Page 27 of The Five Year Lie

There’s a polite tap on my door, and even from this oblique angle I can make out the silver halo of my mother’s hair through the misted glass.

Hell.

I hide my glass on the floor between the sofa and the wall. Then I get up to open the door.

She enters on a breeze of Jo Malone fragrance and... tequila?

“I made margaritas!” she announces.

“Margaritas,” I echo, my gaze dropping to the ceramic pitcher in her hand. It saysPARTY TIMEin a bright script, and it’s decorated with cheerful lemon wedges. I’ve never seen it before in my life. “So you did.”

“Take this,” she says, passing me the pitcher. “I have to go back for the glasses.”

I stand in my open doorway like a dummy, the pitcher freezing my hands, as she dashes back to her own kitchen. She returns a moment later with a pair of giant margarita glasses—the kind you’dsee at a beach resort. There’s salt on the rims, along with perfect lime wheels.

“This is... a surprise,” I manage to say. I’ve never seen my mother sip anything stronger than a glass of wine with dinner. My father didn’t approve of women drinking. I wonder if she’s everhada margarita.

Who is this woman?

“I’m still capable of surprises.” She gives me an arch look as she sets the glasses down on the counter. There’s also a canvas shopping bag over her arm. From the bag she extracts a brand-new Moleskine notebook with the plastic wrapper still on it, followed by a wooden bowl with two wells—one filled with chips, and one filled with salsa. “We have a wedding to plan, Ariel. I need your help. It has to be perfect.”

“Why?” I say before I can think better of it. Butwhyis the theme for this week.Whydid I get a text from a dead man? Why was he lying to me?

And so on.

“You make a good point,” my mother says cheerfully, pouring margaritas into both giant glasses. They’re frozen margaritas, too. I guess my mother’s Vitamix learned a few new tricks tonight. “The weddingdoesn’thave to be perfect. I don’t need to be perfect for Ray. Or for anyone else.”

You can practically hear her therapist’s voice in there.Nice work, Dr. Benti.

“... But I’dliketo throw a nice party. I thought we could brainstorm.”

“Okay, but weddings aren’t exactly my specialty.” I carry both glasses over to the sofa.

She follows me with the chips and the notebook and settles herself into the little armchair. She pins me with a gaze that’s much sharper than she ever would have used on my father. “Then you can drink a margarita and fake it for an hour, Ariel. I’m asking nicely.”

I take a gulp of frozen margarita and wonder if aliens have swapped her body for someone else’s. We don’t do this. We don’t bond over drinks and share our deepest desires. For the first twenty-five years of my life, we had nothing in common except shared animosity toward my father, and often each other.

She wanted me to be a good girl, so that he’d shut up.

I wanted her to grow a pair and tell him where to get off.

But then he was gone. And after Buzz was born, things got easier between us. We finally had common interests—baby clothes, toys and all the cute things Buzz says and does.

A wedding, though? “All right. What’s your plan?”

She sips from her giant margarita with the daintiness of Queen Elizabeth from her teacup. “This won’t be an ordinary wedding. Second weddings can be so gauche.”

I guess she’s still in there after all. “So no church, then? And no big white dress.” I lean over the bowl of chips and start eating them as if it’s my job.

“Definitely not.” She unwraps the notebook and pulls a fountain pen out of her pocket. She opens to the first page and starts writing. “I want a casual setting. Forty or so guests. Fifty—tops. Close friends only.”

“Casual setting—like the country club?”

She shakes her head. “Anywhere but there. That’s where your father and I had our reception.”

“Oh.Shit. Okay, not there. Too much likeHamlet.”

She laughs, and then our eyes meet over the rims of our respective margarita glasses. “This is weird,” she says. “I know it is. But I’m going to hold my head up high. Just like you do, darling.”