Where We Belong (3 page)

I laughed, feeling flushed, a churning in my stomach, wondering when—not if—he was going to ask me out on an official date.

Three days later, we flew to Los Angeles for the Emmys on the network jet. Although my show hadn’t been nominated, we were getting a lot of great buzz and I had never felt better about my career. Meanwhile, Peter and I were getting some buzz of our own, a few rumors circulating, clearly due to our coffee break repartee. But we played it cool on the red carpet, and even more so at the after-parties, until neither of us could take it another second, and he sent me a text I still have saved on my iPhone:
That dress is stunning.

I smiled, grateful that I had not only overspent on an Alberta Ferretti gown but had opted for emerald green instead of my usual black. Feeling myself blush, I turned to look in his direction as another text came in:
Although it would look better on the floor
.

I blushed and shook my head as he sent a final text:
I promise I won’t try to find out if you meet me upstairs. Room 732.

Less than ten minutes later we were in his room, finally alone, grinning at each other. I felt sure that he’d kiss me immediately, but he showed a restraint that I found irresistible, increasingly more so with every glass of champagne we poured. We grew tipsier by the hour as we talked about everything—the state of television, our network, my show, gossip about actors, and even more drama among the executives. He told me about his thirteen-year-old son Aidan and his ongoing divorce proceedings. Despite the fact that he jokingly referred to his ex as “the plaintiff,” he didn’t make her out to be the villain, which I found to be a refreshing change from the few other divorcés I had dated. We talked about places we had traveled, our favorite hotels and cities, and where we hoped to someday go, both literally and in our careers. We were different in some ways—I preferred the Caribbean or traditional urban trips to places like Rome and London, while he loved exotic adventure, once pedaling through the Golden Triangle in Thailand, another time trekking up the Pacaya volcano in Guatemala. He had also taken more risks in business, which of course had paid off, while I generally avoided conflict and preferred to stick with something if it was working, even a little. Yet at the core, we had a common sensibility—a belief in striving for excellence and never settling, a love of New York and all that came with it, a sense of conservatism with a core philosophy that we should all live and let live, whatever our political or religious beliefs. He was handsome, confident, intelligent, and thoughtful—the closest I’d ever come to perfection.

Then, as the California sky showed its first streaks of muted pink, he reached over and took my hand, pulled me onto his lap and kissed me in a way I hadn’t been kissed for years. We said good night a few minutes later, then laughed, and said good morning.

Within a few weeks, we were an established couple, even having the conversation about no longer wanting to see others. One evening, we were photographed dining together, our picture appearing in a blurb on Page Six with the caption: “Powerful Love Connection: TV Exec Peter Standish with Producer Marian Caldwell.” As the calls rolled in from friends and acquaintances who had seen the press, I pretended to be some combination of annoyed and amused, but I secretly loved it, saving the clipping for our future children. Things would have seemed too good to be true, if I hadn’t always believed I could—and
would
—find someone like him.

But maybe they
were
too good to be true, I think now, squinting up at him as we turn the corner, hand in hand. Maybe we had stalled. Maybe this was as good as it was ever going to get. Maybe I was one of those girls, after all. Girls who wait or settle—or do some combination of both. Disappointment and muted anger well inside me. Anger at him, but more anger at myself for not facing the fact that when a person avoids a topic, it’s generally for a reason.

“I think I’m going home,” I say after a long stretch of silence, hoping that my statement doesn’t come across as self-pitying or manipulative, the two cards that never work in relationships—especially with someone like Peter.

“C’mon. Really?” Peter asks, a trace of surrender in his voice where I’d hoped to hear urgency. He was always so controlled, so measured, and although I usually loved this quality, it irritated me now. He abruptly stops, turns, and gazes down at me, taking both of my hands in his.

“Yeah. I’m really tired,” I lie, pulling my hands free.

“Marian. Don’t do this,” he meagerly protests.

“I’m not doing anything, Peter,” I say. “I was just trying to have a conversation with you…”

“Fine,” he says, exhaling, all but rolling his eyes. “Let’s have a conversation.”

I swallow my dwindling pride and, feeling very small, say, “Okay. Well … can you see yourself getting married again? Or having another child?”

He sighs, starts to speak, stops, and tries again. “Nothing is missing in my life if that’s what you’re asking. I have Aidan. I have you. I have my work. Life is good. Really good. But I
do
love you, Marian. I
adore
you. You know that.”

I wait for more, thinking how easy it would be for him to appease me with a nonspecific promise:
I don’t know what I see exactly, but I see you in my life.
Or:
I want to make you happy.
Or even:
I wouldn’t rule anything out.
Something. Anything.

Instead, he gives me a helpless look as two cabs materialize, one after the other, a coincidence to which I ascribe all sorts of meaning. I flag the first and force a tight-lipped smile. “Let’s just talk tomorrow. Okay?” I say, trying to salvage what’s left of my image as a strong, independent woman and wondering if it’s only an image.

He nods as I accept a staccato kiss on the cheek. Then I slide in the cab and close my door, careful not to slam it, yet equally careful not to make eye contact with him as we pull away from the curb, headed toward my apartment on the Upper East Side.

*   *   *

Thirty minutes later, I’m changed into my oldest, coziest pair of flannel pajamas, feeling completely sorry for myself, when my apartment intercom buzzes.

Peter.

My heart leaps with shameful, giddy relief as I nearly run to my foyer. I take a deep breath and buzz him up, staring at the door like my namesake Champ waiting for the mailman. I imagine that Peter and I will make up, make love, maybe even make plans. I don’t need a ring or a promise of a baby, I will say, as long as I know that he feels the way I do. That he sees us sharing a life together. That he can’t imagine us apart. I tell myself it isn’t settling—it’s the opposite—it’s what you do for love.

But a few seconds later, I round the corner to find not Peter at my door, but a young girl with angular features, a narrow face, and small, pointed chin. She is slight, pale, and almost pretty—at least I think she will be in a few years. She is dressed like a typical teenager down to her oversized backpack and peace sign necklace, but she has a composed air, something telling me that she is not a follower.

“Hello,” I say, wondering if she is lost or has the wrong apartment or is peddling something. “Can I help you?”

She clears her throat, shifts her weight from side to side, and asks in a small, raspy voice, “Are you Marian Caldwell?”

“Yes,” I say, waiting.

“My name is Kirby Rose,” she finally says, tucking her long, dirty-blond hair behind her ears, which are a little on the big side or at least at an unfortunate angle to her head, a trait I understand too well, then glances down at her scuffed black boots. When her eyes meet mine again, I notice their distinctive color—bluish-gray and banded by black—and in that instant, I know
exactly
who she is and why she has come here.

“Are you?…” I try to finish my sentence, but can’t inhale or exhale, let alone speak.

Her chin trembles as she nods the smallest of nods, then wipes her palms on her jeans, threadbare at the left knee.

I stand frozen, anticipating the words I have imagined and feared, dreaded and dreamt about, for the last eighteen years. Then, just as I think my racing heart will explode, I finally hear her say them:
“I think you’re my mother.”

2

july 14, 1995

It was
the hottest day ever recorded in Chicago history, the mercury hitting 106 and the heat index topping out at 120 degrees, a record that still stands today, nearly two decades later. The heat wave was all anyone could talk about, eventually killing seven hundred fifty people, making bigger headlines than the Iran Disarmament Crisis, the Bosnian war, and the Grateful Dead’s final performance at Soldier Field—at least on B96, my sole source of news at eighteen.

That blistering morning, as I lounged by our pool in the white string bikini I had ordered from the Victoria’s Secret catalogue, I tuned in to the Kevin and JoBo show, listening to their banter about how the heat makes people do crazy things: fall in love, commit crimes, run naked through the streets. They were obviously joking, the way DJs do, but looking back, I actually believe that the temperature was at least partly to blame for what happened later that night at my best friend Janie’s house. That it would have been a different story during any other season or even on an ordinarily hot summer’s day.

There were other factors, too, of course, such as alcohol, everyone’s favorite culprit, specifically the four strawberry Boone’s Farm coolers I downed on an empty stomach. Throw in the intensity of emotions that come with that bittersweet summer sandwiched between high school graduation and the rest of your life, supreme hometown boredom, and a dash of bad luck—or good, depending on who you ask. And of course, the final ingredient: Conrad Knight himself.

Conrad wasn’t my type up close and in reality, but he was pretty much everyone’s type from afar and in fantasy, and I certainly wasn’t immune to his seductive blue-gray eyes, just-long-enough dark hair, and cheekbones Janie called “epic” years before the word became overused. He seemed mysterious and a little dangerous, an image some kids tried to cultivate—but only Conrad seemed to achieve naturally. He had a tattoo on his forearm, rumored to be his mother’s initials and the date of the car crash that killed her. He smoked hand-rolled cigarettes, drove an old, black Mustang, and sang in a garage band downtown. A few girls with fake IDs who had gone to see him compared his voice to Eddie Vedder’s, swearing that he’d be famous someday. His father, who was actually a retired actor, having starred in a now-defunct soap opera and a still-running commercial for Tums, returned to L.A. intermittently for auditions, taking Conrad with him for long stretches of time. Despite his absences from school and spotty academic record, he seemed smart and somehow worldly—or at least profoundly indifferent to the social order of high school, which gave him an aura of sophistication. In short, he was nothing like the affable jocks I had dated throughout high school—nothing like I was, for that matter—but not in a dramatic, cliques-at-war way, just in a way where our paths never really crossed. We occasionally said hello in the halls, but hadn’t really talked since elementary school.

“Marian Caldwell,” Conrad declared when I ran into him in Janie’s backyard. At least half of Glencoe had come to the party after word had spread that her parents were out of town. He was expressionless, yet something in his eyes told me that we were about to have a meaningful exchange.

“Hey Conrad,” I said, self-consciously swaying to the swell of Sarah McLachlan’s “I Will Remember You” coming from the boom box in Janie’s upstairs bedroom window.

He gave me a half-smile, and then, as if continuing a long-running conversation, said those words I’d replay for years to come. “You can run, but you can’t hide.”

As he took a sip from a can of Dr Pepper, I surveyed the scruff on his face and inhaled the scent of his skin—a mix of cedar, salt, and Calvin Klein’s Eternity cologne.

“Who’s running?” I said. “And what are you doing at a party like this?”

I still cringe when I think of the question. I might as well have said a party with the “popular crowd,” of which we both knew I was a sustaining benefactor.

“Lookin’ for you,” he said, his eyes smoldering as much as light eyes can. I glanced around, assuming he was joking, expecting his fellow bandmates or his girlfriend to be returning from the bathroom. I had never seen her—she went to another school—but Janie had spotted them at the mall together once and said she was a dead ringer for Kate Moss, right down to her gypsy top, long, floral skirt, and Birkenstocks.

“Well. Looks like you found me.” I laughed, feeling bolder than usual as I touched his forearm, right on the black ink numbers, like Braille on his skin, determining that he was not only alone but completely sober.

“So how you been?” He glanced at his naked wrist where a watch would have been if he had worn one. “For the past six years?”

“Six years?” I asked, then reminded him that we had gone to school together since the fourth grade.

“Last time we talked,” he said, running his hand through his hair, wavier than usual from the humidity that was so thick I felt like we were treading water. “I mean,
really
talked. We were on the bus coming back from that field trip.”

“From the Shedd,” I said, nodding, remembering the trip to the aquarium in the sixth grade—and especially the bus ride back to school.

Conrad smiled, and for one second, relinquished his cool posture. He looked twelve again, and I told him so.

His smile grew wider as he said, “You gave me half of your Twix and told me you wanted to be a marine biologist.”

I laughed and rolled my eyes. “Yeah … I don’t want to be a marine biologist anymore.”

“I know,” he said. “You’re going to Michigan, then film school, then L.A. or New York where you’re going to do great things and become huge. The next Nora Ephron or … well, that’s about the only girl director I know.”

I gave him a look of surprise until he divulged his obvious source. “The yearbook. Remember? Plans for the future?” He made quotes in the air, clearly mocking the whole exercise.