Everything I Never Told You(59)

“There we go,” James said, the catch springing open at last. He refastened it at her nape, and the metal cut a line of cold, like a ring of ice, around her throat. “What do you think? Do you like it?” Lydia understood: this was meant to remind her of all he wanted for her. Like a string tied around her finger, only this lay around her neck.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered, and James mistook her hoarseness for deep gratitude.

“Promise me,” he said, “that you’ll get along with everyone. You can never have too many friends.” And Lydia closed her eyes and nodded.

The next day, in honor of her birthday, she wore the necklace, as her father suggested. “Right after school,” James told her, “I’ll take you over to get your permit and we’ll have our first driving lesson before dinner.” Her mother said, “And after dinner, we’ll have cake. And I’ve got some special presents for the birthday girl.” Which meant books, Lydia thought. That night Nath would pack his suitcase. All day she consoled herself: In six hours, I will have my permit. In two weeks, I will be able to drive away.

At three o’clock, her father pulled up in front of the school, but when Lydia picked up her bookbag and started for the sedan, she was surprised to see someone already in the passenger seat: a Chinese woman—a girl, really—with long black hair.

“So nice to finally meet you,” the girl said as Lydia climbed into the backseat. “I’m Louisa, your dad’s teaching assistant.”

James paused the car to let a cluster of junior boys meander across the street. “Louisa has an appointment and since I was coming this way anyway, I offered her a ride.”

“I shouldn’t have said yes,” Louisa said. “I should have just canceled it. I hate the dentist.”

As he crossed in front of the car, one of the juniors grinned at them through the windshield and pulled his eyes into slits with his fingers. The others laughed, and Lydia scrunched down in her seat. It occurred to her: the boys probably thought Louisa was her mother. Squirming, she wondered if her father was embarrassed, too, but in the front seat, James and Louisa hadn’t noticed a thing.

“Ten bucks says you don’t even have one cavity,” James said.

“Five,” Louisa said. “I’m just a poor grad student, not a rich professor.” She patted his arm playfully, and the tenderness in her face shocked Lydia. Her mother looked at her father this way, late at night, when he was caught up in his reading and she leaned against his armchair affectionately, before nudging him to bed. Louisa’s hand lingered on her father’s arm and Lydia stared at them, her father and this girl, cozy in the front seat like a little married couple, a tableau framed by the bright screen of the windshield, and she thought suddenly: This girl is sleeping with my father.

It had never occurred to her before to think of her father as a man with desires. Like all teenagers, she preferred—despite her very existence—to imagine her parents as eternally chaste. But there was something in the way her father and Louisa touched, in their easy banter, that shocked her innocent sensibilities. To her, the faint crackle between them blazed so hotly that her cheeks flushed. They were lovers. She was sure of it. Louisa’s hand was still on her father’s arm and her father didn’t move, as if the caress were nothing unusual. In fact, James did not even notice: Marilyn often rested her hand on him just this way, and the feeling was too familiar to stand out. For Lydia, however, the way her father kept looking straight ahead, eyes still scanning the road, was all the confirmation she needed.

“So I hear it’s your birthday today,” Louisa said, twisting toward the backseat again. “Sixteen. I’m sure this will be a very special year for you.” Lydia didn’t respond, and Louisa tried again. “Do you like your necklace? I helped pick it out. Your dad asked my advice on what you might like.”

Lydia hooked two fingers beneath the chain, fighting the urge to yank it from her neck. “How would you know what I like? You don’t even know me.”

Louisa blinked. “I had some ideas. I mean, I’ve heard so much about you from your dad.”

Lydia looked her directly in the eye. “Really,” she said. “Daddy’s never mentioned you.”

“Come on, Lyddie,” James said, “you’ve heard me talk about Louisa. How smart she is. How she never lets those undergrads get away with anything.” He smiled at Louisa, and Lydia’s vision blurred.

“Daddy, where did you drive after you got your license?” she asked suddenly.

In the rearview mirror, James’s eyes flicked open in surprise. “To school, to swim practices and meets,” he said. “And on errands, sometimes.”

“But not on dates.”

“No,” James said. His voice cracked briefly, like a teenage boy’s. “No, not on dates.”

Lydia felt small and sharp and mean, like a tack. “Because you didn’t date. Right?” Silence. “Why not? Didn’t anybody want to go out with you?”

This time James kept his eyes on the road before them, and his hands on the wheel stiffened, elbows locking.

“Oh, now,” Louisa said. “I don’t believe that for a minute.” She put her arm on James’s elbow again, and this time she kept it there until they reached the dentist’s office, until James stopped the car and said, to Lydia’s outrage, “See you tomorrow.”