Eliza had enough forethought to turn away from the truck and toward the untended, scrubby grass at the edge of the parking lot, where she threw up four beers, a turkey sandwich, two cups of coffee, and a lifetime of confusion and pain.
When she was done, when her humiliation was complete and her insides were empty, Russell, bless his gigantic and forgiving heart, put Eliza gently in the passenger seat of the truck and drove her in an indecipherable silence back to her father’s house.
23
BARTON, MASSACHUSETTS
Rob
“Go!” Judith said. “Just go, Robbie.” She was curled up on the sofa with Zoe on one side of her and Evie on the other. “The girls and I are fine, we’re going to have cocktails and watch a Dance Moms marathon.”
Rob said, “Cocktails?”
“Mom doesn’t let Evie watch Dance Moms,” said Zoe. “She says it’s too crass for a nine-year-old.”
“Zoe, I’m ten.”
Judith said, “Anyway, while the cat’s away…”
Rob repeated, “Cocktails?” and rubbed his temples.
“Virgin coladas,” clarified Evie. “Except Judith’s isn’t a virgin.”
“I bet it isn’t,” said Rob.
The argument with Eliza over the phone last night had left him with an unsettled sensation deep in his stomach. All day he’d known he should apologize, and all day he had failed to make the call. He was mad at Eliza, but at the same time he was sad for her. And the mad and the sad were all wrapped up together. The longer he waited, the harder it was to pick up the phone—even though he knew dwelling on a stupid argument, on a hastily flung offense, was an insult to Charlie’s illness.
Besides that, it had been another doozy of a day on the Cabot project. Anytime something went wrong with the Cabot project Rob worried about the thing he’d done with the money, the thing that he couldn’t undo.
Until this year, Judith had deposited in Rob and Eliza’s bank account a tidy sum that came from her stock dividends. The stock itself would pass to Rob eventually. The dividends alone represented a significant amount—enough to pay for a good percentage of their lifestyle. But then he turned forty. He had his own business, and his business was doing well; the mortgage on the house was small, due to a generous down payment (also funded, admittedly, by Judith). Glowing on the horizon like holiday lights on a tree was a tantalizing string of new work. The Cabot project was under way, and Mrs. Cabot, who was absolutely delighted with the brilliant plans from such an up-and-coming architect, had many friends who were interested in building second and third homes in the same area. She’d be sure to pass Rob’s name along to as many of them as he wanted. Added to all of that, he knew that Eliza had always been mildly sickened by the knowledge that so much of their life was underwritten by Judith. He wanted to prove to her that they didn’t need it. He wanted to make himself worthy of her. He wanted to cut the cord.
“We want to support ourselves,” Rob told Judith. “On my income alone.”
They were in the Avery Bar at the Ritz-Carlton at the time; Judith had tickets to Pippin at the Boston Opera House.
Judith put the empty glass down and raised her hand to signal the waiter for another and said, “Let me get this straight. You don’t want any more money from me.”
“Correct,” he said. “I want us to live on my salary alone.”
Judith said, “Salary!” and wiped her mouth with a cocktail napkin. To Judith salaries were like the maraschino cherry in a cocktail: a pretty garnish, and also tasty, but not the thing itself. “What does Eliza think of this plan?”
“She supports it,” said Rob. “One hundred percent.” He added, “She wanted to come today, to talk to you. But Evie had a birthday party to go to.”
In point of fact he hadn’t exactly told Eliza. He was certain that if he told Eliza she would indeed support it one hundred percent. He just didn’t want to tell her until it was official, until he’d nailed Cabot Lodge (literally and figuratively) and put at least one more project on the books. He wanted to surprise her.
“I think it’s ridiculous, Robbie, to do this. Money begets money, you know. With what your father left me when he decided to stay in Thailand with Malai—”
Left me was a bit of a euphemism for what Rob’s father had done with his money, but it seemed unwise to bring that up now. Judith had fought tooth, nail, and everything in between for what she deemed her fair share of the estate of Robert Barnes I. (“For pain and suffering,” she’d snarled into the constant phone calls with the attorneys.)
“It might seem ridiculous to you,” said Rob. “But I promise it makes sense to me. To us. To Eliza and me.”
“Just don’t come back and tell me you’ve changed your mind,” said Judith. “Because once you’ve made your decision, you’ve made your decision.”
Judith had a stubborn streak a mile wide and fourteen breadths long. When Rob’s father had taken up with Malai, Judith had said she never wanted to talk to him again, and she hadn’t, not one single syllable of one single word for more than three decades. By the time Rob was ten his father had as good as dropped off the face of the earth. Rob could have a dozen half-Thai half siblings running around the outskirts of Bangkok and he wouldn’t even know it.
Better that way, most agreed, although sometimes, like when the club started organizing the spring father-son golf tournament, Rob felt a pang of sadness so violent it almost sent him to his knees.
“I won’t change my mind,” he said.
“Good. Because I’m going to take the money I’ve been giving to you and I’m going to put it in an investment my financial adviser and I have been talking about for a while now.”
“So it will be—”
“Inaccessible,” Judith said. “Think of it as a long, long-term investment opportunity. I won’t be able to get the money back without considerable time and expense on my part. Which I will not be willing to undertake. Because you are certain.”
“Got it,” he said. “I’m certain.”
Now, with his sober daughters curled up next to his tipsy mother, he needed to get out for a while, to sit somewhere quiet—no daughters, no mothers, no Mrs. Cabot, no females at all—where he could think.
You don’t work with your hands. That was a cruel thing to say.
But Eliza was never cruel. Sure, she could be grumpy, especially when she didn’t get enough sleep or overindulged in fried food or had a hangover, but she wasn’t cruel.
And if she wasn’t cruel, then maybe she was just honest. Maybe, in fact, she was right.
He thought he’d stop in for a beer at Don Pepe’s, but when his fingers were on the door handle he saw through the glass a bunch of semi-familiar women at the bar, a lot of highlighted blond hair being tossed, and he lost his desire for a shot of tequila and a steak fajita.