Best Behavior Read online

  At least that’s one thing they can agree on: it is twisted in a Cape Fear kind of way. “I don’t know. You tell me. Does someone have it out for you? Why would someone try to frame you? Were you screwing around on Melissa?” It’s the first thing that springs to mind, and Dawn instantly regrets saying it. Melissa has been Cody’s on-again, off-again girlfriend for the last four years.

  “No f’ing way. I’m not like that.” His cheeks flare with color, a reaction so uncharacteristic that Dawn takes a quick step back. “I don’t sleep around. Besides, we broke up.”

  “Wait, what?” Dawn falls back into the ugly recliner and hugs a pillow to her chest. “You’re kidding, right? Since when?”

  “Since this afternoon.” He blows smoke out the window, uncharacteristically pensive. “It wouldn’t have lasted anyway. I’ll be in New Haven all summer, and she’s flying back to LA. Then it’s, see ya, world, I’m off to North Dakota.”

  Because she can’t think of a better way to signal her disappointment at the moment, Dawn whips the pillow at him, which he fake-blocks with an elbow. “That seems like a really stupid reason to break up with someone you care about. I mean, it’s not like Melissa even has a plan for next year. Maybe she’ll want to move out to North Dakota with you.”

  Cody snorts. “Yeah, right. And do what?”

  She shrugs, considering. “I don’t know. Open a jewelry store? Work at your school?” She gets up to stand closer to the fan and lifts her hair. The breeze feels good on the back of her neck that’s already perspiring.

  “Anyway, it was never that serious,” he adds and collapses into the chair next to the window, as if the last four years have meant nothing. The unfortunate fact is that Dawn actually likes Melissa. Breaking up with her is one of the dumber things her brother could do. Melissa is beautiful and nice and graduating with a degree in biology. Surely, there are creatures she could study in North Dakota? Maybe get her master’s degree? Also worth noting: Melissa is one of the few girls who can tease Cody without his flying into a total rage. That Cody has suddenly dumped her just further confirms that her brother is strangely determined to see how much he can screw up his life before receiving his diploma tomorrow.

  “Well, I think it’s safe to assume someone’s unhappy with you.” Dawn slips her phone back into the little embroidered purse she bought for tonight. “Look, I don’t want you to get in trouble, especially not now, with graduation tomorrow.”

  He runs a hand through his hair, a languid trail of smoke lisping into the air. “Don’t worry about it. So what if I edited Eddie’s paper? Big deal. You can’t even tell that it’s a paper. It could have been my picks for fantasy football or something.”

  “In May?”

  Cody shrugs. “You know what I mean.”

  Dawn studies him by the window with his cigarette, another recent habit at odds with her brother’s clean-cut football star image. She’s already texted him articles about how his lungs turn blacker with each passing cigarette, articles that she’s pretty sure he deletes without reading. Probably a passing phase, she tells herself—her brother trying out the wilder side of college life before it’s too late. Well, he has roughly twenty-four hours to go.

  She considers what Cody has just told her. The photo has been in her possession since ten o’clock this morning, almost seven hours now, and nothing has happened. No more texts, no requests for payoffs or anything remotely resembling blackmail. Maybe Cody is right. Maybe the photo means nothing, just some idiot pulling a pre-graduation prank. One of his football buddies will probably text him later tonight, asking him if he freaked out when Dawn showed him the picture. They probably assumed that his sister, the worrywart, would give it to him right away.

  She pulls her long hair out in front of her face and begins twisting three strands into a loose braid, saying nothing. She misses the days when she and Cody used to confide in each other, when they were each other’s trusty sounding boards. No sin was too big or too small to seek out advice on. Once when Cody was ten and crashed their mom’s rearview mirror while hitting a tennis ball around in the driveway, he’d run into the house to ask Dawn what to do. She knew her mom would figure it out eventually and said to tell the truth. It turned out to be the right decision since Meredith had watched the whole incident unfold beyond the living room window, anyway. Cody has helped Dawn, too—for instance, last year when she went before the Administration Board to defend herself as the innocent student that she was. It was Cody who coached her on what to say to the intimidating panel of professors who sat across from her, their thick gray eyebrows knitted in judgment. Cody (not her parents), who told her to act confident, that she’d done nothing wrong, only prepared in advance for her final.

  “So, who do you think will be weirder this weekend? Mom or Dad?” he asks now in a not-so-transparent attempt to change the subject.

  And Dawn’s willing to play along, to drop the subject for the moment. If Cody’s not concerned, why should she be? She weighs his question. “Well, Mom seemed pretty emotional when I talked to her last night. I think it’s going to be hardest for her. But you know Dad. Always has to be the life of the party. He’s the wild card.”

  “And, of course, we haven’t mentioned the lovely Lily.”

  “Eww, stop calling her that. She’s not even close to lovely.”

  Cody shrugs. “Dad seems to think so. C’mon, she’s his midlife crisis, his trophy wife.”

  “Okay, please stop.” Dawn hugs herself. “Let’s not turn Dad into a total cliché.” Although she hates to admit it, she also suspects this might be the case. “You seriously think she’s hot?” Dawn doesn’t know what to think of Lily, who is pretty, she supposes, if you like big boobs, small waists, and long hair. To her eye, her stepmom looks manufactured, not quite real. Though she realizes asking her brother about their stepmom’s appearance qualifies as almost gross, she’s eager for an objective opinion, a male opinion other than her dad’s.

  “She’s definitely an eight. Maybe even an eight and a half.”

  “Eww,” Dawn repeats.

  Cody shrugs. “You asked.” Her phone pings with a text. “Come on,” he says, pushing back his chair from the window and rising to his feet. “I can see Mom and Joel and Nana. They’re out front.”

  * * *

  Lily concedes that she might feel a tiny bit dejected on this, the night before graduation, an evening that she and Roger were supposed to spend together reviewing any last details for Saturday’s party. There are two steak filets marinating in the fridge, waiting to be grilled for dinner, and a short list of to-do items left on her trusty legal pad. Things that only Roger can tend to, such as signing the kids’ graduation cards and finalizing the order of the photos in the slideshow that Lily has spent the last few weeks pulling together.

  There are adorable photos of Dawn and Cody when they were maybe three years old, apple picking in New Hampshire. Cody’s face reflects that delicious toddler chubbiness, his hair spiraling in luscious curls the color of corn silk. And in young Dawn, Lily can glimpse the beginnings of the beauty she will become, her rosebud lips perfect even as she pouts over an apple. Then there’s Cody at his first T-ball game, his expression so intent and serious, and another of Dawn curtsying in a pink tutu, her dark hair coiled into a fat bun. A handful of family photos at milestone events—birthdays, Thanksgivings, Christmases—showcases Roger and Meredith looking on, the proud parents in the background. Lily has included these photos in a gracious nod to Meredith, though Roger never inquired if they might make Lily uncomfortable. She knows that in his mind, they are all one big happy family for the weekend, coming together to celebrate the kids.

  And Lily is willing to go along with that reasoning, mostly because she doesn’t wish to begrudge Dawn or Cody any happiness. She’s excited for them, even proud, though she knows she deserves none of the credit for their success. Having officially joined the family during the twins�
� senior year in college leaves her feeling somewhat like a distant aunt, one who might send books or a new video game at Christmastime. Her involvement in their lives has been at best tangential, afforded in small random moments such as when they drop by the house on the odd weekend. Lily has always been welcoming, she thinks. If anything, the twins remind her of what it felt like to be young—the insecurities, the phobias, the worrying that nothing will ever go right.

  But roughly one hour ago, Roger called to say that he was heading over to the kids’ Thursday night banquet after all. The sound of heavy traffic poured through his Bluetooth speakers while she listened to him exult over the fact that he’d managed to leave work early. “Told the client my kids were graduating this weekend, and he asked me what the hell I was doing talking to him.” Roger laughed on the other end, delighted to be set free.

  “That’s great,” Lily said, not pointing out the obvious, which was that he was effectively canceling their dinner date. But it’s graduation weekend! If his client can excuse Roger from work, surely Lily can wave off a silly little planning dinner.

  So now she sits alone, drifting on a large blue raft in the pool while nursing a glass of wine and waiting for her friend Alison to arrive, whom she invited over approximately half an hour after Roger called. Moses, whom Lily has come to adore over the last year and a half, lies in a shaded patch on the patio, keeping her company. Since the buffet is such a casual affair (and Roger hadn’t planned on attending in the first place), there is no need for Lily to show up tonight. He wouldn’t expect her to come on such short notice anyway, he explained. Plus, she’d seemed a little “stressy” this morning. Is everything okay?

  Stressy? Why thank you for noticing, she thinks now. Although she’s secretly relieved that her attendance will not be required at tonight’s buffet (who wants that added pressure?), she’s irked that Roger has seen fit to make this sudden change of plans while deleting her from an event so easily, as if it’s no big deal. As if she’s not really part of the family.

  It’s not that she’s concerned an old flame might be stoked between him and Meredith—that fire went out long ago, as Roger has reassured her plenty of times. Sometimes, if she squints, Lily thinks she can see a faint resemblance to Melissa Gilbert from Little House on the Prairie, whom apparently, Meredith would get mistaken for when she and Roger first dated. But now Meredith strikes her as one of those women who used to be attractive until middle age added a good thirty pounds. Lily can point to several such women who talk nonstop about their successful children, as if to say, “See! I’ve let myself go for the sake of my children! Everything I do is for them.”

  No, she’s not threatened by Meredith in the least. It’s just that lately she’s been feeling like a bridesmaid at her own wedding, tasked with getting every detail right for the party and with little thanks. As she has reminded herself a million times, this weekend is but one in a long string of weekends ahead for her and Roger. Surely, she can be pleasant and easygoing for seventy-two hours. Surely, she can bite her tongue when her instinct is to cry out, A simple thank-you would be nice!

  Besides, Lily is accustomed to not getting her way—she just thought that things would be different after she married Roger. That Roger, so romantic when they were first dating, would want to share dinner out on the deck every night before they climbed upstairs to make love. And while it’s true that they’ll still occasionally head out for a romantic evening, an encroaching loneliness has begun to permeate her days. Roger seems even busier at the office now than when they were first dating. Lily gets it—her husband works hard for all the advantages they have (look at this amazing house! This pool! The ocean views!)—but she never imagined marriage could be so, well, isolating.

  She spins herself around on the raft and marvels at the rosy orange streaks that light up the sky in broad swaths of color. It’s a gorgeous summer night, the kind that’s ideal for backyard barbecuing and skinny-dipping to escape the heat. It dawns on her that she hasn’t spent much time out here yet, even though they filled the pool in early May. The weather has been nice enough, but Lily, somewhat to her own consternation, has become slightly obsessed with daytime TV. Not the soap operas which strike her as pure fluff (she does have some standards), but the talk shows. Ellen is her favorite, though Lily will watch pretty much anything that features real-life drama. In the past month, a particular stable of shows has become her daily fix to fill the hours while Roger works. Because, let’s face it, there is only so much Instagramming she can do before Lily, let alone her followers, gets sick of herself.

  Admittedly, with a constant crew descending on the house to prepare for Saturday’s gala, it’s a craving that has been harder to feed these last few days. The coordinator, Donna, seems perfectly competent, and so Lily has given her the green light to make any further decisions regarding the details. Since she can no longer lounge in the family room with the fifty-inch wall-mounted screen, she and Moses now hide out in the bedroom on her gigantic king bed, following the troubled lives of folks who, she knows, could just as easily be her.

  She can’t stop thinking about today’s episode, a repeat from years ago. There is a particular talk show host who prides himself on digging up the most egregious stories, and even though Lily sometimes feels uncomfortable, like a voyeur, she still watches, mesmerized. Today’s show focused on a couple fighting over paternity. The boyfriend insisted he wasn’t the father of the child while his ex-girlfriend maintained he was. The mom stabbed her finger at a photo of the baby on the screen behind her and yelled, Look at those eyes. She and her daddy have the same eyes! The audience seemed to agree. When the host pulled the DNA results from the envelope (not the father), the audience gasped, and the poor woman rushed offstage. The story is so tangled and tragic, it’s enough to make Lily wonder if perhaps they were paid actors.

  The fact that she has become a stay-at-home wife who watches daytime TV both thrills and embarrasses her. For all her life, she has had to pull her own financial weight, even if only as a waitress, and now she no longer needs to worry about from where next month’s rent check will come. The sensation is unfamiliar, like a newly capped tooth that she can’t stop running her tongue over to reassure herself it’s still there. But she also can’t stop watching the shows—maybe it’s the nagging sense of what-her-life-could-have-been that gives them such a gravitational pull.

  Before she met Roger, and long before she escaped Kentucky, Lily grew up in what can only be described as less-than-ideal circumstances. Shelia, her mom, prided herself on the number of beers she could drink while still walking a straight line. Her daddy was but a fluff of tumbleweed that rolled in and out of their lives, but mostly out. Her girlfriends always told her she was too smart, too pretty to stay in their Podunk town, making straight As in high school. But there was no money for college, certainly no graduation celebration like this.

  Lily has a vague recollection of, on the eve of her graduation, staying up with Shelia to watch Terms of Endearment, her mom’s favorite. They made root beer floats and put their fuzzy-slippered feet up on the ottoman. But when Lily woke the next morning, pulled on her new linen dress, and went into the kitchen to say good morning, she spied the empty bottle of gin lying on its side in the kitchen sink. When she stepped into Shelia’s bedroom, her mom lay passed out on her waterbed, snoring to wake the dead. Lily didn’t even try to rouse her. She was the class salutatorian, but it didn’t matter. No one from her family was there to congratulate her.

  If only her mom could see her now! She wouldn’t believe where Lily has landed. And maybe, Lily thinks, her mom is watching over her from somewhere, somehow. It’s possible. Lily has never been big on religion, but she’d like to think there’s something more to her mother’s life than being buried several feet underground in a Kentucky cemetery. That she’s a presence hovering above, probably with a gin and tonic in her hand. The thought almost makes Lily smile. “Well, isn’t this something?” her mothe
r might say and nod her head. “I always knew my little girl would go far.” To which Lily would reply, “I’ve earned it, don’t you think, Mama? I’ve worked hard to get here.”

  Lily doesn’t intend to fine-tune her pity violin this weekend, but the contrast between her graduation day and the twins’ couldn’t be more vivid. In fact, it borders on the comical. Even if they wanted to, the kids can’t escape commencement day. A gazillion dollars have been spent to ensure that there will be ample celebrating, endless merriment. Tomorrow Roger’s brother, Georgie, arrives from London in time to catch the ceremony at one o’clock. And the original Mr. and Mrs. Landau, mirthless Harry and his formidable wife, Edith, will soon enough be marching around, as well. Thankfully, they’ve opted to stay at the Marriott a few miles from the house. (Lily has met Roger’s parents only once, when she got the distinct impression that neither of them approved of her nor the marriage.)

  Round and round the merry-go-round we go, she thinks as she dips her hand in the pool water, sending the raft spinning. Just one little weekend. Easy-peasy. The extra pill she popped following Roger’s call is starting to chip away at the jagged edges of her thoughts, that warm, buzzy feeling stretching down to her toes. She’s beginning to feel optimistic about the weekend again—it can’t be all bad, can it?—when her phone pings with a text from Alison: she’s out front.

  Perfect timing, Lily thinks.

  FIVE

  Thursday evening

  Dawn, in her yellow dress, is a virtual splash of sunshine. Of course, Meredith could never say this to her—it would only prompt an eye roll.

  “You look beautiful, honey,” she says instead, pulling her daughter into a hug that’s more or less reciprocated.

  “Thanks, Mom. So do you. I like your hair.” Meredith self-consciously tucks a strand behind her ear, pleased that someone has noticed her recent caramel highlights.