The Taming (14 page)

“You think I can’t see those little wheels turning in your head. You can shut up all you want, but I know what you’re thinking. You’re just like your dad, your useless, limp father!”

I nicked my finger and it started bleeding on the lettuce so I held it under the running water. Now we had pink lettuce. My back was to her.

“Don’t think I don’t know that you’re saying stuff about me in your head. You got a smart mouth in your head.” I heard her snort and then gulp. “You think you’ll fake me out by keeping your mouth shut.”

She was scary like that, she just knew stuff in a wild, feral kind of way. You couldn’t keep secrets from my mother.

I gripped the counter and braced for the inevitable. Nothing. My blood continued dribbling freely into the sink. Then I heard a familiar catch in her breath. I turned around. Sure enough, tears streamed down my mother’s face.

“What, Mom, what is it?” She let loose then. My mother cried like her world had disintegrated. “What, Mommy? Tell me! Are you okay? Is it Joey? What, Mommy, what?”

“He didn’t return my calls today. I left messages …”

“He’s probably just busy. You know how busy Joey is.”

Her body convulsed. “They all leave!” she sobbed. “I’m sorry, so sorry baby, sorry …”

About what? My breath snagged on a piece of broken glass. My life would not be worth living if Joey had dumped her.

“Has Joey … has he broken … ?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Not yet.”

Stuff was coming out of her nose, her mascara ran in rivers down her cheeks and she was heaving uncontrollably. “But it’s just a matter of time. They all leave! Why wouldn’t they? Why would anyone stay with a piece of garbage like me? I make myself sick! Oh, Jesus!”

I threw my arms around her. My mother was smaller than me. When had that happened?

“Stop! Don’t! Please, don’t!” I cried.

I couldn’t bear the sounds coming out of her little body and I couldn’t stop the tears coming out of mine. The howls of grief shook through her and straight into me. I was useless. I usually was. The sound of her crying petrified me. It was always like that. Somehow my mother’s tears made the floors and the walls disappear. It made me feel like I was hanging unsupported in a dark room. But I held on to her and we rocked, clinging to each other and waiting out the storm.

Every so often Mom would let go for a bit and look at me all confused. Once I saw a flash of hurt—or was it guilt?—but it disappeared before I could be sure whether I had really seen it or just wished it there. And still she cried. About what? I shivered and held her tighter. Nothing made me more lonely than seeing my mother cry.

“Please, Mommy, don’t worry. Joey loves you. I know that. Please stop, you’re so special and so, so beautiful. Everyone says.”

“They do?” That caught her. She reached for a kitchen towel and blew her nose. “They say I’m beautiful?”

“Always!” I nodded. “You’ll see, if you come to opening night, everyone will hardly notice me, they’ll all be looking at you.”

She blew again. “You think?”

“Absolutely, for sure, Mom.”

She’d stopped. It was finished.

“I could’ve modelled, you know?” she said.

“But Daddy wouldn’t let you because you had me and everything.” I held my breath. This could go one of two ways.

“That’s right. That man said I could have been a model.”

It was like she was nodding to someone sitting across from her at the table. She let the after-sobbing tremors ripple through her body, and then my mom stood up. She was done, but I didn’t want to let her go.

“I’m going to lie down for a minute.” Mom headed out of the kitchen.

I missed her already.

She turned and leaned into the doorway. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing. I’m
still
the smart one here, the one with the power.”

“Okay, Mom. That’s right. You’ll feel a lot better after a little nap. You’re just tired is all.”

“Shut up!” She stared at me like I was some intruder who had broken into her kitchen. “I know what you’re up to. If you think you can out-manipulate me, you’ve got another thing coming. You don’t have an ounce of
me
in you. You, Katie, are 100 percent your deadbeat dad. I look at you and see him. Look at you, now,” she snorted. “Some actress you’re going to be.” And with that she swayed off to her room.

Some part of me had known it was coming, all of it. And yes, I remembered. In the end, there was an order: Act One, inconsolable, heart-shredding tears; Act Two, hugging and healing; and then Act Three, recriminations, shame about the first two acts. Mom always felt bad about needing me, afterwards. It was a three-act, three-scotch scenario. It had played out like clockwork, and yet I’d still been taken by surprise. Special? Yeah, I was especially stupid. Still, as gutted as I was at the end of the performance, it was worth acting out the whole thing just for those few minutes of holding and being held by her.

I stood in the middle of the kitchen, my finger still bleeding on the towel she’d used to wipe her nose. What a play. What an act.

I bowed to my audience of no one.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“D
inner was so wonderful,” Katie said. “Thank you for having me.”

“It was our pleasure. It was wonderful to meet you,” my father answered, charmingly.

He’d been on his best “we have company, people are watching” type of behaviour. He could be the most charming person in the world when he wanted to be. That charm had served him so well.

“I’m so happy to have had the chance to meet you,” Katie said. “Both of you,” she said, turning to my mother to include her in the conversation.

“It was such a joy for us to meet you,” my mother sang out—and I knew she meant it.

“Yes, a
real
joy,” my father agreed.

From him, that might have been the truth or it might have been a lie. You could never tell—at least not from his tone or words or expression. You just had to
know
. Sometimes I could read him, but this time I couldn’t. But why wouldn’t he like Katie?

“It’s rare for my son to invite his friends over these days,” my father said.

I didn’t say anything. He should have known why that was.

“In fact, I expect he thought I wouldn’t even be here today,” he added. “I wasn’t scheduled to be home until the middle of next week.”

I tried to keep my face neutral. He was right.

“But I was able to successfully conclude my business in Tokyo earlier than expected … have you ever been to Japan?”

“I can only dream about going someplace like that,” Katie said.

“It’s good to have a dream,” he said. “Well, I’m not going to bore you all with the details of my business transactions, but they were very, shall we say, productive and lucrative.”

I knew he was now going to go ahead and bore us with the details, and sure enough he started throwing out numbers and names. There were three of us listening—or in my case pretending to listen—but this story was aimed at an audience of one: Katie. He always needed to do that with new people. Not because they were important, just because he liked having a brand-new audience to dazzle. Like a reason to climb a mountain, she was just there.

I looked over at Katie. She looked captivated by his story, even though she probably didn’t have the capacity to understand the complexities of the deal he was describing. What mattered was the masterful way he was spinning his tale, painting himself as some sort of emperor of high finance. I’d seen this act so many times before.

“So what does your father do?” he asked.

“I have no idea,” Katie said. “I don’t really know him.”

“Oh … that’s … unfortunate.”

A deadly silence filled the room.

“I’ll just clear off the table and then bring out dessert,” my mother said, getting to her feet.

“Let me help you with the dishes,” Katie said as she got up too.

“That’s not necessary,” my father said. “You’re our guest.”

“No, I want to help.”

The two of them gathered the plates and then left, the door to the kitchen swinging closed behind them, leaving us alone.

“It’s obvious that your new school’s lower academic standards also apply to the quality of its dating pool,” my father said in a low voice.

“What?”

“Well, really, how would you compare her to Sarah?”

Sarah was a former girlfriend—not the last one, but the one he liked to use as the gold standard against which all other girls were measured.

“I don’t compare them,” I said.

“You’re probably wise. It would be like comparing diamonds to rhinestones.”

“That’s not fair!”

“You’re right. Rhinestones at least have some glitter. I’ll just have to assume this girl must be very good in the sack,” he said.

“What?”

“Well, why else would you be dating her? I’m just looking for a reason.”

“I’m not going to talk to you about this.”

“Which must mean there
is
something to talk about,” he said. “Just make sure you’re using protection.”

“I’m
not
sleeping with her.”

“That’s probably better. Fewer complications. The last thing you want is to get somebody like
that
pregnant.”

“What is that supposed to mean—somebody like that?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I just don’t see it, that’s all I’m saying. You have to understand that dating and marriage are simply a reflection of the two parties’ respective market values.”

“Everything comes down to a price with you, doesn’t it?”

He shook his head slowly and his expression was one of disgust … no, disappointment … disappointment in me. I knew that look well enough.

“Everything
does
come down to a price. The market value of each person is made up of the sum of their parts,” he said.

“You’re making this sound like a real estate deal.”

“That’s good, because it really is no different from a real estate deal. Finding valid market value, determining how much money a residence is worth—it’s based on the components of that property. Location, size, features. With a person, you look at things like physical appearance, education, occupation or future occupation, future potential as a wage-earner, status of parents and their economic position, personalities, friends, activities, etc. You give each component a weighted value—for example, physical appearance is more significant for a female—and then add up all the variables. Your Katie is beautiful enough, but low-rent in every other way. It’s all a simple formula, and people tend to date and then marry partners of equal market value.”

“How romantic.”

“Romance is for idiots.”

“Love plays no role in any of this?” I questioned.

“Are you saying you’re in love with her?” he asked, as though he couldn’t believe either his ears or the idea itself.

I didn’t answer right away, but I could tell by his expression that he needed an answer.

“No, of course not.”

“Good. I didn’t think so. Although I could see where she might fall in love with you.” He paused. “Or at least think she’s in love with you because of your higher market value. You’d be a big step up for her.”

“Shall I take that as a personal compliment?” I asked.

“It says as much about your family as it does about you. This house, your car, the money, the status all are part of
your
increased market value.”

“So you’re saying she might fall in love with me, but it would be, at least in part, because of
you
and what you provide?”

“Of course I’m part of it. Regardless, you shouldn’t take any of this as a compliment so much as a warning.”

“A warning about what?”

“Don’t let yourself get trapped. The best way for a female to gain status is to marry up, and the best way to do that is to get pregnant. You don’t think that girl hasn’t looked around this house and seen there’s money here?”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it?”

“If this is such a problem, why weren’t you warning me about Sarah trapping me?” I asked.

“I think that’s something her parents were warning
her
about.”

A cheap shot. Not unexpected, but it still hurt. I wasn’t going to let him see that, though.

“I guess you’re right,” I agreed, straining to sound completely calm. “After all, her father does earn a lot more money than you.”

I saw a slight reaction in his face. Hitting him in the wallet was where it hurt him the most. Maybe he didn’t have a heart or soul, but he did have a bank account and that was how he measured himself as a man.

“Your status certainly hasn’t improved by being asked to leave your last school,” he said, firing back at me.

“If you had really wanted me to stay you could have fought harder for me,” I said.

“There was no point. It was simply an embarrassment that I didn’t need.”

“How about what I needed?”

“Are you deliberately trying to get me angry?” he hissed.

I saw that look in his eyes. I’d pushed—maybe too far. “No … no, sir.”