I Take You Read online

Will looks impressed. “You grew up here?”

  “It seemed so much bigger back then,” I say.

  “Maybe the new color makes it look smaller,” Mom suggests. “Do you like it? I did a little research at the preservation commission last year—this is the original yellow.”

  Will turns to her with amazement. “How did you match it?”

  Mom launches into an earnest explanation as he listens, rapt. He’s not kissing her ass, either—he lives for random historical details like this. I push through the wooden gate and run up the steps.

  Ana is hovering just inside the front door. “Lilybear!” She hurls herself at me like a tiny tornado. “How the hell are you? How was the flight? Look at your hair—good Christ!”

  Will follows me in. “Is this Will?” Ana says. “Listen to me—what a moron. Of course it’s Will!”

  “Will, my stepmother Ana. Ana, Will.”

  He holds out his hand. “This is such an honor.”

  She takes his hand in both of hers and gives him a dazzling smile. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that, Will. I get far more death threats than compliments. Last week, I—”

  “Ana. You’re tearing his arm off.”

  “Sorry!” She lets loose with her raucous laugh. “Professional hazard.”

  Will laughs, too. He seems totally comfortable around her, which is a relief. Ana tends to intimidate people. She’s in Congress—serving her eighth term in the House, one of the distinguished gentlewomen from California—so she’s got a real aura of power about her, which is somehow magnified by the fact that she’s barely five feet tall. She’s fierce and scrappy—famous for her tirades on the Sunday talk shows and for antagonizing her constituents at town-hall meetings. She’ll say anything, to anyone, which tends to provoke either fanatical devotion or homicidal rage.

  She looks wonderful. I haven’t seen her since July, when she was in New York for a fund-raiser. There, she was dressed in one of her ugly power suits and all cranky from having to ask rich people for money. Here, she’s the real Ana—long hair loose, eyes twinkling. I hug her again. “I’m so glad you’re here,” I whisper.

  She whispers back, “We need to talk.”

  “Lily darling.” We all look up as Jane descends the staircase. She’s wearing a shimmery blue dress and scary-high heels. Her perfectly straight, perfectly platinum hair floats gently around her. She zeroes in on Will, showing him her expensive teeth. The poor boy is going to go blind from all this smiling.

  “Will, this is my stepmother Jane,” I say. “Jane, Will.”

  She holds out an elegant hand. “I hope your flight down wasn’t as wretched as mine,” she says, in her flat, slightly bored voice. She’s looking him in the eye, but I know she’s also appraising every inch of him—clothes, shoes, haircut.

  “Oh, no!” Will says, sincerely concerned. “You had a rough flight?”

  But she’s already turned to me, all business. “Let me see it.”

  I give her my left hand. She scrutinizes the ring from a distance, then closer. She turns it on my finger. Her brow would be furrowing right now, except that it hasn’t done that in years. She looks up at me at last. “Where is the diamond?”

  Will clears his throat. “There isn’t one. It’s a replica of a Roman ring in the British Museum. The Romans didn’t use gemstones in their—”

  “And why is it all … scratched like this?” Jane asks, picking at the ring with a sharp fingernail.

  “I had an inscription added,” Will says hopelessly. “In Latin.”

  I pull my hand away. “Give it a rest, Janey. I love my ring.”

  “So do I,” says Mom, coming through the front door. “It’s very artisanal.”

  I can feel Will cringing. He hates that word. Jane gives me a look of boundless pity, then drifts toward the living room. Will watches her go. I squeeze his arm sympathetically. I always marvel at how Jane is the opposite of Ana, in almost every way. She’s cultured and poised. A fancy society type who spends her time organizing galas and minimizing her cleavage wrinkles. Condescending to maître d’s and pretending to care about art. Hiring huntsmen to lead all the younger, prettier women into the woods and … you know.

  “Gran!” I yell.

  “Kitchen!” she yells back. Something crashes in the distance.

  I turn to Ana, who’s typing on her phone. “She’s not cooking, is she?”

  Ana nods grimly.

  “Is that a bad thing?” asks Will.

  Before I can answer, Gran shoots through the dining room with crazy hair and flour on her nose. “Finally!” she growls. I get another crushing hug. Then she leans in to smell my breath.

  “Cut it out!” I whisper, pushing her away. “Gran, this is Will. Will, this is my grandmother Isabel.”

  Gran looks him up and down while she takes his hand. “What a pleasure,” she says. “I’ve heard so little about you.”

  He laughs. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  I clap my hands together. “I have an idea—let’s go out for lunch!”

  Gran yanks on a lock of my hair. “Nice try. Food’s ready.”

  We file into the dining room and sit down. The table is a crime scene. There’s a sickly looking salad, slabs of greyish meat heaped on a platter and a tureen filled with … I don’t even know what that is. Gruel, maybe? We fill our plates dutifully. Silence descends, interrupted by occasional gagging noises.

  “Thank you, Isabel,” Will says. “This is delicious.”

  Ana smothers a laugh. Mom sighs. Jane shakes her head sadly.

  Gran points her fork at Ana, who’s checking her phone. “Put that machine away before I toss it into the fucking street.”

  “Mother, please!” Mom says. “We have a guest!”

  “I’m expecting an important e-mail,” Ana protests.

  “Do it, Izzie,” Jane drawls. “You’d be performing a public service.”

  I catch Jane’s eye and hold up my lemonade glass. I mouth, Vodka? She pretends not to understand.

  Sunlight is filtering through the tall windows and bathing my mother figures in a heavenly glow. I’m so happy to see them—they’re rarely all in one place like this. I look over at Will. He’s fidgeting in his seat and moving his silverware around, aligning it with the edge of the table. He steals a glance at them across the table, then looks away. But when Mom leans toward him to say something, he responds with a big, goofy grin. So he’s not too overwhelmed. Good.

  “Why are you guys here already?” I ask Jane and Ana.

  Jane smiles serenely. “Lovely to see you too, darling.”

  “Seriously. The wedding isn’t for a week.”

  She shrugs, touching the glittering pendant of her necklace. “You know I can’t stand New York in February.”

  “A likely story.” I turn to Ana. “What about you?”

  “The House is in recess.”

  “There’s nobody running the government?” I widen my eyes. “How is anything going to get done?”

  She chucks a roll at me. “Aren’t you funny.”

  “So, Will,” Gran says sharply. He snaps to attention. “Lily tells me your mother is Anita Field.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Anita Field,” Ana says. “How do I know that name?”

  “She’s the United States Attorney in Chicago,” I explain. Ana nods and rises, picking up her empty glass. I raise mine. Vodka? She rolls her eyes and disappears into the kitchen.

  “A federal prosecutor for a mother,” Jane remarks. “How was that, growing up?”

  “A little like Guantanamo,” Will says cheerfully. “Before they banned torture.”

  “Your mother has an excellent conviction rate,” Gran allows.

  “Did you ever try any cases against her?”

  “Never,” Gran says. “And now I never will.”

  Will looks puzzled. “Izzie retired in December,” Jane explains.

  Gran snorts. “Retired, my ass. Forced out is more like it.”
/>   “Oh, Mother,” Mom says. “You know it was time.”

  Gran is—was—a criminal defense attorney. One of the best in south Florida. She opened her own practice right after law school, when none of the good old boys would hire her. It wasn’t work for a woman, they said, but she quickly proved them wrong. She was smart and tenacious and hardworking. And she won—a lot. She quickly moved on from representing petty criminals to really big cases—drug smuggling, police corruption, capital murder. She built her own firm from the ground up, hiring and training other lawyers, working all over the state.

  When I was little, I used to sneak in and watch Gran at work. You could do that in the courts in Key West back then. She held juries in the palm of her hand. She tied witnesses up in knots. She stood up to other lawyers—often smug, self-righteous men—and outsmarted them, over and over again. It looked like so much fun.

  Unfortunately, Gran had been slowing down for a few years. She was crankier than usual. Forgetting things and making mistakes. Her partners finally intervened. She wasn’t happy about it, but she couldn’t deny the truth of what they were saying. So she very reluctantly stepped down.

  “I can’t imagine what life would be like without work,” Will says to her. “It must be a hard transition.”

  Gran is touched by his sympathy. She hides it by jabbing me with her fork. “Elbows off the table! You’ve got the manners of a damn hillbilly.” Ana reappears from the kitchen and sits down. She looks at her plate, moving the food around warily with her fork. “What are we eating? Chicken?”

  “I think it’s pork,” Mom says.

  “It’s fish,” Gran says.

  Will says, “I love the rice.”

  Gran says, “It’s polenta.”

  “How is that possible?” Jane murmurs.

  Gran throws her fork down. “Goddammit! I used a cookbook this time!”

  “Think positive, Iz,” Ana says. “Your kitchen skills could jump-start a new career. The legal profession’s loss might be the prison food industry’s gain.”

  We laugh. “To hell with all of you!” Gran shouts, but she’s smiling.

  “Seriously,” I say, “it’s hard to believe I haven’t eaten this badly in thirteen years.”

  Will turns to me curiously. “What?”

  The chatter at the table dies away. “I, um, haven’t been back in a while,” I explain.

  “In thirteen years?”

  Everyone is watching now. “More or less. Since I moved north to live with Dad and Jane. I sure have missed Gran’s home cooking!” I give him a big, diversionary grin. It doesn’t work.

  “You never came back? Not even to visit?”

  Mom saves me. “We don’t give her a chance, Will. We’re too happy to come to her.” Gran nods in agreement, her fierce little eyes fixed on me.

  “Tell us what you do, Will,” Ana says quickly. “Something with museums, right?”

  “I work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” he replies, with a touch of pride that’s totally adorable. “I’m an associate curator in the Department of Greek and Roman Art.”

  They look suitably impressed. At my urging he explains a bit more about what he does, some of the digs he’s been on and articles he’s written and exhibits he’s designed. They’re hanging on every word.

  “I am astonished that we haven’t met before now,” Jane says. She turns on me. “Why haven’t you brought Will uptown?”

  I frown apologetically. “I wanted to, but there’s that new ordinance.”

  “What new ordinance?”

  “You can’t travel north of Fifty-Ninth Street unless you have a white-hot poker shoved up your ass.”

  “Lily,” Mom says. “Your language.”

  Jane just smiles. “Classy as ever, darling. Still, I expect to see you at my benefit in April. It’s at the Pierre.”

  “Is it black tie?”

  Jane looks appalled that I would even ask. “What other kind is there?”

  I do like men in tuxedos. “We’re so there.”

  I reach for another handful of potato chips. Jane catches my eye. “Remember, darling, marriages come and go, but wedding photographs are forever.”

  “Leave her alone,” Ana snaps. “She’s too thin as it is.”

  “It’s those ridiculous hours,” Mom adds.

  “She needs to put in long hours if she wants to be a good lawyer,” Gran says.

  “Hello?” I wave at them. “She’s right here in the room with you. Feel free to address her directly.”

  “When are you going to quit that awful firm?” Mom demands.

  “When Ana hires me.”

  Ana chuckles. “Good one.”

  “We’d have so much fun! I want to be quoted in all the newspapers as Representative Mercado’s ‘trusted aide’ and ‘longtime political operative.’”

  “Never going to happen, Lilybear,” Ana says. “You’d be a huge liability.”

  “Exactly!” I say enthusiastically. “I’d distract the press from all your real scandals.”

  Ana only laughs.

  “Why would Lily be a liability?” Will asks.

  There’s the briefest of awkward pauses before Ana says, “I’m only teasing! Great lemonade, Izzie!”

  “Delicious,” Jane agrees.

  I head into the kitchen to find the damn vodka myself. When I come back, Will is saying, “Did you renovate this house yourself, Katherine?”

  Mom blushes. “Almost twenty years ago. It was my first full restoration. That’s why it looks so awful.”

  “It doesn’t!” Will protests. “It’s beautiful.”

  She waves him off. “I was such a rookie. I just cringe whenever I look at the joinery.”

  “Me too,” Ana says. “I always think, nice place, but what’s with the fucking joinery?”

  “Oh, Ana,” Mom sighs. She tells Will, “We don’t usually curse this much.”

  “That’s true,” I say. “We reserve profanity for special occasions. Like divorces.”

  Will laughs. He likes them. And they like him, too—I can tell. He props his elbows on the table. “So, speaking of divorces …”

  They all laugh—they’ve been waiting for this. “You want to know the batting order.”

  Will points at Mom. “I think … you were first, Katherine?”

  “That’s right,” she says. “Then Ana, then Jane.”

  “I was followed by Annette,” Jane explains. “But,” she pauses delicately, “we’re not close.”

  “Henry is currently married to Ekaterina,” Ana says. “The mailorder bride.”

  “That’s cruel,” Jane says. “You know he paid extra for DHL.”

  They all laugh. “Trina is super sweet,” I tell Will.

  “Lily!” Ana cries. “She’s three years younger than you are.”

  “She’s so awesome! She set up my wireless.”

  “Have you met Henry?” Mom asks Will.

  “Not yet. I’m a little nervous. Any words of wisdom?”

  “Don’t get in a drinking contest with him,” Ana advises. “You’ll lose.”

  “Don’t let the British accent fool you,” Gran says. “He’s as dumb as a post.”

  “And whatever you do,” Jane tells him, “don’t look too deeply into his eyes. He’ll hypnotize you. Like a snake.”

  Mom, Jane and Ana glance at one another, then dissolve into laughter. Gran snorts contemptuously and stands up to collect our plates.

  “You all get along so well,” Will marvels. “How did that happen?”

  My mothers exchange another look, half proud, half bashful. “What’s the quote, Kat?” Ana says. “Something like, before we could call each other sister, we had to call each other a lot of other things first.”

  “Before the laughter came the tears,” Mom agrees.

  “And the lawsuits,” Jane notes.

  “The restraining orders,” Ana says, “the reconstructive surgeries.”

  Mom smiles. “Now we’re one big, happy family.” />
  “With one wonderful thing in common,” Jane says.

  They all look at me. “Aw,” I say.

  We choke down pie on the veranda while Mom shows Will around the house. They get into a real nerd groove talking about foundation piers and heart pine—I can hear them laughing upstairs. Eventually I call a taxi so that we can take our bags to the hotel.

  Jane puts a hand on my arm. “Stay behind a minute. We’d like to speak with you about something.”

  I walk Will to the door. “Was it hell?”

  He laughs. “Are you kidding? I’m in love with all of them.”

  “You can stop, idiot. They can’t hear you.” I reach on my tiptoes to kiss him. “See you at the hotel?”

  “I’m meeting Javier at the airport at five. We’ll find you after.”

  He leaves. I wander into the living room and stop short. They’re all there, composed like some Victorian portrait: Jane and Gran on the green velvet sofa, Mom and Ana standing behind them. Everybody staring at me, looking dire and a little constipated.

  “Do I have something in my teeth?” I say.

  “He doesn’t know a damned thing about you, does he?” Gran demands.

  “Who, Will?”

  “No,” she snaps. “Mr. Clean.”

  Mom clears her throat nervously. “What your grandmother is trying to say, honey, is that we’ve talked it over, and—”

  Ana cuts to the chase. “We think you should call off the wedding.”

  I sink slowly into a chair. “What?”

  Jane leans forward and takes my hands in hers. “We love you, darling. You know that.”

  Ana nods. “But you’re not exactly marriage material, are you?”

  I have to laugh at this. “Are you serious? I’m getting a lecture on marriage from a bunch of divorcées?”

  “Who better?” Jane counters. “We all know exactly what it’s like to be married to someone who is, let’s just say, constitutionally unsuited for it.”

  She looks at me meaningfully. I roll my eyes.

  “Will seems like a very nice young man,” Gran says.

  “He’s charming,” Mom agrees.

  “And kind, and intelligent,” Jane adds. “And normal.”

  “He’s all wrong for you,” Ana says.

  “Gosh, thanks.”

  “No no no, honey! That’s not what we mean. It’s just …” Mom pauses, struggling to articulate. “It’s just that you’re such a … a free spirit!”