“Well I fucking hope not.”
This time Elaine ignored the profanity. She walked away from her newspaper, from the shallow entertainment of envying other people’s parties, and put her arms around her daughter.
“That’s not what I mean. Your father, he’s not a … modern man. And Eric Williamson is one of his closest friends. You know this, right?”
“And?”
“And so I don’t think you’re going to get the response you’re looking for.”
In hindsight, Ariel is amazed at how na?ve she’d been. Now that she herself is a parent, she tries to remind herself: Kids can begin to look mature, and act mature, years before they know a damn thing about how the grown-up world works.
Her dad’s study was filled with books and journals and big sheafs of serious-looking reports, which she’d once thought signified that he was a scholar, some sort of intellectual. Eventually she realized that it was all just about making money.
He put down his heavy glass carefully in the middle of the coaster. He took his whiskey on the rocks, one big ice cube. He had a special tray to make these big square cubes.
“I’m very sorry to hear this,” he finally said, continuing to stare down into his amber liquid, away from his daughter. She wondered if this was his first drink or second, before lunch on a summer Sunday. “What is it you want to do?”
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“I guess you could confront the boy.”
The import of this phrasing hit her like a freight train. Not just the dubiousness of I guess, but more important the second-person singular: you. Not we.
“But what would that accomplish?” he asked. “In the end?”
Ariel realized that no matter how long they discussed this—five minutes, ten, two hours—the conclusion was foregone.
“Do you believe me, Daddy?”
“Of course I believe you, Darling. But I’m your father. Other people?” He pushed his lips together, shook his head. “Try to imagine how—exactly how—this would play out, conversation by conversation.”
Ariel could barely listen to it, his litany of reasons, his excuses, his relationship with Don’s dad, the town, the cousins, the gossip …
Now she fully understood her mom’s warning. Elaine knew her husband, and accepted the whole of him, even the worst parts, even the parts she must have loathed. Much later, this turned out to be exactly what Ariel refused to do, exactly the type of wife she refused to be. Eventually.
“Of course it’s entirely up to you, Darling, and I’ll support whatever decision you make. But my advice?”
He set his empty glass down on the coaster—theirs was a coaster-laden household, matching sets in every room, even bedrooms—and finally looked her in the eye.
“Forget that the whole thing ever happened.”
Nobody wants to acknowledge that their dad is an asshole. So despite compelling evidence for years, Ariel had refused, until she had no choice, until it was undeniable, until this moment. She was sixteen years old.
“Just move on.”
*
The third time: She was a struggling actor, trying to make it in New York, auditions and workshops and waitressing and babysitting, hand-to-mouth month-to-month. She’d been doing this for six years; she was running out of time.
It was during business hours, in a business office in TriBeCa, and she was there for a business meeting. There was no alcohol, no drugs. No history, no prior relationship, no particular reason. She’d done everything right, but still he was saying, “You understand”—unbuckling his belt—“that I can make a lot of things happen for you.”
That’s when she realized that there was no such thing as doing everything right. That was also the moment she gave up on her acting career. She’d wanted it for such a long time, but she didn’t want it this bad; she was not willing to do whatever it took, not if this was what it took. She got the hell out of that room, got the hell out of that life.
She’d wanted to be an actor because she’d thought it would be about art, and creativity. But in her experience it was about only beauty, except when it was about sex.
“What are you going to do now?” her roommate asked.
Ariel didn’t want a career that revolved around beauty and sex. Surely there were other options?
“I don’t know,” she said. “I guess I’ll get a real job.”
*
She’d learned that she wouldn’t be believed, not even by her own parents. She’d learned that she should never be drunk, not even with her close friends. She’d learned that she should never again believe that any boy—any man—was completely trustworthy. She’d learned that there was nothing she could do, no lifetime of lessons she could learn: It was going to happen any goddamned way.
And it did.
*
“What do you think?” António Moniz removes a few bills from his wallet. It’s his turn to pay for dinner.
Santos takes her final sip of espresso, returns the cup carefully to its little saucer. “I think that the husband is involved in something, and the wife knows nothing about it.”
Of course, Moniz thinks. This is Santos’s Achilles’ heel: quick to believe a woman, quick to blame a man. And she’s often right: Men are more frequently criminals than women are. Far more frequently. But every case is a fresh roll of the dice, and with each roll the probability exists that maybe this time it is the woman who is lying, scheming, a criminal. Or maybe just a hysterical wife.
“Another woman?” Moniz asks.
“I doubt it. First thing in the morning is not any time to sneak away for a tryst, is it?”
“Please.” Moniz smiles. “What would I know about that?”
“No,” Santos says, ignoring him. “I think Senhora Pryce is correct: Her husband got into a car. But I do not yet have a specific theory of why. And you, António? What do you think?”
Moniz hesitates before answering. Just because many truthful women have been disbelieved in the past does not mean that this specific woman, now, is telling the truth. But Moniz knows from experience that this is not something Santos is willing to hear.
“Was it maybe too early that she came to us this morning? Her husband was missing for only two or three hours, and already she is running to the police, in a foreign city, where she does not speak the language?”
“Oh, it seems perfectly rational. If those two or three hours were at the end of the day, then, okay, there are many explanations that are relatively harmless. Maybe he is in a bar, or maybe he is buying drugs, or maybe he has found another woman, or maybe he is lost, or maybe his phone died, or maybe he is in a car accident. And maybe none of these is great news, but also not a reason to be terrified. But for him to disappear first thing in the morning?” Santos shakes her head. “If I were this woman, I too would be worried.”
“Okay, but would you be so worried that you would come to the police? And to the embassy? Was that not perhaps too panicked? Too soon?”