Читать книгу Switch - Меган Харт - Страница 11

When I was younger, the prospect of Sunday dinner at my dad’s had so excited me or stressed me out I’d vomit. Never at my father’s house—even when I was little I knew Stella wouldn’t approve of a puking kid. I didn’t puke anymore, but I’d never managed to get rid of the knots in my stomach, either.

I popped an antacid tablet now as I sat in my not-expensive-enough-to-be-impressive car in their half-circle driveway of stamped concrete. This was the fourth new house my father’d had in the past seventeen years of life with his second family. Before that he’d lived in a stately Georgian-style half mansion with his first family. He’d never lived with my mother.

Birth-order studies claim that an age difference of six or more years between siblings complicates the normal oldest, middle and youngest personality traits by also making each child an only. That’s why, though I have five half siblings and an uncle who’s more like a brother, I’m an only child. I’ve tried identifying with being the middle kid—but what it comes down to, in the end, is I’m not.

The door opened and Jeremy and Tyler ran out. They both favor my dad, too. All of us look more like siblings than we were raised to be. I was fourteen when Jeremy was born, sixteen for Tyler. They’re more like nephews or cousins than brothers. I’m not sure what they think of me, just that they’re always glad to see me and aside from the fact they’re spoiled brats who could use a good spanking now and then, I’m usually glad to see them, too.

“Hey, Paige.” Jeremy at twelve no longer ran to clutch at my legs. He settled for a half wave with limp fingers.

Tyler, ten, was nearly as tall as me but squeezed me anyway. “Paige, c’mon, we’re going to play Pictionary. Grandma and Grandpa are here already. So’s Nanny and Poppa.”

“And Gretchen and Steve, too, I see.” I pointed to the two minivans that belonged to my dad’s kids with his first wife.

“Everyone’s here,” Jeremy said somewhat sourly, and I gave him a glance. He’d always been a pretty upbeat kid. Today he scowled, blond eyebrows pinching tight over the smaller version of our father’s nose.

I leaned back into my car to grab the gift, then locked my car. It was unlikely anything would happen to it parked in my dad’s driveway, but it was habit. “Come. Let’s go in.”

I slung an arm around Tyler’s neck and listened to him babble on about school, soccer, the new game system he’d found under the Christmas tree. He had never known Santa to disappoint him. I’d stopped trying not to be envious of that, even though I no longer believed in Santa Claus.

Inside, Jeremy slunk to a chair in the corner and sat with crossed arms, the scowl still in place. Tyler abandoned me to round up pens for the game. That left me to the socially torturous task of making nice with Stella’s parents, Nanny and Poppa.

Like their daughter, they weren’t bad people. They’d never gone out of their way to be cruel. I wasn’t Cinderella. And I understood, now, what it must have been like to try to find a place in their hearts for their new son-in-law’s children, and how awkward it must have felt. A hastily wrapped Jumbo Book of Puzzles and a prewrapped box of knit mittens would always fall short in comparison to exquisitely wrapped packages in shiny foil paper with matching bows, the contents new clothes or toys. I understood. Spending Christmas at my dad’s had been last minute, haphazardly planned and rare. At least Nanny and Poppa had made an effort.

It seemed easier for them now that I was a grown-up, though it was more difficult for me. As a kid it had never occurred to me they wouldn’t like me. Now I was convinced they didn’t.

“Hello, Paige,” George, also known as Poppa, said. “How nice of you to come.”

He meant well, but the unspoken insinuation of surprise made me bite my tongue against the shout of “Of course I came! She’s my father’s wife!”

But, like Stella herself, I could never hope to impress them. I just wanted not to prove them right. So instead of shouting, I smiled.

“How are you?” I couldn’t call him George, Mr. Smith sounded absurd, and I would never call him Poppa.

I’d been asking out of politeness, but he told me exactly how he was. For fifteen minutes. And I listened, nodding and murmuring in appropriate places, as though I cared. I didn’t know half the people he mentioned, but he acted as if he thought I should. He never asked me about myself, which was fine, because then I didn’t have to answer.

Finally, the game of Pictionary got under way. Gretchen’s husband, Peter, begged off, volunteering to take care of Hunter, their three-year-old son. Steve and his vastly pregnant wife, Kelly, played, though, as did my dad and Stella, all the grandparents and Tyler. And me. Jeremy had disappeared. We split into teams, boys against girls.

“I’ll sit out,” I said when we’d counted up the teams to find the girls’ side had an extra player.

“Oh, no, Paige, are you sure?” Stella protested, but not too hard. She liked things even and square.

“Sure. Not a problem. I’ll go check on dinner, if you want.”

Okay, so maybe I’d cast myself in the Cinderella role. Just a little. But it was a relief to get into the kitchen and set out platters of vegetables and dip, cheese and crackers. Decorative breads and soft cheeses with pretty spreaders that matched the platter. Stella loved to have parties.

I found the cold-cut platters in the garage fridge and brought them into the kitchen to put them out on the table, which was serving as a buffet. I startled Jeremy when I came back in, and he whirled, can of soda in hand, from the open fridge.

From the living room, the sound of laughter wafted. I set the platter of meat on the table. Jeremy and I stared each other down.

“You’re not supposed to be drinking that before dinner,” I told him.

“I know.” His chin lifted. He hadn’t yet cracked the top.

“I’m not going to tell you on you, kiddo.” I turned to the table and took off the platter’s plastic lid so I could get rid of the fake greenery around the edges. I knew how to make things pretty.

“Don’t call me kiddo,” he said.

I expected him to slink away with his stolen prize, but he didn’t. When I turned to look at him, he was still playing with the can, shifting it from one hand to the other.

“Something up?” I moved past him to the big, mostly empty pantry, to pull out the fancy plastic plates and plastic-ware, the matching napkins.

“No.” Jeremy shrugged and disappeared up the back stairs.

After that, the party really started.

It was easier for me with more people there. Stella’s friends knew who I was, of course, and avoided talking to me so they didn’t have to deal with the awkwardness of how to address their friend’s husband’s illegitimate daughter. My dad’s friends knew me, too, but had fewer inhibitions for some reason. Maybe because I’d known them longer, or because they had no conflict of loyalty. Some of them didn’t like Stella much, and maybe that was part of it, too.

Of my father’s other kids, I saw very little. Gretchen, Steve and I had never been close, even though it wasn’t my mother who’d finally won our dad away from their mom. Of course, their spouses weren’t sure what to make of me, either, and it was easier for us to be superficially polite without trying to get to know each other. Their children were and would be my nieces and nephews, but I doubted they’d ever think of me as an aunt.

“Paige DeMarco, how the hell are you?” Denny’s one of my dad’s oldest friends. Fishing and drinking buddies, they’d known each other since high school. He’d known my mom, too.

“Hey, Denny. Long time no see.”

“Yeah, and you a big-city girl now, too. How’s it going?” Denny gave me a one-armed hug.

“It’s going great.” It wasn’t an entire lie. Most of my life was going great.

“Yeah?” He tossed back the dregs of his iced tea. I guessed he was hankering for a beer, but Stella wasn’t serving booze. Not that I blamed her. Alcohol always made a different kind of party. “Where you living at? Your dad said someplace along the river?”

“Riverview Manor.”

There was no denying the pride swelling inside me at Denny’s impressed whistle. “Nice digs. And your job? You’re not still working with your mom, are you?”

“I help out once in a while, if she’s got a big job.”

Denny grimaced at his empty cup, but didn’t move to pour more. “What’s she up to? She still with the same guy?”

Questions my dad never asked. I was the only part of my mother my dad needed to know about. He’d never said as much, but I knew it.

“Leo? Yes.”

“And that kid, how old’s he now?”

“Arty’s seven.” I had to laugh for a second. “Wow. Yeah. He just turned seven.”

“You tell her I said hi, okay?”

“Sure.”

We chatted for a while after that. The party got louder. Stella reigned over it like a queen, even if she was claiming to still be only twenty-nine. When it came time to open the gifts, I thought about slipping out, but forced myself to stay.

Stella sat in the big rocking chair in the living room, her presents arranged at her feet and her closest girlfriend beside her getting ready to write down the name of every gift and its giver. Stella opened gift cards, packages of bath salts, certificates for spa treatments. Sweaters. Slippers. A new silk robe someone had brought from a trip to Japan. She oohed and aahed over each gift appropriately.

By the time she got to mine, my stomach had begun to eat itself. The harsh sting of acid rose in my throat, burning. My heart thudded sickly. I had to turn away to pop another couple antacids and sip from a glass of ginger ale, even though I knew the soda would ruin the effects of the medicine.

It’s silly to hold on to the past, but we all do it. I was almost ten the first year I’d been invited to Stella’s birthday party. The paint had been barely dry in their new house. Gretchen and Steven were living one week with their mother and one week with my dad and Stella. I, of course, lived full-time with my mom and saw my dad on an occasional weekend or holiday, a practice he’d only started after leaving his first wife.

I’d picked out Stella’s present myself that year, using my allowance to pay for it. I’d bought her a silky red tank top with a lacy hem. It was the sort of shirt my mom would’ve loved and wore often, and she said nothing when she helped me fold it and wrap it in some pretty paper that had come free in the mail to solicit money for a charity.

I’d been so proud of that present. I’d been sure Stella, who wasn’t nearly as pretty as my mom but who tried hard, anyway, would open it and put it on right away. Then she’d smile at me, and my dad would smile at me, and we’d all be happy.

Instead, she’d opened the box and pulled out the shirt. Her gaze had gone immediately to my father’s, but men don’t know anything about fashion beyond what they like and what they don’t. She didn’t put it on. She fingered the red satiny fabric and peeked at the label, her eyes going a little wider at what she saw. Then she put the shirt back in the box with a thank-you even a nine-year-old could tell was forced. I never saw her wear it, but I did find it in the garage a few years later, in the box of rags my dad used for cleaning his cars.

I wasn’t nine years old any longer. I wasn’t even a teen in too-thick eyeliner and a too-short skirt. I’d learned how to dress and how to speak, but part of me would always be my mother’s daughter, at least in Stella’s eyes.

“Oh, Paige, what a thoughtful gift.” Stella lifted out the box of paper and opened it to pull out the pen. She wiggled it so the tiny tassel danced. “Very pretty. Thank you.”

I let out a long, silent sigh. “You’re welcome.”

“Where do you find such pretty things?” Stella continued. She turned to face her audience. “Paige always finds the prettiest things.”

That was it. Bells didn’t ring, little birdies didn’t fly around on rainbow glitter wings. She’d said thank-you, and I thought she meant it. That was all.

I still managed to slip away before the party was over. My dad caught me at the door. He insisted on hugging me.

“Thanks for coming.” I’m sure he meant it, too.

I doubt there’s anyone who does not have a complicated relationship with his or her parents, so I’m not saying I’m special or anything. Considering the circumstances of my birth, I’m lucky to have any sort of relationship with my dad. For the most part, at least, it’s an honest relationship. Except of course when honesty is too painful.

“Of course I’d come,” I told him. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Of course you would,” my dad said. “Well, I’m glad you did. How’s the new place?”

“It’s great.” With his arm still around me, I wanted to squirm away. “It’s a very nice place.”

“And the new job?”

The job I’d had for almost six months didn’t feel so new anymore. “It’s great, too. I like my boss a lot.”

“Good. You’re up on Union Deposit Road, right?”

“Progress,” I told him. “Just off Progress.”

“Oh, right. Well, hey, maybe I should swing by some day and take you to lunch at the Cracker Barrel, what do you say?”

“Sure, Dad.” I smiled, not expecting him to ever follow through. “Just call me.”

He kissed my cheek and hugged me again, making a show of making me his daughter. It was nice, in that way we both knew was shallow but served its purpose.

The moment I got in my car and the door to the house shut, my every muscle relaxed. I blew out another series of long, slow breaths and lifted my arms to let my pits air out. I’d be sore tomorrow in places I hadn’t realized I’d clenched. I was already getting a headache. I’d made it through another big family event without anything going wrong.