“You were certainly more determined,” her dad joked. Little Eleanor started to spin and leap so stridently, she kicked the curtains and made the sconce above the performing ballerinas quiver. Her dad snorted with laughter. Eleanor couldn’t help but smile at his honest amusement. “You look like you think your dance is going to alter the course of the entire planet.”
“That’s passion, David,” her mother admonished.
Eleanor rolled her eyes, pressed her hands to her burning cheeks, and laughed. “Give me a break, Mom. That’s nerdiness, pure and simple.”
“Nonsense,” her mother exclaimed. “I was proud when I first saw this yesterday . . . proud of your talent and your fire.”
“Fire? I was dancing around in the curtains. Don’t make a bigger deal of it than it is.”
“You’re embarrassing her, Catherine.”
“You were magnificent,” her mother said, golden brown eyes sparkling.
“I have to agree, bug,” her dad said with an apologetic smile at Eleanor. “You’re adorable. This was quite a find, Catherine. Both girls dancing together.”
Caddy center stage, Eleanor on the sidelines . . . like always. Only now, center stage had been left empty.
Was all of this her mother’s way of reinforcing the idea that Eleanor was just dancing out to center stage in a desperate attempt to disguise the gaping hole of Caddy’s absence? “Mom, is this your way of trying to bring home your point from yesterday?” Eleanor asked quietly.
“What point from yesterday?” her dad asked.
“Of course not. If anything, the opposite,” her mother insisted, looking dramatically wounded by Eleanor’s accusation. “I thought if anything, the video was making your point. You’ve always had as much drive and passion as Caddy, maybe more so. After I thought about it a little last night, I started to think maybe your sister was right to tell you to dive in . . . take some chances, live your passion—”
“Would someone mind filling me on the first part of this conversation?” her dad asked. Eleanor stifled a groan. Here was proof positive her father had had nothing to do with sending her mom over to Eleanor’s to express “their” concerns. Well, it wasn’t like she hadn’t suspected it from the start. Her mom often mentioned her dad in her campaigns in order to gain credibility. She should call her mom out. But the last thing she wanted was a family confrontation at the moment. She felt too raw.
All day long, it’d been like they’d formed a silent pact to act like everything was okay with just the three of them going through the motions of a traditional Thanksgiving, everyone intent on avoiding Caddy’s glaring absence. Now, it was as if her mother was defying that pact—ripping away the bandage from the wound.
“It’s okay, Dad,” Eleanor mumbled to her father. “Mom came over to Caddy’s place yesterday—my place—and we had a little misunderstanding, that’s all.”
“One that I hope I’ve put to rest with this video and what I’ve just said,” her mother said, looking regally put out.
“Why am I always the last to hear about these things?” her dad asked.
“I told you I made Eleanor a beef pirog Monday night and took it there after work yesterday,” Catherine scolded her husband.
“That hardly equates to you two fighting.”
“It wasn’t a fight. Not really. Everything is fine,” Eleanor smoothed over, desperately pushing the invisible, askew bandage of their pact of silence back into place. “Thanks for showing the video, Mom. I’m sorry I don’t like watching how dorky I was as a kid as much as you,” she joked in an attempt to deemphasize her discomfort. At that moment, she just wanted out from under the microscope of her mom’s attention.
Damn you, Caddy. Why’d you have to go and die and leave me here alone to deal with her on the holidays? We used to have each other’s backs. Now I’m taking all the fire straight on.
She stood and grabbed her empty mug.
“Eleanor—”
“Anybody want anything? I’m going to get more hot chocolate,” she said briskly, cutting off her mom. She started toward the kitchen.
And it wouldn’t hurt to find the bottle of schnapps Mom keeps hidden behind the flour tin in the pantry.
Eleanor hid her smile, feeling comforted for some reason. It had been her thought, of course. But the voice had sure sounded like Caddy’s in her head.
NINE
Eleanor was due to go out with her friend Jimmy Garcia on Friday evening upon her return to the city. Jimmy had been away because of a family situation until the day of the press-employee trial run for the Mary Todd Lincoln exhibit. Because they’d been so busy with the exhibit, Jimmy and she hadn’t had much time to talk. She had an idea Stacy Moffitt had gossiped to Jimmy about Eleanor’s uncharacteristic sexy outfits at the reading event. Jimmy knew about her interest in Trey Riordan and her determination to attend the event because Trey would be there. He probably was straining at the bit to interrogate her about why she’d chosen to go pursue Riordan in such an atypically aggressive fashion.
Jimmy called that Friday afternoon as she was entering her condo, overburdened with her suitcase and two bags filled with leftovers her mom had insisted she take home.
“Do you still want to meet tonight for a drink?” Jimmy asked her as she wrestled open her refrigerator door.