Finding Joy (The Joy Series) (Volume 2) (27 page)

“Proper,” she finally finished. “Yeah, proper’s really the only way to describe her.”

“Duly noted,” I said.

“That reminds me,” she said, pausing with her hand on the handle of the large door. “I promise we’ll get something to eat when we leave here, okay?”

“Aren’t we here to eat? Isn’t that kind of the whole point of this?”

“Yeah, you see … landscape design is my mom’s thing. Cooking isn’t. When I was growing up, we ate out, or she brought food in every night. So there’s a pretty good chance that she didn’t actually cook today. But, if it looks homemade, you might want to steer clear of it. Consider yourself warned.”

“Thanks for the warn ...,” I was cut off by the door being flung open and Allie jumping back in surprise.

“Allie! I’ve missed you, niña” said the plump older woman in the doorway. She wiped her hands on the towel she held and then tossed it up on her shoulder before throwing her big arms around Allie. Allie all but disappeared inside them.

“Maria,” she squealed, when she finally came up for air. “I’ve missed you, too. Maria, this is Adam.”

I stuck my hand out to shake hers, but Maria looked at it like it was borderline offensive. Instead, she wrapped me in a hug so powerful I was lifted 3 inches off the ground.

“Maria is like a second mother to me. She runs the show around here.”

Maria pulled the towel and flicked it playfully at Allie. “Shhh, niña, don’t let her hear you say that or we’ll both be in the doghouse.”

“Don’t let me hear you say what?” said a dignified though slightly annoyed voice behind her.

It was Lydia Harper. In the flesh.

I had seen her in the society pages, and I’d certainly heard things muttered about her by my mother. But this was the first time I’d ever come face to face with her.

She looked like Allie. Or I suppose Allie looked like her, though in my head Allie would always be the original. Either way, the resemblance was unmistakable. Lydia Harper was an older, more refined version of my Allie.

Based on her clothes and the way she held herself in the doorway, she was also a snobbier version of Allie. I suspected that she wasn’t half the person that Allie was, but it was almost impossible for me not to want to instantly like the woman who had obviously had everything to do with Allie’s good looks and surely had something to do with how she’d turned out. It felt especially strange since I had spent more than a decade blindly hating her and her husband.

“Nothing, Ms. Lydia. I must get back to the kitchen, niña,” Maria said. “Ms. Lydia and I are working on some projects for supper.” She turned and sidestepped around Allie’s mom, who was gliding ... yes, gliding ... her way through the foyer to the door.

“Mom,” Allie said stiffly.

“Alexis, dear. We’re so glad you’re finally here. Your father’s been up since before dawn, cleaning up the basement, setting up the pool table, and getting ready for movie night.”

Now that she was right in front me, I could actually assess the magnificence of Lydia Harper. And, yes, she was magnificent. She had to be no less than 55, but she was still a knockout. I didn’t doubt for one second that she’d had work done. No one her age looked as good as she did without having a nip and a tuck or a boost here and there.

Whatever she’d had done, it had been done well. She could easily pass for early 40s. She was fit and trim with not an ounce of body fat on her. It made me wonder if she ate at all. She was probably one of those bottom feeders who ate nothing but scraps of salad.

“Oh,” Allie said absently, “movie night. Yeah, I forgot about that.”

“Dear, please tell me you’re staying through the evening. Your father will be incredibly disappointed if you don’t. He has been out of his mind all day, and it’s been everything I can do to keep him out of the Macallan.”

As if I hadn’t actually been standing there the entire time and had just appeared out of thin air, Ms. Harper’s gaze finally found me. “Well, you must be Adam.” She said it smoothly and nonchalantly ... as if we didn’t have a decade of history behind us. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

For the second time, I extended my hand. “And I you, Mrs. Harper.” It was all lies. I hadn’t heard much about her. Allie didn’t talk about her parents – not with me, anyway. She knew how I felt about them, and it was a hot button that neither of us wanted to press. But I also knew she hadn’t been talking to her parents either. If Allie’s mom had heard about me, it wasn’t from her daughter. I had a feeling it was all just posturing, and I had an equally strong feeling that Garrett and Lydia Harper did a lot of posturing.

Apparently, Mrs. Harper wasn’t a hugger like Maria, because she took my hand and shook it. Her handshake surprised me. It wasn’t the weak handshake I’d expected from a socialite who had spent years trailing behind her husband. It had the firm, yet surprisingly feminine, confidence of woman who had shaken many hands and was comfortable doing so.

With her hand still in mine, Mrs. Harper’s eyes roamed over me from head to toe and then back up again, as if she’d reserved her judgment of me until this moment. We both knew that wasn’t the case.

When her eyes met mine again, she surprised me again by pursing her perfectly plumped lips together. “Please call me Lydia, darling, and aren’t you just every bit the doll that Allie said you were.”

What the fuck. Well, hello, Mrs. Robinson.

I dropped her hand like a piece of hot coal. Allie hadn’t missed the exchange. I looked at her in disbelief, and she rolled her eyes and pinched me on the ass in response.
That
exchange had gone unnoticed by her mother since she still hadn’t taken her eyes off me. If the two of them were going to compete for my attention all afternoon, this might turn out to be a pretty good day after all. It would definitely be the most interesting Thanksgiving I’d ever had.

“Allie,” her father’s voice boomed. “You’re here.” He rounded the corner and came to a dead stop. Rooted in place, he stared at me as if he was shocked that I was actually standing in his house. The large foyer was getting smaller and smaller by the second.

“Dad,” Allie said tersely. “Yes,
we’re
here.”

So, I hadn’t imagined it. This whole scene was getting more and more fucked up by the second. Allie had said that they had invited me and that they knew I was coming. So the fact that Garrett Harper was now staring at me like he was surprised I was here was both comical and unnerving. Maybe he wasn’t the brilliant man that everyone said he was. Or maybe unnerving me was exactly what he had in mind. Whatever. I didn’t trust him. Never had.

“Garrett,” Lydia said, pulling him out of his stupor. “Say hello to Adam, dear.”

“Yes. Of course,” he said. “We’re glad you could make the trip with Allie.” His voice was louder than it needed to be and echoed around the big marble-tiled room. Unlike the previous two introductions, neither of us extended a hand.

“Yeah ... uhhhh ... can we come in out of the entryway?” Allie said.

“Of course,” Lydia said, turning on a precariously high heel. “I need to get back to the kitchen anyway. Allie, why don’t you give Adam the tour. Show him around before lunch.” She waved her hand in the air, and I wasn’t sure if she was gesturing to the house that was so big it needed to be ‘toured’ or if she was dismissing us.

“Yes,” Garrett echoed, leading us out of the entryway and past a large formal dining room. “Give him the tour and then meet me at the bar. I’ll pour us some drinks.”

“Not too much, though,” Lydia’s voice sang from behind a closed door that I assumed led to the kitchen. “Let’s not get drunk before lunch, please.”

“Don’t let her fool you,” Garrett said under his breath. “She’s been sipping wine since eight this morning.”

Allie shot him a concerned look. “Really?” she asked.

“Yes, but I think Maria keeps hiding her glass so she’s still in good shape. I think she’s a little nervous. She wants this afternoon to go well.”

I couldn’t imagine the seemingly infallible Lydia Harper being nervous about anything but truth be told I hoped she was nervous. For Allie’s sake, I wanted this afternoon to go well, too. We had a better chance of that happening if at least one of her parents was playing along.

A door near where I thought Lydia’s voice had come from swung open, and she breezed back through the room. “Has anyone seen my wine? I seem to have misplaced it ... again.”

“See?” Garrett mouthed to Allie.

Allie rolled her eyes and for a second I could see it. They’d once been very close. I’d just been given a glimpse of the father-daughter relationship that they’d had before he had jacked it all up with lies. As I witnessed their exchange, I wanted that for her again ... even if it meant spending every Thanksgiving for the rest of my life with the asshole.

Lydia moved out of sight again. Her heels tapped across the tile floor as she wandered in and out of rooms, looking for the elusive glass of wine.

“Come on,” Allie said, grabbing my hand and pulling me toward the back of the house. “I’ll show you around.”

For the next 20 minutes, Allie led me through a maze of rooms. Each room was professionally decorated and seemed to have some sort of purpose, but I couldn’t understand how a family of three could possibly need this much space. There were more living rooms than there were people to enjoy them and enough TVs to fill a sports bar.

Allie led me down a long hall, and I felt like I was in an actual house instead of a museum for the first time. I slowed down as I walked through, taking it all in. Framed pictures lined both sides of the hall. There were pictures of Allie wearing softball uniforms, tennis uniforms, cheerleading uniforms ... just about any uniform you could think of. There were pictures of her in her graduation gowns all the way from kindergarten through law school. There were also pictures of her mom and dad ... Garrett holding up various sizes of fish and shaking hands with judges and politicians ... Lydia accepting awards at charity events. 

“This is the hall of fame,” Allie said. “Kind of obnoxious, isn’t it?”

I stopped in front of a picture about midway down the wall. It was cheerleader Allie. She must have been about 15 or 16 at the time. Her blonde hair was lighter and her face was thinner than it was now, but it was the same gorgeous girl.

Well, it was, and it wasn’t.

The photographer, who I assumed had been one of her parents, caught her jumping in the air, pompoms waving. Her head was thrown back and a huge smile took up her whole face. There was a lightness in her eyes that probably hadn’t made an appearance in more than 10 years.

It was Allie before the accident.

“What are you looking at?” she asked, backtracking to where I was standing.

“You,” I said. “You were beautiful. I mean, you still are, but I forgot how beautiful you were back then, too. You had that spark, you know. Something that made you shine brighter than the rest.”

“I didn’t shine,” she said quietly. “I wasn’t a very nice person. I was shallow and bored ... and mean. I was a spoiled brat.”

She looked at the photo as if she wanted to tear it apart, but then turned softer eyes on me. “I wish I could remember you, though. I don’t know why I wasn’t into hotter, older men. Rookie mistake.”

“Hey, I’m not that much older,” I said indignantly. “Three years is nothing.”

“Yeah, well when you’re 50, I’ll still be in my mid 40s. I’ll be a cougar, and you’ll be retired,” she said laughing.

“And I’ll be lucky to have you ... if you look anything like your mother,” I said, throwing an arm around her neck and pulling her into my chest.

“Gah,” she said, pushing against me with both hands. “That’s disgusting.”

“I’m totally kidding. Your mom’s an old hag. Now show me your room. I want to see where you grew up.”

Really, I wanted to see more pictures, and I wanted to study them. I needed to figure out how to make her smile like that again.

 “I don’t think you’ll be too impressed,” she said, as she led me to the end of the hall. She flipped on a light. The room was pale and flowery, and nothing like our apartment.

“This is your room?” I asked. There wasn’t a trace of Allie anywhere. It didn’t look like it belonged to her or anyone else for that matter. It was a vacant space that spoke of no one in particular.

“Well, it was at one time,” she said, shrugging. “My mom redecorated as soon as I left for college. When I left, my stuff was everywhere. When I came back for Christmas, it looked like this … well, an earlier version of this.  She’s probably changed it five times since then.”

“That’s kind of crazy,” I said. My room at my mom’s house looked exactly the same today as it had 15 years ago. My mother wouldn’t touch it.  She preferred to live in the past, which was bizarre since our past wasn’t all that great.

“I used to think it was weird,” she said, looking around. “But now it makes sense. She got rid of everything that would remind me of high school. All of my yearbooks. Cheerleading competition trophies. Pictures of Thomas and Brittany and our friends. Everything.” My eyes followed hers around the room. It was sad. Sterile and sad.

 “At the time, I didn’t have friends any more so I didn’t think anything of it. I thought they were trying to make me feel better. I didn’t realize they were trying to help me forget.”

I didn’t want to be in here for a second longer. Her parents may have thought they were doing her a favor. They may have thought that they were helping. But I could tell when she looked around all she saw was unhappiness ... a whole lot of washed-out flowery unhappiness.

“Aren’t you glad we’re staying at the W tonight?” I said, wiggling my eyebrows at her.

She flipped the light off, and we wandered back down the hall. “Time to hit the bar,” she said.

As we passed through the hall of fame again, I took one more look at cheerleader Allie. I studied it for just a second, committing it to memory. I wanted to know that girl. I wanted to see that carefree smile on
my
Allie’s face.

She led me back down the wide staircase, through the formal living room where we had been earlier, and down a smaller, narrower set of stairs that led to the basement.