I Take You Read online

We’re back at the hotel. The party is over, all my friends dispersed. The band has packed up, and the bar is closing. As I stand next to the pool and look down into the turquoise water, the lights go off.

  I shouldn’t be doing this.

  It’s a huge mistake. The truth of it hits me like a physical blow. I wander away from the pool, out onto the beach. I kick off my sandals and step into the surf. The water is icy. I sit at the edge of the dry sand and stretch out my legs. The moon is so bright I can see everything.

  Freddy is right. My family is right. I have no business getting married. I’ve known it for five months, deep down. It’s not in my genes. It’s not in the way I was raised. And whether or not I can change, I haven’t.

  But what about Will? He’ll get over me quickly. Find someone more suitable. This is better for him, too, in the long run.

  It’s not going to be fun, what I have to do. In fact, it’s going to kind of suck. I’ll have to ask Freddy how she broke off all those engagements. What she said, how she said it. What happened after. She’ll show me the way. She always does.

  I feel better already.

  No I don’t. I feel awful.

  What have I done?

  A wave rolls in, pulling at the sand under my feet, dragging it back out to sea.

  It’s okay. Better late than never, right?

  WEDNESDAY

  14

  Something’s rustling in the closet. I look down the bed, but I can’t see anything. Will is sprawled next to me, facedown, fully clothed. I hear a thump. More rustling.

  “Whoever you are, just make it quick,” I call out. “We won’t put up a fight.”

  Freddy emerges with an armful of clothing. “Inspection time!”

  “You.” I let my head fall back on the pillow. “I should have guessed.” She dumps everything at the foot of the bed. She pulls a dress out of the pile, gazes at it with contempt and tosses it on the floor.

  “That’s for the rehearsal dinner!” I protest.

  “Interesting. You didn’t tell me it was a costume party.” She picks up a sheer blouse.

  “Don’t be mean.”

  Will lets out a long, hoarse moan.

  Freddy begins sorting rapidly. “No, no, fine, hell no, fine, whoa. Whoa.” She’s holding up a jacket. “What the hell?”

  “I bought that at Barneys!”

  “Hope you saved the receipt, Colonel Mustard.” She drops it and kicks it away distastefully. “We’re taking it back.”

  “Lily?” Will croaks.

  “Will’s awake!” I leap on him and kiss his head. “Will’s awake! Will’s awake!” He rolls over and tries to push me away.

  “Can we order croissants this morning?” Freddy asks.

  “Did you have fun last night?” I ask him. “Where did you go?”

  “Lily, I really—”

  “Check it out.” Freddy plucks a pale blue tunic out of the pile and holds it up. “Aunt Edna, playing Yahtzee in the dayroom.”

  “Were there strippers?” I ask him. “Were they hot?”

  He covers his head with his arms. “Could you please not be in my face right now?”

  “Help me, Obi Wan!” Freddy squeals, holding up a white maxi dress. “You’re my only hope!”

  “Shut up!” I holler. Will cries out weakly. I brush the hair away from his forehead. “Do you need some painkillers, honey? I have Vicodin. Percocet, too, I think. I might even have a couple of Oxy left over from my root canal.”

  “No, we took those,” Freddy says, examining the seams on a pair of linen pants. I glare at her. “I mean, you gave them to me,” she adds quickly. “For me to use. When I had … pain.”

  “Do you have any Advil?” he asks.

  I look up at Freddy. “Can you check?” She disappears into the bathroom. I stroke Will’s head. “What did you guys do last night?”

  “Why are you screaming?” he whimpers.

  Freddy comes back. “No OTCs.” She picks up the room phone. “Is everybody on board with croissants?”

  Will struggles to sit up. “My mom wants to have breakfast with you.”

  “No problem,” Freddy says. “Have her people call my people.”

  “Not you. God!” Will clutches his head. “It hurts to breathe!”

  “With me?” I say. “When?”

  “Right now. She said she’d wait for you at the restaurant where we’re having the rehearsal dinner. Anytime after nine.”

  It’s nearly ten. I coax Will into drinking some water. Then he disappears under the duvet. I get dressed. Freddy follows me downstairs and through the lobby. She links her arm through mine. “I lost track of you after we got back last night.”

  “I went for a walk. I had a lot to think about.”

  “I was worried that I’d been a little too hard on you.”

  “With all that tough love? Of course not.” I pat her hand. “You were right about everything.”

  She looks at me in shock. “I was?”

  “Of course. You completely convinced me to call off the wedding.”

  “I did?”

  “Yes.” We walk through the doors of the hotel and into another achingly beautiful day. I take a deep breath of the salt-tinged air. “But now, I’m not so sure.”

  Freddy covers her face with her hands.

  “I can’t help it!” I cry. “I woke up next to him just now, and he was all rumpled and helpless and hungover? It was adorable. I wanted to be with him.”

  Freddy shakes her head.

  “I guess I’m kind of like Hamlet,” I continue.

  Freddy uncovers one extremely skeptical eye.

  “I mean, with the indecisiveness and all.”

  “Ohhh,” she says. “I thought you meant because you’re homicidal, Danish and insane.”

  “That too.”

  She takes my hands. “Lily, honey, all kidding aside—”

  “We’ll talk about it later,” I say. “I promise. But I’d better go. I don’t want to keep Will’s mom waiting.”

  We’ve reached the sidewalk. Freddy straightens the neckline of my dress. “You’re hopeless.”

  “Probably,” I say. “But don’t give up on me. I might surprise you.”

  In the twenty minutes or so that it takes me to walk to the restaurant, I come up with a little code of conduct for this meeting. I’m going to behave myself. No, better—I’m going to crush this fucking breakfast. I’m going to make Will’s mom love me. For whatever reason, Will cares what his parents think. And I care what Will thinks. Fixing Monday seems like the least I can do. So I’ll apologize profusely, of course. Compliment Will a lot—what mother doesn’t love that? Talk about the wedding, so we can bond a bit more over planning. What else? I could do the starry-eyed-young-lawyer thing, pepper her with questions about her career as an ass-kicking federal prosecutor. Without using the word ass-kicking, of course. Or any curse words. It’s going to be hard to carry on a conversation, but fine, no profanity. And no jokes about the wedding. Or work. Or sex. How about no jokes at all? I’ll let her take the lead, and I’ll listen and nod and smile.

  And no drinking, of course.

  Okay, one drink.

  Willpower!

  As I turn onto Whitehead Street, my phone pings with a text:

  —I’ll be there in 5 minutes, my darling. Wait for me in bed.

  I swear to God with this guy.

  —srsly, henry?

  —Lily!

  —pls learn how technology works

  —lol!

  —dont say lol, dad. just dont

  —Sorry darling! Ttfn!

  I walk through Blue Heaven’s gates and into the cheerful courtyard, which is decorated with painted guitars, lobster traps and other Keys flotsam. Anita is sitting at a table under a torn canvas umbrella, looking prim and uncomfortable in the laid-back environment. But she gives me a warm smile as I pull out a chair and sit down across from her. “Good morning,” she says. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Like the fishes.
And you?”

  “Absolutely. We’re having the most wonderful vacation. The sun and the sea, the food and the architecture. The amusing culture. It’s all so restful and relaxing.” She sighs contentedly. “It’s such a shame we’re not staying.”

  “What?”

  The waiter appears. “Can I get you something?”

  “I’d love one of your Bloody Marys,” I say.

  “Actually, she’ll have coffee,” Anita tells him.

  I turn to her. “Sorry?”

  The waiter leaves. Anita leans forward and snaps her fingers in my face. I’m so surprised that I gape at her for a few seconds. Then I burst out laughing. “Did you really just do that?”

  “Be quiet,” she says. “I want you to be quiet right now and listen to me.”

  Her nostrils are flaring. Her carefully made-up face is getting all blotchy.

  Moms-in-law is pissed.

  “I did not ask you here so that you could make another drunken spectacle of yourself,” she says sharply.

  “I wanted to apologize for that,” I say. “It was totally—”

  She waves it away. “Save your breath. Your behavior Monday, while deplorable, was at least true to your character.”

  What is going on? “My character? Are you—”

  “Any apology would be a lie, and I’m not interested in more lies. I will say this, though.” She starts jabbing at the table with one of her vicious red nails. “I expected a lawyer—a young lawyer, of all people—to treat a United States Attorney with a little more respect. I have never been as insulted as I was by you.”

  “Sure you have,” I tell her. “Just not to your face.”

  Because why should I sit here and take whatever she has to say? If she’s not going to play nice, neither am I.

  For whatever reason, my sass seems to calm her down. “Let’s keep this short.” She removes a bulky white envelope from her handbag and places it on the table. “This is for you.”

  “No thanks,” I say promptly. “Don’t want it.”

  Here we are, having a nice mother-in-law—daughter-in-law spat, and she busts out a big old unmarked envelope? People don’t do that in real life. Who does she think she is, Robert De Niro?

  “Take it.” She shoves it at me. I unfasten the clasp and pull out two thick manila files.

  The first is a copy of my juvenile record.

  I am vaguely aware that I should be shocked and furious and horrified right now. Probably scared, too. But I’m not even surprised. I think I knew this was coming. Ever since I saw Teddy on Monday night. Or stepped off the plane on Sunday. Or stepped onto one, thirteen years ago. Some part of me must have known that this would eventually happen.

  Anita’s eyes are on me, watching my face. She looks triumphant and expectant and smug.

  “That’s weird,” I say. “I don’t remember putting this on the registry.”

  She smiles.

  The partners at my firm were right. She does have fangs.

  I tap the folder. “I don’t know how you got this. This was expunged.”

  She nods sympathetically. “Digital files can be so tricky, can’t they?”

  At this point, I know what’s in the other folder. But I have to be sure. I push the first one aside so that I can see the name typed on the tab at the top: Lee DiFortuna. I don’t open it.

  “Don’t you want to see the pictures?” Anita asks.

  I return the files to the envelope and the envelope to the middle of the table. My coffee finally arrives. I take a sip and set the cup back down carefully. “I’d say this is some kind of sick joke, but you don’t strike me as the merry prankster type.”

  “It’s not a joke.”

  “In that case,” I say carefully, “I’m pretty sure that what you’ve done is what we in the legal profession call illegal.”

  “You’re hardly in a position to lecture me about what’s legal and what’s not,” she replies.

  I hold up my hands. “Can we stop, for a second? You’re obviously very upset, and I’m sorry about that, but I have no idea what you’re doing here. So I think the best thing right now is for me to leave, and later we can—”

  “The best thing for you to do right now,” she says, “is to end your relationship with my son.”

  No way. She cannot be for real. This cannot be happening.

  “If you do not,” she continues, “I will show him these documents.”

  Gran was right: this woman is a killer. But really, this is so typical for a prosecutor. They think they’re masters of the universe. They threaten and strong-arm people into doing what they want. So confident, so certain that they’re on the side of right and justice that they’re entitled to frighten people by using all the power of the state, and then some.

  She’s a bully. And I hate bullies.

  I tap the envelope. “Will is going to understand that the kid who did this stuff is not the woman I am now. So please, be my guest. Wrap it up in a big fat bow and give it to him.” I raise my coffee cup and toast her.

  “I will,” she says. “And I will also send a copy to the managing partner of your law firm.”

  I freeze. She raises her coffee cup and clinks it against mine. She takes a sip of coffee, sets the cup down and smiles. “I take it, from your inability to formulate some flippant reply, that you didn’t disclose your colorful past when they hired you.”

  I say nothing.

  “How unfortunate. However, I can’t say that it surprises me.”

  I finally find my voice. “You can’t do this.”

  “No? Who’s going to stop me?”

  “How about the police?” I say, too loudly. Heads turn. I lower the volume. “How about a couple of your colleagues? How about anybody else who might be interested to know that you’ve broken, oh, half a dozen state and federal laws, which is the only possible way you could have gotten these records?”

  “It will be so interesting to see which of us has more credibility,” she says thoughtfully. “The decorated federal prosecutor, or the disgraced former attorney.”

  “Okay, look. I know that you don’t approve of me, but—”

  She cuts me off. “I can’t tell you how thrilled I was when Will called me and told me about you. ‘Mom,’ he said. ‘I’m in love. Lily is perfect. She’s smart, and ambitious, and she loves the law.’ I was overjoyed. But it happened so fast. You sounded too good to be true. So,” she shrugs, “I did a little digging.”

  “Unbelievable.”

  “My thoughts exactly!” she retorts. “Because there you were,” she waves a hand at the folders, “in all your glory. You can imagine my dismay. My horror. But do you know what I did? I did the right thing.”

  I have to laugh at this. “In what possible way could you have done the right thing?”

  “I gave you the benefit of the doubt,” she snaps. “I walked into that lunch on Monday with an open mind. I thought, I shouldn’t prejudge. Maybe she’s different now. Maybe she’s changed.”

  “I am different,” I say, almost pleading with her. “I have changed.”

  “I can see that.” She leans forward, practically spitting at me. “You’ve gotten worse.”

  That’s not true. I know that’s not true, and it helps me pull myself together. I reach for my coffee, take a sip. I set my cup back down. I lean back in my chair and smile at her. “You know what I’m looking forward to? Christmases in Chicago!”

  “You are going to call off this wedding,” she tells me. “You have absolutely no choice.”

  “The person who doesn’t have a choice here, Mama Bear, is you. This is Will’s decision, and mine. Not yours.”

  “Will doesn’t know who you really are!” she yelps. “My son is a wonderful man. He’s brilliant. He’s creative. He’s sensitive. He’s sweet and trusting. Far too trusting.”

  “And he has a mom that’s far too into him.”

  “He deserves someone who can take care of him, support him. Not someone whose obvious moral failings wi
ll threaten to undermine everything he’s worked so hard to accomplish.”

  “Let’s not get too excited here, okay? Will is a great guy, but I haven’t seen him heal any lepers lately.”

  I didn’t think her face could get any more red, but it does.

  “Your wonderful son,” I continue, “is a man in his early thirties who’s managed to graduate from college and hold down a job. As a bonus, he knows how to feed and wipe himself. Congratulations, Anita.” I give her two thumbs-up. “You raised a winner!”

  It is so satisfying to watch her struggle to control her temper. I can’t resist twisting the knife. So I lean forward and smile at her. “Actually, let me revise that. Will is also amazing in bed. Did you teach him that, too?”

  That’s when she loses it. “How dare you?” she shrieks.

  We now have the attention of the entire restaurant. I stand up. “Thanks for breakfast, Moms!”

  “You have twenty-four hours,” she calls after me.

  “Love you!” I give her the finger and walk out.

  15

  I leave the restaurant and walk down to the marina behind one of the big new hotels. The thrill of combat quickly wears off, and I’m left feeling a little sick. What the hell happened back there? How did breakfast go from zero to crazy in two sips of coffee?

  I sit on a bench and look up at an enormous cruise ship docked at the pier. The thing is four or five stories high—it’s as if a massive apartment building just sidled up to my hometown. I’m trying very hard to keep my mind a blank. It doesn’t work. Thoughts of Lee keep intruding. I’m usually good at blocking them. Even here, this week, Lee has barely surfaced. But my usual strategies aren’t working. So I give up and close my eyes, and there he is.

  After a while I call Freddy.

  “Do you think I should buy a t-shirt that says My Wiener Does Tricks?” she asks.

  “No.”

  “They’re two for ten bucks,” she says. “I haven’t bought you guys a wedding gift yet.”

  “Can you come meet me?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  I lean back against the bench and close my eyes. “Everything.”

  I wait for her at the entrance to the Hemingway museum. She appears around the corner and sees my face and throws her arms around me. I really don’t know what I’d do without her.