The Best of Enemies (37 page)

She gestures toward a picture of a different family.

“Cousins?”
she asks.
“Lots of family resemblance.”

“No,” I reply.
“
Not
family.”

Before Kitty can question why I’m suddenly curt, John says, “I’m in.”

Who knew John wasn’t bullshitting about his actual capabilities?
Color me impressed.
“Already?”

“People, this is why you don’t use PASSWORD1234 as your password,” John replies.

“You’re kidding.
Did we just waste ten hours in the car?”
I ask.

“I wouldn’t say waste,” Kitty replies.
“Our drive was worth it.”

I can’t disagree.

John establishes Ingrid’s e-mail password almost as quickly, and Kitty and I begin our search for clues.

Unfortunately, there’s little to see, save for marketing e-mails from places called Gilt and Net-a-Porter.

“There’s nothing,” I say, cradling my face in my hands.
“All of that effort for nothing.”

“Oh, please, you’re not even trying,” Kitty says.
She sits down next to me and pulls the computer over to her.
“You’ve never kept tabs on a fifteen-year-old boy, have you?
Three words: browser search history.”

The Safari cache is a veritable gold mine.
We uncover everything from an Expedia.com search for hotels in Miami to information about chartering flights to the Cayman Islands to scuba gear reviews.
We have a dozen hot new leads, one of which will surely lead us to Trip.

This laptop is the smoking gun.
I’m sure of it.

Kitty and I are in the preliminary stages of planning our next step—driving to Miami—when John returns from the kitchen.
“I told you I’d do something for you if you did something for me.
Time to pay up.”

He steps into the butler’s pantry and opens the swinging door.
He makes a motion for someone to join us, saying, “She’s done.
Come on in.”

I instantly recognize the sound of high heels clicking on the travertine and my body tenses.
Now I’m furious with myself.
Why did I think I could trust John?
How have I learned nothing from forty years of his self-serving douchebaggery?

“Hello, Jacqueline.”

Suddenly, I’m not distracted by the pain in my feet or the daunting task of finding Trip.
Instead, I am entirely focused on this moment.

I stand up to face her head-on.

“Hello, Mother.”

Atlanta to Miami

Thursday

“I beg your pardon.
Did you say ‘
mother’
?”

But no one answers, or even looks in my direction.

Jack did not just say this elegant, ageless, polished, Escada-clad woman was her mother, right?
Not possible.
Except . . .
they do resemble each other.
Same heavy hair, same cheekbones, same almond-shaped eyes, although hers are two different colors.
Same quiet confidence.
They’re even standing the same way, with perfect posture and squared shoulders.

But Jack’s mother is dead.
Jack’s said it a million times.
Hasn’t she?

Is this lady a ghost?

“Why are you here?”
Jack says, practically spitting out every word.

“I live in Atlanta now,” her mother (?) replies.

What is happening?
Why does Jack seem ready to strangle someone?
(And why am I so relieved that it’s not me she wants to strangle?)

“Well, isn’t that nice for all of you?
Family first,” Jack replies.
Her voice is downright acidic.

“It’s not like that,” John pleads.
“They just moved here.”

“They,”
Jack hisses.
“You’re a traitor, John-John.”

“You don’t understand, Jack.
It’s different when you have kids,” he says.
“They have a right to know all their grandparents.”

“What’d she promise you this time, John?
Another new car?
An even bigger house?
How much does it cost to sell out your real family?
What’s your asking price?”

With an icy calm, the woman replies, “Jacqueline, I’ll not have you take that tone.”

Jack gets right up in her face.
“Really?
What are you going to do about it?
Run away?”

“I’m not the one who runs, my dear.
You practically left skid marks, you couldn’t get away from us in Chicago fast enough.”

“Bullshit.”
Jack’s balling her fists as though she’s the aggressor, but I sense there’s an imbalance of power here, not favoring Jack.
I feel an almost psychic tug of her desperately wanting someone on her team, so I stand at her side, placing a hand on her back.
She does not pull away from me.

“We’ve been over this again and again,” the woman replies, the very picture of calm repose.
Everything about her is impeccable, from the tips of her red-soled, patent leather stilettos to her immaculately groomed Anna Wintour–style bob.
“Frankly, I’m tired of your histrionics.
You and I have needed to hash this out for a very long time.
We’re both here, so we’ll speak now.”

“No, we fucking won’t!”

“Language, my dear.”

Jack tells me, “Grab the laptop.
We’re leaving.
Now.”

“Why?
What am I missing?”
I ask, collecting the MacBook and stuffing it in my purse.

Eyes locked with the woman, Jack says, “I can’t be in a room with her, not after what she did to us.”

“C’mon, Jack.
At least hear her out,” John implores.

The elegant woman clucks her tongue.
“That was almost thirty years ago.
Grow up, Jacqueline.
Discuss your issues like an adult.”

“How about this?
Kitty’s a detached third party.
We were sworn enemies until yesterday, so she’s bound to be impartial.
Let’s each tell her our side and she can decide who’s at fault here.”

I’m still touching Jack’s back and I can feel her tremble.

Jack takes a couple of ragged breaths and starts to explain.
“This is my mother, Lucille Allen.
No, wait, the Honorable
Judge
Lucille Allen.
Honorable, my ass.”

“No need to be juvenile, my dear.”

“The Honorable Judge Allen was my mother up until 1986 when she decided she no longer wanted the job.
She’d passed the bar that spring and was eager to practice law, like she’d originally intended thirteen years earlier.
But, instead of, say, trying to strike a work-life balance, or seeking counseling, talking with our minister, filing for divorce, or even having a fucking
conversation
with my dad, she left.
Went out for milk and never came back.
Literally.”

My mind is reeling.
“She didn’t die?
She’s alive?
She’s alive and well and right here in kind of a fantastic power suit?
Sorry, that part doesn’t matter.
To confirm, she walked away but she
is
of the living.”

I’ve never seen Jack so upset—given our past, that’s really saying something.

Jack says, “She’s dead to everyone but John, apparently.
See, that’s not nearly the best part.
Oh, no.
For two weeks, we thought she’d been abducted.
No one just disappears without a trace, without a note, right?
The police were involved.
There was a search.
They used cadaver dogs.
We made posters.
Posters.
”

The idea of a young Jack and her brothers huddled around the kitchen table, using oak tag and colored pencils to make M
ISSING
posters cracks my heart clean in two.
Crafts are meant to be happy, damn it!

Her mother purses her lips.
“You’re being overly dramatic.”

“Am I,
Mother
?
God, I’m sorry.
I’d hate to be overly dramatic describing what it’s like to spend two weeks of your childhood worrying every minute that your mother’s either dead in a ditch or chained up in some sicko’s basement.”

Lucille’s gigantic diamond catches the light of the chandelier when she flicks her wrist, covering a wall with refracted prisms.
“I wasn’t dead; I was at a friend’s cabin.
Terrible misunderstanding.
I needed time to regroup and I didn’t have access to the news.
I had no idea there was such a to-do.
Your father is overly dramatic, too.
That’s where you get it from,” Lucille sniffs.

John’s standing off to the side, clearly conflicted.
Heather steps in for a second with a big plate of cookies, notes what’s unfolding, and immediately exits.
I feel like I shouldn’t be here, either, but I dare not leave.

Jack is ramrod straight as she speaks.
“You know what finally tipped us off?
The cat.
The fucking cat.
We didn’t even realize Tom Kitten was missing at first.
He had a cat door and came and went as he pleased.
With everyone in and out, we assumed he’d been staying away.
But about two weeks into her disappearance, we realized his bed was missing.
So when she left,
she took the cat with her.
Not us.
Just the cat.
And her terrible, indulgent parents supported her decisions.
They also knew where she was the whole time; they just didn’t tell us.
They were more concerned with keeping their spoiled little girl happy than they were about their grandchildren’s well-being.
Unforgivable.”

“Mimi and Poppy made it up to you with the trust,” her mother replies, completely unaffected by Jack’s diatribe.

“Of course, yes,
the trust
tucked me into bed at night and
the trust
held my hand when I had a bad dream.
Tell
the trust
thanks for teaching me how to use a tampon, will you?”

John winces.

“There’s no need to be crude, Jacqueline.”

I feel queasy hearing these details.
I can’t imagine what poor Jack’s been going through all these years.
No wonder she was so slow to warm up to other women.
No wonder she was so livid when we had our falling-out.
No wonder she’s always been bonded to Betsy, clinging to that which was solid and sane and sweet.

“You have to understand how it was for me,” her mother says.
“I was suffocating in that house.
The noise, the chaos, the awful dogs.
The
smell
.
Everyone perpetually saying,
‘I want this, I need that.’
What about what I wanted and needed?
I tried to make you my ally, Jacqueline, tried to raise you right, but you wanted none of it, refusing to wear dresses, fussing when I tried to braid your hair.
You just wanted to be one of the boys.”

Lucille takes a cigarette out of her chic calfskin clutch and lights it with a silver lighter.
John discreetly sets a crystal ashtray next to her, like a well-trained waiter.
They’ve done this dance before.
She takes a quick drag and continues.
“I was twenty-four when Teddy was born, swept up in the romance of it all with your father.
Nice man.
Not ambitious enough.
You see, I was the only child of wealthy parents.
I was accustomed to people taking care of me, not vice versa.
I wasn’t used to how
needy
children were.”

She takes another puff.
“I didn’t comprehend what it took to be a mother.
And there we were at the beginning of the feminist movement, and the same shackles I’d been rallying against suddenly bound me.
I marched for the Equal Rights Amendment, you know.
So if you enjoy the freedom to be a woman in a man’s world, Jacqueline, you have me to thank.
Your brother has forgiven me.
It’s time you and the rest of the boys do as well.”

A tear streams down Jack’s cheek, yet she doesn’t even notice it.
She says, “I could understand our family being too much.
We’re a lot to take.
And I’ve always blamed myself for not being ‘girly’ enough for you.”

Lucille exhales a thin stream of smoke, showing no reaction to what Jack’s saying.
Whether that’s a function of being cold or having too much (excellent) plastic surgery, I can’t be sure.

Jack continues.
“I could even sympathize a bit with your abandoning us to live your dream.
I understand the need to break free and the satisfaction of devoting your life to your profession.
I do.
I’ve been there.
What I can’t get past, what I can’t forgive, what will keep me angry to the grave, is that after throwing us away for your career, you started an entirely new family.
Hell will freeze over before I allow you back into my life.”

“You have another family?”
I say to Lucille, dumbfounded.

“Yes, I do.
Two beautiful daughters, Caroline and Rose.”
She gestures toward the photo I’d admired earlier with her cigarette and ash falls on the linen tablecloth.
They’re both younger, more feminine versions of Jack.
“When the girls were old enough, I felt it was important that they know the rest of their family, so I got in contact.”

“Was this in 1999?
September or so?”
I ask.

“Let’s see, Caroline was around twelve and Rose was ten.
Yes, September of 1999 sounds about right,” she says.

“How could you possibly know that?”
Jack asks me.
She’s since fallen into a chair at the table, emotionally spent, fight completely knocked out of her, leaving Lucille standing in a more dominant position.
Doesn’t matter that Jack’s almost forty; in this instance, and in her mother’s eyes, she’s perpetually a child.