Sugar Time

by Jane Adams

  Alex was great about it—he helped me strip the bed and change the sheets, and when I started to cry, he didn’t ask why, just held me and stroked my hair until I fell asleep again.

  Alex came down again a few weeks later for Thanksgiving. He asked if it would be okay to include his son Evan, who arrived in Echo Park with a pretty half-Asian girl named Lee whom he introduced as a friend from work.

  Evan didn’t resemble Alex at all. He was slight and fair, with longish blonde hair and pale eyes, and seemed quiet and even shy at first, but when he and Jessie started taking about music, he grew lively and animated. “Some buddies of mine and I have a band,” he explained. “Kind of an alt rock sound. We started playing together in grad school. We get a few gigs here and there—we call ourselves Last Kid Picked.”

  “Because you all used to be science nerds?” I asked.

  “Still are,” he said. “We’re playing at Spaceland next week—Dad, you won’t be here, but the rest of you ought to come. That is, if you want to.”

  “I might,’ Jessie said. “Spaceland, huh? That’s quite a coup.”

  What’s Spaceland?” Alex asked.

  “It’s a club in Silver Lake,” she explained. “They book a lot of indie acts just before they break out. Beck used to play there and so did the Black Keys. Your group must be pretty good.”

  “We have a good time,” Evan said with a modesty I found becoming as well as real, a rarity in this town, especially among the young. “But nobody’s quitting their day job any time soon.”

  “Would you, if you could?”

  “Doubtful,” he replied. “I’d rather study the stars than be one. Besides, I’m applying for the astronaut program. I know it’s a long shot, but like you used to say, Dad, there’s no percentage in playing the short ones.”

  I saw the look of pleasure flit across Alex’s face.

  “I know a couple of people who are pretty high up in NASA. Want me to put in a word?” he asked his son.

  “Uh…I don’t think so. I mean, that’s really nice of you, but I’d rather you didn’t. Not now, anyway.”

  Later I said, “How come you asked him? Why didn’t you just call whoever you know and do it?”

  “Is that what you’d do?”

  “Probably not if it meant my kid would climb into a contraption built by the lowest bidder and blast into the stratosphere. But generally speaking, sure. If I had the juice that would help them get ahead, I’d use it.”

  “Even if they didn’t want you to?”

  I shrugged. “So you apologize later, big deal. They’d get over it, especially if they got what they wanted.”

  “Even if then they felt like they didn’t make it happen, you did?”

  “That probably wouldn’t have occurred to me.”

  “I’m surprised,” he said. “I mean, given what you’ve told me about your mother.”

  Now it was my turn to be surprised. “You’re right, you know. Are you always this smart?”

  “Not all the time. But I’m a good listener. Which reminds me—when do I get to meet the redoubtable Frances?”

  “One of these days,” I said airily. In fact, I hadn’t even made my mother aware of Alex Carroll’s existence. That way, if this relationship ended up like all my other ones, I wouldn’t have to hear her tell me it was my entire fault.

  As much as I wanted to spend the whole weekend with Alex, I couldn’t. We had three more episodes to wrap before Christmas, so I sent him home Friday morning and went back to work. He called me a few days later. “I’ve got an offer you can’t refuse,” he said. “I’ve rented a house in Vail from Christmas through New Year’s. Chris and his wife are coming—did I tell you she’s pregnant? And so are Evan and his girlfriend. I want you and your kids to come, too. They all ski, right?”

  “Everybody except me.”

  “I’ll teach you. Or you can hang out with Rosie while we’re skiing. Or we’ll hire a sitter and you can do whatever you want. There’s plenty of room for everyone. And I chartered a plane, so you can all come together. You can bring Tory, too.”

  “Wow—you do things in a big way, don’t you? I don’t know what to say. I don’t even know if Zach can take that much time off.”

  “He said the restaurant business is dead that whole week, it shouldn’t be any problem. He already checked with Paul—he’s coming too.”

  “You seem to have it all figured out.”

  “You’re not mad, are you? I wanted to surprise you. Wait—you don’t already have plans for New Year’s Eve, do you?”

  I hadn’t had plans for New Year’s Eve since the last time I could remember, unless you count reserving Now Voyager, and The Way We Were at Blockbuster in case every other dateless woman in town hadn’t already rented them.

  “I’m sure George Clooney can find another date,” I told him, and somehow I found time the week before we wrapped the show for the holidays to buy gifts for everyone. I wasn’t sure about Alex’s sons, so I chose ski goggles for them, silk scarves for Chris’s wife and Evan’s girlfriend, a set of expensive Japanese knives for Zach and a red leather jacket for Jessie. I splurged on Rosie—a humongous stuffed St. Bernard, a string of baby pearls I’d add to as she got older, a darling little smocked dress and a bright yellow snowsuit. Paul got new ski boots as well as goggles, and I tucked in an extra scarf because he said Kelly was coming, too. “And no giving her the third degree, Mom,” he warned.

  “I’ll try to restrain myself.”

  He snorted. “Restraint is not a concept you’re familiar with.”

  He was right. When Alex and I went to an exhibit of Eugene Atget photographs at the ICP in New York, he’d lingered over an image of a Paris street at dawn, so when I found a vintage print of it by Berenice Abbott in a gallery on Melrose, I bought it for him, even though it cost more than all my other purchases combined. But I was feeling pretty flush, given the way the show was shaping up and also Hallie’s estimate of how much my house was worth. Jessie met me at the Beverly Center the night before we left and we bought red felt Christmas stockings for everyone, along with tangerines, wind-up toys, little electronic gizmos, disposable cameras, ski socks and ribbon candy—“It’s great, there are no baggage limits on private planes,” she said happily.

  There aren’t crowds of holiday travelers jamming the security lines either, or center seats, cranky flight attendants or stale peanuts. And you can bring your dog in the main cabin, too. Alex had thought of everything—he’d sent a limo as long as a city block to pick us all up, and even before takeoff the stewardess brought the grown-ups mimosas, a tippy cup of apple juice for Rosie, and doggy treats for Tory. As soon as we were aloft breakfast was served on real plates with heavy silver utensils—warm croissants, deviled eggs topped with caviar, strawberries with Devonshire cream, and coffee poured from a French press pot. “I feel like a movie star,” Jessie said. “Mom, you’d better not fuck this up.”

  “I’ll try not to,” I assured her.

  Alex met us at the Eagle County airport in Vail, which was crowded with Lear Jets, Gulfstreams, and a couple of 737’s. We climbed into another limo; he had more champagne waiting, and I accepted a glass—after all, I wasn’t driving. “It doesn’t get much better than this,” I told him happily.

  “Oh, yes it does,” he said. “Just wait and see.”

  The house was your basic ten million dollar ski lodge, complete with Jacuzzis in every bathroom, fireplaces in all the bedrooms, a fleet of Range Rovers, SUV’s and Snowmobiles in the garage, and a cook, maid and driver. It belonged to a wealthy Texan who’d backed Alex’s first company. “Fortunately, he never held that against me, and lucky for us, his wife likes their place in St. Bart’s better,” Alex said.

  While I unpacked and hung up my clothes, including the sexy black backless dress I’d bought for New Year’s Eve, Alex stretched out on the bed in our room. I took a satisfying soak in the tub and crawled in next to him; sex is better before dinner than after, you don’t feel like such a stu
ffed pig or make those embarrassing noises as the meal makes its way through your digestive system. I was also very horny—it was three weeks since the last time we’d made love. That’s the thing about sex—when it’s not a regular part of your life you stop missing it eventually, especially when you’re past the age when your hormones do the thinking for you. All mine were on full alert, and I used my tongue and fingers as enticingly as I knew how, but I couldn’t rouse him, so I closed my eyes, and the next thing I knew, Jessie was tapping on the door to tell us dinner was ready.

  When we came downstairs, Evan was fooling around at the Steinway in the great room; he banged out a chorus of “We’re the Brady’s,” which everyone sang amid much laughter. The week after Thanksgiving, Jessie’d gone to hear his band at Spaceland: “They’re really, really good,” she said, “They’ve got a great sound. Of course, they’re science guys, they don’t know anything about the music business, but with the right management, they could go places.”

  “Are you going to rep them?”

  “I’m tempted,” she said. “We’re talking about doing something together—we’ll see.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to go back to work until Rosie’s in preschool.”

  “I don’t—not full-time, anyway. I’m happy being a mom, but frankly, I miss being back in the world with grownups. Not that most of my clients are, but you know what I mean.”

  Love and work, career and family—it’s the same old story, no matter how equal we are, we’re the ones who have to choose between them. “It’s always a balancing act, isn’t it?”

  “At least you don’t have to deal with that any more.”

  Not this week, at least. I’d turned off my cell phone when the car picked me up, not even bothering to return the calls from Nelly and Sandro. They probably just wanted to wish me a merry Christmas, and it looked as though I had that covered.

  Alex’s older son Chris looked exactly like him, right down to the set of his jaw. There was no warm fuzzy vibe between the two men—they seemed more like two boxers feeling each other out than father and son. It wasn’t until we sat down at the table and Alex said. “Chris, would you say grace? I think we all have a lot to be grateful for tonight” that he seemed happy to be there, and Angela, his wife, shot Alex a look of relief. Alex had told me they were evangelical Christians, very active in one of those mega churches that seemed to be the center of their life. “They dragged me there when I was in Houston,” he said.

  “Did you get saved?” I teased. We were in bed, and I was blissfully post orgasmic.

  “Yep, when I met you,” he said, squeezing my ass. “Seriously, they seem to get a lot out of their faith. In a way I envy them. If you believe there’s a heaven, and you’re going there, death’s no big deal. It’s Pascal’s wager—if you gain, you gain all, and if you lose, you lose nothing. It’s basic decision theory—that is, if you think the question of whether God exists is worth considering.”

  “Do you?”

  “Not when there’s something else to think about. Like this,” he said, his lips moving down my body to where his fingers were. Then he did that thing I loved, spooning out my pussy juices with his fingers and rubbing them all over my breasts and belly before licking them off. “Pascal, huh?” I said sleepily later. “Just what I always dreamed of…a fucking philosopher.”

  I’d talked to Kelly a little on the plane, but I sat her next to me at dinner so I could get to know her better. This was the first time in years Paul had introduced me to a girl, which might mean it was serious. They say men marry some version of their mother, but Kelly was slender and fine-boned, with green eyes, red hair and freckles, as Irish as her name—also unlike me, she didn’t talk unless she had something to say. She came from San Francisco—I gathered they had more kids than money, or else they were extremely patriotic, because like her four brothers, who’d gone from high school right into the military, she’d gotten her nursing degree on the Army’s dime and then served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

  She worked in the ER at St. John’s in Santa Monica, which was how she’d met Paul. “He brought in a guy from his building site that fell off a ladder and said he was fine, but Paul didn’t think so,” she said. “He was right—the guy didn’t have any serious injuries from the fall, but we did a head scan anyway and it turned out he had something else wrong—a tumor that, thanks to Paul, they think they got in time.” Her eyes shone with admiration, or maybe it was love. “He’s really tuned into people—it’s like he’s got a sixth sense when there’s something wrong with them, you know?” Jessie and I exchanged glances across the table—yes, we knew. “He’s going to make a wonderful physician’s assistant, don’t you think?” Kelly went on. Next to her, Paul squirmed and looked sheepish.

  “Terrific,” I agreed, wondering if there were other secrets my son was keeping from me. You think you know your kids, but you don’t, really—you only know who they used to be, when you knew everything about them or thought you did.

  After dinner Evan played Christmas carols and we sang until the baby began to fuss and Jessie took her upstairs. The men settled down to watch a football game on the big plasma TV in the library, the girls said they had presents to wrap, and I stretched out on the couch with a new Dennis Lehane novel.

  Around eleven o’clock Angela and Chris announced that they were going to midnight services in the village. “Anyone else want to come?” Chris asked.

  “I think I will,” said Alex. “Sugar?”

  “No, you go ahead. I’m going out for a little fresh air and then I’m turning in—it’s been a long day.”

  I wanted him to be alone with them, and I wasn’t big on church anyway, so I went outside after they left to have the one cigarette I hadn’t been able to give up—well, maybe the second or third—when Paul joined me. “Guess I should have told you, huh?”

  “Any reason why you didn’t?”

  “I wanted to make sure I was accepted first.”

  “When do you start?”

  “In January. It’s a two-year program at USC. That day I met Kelly when I brought Brent in, and the next time I saw her when she told me about his tumor—it got me thinking, I have this thing, maybe I should do something useful with it.”

  “I thought it only happened with us.”

  “So did I. Maybe it wasn’t—you know, my thing. Maybe it was just a coincidence.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Have you sensed anyone else lately?”

  “Sort of. Not really. With Kelly once, when she…well, when she had a miscarriage. She didn’t even know she was pregnant yet.”

  I didn’t ask what the circumstances of that misconception were, but Paul looked sad, and I squeezed his hand. “Rosie would have had a cousin,” he said.

  “When the time is right, she will have,” I replied. “With anyone else?”

  “I’m not sure. It can be hard to tell.” He plucked the cigarette out of my fingers and stubbed it out in the snow. “You don’t really want that,” he said.

  “Yes, I do—I did,” I replied. “What do you think of Alex?”

  “He seems like a great guy, and obviously he’s seriously crazy about you. Do you love him?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  “Then I’m glad for you, Mom. Take good care of each other, okay?”

  “I intend to.”

  The next morning we opened presents. Evan gave us all CD’s of his band, and Chris’s wife had knitted mittens for everyone, even Rosie. Paul made me a beautifully inlaid jewelry box and Jessie gave me a red leather jacket almost exactly like the one I’d bought her—“You shouldn’t have!” we exclaimed, and every time we wore them that week we giggled.

  Alex had gone all out—new snowboards for his sons, iPods for Zach and Paul, a video recorder for Angela—“for when the baby comes,” he said—perfume for the girls, and a silver Patagonia ski parka for Jessie. He handed me a small blue box and I held my breath as I opened it. Inside was a pair of square-cut emerald earrings th
at flashed with light.

  “They’re beautiful, Alex. I love them.” I meant it—they were exquisite. But as soon as I saw the box from Tiffany my heart gave a little thump. Was it a ring? Here, now, in front of everyone? And if it was, what would I say?

  “They reminded me of that silky thing you wore that first night, remember?” he murmured as I fastened them in my ears.

  “I remember,” I said, kissing him. Besides, even if he did propose, I couldn’t marry him. The show wasn’t a sure thing yet. And I hadn’t I told him about the octopus, which would very likely write “finis” to any ideas he might have along those lines.

  Since the staff was off for the holiday Zach had volunteered to cook Christmas dinner. They’d left us everything we needed, including a turkey, and before the kids left for the slopes, he stuffed it and slid it into the oven. “Don’t forget to baste it,” he said as he went out the door.

  “I was cooking turkeys before you were born,” I said scornfully.

  “But not nearly as well,” said Jessie.

  Chris’s wife wasn’t quite past the first trimester and she’d had one miscarriage already, so she stayed behind with Rosie and me while everyone else headed for the slopes. We did the breakfast dishes and looked in the cupboards and refrigerator to see what else the staff had left us in besides the turkey. “Oh, good, everything we need for pies, should we make them?” asked Angela.

  “Why not?” I peeled and sugared the apples while she rolled out the dough on the granite counter. We worked in companionable silence, Rosie crooning to herself in the Johnny Jump-Up.

  When I brought it out, Jessie was dubious. “They don’t use those anymore, they say it keeps them from trying to walk, where did you ever find it?”

  “In a box of your old baby clothes in the basement. You and Paul used to love it. And you were both walking before you were a year old. Believe me, when she starts cutting her molars you’ll be glad you have it.”

  “You can’t tell my mother anything,” Jessie said to Angela when I hung up the sling and set Rosie inside it. Her chubby little legs dangled from the faded canvas seat and she gave an experimental bounce.