Subject: Re: How is Academy?

More interesting than I thought it would be. Let’s leave it at that.

From: Peter Dunn

To: Alexandra Vogel

Subject: Re: How is Academy?

Always is, kiddo. When will you be back?

From: Alexandra Vogel

To: Peter Dunn

Subject: Re: How is Academy?

Tonight!

From: Peter Dunn

To: Alexandra Vogel

Subject: Re: How is Academy?

That’s the best news I’ve heard this month. We miss you!

I stared at my phone and couldn’t keep the grin from spreading across my face. Feeling charitable, I finally opened the email from my parents that I had allowed to linger in my in-box for the past twenty-four hours, and agreed to meet them for dinner on the day I got back from LA. I knew they were anxious to see me, having both remarked at Christmas that I looked thin and tired. As soon as I hit send, I regretted it.

Chapter 19

“Hi!” I kissed my mother’s cheek outside the entrance to L’Artusi in the West Village. She lingered close to me, inhaling my scent the way she always did. “Where’s Dad?” I asked, looking past her.

“He’s not coming.”

“Oh no! Why?” I struggled to swallow as my mouth dried out. I needed my father’s hospital stories and corny jokes as a buffer from my mother’s interrogation.

“Because I asked him not to,” she said, and patted my shoulder gingerly. “I thought we could have some girl talk.”

Crap.

I followed the hostess robotically to our table, feeling that I was somehow in trouble.

“How are you?” she asked as soon as we sat, looking like she was expecting me to break down right there at the dinner table.

I met her gaze, but no words would come. Instead, I gulped down my water. Why did I always feel sad when my mom thinks I might be sad?

“Working too much. Can we get wine?” I scanned the list of bottles without registering any of them.

“Yes!” she said. “Wine is a great idea.”

I ordered a bottle of cabernet, and all of a sudden I had the sense of occupying a different role in the universe than I had even a few months before—an adult on equal footing with my mother. When the waiter returned to open the wine with a flourish and pour a taste, I swirled it in the glass and smelled it and took a sip. I thought for a moment. And another.

“I’m sorry, I think it’s off,” I said politely, as my mother’s eyes widened. “Can we try something similar?”

“Miss, I just opened it,” the waiter said, stating the obvious.

“Maybe you could just have the sommelier come over,” I said before my mother had a chance to speak. The waiter looked annoyed but turned on his heel obediently.

“Alexandra, that’s a perfectly good seventy-five-dollar bottle of wine. When they ask you to taste it, they don’t expect you to send it back.” Her voice grated on my eardrums.

“It wasn’t. And they do if it’s not actually perfectly good.” I put my hands to my temples, attempting to soothe the headache that had just come on.

“Are you okay?” My mother eyed me apprehensively.

I looked up at her. I don’t know what it was about my parents’ concern for me, but it always forced me to become somebody who warranted it. Their sympathy made me depressed, their worry made me anxious.

I sat up and forced cheeriness into my voice. “Just jet-lagged, I think.”

“You’re so thin. And—”

I was saved by the arrival of the sommelier.

“Bonsoir, mademoiselle,” he said with a slight bow.

“Bonsoir, monsieur. I think this wine is off.”

I saw him size me up, noticing my Alexander Wang boots, and soften. He took the glass he was holding and poured himself a bit. He smelled and paused and scowled.

“Of course it is, chérie,” he said, shaking his head, then shot a scornful look at the waiter. “If it’s cabernet you’re after, I have just the one. A real gem. And I’ll charge you the price of this bottle. Which is just passable when it’s at its best.”

I looked back at my mother, who studied me as though I were a stranger, but I felt somehow steadier in my position from having been right about the wine.

“I’m so glad we did this. I never see you as just us,” I said, breaking the silence.

“I know, me too. Tell me what’s going on. How’s Sam?” She leaned in as though I was about to tell her a secret.

I inhaled sharply. “He’s good! He’s the same! We’re the same!” I raised my voice, trying to reassure her, but I detected a slump in her shoulders. Suddenly the image of the engagement ring surrounded by black velvet burst into my mind, and I felt nauseated. I hadn’t thought about it in so long. Thank god work had been so busy.

“Oh honey. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing! Is it hot in here?” I swatted at the air around my face.

“Well, if nothing’s wrong, why are you ‘the same’?” she asked, using air quotes. I hated when she used air quotes.

“We’ve always been happy. Why would being the same be bad?”

“Alexandra, Sam has spoken to your father and I about . . . wanting to move forward. Are you ready for that?”

“Your father and me,” I muttered, staring down at the menu without focusing. Of course she knew the correct grammar. I didn’t know why I felt the need to correct her. I felt her frustration emanating from her intertwined fingers, but the arrival of our wine was a helpful distraction.

I nodded as the sommelier moved his lips and I pretended to take note of the label. I thought for a moment about telling her I wanted to get another year at Klasko under my belt before I got engaged. Who knows, maybe that was the truth. It occurred to me that if I told her everything I was feeling, she might be able to snap me out of whatever was keeping me from being excited about marrying Sam. She could help me to stop whatever itch I’d been scratching when I slept with Peter.

I stuck my nose in the glass and inhaled.

“Is that asparagus?” I asked. The sommelier almost clapped, chatting so gleefully about the grapes and the fog that year that I bought myself another four minutes of mindless chatter before facing my mother.

When we were left alone, we clinked our glasses, and I thought I saw a look of pride in her eye at the sophisticated adult daughter.

“I taste asparagus for sure,” she said after taking a sip. I inwardly sighed. She didn’t taste asparagus, I would hope. She probably didn’t even smell it. I suddenly felt an enormous gulf between us. It seemed like the life she had given me had spun off in a direction so different from her own that we had irreparably diverged. I decided against telling her what was going on with Sam and with Peter. What advice could she offer me, anyway?

“What is it, Bunny?” she said.

I opened my mouth but couldn’t quite bring myself to speak as the tightness in my chest migrated upward to my nose. I wavered for a second, and then opted to change course.

“My life with Sam isn’t exciting anymore. I don’t think it’s the life I want forever,” I said softly.

“That’s just intimacy, honey,” she said with a slightly dismissive but knowing smile.

“It’s boring,” I said, staring at the table. “But you’re right. Boring is part of intimacy. I’m not sure I want to get married. Ever.”

I looked up, expecting to see disappointment on her face, but she just laughed. “That’s just cold feet. Of course you want to get married.”

“No, Mom. I think I’m just not the marrying kind. I don’t really know what kind of person I am yet.” My words were raw, the kind that escape your lips in a rare and precious moment. And they can really knock the wind out of you when you hear them aloud. I fought back tears.

“Alexandra, you act like a relationship owes you something. Like it’s supposed to make you whole or better or more fulfilled or excited without working on it. You want a perfect marriage to appear the way you can order delivery for dinner—like it’s sitting there waiting for somebody to bring it to you in neat packaging. It’s not a thing you can order, it’s a fluid state. A process.”

I stared at her. “You’re not even listening to me! I don’t want to be served marriage at all! I want Aspen for the weekend and a vacation home and good wine! Maybe if I want kids down the line, I’ll think about it. But right now, the idea of wedding rings and wedding plans and suburbs really doesn’t appeal to me.”

My mother straightened her spine against the back of her chair. “Do you not think we gave you a good life growing up?”

“Mom, this isn’t about you. I promise.”