I Was Told It Would Get Easier(71)

“I really hope not.”

“Do you like your job that much?”

I played with the marbles. “I like it a lot, actually. I like my clients, the cases are interesting.”

“But you’d have clients wherever you went.”

“True. But I need a reliable job at least until you’re done with college.” I sneaked a glance at her, but she was flipping through a magazine. She shrugged.

“I can always not go to college.” She looked at me suddenly and caught me staring at her. “I could get a job.”

I grinned. “Flipping burgers?”

“Working the stripper pole. Less grease, more tips.”

“Good plan,” I said, picking up a magazine. “I myself have aged out of that job market.”

“Your old boyfriend didn’t think so.”

I snorted. “He was lonely. In the same way hunger makes food taste better, loneliness makes old girlfriends look younger.”

“You’re still very attractive.”

I looked at my beautiful daughter. “Thanks, babe. Not really something I think about all that much.”

She grinned. “I think Will’s dad thinks so, too.”

“That’s just weird,” I said, and avoided the subject from then on.

I got bright red nails, by the way. They won’t last more than a day, but they’re gorgeous.





23





JESSICA


We decided to meet up with the group again at Vassar, but when we got there, Emily lost confidence, and I was still pretty wobbly on my pins. We found a coffee shop and called Helen.

She sailed through the doors thirty minutes later and greeted half the place by name. If you can’t slink about unnoticed, I imagine it’s better to willingly embrace your local fame.

“Why aren’t you two touring my college and being entranced by its beauty?” she said, sitting down. “I’m so disappointed in you both.”

I looked a question at Emily, who nodded. I leaned forward. “Can you keep a secret?”

Helen nodded. “I’m a philosopher. I know everything and nothing. What is truth, anyway? What is knowledge?”

I waited until the waiter brought her coffee, which she hadn’t even ordered, and lowered my voice. “Emily worked with the FBI to bring an international cheating ring to ground, and she did it all without any help from me.”

Emily protested. “That is totally not true.” She explained to Helen. “I snitched on some friends who were planning to cheat, because I didn’t want them to do something really stupid, and as a totally unintended consequence I assisted the FBI.” She was exasperated. “Nobody said anything about international, by the way, that is a complete fiction. Mom loves to summarize and editorialize, it’s part of her training.”

“It’s inexcusable,” said Helen.

“Seriously,” replied Emily. “I thought being a lawyer was about the sanctity of the truth?”

“No,” I said, “it’s about the framing and presentation of the truth. Have I taught you nothing?”

“You’ve taught me everything,” she replied. “Including calling BS when I hear it.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “But anyway, the point is the FBI showed up at breakfast this morning and dropped this bomb on us, and we’re still feeling a little delicate.” I shrugged at Emily. “At least, they dropped the bomb on me. She knew all about it, obviously.”

Helen looked excited. “Are you going to blow off the rest of the tour?”

I shook my head. “No, I think we’ll take the train to NYC and join them there.”

Helen clapped her hands together. “Don’t take the train, I’ll drive you, it’ll be a blast.” She waved at the waiter for the bill and checked her watch. “Road trip!”





EMILY


Say what you like about my mom; once she’s made up her mind, she commits. We were packed up, checked out, and clambering into Helen’s car within the hour. In this way Mom’s more like my grandma, although most of the time she’s much more like Grandpa. Grandma was a rare bird, I’ve said it before, and she didn’t feather her nest with regret, that’s for sure. I remember standing in the country house garden, watching the smoke from her cigarette curl up in tandem with the smoke from some structure we’d accidentally set fire to and then put in the stream.

“Well,” said Grandma. “It wasn’t what I would call a successful experiment, but it’s sure as shit interesting.”

I’d nodded.

“At what point, do you think, will the whole thing fall into the stream and go out?”

I’d shrugged, whereupon it happened.

“Oh well,” she said, wading into the stream to fish out the debris (she despised littering), “nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

She was full of phrases like that, my favorite being and the devil take the hindmost, often said when throwing random ingredients into things, or loading up the grocery cart with marshmallows, or standing next to something flammable with a match. I don’t want you to get the impression she was an arsonist, she wasn’t, but she wasn’t one for hypothesizing. “I don’t know,” she would say, “let’s try it and see.” Mom is much more conservative, but every so often, like now, she leaps, and when she does I can see the glimmer of Grandma in her eyes.