Love Show

by Audrey Bell

  I squinted through the haze of headlights, found a cab, and gave the driver our address in Pacific Heights.

  My mother had kept the house in her last divorce. I had pretended not to care, but secretly I'd been happy. We usually ended up in hotels or apartments when her marriages ended.

  My mother would always say: “Hadley, darling, the memories in that place just haunt me.”

  But, really, when you lose five childhood bedrooms, memories start to sound like bullshit. I mean, don’t memories live in your head?

  We pulled up to the white-brick Georgian-style house and I yawned as the cabdriver helped carry our bags up the stairs.

  "You good?" the driver asked.

  "Yes. Thank you!" I smiled and paid him and turned to the door.

  “This is pretty,” David said.

  I fumbled for my keys and frowned when they didn’t work. "Well, that's weird.”

  "You sure it’s the right key?"

  "Yeah. Maybe she changed the locks." I shrugged and rang the doorbell. "She never stops losing her keys. Fair warning, I think she has a new boyfriend named Sol.”

  "That's what I like about Veronica. She really gets after it."

  "Oh, please," I said, rolling my eyes.

  I smiled broadly as the door swung open.

  A man in a maroon bathrobe, holding a newspaper, gave me a long, searching look.

  I raised my eyebrows. Solomon was not at all what I was expecting. He was about half-a-foot too short for my mother for a start, and too old. Way too old.

  “Well, hi there,” I said.

  “Can I help you?”

  So, the boyfriend hadn't been expecting us. Wonderful. Solid start. “Hi, I’m Hadley.” I held out my hand and stepped through the doorway.

  “What—excuse me? Are you selling something? I did not invite you in.”

  “I’m Veronica’s daughter,” I smiled winningly. I looked around the foyer. The entire place had been redecorated. A new maid stood by the stairs with her arms crossed.

  Solomon still looked totally confused. “I believe you’re sleeping with my mother,” I said delicately. I nodded at the maid. “Hi, you must be new, too. I’m Hadley. So, where is she?”

  The maid looked like she was going to faint. “Roy! Who are you sleeping with? What is she talking about, Roy?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” the man asked me, turning red.

  I flinched. Shit. I opened my mouth and closed it. “I—um. Okay. Does Veronica Mapplethorpe live here?” I squinted. I couldn’t remember if my mother had kept Seth’s last name. “Or Veronica—”

  “Veronica Mapplethorpe sold us this house,” Roy said. His voice shook with indignation and rage. “And I am most certainly not sleeping with her, young lady.”

  I took a step backwards, grabbing my bags, and herding David, who was grinning from ear to ear, out the door.

  “I am so, so, so, so sorry. I thought—you see—I mean.” I spluttered. “Nobody told me—there was a—”

  “We’re very sorry. This has been a huge misunderstanding. You have a lovely evening,” David said, gracefully pulling me out of harm’s way and closing the door.

  “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.”

  David burst out laughing.

  “Oh my god,” I said.

  “So. That was hilarious. Please tell me your mother actually lives in San Francisco and we aren’t homeless.”

  “I can’t believe she didn’t tell me that she moved,” I breathed.

  "Focus. What's your actual address?"

  "That was it!”

  "Okay. Maybe time to make a phone call."

  "Ugh," I said to him.

  “What is she talking about, Roy?” David mimicked.

  I reached for my phone and called my mother, heart pounding.

  “Hello?” she answered breathily.

  “Veronica. What. The. Hell.”

  “Oh, Hadley, darling, where are you?”

  “I am at what I thought was our house,” I said as calmly as possible. “Except for someone, not you, named Roy lives there now.”

  “Oh, darling, I’ve moved.”

  “Yes, clearly. You have moved. Where to is what I’d like to know. And where do you get off not telling me you sold the house?”

  “Oh, honey.”

  “And our cab is gone!” I exclaimed.

  “I’ll tell Solomon to pick you up.”

  "Are you fucking kidding?"

  “Oh, Hadley, please don’t swear.”

  “YOU SOLD OUR FUCKING HOUSE WITHOUT TELLING ME.”

  David giggled.

  “This is so not funny,” I said to him.

  “Well, I did send you a change of address card in the mail,” she took a shallow breath and exhaled. “The little pink cards?”

  “IN THE MAIL? Who does that? You can’t send me a text message or an email like a normal person? You couldn’t pick up the phone—”

  “Well, I think that’s sort of vulgar—”

  “You think it's vulgar to call me? Seriously?"

  "You never answer your phone."

  "That's not the point! Listen, tell Salmon—”

  “Solomon.”

  “Whoever the fuck. Tell him to get here pronto. I mean it,” I said. “This is so screwed up.” I firmly hit the end call button on my phone and huffed.

  David started laughing again. I gave him a severe look.

  “Your face, Hadley. My god. His face. Her face,” he shook his head. “Amazing!”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I growled at him.

  The house we were standing outside of, the one I’d lived in when I graduated from high school, was on top of one of San Francisco’s many hills. You could almost always make out the red Golden Gate Bridge through the billowing fog from my bedroom window. I had loved that window.

  I kicked my suitcase onto its side and sat down on top of it.

  David didn’t speak for a moment. “Sorry,” he finally said. “I guess it's not that funny. You grew up there."

  “Whatever.” I yawned. “I’m just annoyed she didn’t tell me the new address.”

  “That’s what you’re annoyed about?” he shook his head. “Man.”

  “I mean, who doesn’t tell their daughter that they moved?”

  He laughed softly. His parents probably wouldn’t tell him if they moved, but that would be a conscious, purposeful decision. My mother had forgotten to tell me. Most of the time, quite honestly, it felt like she had forgotten she had a daughter at all.

  A black Range Rover pulled up. David raised his eyebrows at me when the window rolled down.

  “You Hadley?”

  “Yeah,” I said grouchily. Solomon looked pleasant enough. Older than my mother, just starting to lose his hair, a friendly smile.

  He got out of the car to help with our bags. He wasn’t wearing a power suit, just sneakers and jeans and a sweater.

  He offered me a hand. “I’m Sol.”

  I took his hand and shook. “Hadley.”

  “And this is…”

  “I’m David McPhee,” David said with a friendly smile.

  “Nice to meet you.”

  Once we’d gotten our bags loaded up, Sol tried to make conversation: “So, Hadley, your mom tells me you want to be a journalist?”

  “Yep,” I said.

  He nodded. “Very cool.”

  “So, how do you know my mother?” I asked casually. This was a fun question to ask her boyfriends. It always made them squirm.

  “Well, we, um, you know…” his voice trailed off and I smirked. “It’s been a month since we got married, I guess,” he finally said.

  I whipped my head around to look at his reflection in the rearview mirror. “You got what?”

  “Married.”

  “Holy shit,” I muttered. My mother did a lot of crazy shit, but this was a whole new level. I was embarrassed to have David witnessing it.

  “She—she didn’t tell you?” Sol stammered.

&n
bsp; “Don’t worry about it,” I said brightly. “I’m sure the next time that I come home, you’ll be divorced.”

  “Hadley,” David said, shocked.

  “I can’t believe she didn’t tell you!”

  “I can,” I said calmly. “So, where did you say we were going?”

  “Belvedere.”

  “Where?” I demanded in outrage. Belvedere was not in San Francisco. We had always lived in San Francisco.

  “Belvedere,” he repeated. “It’s just outside the city.”

  “Oh my god,” I said. That was a bigger revelation than the marriage or the house. Sometimes it felt like we’d lived in countless different places, but we’d only ever had one city.

  Belvedere.

  Unbelievable.

  I inhaled thinly and massaged my temples. This was a total disaster.

  Sol’s house was gorgeous, set about an acre back, with waterfront views. My mother wore a lavender shift dress and beige Chanel flats. She kissed me on each cheek.

  “Darling, it’s so wonderful to see you. And David, love, I’m so happy you’re here to visit. Let me give you both a tour.”

  “I’ll put their bags in the guest room,” Sol offered.

  “Oh, thank you, dear,” she said.

  When he disappeared, I turned on her. “So, you’re married. And you’ve moved.”

  “Yes,” she said calmly.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

  “Hadley, you just always get so upset when I tell you I’ve met someone or that I’ve decided to move.”

  “Well, it’s way more upsetting that you didn’t tell me at all. I literally found out from a stranger named Roy.”

  She sighed. “I’m sure your guest doesn’t want to hear this.”

  I looked at David. My mother was right. He didn’t want to hear this. He’d had enough stressful Christmases. I gritted my teeth. “Well, how was the wedding?” I asked civilly.

  “We hardly had a wedding,” my mother sniffed. “We just went to town hall.”

  She showed us the big kitchen with its wraparound porch overlooking the infinity pool and Sol’s dock slip down on the bay. The house was beautiful, big, modern, and immaculate.

  “I can show you upstairs, too,” my mother said, when we reached the staircase.

  “That’s okay,” I said quickly. “We’re tired. I’m tired. I just want to take a shower.”

  She brought us up to the guest rooms, which were identically beige with sea foam accents.

  “Sorry,” I muttered to David once she’d left us to unpack. “I didn’t mean to go all teenaged drama queen on you.”

  He laughed. “I kind of liked it. So, is this her fifth husband?”

  “Sixth,” I shook my head. “Honestly, why bother? How can you think, after five failed marriages, that it’s worth getting married for a sixth time?”

  He smiled and shrugged. “Maybe she loves him.”

  “Right,” I said.

  “Well, she loves you,” he said, a little bit sadly.

  I exhaled and closed my eyes. “Yeah, I know. I know. You’re right. I’m being a bitch. I’m over it. Totally over it. We’ll have fun. In Belvedere with my crazy family.”

  Chapter Six

  It ended up being the nicest break from school I’d ever had. Sol and my mother were still in some kind of honeymoon phase, so I took David all over—to the Castro, Golden Gate Park, Stinson Beach, the Ferry Building, and the old Marine bases.

  “I love it here,” David said when we were walking across the bridge, bundled in warm coats. “Seriously, I do,” he said fervently. “It’s so beautiful. And the people seem so happy.”

  Later that day, we went to Greens for overpriced organic food and priceless views. The water came right up to the window and David sipped lemonade and told me about South Dakota.

  “It's cold,” he told me. “And small. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. There’s all this wide-open space, but everyone knew everyone. And it was so conservative. And you know me...I’ve always had the voice and the limp wrists. I never seemed straight.” His voice wavered for a moment. He seemed raw, like he was actively experiencing what it was like to be there. “I just sometimes felt like I would be crushed by it. I couldn’t hide it. Being gay. Being me. I couldn't hide it."

  He hardly ever talked about this. It hurt to hear.

  “I tried though. God, I tried.” He sighed. “I think what bothers me most about it, though, is that it made me ashamed of who I was. And I’m not ashamed of who I am. And I’m never going to let anybody do that to me again.”

  I met his shining, blue eyes and saw the resolution there. I believed him.

  Chapter Seven

  On Christmas Eve, my mother insisted we have brunch. Alone. Without David.

  My mother wore Prada. I wore ripped jeans and a Free Lil Wayne t-shirt I’d gotten at a college journalism conference in Ohio. She was horrified.

  “With all of the beautiful clothing you have, I can't believe you would choose that shirt—”

  “Do you want me to take it off?” I asked. “Because if that would make you more comfortable, I can.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Hadley.”

  She ordered a salad with dressing on the side. I ordered a burger and curly fries. She grimaced.

  “So, tell me about school.”

  “It’s great,” I said.

  “I’m very proud of you,” she said. “And I’m very proud of your writing.”

  I fought the urge to say something snarky. “Thanks,” I said.

  “You know, I have an old friend at Vogue. I feel like that might be just the place for you.”

  I stared at her incredulously. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Well, they have really good articles in Vogue."

  “That may be true, but that is not just the place for me. No matter how good the articles are. I’m clueless when it comes to fashion.”

  “You’re not clueless. You just choose to dress like…” she paused, thinking for an inoffensive word.

  “A slob?” I suggested.

  “A tomboy.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “Well, you should think about it. I'll email her."

  "Don't email her."

  "Don't tell me what to do, Hadley. If I want to email my friend, I will.”

  "Okay, but I don't want to work at Vogue. I want to be a reporter anyways, not a long-form journalist."

  She wasn't listening. She was watching a petite brunette woman out of the corner of her eyes. "Betty Sachs had so much plastic surgery I don't even recognize her anymore."

  I followed her gaze. "That’s so interesting, Mom."

  She looked back at me. "What were we talking about?" She nodded. "Shopping after lunch. You need new boots."

  "I like these ones," I said defensively. "I could use a book though."

  "You know, Solomon and I met at a bookstore."

  That surprised me. "Which one?"

  "Barnes and Noble. I thought he worked there. He kept trying to tell me which books I should read. Anyways, he recommended so many, he insisted on paying for them." She looked at me dreamily. “He’s not like any of the other men I’ve been married to.”

  I’d heard that before. I’d probably hear it again. “That’s nice,” I said, instead of: that’s delusional.

  "He's really the one," she said emphatically. “Are you dating anyone? I had a crush on a new boy every week when I was in college.”

  “That’s more David’s style.”

  She laughed. “No one, really? You’re such a pretty girl.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t have time for a boyfriend.”

  “You’re only going to be busier after you graduate.”

  “Right. Well, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” I said.

  “Let me give you some advice.”

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

  “You’re young. You can be a little reckless,” she smiled. “You won�
��t be able to be reckless when you’ve got a job and a family. Have some fun—the beginning of a new relationship is the most fun. And you’re in college. Nothing is that complicated.”

  I thought about the boy in the parking lot. It hadn’t been fun. That wasn’t the right word. It had been terrifying, but in a good way. It had made my heart drop. Not fun, but something else almost like fun—something you felt more deeply that fun. Something that made you go weak.

  Chapter Eight

  We flew back to Evanston three days before the semester started. David had a bag full of new cooking utensils from Williams Sonoma that my mother had given him for Christmas and I had three new pairs of shoes that wouldn’t survive three minutes at a college party.

  We hauled our bags back to our room after midnight—the flight had been delayed and then they didn’t have a gate for us, and my back was in knots. I collapsed into bed, taking off my shoes as I turned off the light.

  My phone woke me up before 7 AM.

  Justin’s name flashed on the screen.

  “Hey, Justin,” I said. “Um, is everything okay?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “What’s up? How was your Christmas?” I sat up and flipped on my bedside lamp.

  His voice shook slightly when he responded: “Okay. Um. I just got back.”

  “Yeah? Where’d you go?”

  “London?” he sounded unsure of even that.

  I sat up in bed, “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah, I-I just... I got back last night. There are all of these texts from people about the article. And some of them are threatening and there’s stuff on that campus gossip blog and my roommate’s not even talking to me and—”

  “Justin, slow down,” I said. “What’s going on?”

  “That article,” he said. “About hospitalizations from drinking. People are pissed off.”

  “Shit,” I muttered. I had never heard back from the fraternity president after I offered to print a letter. I got out of bed and started pulling on clothes.

  “I’m kind of freaking out.”

  “Well, don’t do that. I’m coming over. We’ll figure out what to do, okay?”

  “Alright,” he said shakily.

  I glanced out the window at the bleak morning. It looked cold. It was always cold in Evanston in January. I shouldered into a parka and ran out the door.