Page 90 of Bloom

“The network thinks they can rehab my image, and they’re offering me a correspondent’s position back in New York.”

“That’s good,” I say quietly. Shouldn’t I be happy for him? I pull from the part of me that should celebrate this fact but find nothing there.

“Yes, it’s beyond good. But look, they’re trying to rehab Edward’s image too.”

I suck in a breath and hold it. “Yeah?”

“And they need to make sure you don’t refute anything he says about your relationship.”

I feel something harden in me. “Well, as long as he’s telling the truth that shouldn’t be a problem. Because we had no relationship.”

“No two people are ever going to have the same version of events, Eleanor,” he says. “You know that. Look, just avoid reading the papers, and if you get calls from the media, tell them you have no response.”

“Are you kidding me?” I ask. “So you expect me to let him say whatever he wants and just not worry about it?”

“Yes,” he says. “No one is going to believe your word over his anyway. So why let yourself get upset over nothing?”

“Because I didn’t do anything wrong, and I already lost my job because of him. I’m not letting him destroy my reputation too.”

“Eleanor, you have no reputation because no one knows who you are. Or cares. Therefore your ‘reputation’ doesn’t matter. But mine does. We’re on the cusp of recovering here. I get that job and you can have your allowance back and your credit card and everything else. And it’s probably time we got you a better car than that piece of crap you took to the beach. Everything is turning around is what I’m telling you. As long as you don’t mess it up.”

I sit back, momentarily speechless. “So basically you’re trying to buy my silence.”

“Jesus,” he snorts. “Must everything be such a drama with you? Maybe you should be looking at a career on Broadway instead of the news.”

“Explain to me how I’m wrong,” I reply. “You just told me that no matter what Edward says about me, I’m supposed to stay quiet, and if I do I get an allowance and a car.”

“That is not what I said,” he snarls. “I need to work, Eleanor. I don’t know who you think is paying for Cornell next year if both your mother and I are unemployed, but unless you want to stay in Delaware waiting tables for the rest of your life, you’d better stop acting like a child and get with the program. It’s not just my life that turns to shit if this doesn’t happen.”

“Good talking to you as always, Dad,” I say quietly. And then I hang up.

James is staring. “I already want to hit your dad and I don’t even know what he said.”

“Apparently there’s a big story coming out, and my father’s job is somehow contingent on me staying quiet. And if I don’t, he’s implying there’s no one to pay for school this year. I honestly don’t know who he’s become,” I sigh. “I mean, how could he become this awful person overnight?”

“He didn’t,” James replies. “Your dad was always a self-centered dick. My parents loathed him even when you were little. I think as long as he was the center of the universe at home and at work he held it together, at least in front of you. Now he’s not and you’re seeing what other people already knew.”

He reaches out and grabs my hand, and I smile at him.

“You want to hear the lamest thing ever?” I ask.

“Sure,” he says, his mouth twitching.

“There’s pretty much nothing this summer that hasn’t gone wrong,” I tell him, and then I look at our clasped hands. “And I’m still about as happy as I’ve ever been.”

He pulls me into his lap. “I’m so happy that it scares me a little,” he says. “I feel like I’m one step away from turning into Max. My impulse when you tell me your dad is threatening not to pay for school is to suggest that we both drop out and go work at Vail.”

“I don’t ski that well.”

“I guess you could wait tables,” he grins. “But you don’t do that so well either.”

“And you do both things well,” I say. “It’s a little unfair.”

He presses his mouth to the sensitive spot just under my ear. “All the things I care about? You do them perfectly.”

Chapter 49

It’s Ginny who brings it home.