An Illusion of Trust (Sequel to The Brevity of Roses)

by Lewis, Linda Cassidy

With a jerk, I open my eyes to the three men grinning at me. Oh my god. I drifted off. Jalal’s arm is now around my shoulders, and he says, “I think we should find your shoes before our coach turns back into a pumpkin.”

  I try to apologize, but Hank waves it off. “Don’t give it a thought. Get along home to your bed, little mama.”

  Aza’s new admirer—“Paul Franklin … nice to meet you”—offers to drive her home, so she stays behind. As Jalal helps me into the car, I wonder if his abundant social graces are enough to cancel out my bumbling introduction to the Coelho social scene.

  Ryan and Jason, on winter break, drove up from school to be here for our Christmas celebration yesterday. Adam is in heaven with three of his grown-up cousins here to play with him. I admit I followed their every move at first. I mean, the guys aren’t familiar with our routines and rules like Kristen is. But I’ve relaxed. They’re in the yard playing Adam’s favorite chasing game now, and I’m watching through the window.

  “Renee,” Jalal says.

  “Mm-hmm?”

  “Renee.”

  I turn away from the window. “I just wondered what they were doing now.”

  “And two minutes ago and two minutes before that.”

  He’s right, of course, but at least I’m inside the house, so that’s an improvement. Little steps.

  “You can bring him in for lunch and his nap in a few minutes, and after he falls asleep, I would like to take you out for lunch. Just the two of us.”

  “What’s the occasion?”

  “Nostalgia,” he says. “I miss us. It feels like the action has been non-stop since we moved in. Tonight Aza and Paul will be here while the next generation parties in her apartment, and tomorrow afternoon we fly up to visit the multitude known as the rest of my family. I need a little quiet.”

  Just as he says the last word, the gang troops in chanting, “We want food.”

  I give Jalal a quick kiss. “It’s a date.”

  This is a new restaurant to me, but then I haven’t been to many in Coelho. Judith always picks the French restaurant when she invites me to lunch. Jalal doesn’t like that one. He says the food isn’t good, but I know from Judith that he met Meredith there, so I suspect that’s the real reason we never go to Pain sur la Table. I compete with her enough, so I’m all for finding a new special place with him. I don’t think this one will be it, though. He frowned at the presentation of the appetizer, and after two bites of the salad he slipped on his full critical face. I wonder how often I fail to notice him looking at me like that when I don’t live up to his expectations.

  “Adam went down for his nap quickly,” he says.

  “They really tired him out.”

  “He loves the attention.”

  “Like his father?” He watches the wine as he swirls it in his glass, so I assume he’s ignoring my comment, but then he narrows his eyes at me.

  “Is that a slam?” he asks.

  “No. Everyone likes you … and they should.”

  When the entrees arrive, I wait for Jalal’s reaction. He tastes a scallop, utters a sound of pleasant surprise and forks another bite. I’m glad for the interruption of our conversation. I don’t really want to know what his friends think of me. I almost wish he could get back into his old social circle without me.

  “Is something wrong?” he asks.

  “No. Why?”

  “Are you going to eat? It might be better than you expect. Mine is.”

  We eat in silence for a few minutes. He relents and pours me an inch more wine. “After the holidays,” he says, “we have invitations to honor.”

  “Invitations?”

  “For dinner.”

  “With who?”

  “Some of the people you met at Judith’s party.”

  “Oh.”

  “Your enthusiasm astounds.”

  “Sorry. That’s nice. Great.” I drink the wine. “I’ll keep my shoes on.”

  Jalal laughs. I wish I could.

  Kristen and the guys were busy with their party preparations most of the afternoon, so Adam got my full attention while Jalal and Azadeh cooked dinner. She chose the menu to impress Paul, who she’s been out with three times since Judith’s party. We talked to him only briefly when he came to pick up Aza one of those times, so tonight’s our first chance to get to know him. He’s kept us laughing since we sat down. If Paul realizes how closely Jalal is scrutinizing him, he doesn’t show it. I’m happy for Aza.

  During a lull in the conversation, Aza finally takes her eyes off Paul and says, “Renee, you know you said I should go back to school?”

  “You should.”

  “Well, I am. I only signed up for one class because I don’t know how much help you’ll need after the baby’s born.”

  “You never discussed this with me,” Jalal says.

  “Because you would have discouraged me.”

  “I would not. I told you to do it years ago.”

  “You told me to finish my general studies.”

  Listening between the lines, I’m pretty sure I know how she’s going to reply when I ask, “So what class are you taking?”

  She hesitates. “Creative writing,” she says and then points at Jalal, “and don’t you say a word.”

  It’s obvious by the way Jalal shifts his jaw that she called him out, but he pretends innocence. “What did I do?”

  “You will have no part in this,” she tells him. “I don’t want your advice or critique or anything.”

  “I think it’s a great idea,” Paul says.

  “I agree,” I say. “And I’m sure we’ll have no problem working around your schedule.”

  Jalal’s face is blank now; he’s lost in a memory. I can’t wait to ask him what history between them sparked Azadeh’s prohibition.

  “Paul seems like a nice guy,” I say as we’re getting ready for bed.

  “Green technology is hot and his company is one of the most successful in the business.”

  “You see that? I mention Paul as a person, and you calculate his net worth. That’s what I hated about the conversations at Judith’s party. Money is all anyone talks about, how much they make or how much they spend. All that tells me about a person is that they’re boring.”

  “You enjoy having money.”

  “Yes, but all I really care about is that we have enough to live. If your investments dried up tomorrow, we could sell this house and live off that money for the rest of our lives.”

  “You would deprive our children of all the advantages money affords us?”

  “I wasn’t suggesting you give every dime to charity and we live on the streets.”

  “What were you suggesting?”

  “I just don’t think acquiring or spending money should be the primary focus of life.” He comes up behind me and nuzzles my neck.

  “I am not the least bit focused on money right now, Mrs. Vaziri.” He slips his hand up under my sleep shirt.

  “Not so fast. You have to tell me something first.”

  “Anything.”

  “Why did Aza insist you say nothing about her plans to take a writing class?”

  He groans in dismay and his hand slides down to rest chastely on my stomach. “Because I acted like a jerk once when she asked me to read a poem she wrote.”

  “You wouldn’t read it?”

  “No, I read it. Then I analyzed, dissected, and rewrote it for her.”

  “Jerk.” The baby kicks his hand. “See? Your daughter agrees with me.”

  “In my defense, I was only nineteen.”

  “But still.”

  “I know.”

  I pull his hand back to my breast. “Shall I presume you have more tact now?”

  “Indeed.” He guides me to the bed. “I will be generous in my critique of your performance here tonight.”

  “Jerk.”

  Six

  Mia Grace enters the world five weeks before expected. She’s perfect in form, but her jaundice requires photo therapy and her s
ucking reflex is weak, so because I want to breastfeed her, I stay in the hospital with her five days. Those days are agony because I feel like I’m choosing between my two children. Though each morning Jalal brings Adam to me right after breakfast, active toddlers don’t tolerate confinement to one room very long.

  So Adam will nap with me, Jalal tires him out each afternoon at the nearby park before bringing him back to the hospital. Jalal reads while I sleep with my daughter cradled in my arms and my son curled against my side. Still, I cry for my son each of the nights I spend away from him.

  I would have a dozen babies if they were all as good as Mia Grace. At six weeks, she’s already sleeping four hours straight at night. Jalal says it’s because she’s not in our bed like Adam was; we put her to sleep in a mini crib in the alcove of our room, though after she wakes for a feeding I keep her in bed with me. And I’ve promised Jalal that in a few weeks I’ll trust the monitor and start her nights in the nursery.

  Adam’s had trouble adjusting to the baby taking some of his spotlight. After our first night here, when he slept with Jennie, he’s insisted on sleeping only in his bedroom, but several times since Mia Grace’s birth he’s ended up snuggled between me and Jalal. And sometimes, like now, when I nurse Mia Grace, he sits beside me, patting her head and sucking his thumb. Jalal worried until his sister Goli assured him this is only a temporary regression. Since she has eight of them, beating Jalal’s mother by one, Goli is the family expert on children. But Adam is also protective of his sister and already tries to teach her the words for things. It’s so cute. I love being a mother.

  “He’s nodding off,” Aza whispers. “Do you want me to carry him up to his bed?”

  “Don’t forget to turn his monitor on.” Even though she smiles, I realize that sounded ridiculous. We always turn on the monitors when the kids are in their rooms. Why do I feel the need to tell her every damned time? Why is she so patient with me?

  Mia Grace doesn’t even open her eyes when I buckle her in the baby bouncer in the great room. As Jalal enters from the garage, I shush him. He sets a bag carefully on the kitchen island and then freezes while I walk over to him. “Did you already eat lunch?” I ask before I catch the scent of the food he’s brought home. “What did you get?”

  “Your favorite hot and sour soup.”

  “Sometimes I love you.” I try to kiss him, but he holds me back.

  “Sometimes is not enough, Renee.” He looks so serious I blank on a response. Then the corner of his mouth quirks, and he pulls me to him. We’re still kissing when Aza comes back downstairs.

  “Oops,” she says. “Should I take the baby up to the nursery or stay here with her while you guys take that somewhere else?”

  I wriggle loose from Jalal. “We’re not going anywhere. I want my soup.”

  Jalal shakes his head sadly. “Obviously, we’ve now progressed to the old married couple stage.”

  “Only one of us is old.” As soon as I say it, I remember what Jennie said and wish I could take my words back, but Jalal only laughs. I carry the food to the table while Jalal gets plates and silverware. “Are you still enjoying your class, Aza?”

  “I love it,” she says. “It’s activated an area of my brain that I haven’t used for a long time. The only problem is, since I’m still going by my married name, I thought I’d be safe from comparison with Jalal, but the instructor asked me yesterday if he’s related.”

  “She has to grade you on your own work, kharar-jan,” Jalal says.

  “Not in her head, baradar-jan.”

  “We should teach Adam and Mia Grace those words for brother and sister,” I say.

  Jalal glances at me as though some part of his brain heard me, but he’s still focused on Azadeh. “How does she know you are my sister?”

  “I told her. I mean, she asked if we were related, and then I told her.”

  “But what made her ask that?”

  I tune them out and concentrate on my soup because I know from experience conversations like this between them can last an hour. It’s driving Jalal crazy that Aza won’t discuss her writing with him. I don’t blame her. He even critiques my shopping lists.

  “… she met you at a conference,” Aza says.

  That gets my attention.

  “What conference?” Jalal asks.

  “San Francisco.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Diane Benson. Tall, blonde, pretty?”

  He shrugs and shakes his head. How many tall, blonde, and pretty women are there at these conferences? Maybe I should go with him next time.

  I’m driving Kristen to the mall when she says, “Did my mom ask you to take me shopping so you could grill me about something?”

  I’m tempted to lie, but she’ll know, and then I’ll never gain her confidence. “I wouldn’t say grill. She’s concerned because you won’t talk to her.”

  “I told her there’s nothing to worry about. I’m not seeing guys behind her back.”

  “You’re sixteen. Aren’t most of your friends dating?”

  “Friend. I have one friend.”

  “I think she’s worried about that too.” From the corner of my eye, I see her shake her head, and I know she accompanied it with a roll of her eyes. “You had a lot of friends in Seattle.”

  “Yeah, and my Seattle friends are why we’re living in Coelho now.” She turns her face to the passenger side window. “Mom’s never going to trust me.”

  I’m not supposed to know about the miscarriage, so I have to be careful what I say. I can’t even draw on my experience with my mother, because she never cared what I did or who I did it with. Trust was not a resident in our house.

  “I had a miscarriage,” Kristen says.

  By reflex, I take my foot off the gas and move it to the brake pedal and then instantly reverse that because we’re on the freeway and stopping is not an option. “I—”

  “You already knew, right? Mom admires you, so I figured she would tell you. Please say you didn’t tell Uncle J.”

  “No. I swear.” Aza admires me? “I mean, yes, I knew, but I didn’t tell Jalal.”

  “So you understand why I’m not dating, right? And why my best friend—my only friend—is the nicest girl in school.”

  “No.” I take the exit to the mall.

  “Forget it. You can’t understand.”

  “You’d be surprised.” I pull into the first empty parking spot I see.

  “Why are you parking so far from Sephora?” she asks.

  “I’ll move after we talk. And I do understand why you’re hanging out with Brittany, but I’m not clear on whether you even like her.”

  “Well, yeah, I like her. She’s a little boring sometimes, but she’s helping me improve my grades. And she’s actually pretty funny. But she doesn’t date or party yet, so I figured guys would assume I don’t either. You know?”

  “You can’t date without having sex?”

  Kristen looks at me like I’ve suddenly aged fifty years. “I knew you wouldn’t understand.”

  “Not all guys are like the ones you were friends with in Seattle. Just like Brittany’s a good girl, there are also good guys.”

  “Aw come on, Renee, what guy doesn’t want sex?”

  I can’t help myself; I smile. “I didn’t say they don’t want it, but nice guys won’t expect it, and even if they try, they will take no for an answer. You do have the right to say no. You can be different here. No one here knows Kristen, the Seattle version.”

  For a minute, she just stares at the parking lot. “I guess it’s not like I have slut tattooed on my forehead.”

  “You don’t think of yourself as a slut, do you? Because you’re not.”

  “Mom thinks I am.”

  “I’m positive she doesn’t. She loves you so much she gave up her home to move here and give you a fresh start. It would break her heart to know you thought so little of yourself.” Kristen turns her head, but I’d already caught the glisten of tears. “Why can’t you a
nd Brittany ease into it together?” I ask. “Group date. Find a couple of nice guys to share a pizza or see a movie with. Agree to meet the guys there. Keep it public, so there’s no temptation.”

  She nods.

  I start the car. Do as I say. It’s amazingly easy to give advice to do the opposite of what I did. Aza admires me. What would she think if she knew how I was before I met her brother? Trying to keep the real Renee hidden is like trying to eat one of those huge sloppy burgers without letting any of it squish out the sides. Sooner or later, you make a mess of it.

  Azadeh and her teacher, Diane, have become friends. The semester is over, and Aza received an A in her creative writing class, but Jalal wonders if she really earned it. He didn’t say that to her, of course, and since she still won’t let him see anything she wrote for the class, he has no way to know. I’m suspicious of Diane’s motives too—not for the grade but for the friendship. Her disappointment is obvious when she comes here with Aza and realizes Jalal’s not home. For Aza’s sake, I hope I’m wrong about Diane’s using her.

  Diane’s in luck today. When she and Aza come back from shopping, Adam and I are in the pool and Jalal’s reading in the shade beside it with six-month-old Mia Grace curled like a kitten on his chest. Diane doesn’t even ask if he minds before she pulls up a chair and plops herself down beside him. “Azadeh says you’re building a writing studio out here.”

  “I might.”

  “Yeah,” I say, “because a fourteen-room house just doesn’t have enough space to write in.”

  Diane lifts her chin, so she’s literally looking down her nose at me. “It’s probably hard for you to understand, Renee, but a proper environment is crucial to inspiration.”

  What a pretentious bitch. I round my eyes and deadpan, “I had no idea.” Jalal’s mouth draws up so tight it looks like he’s about to whistle, but he keeps it together by not meeting my eyes. Diane ignores me and asks Jalal a question about some book. Her blather doesn’t interest me, and I go back to playing with Adam. I’m not usually the one in the pool with him. He and Jalal take to water like fish. I’m more content to sit beside it, though a pool offers a sorry substitute for the serenity of the ocean.

  Now, though I think Jalal was just being polite at first, all three of them are debating the merits of some poet I’ve never heard of. I might as well be on the moon. He would deny it, but Jalal thinks I’m stupid. I hear the difference in the language he uses when he speaks to others about the topics he never discusses with me. And now here’s dear Diane talking poetry all over the place. So what if I never went to college? I know about hard living. I know about independence. I know about reality. Concepts he has only an acquaintance with.