Chapter 24
Brooks
Day 10.
When I walk into Studio A, a small group of reporters—two I recognize and two new—are already gathered. Izzy doesn’t meet my eye or speak to me as she loads a salsa video. Once the video is loaded, she leaves the room.
After my workout, I shower. As she said would happen, now that I know the moves, I can build up a sweat doing her routines. I head up to my office and stop in the corridor when I hear her soft, high voice singing to the gentle strum of my guitar. I lean back against the wall and listen. Each strum and each word peels back a layer of my anger and bares my feelings for her. I have to force myself to remember that she’s childish and petty and this whole thing is just one big game to her. A game she is playing to win.
As she sings about feeling alone, I recognize the lyrics. Not because I’ve heard the song before; I haven’t. I recognize the sentiment. That she can feel alone in a crowd of people.
Of course, if you write blog posts claiming the guys you are sleeping with are also sleeping with their daughters, it is a surefire way to make yourself lonely.
I don’t have the energy for this. No more. I seek out Elliot—one of my best trainers—and ask him to cover Izzy’s session for me.
In my office, Izzy is frantically scribbling on a piece of paper. Crossing out words, writing down guitar chords. She stops when she sees me and puts the guitar down, returning to her desk and her blank laptop screen.
“Elliot is going to take your session this afternoon. He’s one of my best and he has your notes.”
She lifts her head but her expression is unreadable. She nods, then stands and walks out of the room.
* * * *
I hold the punch bag that hangs from the ceiling of the boxing room as Drew pummels his fists, knees, and shins into it. Kit is slumped on the floor with his head between his legs, recovering from his session.
“Give me a left-right-left. Nice. Right-right-left. Good hit.”
As I talk Drew through his usual routine, throwing in a few different patterns to keep him sharp, Elliot comes into the room with Izzy following behind. He raises his chin in greeting. Izzy doesn’t look our way at all.
“Give me five knees each side,” I tell Drew, who is now dripping in sweat and grunting through each move.
I watch Elliot strap Izzy’s hands, my entire body tensing when he holds her wrist, his skin on hers. It’s a small touch. I’m mad as hell at the woman. Yet, it riles me. She takes Elliot’s instruction without giving him any grief. I wish the music weren’t playing so loud so I could hear what she is saying. It’s a small comfort that she isn’t laughing or smiling.
“Roundhouse, hook, jab. Five on each side,” I direct Drew.
Izzy starts punching at her bag but her technique is off. Her arms are too straight or too bent at the wrong times. She isn’t punching through the bag. That’s what I’d be telling her right now.
Elliot picks up on it but rather than telling her how to fix it, the bastard moves behind her, his chest to her back. He interlaces his fingers through her right hand and demonstrates technique by moving through the punch with her.
I don’t realize I’m reacting until Drew stops his workout and follows my gaze to Izzy and Elliot. In the same situation, maybe I would be doing the same thing Elliot is now. Would I? Would I hold my client’s hand and move through the punches that way?
My fists ball at my sides. When Elliot is satisfied, he moves back to his position behind the bag. Before she starts up again, Izzy shoots me a glance, her eyes connecting with mine for a second that feels like an hour. Then she’s punching through the bag, her back to me.
I wonder if she’s imagining my face as she pummels her fists into the sand-filled bag.
“I should have told her about Cady,” I mutter.
“You should have. But her reaction was shit, man,” Drew says in my defense.
Oddly, I feel an irrational need to justify Izzy’s insane actions. “She was hurt.”
“She could have spoken to you in private.”
“I know. I think she knows that too. She’s mad at me about Cady. And maybe she’s right. I mean, she wouldn’t have got wasted and posted anything if she had known I have a daughter.”
“How is Cady?” Drew asks.
“I’d love to answer that question, but she won’t answer my calls. Neither of them is speaking to me. How the fuck did I get here? You know what the really fucked up thing is? I don’t wish I hadn’t met her.” It strikes me as I say that, just how similar that reaction is to how I feel about Cady and Alice. My life went to shit because I got my girlfriend pregnant. I spend all my waking hours in this gym to avoid being home, alone with my thoughts. Yet I don’t wish I had never met Alice. I don’t wish we had never had Cady. And, even though she drives me crazy, there’s not even a small part of me that wishes I’d never met Izzy.
I watch her drop her arms to her sides before Elliot hands her a bottle of water. Ah, I can still enjoy watching her suffer through her hangover, though. “Hey, Iz!” I shout. “Are you wishing you didn’t drink a bottle of wine yesterday?”
She glowers at me across her shoulder. “Don’t you have somewhere to be? Someone to lie to?”
“Not right now. Hey, maybe you could take a picture of Drew, Kit, and me and put it on your little blog thing. Tell the world we had a threesome.”
She flips me the bird, then gets back to the bag, punching and kicking harder than she had been just moments ago.
“I take it back,” Drew says. “She’s not childish. You both are.”
He’s right. But those are the first words Izzy has spoken to me in twenty-four hours. I’ve had my fix. Now I can go back to being pissed at her.
I try calling Cady one more time before I leave the gym for the day. This time, I know she sends me to voice mail.
After making myself a quinoa salad—don’t eat that stuff unless someone pays you to do so—I slump down on the sofa. I reach for my guitar. When my hand grips nothing but air, I remember Izzy has it.
No guitar. No Izzy. No Cady. No Alice. No plans with friends. Have I mentioned it’s fucking Friday night?
Opening my fridge, I see at least I have beer to keep me company. I reach for a bottle of Bud but stop and take the can of club soda next to it. Not because Izzy would tell me not to have beer. Not because I would break another rule by having a beer. But because I don’t want to turn to beer when I’m alone. I choose the can of club soda for me, no one else.
I pop the ring and take it to the window, where I stare out at the red bricks of the building opposite. I’ve saved Cady’s college fund. I have lived with this view for six years, knowing I could afford something better but not wanting to waste money. Not wanting to spend money I could put into Cady’s fund. Not wanting to admit that I came from nothing but now I do have money. That I have made my own wealth. What am I trying to prove by staying here? That I’m not like Alice?
Through the window of an apartment in the building opposite mine, I see a woman answer a door and welcome friends into her place. I think of my friends. I think of Drew and Sarah. How they try to push me to be better. How Drew wants me to franchise the gym. He’s offering to help me and I haven’t even looked into it seriously.
Is it because I’m done trying to make something better of myself to prove that I deserve Alice? What about what I want?
I’m thirty-five years old. I can’t work myself to the bone training forever. At some point, I need to let younger guys come in. At some point, I should take my own advice and decide what the hell I want to do, for me.
My cell chimes and I rush to it. I wonder whether it will be Izzy, alone and wanting to call a truce. Do I want to call a truce?
The reason I don’t want to is the very face that is flashing on the screen of my cell phone.
“Cady.”
“I’m still pissed at you. But I’ve been talking with Mom and, since I’m on house arrest otherwise, do you want to have breakfast tomorrow?”
I chuckle. “Yes, baby. I would love to take you to breakfast tomorrow.”
* * * *
Day 11.
Cady chose the quirky café we’re sitting in. It’s Japan meets New York. The wall of windows looks out toward the Hudson River. One wall is brick—city-style. Another is painted with two geishas holding fans and standing outside a Japanese teahouse. The third wall is lined with shelves that are decorated in an array of teapots—fine, floral-patterned china; Asian-style pots with iron handles and matching miniature cups; English teapots with images of the royals and Big Ben.
Apparently, this week’s thing is tea. Cady has become a tea connoisseur, as well as a brunette. I decide not to comment on her change of hair color, knowing exactly why she has lost the pink look. The tea focus could be the result of an article in a magazine, or the fact Alice has placed her under “house arrest” for throwing her guts up earlier in the week.
Cady orders blueberry pancakes with syrup and a tasting tray of different teas. I contemplate bacon and eggs but opt for a mango smoothie made with coconut milk, boosted with a shot of protein, and finished with blackberries. It was the berries that clinched the deal.
“Okay, who are you and where did my dad go?” Cady asks when our server leaves us.
“Some of these shakes aren’t so bad. They make you feel sort of…clean. Just don’t ever tell Izzy I said that.” I wince once the words are out of my mouth, knowing I went straight to the most taboo topic I could have chosen.
“It’s okay, Dad. I’m cool about it now. I mean, I’m still pissed at you both, but Mom and I had a chat about it.…” She shrugs.
“You and your mom talked about Izzy and me?” Something inside me flutters. But what’s new is, the reason isn’t the mention of Alice, or that Alice has been talking about me. It’s that simple phrase: Izzy and me.
“Do you think I don’t know why you never drop me at home?” she goes on.
I shuffle in my chair, out of my comfort zone.
“Don’t worry, Mom says she thinks it’s because you don’t like knowing I live with someone in a father-figure role who isn’t you. But I know you don’t really have girlfriends. I know if it weren’t for Uncle Drew and Aunty Sarah, you would spend all your time between the four walls of your apartment and the gym.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Stop being childish, Dad.”
“What the—”
“Shh, just listen. I know by the way you talk about Mom that you never got over her. Thing is, you always talk about the two of you when you were teenagers. Younger than I am now, even. So, I don’t agree with Mom. I think you don’t pick me up because you’re stuck with an idea of what could have been.”
I lean back into my seat and roll my jaw. I’m about to argue, tell her she’s wrong, but she has nailed me right on. It’s just as impressive as it is annoying. “When did you get so grown up?”
“I have my moments.” A server sets down Cady’s selection of teas. “Thanks. Anyway, Mom and I both agree on one thing.”
“Enlighten me, Dalai Lama.”
She sips from her first miniature cup of tea and rolls her eyes at me as she does. “Izzy pulls you out of your comfort zone. She makes you do things you would never do. Like dancing, and having public arguments. I’m not saying that’s a good thing. My point is, Izzy seems to have an effect on you that no one else has ever had.”
“You and your mom spoke about this?”
“Yes. And we’re both happy for you. Even if Izzy isn’t ‘the one.’” She uses her index fingers for air quotes. “Maybe she’s waking you up. I love you, Dad, but you should have more in your life than that gym.”
I stare at my daughter, wondering when she got so smart. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I like to think of the old Alice, but she isn’t the same person anymore. Maybe I’m not the same boy I was back then, either.
“She told me to apologize to you, by the way. Izzy, I mean. She obviously never meant to hurt your feelings.”
“I know. I read her latest blog post.”
My stomach sinks. “Christ, what has she posted now?”
“You haven’t seen it?”
“If I had, I wouldn’t be asking.”
She grunts, like she’s the adult fed up with my attitude. “You should read it. You should also go see her after breakfast.”
“That’s difficult, since she won’t speak to me.”
“Because you never told her about me. It’s okay. I get why you might not have wanted to. Sometimes we want to pretend we’re something else, right?”
“I would never want to pretend I don’t have the most amazing daughter in the world, Cady. I adore you, you know that. I guess it just didn’t come up, and it was easier to show Izzy a simplified version of myself—a single guy who would argue with her for two weeks, then wave her off to London.”
“Well, the London part I can’t really solve for you. But if you read her blog post, I don’t think you will be so afraid to see her.”
I feel my eyes narrow. “What does this post say?”
“You’ll see.”