Chad Tate.
I’d never given much thought to what Chad Tate might be doing when not making my life miserable. I sort of imagined he went into cryosleep or something. That the Giants or Mom pulled his brain-dead body from the vault whenever the script required him to make an appearance.
But here he is. Right at home in the hustle of New York. In his city clothes, black slacks and a tailored wool coat, which make him look refined and polished.
“Cookie.”
There it is. The toothy grin. The fake affable charm.
“What are you doing here?” I’m standing in this weird spot in front of Gareth’s building, between the car and the door with the tips of my heels touching the edge of the doormat. The doorman is trying to figure out whether or not to open the door. The Town Car driver is still there, eyeing Tate, seeming to wonder if I plan to beat a retreat into the sedan.
“Cashing in my chips,” he tells me.
I wave to the driver and, after giving me a small nod, he gets behind the wheel and steers the car off into midday traffic. “What are you talking about?”
“Is he home? The doorman says he’s not usually home this time of day.”
Chad Tate is watching me. Looking at me in a way that makes my skin crawl. That makes me want to take a very long shower.
“I haven’t been home all day. I don’t know if Gareth is upstairs. If that’s who you’re talking about. And I don’t have anything to say to you.” I take a step closer to the building and the doorman pushes the door open a crack.
Chad Tate grabs my arm. Hard. I don’t know what to do. I could get the doorman. But I don’t want some big melodramatic scene with my lame-ass stepfather. I don’t want that crap to be a part of the little world I share with Gareth.
“Five minutes, Cookie. In private.”
He tries to steer me toward the door but I know I don’t want to be alone with him in Gareth’s apartment. He’s got his hand way too low on my back.
“There’s a coffee shop next door,” I tell him.
“There’s an empty penthouse straight ahead.” He wags his dark eyes suggestively and this gives me the resolve I need.
I shake free of him. “Coffee or nothing.”
We take a table near the window of the shop. Ever the chauvinist, he orders me some kind of drink overloaded with whipped cream and caramel sauce that I stab with a stir stick. I don’t bother correcting him. I want to get out of here as fast as possible.
“If this is about that thing with Mom—” I’m pretty sure he’s come to beg for Mom’s job. Chad Tate never likes to go without a meal ticket.
He shrugs out of his ashen gray coat and it falls over the edge of the wooden chair. “She kicked me out,” he says. “This is about me. I need money.”
“What? I don’t have—”
He interrupts me again. “You have a boyfriend worth $100 million. From what I hear, you shake your ass in his general direction and you get what you want.”
I hate that there’s a kernel of truth in this. I spend my nights wrapped in Gareth’s beige Sferra Milos $600 sheets and my days with his platinum Amex tucked in my purse. My face heats up and I ball my hands into fists. “What you hear? From who?”
He ignores this. “I’ve got an opportunity to put a new bar in Vegas. Right on the strip. I’m looking for investors.”
Something about this makes no sense. Even for Chad Tate. “Wait. Aren’t you going to have a baby?”
He snorts. “Is that your way of saying nobody’s given you the birds and the bees lecture yet, Cookie? Because it’s the female of the species who—”
“Go to hell. You know what I mean. Isn’t my mom pregnant with your kid?”
He covers his hand with mine. I jerk it away and put it under the table in my lap.
Chad Tate laughs. A false, harsh, imitation of a laugh. “I told Leslie a million times. I don’t want kids, and I certainly don’t want a bunch of lectures on how I need to step up to the plate from some dead-broke, over-the-hill supermodel. I told her to get rid of it. She wouldn’t, and that’s her problem.”
Emotions are hitting me in waves, building into a tsunami of confusion.
I’m vindicated. My mom’s being forced to reap what’s she’s sown, finally having to deal with the asshole mess that is Chad Tate. She appears to be reaching the limit of what she can con from people by batting her eyes at them.
I’m mad. The nerve of Chad Tate. Taking all Mom’s money and then complaining that he’s not being supported in the manner to which he’s become accustomed.
There’s this other part of me that’s worried and fearful and sad. The part that doesn’t hate my mom quite as much as I wish I could. The part of me that remembers Lydia Moreno’s face.
Chad Tate licks his lower lip. I’m fresh meat.
Situations like this have been one of the hardest things about losing weight. My body changed, and suddenly I became a player in this game where people are trying to get sex or approval or whatever from each other. It’s one more reminder that losing weight hasn’t worked out exactly like I thought it would.
“What about your job?” I ask.
He laughs again. “You’re not a sports fan.”
No. I’m not.
And Chad Tate’s jaw is tightening, his eyes narrowing in a way that says he’s losing patience. His good-guy smile is gone. “I haven’t been with the Giants in over a year. There was a regime change. New coach didn’t think I was worth having on the payroll. He said he’d prefer to, ah, invest in other areas.”
Yeah, I can see that.
“Hey. Cookie. Do I need to remind you that you’re sitting in that chair right now and not wearing pink underwear and eating veggie burgers at the Maricopa County Jail because I came through for you?”
“You ruined my life, and you want a medal pinned on your chest for telling your stupid football stories to a bunch of guys clueless enough to be impressed by them?” I sneer.
He leans forward and his coal-black sweater is pulled taut over his chest, still defined from all those hours at the gym. “Look, I was one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. Ever. And I ruined your life? I was up front with your mom from the beginning. I can see why you needed me to be the big bad wolf when you were eight years old. But you’re all grown up now.” He stops for a second to look me over. “You gotta know that your mom didn’t need much prompting from me to walk out on her responsibilities. You really think I’m the reason she didn’t want to be a suburban housewife in Mesa, Arizona, kid?”
He’s challenging the fiction I’ve always accepted. That Mom and Dad were happy until Chad Tate arrived.
The whipped cream has sunk into the diabetic nightmare of a drink in front of me, creating milky white swirls that rotate and churn. “I have to go.”
I stand up and Chad Tate rises, as well. “We’re not finished.”
“Yes, we are.”
Chad Tate has this look. Some weird mixture of fear and regret and remorse. “Cookie, I came through for you when you needed it. Now it’s your turn.”
“Believe it or not, I can’t make Gareth give you a bunch of money.”
I get up from the table and he blocks my path.
He’s getting older. The hair on his temples has gone gray. “I’m going to Vegas for a couple of weeks to get the details buttoned down. When I get back, there’ll be an investors meeting. Make sure Calvin Klein Ken Doll is there. That’s all you have to do.”
I want to throw up and I’m relieved I didn’t drink that sickly sweet coffee. “Fine. I’ll try. But I’ll eat my boots if you get Gareth to invest in one of your money-pit man caves.”
Chad Tate sinks back into his chair and smiles. “You might want to start stockpiling ketchup to help you choke down all that leather.”
I walk back to Gareth’s building. I have to pass by the coffee shop window where Chad Tate remains at the table. He’s resting his hand on his chin, staring off into space, like a male model in a fragrance ad.
I head straight to the penthouse. It’s late in the day when I finally arrive, wound up like a toy top waiting to be released into wobbles and spins. Gareth takes one look at me and says, “Rough day, huh?”
“Yeah. I guess. I just saw Chad Tate outside.”
Gareth doesn’t know what to make of this revelation.
“My stepfather.”
He steers me into an oversize white armchair and rubs my shoulders. “Tell Uncle Gary all about it.”
Gary. It’s the use of this little nickname that triggers the memory of my lunch with Dr. Moreno. That was a few hours ago, but the memory has already faded into a sepia-toned type of flashback.
“Do you love alcapurria?” I ask him.
“Cookie, I’m pretty sure you have a heart attack at forty if you eat too many of those damn things. Why do you—”
I interrupt him. “Do you know Lydia Moreno?”
He freezes for a second. “What does that have to do with your stepfather?”
“Nothing. Lydia...Dr. Moreno is my faculty advisor at ASU. She’s in town and she wanted to meet with me today. She said she knew you. Quite well.” I try to keep my voice neutral but it sounds like the beginning of a jealous girlfriend routine, even to me.
“We used to see each other. Back during my Parsons days.”
He doesn’t say anything for a minute and neither do I.
“Is she giving you a hard time?” he asks. He reaches into his pocket for his phone. “I’ll call her and tell her to—”
I put my hand on his arm to stop him. “No. No. Don’t do that. I just think...shouldn’t we be doing something? Designing something?”
Gareth rolls his eyes, sinks into a chair opposite me and checks his phone. “The design phase of the project is over. We’ve moved on to the production and marketing phases now.”
“Yeah. I get that,” I say in voice that is high-pitched and weirdly desperate. “But shouldn’t we always be making things? Always designing something?”
“Always designing something?” he echoes.
“I mean, when are you sketching?”
He lets his phone fall into his lap and regards me, chewing the inside of his cheek. “I have people doing that.”
“People? Designers besides you?”
His gaze drifts to the cold glass window panes.
Seeing Chad Tate and Dr. Moreno on the same day was like being visited by the ghosts of Christmas Past and Christmas Future. I’m so uncertain about what I used to be and what I want to be in the future.
“Gareth, if I stay here in New York, what’s going to happen?”
“Happen? If you stay in New York?” he repeats.
“To us. In our relationship. Will this be my apartment?”
Gareth’s face pales. “You want me to give you an apartment?” His tone is icy.
“No. It’s just... I want to know I have somewhere to live... I think that’s a normal concern...” I stammer. His black eyes intimidate me.
He nods a couple of times, his face tense with anger. “Oh, okay. So here we go. You saw Lydia this morning and she told you a bunch of shit about me. How I can’t fucking make clothes anymore on account of the fact that I don’t want to chase cows round Lonesome Dove Ranch. How I’m an asshole who fucks everybody over. Well, let me tell you, Cookie, my relationship with Lydia didn’t work out. And that says as much about her as it does about me.”
I want to figure out a way to get out of this emotional shithole I’m digging for myself. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I—”
Whatever storm is inside of him passes quickly and he gets up and kneels beside me. “No. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t get so upset. There’s something about you that I can’t quite... You make me feel something when, for the longest time, I thought I couldn’t feel anything at all. Cookie, I’ll take care of you. I promise,” he says, squeezing my hand. “We can talk about this later. But right now, you need to get ready.”
The tension drains out of my shoulders. “For what?”
He smiles at me in a way that’s a bit subdued and reaches behind the chair for a small gift bag. “Tell me why I have to find out from Facebook that it’s your birthday.”
I check my own phone for the first time in hours. There are a bunch of texts from Piper. Several messages from Grandma and a ton of “Happy Birthday” notifications from social media.
“I forgot,” I tell Gareth.
“We need to celebrate the arrival of Cookie Vonn in style,” Gareth says, standing and giving my back a final pat.
“Arrival? I didn’t land on the planet’s surface in a UFO.”
Gareth smiles at me, waiting for me to open the gift. There’s a long, velvet jewelry case inside. A single strand of Mikimoto pearls, graduated as they approach the clasp.
“Beautiful.” It’s a wardrobe staple. The classic kind of thing that passes from mothers to daughters.
“Yes. You are.”
I get ready and do my best to forget about the day.
Gareth somehow gets all twelve seats in the tiny, but trendy Chang’s Noodle Bar. We eat gourmet ramen with Piper and Brian and a bunch of people from G Studios. Nobody asks me for ID as I’m served glass after glass of expensive, warm sake.
I can’t remember much of what happens after that. I end up snuggled against Gareth’s chest, dreaming of fabric that spools endlessly off a massive loom.
It’s mostly dark when Gareth wakes me by poking me in the rib cage a few times. “Come on. You said you want to work. So let’s go.”
He nudges me a few more times so I know he’s not being ridiculous. I throw on leggings and a sweater and meet him in the kitchen. He’s in there in a normal pair of jeans, a Toad the Wet Sprocket T-shirt and is carrying a backpack.
I can’t even believe Gareth John Miller owns a backpack.
He slides into a leather jacket as he says, “Let’s go.”
We take the subway. “I didn’t realize you knew where the station was,” I say.
Reaching into the backpack, he hands me a thermos of coffee. “Keep your strength up, funny girl.”
I assume we’re going to the Brooklyn Bridge since we get off at that stop. But instead we walk to where the Williamsburg Bridge extends over the East River. Its steel trusswork glows gold as the sun rises.
Gareth finds a grassy area and produces a thin blanket from the backpack. He spreads it on the ground and hands me a sketchbook as we sit. “Okay,” he says. “Describe the bridge in three words.”
“Um. Silver. Straight. Long.”
Gareth snorts. “Very creative.”
“It’s six in the morning!”
He nods. “Okay. Now there’s a woman coming across the bridge. Sketch something for her to wear that could be described with those three words.”
I start making scratches with the pencil he’s given me, but he stops me immediately. “First rule of design, Cookie. Always ask who the woman is.”
With a smile, I ask, “So who’s the woman?”
“Let’s say midthirties. Professional. She’s got money for the clothes we want to sell. But she’s got kids at home. Likes to look good. Comfort is key.”
I pick up the pencil again. This time Gareth says, “Second rule. Ask where the woman is going. Is she headed to Pilates? To a cocktail party? A funeral?”
“We’re making funeral wear now?” I roll my eyes even though he’s right.
“Nah. Let’s say our gal is having breakfast with her boss.”
I snort. “Very funny.”
This time I do get to sketch. Gareth is drawing something too, but it looks more like a take on the lattice pattern of the bridge. He leans over my sketchbook. “That’s good. But you have to think about proportion. Especially if you want to do plus-size.”
I’m taking stabs at a pantsuit that would be made from a gold and silver ombré fabric, the colors reflected across the metallic surfaces of the bridge. “This is your process?”
“Sometimes.” He kisses my forehead.
We’ve been at this for about an hour when my phone rings. Gareth passes me the beeping and buzzing rectangle.
One more surprise.
A gravelly voice travels through the speaker. “Cookie? I need to talk to you.”
It’s Dad.
He’s calling from a Phoenix number.
For the first time in ten years, Dr. Martin Vonn has returned from Africa.