and selfish. She could tell if this were ever to go further Dean would be the opposite. She stopped herself from thinking about Carson and relished the sensation of kissing Dean Barr. She laughed inside at the memory of her naive eighteen-year-old self and the laugh surprised her as it exited her mouth. He laughed, too. He had never made out in the parking lot of the high school before.

  They started up again and the water pounding down on the car in every direction seemed to encourage the frenzy of their kisses. At some point Amanda climbed on top of him, and while they were both very aware of what was stirring beneath, they stuck to only kissing. She thanked God and Norma Kamali for the jumpsuit she was wearing, its chastity-belt-like qualities keeping her from going too far. In a car. In the parking lot of her daughters’ school. Between the outside storm and the inside steam, the windows completely fogged over.

  The rain finally stopped, and they took it as a sign that they should stop, too. Amanda climbed off Dean’s lap and blushed as she realized that she didn’t remember climbing on.

  It was the most fun either of them had had in forever.

  “I should get this phone home to Pippa,” Amanda said, scared to even glance at the time.

  He looked at her and smiled before getting out. “Can we do this again?”

  “I would like that very much.”

  The eighteen-year-old girl inside her playfully drew a heart with her finger on the misted window as she watched him drive out of the high school parking lot, while her current self sadly acknowledged that she hadn’t felt that way in way too long. The wasted years registered in her brain just as Pippa’s phone rang. She grabbed it without much thought.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “Amanda?” Carson said in return.

  Everything in her deflated, as though the sound of his voice were a pin, bursting her utopian bubble.

  “Yes, Pippa left her phone at play rehearsal.”

  “She’s in a play?”

  “She is, the lead.” She said it in an accusatory way, as if Pippa’s past apathy toward the theater had been his fault. Which wasn’t really true. She reminded herself of her lawyer’s advice and changed her tone.

  “She’s very excited about it. But she needs her electric guitar. Can you send it?”

  “Maybe I should buy her a new one. She was vying for that Stratocaster, remember, Mandy?”

  His two usual tells for guilty behavior revealed themselves in one sentence. Extravagant spending in exchange for forgiveness and calling her Mandy instead of Amanda. He was always going on about the importance of a strong name. Amanda Cole is a strong name, he would say, not Mandy Cole. He had made such a big deal when naming the girls. “My daughters need bold-faced names that will stand out in the press,” he’d insisted.

  Amanda remembered the first time she had seen his theory in action:

  PIPPA AND SADIE COLE SHINE

  IN VERSACE ON THE RED CARPET

  Now their good names had been dragged through the mud along with his. Her calm intentions left her, and she answered him with rage in her vo
ice. “Just send her guitar, Carson!”

  “When is the play?”

  “Thanksgiving weekend, but she needs it to practice.”

  “I was asking so that I could put it on my calendar.”

  Amanda grabbed the steering wheel to steady herself. Put it on his calendar? She wanted to punch something. He responded to her silence.

  “Of course I am coming if my child is in a play. How would it look if I didn’t?”

  She couldn’t be sure if he was baiting her or not, but regardless, she took it.

  “How would it look? You are suddenly concerned with how things look? How do you think it looked when you humiliated me in public?”

  “I have no idea what you are talking about, Mandy.”

  Again with the “Mandy”—she became enraged. “You degraded me every chance you had, Carson. I can’t believe how long I put up with it.” The elation she felt from being with Dean had quickly turned to regret—regret for living in limbo for years and years with no regard for her own happiness. She could blame it all on Carson, but she knew that she was also responsible. It was her own life.

  “Oh well, I can believe it. You put up with it until I became part of the industry reckoning, and then you conveniently jumped on the bandwagon. What a surprise.”

  Amanda took another deep breath and got her shit together. “Carson. I’m mortified that it took other women calling you out for me to leave you, but the important thing is, I did. The girls can at least be proud of one of their parents.”

  She knew it was a low blow. A kick to the Achilles, she thought, but she didn’t care. A thousand insults wouldn’t tip those scales in her favor. He had been demeaning her with words and chipping away at her soul for years. He was silent, and she felt satisfied.

  “Send the guitar to my father’s address. I will ask Pippa if she wants you to come to her show, and I will let your assistant know the details if she does.”

  He started to answer her, but she hung up. She was shaking from the call. She could not imagine dealing with him in person, but she knew she would have to find a way. Her guess was that as angry as Pippa was, she would want him there. He was her dad. Amanda vowed not to sway her decision and was already regretting having lost her cool. She promised to herself she’d never let him rile her again. Instead, she’d do and say only that which would advance her cause.

  CHAPTER 31

  Alison & Jack and Alison & Jackie

  Nothing brings out the charm of a small town quite like a country fair. The trees seemed to be competing against each other for Best in Show as much as the overall-clad creations that lined Main Street for the annual scarecrow contest. And the creativity on display was astonishing. Alison’s favorite scarecrows were the ones dressed as the band KISS, complete with signature painted pumpkin heads. Main Street was closed to traffic and covered in hay for horse-drawn buggy rides. A petting zoo and a prettiest pig competition were set up at one end of the road, and a farmers market selling locally sourced everything stood at the other.

  She met Jack at the cider stand, as he had assured her that a hot cup of cider was the best introduction to the Hudson Valley Fair. It was infinitely more charming than meeting someone on the corner of Fifty-Third and Third. He was already holding a cup for her when they arrived. He kissed her on the cheek and said, “Good morning.”

  As she took it from him she was struck by the ease of their connection—the weirdest combination of familiar and exciting. She flinched at the unfamiliar taste of hot apple cider, but it was even more delicious than promised.

  “It’s yummy,” she said, taking in the warmth in his eyes.

  “I knew you would like it.” He smiled.

  She watched him take a sip. Her mind drifted to the possibility of kissing him. She reeled herself back in.

  As they walked through the fair, Alison marveled at every turn, pointing things out to Zach as if he were old enough to understand. She could imagine him one day petting the animals and proudly carrying a little gourd. The longer she stayed in Hudson Valley, the farther away Manhattan felt. In her heart, she knew that she could snap right back into a modified version of her old life, but for now she was happy to sit back and enjoy the smell of wood-smoked air, apple cider, and fallen leaves. She had to admit her seasonal pumpkin spice latte in the city had nothing on the real deal.

  And then there was this good-looking guy standing next to her. He seemed to have both appeared out of nowhere and been in her life forever. She couldn’t remember ever making such an instantaneous connection with someone. When he reached out his hand to help her onto the horse-and-buggy ride, she actually took it, even though it was completely out of character for her to acquiesce to such old-fashioned chivalry. In fact, she usually made a point to do the opposite of what was offered. But here she was, with a gracious smile and open arms. She chalked it up to a side effect of having a baby, of loving so unconditionally. As the horse trotted through the fair, Jack seemed anxious, his eyes darting left and right like he was watching a match at Wimbledon. It was not the romantic excursion that Alison was expecting. She needed to know why.

  “Are you looking for someone?”

  He answered sheepishly, “Sorry. I’m looking for my daughter. This is the first year we didn’t come together. Well, technically at least. The past few times she ‘let’ me drive her and her friends. I kind of skulked behind them. They only talked to me when they needed more money or wanted me to win them something at the arcade.”

  He spotted Jana and hid his face while pointing in her general vicinity.

  “There she is. In the pink sweater.”

  Alison could see a group of young teenage girls and a few guys walking in a pack, laughing and, she imagined, trying to navigate their fleeting youth. She remembered the uneasy feeling of being fourteen. For her it was compounded by being a good foot taller than most of the boys her age. Jackie looked through his fingers and commented, “It seems like there are a few boys with them—I count three.”

  Alison counted four, but agreed with him, as the truth would make it an even boy-girl ratio and probably stress him out even more. His daughter was lucky to have such a caring dad. Alison knew that not having a father had directed the course of her life in many ways. Her mother had drilled it into her to never depend on a man. “A man is not a financial plan,” she would chant. She ended every Cinderella story with her own kicker: “And the moral of the story is—buy your own shoes!”

  “I never knew my dad,” Alison found herself admitting to Jack, quite uncharacteristically. “Jana is so lucky to have you,” she added, turning the attention back to him.

  “I never knew mine either,” he responded, taking it. “He had a heart attack when I was four. I look just like him though, which makes me feel good. You know, walking through life, trying to do right by him.”

  Alison thought about the difference between losing a father and having one that didn’t want you. She hated to think of Zachary having those thoughts.

  The kids got together and posed for a selfie, all pursing their lips or sticking out their tongues, grabbing back Jack’s attention.

  “Watch this.” He texted Jana:

  Having fun?

  They watched as she looked at her phone and put it back in her pocket.

  “Remember how we had selective hearing with our parents? This generation has selective texting. She won’t answer me for hours, if at all. And if she does she’ll say, ‘Sorry, just saw this.’ The only way to get her to respond quickly is to just write her name. Jana. It totally freaks her out, as if she has been caught doing something wrong but has no idea what it is. I save that for special occasions, when I really need her to respond.”

  The whole exchange frightened Alison. She was not looking forward to Zach’s teenage years. She patted Jack’s hand in sympathy. “Don’t worry. They look like nice kids.”

  It was good to hear
someone else’s perspective. He rested his hand on hers. “Thanks.”

  It felt so nice to touch her that he didn’t let go for the rest of the ride. He wanted to kiss her, but he knew he had to first tell her the truth. The close quarters of a moving horse-and-buggy ride seemed like the wrong setting to do so.

  Alison felt the intimacy as well. Even with her baby on her lap, the scene seemed ripe for a kiss. The feeling of her hand in his left her wanting more. She couldn’t remember ever waiting so long for a first kiss. It felt weirdly purposeful and certainly added to her desire.

  After exiting the carriage, Alison transferred Zach to his stroller, and as the name suggested, they strolled. They checked out the craft area where Alison bought a funky bird feeder (that’s literally what it was called) and Jackie bought a cute change purse for Jana that said “Taco Money” on it.

  “It’s her favorite food group!” he said, thrilled to have found something she would love.

  They sat down for lunch on the porch of a café where they ate Cobb salads and shared an order of truffle fries and a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. They never stopped talking.

  “Do you like it here?” he asked.

  “I do. I’ve never been happier. Though, this may be the first time in my life that I’ve stopped long enough to consider whether I’m happy or not.”

  “Then how would you even know?”

  “I know. I’m not thinking about my next appointment, or my depo tomorrow, or my trial next week. I’m just here. My mind is here. Maybe I’m thinking about throwing in a load of laundry when the baby naps, but that’s it.”

  “And you’re not bored?”

  “I’m not. When I was in the city the other day, I definitely enjoyed the whole buzz of it, but I felt good when I got home. I feel more present and contented here.”

  She talked about being a latchkey kid in Queens, and he about his childhood upstate. They bonded over their strong single mothers and their liberal arts educations, his Hamilton, hers Wesleyan. They both gave so much credit to their moms for their success in life. Jackie spoke with pride of his mother starting a small business to support them after his father passed, and Alison beamed when speaking about her mother’s job at the UN. It turned out that both of their moms had passed away within months of each other, and they opened up about the awful and permanent feeling of being motherless.