The Better Half(18)
Graham and I were married six months later. While our backgrounds contained many commonalities, given our youthful inexperience, we failed to find out if we shared similar views on how we saw our futures unfolding. What I discovered all too soon after Xandra was born was that Graham envisioned a future that was an exact replica of his childhood and his parents’ marriage. I imagined everything but being a replica of Mr. and Mrs. Clarke.
“What’d he want?” Marisol asks, jarring me from my memories.
“For me to call him. Something about Xandra.”
Marisol’s face goes from high interest to high alert.
“AND?!”
“I don’t know all the details, yet. The text came right as the board meeting was starting, then I had to go have a drink with Winn. By the time I got home it was way too late in New York to dive into a long discussion, so instead I called Leo, looking to catch him at lunch. It went straight to voice mail again.” I’d like to redirect Marisol from discussing Graham because I’d much rather dissect why Leo and I are having a hard time reaching each other.
“YOU DIDN’T CALL GRAHAM BACK?!” Marisol’s teetering on hyperventilation. “What if something’s really wrong with Xandra? Like she’s in the hospital? Or missing? Oh shit, Nina, what if she got a tramp stamp of smudged Arabic letters?”
“Relax, Doomsday Debbie. If you’re under eighteen, you have to have a legal guardian with you to get a tattoo. I did get in touch with Graham as I was following Winn out of Royal-Hawkins. I asked if Xandra was in one piece, breathing, and with all her blood on the inside.” I will admit, I was happy when Graham took a job in New York before Xandra started at Pemberley. Not just because he’s out of my hair, but also because he’s only forty minutes from Xandra if something were to go wrong. Graham is the best kind of ex: far away but useful.
“But nothing was wrong. Graham said yes, Xandra’s absolutely fine, no loss of blood whatsoever.” Judging from her side-eye, Marisol’s not convinced. “And then I said I had to go, because Winn was holding open the door for me. Graham threw out a rude one-liner, something like, ‘Let me know when you can find time to talk about your daughter.’” In the past that would have agitated my working mom guilt, but now I can decipher when he’s just in a picking-on-me sort of mood. “You know how he plays me, now he’s just doing it from New York.”
Marisol nods. Eleven years on the sidelines of our marriage and several more witnessing our divorced life, she gets it.
“And I did get in touch with Xandra. You know I don’t leave anything to chance when it comes to my baby. I panic texted her when Winn was calling the board meeting to order. She let me know she’s all good. Out with a group of friends getting frozen yogurt, then heading back to the dorm to study. Since it obviously wasn’t an emergency, just Graham messing with me, I turned the worry down a notch.” Marisol releases the breath she’s been holding and signals for me to continue.
“First text Graham’s ever sent me should have started with ‘Xandra’s fine.’ Who texts a mother like that? ‘It’s about Xandra’ Pfft . . . I thought my head was going to explode. He doesn’t know what he’s doing because he was barely around when I was raising her and trying to grow my career. He was too busy nurturing his start-up.” Marisol nods again.
“I’ve felt so blah all day, I haven’t had it in me to call Graham again and deal with his narcissism, our past, or be bothered with Graham’s questioning my dedication to Xandra.”
“Maybe you’re on edge more than usual because Leo’s gone and you’re missing that double ass tap.” Marisol’s familiar with how to coax me out of my Graham-bashing mood. “But seriously, Nina, you’re the most responsible mother I know. Not staying on the line with Graham to get all the details about Xandra is completely out of character. I’m getting you home right now so you can call Graham immediately. Xandra may have answered your text and said everything was all right, but something could still be wrong. Don’t you want to know what’s goin’ down? I do.”
“Am I a bad mom if I say I only want to know when things are going up this year? Parenting a problem from three thousand miles away is really hard.” I don’t know how Graham’s mother did it from Bermuda when Graham’s appendix burst his junior year in high school and she couldn’t get to him for forty-eight hours because she was hosting a dinner party for Mr. Clarke’s banking cronies. “You know me, remember last year when Xandra was a freshman? I almost got on a plane after she cried over a lost retainer, even though I had two papers to write and Back to School Night.” Marisol knows. She once drove in the dark of night to Nevada to hand deliver her son Paco’s lacrosse pads to a tournament.
Attempting to divert Marisol from the topic of Xandra, I say, “You know, even though my dad teases us for what he thinks is spending too much money fussing over ourselves, I think when I go to work, he Ubers to get a mani-pedi over at KayCee’s Nails.” I knew it was dangerous when I taught him how to use ride-sharing so he could get around town. “He’s been looking way too shined up lately for a man his age.”
“A man should be shined up at any age. Claro, Fitzroy always looks good, but doesn’t he know I’d give him the family discount?” Marisol asks. “Tell him my studios do men’s feet, too, but he’s not getting one penny off if he goes cheating on me with another shop owner behind my back. And nope, not on topic at all”—Marisol hates conversational detours—“but I’ll require more on that later.”