I hadn’t accepted the wedding invitation to do what I was about to do: say a final good-bye to Peter Armstrong, careless broadcaster of genetic truths. Following a fox-trot with the real father of my heart and a Kahlúa espresso, I’d come up with what I considered pretty good grounds for a permanent parting—a new DNA test vastly improved over the primitive, unreliable one available at the time of my birth.
I confided this while the band was playing “My Funny Valentine” and I was dancing with the groom. I thought, after hearing my father’s warning—“Enough!”—and because he’d given every other female guest a whirl, alternating songs with the new Mrs. Armstrong, that he’d bypass me as a partner. But when Jeremy and I were dancing to yet another Beach Boys’ hit circa 1965, Peter cut in.
There was no need for conversation while he smiled and nodded, presumably at constituents. “Having a good time?” he finally asked me. I said yes, lovely wedding. Delicious food. Good band. Bonnie very nice. And when the song wasn’t going to last much longer, I announced that I’d gotten a state-of-the-art DNA test and it had told the tale: Tom Maritch was my real father.
He didn’t miss a step or a beat at the same time he said, “You’re lying.”
I didn’t cave. Just the opposite. I said, “Tom Maritch is unquestionably a match. I have the letter from the lab to prove it.”
We did a few more whirls before he said, “You did this through a reputable lab, not some mail-in, fly-by-night outfit?”
“I went to Mount Sinai.”
“And Tom participated?”
Oh, a minor point I’d forgotten to weave into my fabrication—what piece of male DNA was I matching against mine?
“I didn’t have to involve him. We see each other all the time. I just had to fish a dirty Kleenex of his out of my wastebasket.”
“Very resourceful,” said Peter, grimly.
“I’m sorry if it got your hopes up that you had a biological child—”
“Just that simple,” he said.
“You can’t go around telling people that I’m your daughter. That was reckless, and that’s over. You had a fling with my mother. Okay. Everyone has flings. It was huge to you because she was your teacher—”
“Ex-teacher.”
“Fine, ex-teacher. But you have to drop it.”
“We shouldn’t be having this conversation at my wedding. Can I call you?”
“No, bad idea. And, of course, I’ll return the money you’ve been sending me.”
He whispered, right above my ear, “Don’t. She told me you were mine. She used to send me baby pictures.”
Maybe this would be the last time I’d have to endure accounts of my mother’s disloyalty. I said, “Well, she was wrong.”
The song was ending and Jeremy was back at my side.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
I said, “I told him about the new test,” hoping my accompanying look signaled Just play along.
“Yes, it had to be said,” Jeremy granted ever so solemnly. “Sometimes ripping the Band-Aid off is the only way.”
We two improvisational talents nodded, Yes, so very true. I asked Jeremy if he wanted to call it a night.
“We haven’t cut the cake yet,” said Peter.
“It’s been a very long day,” I said.
“Too long. I wish it had ended before we had this conversation.”
“I hope you have a long and happy marriage. I really do.”
“I didn’t handle this very well, did I? I plowed right in the first time we met. You’re wiser than I ever was at your age,” said Peter.
“Hey, c’mon. It’s not good-bye,” said Jeremy. “It’s just good night.”
“I’m afraid you’re wrong,” said Peter.
We wound our way over to Kathi and my dad, who hadn’t left the dance floor since the deejay had declared the newlyweds’ first dance, “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You,” now open to all.
“Your father never told me he was a dancer!” said Kathi.
“I chaperoned more than my share of hops. You pick up the moves,” said my dad.
“I heard that people can go dancing in the borough of Manhattan,” said Jeremy. “Maybe you two can look into that.”
I could tell that Kathi was thinking, Sad. We like Jeremy so much. Is there any hope?
In the elevator, just the two of us plus the half-empty bottle of burgundy he’d taken from an abandoned table, Jeremy asked what bomb I’d dropped on Armstrong.
“I told him I’d had a fancy new DNA test that showed that my dad was my dad—”
“Tom?”
“Of course Tom!”
“Did you, in fact, have a test?”
It occurred to me that I could lie to Jeremy, too. But I didn’t. I said, “No test. Just me wanting to put an end to the whole damn thing. I wanted to clear him out of my head. I wanted to go back to the first three decades of my dad being my real dad. He deserves that.”
“Pete did look a little shell-shocked. I think he was planning on this event doing double duty—as in ‘A big round of applause for my illegitimate daughter at table one!’”
“You and me both. When my dad told him to scram, we were about thirty seconds away from being the subject of a boozy toast. That did it.” Our floor number pinged. I said, “He’ll get over it. He’s known me for about a minute in the great scheme of things. And now he’s got two stepdaughters he can daddy.”
I took my shoes off as soon as we stepped out of the elevator onto the carpeted hallway. “You know what I think?” Jeremy asked.
I said no, tell me.
“I think he’s in love with you.”
I emitted an automatic yuck and eeew, but what I was really focusing on was Does Jeremy think of me as a woman whom a handsome state senator would be in love with?
“Aren’t you supposed to look a lot like your mother, the alleged love of his life?”
Oh, that. “Some people think so.”
I took the plastic key card from my tiny satin purse, opened the door, closed the curtains, and turned on the overhead light. Jeremy turned it off.
I said, “You’re not going to be able to find the buttons that need unbuttoning.”
That seemed to be his cue to pat me here and there, pretending it was too dark to know breast from clavicle.
“They’re on the upper back, remember?”
“Got ’em. But I’m noting that they don’t serve any real purpose. And there’s a zipper. Do you want me to unzip you, too?”
“As long as you’re there, sure.”
I could feel my dress opening wider. Then noticeably closer to my ear: “Your bra seems to have an excessive number of hooks. Should I help with that, or do you want to take care of it yourself?”
“That depends . . .”
He dropped his hands. “I sense you have a speech you’d like to make.”
I did, one I’d been preparing since seeing the size of the room we’d been assigned. I held on to the slipping bodice of my dress for dignity’s sake, then began. “I know when we first met, and I had a martini, I was ultracool, very cavalier, about jumping into bed with you. It was like I was experimenting, trying to be the kind of woman who could have casual sex with someone she’d just met. No emotional investment.”
“But . . . ?”
“But now, if I’m being very honest, which I probably shouldn’t be, I have an emotional investment. And if this thing now went from unbuttoning and unzipping to sleeping together, and if we had sex, would it be accidental because we were side by side and naked? I also have to ask if you have a girlfriend. And would you wake up all sorry because you were cheating on she who must not be named?”
Now, having turned me around, and counting on three fingers, he said, “No. No. And no.”
I shimmied, dress halfway down, over to the bureau and took a sip of our stolen wine straight from the bottle. “Okay, but what about this? Would it be sex for old times’ sake . . . or would we be back together?”
“You’re such an idiot,” he said.
“In a good way?”
“In a way good enough that made me miss it.”
I offered him the bottle. Before taking a swig, he said, “And for the record, Tina and I never had sex.”
“But . . .” I had to search for whatever was left that I hadn’t exhausted. “Even so, she’s around. Your bikes are stored side by side. And isn’t it true that a woman could get the idea that casual dates might qualify someone as her boyfriend?”
“If you’d ever had to talk about sustainability over dinner, you wouldn’t have to ask.”
Because those words had been spoken with his lips on my neck, I didn’t pursue the Tina topic any further. I didn’t need to. I’d stepped out of the gauzy puddle that was my dress. And somehow, without my help, Jeremy’s trousers and boxers were no longer confining his responsive lower body.
I said, “I have to get something in my cosmetics bag. I brought them just in case.”
When I came out of the bathroom, he was in bed. I joined him. He wasn’t a handsome specimen, but he was beautiful.