CHAPTER 20
Cate
If someone had told me to brainstorm worst-case scenarios, I’m not sure I could have come up with anything more horrible than my own mother selling me out to the National Enquirer. Giving any sort of interview would have been bad, but my mom took it to another level, announcing to the world that I had grown up with a huge crush on Joe and that she had fueled that interest with her own lifelong Kingsley obsession. Of course, it also happened to be the truth, which made it so much worse. There was nothing I could deny when Joe told me about it.
Instead, I fumbled my way through the humiliating confession. For a moment, I wondered whether it would be the end of us. I could easily imagine that Joe would be so turned off by it all that I’d lose him. Instead, he sweetly insisted that he was flattered—and all his wrath seemed directed Berry’s way. I was a little touched by how chivalrous he was being, but the fact that he felt the need to so fiercely defend my honor, making the unilateral decision to leave the Hamptons, only made me more embarrassed.
For most of the ride home, I was too distraught to talk. I stared out my window, my mind racing with paranoid thoughts that I was reluctant to put into words.
But as we approached Manhattan, I turned to him and said, “Are you sure you aren’t a little upset with me?”
Joe looked surprised by the question, which was something of a comfort. “Yes, I’m sure. Why would I be upset with you?”
“I don’t know…. Because of the poster.”
“A poster you had when you were a little girl?”
“A poster I didn’t tell you about.”
“That’s not important,” he said. “It’s trivial.”
“Then why did we leave in such a hurry? If you aren’t upset?”
“You asked if I was upset with you. And I’m not. But I am upset with Berry. And my mother.”
“Why? It’s not their fault that my mom spoke to a tabloid.” I was playing devil’s advocate—but also trying to understand exactly what had gone down, as well as the intimate dynamic among the three of them.
Joe hesitated, frowning out the front window as if deep in thought. “I really don’t see why Berry felt the need to read that crap when she had just met you herself. Especially because she’s the first one to rail on the tabloids.”
“Well, isn’t that kind of natural?” I said, trying so hard to be fair. “I feel like I might take a peek, too, you know?”
“Fair enough, I guess. But she didn’t have to buy it, bring it home, and show it to my mother.”
“Okay. But why not just laugh it off and move on? Instead of storming out?”
“Because they drew false conclusions—that you’d been some superfan stalking me. It’s absurd.”
“But if it’s so absurd, why get so pissed? Doesn’t that just give her accusations credence? What if the tabloid said I was an alien? Without a belly button?”
Joe smiled. “Holy cow. Where do you come up with this stuff?”
I shrugged, then said, “Well? If the article had said that, would you have left in a huff?”
“It depends,” Joe said. “If Berry believed it? Maybe.”
I shook my head and said, “I don’t think so. I think you would have laughed in her face and moved right on.”
“So what are you trying to say?”
“I’m saying—that maybe you’re not just upset with what Berry thinks…. Maybe you’re upset because, deep down, you think it, too.”
“That’s not true,” Joe said a little too quickly.
“Okay…but did you really feel that I needed such staunch defending?”
“Needed? No. I don’t think you needed it. But I think you deserved it. It’s not fair what she was implying about you—”
“I know it’s not,” I said, so appreciating his loyalty and steadfast sense of justice. Hell, basic fairness. “But I still don’t want you fighting with your family because of me.”
Joe shook his head and said, “I’m not fighting with my family because of you. I’m fighting because of them. Their attitude…their judgment…and that has really nothing to do with you. It’s been going on for years, on a myriad of topics. And I had to draw a line in the sand.”
“Thank you,” I said—because I hadn’t said it yet.
He shook his head and said, “Don’t thank me. It’s so basic. You’d do the same for me, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes. Of course I would.”
“Okay, then. Please don’t worry. I got this. They’ll come around.”
I nodded, trusting him, fighting my instinct to run and hide.
“So. My place or yours?” he asked.
“Mine,” I said. “It’s closer.”
—
When we walked into my apartment, Elna came out of her bedroom with a look of surprise and confusion.
“Hey! What are you doing back?” She fixed her eyes on me as if Joe were invisible.
“Change of plans,” I said, then segued right into an introduction, thinking that it was a little crazy that they hadn’t yet met. “Elna, this is Joe. Joe, this is Elna.”
They exchanged pleasantries, then Joe asked if he could use the bathroom.
“Of course,” I said, pointing down the hall to my room. “You can use mine.”
He nodded, then quickly left with our bags. Elna watched his back until he turned in to my room, then whispered, “What the heck is going on?”
I gave her the rundown, embarrassed all over again. Elna was predictably indignant and appalled on my behalf yet managed to soothe me a little.
“If Joe’s got your back, who cares what anyone else thinks?”
“I care—”
“Well, don’t,” she said.
I nodded, just as Joe returned, and Elna immediately addressed the elephant in the room.
“Cate told me what happened. That was really awesome of you to defend her,” she said. “Thank you for doing that.”
Joe nodded and slid his arm around my waist. “Of course. Always.”
I reluctantly smiled, as Elna suggested we sit down. “Can I pour you guys a stiff drink? I think you need one.”
“Okay,” Joe said. “Twist my arm.”
“Cate?” Elna said.
“I’ll take one, too. Or maybe just a shot,” I said with a laugh before leading Joe over to the sofa.
I was kidding, but a minute later, Elna returned with a small plastic tray. On it were three bottles of Amstel Light, already opened, and three mismatched souvenir shot glasses of a golden brown liquor.
“I was kidding about the shot!” I said, though it suddenly seemed like a good idea.
Elna shrugged and said, “Kidding or not, I think this situation calls for tequila, don’t you, Joe?”
He smiled and said, “Absolutely.”
She put the tray down, and said, “We don’t have limes, but should I get some salt?”
“Nah,” Joe said. “Let’s keep it simple.”
“I like your style,” she said as she handed him a “Big Apple” glass, gave me one with a British flag, and took a Vegas glass for herself.
“To having shitty mothers!” she said, raising her glass. “And lest you think I’m not in the club, Joe, mine is the shittiest of them all!”
I was taken aback that she’d just gone there with Dottie. “Joe’s mother isn’t shitty,” I said.
“Neither is yours,” Joe said to me. “But they both messed up.”
He then raised his glass. I followed suit, and the three of us threw back our tequila, returning the glasses to the tray in unison.
“So. Do you guys think I should call my mom?” I asked, glancing at the cordless phone resting on the end table next to me.
“Are you sure you’re ready for that?” Joe said in a gentle voice.
I nodded, thinking the shot had helped.
“Okay,” he said. “But don’t be too hard on her. She just made a mistake.”
“I disagree,” Elna said. “This was more than a mistake. It was totally unacceptable.” She shifted her gaze to me and said, “Let her have it.”
“Whoa,” Joe said with a chuckle. “Elna, remind me never to get on your bad side!”
“Just don’t get on Cate’s bad side, and you and I will be just fine.” Elna was smiling, like it was a joke, but I knew better, and I could tell Joe did, too.
He gave her a solemn nod, then said, “I promise.”
I took a deep breath, picked up the phone, and dialed my old home number. As I listened to it ring, I visualized the seventies green wall phone in the kitchen, willing my mom to answer it before Chip could pick it up. Instead, I heard his loathsome voice in my ear: Toledano residence.
“Hi, Chip. It’s Cate,” I said as calmly as I could, even as every muscle in my body tensed. “Is my mother there?”
“Yes. But she can’t come to the phone right now.”
My jaw clenched tighter. It was possible that she really wasn’t available, but it was far more likely that she was standing right there, and he just wanted to control the situation.
“Okay,” I said. “Will you please tell her to call me as soon as possible? I need to discuss something with her.”
“Discuss what?”
I took a breath and said, “Were you aware that my mother talked to the National Enquirer?”
“Yep. I am aware,” Chip said proudly.
In that second, I knew he’d had his hand in this. Hell, he probably called the paper himself.
I took a deep breath to steady myself, but my voice still shook as I said, “So how much did they pay you?”
“Oh, it was a nice little chunk of change,” Chip gloated.
I bit my lip so hard it hurt as my mind raced for a retort. “Well, that wasn’t very smart of you,” I finally said. “If you had held out just a little longer, maybe a few more months, until Joe and I were even more serious than we are now, that information would have been worth a lot more.”
Satisfying silence filled the airwaves.
“And also, fun fact: everyone knows the National Enquirer doesn’t pay as much as, say, People magazine. But, oh well! Live and learn—”
Before I could finish my sentence, Chip had hung up on me, confirming my victory. I put the phone down and exhaled.
Elna spoke first. “Chip?”
I nodded.
“He’s such a dick,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said, still processing everything. For one second, I felt better about my mom, even a little guilty that I had rushed to judgment. But she still shared the blame, as Elna always said about her. At most, she’d been a coconspirator; at the least, she hadn’t defended me. She never did.
I glanced at Joe, who looked confused and concerned. “Was that your stepfather?” he said.
“Yes. That was my mom’s husband. And Elna’s right. He’s a dick.”
I knew I was in tricky territory—and that the last thing I wanted to do was air more of my family’s dirty laundry. So I stopped there.
I think Elna must have sensed that Joe didn’t know the truth about how I’d grown up because she quickly changed the subject. “Okay. Screw him. What should we do tonight? Can I be your third wheel?”
“Absolutely!” Joe said so enthusiastically that it warmed my heart.
“Should we call Curtis, too?” I said.
“Yes! Call Curtis,” Joe said.
“Sure,” Elna said, then smiled at Joe. “But warning: he probably still has a poster of you on his bedroom wall.”
Joe laughed and a feeling of relief washed over me. Yes, my mom had let me down, and Joe’s mother and Berry sucked, too. But those weren’t things that either of us could control, and they certainly weren’t reasons to throw in the towel on our relationship. If anything, I could feel those things bringing us closer together, and I was reminded of what I already knew. That Elna and Curtis were more my family than my actual flesh and blood were. That you can make your own family.
I called Curtis, filling him in on everything, including Elna’s joke at his expense. He laughed, then said he’d be right over.
Over the next thirty minutes, Elna, Joe, and I finished our beers, chatting about lighthearted topics, telling Joe funny stories about Curtis. The stage was perfectly set by the time he waltzed into the living room, sat down beside Joe, and whipped out his ancient autograph book. I knew that he was just going along with the fanboy shtick, and that the book mostly contained signatures from Disney characters that he’d gathered as a kid. Honestly, it felt a bit too close for comfort to the posters-on-my-wall story line, but I bit my tongue and let Curtis be himself. I watched as he flipped open his book and handed it to Joe, along with a ballpoint pen clipped to one of the pages.
“First things first,” he said, crossing his legs. “Can I please have your autograph? I’m your biggest fan—”
Elna shook her head and laughed.
“Jesus, Curtis,” I said. “You don’t think I’ve been embarrassed enough today?”
“Oh, stop!” Joe said, swatting my leg, laughing. “I’m flattered! Should I sign here on this page?”
“Yes, please. Right under Mickey’s signature.”
“Mickey Mantle?” Joe said.
“No, sir,” Curtis said. “Mickey Mouse.”
Joe’s eyes widened. “Wait. Hold up. You’ve met Mickey Mouse?”
“I sure have,” Curtis said, sitting up straighter. “And Minnie, Pluto, Donald, and Daisy.”
“How ’bout Goofy?” Joe said.
“Yes, Goofy, too.”
Joe nodded, pretending to be impressed. “Where’d you run into them? Disney World? Or Land?”
“Neither. We met at the Philly Spectrum. Summer of ’seventy-four. Disney on Ice. I still get chills thinking about it,” Curtis said. “Life highlight for sure. This is second.”
Joe laughed and scribbled his autograph right under Mickey’s, then shut the book with authority. He put it down on the coffee table in front of a beaming Curtis.
“So,” Curtis said, pointing at our empty shot glasses. “It looks like I’m behind.”
Joe nodded and said, “Yeah, man. Catch up.”
“Okay. But I don’t do shots alone. Firm policy.”
“Fair,” Joe said. “I’ll re-up.”
“Cate and El?” Curtis asked, getting to his feet.
“Might as well,” I said as Elna nodded.
A few seconds later, we were all doing shots, opening more beers, and playing Curtis’s favorite drinking game, Never Have I Ever. It was the grown-up version of Truth or Dare, and potentially as dangerous, especially with Curtis asking the questions. He started out easy, saying, “Never have I ever picked up a hitchhiker.”
As Joe took a sip of his beer, I knew not to be fooled. Curtis was just getting started.
“Did the person freak out when they realized it was you?” he asked.
Joe laughed and said, “Nah. He was cool.”
“Unlike you,” I said to Curtis.
He shrugged, then raised the stakes. “Okay. Never have I ever…snooped through the stuff of someone I was dating.”
This time, only Curtis drank. As we all jokingly shamed him, he said, “But I always end up confessing!”
“Do you confess because you feel guilty or because you saw something that pissed you off so much you couldn’t keep it to yourself?” I asked, knowing the answer.
He made a face at me, then said, “Okay. Your turn, Joe.”
“No, man,” he said. “You’re on a roll here.”
Curtis smiled, then said, “Okay. Never have I ever…had a one-night stand.”
“Define one-night stand,” Joe said.
Curtis laughed. “Well, that’s a yes if I ever heard one.”
“For real, though,” Joe said, as I leaned in, so curious about his answer. “Definitions on this totally vary. Is it when you sleep with someone once, then never again after that? Or when you sleep with someone on the night you meet them and then never again?”
“The second one,” Curtis said. “I think the term implies that it not only happened just once, but that it was also impulsive. Like on the same day you met.”
“Okay, then. Phew. I’m in the clear,” Joe said. While Curtis and Elna drank, I came up with a legal loophole: I’d had sex with a guy I’d met one night—but after the clock struck twelve. Hence two separate days. No drink for me.
“Okay. Never have I ever cheated,” Curtis said.
Elna unabashedly drank; Curtis proudly abstained; and Joe sheepishly grimaced, then asked for clarification. “On a test? Or in a relationship?”
“Either one,” Curtis said, as I waited, staring Joe down.
Joe took a sip of beer.
“Which one was it?” I asked. “A test or a girl?”
“I don’t have to answer that! He said either—”
“Okay. Well, then…Never have I ever cheated on a girlfriend,” I said, crossing my arms and staring at him.
“Dang,” Joe said, then drank again.
“Talk about red flags,” I said, smiling.
“Stop that! It only happened once. And I was young! In high school!” Joe said. “And anyway, you cheated, too, Cate!”
“Never!”
“Yes, you did!” he said, then asked Curtis and Elna for their take on the Arlo situation and our first dinner in Paris.
“That wasn’t a date!” I said in protest.
“Yes, it was,” Curtis said. “Drink.”
“Oh, whatever,” I said, taking a long drink.
The game went on for a while, turning more outlandish and risqué.
Never have I ever had a friend with benefits.
Never have I ever joined the mile-high club.
Never have I ever gone down on someone in a taxi…or a movie theater.
Before I knew it, we were all pretty lit. I reminded Joe that our last meal had been hours and hours ago, on the boat, and suggested that we order some food.
“Nah, let’s go out,” he said. “Anyone in the mood for a nice steak?”
“Yesss!” Curtis said.
Joe started rattling off the names of high-end steak houses as Elna shook her head. “We’ll never get a reservation this late.”
Curtis and I made eye contact, and I could tell he was thinking what I was thinking—that any restaurant would bump Joe’s party to the top of its walk-in list. I had the feeling Joe was thinking it, too—and that it embarrassed him.
“You’re right, Elna,” he said. “How about a burger and beer at a dive bar?”
“Even better,” Curtis said, putting his boots back on.
The paparazzi crossed my mind, but I was tipsy enough not to care. Let them take pictures of us. Let them talk shit about me. I was with my people, and nothing else mattered.
Less than twenty minutes later, the four of us were walking into a random Irish pub on Second Avenue. I’d passed it many times but had never been inside. It was one of the things I loved about the city—there was always something new to discover. As my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, I could see that the clientele was older, mostly male, and a little rough around the edges. The best part was that they were vastly more interested in the boxing match on the small screen above the bar than the fact that Joe Kingsley was in their presence. We crammed into a small booth, ordered a pitcher of beer and more fried food than we could possibly eat.
At some point, we got up and played songs on the jukebox in the back of the bar, singing and dancing to upbeat classics like “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Brown Eyed Girl” while mingling with some of the rowdier regulars. The last thing I really remember was Joe cutting in between me and an old Irish guy. He pretended to be jealous, then kissed me right in front of everyone. It was a very far cry from dinner with Dottie Kingsley in the Hamptons—not at all the way we thought the weekend would turn out. But in some ways—really most ways—it was even better.