Emily and Einstein

by Linda Francis Lee

  Fortunately Emily ran about as fast as a slug, and by the time we got through the rock-lined tunnel underneath Seventy-second Street, then about a third of the way to the Seventy-seventh Street tunnel—a distance of no more than a quarter mile—she was out of breath and staggered to a stop.

  Thank God.

  Sheer exhaustion made me forget about the dirt and gravel on the path. I collapsed with an umph and lay panting on the ground. To my left a tree-filled incline led up to the rock wall that separated the park from Central Park West. To the right the ground dipped away, down to the winding park road and the infamous lake where only days before I had tried to do away with myself. Despite that recent memory, I would have thought the scene bucolic had my lungs not been screaming for oxygen, and had Emily not been making a terrible racket of her own, bent over at the waist gasping for air.

  Eventually we recovered. The minute my breathing eased, my nose had a chance to do its thing. Namely kick into gear and want to sniff. Emily had dropped the leash and as predicted I couldn’t help myself. I pushed up and ran from a rock to a tree, then to a big pile of horse dung in the middle of the path. I am embarrassed to say that I felt euphoric, forgetting all about the dilemmas that riddled my life. Emily had to chase me down and practically drag me home.

  We had just reached the wisteria-covered pergola when my ever-sensitive ears detected the buzz of what I barely remembered was a BlackBerry in her pocket. Emily cringed when she saw the name of whoever was calling. After a second of debate, she answered. “Tatiana?” Pause. “You’re calling about the book?”

  Emily tensed, though I couldn’t imagine why.

  “A delivery date from Jordan. Right. I’m on it.”

  She was buying the book from Jordan?

  Now this was interesting. I wasn’t convinced my sister-in-law could read any better than I could, much less string together a series of words that would form a single coherent sentence—certainly not an entire book.

  “No, no, I’m not backing down. There’s no problem.”

  Back at the apartment I had my heart set on a Steakin’ as was our tradition after returning from any sort of walk. And excuse me, I needed a Steakin’ more than ever after that run. But Emily bypassed the kitchen and knocked on Jordan’s door. There was no answer.

  “Steakin’,” I barked.

  “Not now.”

  The door was cracked and because I was really getting the hang of being helpful, I nudged it open. If this didn’t get me a Steakin’ I didn’t know what would.

  No surprise that Jordan wasn’t there.

  “Where is she?” Emily asked. “Did she go back out last night?”

  In the kitchen, we found an empty cereal bowl and carton of milk on the kitchen table. I sat prettily in front of the pantry door and salivated. But still no Steakin’ for me.

  “She’s already gone?” Emily asked, confused.

  I expected her to say something unkind. Jordan had yet to get the hang of cleaning up after herself. I had to wonder if she did it just to irritate her sister or if her own living conditions consisted of soured milk and unwashed dishes. Had the girl never heard of salmonella?

  But Emily was full of surprises that morning. She whirled around and raced out of the kitchen so fast that by the time I got up and ran after her she was already inside Jordan’s room.

  “Uh-oh,” I ruffed. “Even I know snooping through your sister’s things isn’t a good idea.”

  “Be quiet,” Emily snapped at me.

  “You understand that but won’t give me a Steakin’?”

  Emily ignored me, so I sat back and watched. Not that there was a lot to watch. Jordan didn’t have much stuff to go through. The challenge was digging through the discarded clothes and decorative pillows strewn about the floor to find anything of interest.

  “There better be a book proposal in here somewhere,” Emily muttered.

  If I were a betting man I would put my money on no proposal at all. More than that, I guessed that while the place looked like a disaster to Emily, there was some order to Jordan’s chaos, and the second she returned she would know that her sister had gone through her belongings.

  “Ugh!”

  My head snapped up to find Emily standing stock-still, a pair of Jockey briefs dangling from her finger. And not a pair that looked like Jordan’s size.

  “Where did these come from?”

  From one of the young males Jordan had a habit of sneaking inside while Emily was fast asleep. Like my wife, the fellow who had departed brief-less must not have been able to make sense of the chaos and find his undergarment.

  “Emily? What are you doing?”

  Emily and I whipped around to find Jordan standing in the doorway. She held a Starbucks cup in her hand. I sniffed. Vanilla latte with whole milk. I licked my chops.

  “Are you going through my things?” Jordan’s voice was dangerously low.

  “This place is a mess.”

  “And that gives you permission to go through my room how?”

  Ah, the sarcasm of youth.

  Jordan walked over and snatched the underwear.

  “Have you had boys in here?” Emily demanded.

  “Not boys. Men. I’m an adult, Emily. An adult who has sex.”

  My lips curled back at more information than I wanted or cared for. Not that Jordan was done. Her eyes narrowed with something like triumph, and she added, “Our mother would have been proud.”

  Emily took a step back as if Jordan had slapped her, then regained her footing and stood her ground. “Perhaps, but look where that got her. One daughter who dreams of a father she never knew, and another daughter who wishes the father she actually has wasn’t the type who felt comfortable in a tract house on Long Island with a nine-to-five job, a wife, and two other children.”

  This time Jordan stepped back. “I never said that.” But her voice was shaky.

  “You didn’t have to. You come and go without a word of warning to any of us. And let’s face it, we both know why you really take those crazy gifts to his kids. It has nothing to do with making them think for themselves. You’d do anything to punish your father for leaving you and starting a new family.”

  Jordan backed farther away, exhaling sharply, once, twice.

  Emily sighed. “Jordan, I’m sorry.”

  But her sister had already bolted. All we heard was a slam and the rattle of glass in my fabulous front door.

  *

  The next morning Jordan was still gone. She had called and left a message on the answering machine saying she needed some space and was staying with a friend for a couple of days. In typical Jordan fashion, she left no number where Emily could return the call.

  My wife alternated between regret and frustration. Every time the phone rang and it was a number she didn’t recognize, she grabbed it up, praying it was Jordan. And every time her BlackBerry buzzed she flinched. If the mobile device rang, she no longer answered. I half wondered if she went into work wearing a disguise. Clearly with no answer as to when Jordan would deliver this supposed manuscript, and no sign of it in the girl’s messy room, my wife was avoiding her boss like the plague.

  The other person she was avoiding was my mother. Over the last few days, Althea Portman had left a series of increasingly terse messages on the answering machine.

  “Emily, really, you can’t avoid this.”

  “Now seriously, Emily, this is getting very annoying.”

  And my personal favorite, “Emily Barlow, I’ve had just about enough of this irresponsible behavior. Call me back this instant or I’m going to … I’m going to … well, just call me back.”

  My mother at a loss for words. Who would have thought it possible?

  To make matters worse, my estate lawyer started calling and leaving increasingly unfriendly messages. Emily became more frantic with each call, none of which, to my knowledge, she returned.

  “This can’t be happening,” I overheard her whisper.

  After the lawyer’s
most recent call I found my wife turning the apartment upside down.

  “There have to be receipts around here someplace, proof of all the money I’ve put into renovations. Receipts and photographs of before and after, of me doing the work. Evidence to build a case.”

  In a bottom drawer in her desk, she pulled out a stack of files.

  “Doctor’s receipts,” she said when she opened the first. But I could tell she was hopeful.

  “Old checks,” from another.

  “Receipts!”

  Even I felt my ratty old heart leap for her.

  But it was from that same file that she pulled out a photo. The excitement seeped out of her, and she sank down next to me. I saw that it was a picture of Emily and me, the Sandy me, redoing the very first room, the two of us together, laughing, covered in paint, Emily holding the camera out in front of us, our heads out of proportion to our bodies because of the angle. I remembered that day clearly. How beautiful and full of life she had been. Yet another day when I had promised myself I would be true to my wife.

  Why hadn’t I been able to stay true to my vows?

  Why had the hunger really returned?

  Not that my sudden questioning made me go easy on her. My job was to help her rise from the ashes.

  After that one jaunt in the park, Emily hadn’t wanted to go back, forcing me to drag her out of bed and onto the bridle path. If selfishness had stood between me and salvation before, I was a little concerned that bossiness would do me in now. But good God almighty, Emily was not a particularly gifted athlete. She’d run for fifty feet then all but collapse from exhaustion. When I snapped at her butt to keep her going, she ended up sprawled out on the cinders. I was beside myself. But on the third day, my frustration turned to a bud of hope when Emily actually came out of her bedroom wearing hideous running warm-ups.

  I hadn’t had to drop the leash on her face or jiggle my tags. Progress. I could practically envision the old man handing me some sort of otherworldly report card with GREAT stamped across the cover.

  *

  Jordan didn’t return for the remainder of the week. But on Friday, Emily came home from work to the smell of cleaning supplies and some exotic meal cooked up from third-world recipes.

  “Jordan?”

  The younger woman rushed out from the kitchen and threw her arms around Emily. “I’m sorry I flipped.”

  The tension that had built up in my wife evaporated, her body easing. “I’m sorry for going into your room and saying such awful things.”

  That was the pattern with these two. Fight, make up, laugh, cry, swear they’d never fight again—until the next time their opposite personalities clashed.

  Over dinner at the kitchen table, Emily finally had the chance to present the book deal.

  “You’re going to buy my book?” Jordan squealed.

  “Isn’t it wonderful! It’s going to be so much fun to work together.”

  I craned my neck to see if somehow a bottle of wine had been opened without my knowledge. Or maybe Jordan was passing around a joint. What else could account for this ridiculous self-delusion? Did anyone really think these two working together was a good idea, much less a fun one?

  But no one asked me.

  “Freakin’ A! Thank you, Emily!”

  “So, let me see the proposal.”

  Followed by what I can only call a pregnant pause.

  “You want to see it?”

  “Jordan? Of course I need to see it.”

  Honeymoon over.

  “Well, it’s not done yet.”

  Emily drew one of her deep, bracing breaths. “Okay,” she said, “so it’s not done. No problem. Just show me what you have.”

  Jordan squirmed.

  “Tell me you’ve something written, Jordan.”

  “Of course I have. It’s just that…”

  “Just what?”

  “It’s a little rough.”

  More deep breathing, then, “Rough is fine.”

  Jordan debated before dashing to her bedroom.

  “I never should have gotten involved in this,” Emily said to me.

  Ah, yeah.

  The younger woman returned holding a spiral-bound notebook, her face red with guilt.

  Emily extended her hand. “Let me see it.”

  From my vantage point all I could see was messy, large, looping script, and doodles up and down the margins. Emily pressed her eyes shut and I felt certain she was praying.

  “I’ll let you read in peace,” Jordan said.

  She slipped away while Emily read one page, then another. She read without stopping, Jordan peeking her head in every few minutes. When Emily didn’t acknowledge her, the younger Barlow looked at me with a question in her eyes.

  “Can’t help you.” I shrugged.

  And I couldn’t. I had no sense of what Emily was feeling. She put off no scent whatsoever as she read. When she came to the end of what Jordan had written, she closed the notebook and bent over the table, pressing her forehead to the front cover.

  I smelled her tears before I heard her crying.

  “Emily?” Jordan said, tiptoeing into the room.

  Emily sat up slowly, her eyes red.

  “You hate it,” Jordan said.

  “I don’t hate it.” Though she certainly didn’t look like she loved it.

  “Then what is it?”

  Emily stood to face her sister. “I never thought about how living with our mother affected you.”

  emily

  “Don’t let the world force you to be someone you’re not,” my mother used to tell me. Little did my mother know that in her own oblique way she had forced me to be like her, and that it wasn’t necessarily what I wanted. At twenty-two, I had spent my whole life trying to be who my mother wanted me to be—to be like her, not like Emily. At twenty-two, I was fighting battles, my mother’s battles, as if my legacy was to carry on her dream rather than any I might have had on my own.

  —EXCERPT FROM My Mother’s Daughter

  chapter twenty-six

  My mother was a puzzle. Actually several puzzles whose pieces were so shuffled together that it was impossible to form a cohesive whole. Reading Jordan’s pages brought that home to me more than ever.

  Lillian Barlow fought for a woman’s right to have a career, but she gave up her own to stay home with her daughters. She might have needed her admirers, but she didn’t respect any of them as they lined up at her parties looking for a handout of her attention like beggars at a soup kitchen.

  “You can toy with men,” she often said, “but you can never need them.”

  If she was free with her attention, she was selfish with her affection. I had hated that fact about her.

  I had spent my life wrapped up in my own problems with being my mother’s daughter. With Jordan seemingly so like her, it had never occurred to me that my sister’s life had been difficult as well. In hindsight, I realized I had been blind not to see it. But more than that, for the first time I understood my mother’s ability to be selfish. Sitting there with Jordan’s scribbled pages, I selfishly didn’t want her story to see the light of day.

  “You hate it!” Jordan cried. “I never should have mentioned it.”

  During my time in publishing, I had seen many authors expose raw nerves of insecurity about their work. But it was disconcerting to see any sort of insecurity coming from my sister, who had been traveling the world alone since she was a teenager.

  “Jordan, I don’t hate it.”

  She bit her lower lip. “Then what?”

  I hesitated. “It’s just that I hadn’t given any thought to what this book is about. Living in the shadow of Lillian Barlow.”

  “But look at you, Emily. You moved out from the shadow. You created your own life.”

  I was equally touched and frustrated by this, because I hadn’t moved out from Mother’s shadow. Not really. Wasn’t I trying to find a place for myself at the new Caldecote Press with a book about her? Wasn’t it a very real p
ossibility that Tatiana was in some way keeping me on because she had known my mother? Would Hedda have offered me a job had she not known Lillian Barlow? But that wasn’t my biggest concern right then.

  “Jordan, what is really going on with you?”

  Since Jordan had appeared on my doorstep she had been acting even more combative than usual, but I had been too wrapped up in my own concerns to give it much thought.

  Jordan blew out a breath.

  “Talk to me, please.”

  After a second, my sister wrinkled her nose, then said, “I’m not exactly taking a break from Homes for Women Heroes. I got fired.”

  “What?”

  “It wasn’t my fault.” Jordan scowled. “Okay, so maybe it was my fault. But, well, there was this guy. Serge. He was totally cool, or at least I thought he was. He’s all into helping people, and he was completely into me.”

  She hesitated.

  “Go on.”

  She raised her chin, part defiance, part anxiety. “The deal with Heroes is that you have to pledge that while you’re working on an assignment you can’t, well, hook up with other members of the team.” She cringed. “We were sort of caught, you know, hooking up, and that ass blamed it on me! And let me tell you, it was totally a mutual thing. We got reprimanded and kicked off the project. Then he dumped me!”

  I could hardly believe it when my tough little sister started to cry. But when I reached out to her, she brushed me away.

  “I am not crying,” she said, crying even harder. “He’s a jerk. But I was really into him. Me! Me, who never gets in a twist over any guy!”

  “Jordan, don’t beat yourself up because you fell for someone.”

  “He was everything I didn’t think I would ever find. So many of the guys I meet fall into nonprofit because they think they won’t have to work hard, or they do it because they think it’s a free pass to cool places. But Serge believed. He believed in what we were doing. He was willing to work his butt off to make things happen.

  “Plus he was good looking and massively sexy.” Her voiced trailed off. “How could Lillian Barlow’s daughter be one of those girls just like the rest, the pathetic loser who gets all broken up over a guy? And even if I did fall for him, how could I possibly be the kind of person who whacks out over it?”