She nodded. It seemed like this was the moment; if this night was an aberration, then this would break the spell. He’d become the same kind of father he’d been. There would be yelling, he’d be disgusted at her weakness in front of people like Zo?. She would be in trouble. If this was some temporary departure from their pattern, and not something wholly new, she would be in trouble.
“Did you do any? Tell me the truth.”
“No,” she said.
“Good girl. Believe me, Madison, it’s not glamorous. You should’ve seen some of the guys, back before I met your mom. It’s not a pretty story.”
“Did you used to do it?”
“Oh, Mad, that was all so long ago. It’s like different people. It’s like actors playing us, when you try to remember it.”
“So that’s a yes.”
Her father smiled, and rested his chin on his fist. He looked at her.
“What about now?” she said. “Did you do anything illegal?”
“No. You know me, princess. You asked me a direct question. Would I lie to that? To you? No, I have done nothing wrong. I swear. I wouldn’t lie to you.”
She stacked her pasta plate on top of his, even though he’d never served himself any food.
“Okay,” she said. “I trust you.”
She waited, and then decided to say it all.
“You won’t lie to me, right? As long as I ask you, from now on. You won’t lie. Because I told you about tonight. I could have gotten in trouble, right?”
Her father shook his head vigorously, but did not answer.
“I have some things to show you. You would be just the person to look it over with me, Madison. You know me better than anyone. And sometimes that’s the best approach, in a funny way. You need a fresh eye sometimes.”
“Oh,” she said. She could not think of anything better to say to such a statement.
“But that’s later,” he said. “Do you want a drink?” Madison waited for the punch line, and when none followed, she nodded again.
“Madison,” her father said. “I wouldn’t put you in danger. You come first. You, Mom, and the twins.”
“I know.”
He clinked her glass with the lip of the bottle.
“Our secret, yes? Not a word to Mom.”
THE MORNING OF THANKSGIVING, Isabel announced that they’d be taking a car into the city. She never mentioned that it was a limousine. When it arrived Madison said nothing, just stood in the driveway staring.
“I know,” Isabel said, something vague enough to leave it up to the listener to decide what she knew. “I just couldn’t resist, being able to sit and face you guys and chat for the drive in.”
“Where’s Dad?”
“He’s not coming.”
“Did you even ask him if he wants to?”
Her mother moved a step closer to her.
“Can we be on the same team? We just have to get through Thanksgiving dinner today, and then lunch with Nonna on Friday. I need your help, Madison.”
It was the first time her mother had said that, anything like it, since the night of the bathtub. I can do this, Madison thought. If her mother acknowledged it, the strangeness of the whole holiday weekend, and enlisted her aid, then she could do it.
“I want you to tell me what’s going on with the art.”
“Not in the car.”
She rolled her eyes at her mother, something she would never have been allowed to do even three months ago.
“No, obviously not. But later this weekend. I want you to tell me.”
“Deal,” Isabel said, and Madison got into the car.
By the time they were out of Greenwich, hurtling south on the Merritt, Isabel seemed to be relaxing. You could almost see it happening, one vertebra at a time. Her sunglasses perched atop her head and drew her hair back off her face, exposing the pink snail-shell coils of her ears. Her face appeared scrubbed of makeup in a way that meant she had spent an hour applying foundation, powder, under-eye creams, and forehead-tightening gels. She looked healthy, rested. She’d put this together carefully.
The boys asked for and received sodas from the minibar, a rare treat. Madison unpacked her stuffed purse. She had a date with Chip on Saturday, they were going to a movie. Her brothers had sodas, she had a few secrets. Everyone was happy.
When Chip had called her house, the previous afternoon, she’d found herself touching her own cheeks, the whole time, during the phone call. As if her skin were on loan from someone who had once worn it better, someone whom it had fit properly.
“So what’s our schedule,” she said to her mother, her eyes on the French conjugations she had to do. She’d always been able to read or work in the car, she and her father both. This was something she knew bothered her mother, for whom the words swam on the page as soon as the engine roared to life.
“No schedule,” Isabel said, her voice airy. Matteo sucked down his soda, pausing after each tiny sip to deliver a loud, lip-smacking sound of satisfaction. Madison knew he actually hated the carbonation; they weren’t used to it, growing up in a house where soda had always been an illicit, unknown quantity.
“Well, we must be going somewhere,” Madison said.
“Yes, Madison, of course. We’ve got dinner tonight at Coco Pazzo, boys, remember? We used to go with Gran?”
“We’re eating out?” Madison said sharply.
“Private room.”
“Sounds good,” Madison said, turning back to the French. She doodled in her margins and thought about the skin on Chip’s face, just beneath his ears, where it had been the softest. She’d pressed the pads of her thumbs to that place.
“And then, really, it’s whatever your little hearts desire,” Isabel continued. “We’ve got the room at the Pierre until Sunday.”
“I can’t stay until Sunday,” Madison said. Isabel was running her hand through Matteo’s hair, measuring it between her index and middle fingers as if they were scissors. She looked up, but only for a moment.
“Why?”
“I have a date with Chip Abbott.”
“Well,” Isabel said, “all right, I guess. We can have a car take you back by yourself. Lily said she’d be back by Saturday.”
“Really,” Madison said. The boys looked up, hearing something in her voice, and Luke began to chew on his straw, his foot periodically knocking against his brother’s. Her mother began rifling through her purse. She had said the Pierre; surely it had occurred to her that they’d be able to see the new apartment at the Plaza, probably, from the windows of their hotel room.
“Why are we staying at the Pierre?” Madison said, and it had its intended effect. Her mother’s smile skipped a beat, like a flaw on an old videotape.
“Why not?” her mother said.
“Which one is the Pierre?” Matteo asked.
They all sat in silence, and now her mother was looking at her, looking her square in the face. Madison didn’t know, really. Maybe it had been kindness, her mother’s decision not to be strict about the date with Chip. Maybe she wasn’t asking questions, or saying no, precisely because of that night in the bathtub. Maybe it was a reward; when Madison tried, she could see all of it this way, the nights in the kitchen with her father and the disinterest from her mother. As rewards.
Madison looked down at her French homework, because she knew the boys would get anxious if she and Isabel kept staring at each other.
“We haven’t stayed there,” she told her brother smoothly. “It’s near the apartment, a little bit farther south.”