The Lies They Tell(27)

Reese was serving Mimi and company, laughter rising and falling as always, mock flirtations on both sides as he dialed up his charm to eleven. Pearl watched him hard for a moment, willing him to notice, hating herself for caring so much. He was the one who was being an ass, treating her like some clueless tween with a crush, like she didn’t know the first thing about the way summer people operated. She couldn’t imagine herself telling anybody but Reese about the video of Cassidy Garrison—and she also couldn’t imagine being the first one to break the silent treatment, either.

“Pearl.” The ma?tre d’ signaled to her. “You’ve got a phone call.”

“Here?”

“Out on the lobby line. Go ahead, I’ll keep an eye on your tables.”

She’d never gotten a call at the club before. Meriwether was waiting for her at the front desk, having relieved the receptionist of the phone, and she watched with pursed lips as Pearl approached. “You know”—she didn’t hand the phone over—“staff aren’t to receive nonemergency calls on this line.”

“I didn’t give the number out. I don’t know who it is.”

“Mmm.” After a long, considering pause, Meriwether held out the extension, making her reach for it.

“Pearl?” The voice on the other end was strained, all too familiar. Mom. “Finally. The switchboard bounced me all over the place.”

“What’s going on?” She turned her back on Meriwether. “Why didn’t you just call my phone?”

“Why do you think? I knew the club was the one place where you’d have to pick up.”

It was too late for lies about missed voice mail; Pearl had ignored three calls from Mom this month. As she gazed ahead, trapped, staff members carried cardboard boxes and an extension ladder through the lobby into the ballroom; preparations for the formal ball and auction on Friday were well underway. “Well, I’m working right now. I’ll call you back on my break.”

“I want you to promise me.”

“Promise, promise.” She was increasingly aware of Meriwether’s eyes boring into the back of her head. “Give me an hour.”

There was a picnic table tucked around the corner of the club, mostly hidden from view by the low branches of an oak tree, where staff could eat their lunches without ruining the ambience. Pearl sat cross-legged on the bench, listening as the line rang twice before Mom picked up.

“So. How are things?” Now that Mom had her where she wanted her, her tone was careful, hesitant.

“Good.”

“I never see you online anymore.”

“I don’t go on much.”

A sigh. “Am I allowed to ask how Dad’s doing?”

Pearl hated it when she put it like that—“Dad”—like they were still a unit, like Mom didn’t have her own life way down in Kittery, and her own live-in boyfriend, Scott What’s-His-Name, who seemed completely inoffensive, and who Pearl had absolutely no interest in getting to know. “He’s fine. Everything’s fine.”

“Oh, Pearl.” A long silence, waiting for Pearl to fill it with reassurances. “Does he ask you not to tell me things?”

“No. Why would he?” Dad didn’t need to; it went without saying. A holdover, perhaps, from when Pearl was younger, when both she and Dad knew that a slipup could end with them back in family court, debating custody. The one solid understanding between Dad and her since the Garrisons happened was don’t tell your mother. Don’t tell her there’s nothing but spaghetti in the cupboard and half a six-pack in the fridge. Don’t tell her we’re behind on the mortgage. Don’t tell her the wolf is at the door. Don’t tell her.

“How’s his drinking?” This time, Pearl didn’t speak at all. “Honey . . . I know he’s been through a lot. I just want to know what’s going on. I’m getting nothing from either of you. Your father doesn’t even have a phone anymore, for God’s sake.” In the silence, tension grew. “You two always do this. Stonewall me. Just you against the world, nobody gets in, right? How do you think that makes me feel?”

Pearl wanted to shout, Well, whose fault is it, to drive Mom back from the receiver with the sound and force of her words. Whose fault is it you left? Who made you move to the other side of the state? Who made you? But the resentment was old, and it exhausted itself quickly, leaving her feeling how she always did after a chat with Mom: like she wanted to curl up with a pillow over her head and block out the world. “I don’t know what to tell you. We’re doing okay.”

“What’s okay?” Mom’s tone was delicate again. “Listen to me, please, for one second. Your father has a problem. We were together fifteen years, Pearl, I know better than anybody. I know how it is to hang in there for somebody, hoping they’ll change—”

“I have to go now.”

“No, you don’t.”

“They need me inside. I really have to go. I’ll get back to you, okay? I will.” And Pearl disconnected, holding the phone cupped in her hand, squeezing her eyes shut when it vibrated a few seconds later. Mom, wanting the last word. She turned the phone off, imagined dropping it in the trash can on her way inside. In the end, she pocketed it and went back to work.

Reese’s section was liveliest, as usual. Always leave ’em laughing. How the hell could he act so normal when she felt like she was walking around with a blade stuck between her shoulders? She thought about confronting him in the kitchen, cornering him the way he’d done with Indigo the other day, forcing him to listen to her.