“Oy,” Summer said, running circles around Charla, her banana in hand. “Oy!”
I took a bite. Oy was right. What Charla had placed inside her pita didn’t taste anything like salami.
“Wow, that’s going to be me soon,” Charla said, eyeing a very pregnant woman who was watching her toddler climb a mini-obstacle course. She turned to Natasha. “Does it hurt?”
“To be that pregnant?” Natasha asked. “No. Well, sometimes it’s a little uncomfortable. Sometimes a lot uncomfortable. But it doesn’t ever hurt.”
“Until D-day,” Charla said. “Right?”
“That hurts,” Natasha agreed. “But it’s worth it.”
“So, were you—” Charla began, then shook her head and looked away.
Natasha squeezed Charla’s hand. “It’s okay, Charla. You can ask me anything.”
That, in fact, was the reason we were all here. Charla was full of questions about pregnancy and delivery and parenthood, but she didn’t know any pregnant women or new mothers. And so I’d arranged a blind date of sorts for her and Natasha.
“Omigod! You’re Natasha Nutley!” said a mother whose infant was crawling to the ball in Summer’s hands.
“Shh.” Natasha smiled and put a finger to her lips. “I’m trying to keep a low profile.”
“Ooh, sorry,” the woman said. “I love All My Children! This is so exciting! Will you autograph this?” she asked, taking a burp cloth off her shoulder.
Natasha laughed. “I’d love to.” She signed her name on the white cloth. The woman scooped up her autograph and baby, all smiles.
“This is going to sound really dumb,” Charla began. “But it’s almost weird to think that even famous TV stars have babies. I mean, there you were, in the delivery room, screaming your head off like everyone else, right?”
Natasha smiled. “Some stuff you can’t pay someone else to do for you.”
“And our friend Jane was there to prove it,” I put in.
“You can have a friend with you in the delivery room?” Charla asked. “I thought only the doctors and nurses and the baby’s father.”
“You can have anyone, really,” Natasha said. “With me were my OB, a couple of nurses, Jane, my aunt and my mother. It’s amazing—my entire life, my mother and I have never gotten along, not even through the pregnancy. I was resigned to her and my father not being in my child’s life.”
Charla bit her lip. “That must have been so hard.”
“It was,” Natasha confirmed. “Without Summer’s father’s support and my parents’ support, I really had to fend for myself during my pregnancy. But I learned who my friends are—” she smiled at me “—and I learned that I’m a really strong person. I feel like I can do anything.”
“But you and your mom reconciled?” Charla asked.
Natasha nodded. “At the eleventh hour. My aunt was my Lamaze coach, and when I went into labor, she called my mom, and I guess my twelve hours of labor gave her time to think that she wanted to be there when my baby was born. She and my father were waiting in the hospital when my aunt and I arrived.”
“I’m glad,” Charla said. “Sure would be nice if Emmett would be there.”
“What do you think the chances are?” Natasha asked.
Charla stared at her feet. “Slim to none. He’s been staying with his grandmother for the past few days. He said she was feeling under the weather, and wanted to help her out.”
My grandmother was feeling absolutely fine.
“Did you talk to him about the parenthood quiz in Power Pregnancy?” I asked Charla.
“I tried, but he wouldn’t even let me finish the sentence. He said he was just fooling around and didn’t even answer the questions honestly, but I saw that he did.”
“How low did he score?” Natasha asked.
“He got a twelve out of a hundred,” Charla said. “Which added up to—No, Babies Can’t Take a Sleeping Pill.”
We laughed, but Charla sobered up fast. “I’m so afraid he’s going to walk out on me. On us,” she added, patting her belly.
“He’s probably just sorting things out,” Natasha said. “Letting it all sink in. It means changing his entire life. He’s probably just going through the pain of adjustment.”
Charla cheered up a bit. “Does that sound about right to you, Eloise? You know him best.”
That might have been true once, but now I didn’t know Emmett at all.
That, however, wasn’t going to help Charla.
“Emmett’s always managed to surprise me,” I said. Which was true.
“Omigod,” exclaimed another of the mothers. “Are you Natasha Nutley? From All My Children?”
Natasha smiled. “I am. And this little cherub is my daughter.”
“Omigod!” the woman shrieked again. “Haley,” she said to her toddler, “you’re playing with the daughter of a famous soap opera actress!”
Hayley couldn’t care less. “Da-da!” she said, pointing at a man trying to disengage a little boy from the top of the slide. “Da-da!”
“Da-da,” Summer repeated.
The woman bent down next to Summer. “That’s Hayley’s daddy, but I’ll bet you’re going to see your daddy at home later.”
“Da-da,” Summer said.
“Her father lives in California,” Natasha told the woman.
“How nice—I’ll bet you visit your daddy often.”
No, actually I don’t.
Why not?
Because he’s not i-n-t-e-r-e-s-t-e-d in knowing me.
“Summer, sweetheart, let’s go swing!” Natasha said. The woman’s cheeks flushed.
Summer went running, a big smile on her beautiful face.
Charla pulled her cell phone out of her purse and punched in some numbers. “Emmett, it’s Charla. If I don’t hear from you today, I will be on a plane to Oregon tomorrow to live with my mom. I’d rather my baby had a close grandmother than an absentee father. Wow—Emmett, I guess this really could be a repeat of your own life. The life you’re so pissed about. The life you’re running away from. Nice thing to do to an innocent kid, huh?” Click. She turned to me. “The cycle needs to end with him.”
I nodded, too impressed to speak.
chapter 16
I waited until ten the next morning for my phone to ring. It didn’t.
Was Charla on her way to the airport? Was Emmett drinking himself into oblivion in some bar? Was I going to Pennsylvania alone today?
Uh, hello, Theodore Leo Manfred, I’m the daughter you abandoned like a paper towel twenty-seven years ago. My brother didn’t come with me today because he’s too busy abandoning his own girlfriend and baby. You know what they say about the apple and the tree…
Directions to Boonsonville, Pennsylvania, in hand, I stepped out of the elevator into the lobby of my apartment building and burst into tears.
“Eloise, dear?” asked an elderly neighbor. “Are you all right? Why don’t you sit down and take a deep breath.”
I sat. I breathed.
I stared at my watch. I’d left a message for Emmett earlier in the week to let him know I was leaving at 10:00 a.m. sharp on Saturday morning.
Was he really not coming? Was he really letting Charla go?
I will not stall. I will not sit here for ten minutes and then fifteen minutes and then a half hour and then suddenly it’s noon and he’s still not here but I am.
Go.
You can stall for an extra few minutes by checking to see if the mail arrived, I realized. After all, Emmett would be coming from Grams’s apartment, and perhaps she’d asked him to help her out with something. Or maybe he was on his way but stopped to pick up bagels and coffee for the road. Maybe—
Maybe the invitation to my wedding was in my mailbox.
I ignored the catalogs, the bills, the junk mail.
I pulled out the heart-shaped red envelope.
It was addressed to Eloise Manfred and Guest.
Great! I got to bring a date!
Thank God Noah had left for London (some scandal involving Madonna and her husband) at the crack of dawn and hadn’t seen this. Eloise Manfred and Guest?
I slit open the envelope. A yellow sticky note covered the invitation, which, by the way, was magnetized so that you could put it on your refrigerator.
Eloise: Please proof the copy and return to the production editor with any changes or corrections by Monday at noon.—AO
Eyes closed, I slowly peeled off the sticky note. Stamped in black type on a red leather heart was:
Eloise Manfred and Groom’s Name Here
Invite You To Their
Pairing Union
at Fifth Avenue Fantasy
February Twenty-Ninth @ 10:00 p.m.
I wasn’t getting married. I was being paired. I was having a pairing union.
And till when? Four a.m.? What wedding—pairing union—began at 10:00 p.m.?
The cutting of the cake would probably be at 2:00 a.m.
If I was even having a cake. That sounded mighty traditional.
Instead of a cake, I would probably be having wedding pumpkin seeds or Jell-O. Yellow Jell-O. Soy, tofu, seitan yellow Jell-O. With my guests Lenny Kravitz and Mini-Astrid and the proprietor of Round Rings.
Whose wedding is it anyway?
Not mine, that was for sure.
I sank back down in the lobby chair, completely exhausted at 10:17 a.m.
“Yay, she’s still here!”
I turned around to find Charla, her pigtails wound around the side of her head like Princess Leia, all smiles. Standing next to her, hands in his pocket, was Emmett.
For the first hour on the road, I was the cranky one. One-word answers. A few “But you just went to the bathroom a half hour ago, Charla!” Several snaps at Emmett for the too-loud volume on his Walkman. Twice, I even told my growling stomach to shut the hell up.
“Eloise, are you all right?” Charla asked.
“I just have a lot on my mind,” I said.
Selfish! I yelled at myself. You have a lot on your mind? You’re marrying a great guy at a free wedding—a freak’s wedding, but a free wedding. Charla’s pregnant by the most immature man alive and Emmett needs attention. Serious attention. Stop being so self-absorbed, Eloise!
Ah, I felt much better. Nothing like a little self-scolding to get yourself out of the doldrums.
“Charla, do you need to use the rest room?” I asked. “There’s one coming up in two miles.”
“No, I’m okay,” she said.
“Emmett, are you hungry?”
I peered at him in the rearview mirror. He shook his head without looking up.
We drove in silence until we reached the Pennsylvania border. Emmett sat up at the sign and stared gloomily out the window. Charla alternated between staring at his profile and reading What To Expect When You’re Expecting. She’d tried reading aloud, but Emmett said it was way too early to hear the word umbilical cord.
Boonsonville, this exit.
As I passed the sign, my heart started pounding. I’m here. I’m in the town where my father lives.
Might live, I amended.
Which allowed me to keep driving. Slowly. It was one thing to drive endlessly. It was another to get to where you were going.
“We’re here,” I said, my stomach flip-flopping.
“We’re where?” Emmett asked, looking out the window. “We’re nowhere.”
“I mean, we just got off our exit. We’re in Boonsonville.”
Boom. Boom. Boom. My forehead broke out in a sweat.
I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t do this.
Charla held the directions. “Okay, this right should be Boonsonville Lane.”
I stopped the car in the middle of the road.
“Eloise!” Charla yelped. “What are you doing! Drive! Now!”
I stepped on the gas pedal and pulled over. “I can’t do it. I can’t do it!”
“Let’s go tell that fuckhead what we think of him,” Emmett said. “We came all this way, all this bull, a lifetime of bull—we’re telling him that he’s the worst piece of scum on earth.”
Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.
“Emmett,” I began. But nothing else came out of my mouth. He was entitled to feel how he felt.
Then why were we here? If he—if everyone—was entitled to his—their—feelings, then why did we judge anyone? Demand anything from anyone?
If Emmett was entitled to his feelings, why wasn’t he entitled to run away from his responsibilities?
“Eloise, do you need me to drive?” Emmett asked.
“No, I’m okay.” I took a deep breath. “Boonsonville Lane, here we come.”
But Boonsonville Lane wasn’t at the corner. Thomas Frumkin Way was.
My heart slowed down a bit.
“There are a couple of kids coming on skateboards,” Charla said. “Let’s ask them.”
I stopped beside them and rolled down the window. The air smelled like snow.
“Excuse me,” I said to the two kids. “We’re looking for Boonsonville Lane.”
The blond boy with the freckles nodded. “Make a right at that corner,” he said, pointing. “And then go about a mile and you’ll see it on the right, before the creek.”
One right and one mile later, I didn’t see it on my right. I did see a creek, though, which we were up without a paddle since we were clearly lost. I could hear the kids laughing from here.
“I really have to pee,” Charla said. “And I’m feeling kind of—” her cheeks expanded as though she was going to throw up right on Emmett’s lap “—sick.”
I zoomed to the gas station we’d passed as we got off the highway. “Charla, there’s a rest room,” I said, pointing at a door with a tiny sign that read Out of Order. “Oops.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s passed a bit. I can hold out. Why don’t you ask the clerk inside where Boonsonville Lane is.”
While Emmett stared moodily out the window and Charla practiced breathing, I ran inside the little store.
“Boonsonville Lane?” the clerk repeated, taking off his cap. “Boonsonville Lane. Joe,” he called over his shoulder. “Is there a Boonsonville Lane around here?”
“Used to be,” a man said, poking his head through the doorway. “Town council changed it.”
To…
“Forget what to, though,” he added.
“Well where can we find out?” I asked.
“Town council,” he said. “But they’re not in session. Best bet is to go to Flo’s Diner and just ask. Lots of old-timers in there. One’ll know.”
Flo’s Diner was across the street. While Charla ran for the rest room, Emmett and I slid into a booth. When the waitress came over and took a short pencil from behind her ear, I asked her if she knew which street used to be called Boonsonville Lane.
“Which street used to be called Boonsonville?” she yelled over her shoulder.
“Thomas Frumkin Way,” said an elderly woman with a forkful of apple pie midway to her mouth.
Thomas Frumkin Way. So we had been there.
“Why?” asked the waitress. “You visiting relatives?”
“Old family relation,” I said.
“Well, no one’s lived on that street in fifteen years,” the elderly woman said. “There was only a caretaker’s cottage for the adjacent dairy farm, but that was razed when the horses came.”
Oh.
Ask. Just ask. That’s what you’re here for.
I cleared my throat. “Um, did a Theo Manfred used to caretake that farm?”
Another man mock chuckled. “Theo Manfred? Caretaker? That’s a laugh. He couldn’t take care of himself.”
Emmett and I looked at each other. Emmett stared at the wall, then grabbed his jacket and ran out of the diner. I saw him spit, then lean against the car, his hands in his pockets.
“Do you know him well?” I asked the man.
He shook his head. “Not well, and not anymore. Theo lived in an apartment in
the caretaker’s house. Some kind of big-city writer, but he’d forget to pay his electricity and there’d be no lights, and he wouldn’t even care. The caretaker would knock on the door for the rent and find him working by candlelight.
“Does he still live in town?” I asked, fighting the urge to close my eyes.
“Nah,” the man replied. “He took off years ago. He said he got a newspaper job, not reporting or nothing—the job where you fix up the grammar. A small paper out in Scranton.”
Scranton. “Is that far?” I asked.
“About two hours’ drive north—depends on traffic, of course.”
Relief flooded through me. Bring on the traffic. The farther away we were, the easier it was to keep going.
Not that there was anything easy about it. Were we supposed to drive out to Scranton and try to find a newspaper office and ask if a Theo Manfred worked there?
We didn’t have a plan B. Plan A, driving to the address Noah had gotten off the Internet, had been enough.
And we’d done it. We might not have found Theo Manfred, but we found where he once lived. That was something. That was a step.
“What are you going to have, honey?” asked the waitress.
Startled, I glanced up at her. “I’m sorry, but I think my brother’s not feeling well.” I gestured out the window. “Thanks for everything, though.” I left a ten on the table and went outside.
Emmett was leaning against the car, staring at his boots.
“If you can’t deal with this, it’s okay,” I told him. “You don’t have to do this with me. I’m ready now. You don’t have to be.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right. You’re forcing me to be ready, Eloise. I’m supposed to know you’re driving up and down every street in Pennsylvania looking for Asshole, and I’m just supposed to go merrily along as though nothing weird is happening.”
“When did you ever go merrily along, Emmett?”
“You’ve been accusing me of going merrily along for years,” he said. “I do whatever I want without caring about anyone or anything. Does that sound familiar?”
Whose Wedding Is It Anyway? Page 16
