Chapter Nineteen
Harley
As September rolls into October, the colors flood the trees in Manhattan and the change in the calendar erases the heat, replacing it with sheets of chilly fall air. Then we slide into November, and my jeans don’t fit well anymore. I move up a size, hoping to stave off maternity clothes because those belly panels aren’t ugly beautiful. They’re just plain ugly.
Over the last few months, I’ve aced my English classes, helped Kristen find a new roommate—hint, it was easy, her boyfriend Jordan is moving in—and managed to attend several SLAA meetings each week, sharing victories and challenges each time.
Victories—not looking at that wretched book’s Amazon page again. Not caring about it. Donating to Goodwill the dress I wore to the gala with Mr. Stewart. Falling deeper in love with Trey Westin. I even meet his parents, and I’m surprised by how pleasant they are. They ask me all sorts of questions about school, and what I’m studying. I don’t think we ever discuss anything beyond school, but they smile and they’re cordial, and all things being equal, I don’t want to hurl my shoes at them like I would if I brought Trey to meet my mom.
Then there are the other things that happen.
Like learning that my grandmother’s favorite books are the Harry Potter series, that she loves big epic swoony movies that make her cry, that she was born and raised in San Diego, and that’s where my mom met my dad. But she doesn’t talk about him much, which is fine with me. Because he never tried to find me and she did try, so I don’t want to know him, I want to know her. She asks me if I’m eating healthy for the baby, and I say I am, and then she whispers in a hushed tone that if I want to feel the baby kicking I should drink a Coke. “The doctors won’t tell you this because they act like Coke is the worst thing in the world, but my oh my, does that get a little bugger jamming around in your belly.”
I laughed when she said that. “I haven’t felt the baby kick yet.”
“Soon, soon. And it’s like your whole world tilts on its axis. And time splits—everything that happened before the first kick and everything after.”
She’s had two babies—my dad, of course, and a daughter, who lives an hour away from her.
I never knew my dad had a sister.
Debbie and I talk several times a week, and we email, and we text, too. Which is the oddest thing. She’s sixty-two, and I know that’s not old, and I know that’s not unusual, but it’s odd for me to find pictures on my phone late at night of the sunset over the ocean, or of their dog chasing tennis balls, or just of the sandwich she made for dinner with the caption yum.
I know, too, that she likes to name her sandwiches after stories and animals—The Raccoon’s Tale, The Aardvark’s Fable, The Fox’s Yarn—and that we’re going to see them in two weeks.
Yes, we as in Trey and me. I’m leaving New York for the first time in years, after Trey finishes his last college class ever. But before I see them, I am seeing the person who kept me from them because I want to know why.
* * *
Trey
Harley shivers. The wind is fierce today, and late November is punishing us with frigid temperatures that are like ice lashing our skin. She wears a thick coat, and has a scarf wrapped around her neck, some kind of purple fluffy thing that Joanne knit for her.
Her so-called one-year scarf, since that’s how long we’ve been in recovery. That’s also how long we’ve known each other.
“Can you believe I met you a year ago, and you’re finally introducing me to your mom?” I say, teasing her as I hold open the door to the sushi restaurant where we’re meeting the witch.
She rolls her eyes as we walk inside. “I know. It’s only because I’m so embarrassed of you, Trey. That’s the reason.”
The hostess takes our coats, and then Harley turns to me. “Thank you for coming with me to do this.”
“You know I’m by your side,” I say, reaching for her hand. I can tell she’s nervous. I wonder if her crazy mom is nervous. But I have a feeling that woman doesn’t know nerves. She lives her life with blinders, oblivious to anyone but her.
The restaurant is noisy and black—black tile, black tables, black uniforms on the waiters. We follow the hostess to a table near the sushi bar, where several chefs in white jackets wield huge steely knives that slice fish so quickly the silver is like a blur. Then I feel Harley’s grip tighten and I know she has her mom in her crosshairs now. We’ve reached her table and I lay eyes for the first time on the woman who nearly destroyed the love of my life.
Her mom is polished, with jet-black hair and that salon look that women her age sometimes have. She has strong features—high cheekbones, bright eyes. But she’s ugly to me, and it has nothing to do with the way she’s shellacked so much foundation under her eyes to hide that she’s clearly not sleeping well.
Good. The bitch deserves to never sleep.
“Harley, my love,” she says, and pulls her daughter into an embrace. It kills me inside watching Harley hug her back, but I know she’s only doing it not to make a scene. I can sense the distance between them.
Then her mother offers a hand to shake. So professional. So poised. And it takes all my resistance to swallow the words, the profanity-laced diatribe that I’m dying to spit out at her—How could you, you scumbag bitch who deserves to be dunked into a tank of piranhas? Instead, I take her hand, and it’s soft and smooth. She probably rubbed lotion on it earlier. For some reason, that makes me mad because the right to wear lotion, and use a fork, and walk upright should be taken away from someone like her.
“What a pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you,” she says.
Harley narrows her eyes. “You haven’t heard anything about Trey. Why would you say that?”
“Why, I could have sworn you’d told me so much about him.” Her mom sits, and gestures for us to do the same. Her eyes roam over Harley, but she’s not showing much, and the sweater she wears hides her bump pretty well.
“No,” Harley says. “We don’t really talk much, in case you haven’t noticed.”
I try to suppress a smirk, because I’m so damn proud that she’s holding her own against her mom, that she’s not being sucked back into the vortex.
“And that’s such a shame, and I hope we can rectify that, starting tonight,” her mom says, punctuating her pathetic attempt at an olive branch by snapping open her white linen napkin and spreading it across her lap. She clasps her hands together, and looks from Harley to me. “So, tell me everything about the two of you. How did you meet? How long has it been?”
Amazing how she can go from acting as if she knew everything to freely admitting she knows nothing.
Harley glances at me, and raises an eyebrow playfully. I squeeze her leg under the table. I bet she’s thinking of the night we met, when she walked into my tattoo shop, and straight into my heart. If she’d gone to any other shop in the city she might not be mine. But then, I bet fate always had her picked for me, and me for her.
But before Harley can answer, her mom goes first. “Wait. No. Don’t tell me he’s a . . .” She lets her voice trail off, but I can still smell the lingering salaciousness of her tone, and I clench my fists so I don’t deck her right now.
“No, Barb,” Harley says sharply. “He’s not a client.”
“Whew. Thank god.”
I want to f*cking smack this woman.
“We actually met at church,” I say, piping in. It’s close enough to the truth, since the SLAA meetings are held at a church, but mostly I just want to get a reaction from her.
Harley squeezes my leg back, and I know she likes my answer.
“Church?” Her mother arches an eyebrow.
I nod several times. “Yeah. We have a lot in common in that regard, it turns out. We pray to the same god.”
“How interesting,” she says, and I wonder how long Barb can keep up this facade of interest. “I had no idea you’d become religious.”
“You can worship in all sorts of ways at some churches,” Harley says with a smirk, because the joke is on her mom. “He’s also a tattoo artist, and he inked my shoulder for me.”
“Oh? You have a tattoo now?” Her voice rises.
“I do.”
“What’s it of?”
“It used to be a red ribbon. Now it’s a heart and arrow.”
“How sweet,” her mother says, and I can tell she’s trying to rein in her surprise, to keep her reactions on the level because she wants to win back her daughter’s affection. I half want to tell her that’s a pyrrhic pursuit, but it’s far too much fun to play cat and mouse with her.
After we peruse the menus, the waitress arrives.
“Do you want your usual rainbow roll, darling?” her mother asks pointedly, like she’s trying to prove she knows all of Harley’s tastes. But she’s not eating raw fish these days.
“Just a veggie roll and some udon noodles,” Harley says.
“You always order a rainbow roll.”
“I don’t feel like it tonight.”
After we order, her mother holds up a water glass in a toast. “To my lovely and beautiful daughter. I am simply thrilled to see you again. And to her handsome new beau.”
Harley clinks glasses and I do the same, following her lead.
After a few more minutes of small talk, a serving of edamame, and a glass of wine for Barb, Harley gets down to business.
“There’s something I’m curious about, Mom.”
“What is it, dear?”
Harley reaches into her purse and takes out some of the birthday greetings. Barb’s eyes widen ever so briefly as she sees the evidence of her deceit laid out like a deck of cards before her. She sets her wine glass down, and it wobbles once. She quickly steadies it, and there’s a moment—so fast, it’s truly the blink of an eye—where her mother appears like a dog caught with his head in the cat food bin. But then she recovers, and I realize I am witnessing a master at work. A master f*cking liar, and it chills my blood.
“I found these at your house. Nan and Pop sent them to me every year on my birthday, and every year you kept them from me. Why would you do that?”
Her mother takes a breath, purses her lips together, and then speaks. “I’m sorry. Did you say you found these?” She sketches air quotes.
“Yes.”
“Found them where?” Her mom stares at her, like she’s caught Harley in a trap. But my girl is undeterred.
“You know where I found them,” Harley says crisply. “Where you hid them from me. In your bathroom cabinet.”
“So, you were actually snooping?”
Harley blows out a long stream of air. She stares at her mother, eyes wide open, and nods. “Yes. I was snooping. Because I saw the first card the day after my birthday, and I went back looking for more, and guess what? Where there’s smoke, there’s a lot of fire. Because I discovered you did this, year after year. Why? Why would you do that?”
“I think the more germane question is why would you go looking through my things?”
“Mom, don’t act like you have the moral high ground, because you don’t. I was looking through your things because you took something from me. You took my grandparents away from me. How could you do that?” Her voice threatens to break, but she stays strong. I don’t want her to give her scumbag mother the satisfaction of seeing a single f*cking tear.
I stare at her mom, and I can see the cogs turning in her conniving brain. She doesn’t want to lose Harley. She rearranges her features, pushes her bottom lip out, and speaks in a low whisper. “Sweetheart, I planned to give you the cards. I had marked twenty-one on the envelope, because I planned to give them to you when you turned twenty-one. And you’re not twenty-one yet. Ergo,” she says, holding her hand out wide, as if this simple numerical justification will make Harley say, Oh sure, of course, that makes perfect sense.
“But why did I have to be twenty-one to read a frigging birthday card from my grandparents? It’s not like there was anything inappropriate in there. They were full of stories about animals and the beach. There was no reason for you to keep them from me.”
Her mom reaches across the black lacquered table, tries to clasp Harley’s hand. Harley recoils, and I want to pump my fist.
“There are things you don’t know,” her mom says, in that same calm, steady voice.
“Things that would make what you did okay?”
“Harley.” Her lowers her voice to a whisper, and I wonder if she’s forcing herself to speak so quietly because otherwise she’d explode. If there’s one thing her mom would hate, it would be a public scene. “Things about your father. About why he left me.”
“Like what?”
Her mom casts her eyes at me. “Can we talk about this privately?”
“Mom. I’m going to tell him anyway. I don’t keep secrets from Trey. You might as well say it.”
She clasps her hands more tightly, and then starts fidgeting with her watch band. “You might think I just cut you off from them. But your father was the one who cut us off. I was protecting you from him and his family. He cheated on me countless times. Over and over. He was a sex addict. That’s why I left him, and when I left I didn’t want you to have anything to do with him or his family. And he didn’t want to have anything to do with us, since he never stayed in touch, okay?” She stops to take a drink of her wine. “Now you know the truth about your father. He was a serial cheater, and an addict. His parents and I tried to help him, to get him to go to therapy, and I fought like hell to make things work. That’s why you spent the summer with them when you were six; because your father and I were trying to fix things. But it didn’t work, and I didn’t want you to have anything to do with him or them. Are you happy, now that you know? Harley, some things don’t need to be dragged into the light. Some things are better left unsaid. But there, you made me say it.”
Harley doesn’t say anything at first. I watch her closely, and she swallows hard. “I’m pregnant.”
Her mother cringes. Visibly cringes. Like, her whole face spasms. “What?”
“That’s why I’m not eating the rainbow roll.” Harley pulls on her sweater, stretching the fabric across her belly, showing the swell.
“Oh my lord in heaven,” her mother says, flinging a hand over her face. “Please say that’s a lie. Please say that’s not true.”
I pipe in. “It’s true.”
She uncovers her eyes. “Are you the father to my little girl’s baby? Or was it one of your clients? Please tell me it wasn’t my Phil,” she says, her lips quavering.
“Are you f*cking kidding me?” Harley says to her mom, raising her voice and snapping, just f*cking snapping. “Seriously? You should be ashamed of yourself, for not being able to do math correctly. I’m four and a half months pregnant. Besides, I never slept with Phil or anyone else. Trey is the only man I’ve ever been with and will ever be with. I’m not like you. And I’m not like my father. I don’t sleep around, so don’t try to go there with me. But let me tell you something. This baby will know things I never knew. Like love. Like trust. Like having good parents. Because I have one great wish for my baby, and it’s that I never ever raise my child the way you raised me. I hope I never see you again.”
Then she tips her forehead to the front of the restaurant and walks away, leaving me alone at the table with her mother. It’s then that the waitress comes over, placing a sushi platter in front of Barb, and a yellowtail roll for me.
“I’ll be right back with the udon noodles,” she says, then flashes a smile as she returns to the clatter and the noise of the kitchen. In the background, I hear snippets of conversations and the faint notes from a pop song playing softly overhead.
I’ve often dreamed of telling Harley’s mom exactly what I think of her. Of giving her a mug that says Worst Mother in the World. Of calling her unfit, and spitting on her. But now that I’m here, none of those seem satisfying. Harley’s mom is irredeemable, and I’m not going to stoop to her level. Instead, I think of what Michele would tell me to do. Speak your truth.
Because words are all we have, and her mother might be unmoved by them, but this isn’t about her. This is about her daughter. The woman I love with every ounce of my heart and mind and soul.
“I’m no angel, Mrs. Coleman. I’ve done plenty of bad things in my life. But I know this much. That’s not how you treat people you love. That’s not how you treat anyone. You’re lucky—and by lucky, I mean it’s absolute luck and chance, and it has nothing to do with you—that your daughter is not on the streets, or worse. Everything she has made herself into is because of her, because of her heart, because of all the places in her that you could never ever touch,” I say, pointing a finger at her. She is implacable as she sits steely-eyed, arms crossed, staring harshly at me. “She is who she is not because of you, but in spite of you. I know this, too—she’s going to make an amazing mother to our child, and it has everything to do with her, and absolutely nothing to do with you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to take her home.”
Then I reach into my wallet, leave some bills on the table, and walk away, leaving her mother exactly where she belongs.
Alone.