Excerpt: This Beautiful Life

She leaned over, the fixed lens of the camera catching a tiny smattering of blemishes on her cheek, like a comet's spray. Her hair had been bleached white, with long blond roots, and most of it was pulled back and up into a chunky ponytail above the three plastic hoops climbing the rim of her ear.

The song began to play, Beyoncé. I love to love you, baby. She stepped aside, revealing her room in all its messy glory. Above the bed was a painting; the central image was a daisy. A large lava lamp bubbled and gooed on the nightstand.

She was giggling offstage. Suddenly, the screen was a swirl of green plaid. Filmstrips of color in knife pleats. Her short skirt swayed along with her round hips. A little roll of ivory fat nestled above the waistband. She wore a white tank top, which she took off, her hands quickly finding the cups of her black bra. The breasts inside were small, and at first she covered them with her palms, fingers splayed like scallop shells. Then she unhooked the bra in the front and they popped out as if on springs. Her hands did a little fan dance as they reached below her hemline and lifted up her skirt.

She'd done all of this for his benefit. To please him. To prove him wrong. She reached out for the little toy baseball bat and the next part was hard to watch, even if you knew what was coming.

Two parties. Both of Elizabeth Bergamot's children had parties to go to. Jake, the eldest—his longish brown hair suddenly grazing his collarbones, his eyes the color of muddled mint—was on his own that night, of course. His party was up in the Bronx, in Riverdale, somewhere near his school. He was fifteen and a half the previous Friday. It was pretty ridiculous that the Bergamots continued to celebrate this increasingly minor milestone—his half birthday—with half a cake and half a present. Richard, Liz's husband, had started the whole business ten years earlier, when he'd surprised them both by bringing home half a deck of cards that year, the other twenty-six miraculously appearing overnight under the boy's pillow.

"He's five and a half on Cinco de Mayo," Richard had said, by way of explanation. "Is there a better cause for celebration?"

Since the gesture was so touching, so sweet and fatherly, and Richard was a Californian by birth, Liz had trusted him on the import of such things, Mexican things. Plus, it seemed fun—a fun family tradition! It was what Liz had always hungered after despite generations of contrary evidence: relatives as respite, home as haven, a retreat from the rest of the dangerous, damaging world.

Last Friday, this Cinco de Mayo, Jake got half a set of car keys in the morning over his Lucky Charms. The true key to the kingdom was to be delivered, along with tuition for driver's ed, on his actual birthday, in November.

But for tonight's party, Jake would have to rely on some cocktail of public transportation—bus, subway, bus, subway, subway, cab—although there was always the possibility that some other love-addled mom like Liz would drive him home. Liz herself was otherwise occupied. It was his job to figure it out.