The Comeback(59)

“Do you know how much sugar peanut butter has in it?” Silver asks, glancing up from her camera long enough to squint at her mom. I try not to recognize any of Able’s mannerisms in the nine-year-old.

“It’s the kind without the sugar.” Emilia rolls her eyes at me and ruffles Silver’s hair.

“And the kind without the palm oil? Because you know that they have to destroy the rain forests to—”

“I know, Silver. It’s also the kind without the palm oil. And I’m really still so pleased that Marla teaches you about this sort of thing,” Emilia says smoothly, miming shooting herself in the mouth behind Silver’s head.

“Can I take a picture of you?” Ophelia asks me quietly while they’re talking, and I nod. I stick my tongue out just as she presses the button, and she giggles, a low gurgling sound that makes me smile. When the Polaroid comes out, she grabs it and waves it in the air.

Emilia already looks exhausted, but she tries to make conversation anyway, rambling about a movie the girls’ school had tried to ban after they’d already seen it. Watching her struggle to maintain control of everything, I feel a jolt of sympathy, but then her phone rings a few minutes later and I see a photo of Able appear on the screen, dimples flashing as he leans against a palm tree. My whole body tenses, but Emilia doesn’t seem to notice, apologizing as she glides past me to answer the call in the living room.

While Emilia is out of the room, I try not to think about the voice on the other end of the line, so I pick up the Polaroid Ophelia took of me from the table instead. In the picture I look carefree and easy, and I wonder if this is what Emilia sees when she looks at me. I have no idea how I fit into her narrative, whether she really does see me as an extension of herself or whether she still just pities me for being so alone.

When Emilia comes back into the kitchen, she looks unsettled, those red blotches that very pale people get climbing her neck.

“What’s wrong?” I ask her, and she looks at me, taking a moment to focus.

“Oh, nothing really. Able just reminded me that our financial adviser is coming over this afternoon, but I have to take the girls to school for their final holiday pageant rehearsal. I also have this deadline that I’ve been putting off.” Emilia breaks off and smiles at me. “You know, it’s fine. Millions of people do this every day. I’ll figure it out. I just need a moment to catch my breath.”

I stand up and walk around to her, putting my hand on her shoulder. I can feel the damp heat of her sweat through her thin cotton top, and I feel a snap of guilt for what I’m about to do to the only person who has actually wanted to be around me since I’ve been back in Los Angeles.

“Why don’t I drop the girls off at school?” I ask slowly. “I have something I need to do at home, then I can come pick them right up.”

Emilia looks up at me for a moment, and the expression on her face is pure and grateful. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

“Of course not.”

“Where on earth did you come from, Gracie?”

I try to concentrate as Emilia tells me the address of the school, and how I need to ignore Silver when she tries to sit in the front of the car, but my mind is already somewhere else. Sometimes, things start to fall into place so naturally, so neatly, it’s as if you have been planning them that way all along, without ever realizing it.



* * *



? ? ?

I’d like to tell you that I didn’t go straight home and put on an eighties-style red bodysuit with a pair of vintage Levi’s jean shorts and a Gucci belt. That I didn’t run a brush through my hair, choose my best pair of sunglasses, the black ones with the gold rim, or that I didn’t apply a slash of bright red lipstick just before I left the house. I’d like to tell you that I didn’t wave to Emilia from the car as if nothing had changed, that I didn’t text Laurel with the address and time of the school drop-off. That I didn’t smile directly into the lens when the photographer started taking photos. That it didn’t cross my mind that the image would be circulated instantly, tearing through social media like the Napa Valley wildfires. That I had no idea Able would see them.

But I would be lying, of course.

Am I angry? All the time.



* * *



? ? ?

Once I’ve handed the girls over to a blond teacher I think I recognize from an episode of CSI, I drive back to my rental. I make myself some scrambled eggs the way Emilia taught me, and then I sit on the porch and stare at the plate, waiting. At five p.m., Laurel messages me a link. There is a story online about me being back in LA and looking better than ever. The main image is a photo of me holding each of the girls’ hands and leading them from my car, followed by smaller images of me handing them over to the teacher. I do look good, smiling widely with my white hair glittering under the LA sunshine, my eyes covered in black sunglasses. The girls’ faces have been blurred, but you can clearly see Silver’s sparkly sneakers and the twins’ bright red hair.

Laurel sends me a couple more links, the last one a piece reporting that I left town because Able and I were having an affair. The photo they’ve used is one from the Lights of Berlin premiere in London, Emilia and I on either side of a frowning Able. Emilia’s mouth is open because she’s in the middle of a sentence, and her makeup is wrong for the lighting—her skin coated in a bright white powder that catches the flash. I look relaxed on the other side of Able, and my perfectly made-up lips are pulled into a small, glossy smile. I try to remember the dread I felt when I was posing for the picture, but the memory feels out of reach now that I’m looking at the evidence.