The Prize (27 page)

On the way upstairs he stopped to look through the mail on the counter in the foyer. Among the magazines was the new
Vanity Fair
. He looked at the cover and quickly scanned the bylines. Among them, “Nate Fisher and His Multi-Million Dollar Splash.” He flipped through the article and remembered how Nate had told Agnes not to do the profile. That motherfucker. He'd usurped her spot. He shook his head, disgusted.

Upstairs he looked out the bay window in their bedroom. Dusk would fall in an hour. A rangy squirrel raced up the tree and back down. A deer lingered in the backyard near the bed of ruined pines and then, hearing the sound of a car racing down the block, fled for the woods. A police car blasted its siren chasing the speeding car. Everything seemed in a state of chaos. He willed himself to forget all of it, Agnes, Nate, Julia, and London, and fall into the
gentle domesticity of evening. His eye caught the small orchid on the windowsill. He hadn't noticed it before. Its leaves were rubbery and green, and from its crown had thrust a lone stem with purple flowers papery and thin. It moved him that Holly had cared for it so tenderly.

A
FTER HIS SHOWER
he went down to the cellar for the wine and came into the kitchen. Annabel emerged from the cave of her bedroom in a loose top that slipped off one shoulder and a miniskirt. A pink streak trailed down her dirty-blonde hair. She was suddenly tall and willowy. She took his breath away. He remembered how fine and soft her blonde hair had been when she was a child. He remembered her chubby legs, her pink pajamas with horses and lassos. He remembered watching her in her bedroom with her toy horses and jumps and riders spread out on the rug and how she could spend hours dressing up the little doll in her riding clothes and putting the saddle on the little toy horse. Now boys were on her mind. Her face was soft and pale with beautiful cheekbones like her mother's.

“Be careful,” he called, and then heard the door shut behind her and the screen door bang closed.

Holly had made one of his favorite dinners, chicken cutlets with olives and almonds and tiny red potatoes. He opened the wine and they sat down together with their full and splendid plates. When their daughter was absent he and Holly sat awkwardly together, trying too hard for conversation. They were in love with her. He wondered in his darkest moment if their great love for her would somehow harm her; how could that love be trumped? They could not part with even the white gliding rocker that once was in her
nursery. It had been reinstalled in their bedroom and sometimes Edward caught himself looking at it with longing and suffered the deep pangs a parent feels when his child is growing away from him. When Annabel left for college it would be terrible for them. He knew it and even though she was only fifteen, he was already trying to get used to the idea.

“Annabel's different,” Holly said at dinner. “She's secretive. I don't even know her anymore.”

“She's a teenager.” When Holly played bad cop, he played good cop. And vice versa.

“She hasn't been going to the stables after school.” Holly sipped her wine.

“Where does she go?”

“I don't know where she goes.” Holly sighed.

“She's a teenager,” he repeated.

“That's what I'm afraid of.”

Exchanging their private worries and anxieties about Annabel had the effect of making him more anxious rather than less. “We have to let her go a little,” he asserted.

“She's lost interest in riding.” Holly added. “All that time and money.”

“Did you expect it would get her somewhere?” He glanced at Annabel's empty chair and then at Holly.

“Just through high school. To keep her out of trouble.”

“It could be worse. She's a good kid.”

“I know she's good.” Holly pressed her lips tightly in thought. A pulsing vein of tension appeared on her pale forehead. “I miss her.”

She cut a piece of chicken and pushed it to the side of her plate. She looked up and her eyes landed on the drapes in the dining room.

“I'd like to change the window treatments. Look how they've faded. And we still haven't done anything about those trees,” she said, in a tired voice. “Look. Out the window.” Scrawny pines framed the garden bed in front of the house. The needles at the bottom were eaten away by deer and Holly had been on him to take them down. “I can't stand to see them like that,” she added, and lowered her eyes. Then, perking up slightly, she said, “How was London?”

He wished he could turn back the clock and erase it all. What if Holly found out? He couldn't decide which bothered him more: the idea that she'd find out he'd been with Julia, or that she'd find out he'd lost Agnes.

“The usual carnival. Meetings with artists and curators. At one of the presentations, a performance poet wound through the audience unraveling a piece of yarn. Something about lost connection,” he moaned.

He stood and offered to clean up the dishes. He reassured her about their daughter. “Don't worry about Annabel. She'll come back to us.”

He kissed her on the forehead and told her he had missed her and was glad to be home. “I'm just not the same man without you two.”

She raised her head and glanced at him.

“Maybe you could come with me on my next trip to Europe. We could take Annabel too.”

“Really?” Holly softened and slipped her hand underneath his sweater and hugged him and he took her in. “That would be fun. I missed you, too.”

He wanted to bury his head in her shoulder and hold her, but instead she broke away and moved into the kitchen.

“Why do you do that?” he asked.

“Do what?”

“Move away.”

“I'm putting the dishes in the sink,” she said and went to the sink and turned on the faucet.

“No, really,” he said.

“Every time you want to be close you assume I do. It doesn't work that way.”

“You never want to be close,” Edward said.

“It's you that's always running away,” Holly said, sharply.

He stopped to think about she said, watching as she loaded the dishwasher. He started to say something and stopped himself. “I'll do the dishes,” he offered again, not wanting to start something. “You look tired.”

He motioned her into the den. The temperature had dropped. The moon cast a shadow on the lawn. Snow started falling, millions of snowflakes like a swirl of fallen stars in the dark. Heat rose in a blast from the furnace. He listened to the little pings of the radiator and the moans and creaks in the wood. Holly was the heart of their house, like the blue pilot light in the furnace providing warmth and sustenance, but he felt her fading away from him. He made out the snowflakes still falling steadily onto a tree limb and felt a weight in his chest. And then he heard the limb bend and crack. He turned away.

Before the dishes, he went out to the garage—Holly would think he was taking out the trash—and lit a cigarette and took into his lungs the harsh, punishing smoke. The cool air overtook him for a moment. He thought of Julia, her image already drifting into memory so that he could not make out her features, only the vague
outlines of her. He pictured her turned on her side in her hotel bed among the soft blankets and pillows where he had last seen her and unease filled him again.

T
HE HAND ON
their bedroom clock swept slowly past midnight. Annabel missed curfew.

“Where is she?” Edward said. He got up and paced, looking out the window every time he saw headlights brighten the road. He feared an accident, or something else. He pictured Dan Wasserman. “Why did you say she could ride with that Wasserman kid? He's two years older than her.”

“Because she wanted to. Are you blaming me for the fact that she isn't home?”

“I just wondered why you let her.”

“So you are blaming me,” Holly said.

The key turned in the lock at two in the morning. Holly reached for the remote and muted the sound of the TV. Edward closed his eyes with relief. Annabel stumbled up the stairs.

“Let me see you?” Holly trailed her into her bedroom and Edward followed. “Annabel, You've been drinking.” Holly touched her shoulder.

“Hey. What the hell, Mom.”

“Let me see you,” Edward said. Annabel's face was pale and sweaty and the pupils in her eyes were big and unable to focus. Her shirt had crept up, exposing a sliver of her waist, and slipped off her shoulder to reveal a pink bra strap. He thought about Dan Wasserman again.

“Your mother's right. You're drunk.”

“I'm not, Daddy.”

“Edward,” Holly said. “Calm down.”

“You're telling me to calm down? Look at her.” His heart was racing.

“Daddy, I wasn't drinking,” Annabel slurred.

“The hell you weren't. Look at you. You can't stand up straight.”

Annabel stumbled and reached for the bedpost. She faltered again.

He imagined his daughter in a dark basement or the backseat of a car, Dan Wasserman on top of her. “Stop lying.” He instinctively reached out his hand and then he raised it in midair.

“Edward!” Holly exclaimed and pulled him back. “Don't.”

Annabel burst into tears and fell into her mother's arms.

“Annabel. At the party—did anyone hurt you?”

“No one hurt me, Dad.” She stared through him as if he were transparent. Then she turned to her mother. “I . . . only . . . had . . . a . . . few beers . . . And then we did some shots of tequila. All my friends drink. Everyone does.” She wiped her tears with her sleeve. “What am I supposed to do? Not go out with my friends? Stay at home every night with you two?” Her makeup smeared, leaving black marks around her eyes.

“You're only fifteen,” Holly said. “And what's wrong with staying home with us?”

“Are you joking? I'm always disappointing you.”

“Disappointing us?” Holly said.

“I don't even want to be here. Dad sleeps upstairs. I know what's going on.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. She rubbed them with the bottom of her shirt.

Heat rose into his face. He was trembling.

“I'm sorry, Annabel.”

Annabel broke out of Holly's arms. “I feel dizzy. I don't feel so good.” She ran to the toilet and vomited.

“Are you okay?” Holly followed. Edward sat on Annabel's bed, still trembling.

Annabel skulked back into the room, wiping her face with a damp washcloth. “I don't feel so good.”

“Come here.” Edward patted the bed next to him. He put his arm around her. “Your mother and I are fine,” he said, into her hair. “I have trouble sleeping sometimes, that's all.”

“I'm sorry. I don't know why I said that. It's just, you know, I'm out with my friends. It's fun. Don't you remember when you were my age?”

Of course he remembered. He'd spent most of his senior year getting high and trying to feel up Karen Fairmont. His daughter was changing. The thrill of life was inside her. Things were different now. His daughter could see things in him he might not be aware of. He couldn't expect the same kind of affection or adoration from her that she'd given freely when she was little. He couldn't hide from her. Or expect her to be different than other teenagers. He took her in his arms again.

“We don't want you to come home in this condition.” He brushed the hair away from her forehead. “We worry about you. You have to make good decisions.”

“I will, Daddy. I promise.” She looked up at her mother. “Mom, will you take me to the stables tomorrow?” she said in her little-girl voice. “I want to see Rocket.”

“I'll take you tomorrow.” Holly said. “Do you need a glass of water? I'll get some Tylenol.”

Annabel nodded. She took off her boots and, still in her clothes, crawled underneath the covers. “I'm sorry,” she said again, when Holly came back into the room with the water and Tylenol. She sat up to take the tablets and then lay back down.

“Love you guys,” Annabel whispered.

“Love you too,” they both said.

“What was that all about?” Holly said, once they were alone in their bedroom. “You can't lose control like that. No matter what she does.”

“I know,” he said, shaking his head. “Seeing her that way . . . I don't know what happened.”

“I don't know what's wrong with you.”

“I'm just tired from all the traveling.”

“Can you take some time away?”

“Maybe. Soon,” he said.

“I'm afraid for her sometimes too,” Holly said, touching his shoulder. “Something isn't right.”

“Remember when you were her age? We have to steel ourselves and ride it out. It's called being a teenager.”

“That's not what I meant.” Holly looked at the clock. She turned on her side, her cold toes grazing his leg, and within minutes she seemed to be asleep.