Real Life & Liars

by Kristina Riggle

  The toast is over. I should have listened. It was probably beautiful.

  CHAPTER 33

  Katya

  KATYA MISSES MOST OF VAN’S TOAST TO HER PARENTS BECAUSE she’s hissing orders at her children, sotto voce.

  “Chip, put that phone away, so help me God.”

  “Tay, get the spoon off your nose.”

  “Kit! Sit up!” She’d slouched so far under the table Katya thought she would slide completely out of sight. It was disrespectful, plus, her dress was riding up on her thighs.

  She looks away from Kit as the toast winds up. She’ll assume Van did well enough because people laughed, and the laughter didn’t sound mean.

  She exhales and gulps more of her martini, feeling its sting all the way down her throat. She’d never been good at hard liquor, but tonight seemed to be as good a time as any. Charles would drive them all home, as he always did, and now that the toast was done, all the official parts of the party were behind her. It was up to the band to play for a couple of more hours.

  “I love this song!” Kit jumps up from her torpor and skips to the dance floor. How she knows “Mustang Sally” is beyond Katya’s comprehension.

  Her daughter rolls her hips in rhythm, and lifts her thin wrists skyward. This also hoists up her dress, which was far too short, but still better than some of the others she campaigned for. Katya had exclaimed, “Who makes such slutty clothes in little kids’ sizes!”

  Kit had dropped a handful of clothing to the floor and dashed into the mall, forcing Katya to run after her, an awkward proposition in her heels. They were shopping between the Rotary Club luncheon and a client meeting. In the red-faced screaming battle that followed, Kit ran down a litany of suffering under her mother, the recent being calling her a slut—her protestation that she was talking about the clothes, not Kit herself, fell on deaf ears like those only a preteen girl can have—and then referring to her as “a little kid.”

  Katya had burst out crying right then, adding another tick to Kit’s list of mortifying mother moments.

  You are a little kid, she’d wanted to say, but couldn’t articulate, because she was too busy trying to pull herself together in front of the gawking shoppers. You are my little girl, my last baby, and you’re in such a hurry to grow up and leave me.

  Then she went home and called the doctor about perimeno-pause. She needed hormones, stat. She couldn’t afford to be having meltdowns because she had a business to run, thank you very much.

  Irina has no idea what she’s in for, and that’s probably just as well, Katya reflects. If anyone really knew what they were in for, there would be a run on vasectomies and tubal ligations.

  “Kat, you’ve hardly talked to me.” This from Charles, to her left. She looks up, hardly more shocked than if he’d jumped on the table to sing a show tune.

  “What?”

  “You insisted I put away my phone, insisted I drop everything to be here, and now you will barely look at me. You’ve been bossing everyone around and now we’re at dinner and you’re staring at your drink. How many of those have you had, anyway? Point is, am I your husband or am I a prop?”

  “A prop?” Katya tries to shake off the sense that her brain is wrapped in wool. She can’t make out what Charles is trying to tell her.

  Charles shakes his head and takes a long pull from his beer. “I don’t know what you needed me for.”

  “It’s my parents’ anniversary.”

  “I know the date on the calendar. As I said, you’ve barely said two words to me. Even when I asked you to dance, you were so busy studying the crowd you didn’t look me in the eye.”

  Katya slaps her martini glass down on the table. “I can’t believe you’re talking to me about feeling neglected. When was the last time you and I spoke three sentences that didn’t have to do with the house, kids, or logistics? You’ve been ignoring me for years now, and suddenly I’m a little distracted at a party I spent months organizing, and you’re the one who’s wounded? Give me a fucking break.” At this she seizes her glass again and sucks the rest of her drink down, though her throat tries to fight her on that effort by giving her a few hearty chokes.

  She probably went too far with that “fucking break” part.

  Charles sets his beer slowly back down on the table, with exaggerated care. He uses his cloth napkin to dab at his mouth, places that back on the table, and pushes his chair away.

  “I don’t know why I’m here.”

  He strides off across the dance floor and disappears into the men’s room.

  Katya looks up at the table. Kit is still on the dance floor, jumping up and down to “Shout,” and Chip has wandered off somewhere, maybe texting on his phone, though she told them all to leave their phones at the hotel. But Taylor is gaping at her, his eyes rounded and mouth opened in a little “O.”

  “I’m sorry, Tay…”

  “Are you and Dad getting a divorce?”

  “What? No! We just had an argument. We’ve had arguments before.”

  “You never swore at him before.”

  Not that you heard, Katya thinks. “I’ve had a long day, honey. That’s all. Honest, it’s just fine.” Kat comes around the table to hug Taylor, but he ducks her arm and says he wants to get another piece of cake.

  Katya heads off for the bar. Taylor doesn’t need to worry. She’s not going to be a Mrs. Peterson with a tan line where her diamond ring used to be, schlepping the children to and from visitations and splitting up which holidays she gets to spend with her babies. Going out to noisy bars dressed like a harlot half her age, trying to hook a new man.

  Katya remembers her own cell phone, which she set to vibrate this morning after the hair appointment and after Tom’s surprise call. The bartender makes her another drink, winking as he says, “You must like the way I make these, ma’am,” and she spirits her drink away to a corner table, where no one is sitting. Suit coats are resting on the backs of chairs, half-consumed drinks dot the surface, and wine spills have marred the linen tablecloth. A digital camera and a handbag have been abandoned, but no sign of the partiers. They’re probably up there dancing to “Old Time Rock and Roll,” now that the male singer has taken over the band.

  A muted rumble of thunder crescendos into a sound that cracks the air, and somewhere, a girl screeches, then laughs.

  She listens to her voice mail and she indeed has one new message, from Tom: “Kat, our call must have been dropped. I hope you get a chance to call me back. It will be fun catching up with you.”

  Katya checks her watch. Not late at all. She wishes she could go out on the patio.

  She opens her phone and scrolls through the messages to where she’s hidden Tom’s number under GYNO.

  “Nothing wrong, I hope?”

  Kat snaps her phone shut. “Hi, Mom. No, I’m fine. Are you enjoying yourself?” Katya turns to face her mother, whose silvery hair glows in the candlelight like something out of an oil portrait. If Kat overlooks the age spots across her mother’s chest and her saggy neck, Mira looks radiant in her old wedding gown.

  “Yes. Thank you for the party. It’s really beautiful. Much nicer than anything I would have done for myself.”

  “Oh, it’s no trouble.” Katya realizes she’s told two of her most popular lies, right in a row.

  “It certainly was a lot of trouble, but it’s beautiful.”

  “I just hope it’s memorable.”

  Mira glances down at her lap, then surprises Katya by taking her hand, and squeezing it. Katya fights an urge to pull away.

  “I wanted to tell you that I think you’re beautiful. And I’m really proud of you. You’re so competent, and capable, and smarter than I ever was. You work so hard for your family. I just wanted you to hear that.”

  “Um. Wow. Uh.” Katya sips her drink, having been reduced to monosyllables.

  Mira releases her hand, then pats it, awkwardly, as if she’s not sure what to do now. “I just thought I should tell you. I’m going to find your father now
.”

  Mira hoists herself out of the chair and drifts off through the crowd, the short train of her gown winding behind her.

  Katya searches through the crowd herself until she finds Ivan, looking typically miserable and fraught, half-hidden behind a large potted plant covered in twinkle lights.

  He startles as she seizes his wrist.

  “Hey, Kat.”

  “What’s wrong with Mom?” she asks him.

  Van frowns at her and shrugs. “What do you mean?”

  “She’s just being weird.”

  “I’d worry if she were normal. Are you drunk?”

  “Why does everyone keep asking me that? And why are you hiding in a plant?”

  “I’m not in the plant. I’m behind it, sort of. It’s the two girls. I started out not having any date, and now I have two, and it’s killing me to divide my time between them, but it’s like driving toothpicks under my thumbnails to talk to both of them at once.”

  Katya laughs and sloshes her drink. “A bit dramatic, aren’t we?”

  “They have nothing in common. I talk to Jenny, and Barbara starts sighing and fidgeting. She even started filing her nails and checking her e-mail on her phone. I talk to Barbara, and Jenny goes silent and eventually wanders off, until I find her again because I feel guilty for leaving her alone. But Barbara sticks right with me, so it’s three of us again.”

  “Vicious cycle.”

  “Then I bumped into Darius, and I can’t think of anything to say to him. Geez, Kat, does that make me a racist?”

  “Of course not.” Katya pats his arm, giving it a little squeeze. “But it does make you a moron. So how’d you shake the girls and end up behind the plant?”

  “They both had to go to the bathroom.”

  “Keep the faith. Less than two hours and the band will wrap up and we can all get on with our lives.”

  “You might want to consider wrapping up early. I haven’t seen the weather or anything, but it’s looking bad out there. Maybe people should get out before we have to build an ark.”

  Katya turns from Ivan to face the window. To get a better view, she stands close to the glass and cups her hands around her eyes to block out the light from the room. In the struggling red light from the lighthouse, she can discern waves crashing into spray. Lightning flashes brighten the scene to daylight for just a moment, then it’s black again, except for the weak lights along the channel and the red glow of the lighthouse. This time, the thunder cracks so loud Katya gasps and jumps back from the glass.

  A voice from her memory says, “It’s just noise, Katya. Noise can’t hurt you.” Her mother. The memory is blurry, but she must have been very young, because she can’t remember Ivan’s being there. Max was out somewhere, and there was a storm. It must have been serious because they were in the basement, a spooky, cobwebby place that Katya never liked at the best of times.

  She blinks and now sees only her reflection in the glass. Her chignon has started to come undone. Katya looks down at herself. All else seems in order.

  But she sips her drink again because an uncomfortable feeling has started to creep up her spine, and she can’t find the words to explain it.

  She flips open her phone to check the weather.

  CHAPTER 34

  Ivan

  VAN TWIRLS A TINY BIT OF NAPKIN BETWEEN HIS FINGERS UNTIL IT resembles a tiny Tootsie Roll, then he drops it onto the bar, where it joins a dozen other tiny napkin rolls. He’s hating himself for hiding from the girls in the hotel bar but doing nothing else about it. It’s a familiar position, and thus is not entirely uncomfortable. Like an ugly sweater that fits and always seems to be at the front of the closet.

  At least the toast went well. He’d started with a bit about how his parents had met at the library, so appropriate for two people in love with the written word. Then he told the story of how in the heat of an argument that had cropped up while Mira was watering flowers, she squirted Max with a hose. They both started laughing and forgot what they were mad about. That got a laugh, and so did his closing line: “Maybe that’s the secret to a long, happy marriage. Never take yourself too seriously and always have a garden hose at the ready.”

  So. That seemed to go okay. He’d been trying to seek out Jenny’s eyes in the crowd, but the light was too bright on him, and everyone around him looked like dark lumps.

  “Another one?” the bartender asks.

  Van nods. Paying cash at the hotel bar rather than drink the free beer up at the shindig is stupid, on top of cowardly and rude. But his nerves are shot from the anxiety of trying to keep both Jenny and Barbara happy. He needs a rest.

  He glances up at the small television in the corner. A map of their bit of Michigan appears in the lower left hand corner, obscuring part of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Charlevoix County is in red. Severe thunderstorm warning.

  The lights flicker as a thunderclap booms.

  No shit, thinks Ivan.

  Katya had hurried off—as much as she could hurry, given that she was weaving around the room—to confer with their mother about aborting the party early. That left Ivan with the uncomfortable question of what to do with Jenny and Barbara. It was never really discussed where either of them would stay, to say nothing of both of them.

  Would Barbara want to stay in his room?

  Mira wouldn’t mind. She’s always been rather relaxed about her adult children’s sleeping arrangements, based on Irina getting to share a bed with the boyfriend-du-jour anytime she visited. Ivan hadn’t brought anyone home to stay the night in…never, actually.

  Then, where would Jenny end up? Though Barbara is a quasi girlfriend, it seems wrong to relegate Jenny to second place since he’s known her for years.

  But Barbara is the only one expressing much interest in him at the party. Jenny has been distant all evening.

  Van’s head hurts. He drinks more beer and knows that it’s counterproductive to drink more when his head aches.

  But it’s all he can think of to do.

  “Ah. So here you are, mon frère.”

  Van cringes in his seat and catches the bartender smirking at him.

  Jenny hops up in the seat next to him.

  “Sorry,” Van mumbles.

  “Don’t apologize to me. Your girlfriend is the one in there prowling the place like a lioness on the hunt.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend.”

  Jenny turns on her barstool to face Van. He looks at her out of the corner of his eye, too embarrassed to look her straight in the face. She wears an ironic smirk, leans on the bar with her elbow, and says, “So what is she, then? First you were done for. Remember, you told me you were Ivan the Terrible? Now she’s here and going all moony-eyed over you, but she’s not your girlfriend? What brought about this miraculous change of heart, anyway?”

  “I guess she changed her mind about coming at the last minute.” Van recalls Barbara’s mention of his famous author-dad, and her manuscript.

  “And she didn’t tell you? She just—poof! Appeared?”

  “Something like that.”

  Barbara told him at the dinner that she felt rude dumping him just before the party when she’d agreed to go, and, really, he was very sweet, and she was rethinking this whole “needing space” thing. Maybe they could go away together next weekend? She batted her eyes at that. Literally.

  When she said this, Van nearly plopped himself face-first in his salmon. She was damn gorgeous and giving him another chance. So what if his famous father tipped the balance in his favor? So what if she’d steered the dinner conversation to the identity of his father’s agent and whether he ever put in a “good word” for new writers?

  “So, why are you hiding out here, then, if your ladylove is in there looking for you?”

  Van straightens up and looks Jenny full in the face. She’s smirking in that way she reserves for school-administration debacles and “idiot parent” stories, the way she sneers when she talks about her stepsister’s latest dramatic caper.

>   “What have you got against Barbara?”

  “What have you got against her? You’re the one hiding from her.”

  “I’ve got nothing against her. I think she’s stunning, she’s beautiful, and…”

  “And…?”

  “She makes me feel like I’m not a loser.”

  Jenny laughs, just once: “Ha.” She turns back and puts both elbows on the bar. “You mean the adoration of your best friend doesn’t do a thing for you?”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “Ah, I’m just busting your balls. I know what you mean. So go back in there and get her.”

  “Huh?”

  “Go back in and get your ladylove, mon ami.”

  “Aren’t you coming?”

  “Nah. I’m going to finish this up and I think I’ll take off. If I get going now, I’ll make it home before midnight.”

  Van stands up, and puts his hand on Jenny’s shoulder, nearly bare in her hippie sundress. “Are you sure you’re OK to drive? And in this?”

  “Hey, I’m fine. I’ve only had two beers, and it’s only rain. I’ll be all right. You go on, have fun. I was just filling in, anyway, right? When Barbara wasn’t coming? You shouldn’t have to split your attention.”

  Relief floods through Van. She’s solving his problem for him! Such a good friend; she always knows exactly what he needs. No one else understands him better.

  He leans in and kisses her cheek, catching her scent: something crisp and bright. He would bet anything she got it at some shop that sells crystals and incense. She smiles under his kiss, then turns to look him in the eye.

  He notices her eyes are an intriguing shade of brown: light, caramel-colored. Almost gold, really, like those of a cat. He’s never seen them before like this.

  “G’night, Van,” she says, giving him a light shove on his shoulder. “Go on.”

  He floats out of the bar, ready to go enjoy his beautiful date properly, thanking his lucky stars the whole way, for such an understanding friend.