Page 79 of Be Your Anything
One side of my mouth tips up.
“Lucas, I’ve always believed you to be an amazing, caring, loving guy. That isn’t going to change just because you do one wrong thing. Our friendship is deeper than that.”
“I’m glad,” he says.
I nod. “Besides, if I was going to judge you for that, I’d have to judge Paige for all the stupid shit I know she does on a regular basis. Trust me when I say you don’t hold a candle to that girl.”
Lucas laughs, something deep and warm, and it sends a wave of contentment through me, knowing the joy and happiness he’s feeling, even just momentarily, is because of me.
“Knock, knock,” I say, tapping my knuckle lightly against the doorjamb that leads into my mother’s office later that morning.
She looks up from her computer, her eyes flicking to me quickly before returning to her screen.
“What is it?”
I push away the slight bit of irritation that my mother can so quickly dismiss me when I rarely stop by her desk.
“I just have some paperwork for you to sign,” I say.
She lifts a hand and motions me forward, though her eyes stay glued to her screen.
Lenora Roth is one of the few women in the family who has managed to become a career woman without pissing anyone off. I’ve always assumed she was able to make it work because shetriedbeing a stay-at-home mom first, tried being the hostess with the mostest, or whatever that stupid saying is.
When my father cheated and got caught in an incredibly public way—thinktonight at ten on KTV5kind of public—my mother decided she wouldn’t shy away and lick her wounds in private. She took a forward-facing position within the foundation and went to fucking work.
I’ve always admired her for that, her willingness to shirk tradition in the face of momentary defeat, to seek out her own new kind of happily ever after that didn’t fit into the old-world ways of our family.
The hard part about the whole thing—at least for me—is what it has done to my relationship with my dad.
He cheated on my mom with the mayor’s daughter, who was fifteen years his junior and working as his assistant. And then after the divorce, he married her, moved across the country, and had some other kids.
It’s just hard to forgive someone when they wound you so deeply you wonder if you’ll ever recover. And what he did to my mom? It has always felt like I shared that pain with her, even though I’m certain I’ve only ever truly felt a fraction of it.
So when she looks me right in the eyes as she’s signing paperwork and says, “Your father is coming out for a visit this weekend,” I’m a little more than surprised.
“What?”
She lifts the top stack of papers and sets it aside, pulling forward the handful of checks for vendors and scribbling her signature across the flagged line.
“Your father—he called to let me know he’s coming to visit you this weekend.”
My face scrunches up.
“Don’t make that face. It’ll give you wrinkles.”
I almost want to laugh, because she didn’t even look at me when she said that. She just knows me so well.
“Why didn’t he call and tellmehe was visiting? Why would he giveyouthe message instead?”
Her eyes flick up to mine. “He tried to call you a few times this week. He said your phone was off and he didn’t want to take the risk that you wouldn’t know he was coming.”
Then she returns to signing checks, her pen scratching across the pages in front of her with a flourish.
I shuffle from foot to foot, knowing that’s my own fault. Ididhave my phone off for a few days after the Fourth, but it doesn’t make any sense that my dad would call my mom to let her know he was visiting.
Something smells funny.
But when I open my mouth to ask her what’s really going on, I realize I don’t have the guts to actually do so. I drop it.
