“Alright.”
“I mean, if I’m banned from the theater, then I should be banned from theater projects, too,” I said, taking a sip from the bottle. “They can get someone else to finish it.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Jake said, reaching for the beer. “But you won’t do it.”
I handed him the bottle. “What?”
“You won’t do it,” he repeated, then pointed the top of the bottle at me. “You won’t bail on it.”
“Oh, I will, too.”
He took a long drink and handed the beer back to me. “If you do, it will be the first time in the history of Daisy that it’s ever happened.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” I asked, clutching the bottle. “She banned me! Why would I do anything for her?”
“Because you’re going to sleep on it,” he said. “And in the morning, you’re going to have convinced yourself that not doing the program would harm the kids in the play – who have nothing to do with any of this. Just like you convinced yourself not to storm back in there and grab Sophie and Grace and leave in a huff.” He smiled. “You’ll take one for the team because you always do, Daisy.”
I drank from the beer and looked at the owl print on my pajama pants and didn’t say anything.
“And I’m not saying that’s the wrong decision at all,” he said. “Sometimes, we have to be the bigger person when it comes to idiots. If it’s better for the kids. And I think the guilt of just abandoning the program would drive you nuts, especially if we get to performance night and the program looks like some fourth grader put it together. I don’t think you would feel very good about that at all.”
I grunted. “Maybe. But I would not feel bad about sticking it to Eleanor.”
“Nope, you wouldn’t. But you also don’t live with \Eleanor.”
I finished the beer and set the empty bottle on the nightstand. I knew he was right, but I was still too mad to admit it. I knew I’d feel different in the morning and that I would begrudgingly finish the work on the play program. But right then, I was still so mad I would’ve liked to shove the beer bottle right up Eleanor’s pointy nose.
I leaned back against the headboard. “It just stinks.”
Jake nodded sympathetically. He slipped under the covers and reached for my hand. “Yep, it does. I’m sorry. And if you do want to pull the girls out and jettison the program and slander Eleanor all over town, I am totally with you. I’ll help, even. Bet I’d be good at slander.”
I squeezed his hand. “Thank you. But I don’t want to do that, either.” I sighed. “I’m just frustrated. I thought I was helping Madison out by keeping her secret. And all I got for being a nice person was banishment. By Eleanor Oompa Loompa Bandersand.”
He bit back a smile. “No good deed goes unpunished. Just remember that,” he said. “That is the right saying for this, right? It works?”
“Sure,” I told him. “What I don’t get is why she’d lie to her mother about it? Madison created this – she had to go to her mother and tell her I found the bag and then turn it into something it wasn’t. She had to make the effort to do that. Because otherwise Eleanor wouldn’t have known.”
He thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Maybe she didn’t think you’d keep the secret. Maybe she thought you’d rat her out. So maybe she lied to her mother as a preemptive strike.”
“Maybe,” I said. I could absolutely see Madison doing something like that. “But I also wonder if they just didn’t like me asking about Amanda so much.”
“What do you mean?”
I fell back onto the pillow. It was a dramatic move but I didn’t care – I was channeling Madison and Eleanor and the entire theater at that moment. “I mean that I think I’ve asked everyone I know of about Amanda. And when I brought it up to Eleanor, she pretty much cut me off.”
“Is this your imagination running wild?” he asked. “Are you positing that they didn’t like you asking because you had something to hide?”
“Positing?” I wrinkled my nose. “Why are you using such big words?”
“It’s not a big word. You’ve just had too many beers and aren’t thinking straight.” He glanced at me, his expression amused. “Positing means hypothesizing. Proposing.”
“Proposing? I’m already married. To you.” He opened his mouth to say something but I cut him off. Sort of,” I said, continuing my previous train of thought. “But maybe they just got tired of me asking about a girl who wasn’t there.” I shook my head. “I don’t know. I’m tired. And a little buzzed,” I admitted. “And a lot tired.”
“You should sleep.”
I looked at him. “You should hug me.”
He scooted closer to me, got one arm under me and put the other around me. I pressed in tight to him and closed my eyes. His lips brushed against my cheek and my eyelids and I sighed. I needed the day to end, and the best way to end the day was the best way to end all of my days.
Falling asleep in my husband’s arms.
TWENTY NINE
Emily walked out into the living room and turned in a slow circle. “Does this look alright?”
I’d spent the next day paying attention to the house and not plotting revenge on Eleanor Bandersand. I’d swept and mopped the floors, done three loads of laundry, worked on a geography project with Will, a painting with Sophie and cursive practice with Grace. I’d run both girls to guitar practice and taken Will to the computer store to buy more memory for his computer. I’d pulled out the winter hats and mittens and gone through the stacks of mail sitting on the kitchen counter.
Call it domestic immersion therapy.
I finished stacking LEGOs in their container. Grace and I had just finished building a bank for criminal min figs to rob. Maybe the detective of LEGOville would be wanting my investigative services.
I glanced at Emily. She had on tight jeans with silver beads around the pockets, a long-sleeved black top and boots that came up to her knees. Her long hair was straightened and her makeup a fraction heavier than usual.
“Does it?” she asked, casting me a worried look. “Look alright?” She glanced down at her outfit.
“Yes, as a matter a fact it does,” I said. “Why are you dressed up?”
She stared at me for a moment, her mouth hung open. “Uh, duh? I’m going to the game. With Andy.”
I ran through my thoroughly flawed mental calendar. “That’s tonight?”
“I told you it was.”
“You did?”
“She did,” Will said, stretched out on the sofa, tapping away at his phone. He’d downloaded some football game app two days earlier and was already on the top ten board. “I heard her.”
Jake came down the stairs and frowned. “Oh, that’s right. It’s date night.”
“You knew, too?” I asked, pushing myself up off the floor. A tiny LEGO pushed into my palm and I winced.
“Yeah, she told us,” he said.
I looked at Em. “Sorry. I’ve been preoccupied.”
“It’s fine,” Emily said dismissively. “But seriously. Do I look okay?” She did a half-turn so I could see.
“You look beautiful,” I said, smiling at her. And then I gasped. “Oh my God. This is your first date!”
“Mom,” she warned, shaking her head. “Don’t make this a big deal.”
“It is a big deal,” I said. “It’s your first date!”
“We’ve done stuff before.”
“What kind of stuff?” Jake asked. His eyes narrowed. “You’ve done stuff? Where? When?”
“Not like that,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“Like what?” He was like a bloodhound. “What has Randy tried to do?”
“Andy,” she corrected. Her cheeks had blush on them but they flamed even redder with embarrassment. “And I just mean we’ve gone places together. We’ve hung out. It’s no big deal.”
“If it’s no big deal, then why are you so worried about how you look?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “Why does your hair look like you just spent an hour on it?”