Behind the Curtain

by BETH KERY

  Again.

  He jogged down the platform, keeping pace with her, not knowing what the hell he was doing for a frenzied moment. He only knew he couldn’t take his eyes off her rigid, disbelieving face.

  The face of his dreams. The face at the center of a stupid young man’s anguish. Her face. Unscarred. Unchanged.

  Perfect.

  “Laila.”

  His shout mingled with the metallic rumble of the train exiting the station. He stood there panting as the sound faded; his brain tried to catch up with his heart, shaken by the impact of his past slamming so jarringly into his present.

  Did he understand why Laila Barek had decided never to see him again, never correspond with him, to deny everything that had happened that summer in Crescent Bay eight years ago? Rationally, he did. With the benefit of maturity, and after spending time in various Arab countries, that logic had become clearer. She’d been nineteen years old. She’d been in college, yes, but she was still dependent on her parents’ wishes, expectations and demands. A Moroccan-American female might seem a lot like any typical American girl much of the time, but the ties to tradition and family were strong.

  Those ties of love and loyalty had been enough for her to walk away when she’d been nineteen and he’d been nearly twenty-two, despite what they’d shared . . . despite the fact that she’d told him she loved him and always would.

  He shook his head like a wet dog, trying to diminish the immensity of the moment. He hadn’t been prepared. Yes, the thought had been there, but it had been vague, the tiniest suspicion . . . too incredible to be real. Of course, she had the talent. There had never been any doubt of that. Still, he couldn’t believe it was really her: her staring at him through the glass, her putting on that evocative, sexy performance in that club . . .

  All behind a veil.

  He blinked and started, the veil suddenly taking on a whole new meaning for him. The barrier hadn’t been there to hide any scars. The veil had been set to protect something else. And Laila had been the one to erect it.

  Maybe she hadn’t changed that much, after all.

  He turned and walked alone down the empty platform.

  You’re not a naïve, idealistic kid anymore. Some people just aren’t made to be together. Your worlds are way too different.

  He didn’t think he could survive watching Laila move away from him another time. That first time had hurt more than he’d allow himself to admit.

  And everything that had come before Laila walking away? Well, that had been something so rare and beautiful, the loss of it had changed him forever.

  Chapter Three

  Eight years ago

  Crescent Bay, Michigan

  Her mother, Amira Barek, had left the patio doors and windows open wide to the beach as she cooked. Laila inhaled the divine scent of fresh lake air mixing with the date cake cooling on the counter. Her khal-ti Nora had brought the cake over minutes ago along with a fresh batch of almond cookies and taknetta—Moroccan butter cookies. The family would gather on the terrace this evening for supper.

  Her mom watched her soap opera on the little television on the counter while she sealed a dish with tin foil. A pot of tagine steamed on the stove.

  Laila lifted a corner of the aluminum foil to see what they would grill out on the deck tonight. Despite her uncommon restless mood and desire to flee the cottage—she didn’t know where, just somewhere—her stomach rumbled with hunger. She’d spent nine summers now with her extended family in the charming beach town of Crescent Bay and knew that fantastic food was one of the many highlights of the traditional vacation. Her mom and aunties became inspired during their weeks spent on the lakeshore dunes, scheming daily to outdo each other’s cooking.

  “What time will we eat?” Laila asked.

  Her mother pulled her attention off her soap opera—one of many on a list of favorite American and Arab soaps, and even recently, a Telemundo sizzler. She patted the back of Laila’s hand fondly before finishing sealing the foil on the dish.

  “We’ll eat when your father and uncles get here, of course,” she said, handing the dish to Laila. Laila carried the dish over to the refrigerator. During their extended summer vacation in Crescent Bay every year, only the aunties and the kids stayed on full time. Laila’s dad, Anass Barek, and her two uncles commuted back and forth from Detroit for their jobs. They would stay in Crescent Bay for the weekend before returning late Sunday night, Laila’s dad to his collision and glass repair shop, and her uncles to their jobs as line supervisors at Ford Motors.

  “The girls and I were hoping to check out that music festival going on over in Crescent Bay tonight,” Laila said as she shut the fridge door, testing the waters of her mother’s response. If her mother agreed that she could go out with her cousins tonight, then her father would agree when he arrived, as well. Her father was typically more tolerant than her mother. Zara and Tahi’s parents tended to be more permissive in what they allowed their twenty-year-old daughters to do, as well, a fact that could work either in Laila’s favor or against it. Sometimes her mother was more agreeable to a venture if Zara and Tahi accompanied her. At other times, Zara and Tahi might be deemed a tad wild, at least where Laila was concerned. Even though Laila’s birthday was only eight months after Zara’s, and six months after Tahi’s, she’d somehow been labeled early on as the “young” one that everyone had to look out for. It galled Laila to no end. The fact that her mother had had some health issues after she’d given birth to Laila, and afterward could no longer have children, didn’t help in taking the obsessive, protective focus off Laila. Zara and Tahi had older and younger brothers and sisters, while Laila was an only child. The cousins’ parents were more “broken in” than Laila’s, at least in Laila’s opinion.

  From experience, Laila knew that her mother tended to be a little more carefree and tolerant in Crescent Bay, however. She had her fingers crossed she’d get no argument for tonight’s plan. Her mom’s attention was already caught again by her soap opera.

  “It’s Friday night. Your father is getting here for the first time this summer. Why do you have to start running around already? You’ll stay in.”

  “But Zara and Tahi—”

  “Those girls run wild every night. Just because they do something doesn’t mean you have to,” her mother murmured distractedly, her pretty, large brown eyes fixed on the television screen. “Crescent Bay is about relaxing and celebrating your good fortune and family, not running around to rock-and-roll parties.”

  Laila started to correct her mother—the festival really did offer a diverse collection of local and regional artists: jazz, rock, R&B, pop, Irish folk music, and yes—one traditional Arab female singer. Instead, she paused to tactically regroup. For a moment, she watched the drama unfolding on the television with her mom.

  “You’ll miss the last episodes of the season on your favorite Arab shows here in Crescent Bay,” she murmured. The cable here in tiny Crescent Bay didn’t pick up the Arabic-language stations they were able to get in Detroit, where Laila’s family lived. There were large, established Arab and Moroccan communities in the Detroit area. Like many of her friends, Laila straddled two cultures, existing in both. At times, she found that navigation seamless and as easy as breathing.

  At other times, it could be a considerable challenge. Now that she’d turned nineteen and completed her first year of college at Wayne State University, she was finding the negotiation for her independence from her parents and close-knit family increasingly difficult. And at times, tiresome. Even though her parents had insisted she live at home while she attended college, Laila had still gotten her first taste of a wider world out there. It had lit a fire in her. She usually loved their idyllic family vacations in Crescent Bay. This year, she was uncharacteristically restless and claustrophobic.

  Her mother gave her a mischievous glance. “Your cousin Zarif taught Nora and me how to
TiVo all our shows. The girls and I are going to have a marathon when we get home,” she said, referring to her sister Nora and sister-in-law Nadine.

  Laila grinned. It tickled her, how Laila herself, Zara and Tahi were referred to collectively as “the girls,” and so were her mother and aunties. “You’re turning so modern, Mom. First your iPod, and now TiVo.”

  “Don’t be silly. Your father only got me that iPod so that I could listen to my music while I work.”

  Laila saw her “in.” Her mother loved her music even more than she loved her shows. Moroccans in general were crazy about music, and Laila and her mother were no exception.

  “There’s going to be some Arab music performed at the music festival in town,” Laila said with seeming casualness as she lifted the lid on the pot on the stove and stirred the fragrant contents.

  Her mother cast her an interested but wary glance. “Some shameful pop version of it, I suppose? Something like that pollution you listen to?”

  “No, Mamma,” Laila assured her. “You know there are a lot of Arabs that have settled here on the shoreline. This is a traditional singer, honest.”

  She held her breath while her mother studied her closely. Her mother, her khal-ti Nora, and her grandmother had always been, and still were, considered fine singers and musicians in their community. Laila had inherited their talent, although she preferred to write music and poetry versus sing.

  “Well, I suppose since we have nothing special planned for tonight . . .”

  “Thank you, Mamma,” Laila enthused, planting a kiss on her mother’s cheek. Her mom patted the side of her head in a warm gesture.

  “We’ll be home by eleven,” Laila assured her.

  “Ten o’clock,” her mother corrected, her loving, maternal gaze going instantly sharp. “And don’t you let that wild Zara keep you out a minute later. I tell you, that girl will be the death of her mother,” Amira Barek insisted. She closed her eyes and mouthed a silent, fervent prayer as to that not being the case.

  “I think I’m going to go for a swim before dinner,” Laila said, easing out of the kitchen.

  “Be sure to tell Zara I said ten o’clock,” her mom said distractedly, her gaze already drawn back to her soap opera.

  “I will,” Laila assured her. She didn’t mention she wasn’t planning on seeing Zara until tonight at dinner. Her cousins were at the local beach, undoubtedly stirring up every male on the shoreline with their tiny bikinis, practiced flirtations and lush beauty.

  Laila would swim alone at the hidden beach she’d discovered four years ago, a place she cherished as her own private secret.

  • • •

  With a heavy feeling of inevitability, Asher swung his roadster down the gravel drive. In the distance, he saw the sprawling, white-shingled home on the bluff and the pale blue expanse of Lake Michigan taking up the entire horizon. A sharp feeling of nostalgia went through him. A pang for the loss of his childhood? He hadn’t been to the Gaites-Granville summer mansion since the July before he’d left for college.

  He’d used to love coming here when he was a kid. An assortment of his relatives and his parents’ friends might be there on the weekend, which could be a miserable experience. During the summer weekdays, however, Asher was often left there just with his nanny, Berta, and occasionally with Jimmy Rothschild as an additional companion.

  It was Berta and Asher’s well-kept secret that his nanny often left him to his own devices during those golden days and sultry nights. He’d swim, skimboard, and make friends at the local public beaches. He’d captain his little Sunfish, exploring the coastline to his heart’s content. When he got older, he’d had the speedboat at his disposal. He’d relished being alone at the house or hanging out just with Jimmy, thriving without the feeling of someone standing at his shoulder constantly monitoring him . . .

  . . . Ready to disapprove and correct him at any moment.

  Now he was here again for one last idyllic summer.

  He had to admit: it had felt good, seeing how proud his parents were of him as he’d received his degrees, with distinction, in both journalism and international affairs. His father had been smiling broadly—a rare sight—when he handed Asher a Scotch on the rocks at his graduation party at the Union Club five weeks ago.

  “Take some time off before you start work. Spend a couple weeks at Crescent Bay with your friends. The car and all the other stuff were gifts from your mother and me. But this is my personal gift to you, from father to son: one last carefree summer vacation. Goof off a little, have a few summer flings, do some things you’ll never tell your mom and me. Because I’m here to tell you, once you start the grind of work, there’s no going back. After that, you’re a man, son.”

  Asher’s fate seemed to press down on him as he drove nearer to the house and the Lake Michigan landscape. He’d wanted to tell his dad the truth as they’d shared that drink together at his party. In the end, he hadn’t, though. His father had looked so happy and proud of his gift of a last carefree summer vacation . . . so proud of him—Asher. Asher could count on one hand, with a couple fingers to spare, the number of times he’d made his father look that way. He hadn’t had the heart to tell him that his gift had felt like he was throwing Asher a bachelor party before a marriage he’d never agreed to.

  Because the fact of the matter was, he was going to have to do something adult and serious at the end of this vacation. It just wasn’t what his mom and dad believed it was. His parents thought that he was going to take a managerial position at Gaines-Granville Media in August. Asher had never really agreed to that. But his parents operated on assumptions when it came to their only son, not Asher’s actual choices.

  The truth was, he’d already accepted a position as a reporter at the international affairs desk at the L.A. Times. He hoped to eventually get moved to a foreign post. Just this morning, he’d flown back to Chicago from Los Angeles after meeting with his new managing editor at the paper, signing an apartment lease and making other arrangements for his August move.

  His parents had thought he’d been visiting a girlfriend in Bel Air, which was kind of true. He had met up with Anna, a girl he’d been seeing casually during his final two months at Stanford. He’d been so preoccupied with making arrangements for his new life that he’d apparently insulted Anna with his lack of attention, however. She’d been fairly pissed at him by the time she’d dropped him off at the airport this morning. On the flight to Chicago, Asher realized he wasn’t all that worried about it, a fact that had him feeling sort of guilty. Anna and he weren’t serious or exclusive, but clearly, he’d been insensitive.

  What’s new?

  According to his mother, he’d been born with a singular knack for insensitivity.

  Anna Johansson aside, the die had been cast. At the end of this supposedly idyllic, carefree vacation, he was going to have to be an adult, all right. He was going to have to look his parents in the eye and tell them point-blank he had no plans whatsoever to take a job at Gaites-Granville Media. He was used to disappointing them, but this seemed especially harsh on his part.

  Feeling weighed down by his thoughts, he pulled into the turnabout at the back of the mansion. He immediately recognized Jimmy’s dark blue BMW—sophisticated and sedate, just like Jimmy—already parked there. One of the other two cars must be a rental. Rudy Fattore had flown in at Asher’s mother’s request and rented a car at O’Hare. It was a sign of how much his parents wanted to please Asher that his mother had arranged the trip for his questionably respectable college roommate. Formerly, Rudy had barely been tolerated.

  Rudy and Jimmy were the only friends he’d mentioned to his mother that he wanted for companionship on this “last holiday.” Who did the ivory-colored Aston Martin belong to, though? Asher wondered uneasily. It certainly wasn’t a rental.

  “It took you long enough to get here!” someone called from behind him. Asher twisted in th
e seat to see Rudy Fattore coming out the front doors. The tension broke in him in an instant. He laughed. Hard.

  “I see you’ve already found the beach,” Asher said dryly as he stepped out of his car. Rudy wore a pink child’s flotation device with a swan’s head stretched tightly around his waist, wet swim trunks and flip-flops. He carried a glass of Scotch in one hand and a soggy cigar in the other.

  “First place I headed after I got here. But we’re out at the pool right now. This place is fucking amazing. I knew I lucked out, getting you in the roommate lottery. And guess what? Your mom got me a first-class ticket on the flight.” Rudy shoved the cigar in his mouth and grinned around it. “Imagine it, a Fattore in first class. Come on, Jimmy’s at the pool. We just broke open a bottle. Your cousin is kind of a dick, but he brought a box filled with unbelievable Scotch, not to mention these kick-ass Cubans.”

  Asher froze in the process of lifting his suitcase from the backseat.

  “My cousin?” He blanched and glanced over at the jaunty Aston Martin. “Eric?” he asked, referring to his twenty-three-year-old distant cousin. Eric had been a pain in his ass ever since they’d first been thrown together in the playpen at family functions.

  “Yeah,” Rudy said, frowning around his cigar. “Didn’t you know he was going to be here?”

  Ice shot through Asher’s veins, despite the sunny day and eighty-degree temperature. He couldn’t believe it. Of course. His parents’ gift hadn’t been completely innocent, had it? They just hadn’t been able to resist subjecting him to their version of a lesson. Eric the Perfect, their concept of an ideal Gaites-Granville male from the New York side of the family, had been sent to set an example for Asher.

  And knowing Eric, he knew exactly why his presence had been requested and was all too ready to gloat about it in front of Asher.

  “No,” he muttered, lifting his suitcase and unclenching his teeth. “I had no idea Eric was going to be here. If I had, I’d have stayed in California.”