The next morning, Jenny took the Green Line out to the suburbs for her scheduled Mom-and-Dad brunch. For a while, she’d gotten them to come to downtown Boston and take her out. When it became clear, though, that the parking situation downtown made her father need to take extra blood pressure medication and that meals out had too much sodium in them anyway, she decided to go to Newton. Sometimes when she walked through the doors to her old brick childhood home she thought she could still smell the wafts of cigar smoke, even though her father claimed to have quit years ago. She opened the door without knocking, as usual. Her mother, as usual, seemed to sense her presence, acknowledging it even before she crossed the threshold.
“Honey!” but the “honey” was for her dad. “Honey, Jennifer’s home!”
Home. That’s what her mom always called it, even though she hadn’t slept over in years. Her father gave her a strong hug. Hmmm. That cigar smell was pretty fresh.
“Jenny Penny,” he said. “Your mother made a new strange egg concoction, and I ordered a tart.”
“Smells good, thanks,” Jenny said, remembering reading about Blake’s father, and immediately feeling happy that her folks were still together, still here, still themselves. Feeling grateful to be there, in the same house she’d always known. She felt embarrassed by her good fortune, almost, ready to wrap her cold hands around a mug of hot coffee and enjoy their company. She wasn’t exactly forthcoming with them most of the time, and they always said something to annoy her, but they were there, weren’t they?
Her mother emerged from the kitchen, an old-fashioned apron tied around her waist. She had never cooked when Jenny was young. There was no way to work full time and get dinner on the table. Now, in retirement, she enjoyed it, trying recipes from Martha Stewart Magazine and food blogs and chef cookbooks and TV shows. She smiled, clearly proud of today’s offering.
“This is Turkish stew for breakfast. Do you know that Boston is one of the best places for upscale Turkish? There are about seventy-five ingredients, thirty of which I’d never heard of and had to look up online.” She smiled. “Oh, Jenny, you look tired.”
“Whenever someone says that you look tired, they just mean you look like shit,” Jenny said.
“Not true!” bellowed her dad, turning from the chair by the fireplace. “You always look beautiful. And today you look beautiful and tired. A mother knows. Also, watch your language.”
Jenny stood beside her mother in the kitchen and started tearing tarragon leaves. Her mother patted her hand, as if offering sympathy for some unspoken tragedy. Before Jenny could make sense of the gesture, her mother explained it, saying, “We heard about Melinda.”
She could almost feel her father awkwardly stiffen in the next room, but he stayed quiet.
“She seems happy.”
“You saw her?”
“Yes, Mom, I ran into her, actually—Yes.”
“Oh. Well. Send her our regards.”
“I’m not going to see her again,” Jenny said, the words falling out almost mechanically, not giving herself time to digest how awkward it was that they were speaking about Melinda. Today of all days. Right after what she’d been through with Blake.
Her mother said nothing else, and Jenny stood beside her, still handling the herbs, both of them in silence. Her father cleared his throat. “Anyone else special in your life?” he shouted from the other room.
“Nope,” Jenny squeaked, hoping her parents didn’t hear all the layers and uncertainty and regret in the word.
They sat at the table, spread with too much food—the fancy eggs drowned in tomato her mother had made and also bagels and lox and the smoked whitefish spread from one of the delis near Jenny’s. The spread was given a platter of honor at the center of the table. There they were again, just the three of them, as they always would be. Jenny relaxed, a little, examining herself for any more unease about Blake. One good thing had happened, she decided. She had realized how much she wanted to be with someone. Anyone. Maybe she would let Davis fix her up with someone. Or take Lydia up on her offer to start an online profile. Even her father was asking if she was single. It was time to change.
They clinked their orange-juice glasses and ate in silence except for the chewing. The silence felt comfortable. Until her mother ruined it by saying a little too loudly, “I heard you were at the Albie gala.” Her eyes were sharp across the table, so intent. Jenny stared at her, noting for the first time that her mother’s eyebrows had gone gray. Was that common? She had never noticed that on anyone before.
“I was,” Jenny said. It felt like so long ago.
“With a man?”
Jenny wanted to laugh, but she could see her parents were serious, inquiring. What had they heard? Before she could spit out a halfway amused denial, she went cold, suddenly understanding her parents’ questions. They thought she’d gone straight again. That it was just a phase after all. That at thirty-three she’d seen the light. Anger boiled up in her. Someone had spied her at the gala with Brandon and tipped her parents off? Melinda was pregnant, and they heard about the sighting and gotten their hopes up? What the hell was going on?
“I was there with my boss,” Jenny said, gritting her teeth, “and his nephew. It was not a date, and I did not have a good time.”
Her parents exchanged a look. Jenny saw it in an instant and thought about ignoring it, but instead speared a soft-boiled egg out of the gravy with her fork, held it up, said as flippantly as she could muster, “I’m still gay,” and popped the whole egg into her mouth.
Her father grunted. “Just want you to be happy,” he said, and for a moment, looking across the table at her mother, who was staring intently into her plate, and at her dad, whose rosy cheeks from how hot the thermostat was lent his face a kind of joviality that didn’t really match his mood, Jenny believed him. Maybe that was true. It might as well be.
“Thanks,” she said, finally. “Please don’t spy on me.”
Her mother smiled at her, tight-lipped, concerning. “The Marshes from down the street were there. Casual conversation. That’s all.”
“Very casual, I’m sure.”
“Well, how was the art?” her father said, trying to change the subject, not knowing that he was failing completely and that Jenny cared not only about the art, but also the artist, more than her father could possibly know, and she was sitting at brunch thinking about Blake, and how coldly she’d been dismissed, and how she wanted to help but couldn’t. Shouldn’t. Thinking she needed to let Blake go.
“Magnificent,” Jenny said. She shoveled in a few more bites of food.
“I saw an interview with her,” her mother said, oblivious, like her father, to the effect the direction of the conversations was having on her. Jenny’s knees were bouncing up and down, she was sweating, eating more and faster than she meant to, gulping the coffee.
“It’s too bad about the lawsuit,” her mother said.
Jenny swallowed, but the piece of bagel she had in her mouth was too big. She reached for the water glass, but too fast. She knocked over the pitcher. Her father leapt from the table to clear it, Jenny hunched over, trying to swallow, and her mother gripped the sides of the table as if to hold it steady while she figured out what had happened and why everything had gotten so tense.
After a moment, Jenny could talk again and a towel was on the tablecloth soaking up the mess she’d made.
“Blake didn’t do anything wrong,” she heard herself saying, impassioned. The clink of the dishes as they spooned themselves more food sounded very loud. She tried to slow her breathing. She knew, at least, at last, what she needed to do.
“Excuse me.” She walked up to her childhood room. Her mother had converted it into a place for gift wrapping but kept the bed with its magenta skirt. She pulled her cell phone out of her bra and called Michael. Uncharacteristically, he picked up on the first ring.
Jenny said, “Am I generally in your good graces?”
“Yes,” he said, not needing to ask who it was, even though Jenny was speaking out of turn.
“Enough to ask you a favor?”
“You can ask.”
Jenny took a deep breath. What Lydia said about there being a force field around her and Blake felt true. Maybe Blake didn’t want her for anything more than a little fling, but Jenny had quickly come to care for her. There was no use pushing that aside. If she could help her, she would. “Can we take on Blake Harrison as a pro bono client?”
“So that’s who you and Lydia were talking about calling when I was standing in your office?”
Jenny blushed, trying to remember precisely what they had been saying and what Michael had apparently heard. “Yes,” she said finally. “Lydia would like to help, too.”
“We can. Tell her to come in tomorrow at nine. Get a conference room. Me, you, Lydia, and Greyson.”
“Thank you. Really.” Greyson was one of the firm’s managing partners. He focused on intellectual property, but even Lydia hadn’t worked with him very much. His time was worth $1,200 an hour. And Blake would get his services for free.
Jenny still didn’t have Blake’s number, so she called Steve, getting his number off the business card he’d flicked to her while they were watching the taping of the show. He picked up right away.
“Wales, Moakley and Strauss would like to help Blake,” she said, as professionally as possible, though her heart was pounding. It wasn’t even Blake on the phone, but her manager, and she was nervous as she’d ever been. She had it bad.