Three Story House: A Novel (38 page)

“Let it go,” Elyse said, taking the pan of rolls from the stovetop and moving them to the counter. Jake dropped his roll and picked up his camera.

“Did you tell them about your theory?” Isobel asked.

“What if I did? Isn’t that what we should do? Isn’t that what you did for me?” Elyse lifted the foil from the turkey and crumpled it into a ball. Juice from the bird dripped down her sleeve.

“You’re not Lizzie,” Isobel said. “The whole situation is entirely different. I thought you’d have learned your lesson with Landon.”

“What lesson is that? How to be happy and fulfilled without a man? I know you could teach a seminar in that one.” Elyse threw the foil ball at Isobel, striking her in the shoulder. Melted butter splattered onto her blouse.

“Come off it. You know that the whole point of that was to prevent you from making a fool of yourself. You can’t change people. He’d already chosen and it wasn’t you.”

Elyse picked up the carving knife.

“I thought we were going to let Daddy do that,” she said.

“I never agreed to that. You just assumed it,” Elyse said, waving the knife at Isobel. “This is exactly like you. You’ve never been able to see outside of yourself.” She jabbed the knife into the bird so that it stuck straight up, like a flagpole. “The thing with your mother messed you up in ways that you can’t even see.”

“My mother has nothing to do with this,” Isobel said. “This is about Lizzie and this absurd notion you have about Benny.”

From behind them, Lizzie spoke. “What about Benny? What about me?”

They turned quickly. Lizzie stood next to Isobel’s father in front of the beaded curtain. In the corner of the room, Kitty had her head bent toward Craig—the ostentatious centerpiece at their feet. Their posture made Isobel’s stomach turn. There was something in the way they both checked their watches that told her there would be so much more to this fight.

“Why are you arguing?” Lizzie asked, taking a step toward them. “We don’t fight.”

“Should you be filming this?” Isobel heard her father ask Jake, who’d positioned himself next to Elyse’s elbow. The kitchen felt like a sauna—the windows steamed over and dripping with condensation.

“Maybe we should fight,” Elyse said.

“But we don’t,” Lizzie said. “That’s why I love you. Everyone else I know goes at it with each other. My parents, my siblings, my teammates. But we don’t. We can’t start now.”

“We’re too old for this,” Isobel said.

“For what?” Elyse asked. “Pretending that we’re not grown-ups with grown-up problems.”

“I don’t think we’re pretending,” Isobel said, considering all the ways in which she had been playacting since coming to live in Memphis.

“That’s all you know how to do,” Elyse said.

“Stop it, stop it, stop it,” Lizzie said. “Just tell me what this is about.”

Elyse took a deep breath and looked at Isobel before speaking in a rush of words. “Look, I know you will think this is crazy, but I’ve thought for a long time now that Benny is the most likely candidate to be your dad, and I think it would be a shame to waste the opportunity to find out. I mean as long as we’ve known you, all you’ve ever wanted to know is who your dad was and you always said it didn’t matter who he was or if he wanted to be your father, you needed to know for your own sake. And it’s not that I believe in fate or God or whatever, but it’s as likely that he is your dad as not. It’s like Occam’s razor. The simplest answer is the right answer. And Benny. He’s the simple answer.”

“I don’t understand,” Lizzie said.

“You should tell her that you shared this little insight of yours with Kitty and Craig,” Isobel said, knowing even as she spoke that what chance she’d had at getting this television show was slipping away. It had never been her they’d been interested in. Lizzie with her near Olympic pedigree and complicated family would be the star.

Lizzie sat down on the floor and drew her knees up to her chest.

“I must insist you stop filming,” Isobel’s father said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him step in front of Jake. Kitty moved forward and began to argue about their right to be there. Isobel sat next to Lizzie on the floor and after a moment of awkwardness in which Elyse looked at the back door for more than a few seconds, she took off her mic and sat down with them.

“I’m sorry,” she said, laying her head on Lizzie’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I wanted to help like you’d helped me. It was hard—the thing with Landon, but it was right. I kept telling myself I was making the hard decision.”

“Stop talking,” Lizzie said. “Is it true? Can it be true?”

Isobel started to explain why she thought it was all a bunch of bunk when her father knelt down beside them. He turned his body away from Isobel and spoke directly to Lizzie. “Sweetie,” he said, taking her hand. “Have you talked to your parents about this?”

Lizzie nodded at him. Elyse tried to explain the years of asking, the phone calls, their absence and how in the end her mother simply would not tell her a single truth about her father. He put his hand on her cousin’s head. “I asked Lizzie. I need Lizzie to tell me.”

Watching them, a warmth flooded Isobel. Her father had a limitless capacity for love. He radiated it in a way that enveloped all of them in the room. From the periphery of her vision, Isobel saw Kitty stumble toward them as if Craig had pushed her. “I need you to put your microphones back on,” she said slowly without looking at them.

Isobel stepped out of the circle, caught Kitty by the arm and pulled her into the narrow hallway. “We’re done here,” she said. “You can come back tomorrow. Or not.” Kitty needed little prodding and in a moment she was out the door muttering about how they’d work around this hitch.

Jake had followed them and he stood for a minute on the porch looking as if he had much to say to Isobel. Instead, he leaned in and apologized. “I still want to talk to you,” he said. “But not about this—or what they want to do with Lizzie.”

“What do they want with Lizzie?” Isobel’s skin felt light as it tightened around her. Jake shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now anyway.”

“That’s enough,” Craig said, cutting off their conversation. “I’ve had enough of this nonsense. All of you signed a contract that gives us every right to be here, to have you cooperate.”

“Not now,” Isobel said, backing away from him.

He stalked her like prey, continuing to talk about obligations and burning bridges. She walked around the ladder and he walked under it, trying to cut her off. “That’s bad luck,” she said over his threats.

Craig looked up and then leveled his eyes at her. “You make your own luck, and mine is going to be made on this show. Or at least on Lizzie’s show.”

“That wasn’t the agreement,” Isobel said.

“It’s your own fault. We tried to get you to talk about your mom, but you said she was off limits. Of course, that didn’t stop us from calling her up and trying to convince her to fly out and surprise you for Thanksgiving. Turns out she doesn’t want to see you—especially if your father is around. That’s one messed-up family.”

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Isobel said. She hadn’t talked to her mother in three years. The thought that Craig had called and wondering what lies he’d told made her stomach clench in sharp pain.

“There’s so much I shouldn’t have done. But I did it. I’m doing it.” Craig’s eyes kept glancing at the street. Isobel followed his gaze, trying to anticipate what would happen next. He’d made himself at home under the ladder, appearing to relish the danger of taunting luck.

“Just shut up, Craig. Shut up and get the hell out of here.” Isobel stepped away from him and craned her head down the street. She saw Jake’s car make a left onto Tennessee Avenue, and then she saw a flash of purple coming up Beale Street.

Craig began laughing, and not because he was uncomfortable or nervous. He laughed like a man who’d won. There was something wrong with him. She watched the purple bus move down the narrow road and slow to a stop in front of Spite House. In large gold letters on the side of the vehicle were the words
Who’s Your Daddy? Mobile DNA Testing
.

“That’s too far,” Isobel said to him. “Way too far.”

Craig smirked at her. “Do you know who the test audience wanted to see more of?”

“I don’t care,” Isobel said, her hands shaking with anger.

“It wasn’t you. They’re tired of you. It seems people think of you as an annoying neighborhood kid who never leaves home. You’re not pretty enough for television and not talented enough for the movies, and if there’s one truth we learned from this experience, it’s that you’re not interesting enough for reality.”

Without considering what she was doing, Isobel stepped forward and unlocked the safety hinges on the ladder and then kicked at it with her feet so that in one loud, quick movement, Craig and the ladder fell in a heap onto the floor of the porch.

“That’s what I think of you,” she said. “Sue me, sue Lizzie, do whatever it is you do, but get the hell out of here.” She locked the front door behind her and pulled the shades. Methodically, she walked around every inch of Spite House and closed it off to the outside world. She found her father, Elyse, and Lizzie in the cupola. From the looks on their faces, she could tell that they’d watched the entire scene unfold. Lizzie had her knees drawn up to her face and refused to make eye contact. The purple bus was still parked in front of their house. Craig stood in front of it gesticulating wildly, a telephone to his ear and in conversation with the driver of the vehicle.

“I think we’re trapped for a while,” Elyse said. “It’s a good thing there’s plenty of food. I’ve called Tom and T. J. and told them that dinner’s off.”

“Oh,” Isobel said, realizing how much more of the day they had left. It felt like an entire season had passed already.

“We’ve been waiting for you,” Isobel’s father said and patted the seat next to him.

“Should we be up here?” Isobel asked, still shaking. She felt exposed on the roof, as if they could see inside and still hear what was being said.

“I think we’re safe,” Elyse said. “I had a whole conversation with Kitty the other day where she told me to stay the hell out of here because, try as they might, they couldn’t make it work for filming, for sound, for shit. That’s what she said.”

Isobel’s father put his arm around her. “If you’re strong enough, Lizzie, I’ve got a story you might be interested in hearing.”

Lizzie looked at him and sighed.

“I’m not supposed to know this,” Isobel’s father said, “but I do and once I tell you, it can’t be undone.”

Elyse leaned in. “I knew someone had to know.”

Isobel stayed with her head on her father’s shoulder. Her mind raced with a thousand questions and for once they were all about her own life. She’d stopped caring about Lizzie and her problems. She wanted to know about her father. How could he be such a good man? Why hadn’t he gotten married again? Why had her mother left?

“Lizzie,” Isobel’s father said.

Her cousin sat up and blew her nose on the edge of her shirt. “I’m ready,” she said, reaching out a hand for Elyse and a hand for Isobel.

“I don’t know all the details. You’ll have to go to your parents for that, and they may tell you or they may not. I can’t say.” He stopped talking. Isobel watched his face. It had become still, as it did when he was trying to figure out a particularly difficult repair. “Your father is your father. I mean he’s not only your stepfather, he’s also your biological father.”

“Impossible,” Lizzie said. “They didn’t even know each other and he would have been”—her voice trailed off as she did the math—“sixteen, no, fifteen when my Mom got pregnant.”

Isobel looked at her father over the silence. He shrugged and smiled as if to apologize for having kept such secrets for so many years. She wondered what secrets they would keep from their own children and whether any of the cousins would make mistakes big enough to change a life. She moved away from him and toward her cousin, who’d drawn up her knees again and started rocking back and forth like a child on the verge of action.

“You’ll have to tell her a little more,” Elyse said. “It’s not enough to know for sure that you’re right.”

“Do you understand why I’m telling you?” Isobel’s father asked.

She wasn’t sure she did, but she nodded, as did Elyse and Lizzie.

“Your life is not your own,” Elyse said, “and what is it they say about telling out of turn. I can’t believe I was so stupid about this whole mess. Lizzie, I’m so sorry.”

Lizzie looked up. “What else?”

Isobel’s father told them what he knew. When Lizzie’s mother was twenty-four, she’d taken a job working at a law firm in Boston. He wasn’t sure how she’d come by the job, only that it had something to do with one of the lawyers in the firm being from Memphis. Each time he offered a new part of the story, he made Lizzie promise to check with her parents. He kept telling her that they’d have the full story and he was bound to mess up some detail. That same year she was working in Boston, Lizzie’s father got a job at a deli in the building where her mother worked. “I can’t tell you what happened between them, who knew what or when,” Isobel’s father said. “I just know after it was all over, my baby brother asked me if I could keep a secret and told me he’d met a girl from Memphis and fallen in love.”

“In love,” Lizzie echoed, as if it were a password she had to remember.

“And what?” Isobel asked her father. “You just remembered that conversation years later when he said he was marrying Lizzie’s mother and decided she was the girl from Memphis?”

“Did you ask Uncle Jim about it?” Elyse asked. She’d scooted to the very edge of the window seat and looked as if she might fall off. “I mean, do you know for sure?”

Isobel’s father sighed. “Real early on, that first summer you came to Boston, I asked him, and he said you were his. Since then, well, it’s gotten to be a thing we can’t talk about.”

“That’s it,” Lizzie said, standing up. “That’s the truth then.”

“What are you going to do?” Elyse asked.

Lizzie rubbed her eyes. “I’m going to eat that turkey you made and give thanks. And then after I’ve had enough time to digest dinner and all of this, then I’ll decide what to do.”