Family of Liars, page 11
I can only stare at her. My mouth drops open.
She takes a deep breath and goes on. “The man in the photograph was named Buddy Kopelnick. And—I’m sorry, Carrie. I should have told you a long time ago. Or maybe I shouldn’t be telling you now. I honestly don’t know what to do. Your father loves you very much. Harris, I mean. He loves you. And he’s never wanted you to know.”
“Buddy Kopelnick was my father?”
She shakes her head quickly. “No, no. Harris is your father. He is your legal father. His name is on your birth certificate.”
“But … I wasn’t his baby. Is that what you’re saying?”
“We were married when I got pregnant. Harris wanted you to be his and I wanted you to be his, so we agreed that you would be his. Once you were born, we agreed we would never talk about it.” My mother wipes her eyes like an actress in a movie. “Some part of me has always wanted you to know,” she says. “Buddy was a good man.”
“Who was he?”
“He was a boy I went with in college,” she says. “But in those days—well, Buddy was Jewish. My family didn’t want an interfaith marriage. A mixed marriage. Nowadays, no one would think much of something like that, would they? Or not many people. Attitudes have changed so fast. Erin is Jewish, isn’t she?”
I nod.
“Well. You know Daddy loves to tell the story of how he proposed to me four times before I said yes.”
“Um-hm.”
“I didn’t say yes because he finally bought a ring,” Tipper says. “Though that’s the story I always tell. I said yes because I finally understood that I could never marry Buddy. Marrying Harris meant I had to stop dithering, stop thinking about it, stop wishing things were different. I chose my future, and once I chose, there was no going back.”
“You loved Buddy.”
“I loved Buddy,” says my mother. “But I love your father now, too. I grew to love him.”
I remember what she said when she let me wear the black pearls. Harris bought them, she’d explained, for their second anniversary, when she was pregnant with me. It was a very meaningful gift, she said. Things weren’t easy then.
“So you kept on with Buddy while you were engaged to Harris,” I say, understanding. “And after you were married.”
She nods.
“And when you got pregnant, you knew the baby was his.”
“Your father had been in London,” she says. “For three weeks. He was looking into buying a press there, something like that. I hardly recall the whole story. But he’d been gone a long time.”
I do not know what to say.
I wish I had never asked.
“I wanted to be pregnant,” my mother says softly. “I wanted you so much. I was just confused, very confused, in the first years of my marriage, about who I loved and why I had gotten married. And when I realized I was having a baby, I also realized that I didn’t want to leave your father. I had chosen him already, and even if I had said yes for some wrong reasons, I was married. There was every hope that I could make something good of it.”
She glances at the clock and goes over to her dressing table, talking as she puts on delicate, almost invisible makeup. “My girlfriends advised me not to tell. All of them did. But I knew I didn’t want to live with a lie between me and Harris. I had to take whatever consequences were coming, right away. That was the only way we could move forward.”
Moving forward. Always a value of theirs. “That’s when he gave you the black pearls,” I say. “That was the tough time you were talking about, when you were pregnant with Buddy’s baby.”
She nods.
“And Harris scratched the picture?”
“Yes.” My mother puts a thin black headband on, to keep back her hair.
“What happened to Buddy?” I ask.
“He’s gone,” she answers. “He got sick. I heard about it from some college friends.”
I turn my face down into my parents’ bedspread. I know I should not cry. Or yell. Or do anything else that will make Tipper upset with me. I am overwhelmed, suddenly, with the idea that my position in the family is conditional.
Harris has to love Penny, and Bess. He had to love Rosemary. They are Sinclairs. They are his blood.
But he does not have to love me.
37.
TONIGHT, WE ARE to play Who Am I after supper. Drinks are always at six on the Clairmont porch, with the meal at seven. It’s fine to be as late as six-thirty, but after that, someone will begin to wonder about you. Nibbles are crackers with cream cheese and fish roe, a bowl of dark green olives, some pecans toasted with sugar and rosemary.
My father and Uncle Dean are leaning against the porch railing when I get downstairs, holding drinks in fat, clear glasses loaded with ice. George and Yardley are on the sofa. Both of them have drinks as well.
“Are we getting booze?” I ask Yardley.
“Apparently,” she says. “Apparently if someone with a weenie asks your father if it’s okay to drink alcohol, then the answer is yes.”
Harris laughs. “George is my guest,” he says to Yardley. “No one is driving. And he asked very politely.”
George raises his glass. He’s slicked his beige hair down neatly and wears his seersucker blazer.
“Does that mean I can have one?” I ask.
“I think yes,” says Yardley. “I don’t have a weenie and I got one. Since George did the asking, so politely.”
“Watch your language,” says Uncle Dean.
Harris makes me an old-fashioned, which is what they’re all drinking. It’s a sugar cube dissolved in water, some ice, a splash of aromatic bitters, a glug of Jim Beam, and a sliver of orange peel, twisted so the oil drops into the amber liquid. He gives me instructions for future reference as he makes it, then hands me the glass. “I draw the line at Penny,” he tells me. “Penny, Bess, and Erin are sticking to soft drinks.”
“That’s arbitrary,” says Yardley.
“It’s always arbitrary,” says Harris airily. “Most rules are arbitrary, but we still need them. Otherwise, we’d have anarchy.”
I drink the whole drink in four gulps, even though it tastes like fuel.
Harris Sinclair is my father. And he is not my father.
This is my porch, has always been my porch. My yard, my beach. My island.
And yet only because of my name. Not my blood.
Harris greets Pfeff and Major as they arrive. They eagerly accept cocktails and descend on the nibbles. Erin and Penny come down, wearing each other’s shirts, with wet hair. Penny looks different in a sleeveless black turtleneck.
Harris asks Major if he’s got a girl back home in New York. “I bet you do, right?”
Major looks at his shoes.
“Or maybe a couple?” Harris presses.
“No, actually.”
“Ah, well. You’ll do great at Amherst. Smart women there. They’ll give you and Pfeff a run for your money, I’ll bet.”
George touches Harris’s shoulder. “Mr. Sinclair.”
“Harris. Call me Harris.”
“Major—” He turns and asks his friend, “Can I say this?” And when Major nods, George says, “Major plays for the other team.”
“That I do,” says Major.
A shadow passes over my father’s face, so quickly I don’t think the others catch it, though Penny and I do. We are alert to his slightest displeasure, always. Harris is embarrassed to have mistaken Major, and he’s angry at George for telling him he’s wrong in front of other people. If you must correct Harris Sinclair, you do it privately.
Also, he’s not happy with Major now. My father isn’t comfortable with homosexuality. Neither is my mother. Their catchphrase on the subject is “live and let live,” but they tense up around the topic like it’s dirty. Like it’s something they don’t want us to know even exists.
“Well,” Harris says awkwardly. “Live and let live.”
He begins talking college sports with George.
I make myself a second old-fashioned and let my head spin.
I want to grab Penny and tell her about Buddy Kopelnick, but she is talking to Pfeff, and I mustn’t tell her anyway.
The pressure of my secret is behind my eyes, behind my whole face.
OUR FAMILY OF TEN plays Charades, Celebrities, and Dictionary—but Who Am I is a new game. Tipper, who arrived before supper looking wan and distracted, has now gone into her hostess mode. We have eaten and Luda is clearing.
Tipper guides us into the living room. She has attached thick white cards to safety pins. On each card is written the name of someone famous in royal-blue ink. She pins a card on the back of each individual. We do not know what our own cards read.
She has asked Harris to explain the rules. “Hear ye, hear ye,” he announces in a resonant voice. He is reading off a pad of paper. “We are now a group of extremely famous people,” he says. “We are so famous, even Tomkin will have heard of most of us.” Laughs all around. “But—sadly, we all have amnesia.”
“Why do we have amnesia?” calls Uncle Dean.
Harris goes off-script. “Let’s see. Traumatic brain injury? Yes. We have all hit our heads, and while we remember how to walk, talk, and eat, we none of us remember who we are.” Back to the script. “All right. Your mission for the rest of the evening is to discover your own identity. You’ll find tea and coffee on the sideboard, booze on the cart, plus chocolate-covered strawberries, orange cake, and shortbread cookies. Eat your fill. And while you’re eating, find out who you are on this great earth. Except! You must not ask. You don’t get to ask questions like Have I been president? Or Did I write a book? Instead, you’ve got to talk to people as naturally as possible, and your job is to tell your friends about themselves. Give them clues. So you might say, ‘I hear you like jelly beans,’ if someone is President Reagan. Or ‘I loved your latest novel.’ ”
“Does the president like jelly beans?” asks Tomkin.
“Yes, he does,” says my father. “Now, when you’ve figured out who you are, step to the deck and see Tipper about it. If you end up wrong, she’ll send you back in.”
I EAT THREE shortbread cookies and pour some Jim Beam into a teacup when the adults aren’t looking. I want to stop my thoughts circling around Buddy Kopelnick. The two oldfashioneds haven’t been enough to do it.
As the game begins, Tomkin bounds up to me, grinning. “I saw your tag!” he says.
“I saw yours,” I tell him. He is Walt Disney.
“I’m glad to meet you because I love you a lot,” Tomkin says.
“You love me?” I drink from my teacup. The straight bourbon burns the roof of my mouth.
“Oh, yeah.” He does some kind of motion with his hand that I can’t interpret. “You’re the best.”
I tell him Mary Poppins is pretty excellent, even when you’ve seen it ten thousand times.
“What?”
“Mary Poppins.”
“You’re not supposed to tell me who I am! Didn’t you listen to the rules?”
“That’s not who you are.” But Tomkin is distracted by the plate of orange cake Tipper has just handed him. He wanders off, shoving forkfuls into his mouth.
I drink from my teacup again. The room blurs.
“Did you have a chocolate-covered strawberry?” says Erin, who is Cher. “Oh my god, you have to.”
“I like your hair,” I tell her.
“Penny did it,” she says, touching a braid.
“No, your person’s hair.”
I drink more from my teacup and let the edges of the world go soft. George and Yardley stand in front of me now, holding hands.
“I’m thinking my guy is some kind of serial killer,” says George, who is Charlie Chaplin.
“How come?” I ask.
“Everyone hates him. I mean, me.”
“I hate him with a passion,” says Yardley. “Pfeff hates him. Major hates him.”
“You’re very talented at what you do,” I tell George, meaning Charlie Chaplin. “You, maybe not so much,” I say to Yardley, who is Kermit the Frog.
George complains that he doesn’t know the name of any serial killers, so how can he possibly figure this out?
Yardley laughs.
I drink from my teacup.
Yardley tells me, “White looks very good on you.”
“I’m wearing blue.”
“No, on your person. It looks good on your character.”
“But who am I?” I say. “Tomkin loves me.”
“No telling,” says Harris to Yardley as he walks over. He pats me on the back. “You finding yours hard?”
“A little.”
“I know I’m Beethoven,” he says. “But I’m pretending to be puzzled to please your mother.”
I drink from my teacup.
Tipper is next to me now, looking concerned. She is not playing the game, just supervising. “You okay, Carrie?” she asks. “You look— Well, Daddy gave you a cocktail or two, didn’t he?” She points to my teacup. “That tea is decaf. Do you want some coffee?”
“Yes, please.”
“I’ll get you one.”
She bustles off. The room tilts. I walk over to Major, who is sitting on the couch, alone. He leans forward obligingly so I can read the sign on his back. He is Paul McCartney. “I love your accent,” I tell him.
“Pfeff called me a disgrace.”
“Oh, no,” I say. “You’re just a little mushy, that’s all.”
“Does that mean I’m not Hitler?” says Major. “I’ve been worried I was Hitler.”
“Not Hitler,” I tell him.
Uncle Dean sits down across from us. “I am obviously Sherlock Holmes, but I don’t want to be the first person to go sit outside.” He grins at Major. “I heard you on the radio this morning.”
Suddenly, I am no longer on the couch but leaning against the bookshelf. “Are you a little drunk?” Pfeff is saying to me. “Is that possible?”
“Show me your sign,” I say.
“I just showed it to you.”
I don’t remember. He shows me his back, apparently for the second time. He is Pablo Picasso. “Do you mean my character is a little drunk or do you mean I myself am a little drunk?” I ask him.
“The latter,” says Pfeff. “But whatever. So am I. Oh, here’s a question.”
“What?”
“How do you feel about your sister now?”
“Penny?”
“No, I’m talking to—” Pfeff gestures to the card on my back. “The person you are tonight.”
And now I am sitting with Bess, squashed together in an easy chair. “Yardley told me white looks good on me, too,” says Bess, who is Marilyn Monroe. “Do you think she’s saying that to everyone?”
“No,” I tell her. “Just you and me.”
“Okay, are you ready? Here’s a clue,” Bess says.
“Ready.”
“I like your little green friend.”
“My what?”
“Your little green friend.”
I drink from my teacup. It is nearly empty. Tomkin climbs on top of me and Bess, sitting on our joint laps. “You don’t know who you are yet?” he asks me.
“No.”
“But you’re the best guy!”
“What about me?” says Bess. “Am I the best guy, too?”
“I have no idea who you are,” says Tomkin. “But you’re a lady.”
And then I am with Penny, over by the stereo, and Tomkin and Bess are at the dessert table, eating shortbread. My cup is empty, so I set it down on a windowsill.
“Apparently I have a lot of sex appeal,” says Penny, who is Elvis Presley. “You have sex appeal as well, I should say.”
Her face is blurry but I force myself to focus.
“Are you drunk, Carrie?” she asks me sharply.
“No.” I force myself to look at Penny directly—and reel back. We didn’t sit near each other at supper. This is the first time I’ve been close to her since she came down in Erin’s black turtleneck.
Her pale cream hair shines against the dark shirt. And she is wearing the black pearls.
38.
I REACH OUT and touch them at her neck. “Those are Tipper’s.”
“I asked if I could try them. You got a turn. All her other stuff is so old-lady.”
“She let you wear them?”
Penny shrugs. “Sure, whatever. Tomorrow I think we should go to the Vineyard and do some crimes. We could see an afternoon movie and go to the arcade, or whatever. Something different. You, me, Yardley, and Erin?”
How could Tipper let her wear the black pearls?
“Well,” says Penny, ignoring my silence. “Up to you. Oh, and your father is not your father.”
“What?”
“Your father is not your father,” she says again. “Hope that helps.” She reaches out as Erin walks by. “Erin, I’m very sexy, right? Major told me I’m very sexy.”
She and Erin go off together.
I grab Bess. “Penny just said to me, ‘Your father is not your father.’ ”
“Yeah?” Bess adjusts the strap of her dress. “Was it helpful?”
“What did she mean?”
Bess shrugs. “Did you see she’s wearing Mother’s black pearls?”
“Yes.” I lean against the bookshelf to steady myself.
“I’m going to see what Mother will lend me,” says Bess. “I mean, the black pearls are probably the coolest thing she has, but girls at school are wearing these long ropes of white pearls, like costume jewelry. Do you think Mother has anything like that I can wear?”
“No.” I shake my head to clear it. “What did she mean, ‘Your father is not your father’?”
“God, Carrie. Chill. I don’t know. I didn’t see the second movie.”
I have to get some air.
I RUN OUT to the porch and down the lawn. When I am some distance from the house, I reach around, breathing hard, and pull the Who Am I card off my back.
Luke Skywalker.
Tomkin loves him. He looks good in white. Yoda is a little green friend. He has sex appeal. Bess didn’t see the second movie. His father is not his father.
Penny knows nothing. But Tipper let her wear my pearls, the pearls that tell the story of Buddy Kopelnick, and an unwanted pregnancy, and a husband who forgives his unfaithful wife.
