Compassion rises inside me, thinking what it must’ve looked like seeing me and Cam on the porch, how excruciating it is to sense you’re losing the person you love.

  Then I remember—Ian is the reason I’m so intimately acquainted with that sensation. This isn’t the same. I’m not sneaking around behind his back. We are separated. He knows that.

  My empathy dial clicks back a few levels.

  “Hey,” I call out as he opens the door. “Thanks for bringing her.”

  “Bringing me?” Olivia chimes in. “Remember? I brought him.” She tosses a kernel in her mouth, talking as she chews.

  “More like a willing hostage,” he says, still avoiding eye contact. I’ve never seen Ian so jittery, anxious, lost. “Good night, sweetheart,” he says to Olivia as he heads out. And when his headlights disappear from the front window, I turn to my daughter, suddenly realizing her motivation for this surprise visit.

  “Olivia Grace. What are you up to?”

  “What? Who, me?” she asks with an exaggerated air of innocence, licking her cheddar-coated fingers. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Olivia,” I scold, an accusation tickling the tip of my tongue, “I know what you’re doing.”

  As a little girl, Olivia was obsessed with the 1961 Hayley Mills classic, The Parent Trap. I considered it a phase, and eventually, she grew out of it when her father and I both remarried other people.

  We watched the film a few years back with the twins for nostalgic fun and to see if it’d held up over the years. When the boys got bored, Olivia and I snuggled up just the two of us, hating Vicky, the evil stepmother wannabe. We sang along with the random musical number and laughed at the psychotic lengths the twins go to to reunite their parents.

  “Why did you ever like this movie? Those girls are sociopaths.”

  Olivia laughed, “I don’t know. Maybe it’s a child-of-divorce thing.”

  “I knew it. You wanted to Parent Trap me and your dad, didn’t you?”

  “At first,” she admitted. “But then I realized things were different for me.”

  “Different how?”

  “Different ’cause you and Dad married nice people. Dad’s happy with Natalie and you’re happy with Ian. Now they’re part of my family, too.”

  I remember fighting through my emotions at her stunningly mature perspective—we are a family and that family is worth preserving.

  Was worth preserving, I think, watching Olivia staring at the picture of her grandmother in her wedding dress that still hangs on the fridge. Maybe still is. But I don’t know, yet. I can’t know, yet. The last thing I need is some little plan inspired by a Disney movie.

  “Don’t try to Parent Trap me and Ian.” I say the ridiculous phrase firmly. “I have my reasons.” She doesn’t know the whole story, and I’d rather let her think I’m a coldhearted bitch than let her read those Instagram messages.

  “Ew. It’s not that deep, Mom,” she says, rolling her eyes and opening the refrigerator to search for more snacks. I sense a whole vault of previously unreleased animosity loaded into how she says “Mom,” letting me know it absolutely is that deep. It’s probably so deep that it’s a part of her foundation, and if I push too hard or dig in unthinkingly, it could crack, and our connection could crumble.

  So, I drop the topic of Ian and ask about school instead. Eventually, I end up sharing some of the clues I’d collected from my parents’ house. Olivia reads long segments of The Classy Homemaker out loud and does a Google image search on the ribbonlike name tag I’d found. The internet agrees it came from a Playboy Club, which by 3:00 a.m. makes both of us fall into a giggle fit.

  After dozing on the couch for a few hours, she wakes me up with Ian on speaker, asking him to meet us at my parents’ house. She’s doing it again, the Parent Trap plan. Grumbling, I turn over and cover my head with a knit throw blanket. Olivia is letting me in more than she has in years. I know what it’s like to go through adulthood without my mother. The taste of connection I’ve gotten with Betty has made me crave a healthy connection with Olivia even more. How can I say no without being a total hypocrite?

  “Fine,” I give in. “Tell him to bring coffee.”

  Chapter 18

  Greg

  September 5, 1970

  Playboy Club-Hotel

  Lake Geneva, Wisconsin

  The road to the Playboy Club-Hotel is well lit compared to the pitch-black Highway 50. I follow the winding route through a mile of manicured lawns and finally approach long, streamlined buildings with roughcast stone walls.

  My blood pressure has been at an all-time high since I hung up the phone with Betty, and I have a pounding headache. Though Martha didn’t know the specifics of Betty’s call, she did know I ended our evening to help the “damsel in distress,” as she called her.

  “So, I take it you’re leaving,” she said as soon as I rested the phone in the cradle.

  “Betty is having car problems and needs a hand.” I distilled the truth down to one statement, editing out the less convenient details.

  “Are you a car specialist?” she asked, placing her chili pot back in the cardboard box she’d brought it in.

  “No. I . . . I think she needs a ride.”

  “And you own a taxicab?” She asked this snarky question while shoving her folders and notepad into her workbag.

  “No. But . . .”

  “But she needs you, so you run over and help her. Like I said earlier.”

  “I mean, I’d help anyone who was stranded,” I said, knowing it was an almost truth rather than a total one.

  “We were working, Greg. Sure, we stopped for dinner and . . .” She faltered, perhaps remembering the very non-work-like experience we’d had together. “And some conversation, but this was supposed to be a work meeting.”

  “I’m sorry. She sounded desperate,” I said, stuck between two bad decisions.

  If I left, I’d upset Martha. If I stayed, I’d abandon Betty, which seemed like the worst of the two options, especially since I’d already agreed to get her. It’s not like I could call the front desk and ask them to give her a message behind building four next to the dumpster.

  “A woman like Betty is never desperate for help. She could snap her fingers and ten men would come to the aid of a damsel in distress.”

  “It’s not so simple,” I said, grabbing my keys and checking for my wallet in my back pocket. Martha picked up her belongings while trying to balance the cardboard box with the stew pot inside on her hip. “Can I help you carry something?”

  “No. Unlike some women, I can manage this myself, thanks.”

  I opened the door, and she rushed past as I muttered a thank-you for dinner. I caught up with her at the bottom of the stairs, where she was struggling to open the door, her arms full.

  “I got it,” I said, leaning past her to turn the knob, bringing us face-to-face in a tight spot with only the box between us.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow to finish up the proposal so we’re ready for the meeting,” she said, the fury in her eyes calming a bit, her forehead smoothing.

  “Call anytime,” I said, briefly wishing I hadn’t answered my phone, wondering if Betty actually had an army of men she could call for help. And then, for the shortest instant, I wished I’d never seen Betty’s red Corvette parked down the street from Ike’s, that she’d remembered her keys and hadn’t gotten the job at WQRX. “I really am sorry.”

  Martha adjusted the box and studied my face.

  “You’re too nice, Greg Laramie,” she finally said with a sigh. “It’s gonna get you in trouble one of these days.”

  Then Martha turned on her heels and stormed off toward her car.

  Too nice.

  The phrase has been lumbering through my mind like a refrigerated truck speeding down Highway 12 since she said it. The closer I get to my destination, the more I worry she might be right.

  Is this what Betty does? Find ways to convince men to take care of her, manipulate them with her sex appeal and the touch of innocence that follows her around like a spotlight? It’s half past eleven. Martha should be home safe by now, not that I have any way of knowing. She’s probably up and working on our proposal—all alone.

  My life is quickly turning ridiculous. There are real issues in this world, and I should know—they destroyed my family. And here I am on a Saturday night running away from one woman while searching dark corners of a hotel parking lot for another one.

  As I turn down the last lane of parked cars behind building four, my headlights rest on Betty’s red Corvette. I shift into park and get out to see if perhaps she’s waiting inside her vehicle, when something crunches under the sole of my shoe. I squint at the ground and in the dim light make out sparkling clusters of shattered glass.

  “What in the world?” The hairs on my arm stand up as I creep close enough to the automobile to see through the windows, but I quickly realize there’s no glass. Every window has been demolished, as though the car was used as target practice. I check the parked vehicles to the left and right, but they appear untouched.

  “Betty!” I call out in a hushed whisper. There’s no response.

  I dig in my pockets for my keys, remembering the Swiss Army knife I’m carrying. Unfolding the one-inch blade, I lean into the driver’s side through the shattered window, knife clutched in my right hand, and call her name again.

  “Betty? Are you in here?”

  There’s nothing inside other than glass and debris. I carefully pull myself back out, avoiding the jagged edges, and examine the rest of the car. The door is pocked with dents, and the paint is gouged so deeply that the metal underneath is visible. What the hell happened here?

  “Greg?” I hear my name. It’s the same small, wobbly voice from the phone an hour ago asking me for help.

  “Betty?” I narrow my eyes in the darkness, trying to see where her voice is coming from.

  “Over here.” A slight form moves toward me from behind the dumpster at the end of the line of parked cars. At first, I can’t make out more than a pile of blond hair twisted on her head, but as she crosses through my high beams, her image comes into focus.

  It’s Betty and she’s been crying.

  She wears jeans, a white blouse, and a sweater around her shoulders that hangs askew like it’s trying to escape. She’s shaking.

  “My God, what happened?” I fold up my less-than-helpful knife and leap over the glass-littered terrain to meet her at the front of my car. The headlights shine in her eyes. I examine her closely, like a mother checking a toddler for injury after a tumble. She appears unharmed, a little scratch at her cheek and some blood under her nails.

  “I’m fine. I’m fine,” she says, trembling as though she’s caught a chill. “Though it doesn’t look like my car is doing so great.”

  She takes a step forward and stumbles, and I notice she’s only wearing one shoe; her other foot is bare and covered in crimson scratches.

  “Don’t move,” I say. “There’s glass everywhere.” Working off an instinct I didn’t know I had, I dip low, fling her arm around my neck, and steady her with a hand around her waist. “Lean on me.”

  “Thank you,” she says, hopping through the battlefield on her one covered foot.

  She smells of perfume and sweat and the faint odor of whiskey and feels frail, so easily breakable, like one false move could snap her in half. A shocking, boiling, bubbling, furious sensation builds inside me. What kind of selfish animal did this to her?

  Anger is not an emotion I let inside often, not something I allow to overtake me after a childhood of dodging my father’s indiscriminate ire. But this throbbing, vengeful rage refuses to relent, and by the time I get both of us into the car, I’m grasping at the steering wheel like I might fall out if I let go. My breathing is ragged, and the rush of perspiration on my forehead drips down my face.

  “Where’s the security office? We need to report this.” I start driving toward the main building. Someone there will be able to help.

  “No. We can’t,” she says, sitting up on the edge of the cracked vinyl, her macramé bag slipping off her lap.

  “They’ll call the cops. There’s plenty of security in the club. No way they let this kind of thing happen to their employees.” The curved drive of the main entrance is one turn away. I’ll leave Betty in the car. I’ll go in and get a security guard or tell them to call the police. I won’t let my nerves or anxiety get in the way. I’ll be a man, “for once,” as my pop used to say.

  “No. Don’t. Please.” She grabs the steering wheel as I’m about to make the turn, and I have to step on the brake to keep from running off the road onto a manicured lawn. Her pupils are dilated in fear. “I don’t work here anymore.”

  “Oh,” I say, looking her over again. Her hair is pinned up, styled and sprayed, and the blue eyeshadow, full red lips, and dark liner look similar to when I first saw her here at the VIP Room. “I’m sure they’d still call the police. Your car, that’s not OK. Unless—” I consider a nefarious possibility. “Did they do this?”

  I’ve heard gossip, dark rumors of Playboy’s association with the Mafia. This seems like something from the whispered stories of mob violence in the big city, intimidation or retaliation, but how could a small-town girl like Betty be involved in such a thing?

  “Heavens, no.” She looks at me like I said Jesus Christ himself was the president of the United States. Then, she stares at the front doors of the lobby; the yellow lights lining the lane reflect off the moisture in her eyes like summer fireflies. “It’s a long story. I just want to go home.” She blinks away the rising tears and forces a smile. “Please.”

  I long to rush into that building, kick through the glass doors, and call in the cavalry. I wish I could build a wall around her so nothing like this can ever happen again. I want to fix it for now and forever, not run away like a coward with my tail between my legs. I want to fight; I want to dig my nails into my palms as I curl up a fist and let it fly against whoever stands in my way. But the one person I don’t want to fight is her. And she’s asking me to put her wants in front of my own, to let her make the decision about how to navigate this situation. And maybe the thing that Martha said about Betty earlier tonight is true—I don’t know how to say no to her.

  “Of course.” I swerve back onto the main road, holding my tongue.

  Betty clicks on the radio and flips through static until she finds a station playing “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” She shifts in the seat over and over again, and by the time we get to 50, she seems to have found a position that works, with her forehead pressed against the window, arm propped on the armrest, and the seat belt strap flapping behind her, unused. I accelerate, watching the lines in the road, trying not to choke on my swallowed anger.

  Chapter 19

  Charlie

  Present Day

  “That was built in the thirties. Big names performed there in the upstairs hall, like Eartha Kitt and Frank Sinatra. Mail is delivered by boat during the summer to all the lake houses. And that’s the public beach.” I point to the large octagonal brick boathouse, the Riviera, and the strip of sandy beach to the right of it, digging into the part of my brain that holds all the bits of information I learned in my years of school trips and history reports.

  Olivia asked if we could take the long way through town as we drive over to the paused worksite, where Ian is meeting us and Olivia will meet her grandfather for the first time. My eyes are scratchy from too little sleep after a long night of catching up, and I’m taking my time with the tour, avoiding what comes next.

  “And that’s the store,” I say on our final loop through town before heading to the house. I point to the two-story red building a block off Main Street. “My parents bought it before I was born.”

  “Was it always an antique store?”

  “I’m not sure,” I say, turning around in the parking lot. “The previous owners also ran it as an antique shop. It was once just a house, I think.”

  I try to run through the very few memories of my father’s business. The two-story house is one of the handful of antique shops in town, my father acquiring pieces through estate sales, auctions, and private sales all over the Midwest. It always seemed like he brought in more supply than the demand of our small town, but now that I’ve been in the home renovation circuit for some time, I know better.

  Lake Geneva is not only a summer playground for middle-class Midwesterners, but also flush with well-to-do families who own the hundreds of mansions that line the shore of the lake. Not to mention the other nearby communities with residents who have money to spend on a piece of furniture with a story behind it. With wealthy clients, once money isn’t a concern, it’s the uniqueness of an item that gives it appeal, and my father sells rare, unique treasures.

  “And that was my elementary school.” I point to a brick building surrounded by fenced fields. “It was so close to the store, I’d sometimes walk there during lunch and eat my peanut butter sandwich at my dad’s desk.”

  Olivia leans against the window, taking in the novelty, unaware of how many difficult memories these buildings evoke.

  Dad’s shop, though cluttered in its own way, was a haven for both me and my dad. I’d do my homework in the upstairs storage room on a velvet chaise lounge my father always intended to have reupholstered. Even with the springs poking at my bony legs through the thin fabric, it was more comfortable than my own room, which by third grade my mother had started to fill with boxes.

  When I was removed from my parents’ house, I imagined my dad moving us into his shop, me and him, clearing a few of the rooms so we could have a place to sleep. It seemed so easy to me, choosing to keep me instead of my mom and her belongings. And no matter how many books, photographs, or name tags I find in my mother’s hoard, I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand his perspective.

  “I can’t believe you grew up here. It’s so . . . sweet.”

  “It’s a beautiful town,” I acknowledge wistfully, attempting to view it all through my daughter’s sheltered eyes, which grows more difficult the closer we get to the house on Lake Shore Drive.

 

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