Perfect Tunes - Emily Gould Page 0,83

as much to do with Matt as Marie’s sadness and rebelliousness had to do with Laura. She wanted Matt to understand all this, but she was too tired to explain it all, and besides, what was the point? She felt a deep need for oblivion: a glass of wine, a cooking show, something to dull the terror that she felt every time she thought about Marie, miles away, sleeping in a strange bed in the home of a stranger who probably wanted to teach her how to hate Laura even more than she did already.

15

Daisy and Marie ate a sad limp stir-fry that Daisy dumped out of a frozen bag into a skillet, and drank more wine. Marie slowed down to focus on eating—though the food wasn’t tasty, she was starving—and soon found her equilibrium returning. Daisy, though, got drunker and drunker, continuing to refill her own glass long after Marie had cleared the table and politely started washing the dishes. Daisy talked the whole time. She asked Marie a few questions about herself but used them mostly to springboard to complaints about her own family and life. Dylan’s childhood seemed to have been her happiest time, and she looked past Marie with a dreamy expression as she told a story for almost half an hour about the first time a school music teacher had singled him out for a solo in the school band.

Marie tried to think of questions for Daisy, but she still wasn’t sure what she wanted to know about Dylan, or why she wanted to know it.

“Do you think Dylan would have liked me?” she finally asked, as Daisy seemed to be running out of steam. There was only about an inch of wine left in the big bottle.

Daisy squinted at Marie and almost smiled. “I’m not sure,” she said. “I don’t know you well enough. I don’t think he would have liked being a father—he wasn’t ready to be one. Not at all.”

“My mother wasn’t ready to be a mother, but she did it anyway.”

“Yes, and I think that’s quite odd. I don’t understand her decision. Didn’t she also have a band? She probably thought she’d get some money out of it because Dylan was doing so well with his band.”

“I really don’t think so. That’s not what she’s like.”

“So then why did she do it? Was she just disorganized and waited too long? That’s been known to happen. I don’t imagine she’d have told you that, though. She probably told you something about having been so in love, and feeling an obligation to honor his life in some way.”

Marie shrugged. That was what her mother had told her, of course. She had never questioned it; it had seemed like the truth. Daisy was an asshole for trying to make her question Laura’s motives. On the other hand, just because she was an asshole didn’t mean that she was wrong. Maybe Marie’s life—the baseline fact of her existence—was nothing but a long-con cash grab. It was the darkest thing she’d ever imagined about herself, but her odd day had left her in a mood where anything seemed possible. She thought of Laura’s voice on the phone—resigned, tightly controlled, obviously trying not to yell. What if all her overprotectiveness, which had seemed like a form of love, had just been about protecting an investment?

No, there was no way. Marie hated her mother but she also loved her, and knew that Laura loved her, too. Their life together before Matt and Kayla, which she barely remembered, had been hard. Laura talked to her sometimes about their tiny first Brooklyn apartment, her fights with the landlord over rent and heat and bugs. No one made those kinds of sacrifices or feigned that kind of affection, long term, in the hopes of getting a cut of some royalties.

She finished loading the dishwasher, squeezed the water out of the dingy sponge and put it on the corner of the sink. “Well, I guess, if it’s okay, I’ll need to figure out a place to sleep?”

Daisy shook herself out of her slumped-over position at the table. “Of course. You can sleep in your dad’s bedroom.”

16

Laura had considered canceling her studio time the next morning, but Matt had convinced her not to do anything differently; she couldn’t spend the day clutching her phone, waiting for Marie to call. Callie hadn’t replied to the email; maybe what Laura had thought was a spark had been a dud. As she tried it over and