Emmaline Waters, This Is Your Life Read online

  Dad looks as if he’s seen a ghost. “She poked me.”

  My eyebrows pucker with incredulity. “So?”

  “Did not!” proclaims Angie.

  “Shh!” I hiss. I glance over my shoulder at Mom, who is hardly reacting to this shocking turn of events. I mean, have she and Dad taken to beating children in my absence? “Mom, can you come here, please?” I beg, unwilling to leave Angie alone with Dad after what I’ve just witnessed. “Ang, are you okay?”

  Angie starts whimpering, and I know I’m going to lose it. “Mom! Here, please, now!”

  Dad’s response is nothing if not bizarre. After a second or two of staring blankly at me, he nods back off to sleep.

  Finally, Mom shows up. “All right, here I am. What’s the big kerfuffle?”

  “Dad just . . . He . . .” I can’t bring myself to say the words. Ironically, having devoured every sappy coming-of-age movie of the past decade—and more than a few similar books—hasn’t prepared me for the watershed moment when you realize that your parents are mere mortals. Or worse.

  “C’mon,” Mom tells Angie, drawing her away from me. “I need you to put some glitter on those postcards before I send them out.”

  Gee, why didn’t I think of that? Angie loves anything sparkly. I should’ve suggested a disco ball as a Christmas gift. Then this whole disaster could’ve been averted.

  Mom and Angie pad off toward the back of the brownstone, where Mom has an itty-bitty crafting room set up. (Really, I think it’s supposed to be a walk-in closet, but whatever.) When Mom returns, she’s alone. “I need to talk to you,” I tell her, trying to keep my voice steady, “in private.”

  She glances around the brownstone, as if to say: Good luck finding anywhere discreet in this hovel. Still, she leads the way to her and Dad’s bedroom, where she shuts us in.

  I shift around on my feet, uncertain what to do—or say—next. “Is something wrong with Dad?” I ask, the phrasing preferable to my kneejerk reaction, which involves a straitjacket and a vial of Thorazine.

  Mom collapses on the unmade (?!) bed and dissolves in a puddle of tears. “It’s bad,” she whines. “I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

  Think, Em, I tell myself. What could be so tragic that it has unraveled Mom to the point of incoherence? “Are you guys in trouble? Financially?”

  She sits up and wipes her eyes. “Well, of course. There’s always that.”

  Is she talking in riddles on purpose? “Mom, whatever it is, you can tell me,” I say. “I’m not a kid anymore; I can handle things.” (Okay, maybe this is stretching the truth, but if it will get her to come clean, I’m up for just about anything.)

  She sighs forebodingly. “I don’t think we can do it anymore. Angeline is getting so . . . intense. It’s more than we bargained for. And, well, there’s a medical situation that—”

  “Angie’s sick?” I blurt, my chest seizing.

  Mom waves the idea away. “No, of course not. She’s fine. If she weren’t, you’d be the first to know.”

  I don’t have a leg to stand on in this conversation. I mean, when you entrust your child to someone else’s care—even if the someone is one (or both) of your magnificently wonderful parents—you surrender the right to make decisions about her. “Good,” I say, feeling a surge of relief. “Who’s sick, then?”

  “I wanted to tell you,” Mom says, “but your father wouldn’t hear of it. He’s got his pride, you know.”

  “What’s wrong with him?” All I can think is cancer, cancer, cancer.

  In a meek voice, she says, “Heart attacks. Three, so far. Plus, an arrhythmia.”

  My head is spinning. “Dad?”

  “I know. It’s the last thing we expected: No family history. Perfect cholesterol. Exercises five days a week.” Her eyes well up again. “He doesn’t deserve this.”

  Something—a sense of normalcy, maybe?—crumbles within me. I snuggle in next to Mom on the bed. “Is he going to be okay?”

  She shakes her head and dabs at the corners of her eyes. “He has to be, Em. I wouldn’t know what to do without—”

  It dawns on me that I should offer to take responsibility for Angie now, instead of at some elusive point in the future, when I’m “established in my career” and “on solid financial ground.” “Sorry about Angie,” I say, knowing that somehow I’m to blame for my daughter’s wild-child nature. “I’ll talk to her about behaving better. And maybe I can take her more, to give you and Dad a break.” For the moment, I’ll forgo suggesting a change of custody. With Dad sick and he and Angie both acting out, it’s not the right time to cross that bridge. But someday soon it will be.

  “That’d be great,” Mom says, a glimmer of hope in her voice, “especially during your dad’s appointments. Angie hasn’t been doing so well at the cardiologist, I’m afraid. And she’d be over the moon at the idea of hanging out with her big sis’.”

  “Deal,” I say. And we seal it with a hug.

  Chapter 9

  The best thing I can do for Mom, Dad, and Angie is succeed wildly at The Times. To this end, I am holed up in the modified telephone booth of an office Mitch Heywood has been so kind as to allot me, my head bent over a nearly defunct desktop computer. After much begging, cajoling, and outright praying, the screen fills with the James Beard Foundation Award-winning journalism of a former Village Voice food critic, work I hope to use as a model for launching my own star.

  Don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking about plagiarizing here. More like emulating. But first I have to deconstruct the original, which explains why I’m holding a green plastic ruler up to the screen and combing through the review line by line for inspiration. On a notepad by the computer, I’m in the process of sketching out a restaurant-review template and compiling a list of entertaining culinary adjectives for future use.

  Thus far, I’ve arrived at the following formula for authoring topnotch food criticism:

  Begin with a detailed yet pithy description of the food, aiming for the textual equivalent of a Warhol lithograph.

  With equal doses of humor and charm, make the setting sparkle like a prom queen’s eyelids.

  Toss in a sassy, down-to-earth culinary history lesson that’s as easy to swallow as a slug of hot buttered rum.

  Ensconce criticism—no matter how sublime the eatery is, there must always be criticism!—in a metaphor so original it requires reading twice. And even those who go the extra mile still might not get it.

  Accomplish all of the above while adopting the persona of a hyper-observant friend—preferably a cross between a savvy New Yorker and a forthright Southern belle—who tells it like it is, for the sake of the reader.

  Piece of cake, I figure, considering the highbrow vocabulary I’ve been amassing. If Mitch Heywood was impressed by lugubrious, quiescent, feckless, and jejune, wait until he gets a load of surfeit, antipodal, protean, and fecund. Of course, like the spicing of a great meal, first-rate wordsmithing demands a restrained hand: sprinkle a quotidian here, drop a puissant there. And slaughter every adverb in sight like it’s a machine-gun-toting terrorist dripping in the blood of innocents.

  “Hey, Waters,” Mitch’s perpetually irritated voice says behind me, interrupting my train of thought. “I’ve got your next assignment.”

  Oh, goodie, I want to say. Instead, I spring out of my chair, spin around, and go: “Great.” A big smile. “What is it?”

  “The Olive Branch. Grand opening’s at five tomorrow.” He passes me a wrinkled slip of paper with the address of the restaurant and the name Dominique LaChance scrawled beside the word manager.

  “What kind of food is it?” I ask, cringing at how stupid I sound. I mean, I’m the food critic now. Shouldn’t I be telling him these things?

  “I don’t know. Some kind of rustic European,” he says. “The owner’s a culinary savant who ran a bed-and-breakfast-slash-organic-farm-slash-riding-stable in Paris. Or Tuscany.” He flails an arm through the air. “One of those romantic places you girls love t
o fantasize about.”

  Okay, that’s insulting. And presumptuous. “A savant? Is that the shtick—or, um, the ‘human-interest angle’?” (Shit, I forgot to include the “human-interest angle” in my template. Now I’m going to have to do a rewrite, and I haven’t even penned a word of the critique yet!)

  Mitch: “You tell me.”

  Me: “Right.”

  He turns on his heel. “I made a reservation for six o’clock; bring a date.” As an afterthought, he adds, “And he pays for his own. We’re not the United Way here.”

  Again, I say, “Right.” But he’s already gone.

  * * *

  I thought about inviting Dad to The Olive Branch—I mean, the irony!—as a goodwill gesture following the slapping incident. But Mom is so concerned about his health that she’s enacted a restaurant boycott in an attempt to wrestle the heart disease bull by the (cream) horns. Which leaves Trent as my default date. And even though the reservation is for two, we’re bringing Angie along.

  At the curb in front of Mom and Dad’s brownstone, we’re parked with the Lexus’s engine running to keep us warm. Even though the snowy weather has (finally!) called it quits, the air is crisp with a fall chill, putting me in the mood for apple cider and anything—who am I kidding?—everything pumpkin flavored.

  “So,” I say, my breath catching in my throat, “there’s something I should tell you before we go in there.”

  Trent shoots me an easy smile; meanwhile, I search my mind for the least earth-shattering way to inform a twenty-four-year-old guy that, unbeknownst to him, his girlfriend of four months has a secret kid she hasn’t bothered telling him about.

  “Okay . . . ?” he says, probably expecting me to brief him on my wacky Uncle Fred (I don’t have a wacky Uncle Fred) or some similarly cuckoo distant relative.

  “Um, well,” I begin again, “you know how I told you about my sister, Angie?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “You’re lucky. I wish I had a sister. Or a brother.”

  Hmm. I quite enjoyed having Mom and Dad to myself. To each his own, though. “It’s just that . . . before she comes with us . . .” Spit it out, Em, I berate myself. He’ll find out sooner or later, anyway. “I don’t know how to . . .”

  He rests a hand on my knee. “Is something wrong?”

  I decide to fast-forward the story, hoping the news of Dad’s ill health will provide an opening to transition to the Angie bombshell. “Actually, yes,” I say. “My Dad is sick.”

  A quiet, concerned pause. “Oh. Sorry to hear that.”

  Isn’t he going to ask what Dad is sick of/from/with? Either he doesn’t care, or he’s just being polite. (I’m going to assume the latter.) “Thank you,” I say, letting out a tense breath. “Since he started having heart problems, he’s gotten—well, he’s gotten pretty irritable with Angie, I guess you could say. Which is one of the reasons we’re bringing her with us tonight: to give my parents a break.”

  “Good idea.”

  Jeez, he didn’t take the bait and ask about the other reason(s) for Angie tagging along? “Also, I want to spend more time with her,” I say vaguely. His clueless smile tells me that I’m going to have to haul out a sledgehammer instead of dropping a trail of breadcrumbs. “See, because, uh”—I pull my leg away, and his hand drifts to rest on the seat—“Angie’s not my sister.”

  His face twists with confusion, and suddenly I can’t look at him. Not because I’m ashamed of Angie (I’m not), but because sharing something so intimate has left me feeling overexposed. “What do you mean?” he asks.

  “I hope you don’t hate me for this,” I say. Come to think of it, dropping such heavy news on him twenty minutes before dinner is a mistake. Too late now, though. “Angie’s my daughter.”

  He laughs, as if I’ve told a joke.

  I don’t join him.

  After a solid minute of awkward silence (I’ve never shocked anyone speechless before!), he says, “Really?”

  He doesn’t seem mad, I decide. In fact, if I’m reading him right, he sounds . . . excited. “Mmm-hmm. I had her freshman year of college.”

  Before he can respond, there’s an abrupt knock on the passenger-side window. He glances past me and powers the window down. “Oh my God, what are you doing?” I ask Mom, who’s dancing around on the sidewalk and hugging herself against the wind.

  “Aren’t you guys coming in?” she asks, her tone more demanding than inquisitive. “Angie’s bouncing off the walls waiting for you.” She peers at Trent. “Hello there, by the way. I’m Beth—the mother.”

  She did not just say that. “Um, yeah. We’ll be right there,” I blurt, flicking my wrist to shoo her off. “Tell Angie and Dad to put their nametags on.”

  Mom rolls her eyes. “Ha-ha.”

  Trent tries to say something, but I buzz the window shut. Luckily, Mom takes the hint and disappears back inside. “Are you all right?” I ask, although Trent is showing no signs of distress.

  “Sure.” He shrugs. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  Frankly, his blasé attitude is unnerving. “Well, for one thing, your girlfriend just told you her sister is actually her daughter. Where I come from, that’s pretty big news. You’d be forgiven for being out of sorts.”

  Another shrug. (Damn him!) “What can I say? I like kids.”

  “So that’s how you’re going to play it? Cool and charming?”

  “It would appear so.”

  “I guess that’s acceptable.” I lean in and give him a peck on the cheek. “Let’s go, then.”

  Chapter 10

  “You can drop us off here, if you want,” I say as Trent pulls the Lexus into a fire lane half a block past The Olive Branch.

  “It might take me a few minutes to park,” he warns. “The traffic’s pretty insane.”

  He’s right. If I didn’t know better—which, in fact, I don’t—I’d think a humongous movie star had shown up with an equally humongous entourage and a gaggle of paparazzi trailing along behind. I turn to Angie, who looks as darling as any chubby-cheeked, wavy-haired, sparkly dressed child beauty queen. “C’mon, sweetie,” I say, motioning toward her seatbelt. In unison, we unbuckle and exit the car.

  Shivering, we rush down the sidewalk, Angie’s warm hand clasped around mine. Maybe someday I’ll feel like a mother, but tonight I’m the only thing my daughter has ever known me as: a much older sister (and one with an important assignment to complete).

  The line for The Olive Branch is out the door. Angie and I queue up in the huddle, a fog of body heat enveloping us. “I’m hungry,” she complains, her face pressed to my side, her arms slung around my waist. By the way she acts toward me, I sometimes think she knows we’re more than sisters.

  “Me too,” I say, raking my fingers through her hair.

  As a member of the media, shouldn’t I be entitled to some sort of VIP status? I mean, I don’t expect to bypass all these ravenous diners—especially those who have reservations, like me. But couldn’t I at least give my name to the hostess, on the chance my table is on standby? I’d hate to let a primo spot go empty for even a moment longer than necessary.

  By the time Trent rejoins us, Angie and I have moved thirty feet ahead in line. In fact, the pointy tip of my left shoe is solidly inside the vestibule. I can taste the goose-liver pate—or whatever the good folks of the European countryside salivate over—already.

  With Angie snuggled to my hip and Trent’s arm draped around my shoulder, we wiggle forward as if we’re the unruly midsection of a giant paper dragon. “We’re next,” Trent whispers in my ear, the party in front of us—an elderly couple and a nun (or someone prematurely dressed as one for Halloween)—clearing out. “Are you excited?”

  “Actually, I am,” I say. Not only is this my chance to prove myself to Mr. Jerk Extraordinaire, a.k.a. Mitch Heywood, it’s also a test run of my parenting skills—not to mention an expensive (and hopefully tasty enough to justify the cost) restaurant outing. All in all, things are looking up.

  Trent breaks aw
ay from us to communicate with the hostess, an effortlessly beautiful woman with porcelain skin, a mess (in the I’ve-just-rolled-out-of-bed-but-look-fabulous sense) of dark, upswept hair, and the carriage of an unbroken filly. Men must fall at her feet, I think, feeling—I’m ashamed to admit—the slightest hint of unprovoked jealousy. I mean, Trent is holding his own; I have nothing to worry about.

  Surprisingly, our table is ready. The hostess leads the way through the crowded dining room—the décor is old-world and natural: stone, metal, wood—to a cozy table by a roaring fire. As we take our seats I notice, perched on the hostess’s perfectly sized chest, a name badge that reads: MS. DOMINIQUE.

  As in Dominique LaChance? The manager of The Olive Branch? For a second, I wonder if she’s also the chef-savant Mitch is so keen on. But that seems improbable. I mean, how talented could one supermodel-esque woman be? “I hope this is all right,” she says, gesturing at the fire.

  “It’s great,” I reply, overly cheery (a transparent attempt at proving she doesn’t intimidate me, I’m afraid).

  Unless I’m imagining things, Dominique shoots Trent a pity smile as she explains that our server, Veronica, will be over shortly with some wine. “Wine is gross,” Angie remarks. “Daddy let me try it once.” She sticks her tongue out. “It’s yucky.”

  I am mortified, but Trent and Dominique just laugh. After Dominique begs off, I say, “This place is nice, huh?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Trent agrees. “You shouldn’t have any trouble coming up with something to say about it.”

  What’s that supposed to mean? He thinks I’m a moronic twit who needs a blatant head start to accomplish anything worthwhile?

  I dig my handy recorder out of my purse and place it on the table, where it will remain within arm’s reach for capturing the nuggets of genius that are sure to occur to me as we indulge in this fine feast. As a test, I click the RECORD button and, into the pitiful little microphone, say, “October twenty-third. The Olive Branch. Six thirty p.m.” I’m tempted to play back my handiwork—or worse, record it again—but somehow I restrain myself. After all, if doctors can belt out their office notes in one shot with the patient sitting right there in their underwear, surely I can manage the same with my critique impressions. I mean, I have my flaws, but I am definitely not more neurotic than an MD.