Miranda did stop. She became very serious. In a firm voice she said, "Look, whatever Kit did to me, or to you, it's crazy the way we never mention him. I've been worse than you, I know. But I was wrong, okay? We should be able to speak honestly about Kit."
"Honestly? About Kit? Really? Okay. For starters, Kit did not grow up in Maine," Leanne said. "Okay? Got it? He's never even been to Maine. And he didn't have any brothers or sisters. Not a one. He was an only child, okay? And his father? Left when he was two, never showed his face again. The mother? The mother was a drunk who barely knew he existed . . ."
Miranda sat down heavily at the kitchen table. "Gosh. Really?"
"It's a performance, Miranda. Kit pretends," Leanne said. "That's what he does."
Leanne was on a tear now--how Kit had usurped her Waspy name "because he's a snob, do you get that? Because it made him sound East Coast Waspy"; his pretensions in dress and speech; his irresponsible spending on clothes and cars and boats they could not afford in order to impress his friends; the grandiosity; the selfishness, the lying--always, first, last, and in between, the lying. "You found him boyish. I get that. But there's another side to boyish when the boy lives off credit cards he can't pay, when the boy is thirty-five years old and has never had a job . . ."
"He's thirty-five? He said he was thirty."
"Too old for you?" Leanne gave Miranda a sharp look, then her face softened into affection. "Poor Miranda."
Maybe it was the gentleness of Leanne's voice, maybe it was simply the last straw, the final example of her own inability to see what was in front of her, but the tears, the bankruptcy tears, the Kit tears, the self-pity, stupidity, whirling queasy exhaustion tears were coming; she could feel them welling up, weeks', months', worth of tears. "Not very good at telling fact from fiction, am I? No wonder I went bankrupt. I'm such an ass. Such a fool . . . How pathetic . . ."
Oh, she was feeling sorry for herself now. The shrill insistence of her voice--that always came first. That was the warm-up. Soon the games would begin in earnest, she thought, the Olympic tantrums, the dramatic flinging of arms, the cries of despair. Leanne had never seen her in full sail.
Leanne stood up, moved toward Miranda. "You like a happy ending, Miranda. Nothing wrong with that."
"Except they're not real," Miranda said, her voice rising, tangled in the words. "There are no happy endings."
Leanne stood beside her now. From her chair, Miranda pressed her face against Leanne's waist and began to sob. Leanne held her close and stroked her head until the storm subsided.
Embarrassed at her outburst, Miranda tried to laugh. "Drama is draining," she said.
Leanne sat back down, tilted her head, like Henry.
Miranda reached out and poked her cheek. "You're real, right?"
With a little grimace, Leanne said, "I'm not very good at pretending, if that's what you mean."
There was a heavy, tense moment of silence between them.
Leanne reached across the table and took Miranda's hand. "Not for very long, anyway."
As Leanne's fingers closed over Miranda's, there came a jarring sound, a little shout from the doorway, a sudden shrill "No!"
Miranda jumped. Leanne pulled her hand back. They both turned to the door.
Henry stood there staring at them.
"We were just . . ." they both began, then stopped. They were just what?
"No!" Henry said again. "Betty says No, she does not want a cracker." He turned and ran back to the living room calling, "I told them! I told them!"
Miranda noticed the top of the almond butter jar on the table. She automatically began to screw it back on.