This Story Might Save Your Life(23)
My eyes flit over to Mallory. “Did you know about this?”
“Of course not.”
“Are you sure?”
“We didn’t know,” Quinn insists.
I exchange a glance with Luna as Mallory starts pacing again.
“Did she get specific?” Mallory asks. “About why she was going to divorce him?”
Luna’s hesitation is brief but obvious. “She was as mysterious with me as she was with you.”
“Clearly not,” I say.
Luna turns to me. Her hair is longer than usual, corkscrew curls fanning out like a crown. She is as beautiful and self-possessed as ever, but clearly tired. “She didn’t want to get into it until the papers were served. Which happens.” She taps her fingers on her leg. “The part I can’t reconcile is that she would invite you over, tell you she needed a break, and then let you leave without explaining anything else.”
Heat creeps up my neck.
“They were going to record something, but she kicked him out,” Mallory says unhelpfully. I’d left this out when I gave Luna the rundown.
Luna narrows her eyes at me. It’s clear I’m not going to be able to deflect, so I explain what I already told Mallory and nothing more—that Joy wanted to preemptively issue a statement before Xander could talk her out of it, and that she decided to do it alone. “But I don’t think she finished. We can’t find the file anywhere.”
We’re all silent.
Quinn, who at some point in the past few minutes has applied a fresh coat of red lipstick, presses her palms to her knees. “We have to tell Keller.”
Joy Moore
EXCERPT FROM UNTITLED JOINT MEMOIR WITH BENNY ABBOTT
Nine Years Ago
“Why do you think your mom gave up custody?” I asked one morning, a year after Xander and I had moved in together.
He was manually juicing oranges; he finished twisting the cut half on the reamer before responding, “Where’d that come from?”
I shrugged. “I guess I was thinking I don’t know much about her.” Not that I knew much about anyone in his family. Niels, his father, was a distant man from whom Xander inherited his obsession with luxury cars. If they were ever close, that ship had sailed, figuratively and literally. Niels had retired to Miami to hobnob with yachties and saw his children rarely, if ever. I hadn’t met him yet. Mallory was equally perplexing, though less distant. She called Xander every few weeks, but there was an air of formality to their conversations, a low-key intensity I couldn’t yet read.
“Well, that makes two of us,” he said.
I wanted more. Did he have any fond memories? Bad memories? Did his attached earlobes come from her? What about his voice? Did she speak English? What did she do for a living? Did he miss her when he was a kid? Did he miss her now? Did it anger him that she was alive and well and completely absent from his life? Did Xander and Mallory ever talk about this stuff? Why did he not want to talk about it now? Why did we never, ever talk about it?
I asked none of these questions. Instead, I stepped forward, took the orange rind from his hand, and pressed myself into him. “She has no idea what she’s missing.” His dad too though I kept this to myself. It was bad enough that one parent had abandoned him. We could pretend the other still cared.
He angled back and lifted my chin. “I don’t need anyone who doesn’t need me.”
I kissed his palm. “I need you.”
That smile. “But you can take care of yourself, thank you very much.”
“Doesn’t mean I don’t need you.”
He held me tighter. “Say it again.”
I grinned. “I need you.”
He made a guttural noise and lifted me into his arms like I weighed ten pounds. “Again.”
“I need you.” I laughed.
“Again!”
“I need you! I need you I need you I need you!”
He carried me into the bedroom and threw me onto the bed. Buzzing all over, I tore off my clothes and waited for him to join me.
“Aren’t you coming?” I scanned his face. “What’s the matter?”
It took him a moment to respond, and in that moment, I imagined all manner of terrible outcomes. He was going to scold me for bringing up his heartless mother. He was going to break up with me. He was going to thank me for sharing the rent these past few months, but actually, he prefers sleeping alone on his plush pillow-top bed.
“I love you,” he said. His eyes were full.
We’d exchanged I love yous a hundred times, but something had changed. This was different. “I love you too. Now come here.”
I reached for him. Still, he held back.
“Marry me,” he said.
* * *
WE PICKED A date for nine months later. With my parents’ help, we chose a venue in Topanga Canyon—quaint but pricey, featuring a floating “tree house” deck surrounded by oaks. There would be twinkle lights everywhere, dancing to a live band, and food and drinks for days.
Before the ceremony, Benny visited my bridal suite.
“Oh, Benny,” my mom said, pulling him into a hug. She held him at arm’s length, gave him a full once-over, and said, “Don’t you look handsome in a suit.”