The Forgotten Hours(87)

That was all that happened. He was trying to help her—she seemed so upset. He didn’t know what had happened between those two, but that kid Brad was an asshole. He had upset her somehow, and John was glad that he could make Lulu feel a bit better. He was like a father to her—he was protective, you know. He just wanted to help. She was a mess.

In the cabin with Katie, John sighed. He finished his drink and went to the bathroom, stumbling on the area rug in the hall. While he was gone, Katie picked up his glass and sniffed the dregs. Vodka. How many times had he been drunk and she’d never even noticed? Her father approached life as though it had been designed with his entertainment in mind, while it was the opposite for other adults, who were compelled to accommodate him. Her mother, for example. Maybe Charlie had never had the chance to really be herself, always on alert for what her husband was up to. To Katie and her friends, John was the fun one, and her mother was the cold fish, distant and wary. The irony of this struck Katie as painful now that she was facing motherhood herself.

She stood by the window, looking out over the driveway toward the Big House. Daylight had been tamped down, and the trees were drained of color. The rain was coming down now in smeary gray sheets. The bobbing of a car’s headlights flickered among the pines in the distance.

“I want you to stop drinking,” she said when her father came back into the living room.

He turned down his mouth, the dark of his eyes like Teflon. “Now don’t you go getting all prissy on me,” he said.

A flash of light stroked her shoulder, and a car with its headlights on pulled into the other side of the driveway, facing the Falcon. The rain was really coming down now, striking the roof and windows loudly. Out of the car came Zev, a hoodie pulled over his head. He glanced up and saw her at the window and hesitated for just a second, then ran toward the front door. In the time it took him to get from the driveway into the cabin, he was soaked, his sweatshirt blackened with rain. He wiped a hand across his nose. When they embraced, it was as though she were falling into him. The smell of lemons hung around him like a perfume.

He pulled away to search her face. “I couldn’t wait anymore,” he said, his eyes kind. “I figured I could give you a ride back to the city. You okay? You look kind of pale.”

“I’m . . . we’re having . . .” Katie started, but when she turned to include her father, he wasn’t there anymore. “I’m so glad you came. This is so awful. I think he’s really drunk.”

“I was worried about you. What’s going on?”

“Zev, my man. Welcome to our little piece of paradise,” John said, back now, his voice too loud. He was red faced, as though he’d become overheated. “What brings you here? Come to snatch away my baby girl?”

“I have a car,” Zev said, his expression pointed. He seemed like a man who would stand his ground, a tree that barely creaks in the wind. “You might say I’m the designated driver.”

“Very funny,” John said. He had another glass in his hand. “The man has a car. I’m impressed.”

“Dad, keep going, okay? What happened after that?” she asked. “After you found Lulu in the Falcon?”

“It started to pour, and everyone went home,” John said. With great care and precision he placed his drink on the table. He glanced at Zev from under his brows, and even though he hesitated, there was something in his expression that suggested he was proud of himself. That he liked having an audience.

“And then what? I want to know everything.”

The Falcon got rained on, but it was no big deal, and John and Charlie drove the Nicholses home, and then they went back to the cabin, he said. Charlie was worried about the kids swimming in the lake during the lightning storm; she was angry. She got like that when she’d had a few—always worried about everyone else. Wanted to be sure people were safe, whatever. He wasn’t ready to go to bed, and the television was on, and he didn’t think they’d mind, the girls, if he came and sat with them a bit, just to have a nightcap.

“It was the last night of summer, you see,” he said to Zev, as if only a man would understand.

And they watched this old flick he’d seen years before—he forgot now which one—set down in New Orleans, he thought, or somewhere warm. The story was kind of funny, but Lulu started to cry again. He was helping her; she was still upset about Brad, and then she twisted it around, made it seem wrong.

“Helping her how?” Zev asked.

John continued looking right at him, and Katie seemed to disappear entirely—she wasn’t sure either man even knew she was in the room anymore. Part of her wanted to stop this terrible momentum, but there was another part of her that dove right into the undertow.

“What would you know about the—the power of, uh . . . of empathy, huh?” John asked Zev. “Artists. You’re all about yourse—”

“Let’s keep it civil, okay?” Zev’s voice was low but so firm that he could just as easily have been shouting.

“Like you know anything about women. No one understands them. Everyone thinks they know what women want, but no. No way.” John leaned forward, pursing his lips, and tipped the entire glass into his mouth.

Lulu was crying; she’d been treated without respect, he explained. You see, women didn’t even know what they wanted half the time, and when they did, they didn’t know how to ask for it. Lulu hadn’t known that she couldn’t let boys touch her like that boy had touched her. That her own pleasure was important.