When We Were Enemies: A Novel(66)
“Yes. Soon.”
As I leave the meadow, I linger on Trombello’s last words. I’ll see him again soon, and that brings me peace. I’d like to say it’s because of our shared religion or our shared heritage, but it’s not. I just plain like him—the way his mind works and how words sound coming from his mouth. And I like who I want to be when he’s beside me. I might not know all the answers to all his thought-provoking questions, but I do know this—I’m not ready to say arrivederci to him just yet.
CHAPTER 21
Elise
Present Day
Big Red’s Place
“Two egg whites. From real eggs, not from a carton, please. And a side salad with as many tomatoes as you can give me. No dressing.” The waitress takes my mom’s menu. It shakes in her hand. She’s serving the Gracelyn Branson. What an exciting day. Calloo! Callay!
I frown. Poor girl.
Nancy, the owner, has kindly kept my family connection under wraps. I’ve been using her diner as my office a few days a week for the past month.
My mom is in full makeup and wearing a designer blouse and a pair of high-waisted khaki-colored silk pants. Her hair is curled and sprayed. I try to see her through the eyes of her fans to understand how, even when she’s borderline rude and as condescending as she was with that food order, little sixteen-year-old Kaylee doesn’t mind.
“And you?” Kaylee asks me as an afterthought.
Kaylee must not remember that I already ordered and ate, so I follow up with a “no thank you” instead of correcting her. She doesn’t move for a moment, smiling brashly while staring at my mom.
“Kaylee. Kitchen,” Nancy shouts from her perch at the cash register. The trance is broken, at least for the time being, and Kaylee slips away to the back of the restaurant.
Mom and I don’t acknowledge Kaylee’s behavior because it’s a part of pretty much any public outing with her. She arranges her discarded outer layers of clothing and settles into the vinyl seat.
“No work today?” Mom asks.
“Lots of work today,” I say, gesturing to the evidence. Paperwork covers half the table, and my laptop sits open in front of me.
“Oh, sorry. Not that work.” She flips her hand at the stacks of paper dismissively. “I mean, filming. Your day off?” The fact that my mom thinks of this documentary as my day job rather than as a favor I’m doing for her with great sacrifice to my real career is frustrating but not surprising.
“Not today. Remember? I drove in with the crew, but I’m not filming. Tomorrow, we shoot the Pre-Cana with Father Patrick, and then Friday—dress shopping in Indianapolis.”
“Ah, yes. Father Patrick. ‘The Hot Priest.’ I’ve heard a lot about this fella.” She giggles.
“Ew, Mom.” My mother’s gnat-like attention span with men has always bothered me, but this assessment grosses me out. “The Hot Priest” sounds like something you’d hear on a porn set.
“What? I think it can only help the film. How else do we fill a four-part series with your grandmother’s early life? Most of the good stuff’s been told before, so we have to, you know, lean into some of the smaller bits to bring flavor. Like when you simmer all the tasty pieces left over in the pot after cooking a roast to make the sauce.” She dated a French chef for the first six months of the COVID pandemic, so now we get food analogies.
I take the opportunity to change the subject and ask her about the DNA test and all the other questions piling up.
“So . . . Mom.” I lower my voice and close my computer. The diner is empty, so we have some privacy. “Remember how you said we could talk later—about Grandpa?”
Kaylee approaches with the worst timing ever. She delivers my mom’s meal and asks if she needs anything else. Which, of course, Gracelyn Branson does. After two more trips to the kitchen for the right kind of sweetener and the answer to a question about the kind of salt used on the eggs, Kaylee disappears through the silver double doors after another reminder from Nancy.
“These are processed; I’m sure of it,” my mom says before taking a bite. They look like any old egg whites to me, but I don’t argue.
“As I was saying—can we talk now? About Grandpa?”
“Elise, I’m eating,” she rebukes. As she takes another bite, she mumbles about how I’ve always been a touch nosy.
“I’m nosy?” I say steadily, used to hearing this narrative whenever I bring up something she doesn’t want to talk about. “You’re letting Mac make a movie about this shit.”
She swallows and takes a sip of her iced tea before responding.
“Language!” she scolds as though I’m three and just said the F word in front of her industry friends.
She makes these discussions difficult on purpose—so I’ll stop asking the hard questions. And, you know what? It works. It’s easier to let Gracelyn Branson have what she wants. But this time, I’m not letting go.
“Mom. You can’t keep putting all this off. You said Mac was giving up on the ‘Grandpa’ storyline, but I saw what was in your bag.”
“Elise Toffee Branson.” She uses my full name, trying to pull the Mom card on me. “How dare you go through my things? I wasn’t supposed to show you that book till we were on camera.”