This Much Is True (31 page)

Kimberley frowns. I can tell she’s lost in the memory of that horrible day. I know the feeling all too well. She sighs and takes an unsteady breath and looks over at me.

“Davis fell apart. And Linc? He had to stay focused and keep it together for both of them. He’s done that since he was fifteen, when he lost his brother and his mother and, essentially, his dad. It’s been hard for Linc trying to live up to his father’s exacting expectations in replacing Elliott and getting over the loss of his mother and his brother. Davis isn’t easy to please. There’s a lot of pressure to be perfect and unintentionally Linc wants to make up for all the loss for his dad. And there are worse things that can happen; right? He probably sees that in you so clearly…with your sister,” she says softly. “Even on an unconscious level, you two are perfect for each other. I’m a bit jealous.”

“Don’t be.” I try to smile. “We can’t…be together.”

“Not now,” she says easily. “But someday.”

Not ever.

I dig my nails into the palm of my hands again to keep from uttering another word, to keep from confessing to all the lies and the secrets I hold. Kimberley’s eyes glaze over with unshed tears. I’m taken aback at all these revelations. I don’t even attempt to brush away the tear that begins to run down my face because Kimberley is suddenly more openly than I am. Somehow, I know it’s a first—to cry in public—for both of us.

“I’m sorry about Elliott. That must be so hard.”

“Yeah.” She nods and then gets this sad smile. “Ironic, huh? God, I loved that guy. He was…everything.”

She swipes at her running mascara with the back of her hand, doing more smudge damage than actually repairing it. I retrieve a compact mirror from my purse and hand it to her. Kimberley laughs a little at my thoughtful gesture and seemingly her unusual tears. She gazes in the small mirror and avoids direct eye contact with me. She sighs deep and seems to attempt to get it together.

“Look.” She gets this serious intense look. “I know it looks impossible. It looks like things will never work out, but you’ve got to trust me when I say that things always have a way of working out…I mean, it’s an age difference that soon won’t matter. Things will work out for the two of you,” she says slowly. “Eventually.”

“I’m so sorry about Elliott.”

“Yeah.” She gets this rueful smile. “Sorry, I don’t normally lose it like that. I don’t talk about Elliott to
anyone
but Linc. And then, only sometimes, but you…
you are good people
, Tally Landon. I like you.”

I don’t know what to say to that. I’m not really
good people
as Kimberley puts it. “I am incredibly talented at just one thing, and I traded away everything else that really mattered to me for that.” Apparently, I’ve expressed this indiscriminate thought aloud.

Kimberley gazes at me even more closely and openly scrutinizes my own mascara-smudged, upturned face. Self-conscious, I laugh it off and attempt to repair my face when she hands me my mirror back.

“I’m going to help you,” she says and nods as if she’s got it all figured out. “Yes, I’m going to help you get everything you want.”

I actually laugh—so I won’t burst into tears again—because Kimberley Powers, of all people, would actually understand the price I’ve had to pay for fame.

* * * *

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Tally ~ Unlikely alliances

R
ob’s apartment, which is still how I refer to it almost a year later, is strangely quiet for a Thursday night. Rob should be home. It’s his night off. New Year’s Eve is a night away, and we have plans like millions of others to be in Times Square. I have a reprieve for the night after having performed the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy seven nights and days in a row. Christmas is over, and the NYC Ballet takes the next three weeks off. Classes and rehearsals don’t start up until mid-January. The thought of another long tour in Europe kicking off in Paris by April doesn’t hold as much appeal this time around. I have virtually lived out of a suitcase for the past year. I’ve been thinking about making a trip home to San Fran. Marla will be there for a few weeks staying with her parents before heading back to UCLA. I need to see mine. And I allow myself to briefly contemplate seeing Tremblay and Cara.

Everything worked out. Europe was amazing. My performances got better and better. Sasha is pleased. Living with Rob is a non-event because I’m rarely here. He complains a little about me being gone all the time, but we are just friends. The strange thing is that he has been more distant lately, always helpful on those rare occasions when we run into each other and claims to be busy with his classes at NYU as well as this start-up software business he’s trying to get going. I’ve managed to take a few classes this past fall after the European tour ended and before the Christmas season at NYC Ballet went into full swing. Rob tends to lecture about having a back-up plan in case ballet doesn’t work out for me. I’ve even contemplated waiting tables at the Dahlia on 5th where he still tends bar part-time just for fun. Of course that was before I had to fill in as the Sugar Plum Fairy. Now I just want to rest.

On a deeper level, I think Rob is still pissed off at me about the whole thing that went down with Tremblay. I’ve been avoiding him and any sort of deep discussion on this front because he’s too smart, and I’m pretty sure he’s put it all together—the selling of my soul, basically. I already know he doesn’t approve of any of it. So why give him the opportunity to guess the actual details? Cara will turn one a month from now. We’ve all moved on. The debts and sins on me have been paid; maybe, by all of us at some deep existential level.

Rob would still probably contend that we could have worked out the living arrangements between the three of us and taken care of Cara ourselves, or I could have married him. I shake my head at that selfless thought and smile. His altruism would seem to know no bounds. And it’s true; there’s a part of me that concedes that point that I could have married him and kept Cara, and it tears me up inside a little more each day because, as I get older, I see the world as more manageable then I did even a year ago. I see how Tremblay took advantage of the situation and of me. Nevertheless, I can’t go there for long either. I can’t think that way. Her postcards and photographs of Cara have become less frequent. I breathe a sigh of relief while at the same time I’ve begun to wonder why that is.

Most days, Rob’s friendship is enough for me, and he’s all I have since Marla’s at UCLA. I anticipate we’ll have more time to spend together since the performance season is over until mid-March. There will just be classes and rehearsals. I think we’re both exhausted in different ways: me—after spending much of the year apart with me in Europe, and Rob in tending bar and going to NYU and working alongside his father on special investment projects and this start-up company of his.

I’ve even begun to wonder if he’s seeing someone and doesn’t want to tell me who it is yet.

I move quietly through the apartment to the kitchen and pour myself a generous splash of Dewar’s. My dad likes a good Scotch. Tonight, I’m missing both my parents and Tommy. I want to see their faces; re-open Christmas presents since I’ve missed the event two years in a row now. I guess I want to turn back time.
To what? To before more than a year and a half ago?
So I could be more dutiful about taking my birth control pills or better know the side effects of antibiotics on birth control and undo everything that came after that?
Can I wish away Cara so easily? I can’t do that.

I spent Christmas here. It was a whirlwind day complete with two ballet performances. But now that Christmas is over, all I long for is to be home. Rob and I tried to make the best of it, spending Christmas morning together as friends, but there was still this underlying tension between us that seems to have started when I gave up Cara. It seems to have gotten even worse since my return from Europe. Our friendship—whatever this is—has never quite repaired itself after that.

I disappoint him. I get it. I’m not Holly. We all know that.

I’m sipping my self-appointed,
you-just-need-to-relax
drink at the counter when I hear muted laughter from the back bedroom.
Rob’s room.
We don’t normally invite people here. It’s kind of an unstated rule that we established when I first moved in in late February. Curious, I walk down the hall and listen. I can’t quite make out their words, although I hear my name come up. I instantly feel guilty for eavesdropping. I trot back to the kitchen, set down my glass, and contemplate my next move. I move to the living room and open and close the apartment door harder than usual—a clear signal to Rob and his mystery guest that I’m home.

“Hey, Rob. I’m home,” I call out.

The muffled laughter stops completely. There’s dead silence for the next few minutes. I feel stupid. I sigh, retrieve my coat from the sofa, and hang it up in the closet. Damn. Why would he do this? It’s unlike him. We have a pact. We usually stay at the other one’s place, although that only happened for me one time with Jack months ago. With Rob? How would I know? I’m never here. He probably didn’t expect me tonight.

I move to the hall closet again, prepared to leave the premises as quickly as possible because somehow on a subconscious level I already know his mystery guest affects my life, too.
Shit.
My hands shake as I throw my arms into my long, wool coat. I lean down, snatch up my purse, and almost make it to the door when Rob calls out my name from directly behind me.

“Hey, Tal. Don’t go. We just…well, we just got carried away.” I turn back and stare at Rob like he’s someone I’ve never seen before. I’ve never seen him quite like this—flushed and resolute. I’ve never seen him half-dressed either. His pressed white shirt is unbuttoned and only half-tucked in. His chest is nice. He does work out, and some weird part of my mind acknowledges this as an asset. Then I look past him and get a glimpse of a half-dressed Nika Vostrikova.
No.
All I can do is stare at the two of them with my mouth open. To say I’m floored is an understatement. It’s probably more like the shock of the century for me, beyond Holly’s death itself.

“I think Holly just turned over in her grave,” I say. Rob hangs his head and won’t even look at me. I don’t regret saying this. Someone needs to defend and pay tribute to Holly. I guess that someone is me. “What the hell, Rob? How do you
know her
?”

“She’s an investor in my new company,” he whispers.

“Is she paying you in cash or just taking your fucking soul?” I ask.

Nika just gets this supremely satisfied smile at my clever remark. And, I suppose from her end of the slut spectrum it feels good to steal both of them from me.

“Rob and I are friends.
Good friends
,” Nika says in the enveloping silence.

“I’m sure you are. You’re just the best kind of
friend
that a guy can have,” I say with true feeling.

Nika laughs, but Rob and I don’t.

It’s a multitude of things that make me cry. Me, Tally, who hardly
ever
cries anymore. It’s the anguish over Linc and our daughter Cara, the manipulation by Allaire Tremblay and even the uncertainty of working with Sasha Belmont over the long-term, the mysterious meeting with Kimberley Powers that has left me more confused and disenchanted with her
I’ll-help-you-out
promises that appear to be empty ones after all, the missing of my family, and now Rob, who looks ashamed of himself. A
s he should be,
my mind whirs.

Where does all this self-righteousness come from? What part of me deserves to judge him in any role of the morality of his character? I can’t judge him until I properly judge myself.

I say words to that effect, but I’m babbling now. The Dewar’s made me do it.
Whatever.

I move into my room in one fast long motion and face plant down onto my bed and start to sob like I’ve never cried before. I can hear Rob and Nika discussing the whys and wherefores on what to do from behind me. I don’t care.
I have nothing left.

The crying jag lasts a long ten minutes.

“Is there anything I can do?” Rob finally asks.

I can practically hear the wringing of his hands with the implied guilt and remorse for what he might have done or did with Nika Vostrikova. I answer as Holly would. I answer
for
Holly since she can’t. I answer for myself and for Holly in equal parts. “Fuck off,” I finally say. My voice is hoarse, but I get the words out.

With that sentiment, the door closes with a decided thud. I don’t even wait for the click of the latch. I get up, pack my overnight bag, and grab my cell. My last parting shot is at Rob Thorn, where he stands alone—remorseful, undone, and clearly undecided—in the living room in the all-familiar, caught-lover’s stance.

“I’m out,” I shout at him and slam the door for good measure.

During the taxi ride, I charge my credit card with the nine hundred dollar one-way ticket to San Francisco and make my way to JFK. I’m going home. And everyone and I mean
everyone
can just fuck off.

* * *

My mom and dad are elated to see me. It was worth every penny I just blew on the plane ride to see their surprised faces, even though it quickly turns to looks of concern. I can’t imagine what I look like. I’m still wearing dance clothes from yesterday morning. My hair is uncombed. I never even looked at my face in the bathroom mirror at the airport to repair my make-up before I boarded the plane bound for San Francisco.

“Are you okay, Tally?” Tommy asks, grabbing my hand and pulling me through the house.

“I’m fine,” I murmur. I hug Tommy tight and follow him around. He shows me everything. His train set. His new bike. His gaming room. Things look festive. There’s even a Christmas tree with lights and a few unwrapped gifts underneath. I’m a little surprised by how normal things look. I’m somewhat relieved and taken aback at the same time.

Holly would love this; wouldn’t she? That they’ve moved on. Why can’t I?

I trudge up the stairs an hour later after disentangling my arm from Tommy’s clingy hands with a promise that I’ll tell him about New York after I’ve had a chance to shower. I hear my mom noisily follow me.

“We packed up her room,” she says in this false, airy voice. I hear it crack a little just before I train my full-on gaze to the open doorway that clearly conveys the utter emptiness of Holly’s old room. “Dr. Anders said it was part of the grieving process, and that we needed to have a sense of moving on without her here. So we packed up her room a few months ago. I’m sure I told you about it.”

“You didn’t.” My tone is flat—dead like Holly. I’m out of sorts. I thought by coming here after a year and half absence that I would find solace and peace. Instead, there appears to be as much upheaval at home as there is in New York. I shake my head side-to-side and moan the word
no
over and over. After a few minutes, I look over at my mother. She has this anguished look.

“I’m sorry. I thought we told you.”

“You didn’t.” I look away from her. I can’t take looking at the pure unchecked sorrow breaking out all over her face.

“Daddy thought it would be a good idea.”

“I thought it was
Dr. Anders,
who said that.” I do little to hide my mocking tone.

“You don’t know what it’s been like without you, without Holly. We just needed to move on and selling the house is a good idea.”

“You’re
selling
the house?” I practically scream at this news. I rush over to the window and spy the For-Sale sign that I failed to notice upon my grand entrance less than an hour ago.
No.
I alighted from the taxi and ran up to the house with all these naive expectations about coming home.
There is no home.

“Oh. My. God.”
I
turn and look at my mother
really
look at her. She looks thin. Too thin. Like me. Her dark hair is streaked with grey. She needs a haircut and color. There are fine lines on her face that weren’t there a few years ago. She’s aged a good five years, maybe ten. I have to wonder all over again when was the last time she left the house. I ask her this now.

“It’s been a while.” She gets this wan smile. “September?”

“So. We’re not better,” I say it for both of us.

“Not as good as we’d hoped.”

I’d love to know who the
we
in that statement is.
Where the fuck has my father been
? Why have they been lying to me for the past eighteen months about how great they were doing?
And you wonder where I get it from
. I shake my head again, hoping to clear away all these incongruent racing thoughts, but I’m at a loss. I’ve got nothing. I can’t even cry anymore. I’m all cried out. For myself. For Holly. For Cara. For my mom. There’s no one left I haven’t cried for. “Fucking Rob Thorn. Fucking Lincoln Presley. They broke my heart, Mom. I’m broken. There’s nothing left of me,” I say.

My mother is giving me this familiar once-over anxious look. “What about Rob? Linc?”

“They ruined everything. I can’t trust anyone. They can’t trust me. There’s nothing. There’s nothing. Nothing works out, Mom.”

She laughs. My mother
laughs
. “Tally. Honey, that’s not true. Some things work out.” It sounds like it is something she has to believe. It’s so sweet and innocent. I’m reminded of Cara, for some reason, while I’m just staring at my mother.
My mother.
She almost makes the situation bearable. I open my mouth to say something. I’m just about ready to spill out my entire story to her—all of it, but then pure terror stops me. I can’t afford to lose the love of anyone else. My parents’ disappointment in what I’ve done would just about kill me or them right now.

Then I’m distracted by the sound of the front door bell. It’s this faint harp sounding ring from downstairs. I look over at my mom. “Who’s here?” I don’t even attempt to mask my accusatory tone.

She gets this guilty, worried look.
Yes. both, equally.
“Tally, you need to stay calm. It’s not that big of a deal.” She frowns. “It’s probably…Linc. He’s been taking Tommy to some of his batting sessions when he’s in town. You know how your brother loves baseball. And, your dad.” She gets this defiant look and then shrugs as if this is a normal occurrence—that of my ex-
almost
-boyfriend, the famous baseball player, coming by and taking my little brother to batting practice.