Then Came You - Jennifer Weiner [53]
Two hours later I staggered out of the conference room, into the elevator, and into the coffee shop in the lobby of the building.
The manila folder was in my purse. Part of me wanted to tip it into a trash bin. Another part of me wanted to leave it somewhere obvious in my father’s apartment, where he and his bride would be sure to see it. But what I mostly wanted to do was call my mother, my sensible, pre-ashram mother, and ask for her advice. This was impossible, insofar as my mother would no longer consent to speak on the telephone. “Bad energy,” she said. So I wrote her letters, and sometimes she’d write back, little notes in the cursive I remembered from a hundred to-do lists and school permission slips, on paper that smelled like sage and lavender, but sometimes it took weeks to get a reply, and I didn’t have weeks.
Through the plate-glass windows I could see people strolling, enjoying the warm weather after days of rain. There were women who’d swapped their heels for flip-flops, nannies chatting with each other as they pushed strollers, men in suits with loosened ties, tilting their faces up toward the sun. I sat, watching, the coffee I’d purchased untouched, feeling like I’d been beamed to a different planet and was observing all of this normal from very far away.
I pulled the folder out of my bag, set it on the counter beside me, and lifted up a corner, peeking, once more, at her mug shot. India’s pouffy bangs were flattened on one side of her forehead. Her eyeliner was smeared, and she looked like she’d been crying, which made me feel like crying myself. Her whole life was on these pages, her childhood in Toledo, the year she’d spent in New London, her move to Los Angeles, the addresses of every place she’d rented, first in California, then in New York. I felt a grudging respect beginning to mix with my anger and my pity. I wondered if she thought of my father like a winning lottery ticket, the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. I wondered, too, if this was what drew him to her—the painful things she’d endured. I studied her picture, trying to piece together the subtle transformation she’d undergone, the nose narrowed, the cheekbones more prominent, trying to guess at what she’d told my father about her past and what she’d kept secret. Had she been honest with him about who she was and where she came from? Could she make him happy? Did she really love him, and was that love enough?
“Bettina?”
I turned around, and there was Darren Zucker, with his statement eyeglasses and his smarmy smile.
“You moving in?” he asked, setting down his own drink and taking a seat at the counter beside me.
“What?”
“You’ve been here for forty-five minutes.”
I gathered up my folder and my coffee. “I was just going.”
He gave a pompous little nod. “You’re in shock.”
“I’m fine.”
“I’ve seen this before. You think you want answers. You think you can handle the truth.” He waggled his eyebrows in what he must have believed was a Jack Nicholson impression. “You know what you need?” He answered before I could ask him, politely, to please leave me alone. “Will Ferrell.”
“I believe he’s married.”
He smiled, causing his stupid glasses to bob up and down on his face. “Touché. I was thinking more of one of his movies. Something stupid, with fart jokes, where he takes off his clothes.”
I gathered my things and walked to the door, with Darren right behind me.
“Come on,” he said. “Flabby, hairy guy, running around with no pants . . . Do you have plans?”
“I do.” I’d told my father to expect me for dinner that night. I figured I’d go home, we’d have a conversation, and then he’d be in charge of the next step. I’d be there if he needed me for anything: to console him, to call his lawyer, to try, even, to get my mother on the phone if he wanted to talk to her. Now the sun was setting, people were streaming down the streets on their way home for dinner, but I wasn’t sure what to do. I’d been expecting duplicity, slyness and lies, but not anything at this level.
“Movie,