I shrugged. “Forget it.”
She stopped at the end of an exit ramp. “No, tell me.”
I picked at a ragged fingernail. Behind us, someone revved their engine and Jamie accelerated. But she never took her eyes off me. “I guess I never felt pretty enough for you. Good enough.”
“Is that what you think?” Her voice was faint. “I could have signed you in a heartbeat; of course I could have. You were a beautiful child, you photographed so well, but, you were … too good to be like me. You were so smart. Your father and I used to marvel that you were our child. There you were, playing Bach at eight. I’d never heard Bach before, and you were offered all these gifted programs.”
“Then why’d you let me live my entire life feeling like I was too fat, too ugly, too much of a nobody to be one of your girls?” I turned to her, and this close, I could finally see the beginning of silver hairs in her part.
“You always acted like you wanted nothing to do with modeling.” She turned left onto State Street. “I felt like it was all so stupid to you, so … provincial, or…” Her eyes had filled with tears. “I’m so sorry, Jensen. I never meant to make you feel that way.”
“How could you have known? I never told you. I just trotted around with Will and Ryder, pretending I didn’t care.”
She wiped her eyes. I thought of her sitting in board meetings with my dad and Sid and all the others at the foundation. She’d had me at twenty-three, she was only fifty-two. She could do this. “You’ll be great at A Will to Live,” I told her.
“Do you think so?” She dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve.
She was smiling. It wasn’t the smile she used for models and photographers and her friends at the agency. It was a true Jamie smile, one I’d seen in pictures of her as a little girl, when the world hadn’t shown her yet that she needed smoke and mirrors and her beauty to get by.
* * *
The spa was nearly empty except for Mandy, who was waiting for us in the reception area. As soon as we got in the door, Jamie took off to the facial rooms. Mandy and I sat in the pedicure chairs. I wanted to tell her right away about Jamie and A Will to Live. But she’d been overly giggly on the phone, and it wasn’t because I told her about my afternoon with Dale.
“Okay,” I said. “Spill it.”
“Let’s play the guessing game.” She unzipped her ankle boots. “I’m thinking of a boy.”
“Did you kiss him?”
“Of course.”
Mandy kissed everybody. “Is he from Hamilton?” There were two glasses of seltzer with cucumber slices floating in them on the table between our chairs. And our footbaths were filled with hot water and lavender oil.
“Kind of.”
“Did you sleep with him?” My manicurist picked up my foot and began scrubbing it with a loofah; it felt so good, I wanted to cry.
“Nope.”
Of all the people Mandy had kissed in high school, I remembered only two she hadn’t slept with: One was a hot bad boy senior who sold pot, but Will and Ryder threatened to kill him if he touched her. The second was her physics tutor senior year. He went to Yale, and Mandy had said he was tall, skinny, and walked like a colt that hadn’t grown into its legs. He’d kissed her once and then told her he just wanted to be friends. “He says I’m too young,” she’d said, sobbing into the phone after he left every Tuesday night. When he went off to Japan for a semester abroad, she never heard from him again, and she about had a nervous breakdown. It was so weird that she’d fallen for the geeky science tutor. But Mandy was into brains.
“Where on earth did you find Freddie Frederickson after all these years?”
She stared at me, her mouth hanging open. “How the hell did you know?”
I smiled. “I can read your mind.”
“He saw my Andes layout in National Geographic and Googled me.”
“Let me guess. He grew out of his gangliness, ditched his glasses, and has the body of a linebacker?”
She leaned back and closed her eyes. “He’s a professor at Wesleyan, writing a book on how air travel could be improved if planes were shaped more like birds.”
“That sounds about right for Freddie.” The lady’s hands on my feet felt like little miracles.
“He goes by Fred now,” she said defensively. “And teaching is the last of the noble professions, in case you’ve forgotten.”
Was Mandy going goody goody on me? “I thought that was prostitution,” I said, trying to lighten her up.
“That’s the oldest.” She smiled. “Anyway, he’s already coauthor of a book about”—she pursed her lips like she was bragging, which she was—“how ancient cave drawings prove the wheel, or at least the concept of it, was invented about half a million years before anyone thought.”
“Oh my God, Mandy.” I sipped the sparkling water. “You like him.”
“He smelled exactly the same and still has that adorable little stutter. And want to hear the best part?” She reached across and grabbed my fingers. “He wants kids.”
I tried to swallow back my bite of jealousy. In all the years we’d been friends, I’d never seen her like this. “You still haven’t slept with him?”
“Nope.” Mandy slept with everyone on the first date, even if it wasn’t a date. “But I kissed him, and it was delicious.”
“Huh,” I said, holding up the darkest of the three polishes I’d picked out.
“He wears rimless glasses now, very understated. And he is broader. He does martial arts, some kind of sword fighting or fencing.”
“That is so dorky,” I said.
“Okay, he’s still pretty dorky. But he’s so freaking sweet.” And then her cell rang. “It Had to Be You” played. She squealed, holding up her phone so I could see Freddie with his slicked-back hair and V-necked sweater. I thought about Nic, waiting for me in Santa Fe, and the babies I’d never have.
“That’s his custom ringtone?” I asked. “Oh sister, you’re a goner.”
“Hey there,” she said in a voice I’d never heard her use before.
I flipped open a fashion magazine. The taste of jealousy was acidic in my mouth. Mandy wouldn’t miss me at all when I went back to Santa Fe, because soon she’d be fucking Freddie and getting pregnant. I glanced at her. She was smiling like she was in a great daydream. I’d felt like that before, so many years ago that it was becoming less like a memory and more like a dream. Ryder had made me feel that way.
Jamie came out with green stuff all over her face.
“Mandy has a boyfriend,” I told her. “And she’s bringing him to my going away dinner.”
Mandy tossed her phone in her bag. “I am?”
“You’re talking about having babies with this guy. Don’t you think we need to vet him first?”
“Oh, absolutely,” my mother said. “Jensen has to meet him before she leaves.”
Mandy clapped her hands excitedly. “You’ll love him.” She frowned. “But I hate that you’re leaving. I’m just going to pretend you are NOT going anywhere.”
I held two bottles of polish up to the light. I’d been pretending the same thing. But I was scheduled to start modeling again for three studios the following week, and Nic was planning a welcome-home party for me at the loft. I thought of my birthday party the night before I’d left; it felt like a lifetime ago.
“Brazilian?” A hunky man with an accent came from behind the curtain. “Someone wanted a Brazilian.”
Mandy waved her hand in the air. “I’ll come back for the polish,” she told the woman doing her pedicure. “Isn’t he hot?” she whispered to me.
We watched her disappear to the back. Only Mandy would let a guy to do her Brazilian. Jamie watched the woman filling her footbath with water. “Oh, sweetheart.” She drew in a quick, hard breath. “I hope I’m making the right decision about selling the agency.” I saw some cream had gotten on the collar of the robe they’d given her. Without makeup, her eyes were tiny and vulnerable. She watched the woman putting lavender oil in th
e water. “Anyway, we’re all going to miss you. I’ve gotten so used to having you here. But you’ll only be a short plane ride away.”
I hadn’t told my parents about Greece. “By Christmas,” Nic kept saying on the phone. “We’ll be there by Christmas.” And then: “Why so quiet, J.?” I kept telling him, “I’m tired. Really, really tired.”
“Even still, New Mexico feels so far away,” Jamie said. “And to think I used to worry that you’d wind up with Ryder.”
A flutter spread through my stomach. “You worried about that?”
“Well…” She hesitated. She had on what she called her “mommy clothes,” a velour zip-up and matching yoga pants. I would have looked like a Wal-Mart ad. She was glamorous without trying. “I used to worry you wouldn’t get out and see the world. All those years you followed your brother and Ryder around, and they just adored you. I’d watch you climbing trees and making forts with them and then”—the tiny dark-haired woman scrubbed her feet hard—“you got beautiful, that long hair and those sapphire eyes. I saw the way Ryder looked at you. He couldn’t help it.” Her smile was faint, apologetic. “You’d come through the kitchen door, claiming you’d been at the library, but I could see it in your eyes, those flushed cheeks. I knew what was happening. Your father and I used to talk about it and—”
“Daddy knew?” I asked, stunned.
“Oh, sweetheart, we all knew. Except Will. Will didn’t want to know. And I was so worried Ryder would never let you see the world. He’d just snatch you up and marry you.” Her hand came over and touched my chin, and I flinched involuntarily, but she smiled. “A mother wants things for her daughter. You were so talented with the piano and your grades.” She laughed breezily. “I actually fantasized that you would meet someone just like Nico, an artist, European, a little older.” She flexed her ankle a few times, the one she’d broken on location in Spain the year Will died. I could see the faint scar along her Achilles tendon. “Nico’s lovely, don’t get me wrong. He takes care of you in a way you’d never let Daddy or me. But Santa Fe is so far away, and after losing Will, well … you’ve been different since you’ve been home. Happier.”
“Nic makes me happy.” I could hear the defensiveness in my voice. “I’m happy.”
She adjusted the towel on her head. “Sometimes I wish I hadn’t wanted that for you so badly. I mean really”—she licked her lips and leaned back—“what’s so wrong with staying close to home?”
And then I saw Jamie as an old woman, white hair and wrinkles, all of it, living in the big house on North Parker Drive, her son dead and her daughter all the way over in Greece. I’d never bothered to ask what it was like for her after Will died. Had my father still touched her? Had they been able to talk about it? Or had he turned away from her like I’d done to Ryder? Maybe that’s why she left, I thought now. Maybe it wasn’t all her fault.
She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. “Sometimes I look at Nic, and”—she sounded nervous—“I mean, I just wonder, does he really see you?” She opened her eyes and reached over to pat my hand. “When you do leave, I just hope we get to visit with you more, now that we’ve had this summer together.”
It hit me all at once that I was going. Santa Fe, with all its space and earth colors, used to feel like the perfect place to fall into, but now I couldn’t imagine leaving the closeness of New England, the ocean and the green. There was no way I could go to Greece. “Mom.” I felt a tightness in my chest.
“Yes, sweetheart?” She handed her polish to the lady.
“I don’t know if I want to be married anymore,” I blurted out and instantly wished I could take it back. “I love Nico. I do. But, I’m scared,” I told her. “I’m scared I’m nothing without him.”
She took her foot out of the water, and the lady scrubbing her heel backed up. She came stumbling over to me. “You are something without him, you know that?” She held my face in her hands. “You’re perfect,” she said. “You’re absolutely amazing. You always have been, and I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you that after Will.”
I let her hug me. Her robe opened and my cheek was pressed against the bare skin of her chest. She got green face goop all over my cheek and neck, and I felt a huge surge of energy, like I was going to break into a run or sing loudly.
Mandy came around the corner. “What’s all the hugging about?”
“Jensen’s getting a divorce,” Jamie said.
“Mom.” I laughed. Tears were running down my cheeks. “I did not say that!”
Mandy was hugging me, too. “Oh, J.J., I knew you’d stay.”
“I’m not staying,” I said. “I still have to go back to Santa Fe.” They were on either side of me, smooshing me with their lovely perfumed bodies. “It’s my home,” I told them, though I wasn’t quite sure where my home was anymore.
My mother kissed my cheek. “Home will always be here in Colston, won’t it, Mandy?”
Mandy kissed my other cheek. “Of course,” she said.
And I kept my mouth shut. It was useless to argue with them.
33
I spent the afternoon working on my self-portraits in the attic. Holding the paintbrush in the air, I stood in front of the four pictures I’d almost completed, so similar to one another, and yet they weren’t me. I squinted at the one on the easel with the red mark down its face. I could hear a leaf blower going outside, the kids on the cul-de-sac playing a game of capture the flag and calling out clues. The face I’d painted was stronger than mine, bolder. I traced my brush lightly around the hairline, trying to add a feathery, feminine feel. “Just take photographs instead,” Hadley had told me before I’d left Santa Fe. “They are so not ambiguous.”
I’d told myself all summer that I was dodging the attic because it was hot or I was too busy with my dad, with piano, with … but it was these eyes I was avoiding. They seemed to be trying to tell me something. And it made me feel watched.
After I showered, I went downstairs, dressed in a shimmery silk top and black jeans. I felt sexy and happy. “Let’s rock,” I said, peeking in the kitchen. “Dad? You down here?”
“Over here.” He was lying on the living room couch with his arm over his eyes.
I rushed over to him. “Are you okay?”
He sat up slowly. “I’m fine, Whobaby. Just a little tired.” He rubbed his temples before putting his glasses on, a sure sign of a headache. I sat on the arm of the couch. “Why don’t you rest before everyone gets here? I’ll get the appetizers ready.”
“No way am I missing a moment with you before you leave.” He put his arm around me; then I helped him up. He smelled like the house: cedar and furniture polish.
“Can I ask you something, Daddy?”
He kissed the top of my head. “Sure, anything.”
“How happy I feel. Do you think I’ll lose it after I get back to Santa Fe?”
Wrinkles appeared on the sides of his eyes when he smiled.
“Ah, Whobaby, that’s why we come home. We fill the well so we can go out into the world again. You might get back there and fall in love with that dry desert air and your modeling jobs, and that café with the funny name.” He rustled my hair like he used to when I was a little girl. “It might just feel that way today, and then tomorrow you’ll get back and see that’s where your life is and everything will be okay.” He squeezed me, and I could feel his breath in my hair. “Everyone here loves you. That’s not going to go away.”
In the kitchen, he watched as I took pears and prosciutto out of the fridge “All I want before I die is for you to be happy.”
I handed him a knife and the pears. “Cut these in half,” I told him. “And you’re not dying.” It felt so good to say that and know it was true.
“I meant in the grand scheme of things.” He took the pears and put them on the cutting board.
“Yoo hoo,” Jamie called from the foyer.
“We’re in here,” I called back. She was talking to someone, and it took me a minute to recognize the v
oice. “Ryder’s coming?” I whispered to my dad. “I thought he had to work.”
He knocked on my head. “Do you think he’d miss your going-away party?”
Jamie came through the archway, wearing an off-the-shoulder brocade wrap. “Our favorite doctor brought two kinds of wine, always the perfect guest.” She held them up.
Ryder rounded the corner, wearing a linen button-down shirt and jeans. He smelled like he’d just stepped out of the shower.
My father clapped him on the back. “What’s the good word?” I watched them hug.
Ryder kissed me on the cheek. “The disappearing woman,” he said. He went into the foyer and returned a moment later with his hands behind his back. “Right or left?” I patted his left arm, and he brought forward about four dozen red roses. “Christ.” My father rinsed his hands. “We’ll need a hell of a vase for those.”
“Oh but darling”—Jamie took them from him and started for the dining room—“we have just the thing. Get my wrap, will you?”
I watched Ryder fold her wrap into a neat square and drape it over a chair.
“Thank you,” I said. I remembered reading somewhere that in olden times people believed the smell of roses took away fear.
The front door opened, and I heard Luke call out, “Hey, folks.”
My father went out to meet him. I could hear Jamie still rummaging around in the dining room, and I felt awkward, like I didn’t know where to put my hands. I unwrapped the prosciutto.
Ryder leaned on the counter. “You ever coming home again?” he asked.
I felt a lump in my throat.
“I’ve got a cake the size of Rhode Island in the car,” I heard Luke say. “And about seven gallons of ice cream and a Balthazar of champagne.”
“Ryder,” my dad yelled. “I think we need a hand.”
“Coming,” Ryder replied. He didn’t take his eyes off me.
“The cake looks so good,” I heard Luke say, “Starflower almost ate it in the car.”
I quit unwrapping the prosciutto. “I’ll miss you,” I said.
Ryder moved toward the door. “When do you fly out?”
“Friday.”
Night Blindness Page 25
