“Where am I going?” I ask.
He shakes his head at my brand of throwaway sarcasm. It stings, and I regret it immediately, because I’m starting to feel very alone in this world, and I need Erik to stay close. My allies are dropping like flies: in great, skeevy numbers. There’s Paula, who blatantly used me. Liv has not been my true friend in a year, likely more. My nationally televised, police-damning interview ensures Kellan won’t be coming around anytime soon. Even Alice has been afraid to knock on the door, probably having overheard my primal screams in the backyard.
“I’ve found that when life-changing events happen, it becomes time to shed your skin. Like a snake—” Erik says.
A snake? Really? I search the woods for the cameras. My chest pangs for Kellan; I so want to tell him this. But then I’d also have to explain the black in my belly … never mind.
“—you let go of the old people around you who don’t make your life better. Maybe it’s time to make some new friends? Start fresh?” he finishes.
Word-for-word Mom, without a doubt. “I disagree one hundred percent. I think this is the perfect time to keep your friends close. Besides, Liv needs me now more than ever,” I tell Erik.
“Because of the Dateline interview?” he says logically.
But nothing Liv-and-me is logical. Why not be open with Erik? He dropped everything, sped to Shiverton after Mom’s panicked call, and now he’s stuck playing nursemaid to my crazy. Over the last seventeen or so years, he’s never complained about Mom’s wacky arrangement with me, or her romantic push and pull with him, besides. Suddenly I feel bad for him. Or maybe I feel bad for all guys who get used by women.
I ought to open up a little.
I sigh deeply. “Liv’s problems go back a lot further than that,” I say. “Like birth.”
“You mean Deborah Lapin? Gwen has told me … things,” Erik says carefully.
“It’s just the two of them, but not in a good way. I have to think if there was one more person in that household, a buffer, things would be easier for Liv.” My eyes flit to Erik, wondering if he thinks I’m talking about Mom, him, and me in code.
“We can’t begin to try to understand other peoples’ arrangements,” Erik says gravely.
Ouch.
“Though her dad is coming,” I say brightly, taking a different track. “For February vacation. There’s that.”
Erik unwinds his long legs. Like me, he likes a little legroom. “Where does he live now?”
“He and his family used to live in the Cayman Islands. Now they live in Provence, where all the lavender comes from, in France. He’s a—what’s the word?—ex-pat?”
“An expatriate. He works outside of the United States but was born here. You said, his family?”
“He has another whole separate family with little kids, two of them. They were all in Vogue last year. You couldn’t see the kids’ faces, just these black-and-white shots of their tiny toes and the backs of their heads. His wife is a lot younger than Deborah and has her own line of smelly luxury candles that her dad sends Liv once a year, along with other useless gifts that no kid wants, like Mont Blanc pens and personalized stationery. Deborah makes Liv display the candles. It’s like Deborah wants so much to be associated with the other Lapins, when you’d think she’d hate them.”
“Display the candles for when he visits, you mean?”
“Yeah, during February vacation, for one day total, while he’s in Boston doing business. Deborah is excited about it. Liv says it’s tragic, since he doesn’t even plan on seeing Deborah, only Liv.”
Erik frowns. “How long were they married?”
“He—his name is Leland, Liv actually calls him Leland—and Deborah were married for almost four years total. Liv barely knows him. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t hate him.”
“Do you know why she hates him?” he asks.
“Um, yeah! For one, Deborah said her father left because Liv was unlovable. That she drove him away.”
“Liv told you this?”
“I’ve heard Deborah say it to her. Plenty of times.”
“That’s a strange thing for a mother to say to a kid. Do you believe it’s true?”
“It’s a rotten thing for a mother to say to a kid. I mean, Liv was two and a half when he left! It’s not true, right? Couples don’t split because a kid is awful.”
Erik turns to face me. For a second, my heart stops, because I have no idea what he’s going to say. Please, God, if there is a God, please don’t pair the worst time in my life with what should be the greatest time in my life. Don’t mix up all the hate I’m feeling for Liv with love for Erik. No daddy confessions today.
“You know I’ve never married, so I don’t have a lot of experience along these lines. I can tell you that couples don’t fail because of some perceived personality flaw of the kid.”