If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home Now

by Claire Lazebnik

  My parents were in heaven; they loved playing games like this. When I was little, we’d play hours and hours of board and parlor games, but once I was a teenager I just wanted to go online or watch TV and couldn’t imagine anything dorkier than playing games with my parents.

  Tonight, though, even I was having a good time.

  At around nine-thirty, Andrew looked at his watch and said, “I should go.”

  “But I wanted to play Quelf,” Noah said.

  “Another time.” Andrew rose to his feet. “You guys wore me out with all that football. Which reminds me”—he turned to me—“should I come play with Noah on Sunday?”

  “Isn’t Gracie getting back then?” I asked.

  “She won’t be in LA until midday. There’s plenty of time.” He shook Dad’s hand, kissed Mom on the cheek, thanked them both, hugged Melanie and gave her a kiss on the cheek, bumped fists with Noah… and then just kind of nodded at me. “See you Sunday,” he said and headed toward the door.

  Why hadn’t he kissed me too?

  “I’ll walk you down to your car,” I said suddenly.

  My mother turned to look right at me when I said that. I pretended I didn’t notice.

  I followed Andrew to the living room, where he retrieved his jacket and tie, and then we left the house. I closed the front door behind us and we walked down the gravel path.

  Andrew said, “That was a nice evening.”

  I glanced sideways at him. Why hadn’t I thought he was cute that first time in Louis Wilson’s office?

  Because I’d been angry at him. I tried to remember that anger and it seemed an eternity ago.

  I liked his face now. He was cute in a way that grew on you.

  We were already at the car. “Well, thanks,” he said and unlocked it.

  I rubbed the short hairs on the back of my neck. He had said I should grow my hair out. Why had I cut it so short? Just to prove something? I was an idiot. “Thanks for coming,” I said.

  He nodded and opened the car door. “See you.”

  “Wait,” I said. He waited. “What do you want?” I asked abruptly.

  “Excuse me?” He looked a little startled.

  “I mean for Sunday. Cookies? More cupcakes?”

  “Oh. You really don’t have to make me anything.”

  “I’m going to anyway, so you might as well choose something.”

  “Well, then…” He thought a moment. “How about brownies?”

  “Brownies it is.”

  “Make them safe for Noah.”

  “Yeah, I will.”

  He opened the car door and stood there a moment, sliding his hand idly along the door edge. There was this weird moment. A pause. Neither of us was moving or saying anything, but it felt like one of us should. Like the evening had changed something and we needed to acknowledge it before he left.

  Or at least that’s what it felt like to me. For all I knew, he was thinking about having a mug of cocoa when he got home.

  He broke the silence. “Well, good night, Noah’s mom.”

  “You still don’t know my name?”

  “I just like calling you that.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Good night, Noah’s coach.”

  Another pause. He looked down the street, absently, and then swung his head back toward me. “Okay,” he said. “Good night.”

  “Again with the good night?”

  “Sometimes it takes a few of them to get me to actually leave. Especially if I had a good time and don’t want to go.”

  “So… you had a good time?”

  This time he didn’t look away during the pause. He studied me for a moment, thoughtfully. “Rickie—”

  “Ha—so you do know my name.”

  “Just a lucky guess.” He grinned, but then his body gave a sudden, convulsive jerk.

  I stepped forward, concerned. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. My phone. Startled me.” He pulled it out of his pocket and punched a button. “Oops. I was supposed to be home by now. Gracie goes online on the ship’s computer at the same time every night so we can IM. I’m late.” He looked up but his thumbs hovered over the keypad. “Sorry. I better—”

  “No worries.” I retreated. “See you on Sunday.”

  “Yeah. Bye. Thanks again.” He ducked into the car and closed the door. As I entered the house, I glanced back and saw him texting away in there, his face lit up only by the glow of his phone, his brow furrowed in concentration.

  17.

  He canceled for Sunday morning.

  There was a voice mail waiting on the home machine when we got back from seeing a movie Saturday night. Mom hit the Play button and Andrew’s voice said, “Hey, first of all, thank you all so much for a terrific Thanksgiving dinner. I had a great time. So it makes me feel especially bad that I have to cancel for tomorrow. Turns out I was wrong about when the ship docks and I have to pick up Gracie at ten. Tell Noah I’m sorry and that I hope he’s up for the last week of basketball season.”

  “Gracie. That’s the girlfriend, right?” Mom said, turning to look at me.

  I shrugged and left the room before she could see how disappointed I was.

  I had already made the brownies.

  When I went to pick Noah up from the last basketball game on the following Friday, Andrew spotted me and called out, “Hey, Noah’s mom—hold on.” He pushed his way toward me, through the gaggle of girls who always surrounded him at the end of practice or games.

  “What?” I said brusquely. I was annoyed at him for canceling the previous weekend. It wasn’t a fair annoyance, given the fact he was working with Noah for free in the first place, but I wasn’t feeling very fair at that moment.

  “Two quick things. First of all, I brought this for you guys.” He unclipped a piece of paper from his clipboard. “It’s an application to the winter session of T-ball at the Westwood rec center. I think Noah should do it.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Being on a team like that is really hard for him.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m coaching. I’ll make sure Noah’s on my team and help him along.” I accepted the flyer he held out. My irritation was rapidly evaporating. He was standing in front of me in his baseball cap and coach’s sweatshirt, all earnest and wanting to help, and it wasn’t irritation I was feeling anymore.

  It would have been better for me if it had been. This other feeling was worse.

  “Please do it,” he said. “I think it would be good for Noah. I know it would.”

  “What’s the other thing?” I asked, studying the flyer like it was fascinating even though I wasn’t actually taking in any of the information.

  “Friday night one of the moms is throwing a pizza dinner to celebrate the end of the basketball season and all the girls specifically requested that Noah be included. Can you make it? I’ll e-mail you the details.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Oh, god, another event surrounded by parents I didn’t know, but Noah would want to go. He loved these girls.

  And Andrew would be there.

  “Great.” He clopped me on the upper arm in a fraternal, friendly way. “Make sure you sign Noah up for that team, okay? I have big plans for him.” He started to move away, but then he stopped and turned back. “Oh, and sorry about Sunday. I felt awful I had to cancel. Was he okay with it?”

  “He was fine,” I said, which was true. It hadn’t bothered Noah at all. “So, uh, how was the cruise?”

  He shrugged. “She claimed she missed me too much to have fun. But what else is she going to say?”

  “Ha,” I said. “Good point.” I stepped away. “Come on, Noah, let’s get going!” There was an edge to my voice, something a little too high and harsh. I hoped I was the only one who heard it.

  Noah totally broke my heart the evening of the pizza party when he came downstairs all ready to go in a tie and button-down shirt. “Do I look okay?” he asked anxiously. “I wanted to dress up for the party.”

  “Very handsome.” I just hoped th
ere wouldn’t be any boys at the party who might make fun of him. “How’d you know how to tie the tie?”

  “Grandpa showed me how but I did it myself.”

  The ends were wildly uneven and the knot was one big lump. “If you want me to smooth it out—”

  “Why?” he asked. “Did I do it wrong?” He tried to look down at his own neck.

  “No,” I lied. “It looks great.”

  “You’re not very dressed up,” he pointed out.

  “This is a new top,” I said. “I’ve only worn it once before.” I didn’t tell him that it had taken me half an hour of trying things on to choose it. It was black of course, but more girlish than most of my tops, since it was cut in a baby-doll shape, tight at the bust and hanging loose down from there. I had spent extra time playing with my hair, too, getting it to wave in the right ways and not the wrong ways. It didn’t look as good as it had that first day when Harlan had styled it, but it was okay.

  Noah was still studying me with a critical eye. “Why do you always wear jeans?”

  “They’re comfortable.”

  “I think you should wear a dress tonight.”

  Yeah, right, that was all I needed—to show up in a girly dress and high heels at the fifth-grade basketball pizza party. Talk about looking desperate. “Forget it,” was all I said. “Let’s go.”

  “Did you chip in for the gift?” he asked once we were in the car and on our way.

  “What gift?”

  “For Coach Andrew.”

  “Nobody told me about a gift.”

  “Ask one of the moms, okay? Ask them. I want to be part of the gift. You should ask them.” His voice was strained with sudden anxiety.

  “Okay, okay. I’ll ask.”

  “Don’t forget,” he said and played with the ends of his tie, flicking them lightly against his cheek and lips, until we arrived at the address I had been given.

  The girls swooped down on Noah and whisked him away to play with them the moment he arrived. They treated him like a pet dog: they patted him and called to him and hugged him and exclaimed over how cute he was (the tie was a big hit). He ducked his head a lot, shy but smiling.

  That left me a little stranded, without my usual armor of Noah’s clinging to me, requiring attention. Andrew wasn’t there yet and I didn’t know any of the mothers. I recognized them all from picking Noah up after practice but I’d never hung around long enough to talk to any of them. There were some dads there, too, for once.

  The hostess eventually spotted me and introduced herself and told me how cute Noah was and how much her daughter adored him. She introduced me to the other moms, who all seemed to know who I was.

  Then again, Noah and I kind of stood out.

  I asked the hostess mom about the coach gift, and she told me they were all chipping in on a restaurant gift certificate for him and his girlfriend and if I wanted to contribute I could but I didn’t have to. As I handed her a ten, she added that she’d chosen Il Cielo because it was “the most romantic restaurant in LA.”

  I would have steered them in a different direction.

  There was a sudden clamor at the door: the coach had arrived, and the girls were all racing over to greet him.

  “Oh, look!” said the hostess. “He brought his girlfriend! That’s so sweet.”

  And there was Gracie, looking undeniably stylish in a long, narrow cardigan over a pair of tight jeans and a light linen scarf that was tied artfully around her slender neck.

  She was beautiful. The sun had been bright at the festival, and I had been wearing sunglasses, so I hadn’t appreciated how perfect her skin was or how golden her hair. Probably highlighted, but so well done that if it had been possible for an adult woman to have hair that clear and bright, you would have believed that it was natural. I touched my brutally short, plain brown hair. What had I been thinking?

  In what conceivable universe would a guy who had a girlfriend like Gracie look twice at a loser like me? A single-mother college dropout who was short and ratty-looking and dependent on her parents?

  I slumped back against the wall, hoping to fade into the background and not be noticed. A couple of minutes later, though, one of the dads approached me. He was sipping at a can of Diet Coke and wore a pair of loose jeans and a worn-out T-shirt that would have made more sense on a teenager than on someone with a receding hairline and saggy jowls.

  “Hey,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve met.” He held out his hand. “I’m Dane Miller. Pammy’s dad.” We shook and I explained who I was, while he totally looked me up and down. I was used to getting the once-over by parents at Fenwick but usually by moms who wanted to check out the tattoos and the piercings, and they tended to sneak discreet looks. This guy just put his head back and checked me out, top to bottom. I didn’t like it, but it wasn’t the first time a guy had assumed that the piercings and tattoos meant I was potentially some kind of sexually available freak.

  He realized I was staring stonily back at him and smiled at me, unembarrassed. “Thought you were a babysitter at first,” he said lightly. “So you’re Noah’s mom? He’s a cute kid.”

  I relaxed. He was just your garden-variety doofus, nothing threatening.

  “How old are you?” he asked.

  “Seventeen,” I said with a straight face.

  “Wow.” He glanced over his shoulder to where Noah and the girls were all vying for the coach’s attention. “And your son is—how old?”

  “Six,” I said. “It’s a very complicated story.”

  “I’ll bet. I’d like to hear it sometime.”

  “I’ll make sure I tell it to you,” I said, laughing a little.

  He drew closer. I think he thought I was flirting with him as opposed to making fun of him. I mean, couldn’t the guy do math? No one has a baby at eleven. “Does that hurt at all?” he asked, flicking his finger in the direction of my nose stud.

  “Only when I sneeze” was my automatic response.

  “You must dread the cold and flu season. But it’s cool. I like it.” I would have bet this guy was some bigwig in the entertainment industry. He had that weird mixture of arrogance and cultivated boyishness that those guys always had. He took another pull at his Diet Coke. “You act at all? You look like you could be an actress.”

  I shook my head and said, “Oops, looks like my son needs me,” which was a complete lie but gave me an excuse to wander off.

  I managed to avoid the guy for the rest of the party.

  After the pizza was eaten, Andrew handed out certificates to all the girls, saying something funny and sweet about each one in turn. Then, amid all their applause and chattering, he held up his hand and said, “I’m not done yet. I couldn’t have coached this team so successfully without the incredible support of my ever-enthusiastic, ever-ready, ever-able assistant, Mr. Noah Allen. Come on up here, Noah!”

  The girls cheered as Noah shuffled his slow way to the head of the table where Andrew was standing. Gracie was sitting next to him, smiling her big gracious smile at everyone. “Thanks for everything, buddy,” Andrew said to Noah, cuffing him on his shoulder and handing him a certificate all his own.

  Noah accepted the certificate without even saying thank you, but I could tell he was just too overwhelmed to remember to be polite. He ran back to where I was lurking at the far end of the table, and I admired the award while he bobbed from foot to foot, excited.

  Now the hostess was calling for attention. She thanked Andrew for being such a great coach and handed him a large envelope, explaining that inside was a restaurant gift certificate from all the families on the team.

  Andrew thanked her warmly and said he and Gracie couldn’t wait to use it.

  Gracie took that as her cue to speak. “This is so great,” she said, gesturing at the envelope. “Thank you all. He’ll finally take me somewhere nice!”

  “Hey!” he said and they smiled into each other’s eyes.

  “Come on,” I whispered to Noah. “Let’s go.” We sneaked out
quietly.

  That night I went to Ryan’s apartment: my idea, my call.

  I threw myself on him the second we were inside, slamming my body up against his and plastering my mouth hard against his lips. He responded with a mixture of amusement and enthusiasm, and we were on his bed in record time.

  “I feel so used,” he said, as we lay back, panting a little, most of our clothes still on, only undone enough to be pushed out of the way. “It’s just ‘wham, bang, thank you, mister’ with you these days.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I needed that.”

  “Clearly.”

  We were silent a moment. Then I said, “When do you leave?”

  “In four days.”

  “Shit,” I sat up. “That’s soon.”

  “I know.” He pulled at a hank of my hair.

  “Ow!”

  “Why’d you cut it all off?”

  “It was Melanie’s fault.”

  “How so?”

  “She told me not to.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, she should have known better.”

  “Don’t go,” I said suddenly.

  “What?”

  “Don’t go. To Turkey. Stay here.”

  He scooted up in the bed and put a pillow behind his back. “Rickie.” Just the one word, but there was a world of disappointment and weariness in it.

  “I know,” I said. “I know that’s not how it works. But things can change, right?”

  “They’re not going to.” He took my hand. “And you know that.” I didn’t say anything, just sat there, staring at our hands. “Is everything okay with you, Rickie? You don’t seem happy.”

  I pulled my hand away. “When have I ever seemed happy?”

  “Sometimes you’re less unhappy.”

  I flopped onto my back. “I’m sick of my life,” I said. “I want to change it, but I don’t know how to.”

  “Get a job. Go back to school. Start dating. Do some charity work. Make a difference in the world.”