Lex and Lu (34 page)

“Was he dying?” Pete asked.

“That’s what I want to know.”

Dinner was a tense affair. The private room, set back in the restaurant, while cheery and light, seemed to cast a pall of irony over their assembly. Lu watched as Lex took in the uncomfortable atmosphere of the family gathering. She saw him decide that he needed to step in and try to make everyone comfortable. He turned his attention to the room at large. Before long, he’d turned the tide with his teasing, lighthearted banter. The effort cost him, she knew, but he’d brought it on himself. She found it interesting that he so clearly stepped right back into that role. She’d long ago decided that you couldn’t escape the childhood role that you were destined to don the moment you returned to the fold. Thankfully—because by the time dessert appeared, everyone seemed to be relaxed. Eager to be done with the hellish torture, Lu almost choked on her wine when he suggested that everyone come to the villa for coffee.

Lu shot him a look of death. He’d been so caught up in working the room that she supposed he hardly noticed the tension radiating from her or he was so used to it by now that he couldn’t tell her relaxed pose from her tension-filled rigidity.

“I apologize,” he whispered.

She guessed he did notice as she shook him off. “It’s OK,” she muttered.

But it wasn’t. As they all settled in the family room, sprawled on the couches that the night before had held just the four of them, the embers of tension began to ignite. Lu waited with Nina while she showered but brought her out so that she could bid everyone goodnight. Lex scooped her up and carried her off to bed, leaving Lu to find a seat in the viper’s pit. Her parents were curled up together on the love seat. Next to them, Pete sat on the recliner, with Willa perched on the arm, never far from his side, which made Lu smile despite her desire for this night to be over. Jo, who had been sitting with Lex, looked at Lu, inviting her silently to sit with her. Lu declined by walking over and sitting in the other recliner, slightly away from the group, a party of one. The moment she sat down, Amber struck, a viper who’d been waiting for her prey.

“Louisa May, have you been able to find some gainful employment in London?” Dr. A. asked.

Lu tried desperately to hold the roll of her eyes. She supposed her mother had been put off for the twenty hours she’d been in Spain and the question had surely been burning a hole in her pocket. “I’m continuing to consult via Skype, but, yes, I’ve actually been offered a job that I’m contemplating.”

Amber raked her with her eyes, and Lu had to wonder about all of this contempt that her mother seemed to harbor. “Why would you be contemplating a job? Don’t you have to support yourself and Nina?”

Patience, Lu thought. “Yes, I do. And I will.” She didn’t elaborate, because she knew that any mention of working with English soccer would send her mother into a fit of apoplexy. When she dared to look at her father, she could see the brackets of stress around his mouth. She didn’t know if this could be attributed to her or her mother.

“Well, don’t keep us in suspense. What offer?”

This finally distracted Willa and Pete from their private conversation. Lu saw Willa’s head pop up. Meeting her sister’s inquiring look, Lu shrugged into a mute apology.

“English Premier League,” she said simply.

For a split second, Lu imagined her mother’s head spinning, which caused an inappropriate smile to leap to her lips. Looking helplessly at her father, she held his gaze, both of them hoping that the presence of the Pellitteris would help her mother hold her tongue.

With an ironic laugh, Amber shook her head. “A waste of talent,” she muttered under her breath, but loud enough for everyone, including Lex, who was returning from Nina’s room, to hear it.

Smiling widely, he leaped over the back of the couch, reclaiming his seat next to his mother, and commented. “Interesting,” he noted, as if he had heard the conversation in its entirety. “Working for the most well-known sports league in the world—hardly a waste of talent, Dr. A.”

“She always has been good at stroking your ego, Lex,” she retorted.

Lu, Chris, and Willa looked horrified, but Lex just smiled. “Yes, well as long as I continue to invite you along, I’m going to need it.” Then he flashed that smile with the raised eyebrow and dared her to continue.

Amber laughed like a schoolgirl. “Someone needs to keep you honest,” she said, still smiling.

Just like that, the tension eased. And in that moment Lu both loved and hated Lex. She wanted to stay away from him, wanted to maintain their current situation, in which they parented their child together. But she knew they couldn’t do a sequel. Sequels were never as good as the first story.
Electric Boogaloo
didn’t even compete with
Breakin’.
But when he did shit like this, when he pulled on his cape and rode to her rescue, she found it hard to hold fast to distance. As she looked to him gratefully, she took note of the tension in his body. Before she knew how to react, he turned to Jo.

“Jo, did you think that maybe you should have told us that Dad was dying?” he asked to a stunned room.

Lu’s intake of air was heard throughout the remaining silence.

Jo didn’t look at Lex or Pete. She merely twisted her cordial glass in her hand, biding her time. Lu looked around and knew that she was the only one in the room who didn’t know what was going on. So wrapped up in what had happened between herself and Lex the night before, she’d spent most of the day in an oblivion that seemed to accommodate her mood. She’d missed the tension in the boys at dinner; she’d missed the stress that Jo wore around her like a big, colorful scarf.

Lex didn’t repeat his question or even look mildly disturbed. He continued to lean back on the couch, close to Jo, with his arms thrown over the back. “Dad left letters with Caroline. She’d given it to me at the funeral, but I completely forgot about it.” He paused and looked over at Lu, their gazes locked. She knew she was the reason he forgot about the letter. She remembered seeing it in his hands in the Sunday-school room when she walked in—he’d stuffed it in his pocket, so his hands were free. “I found the letters today.” He broke eye contact with Lu and turned to his mother. “Why didn’t you guys tell us?”

Jo looked up. First at Pete, who had moved forward in his seat, but continued to hold on to Willa. Then at Lex, who still looked completely relaxed. There was no blame anywhere in his demeanor. Lu was hit with a wave of love for him that caught her completely off guard. Ten minutes earlier she’d wanted to hit him for his impromptu rescue.

“We found out two years ago, right before Christmas, as a matter of fact,” Jo began. “He’d been having headaches and had experienced some slower reflexes. It was inoperable.… We could have tried to finda cure … tried radiation. But he wanted quality of life. He wanted to live like he’d been living, watching the two of you”—she looked at both Pete and Lex—“and Nina and Lu and Willa.” She looked at the two of them. “He didn’t want to give that up. We argued about it—over and over. But I couldn’t change his mind.”

“So the accident?” Pete asked.

“Exactly like I told you. It’s possible that his reflexes played a part in the accident, but the medical examiner couldn’t determine that one hundred percent.” Jo didn’t offer any other information and neither Lex nor Pete asked. Lu felt stunned, much as she imagined the boys feeling when they read their letters. How could she have missed this?

“Mom, why didn’t you tell us when he died?” Pete looked forlorn, hurt. Willa moved closer to him, as though her presence could absorb the bad and leave him with nothing but the good. Lu watched the two of them, envy spurting out of her pores. She longed to comfort Lex.

“I probably should have, but he was dead. Not that I didn’t think it mattered. That’s not it. It wouldn’t have changed anything.” Jo continued to sit twirling her glass, looking off into a distance that no one else could see. Lu couldn’t help her slight hero worship of Jo. She didn’t apologize to the Lex and Pete, knowing that there wasn’t much she could say to help them understand their father’s motivations. They all knew Mr. P. well enough to know that Jo’s version was dead-on. And while she probably should have told them when he died, she didn’t try to convince them that her decision was right—it was merely her decision. She looked at both men. “Would it have made it easier?” she asked, wanting to know if she’d messed up.

Pete shrugged. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

Lex turned his head to face his mother. “There isn’t anything that could have made Dad’s death easier. But I would have liked to know that we didn’t have all the time in the world.” He stood and kissed his mother on her head. “I called the car service on my way in here. They should be here in five. We’ll see you tomorrow.” He left the room without another word. Chris, Amber, and Jo stood and gathered their stuff.

“I’ll walk you out,” Pete offered.

When it was just the two of them in the room, Willa turned to Lu. “Are you going to check on him?”

Lu leaned back heavily in the chair. Sighing, she said, “Yes.”

“Are you going to be OK?”

Smiling wearily, Lu rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “My heart can’t break twice, right?”

Willa merely smiled.

Lex stood on the balcony, staring out into the depths of the Alboran Sea. If one wanted to put the insignificance of their problems in perspective, they merely needed to look at the infiniteness of its sparkling depths. Bombarded by the events of the last eight months, Lex found himself smiling. The loss of his father would never leave him. He would feel it every day, but he also imagined that the sharpness would lessen so that the dull ebb would merely be a passing thought. Coupled with the discovery of his daughter, the scales seemed to somehow balance. What, he wondered, would it have been like to have them both at the same time? And Lu. What would it be like to have Lu?

As if he’d conjured her with his thoughts, he heard the door open and knew, without looking back, that she’d come to him. He turned and leaned back on the balcony railing, watching her stride purposefully toward him. She still wore her black slacks and forest green sweater, a testament to Christmas. She’d pulled her hair out of its ponytail so that it hung loosely around her shoulders. Last night, when he’d gone to her, her eyes had been red-rimmed and swollen, tiny red lines mixing with the white and blue, proclaiming her heart-wrenching trip to the past. Tonight, the cornflower blue sparkled, almost smiling, meeting his with a quiet determination that he’d always associated with her. He couldn’t really imagine her broken and doubting like the seventeen-year-old girl she’d described. The woman walking toward him was the girl he’d loved, all grown up and magnificent. He wanted her—more than he’d wanted anything.

He smiled, his eyes mischievous, and her step faltered. Slight, a slighted stutter, as if she all of a sudden realized what she had walked into and his grin widened.

Suddenly, she laughed.

Raising his eyebrow, Lex copped the stare. “What’s so funny?” he teased.

Not hesitating anymore, she stepped right between his parted legs, wrapped her arms around him and laid her forehead on his chest. She giggled. “Here I thought I was coming in here to check on you, but you don’t seem to be very upset.”

His arms snaked around her, and he pulled her close. He shrugged, causing her to lift her head and meet his eyes. “Seeing you makes me smile.” Sincerity laced his words and made her draw a deep breath.

Lex’s hands moved slowly, caressing Lu’s back, mesmerizing her. When she looked away from him, he leaned back, trying to get her to look up at him again. She felt so good in his arms, but he didn’t want to scare her away. She reminded him of a skittish colt, and the last thing he needed was to make her bolt. She finally met his gaze. He smiled again.

“I’m OK. I was surprised when I read the letter. And I felt bad that I hadn’t read it sooner. But I think Jo was respecting his wishes and probably waiting for us to come to her. He’s already gone, so it’s not like I can change anything.” It struck Lex as odd, right in the moment that he could be so accepting of this small deception, forgiving. There’d been so much. In comparison with the withholding of information about his daughter, it probably should have mattered more. He imagined Pete would feel this one more than he. He’d been gone for so long and, in retrospect, so focused on his life and his wants, that it had been so easy for his parents to keep things from him. He never asked. In all his desire to be who he was, he could now admit that he was selfish. There’d really been no room for anyone else’s problems or ego in his life.

If Lu thought his explanation odd in any way, she didn’t mention it.

“In the list of discoveries that I’ve uncovered in the last year, this is just part of it. But finding out about Nina and you, it’s just what it is.” Lex paused. “Am I an ass?”

“Sometimes,” she said, smiling. When he pinched her, she jumped, laughing. “So hard to hear the truth,” she teased.

He loved her like this. Relaxed, not tense, teasing him. He didn’t want to turn the tide of the conversation, but he had to ask, because he couldn’t operate in the dark anymore.

“What changed?”

She stopped smiling. “What do you mean?”

“Last night, you didn’t want me anywhere near you. Now you’ve come to me. What’s up?” He said it all as gently as he could. He could have let it go and maybe should have, but he wanted to have all the information this time.

Lu eyes flashed and he could see her assess him, see her make the same decision, and he wished she would let him in. She tried to step away from him, but he held on to her. A silent struggle ensued until Lex began to laugh and Lu followed.

“I’m stronger,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she responded, giving up the battle.

With the laughter lingering between them, Lex swooped in and kissed her. He intended it to be a quick, searing kiss. But once there, he didn’t want to release her. She didn’t fight him, merely opened up and let him in. Their arms tightening around each other, Lex pulled her closer and deepened the kiss, moving into her mouth. God, he loved kissing her. There was a tentative quality about her that made him feel all protective and worldly. He felt his smile against her mouth as he thought she would hate that he thought himself so much more sophisticated than she was. She pulled back.