Chapter Twenty
“How many balloons does one six-year-old need?”
“Keep blowing,” Rachel says, and spins by me with a tray of cookies.
“What about a helium tank?”
“They can’t all be helium, what do we do when they all float away?” Rachel says, and is out the door.
I turn to Tara who gamely agreed to volunteer for Lily’s party. She ties another bow around another stuffed puppy.
“What’s the theme again?”
“Puppies,” Tara says, and pats the stuffed animal on the head.
“There are twenty five-year -olds descending on this house and they each get a stuffed puppy.”
“And ears.” Tara picks up a headband that has puppy ears sporting glitter. She puts them on.
My heart seems to be contradicting modern science and is actually regenerating. “You’re too cute for words.”
Tara blushes and smiles at me. “Think this pair can be mine?”
“I know that pair can be yours.” I walk around the table and pull her into my arms.
The kiss is warm and gentle and filled with a different kind of need. The need of wanting her in my life on a more permanent basis.
“Knock it off you two, there are children coming in the back gate.” Rachel sweeps back into the kitchen. She leans toward Tara, “Again, I blame him.” She smiles.
“He gets a lot of blame.”
“Ah yes, well he’s the youngest and a boy, so from me he gets all the blame. Now, from our parents, he got all the adoration and attention. And me? I simply got responsibility.”
There is a kernel of truth in big sis’s words, but there is also simply some playful teasing.
“You also got to torture me and tell on me,” I say.
“The good old days.” Rachel continues toward the sink. “I think I’m ready.”
Lily flounces into the room wearing pants and a big shirt with a dog on the front.
“The theme continues,” I say. “What you wearing Lily?”
“My new favorite shirt, Alex gave it to me.”
I look at Rachel and raise an eyebrow. “Alex? As in lives in Malibu Alex?”
“Yes,” Rachel says in a kind of don’t mess with me tone. “He’s out of town this weekend, but we saw him recently—”
“Oh? We saw him, did we?” I smile.
“And he knew Lily’s birthday was coming up,” Rachel continues, ignoring my playful but insinuating tone. “So he brought her the shirt.”
“I see.”
I flash Tara a look and she feigns like she doesn’t know anything but I see a look exchanged between these two women that I love. And it’s good. It’s good that my sister likes Tara and Tara likes my sister and that they’re friends, because them getting along makes life easier and pleasant and happy. And for the first time, maybe ever, I am down with easy and happy. Not only down with it, but actually cultivating it, and realizing that I can choose the happiness. I look at Tara and smile.
I choose Tara.
“Uncle Jake?”
I pull my gaze from Tara, one of the few times I’ve ever considered looking at anyone other than my niece when she’s talking to me.
“Yes, my love?” I bend down and scoop her into my arms because she is six today and soon I won’t be able to lift her.
She dips her head and raises her beautiful eyes up to me. “Uncle Jake,” she says, in the softest, most gut-wrenching voice. “What did you get me for my birthday?”
I smile, I can’t help it. This kid has my number and she pulls that thing out and twists my heart whenever she feels like it.
“I can’t tell you.”
She sighs. Oh the sigh that could end all sighs. “I want a puppy,” she says and lays her head on my shoulder.
I glance at Tara whose eyes have widened. She has her hand over her heart as though she’s seeing the most spectacular show of familial love.
“Don’t be fooled,” Rachel stage whispers in Tara’s ear. “She pulled that same move last night for a chocolate chip cookie.”
Rachel is again out the door, this time with a tray filled with sandwiches.
“Sweetie, I know what you want, but I can’t tell you what I got you,” I say.
“Please?”
“Lily.” Rachel calls from the backyard. “Mathilda is here.”
“Mathilda!” Lily yells and wiggles out of my arms. With a smile she is off like a shot, the thoughts of her love for me and her need for her puppy an evaporated memory.
“She’s gonna’ be so surprised,” I say.
“You think you can hold out until tomorrow and not tell her?” Tara asks.
It’s a legitimate questions. With all the presents she gets today she won’t even notice that mine is missing, but there will be so much disappointment about no puppy.
“Maybe we don’t have to wait for tomorrow.” I wiggle my eyebrows.
“Oh my God, did you get her a dog?”
“I can neither confirm nor deny the possibility of a recently adopted puppy showing up at this house, after, of course, I’ve cleaned up and poured the wine for Rachel.”
Tara claps her hands together beneath her chin. “Ooo! I love puppies and I can’t wait to see Lily’s face! I can stay, can’t I? To see the puppy?”
I move back in close and put my arms around Tara.
“Absolutely.” I duck my head and kiss her. “I mean you’re practically family.” I kiss her again.
She is. Even with the challenges, or perhaps in spite of the challenges, I have reached a place where I can’t imagine a life without Tara. Does that scare me? Hell yes. Is it worth it?
Yeah. Absolutely worth it.
How do I know? I feel it. I feel this need for her to be in my life deep in my core, and regardless of what pops up at us, I know we can overcome it.
“Hello.” Kendall stands on the far side of the kitchen, holding a gift wrapped in birthday paper decorated with puppies.
I step away from Tara and take a quick breath.
“Kendall, this is Tara.”
Kendall squints, but puts a smile on her face and reaches out her hand. “We met, a couple of months ago, at the Barrett’s party.”
A flush starts in Tara’s neck and rolls up into her cheeks.
“Right,” Tara says. “The…uh…the Ferris wheel party.”
Kendall nods. She waits and looks at Tara, almost like she’s waiting for something more, another statement, more words.
“Well,” Kendall finally says. “George is outside and I better get this present to Lily. Good to see you, Jake.”
She slips by me, and gives my upper arm a tight squeeze, as if to say, ‘be careful.’
I turn back to Tara and certainly hope that I am.
***
“Richard, that woman is here.”
I look around Mom toward the pool and the group of parents. Where is Tatianna? Mom’s agitation is palpable and I don’t want a scene at Lily’s party. Rachel is inside with Tara and all the children are crammed around the table waiting for the cake. I know she’s speaking about Kendall, but I don’t know where she is.
“Did you hear me Richard? That…that….whore is here!”
“Mom.” I grasp her hand. “Want to go inside? Maybe help me find Tatian—”
“No, Richard.” She rips her hand from mine, “I absolutely do not want to go inside. I want to know why that whore is here for Lily’s birthday?”
I glance at the crowd again. Two women from the flock of parents glance toward Mom and me. Most of the adults at the party know about Mom’s Alzheimer’s. An uncomfortable silence grows in the crowd.
“Mom—”
“Stop calling me that,” Mom yells. “I am not your mother, I’m your damn wife, and I refuse to have that whore here for my daughter’s birthday.”
The entire backyard is silent. Even the kids surrounding the table are quiet. Lily’s eyes grow wide, like she can’t quite understand what Grandma is saying, but she does understand that Grandma is confused.
“Mom, please. It’s Lily’s party.”
“I hate it when you call me Mom, Richard. I can’t stand it. I can’t stand this. How could you possibly let that woman come to our daughter’s birthday?”
She stomps into the house just as Rachel and Tara emerge with Rachel holding the cake, candles blazing. Everyone starts singing. I’m thankful for the song instead of the awkward silence.
To the guests’ credit, they fake it and quickly recover. The parents rally and surround Lily with smiles and sympathetic glances toward me and Rachel. Every parent at the party seems to understand that they must make up for those moments; that Lily must remember the happy parts of the party, not the strange things that her Grandmother yelled at her uncle.
I wait until the cake cutting is finished and then I go inside and upstairs. I peek into the guest room where Mom now lies on a bed fast asleep. Tatiana sits on a chair by the bed.
“She’s better now,” she says, and goes back to reading her book.
I shut the door and sigh. I walk down the hallway and stop at the top of the stairs.
Kendall.
She’s stepped out of the upstairs bathroom and is now just in front of me.
“I needed the bathroom,” she says
“Right,” I say and pause.
“I uh, I was surprised to see her here.”
“We…we seem to have worked it out.”
“Really?” Kendal shakes her head. “You worked out that the woman you’re supposed to trust wrote a secret article about you telling the world about your secret identity?” She raises her eyebrows. “Wow.”
My heart tugs in my chest when she says it like that. None of this seems very workable, but I trust Tara. Don’t I?
“Did you ask her about who she called and when?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“And she disputes it, says it didn’t happen that way, says it was after the party.”
“And you believe her? The woman with so much to lose?”
Kendall walks toward me and is close to me now.
“She says your version of the timeline is off. That she started the story before and she hadn’t put together who I was until after the party.”
“Then how did she get all the numbers?” Kendall asks.
My heart drops. Too many unanswered questions that I don’t want to ask. “I…we haven’t gotten into the details.”
“I understand,” Kendall says. “I just hope she doesn’t betray you again.”
She glances toward the bottom of the stairs. “Someone discovering that you’re Wonderfuck is the type of thing that could destroy your family. Especially Rachel.” Kendall brushes past me and down the stairs.
“Jake!” Rachel’s voice comes from the landing.
I didn’t know she was there. Much closer than I want. I walk down the steps to meet her at the bottom.
“What the hell is going on?” Her face is ashen.
My heart pounds. Shit. She must have overheard, but then I follow her gaze to the front room, where the dog trainer has arrived and twenty five-year-olds screech with delight. Lily’s best gift of all wiggles in her arms.
“We decided on tomorrow,” Rachel hisses.
“No, you decided on tomorrow. Besides, I waited until the end of the party. These kids are all on the way out the door.”
“You lied to me.” Rachel’s eyes hold ice. Her tone is different and I wonder if it’s the puppy she’s discussing right now, or did she overhear Kendall and me on the stairs? “You’ve been lying to me for a long while now.”
Those words tell me all I need to know.
“Uncle Jake! Uncle Jake! Did you see my new puppy?”
Lily races toward me holding the adorable lab-shepherd mix while Rachel forces a smile to her face but shoots me daggers from her eyes.
I squat down. “What will you name her?” I ask, pretending everything is well.
My gaze zips over the crowd, and in the far corner of the dining room I see Tara speaking to…Kendall. And neither of them look happy. They’re hidden in plain sight by the chaos of the moment. The puppy, the kids, and most parents trying to gather up their young and head out the door.
“Daisy,” Lily says, and gives the furry floppy puppy a kiss on the head and then puts her on the floor.
I glance back up in time to see Tara shrug and shake her head, and Kendall raise her hands in an ‘I don’t know what to tell you’ way. They both look disgusted with each other.
Lily pulls me in for a hug. “Thank you Uncle Jake, I love you.”
And I realize that after today, my niece may be the only woman left who does.
***
Unavoidable conversations aren’t usually happy conversations. No, they’re the conversations that are required because something has gone wrong. Events force the topic. The discussion becomes mandatory.
I’m in my condo and the fading light streams through the sliders that lead to my balcony. The front door opens and closes and Jango’s nails tippity-tap across my floor. She stops in front of me and sniffs me. Her tail wags furiously. She can smell Daisy.
“You’re gonna’ love her,” I say, patting her on the head. If you ever get to meet her. I don’t say that part because my hope is that yes, all of my suspicions, all of my fears, can be cleared up in a conversation.
My heart knows otherwise.
Tara has changed into her comfy clothes. She wears leggings. Her hair is up in a ponytail and she wears an over-sized flannel shirt. Relaxation flows through her. I fight my urge to walk to her and kiss her, touch her, sweep her into my arms and carry her to my bedroom. To ignore the unpleasant things. To pretend that nothing uncomfortable has happened. To be with Tara no matter what she’s done. But I can’t because the unavoidable conversation has to start now.
I turn to Tara and I don’t smile. I’ve decided on the point-blank approach. “How did you find the women that I slept with?”
She curls up on the sofa with her feet tucked beneath her.
“We already discussed this.”
“Humor me.”
“I started with the conversation with my girlfriends.”
“Before the end of your engagement?”
She nods. “Right before that. And then I remembered that conversation and I started looking for the name in bathrooms and chat rooms and I asked around and—”
“Right, I get that part. But how did you find them all?”
“They lead to each other over time. Conversations, questions.”
She looks away from me toward the balcony as though she doesn’t want to have this conversation. Neither do I.
“And my phone?”
“And your phone. That was the way I knew it was you.”
“You didn’t take numbers from my phone?”
The flush of red starts on her chest, rolls up her neck and into her cheeks, and I know the truth before she says a word. I only hope, I pray, that she says the right words, because while I can’t forgive her now for lying to me and betraying me a second time, I can possibly not hate her if she tells the truth now. Not hating the woman that I love, that would be good for now.
Tara looks me in the eye. She doesn’t say anything at first. Then her gaze goes to the balcony, that fucking balcony that haunts my life. She looks at it and then back at me. “Yeah,” she says softly. “I took the numbers from your phone.”
My heart plummets. This is the end. There is no coming back from the hit because there’ve been too many hits from which this relationship can recover.
“You know about your mother?”
“I do.”
My brow creases. She knows. She knows everything.
“Why now? Why are you telling me now?”
“Because crazy Kendall said she’d out your identity to the world if I didn’t tell you the truth.”
Tara looks away from me. She crosses her arms in front of her and rubs her upper arms with her palms.
“I…Jake, I did it then for a story, but I wouldn’t do it again. I love you. I’m in love with you.” Her gaze locks to mine. “I gave up my book deal for you. Even told Weston I wouldn’t do another article on you. I’ve—”
Her gaze is locked with mine. There is a plea in her eyes.
“Please,” she says. “I can’t imagine my life without you.”
“I feel the same way,” I say, my heart pumping out equal parts love and anger. “But you still have to go.”