The Comeback(89)

“Grace,” he says quietly, formally, as we step back from the embrace.

“You must have been relieved the storm cleared up,” I say, my voice tight, and Able frowns, seemingly both confused and irritated by me.

“The storm?” he asks, and we both look at Emilia. I understand now that she lied to get me here, in front of him, so that she could see for herself. I have to watch it happen on her face after that, the confirmation that nothing is what she thought it was, that everything she feared most in the world is here, in this room between us.

Emilia grips the back of the sofa, and there is a moment when I think she is going to sink to the floor, but of course she recovers beautifully, straightening up to smooth a piece of hair behind her ear before she focuses somewhere above my head and touches Able gently on the arm.

“Darling, you must introduce me to Jennifer. I’ve heard such wonderful stories.”

They float away from me, and I’m left standing alone among the hundreds of stricken carolers, trying to remember how it is that we breathe.





CHAPTER FORTY-NINE





I’m in Able’s office. I was going to leave, but instead my body led me here, and I don’t know what I wanted but my heart is racing fast in my chest and I feel sick and scared, and it’s clear to me now that everything is exactly the same as it was back then, that I am exactly the same, and that I always will be.

The lights in the office are low, hidden in the walls above the mahogany desk. The walls are still lined with books chosen to make Able seem smart, informed: Stanislavski, Chekhov, Miller and Williams, most of which I know Able will never have touched, let alone read. With trembling hands, I pick up the photograph still on the desk. Able and Emilia stand proudly behind the girls, frozen in time at age three with Able’s hands on their shoulders.

The door to the office swings open, and I jump behind the desk, dread tracking heavily through my veins. Emilia. She closes the door behind her and she looks exhausted, sadder than I’ve ever seen her.

She starts to make her way over to me, but I flinch and she stops moving, somehow understanding that I can’t have her near me right now. She smells of champagne and cigarettes, of good times, but her eyes are drained of all signs of life.

“The other day, in my kitchen. Your face,” she says quietly, and in her I can see my own rawness reflected back at me. “Just tell me one thing. And I will never ask it again.”

I nod, and the ringing in my ears gets louder with every passing second.

“Were you ever in love with my husband?” she asks, and I understand she’s asking me what I have asked myself every single day since I was fifteen in my own attempt to do what she’s trying to do right now.

“No,” I tell her.

Emilia’s body deflates like a balloon, her shoulders curving in as if she can’t support herself anymore, and I can see how hard she’s worked to keep everything together over the years. I can see all the rumors, the late nights, the self-deprecation, the fake smiles. A whirling dervish with a martini in her hand and lipstick on her teeth. I feel sad for her now, this stranger who tried to help me when she thought I needed it the most. She didn’t know she’d already been cursed, just like I had.

Emilia straightens, and picks up the photo from Able’s desk.

“I didn’t think so,” she says, turning it facedown.



* * *



? ? ?

I’m on my way out of the house, knowing that it will be for the last time, when I become aware that something is happening in the kitchen, and that everyone else is pretending not to notice. I make eye contact with a tall man in a green velvet smoking jacket who is standing closest to the kitchen door, and he raises one eyebrow back at me. I frown at him but I’m listening now, too, my back pressed against the cool wall.

Emilia’s voice is taut but shrill, cutting over the ambient Christmas music and hum of polite conversation.

“Why aren’t they leaving?”

“Emilia, please. You’re embarrassing yourself.”

I don’t hear what Emilia says in response to that, but Able’s voice gets quieter, his tone rougher. I have turned to stone, my feet rooted to the floor, and maybe I want to tell her my story before he does, or maybe I want to protect her from him, or maybe it’s always been something more complicated than that.

Emilia opens the kitchen door and pushes past me. She walks straight upstairs without looking at anyone. Most of the guests notice her but nobody wants to go home yet, even though the alcohol ran out at least an hour ago. I consider following her, but I don’t know what I could say.

When Emilia emerges again, she is wearing cream silk pajamas, and her hair is pulled into a scrappy knot on top of her head. She has removed her makeup, and her eyebrows have disappeared completely, replaced by smooth skin that is shiny and raw, like the rest of her face. She walks down the stairs slowly, coming to a stop at the foot of the staircase, then she sits on the bottom step, her arms folded across her chest and her face set, unreadable. Silver runs over to her.

“Mommy, what are you doing?” she asks loudly, clearly panicked. Emilia brushes her away. She sits in silence, glaring at everyone until they are forced to acknowledge her presence. The music stops and the guests finally start to make their excuses, shaking Able’s hand firmly, then bending down to kiss Emilia’s clean cheek without quite meeting her eye. They trickle out the door steadily, already gossiping about the night as they leave. The coat check girl is the last to leave, and I stand by the door, holding it open for her too.