Best Day Ever

by Kaira Rouda

  Yes, I bought the home next to my parents, even before I met Mia. I knew where I wanted to live, and when it became available, I was there. Life requires planning, don’t you agree? My wife had grown comfortable with the arrangement, though of course, like any new bride, initially Mia had her concerns. She wasn’t from here, so she didn’t understand how close family can help you out, how nice it would be for the kids to know their grandparents and be able to toddle over to their home. She came to appreciate the setup, after our home was whipped into shape. Naturally, I let Mia and her mom completely renovate the place. You wouldn’t even recognize it from my primitive man cave days. But that was all part of the plan. I provided the shell, a “fabulous 1931 masterpiece,” according to the Realtor’s brochures, “that just needs some TLC.” Mia and her parents provided the TLC and much more. Our wedding gift. As a thank-you, I presented Phyllis, Mia’s mom, with a vintage Italian Mosaic pillbox.

  “This is fabulous, thank you. I’ll add it to the collection, next to the other one you gave me. You are just so thoughtful. And I don’t have any mosaics, how did you know that, Paul?” Phyllis’s bony arms had wrapped around my waist. I tried not to flinch.

  “Just a lucky guess, Phyllis,” I managed, although of course I knew. I’d saved a photo Mia took of Phyllis’s collection, the little trophies displayed on a mirrored table in Phyllis’s dressing room. It’s very important to keep your mother-in-law on your side.

  On mornings like this, before my parents died, we would have walked the boys across the green grass of our lawn and then over to the front walk of my mom and dad’s one-story house, depositing them for safekeeping for the weekend. My boys weren’t old enough yet to notice how small their grandparents’ home was, compared to the rest of the street. I’m just waiting for the new owners to smash it down, build a McMansion.

  But anyway, back when the boys were little the smell of my mom’s famous chocolate chip cookies would have greeted us at the door and the comforting sound of cheers from fans at some sporting event would be blasting from the television set my dad turned up too loud. The rocking chair my mom had used to calm me as a child had been returned to the corner of my parents’ bedroom. The tub of wooden blocks I’d played with as a kid magically appeared in my parents’ family room as soon as Mikey was old enough to start creating forts.

  Sounds idyllic, doesn’t it? Just as life should be for my privileged sons. Doting grandparents next door, a luxurious home to live in filled with pricey furnishings, a stay-at-home mom and a hardworking dad. My boys had it made. And they loved my parents, especially my mom. As for me, as long as my dad and mom both followed my rules everything was perfect. Family is family. Family first, and all that. If you aren’t needed, then fine, make other plans. But grandkids come first. They only violated that rule once, my parents. In my book, you always make time for your favorite son’s kids, no matter what. I’m sure you agree.

  Of course, now that my parents are gone we rely on babysitters of varying skill levels. In retrospect, my parents, despite their age, probably would have done a better job of keeping my sons safe than the gangly teenagers we now employ and overpay.

  My parents would have been a better choice for this weekend, for example, undoubtedly more effective than Claudia, who arrived this morning looking overwhelmed. Big dark circles hung below her wide eyes and her nails were bitten to the core. Maybe she’s on drugs, I think suddenly, wondering if I should ask Mia her opinion. Better not, though. She’d want to turn around and rescue the boys. We need this time together, this great day together. Claudia isn’t the only one who is overwhelmed; she just looks the most like it.

  I’m pretty adept at covering my emotions. For instance, my wife always wonders if it bothers me, living next to the ghosts of my parents. She doesn’t put it that way, just says things like it’s odd seeing the new family painting the front door a different shade of brown. I think it’s odd they haven’t torn the thing down, but I don’t say that. Things like that, the little things, don’t get to me. Big things, those bother me, but still I might not show it. “Poker-face Paul,” my friends called me growing up. I’m proud of that. It has served me well in sales.

  A natural born salesman, that’s me. I’m not bragging, not at all. I know, in fact, that many people don’t even like salespeople. They think we’re unsophisticated and lowbrow, no matter what we sell. Me, I don’t care, not as long as I’m making the big money. And I have. It has been a great ride. Even Mia, when we first met, may have considered herself above me. She was a copywriter on the creative team and I was just a client services guy. Now she knows what’s what. It didn’t take long for me to teach her how the world works.

  “Paul, I need to use the bathroom,” Mia announces, closing the magazine on her lap as if she could just pop out of the vehicle and relieve herself along the side of I-71.

  “Oh, okay, I’ll pull off at the next exit and try to find someplace acceptable,” I say. The facilities on this road are subpar at best.

  “Make sure it looks clean,” she adds as if I have X-ray vision capabilities. Typically, we do not take bathroom breaks on the drive to the lake house. The boys know this, Mia knows this. But in her weakened state, and on this, the best day ever, I will make an exception without shaming her. I’m in a loving, flexible mood.

  “Right. Gas station or fast food? Your choice,” I offer. I’m not about to be blamed for choosing the wrong bathroom for her. This I say with warmth in my voice although I do not want to stop at all.

  “I’ll let you know when we see the options,” she says, reopening the magazine. I’ll let it go, my disdain for the fact that she isn’t more appreciative of my willingness to stop for her. I glance at her, engrossed in the meaningless celebrity drivel opened on her lap.

  She should stop reading that trash.

  “You know that magazine is all gossip. The stories about celebrities are completely made up. Nobody is as happy or as sad as they make it seem in there. Life is lived in the middle. In middle America, like here, in the middle of nowhere, like now, and in the middle of life, like us,” I say. I’m feeling poetic today, although I don’t believe for a moment that I am normal, or in the middle of anything.

  “Paul, I’ve never heard you call yourself middle-aged.” I think Mia is teasing me but there is an edge in her voice.

  “I’m not,” I say. “All those guys are older than me in there. They get airbrushed. If you saw them on the street, you’d be disgusted at how old they are. It’s not real. That’s all.” I’m tired of this subject. I’ve never been a gossiper, or a reader of tabloid magazines, of course, but I know how the world works. People are always talking. Heck, a few years ago Mia heard from somebody back home that people think we aren’t happy. And just recently, the rumor has something to do with me flirting with a saleswoman at the mall. Ridiculous. I hate malls. As a rule, I shop at boutiques or online. Not that the gossips care to take a little thing like facts into account.

  Anyway, back when the first wave of rumors started a few years ago, Mia launched what she called the “rebranding” effort on Facebook, posting photos of the two of us in various places, laughing and smiling together. Some of the shots are really old, but as long as I look good, I’m fine with it. She says it has worked, because she hasn’t heard the rumors anymore. I don’t tell her I have, and I certainly don’t mention the mall rumor, because she’d ask me when and where, who and in what context and I wouldn’t be able to tell her that, of course. I’m not a gossip.

  I glance over and see my wife is reading an article about one of the late-night television hosts. Now, that’s a job I could nail. I mean, sitting behind a desk, talking with famous people about nothing but fluff and getting paid like a king. I don’t even know how you get a gig like that. As I look a bit closer, I realize the guy in the magazine looks a lot like Buck, our neighbor at the lake. Kind of a refined look, I guess you’d say. Lean but muscular bui
ld, dark brown eyes, a strong, manly jaw. It’s the type of look you see in New York, on Wall Street, or on television, not something you see around here. That’s what makes it odd that Buck lives at the lake year-round. Hardly anybody does because it’s cold and miserable in the off-season and nobody else is around. It’s like he’s a spy and he’s hiding from something or someone, that’s what I think.

  He seems successful, though. I heard through the grapevine that he sold his big home somewhere in Connecticut when his wife died, and now he’s here “regrouping,” whatever that means. The woman who told me doesn’t know much, though she’s the designated neighborhood gossip for our block up at the lake. Every street has one. She’s just not very good at her job. Google knows a lot more about Buck than she does. And that’s not much.

  “McDonald’s or BP?” I say as I pull to a stop at the stop sign. We’re in the middle of nowhere. The town of Kilbourne is several miles west down Route 521. A right turn will take us to a McDonald’s, a left is the gas station. And as far as I can see, there is nothing else.

  “McDonald’s,” Mia says with that tone of disgust she uses for all things—people and situations—that are below her. Recently, Mia has become a firm anti-GMO, anti-fast-food mom. She was leaning that way before her recent illness, but now she’s militant. I applaud her for the herculean effort it takes to say no to two boys who will, as soon as they are old enough to hang out with friends at malls or go to the movies alone, be the first ones in line at every fast-food restaurant in town, stuffing themselves with all things nonorganic and fried. I also have pointed out, at least once each year as we drive to the lake, the fields as far as the eye can see of Monsanto Roundup Ready corn and soy proudly framing the highway. It’s almost un-Ohioan, Mia’s stance on the issue.

  We should embrace what we are, don’t you think? We’re a no-till farming, profracking, pro-GMO, pro-Monsanto state. It’s our heritage, I tell her. Did you know Columbus is a fast-food mecca? It’s true. We are the test market for most major fast-food chains. Us folks are the definition of America. We are the barometers of taste, at least the kind of taste that comes when you can buy an entire “meal” for under a dollar. We’re the hometown of Wendy’s and White Castle and of several others like Rax that have come and gone. Remember Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips? Yep, that started in Columbus, too, thanks to Wendy’s Dave Thomas, who made his fortune as a Colonel Sanders Kentucky Fried Chicken franchisee. Makes me hungry just thinking about that battered British fish. Not that I regularly partake in any of these low-class foods myself. When I do it’s just a guilty pleasure. Everyone has his occasional vice.

  “Do you want anything?” Mia asks, her hand already opening the door.

  “Fries?” I ask, just to get a reaction. It works.

  “Honestly, Paul? I meant do you want water or coffee or something. You know how I feel about this so-called food. A poor diet leads to a shorter life, all the studies agree. I’ve been reading a lot about this, remember? I’m trying to get healthy and it wouldn’t kill you to work on that, yourself.” She leans forward and points her finger at me like I’m a child. I feel her eyes on my stomach. I suck in.

  The magazine ruffles in the wind from the open door and the blonde female singer on the cover looks as if she’s waving to me. She’s cute, I notice. I reach out and smooth the cover with my hand, touching the cool, glossy paper.

  My wife softens her tone. “I’ll get you a water. Hydration is key to health,” she adds and then slams the car door before I can reply. I watch her walk away. From behind, she looks like the same woman I married a decade ago. Her hair still swings halfway down her back. Her butt is small and firm and perfectly toned. She looks very much the same, but she’s not. Not at all. None of us really stay the same, though, do we?

  My transformation is more apparent, I realize, as I look down at my middle-aged, small beer belly and sigh. It’s comprised of something called internal fat, I’ve discovered, a fat that appears suddenly, like an army of ghosts, and then digs in to stay. It’s distasteful to think that fat isn’t just sitting in a layer on top of my belly, like I’d imagined, but is actually tucked in beside all of my organs, oozing around them like it’s a part of the whole, not an addition to the top. It’s in the ice cream, it’s not the cherry. Basically, they can’t liposuction it off and they can’t freeze it away. The only way I can shed this thing is through hard work—less food, more exercise.

  I plan to tackle this unwanted midsection addition soon. It’s next on my list. I’ll eliminate it as I do anything I set my mind on. It’s just a matter of willpower and mental fortitude. I’ve got those, don’t worry. When I suck in my stomach, as I did for Mia, it doesn’t follow my command, not nearly enough. I’m on it, soon.

  Unlike me, in the last six months or so, Mia has really thinned out. She’s shed the baby fat even though I swear she eats more, and more often, than I do. And though she looks fit, she’s also a bit worried about the weight loss. I tell her that’s crazy, most middle-aged women would die to have their weight melting away despite eating anything they like. And she looks good. She took up jogging a year or so ago, but cut back on that. Just doesn’t have the stamina these days. Mostly, she uses the free weights in our basement. Sometimes she’ll still walk around our block, if she has the energy.

  Maybe she’s so thin because she stopped eating meat—excuse me, “animal protein.” That could be, but I attribute it more to stress; you know how parenting can take a toll on your intestines sometimes. Worry ties your system up in knots, or so I hear, not being prone to worry myself. They checked for ulcers, but she didn’t have any. Just a mystery, I guess.

  She even went to this one doctor who had her hold different vitamins and minerals in her hand, and then pushed on her arm. I mean really? What does that do? Spend your money is what. Mia came home with hundreds of dollars’ worth of herbal treatments. None of it has helped, of course. She’s big on drinking water now, too. Staying hydrated. She tries to drink only from glass bottles. Good luck with that here, honey.

  Mia has pulled her hair into a ponytail, I notice. I can see her standing at the counter, placing her order. The other thing I see is the other customers, the men, checking her out. Yes, guys, she still has it, I confirm with a nod to myself while watching them all watch her. She is walking toward the car now, a plastic water bottle in each hand and a big tooth-whitened smile eclipsing her face. She was voted best smile in high school, and it’s still there, that smile. Although it’s bigger now, I suppose. Our gums recede with age, making all of us long of tooth, and Mia especially. But don’t get me wrong, only I would notice such a thing. Her bright blue cotton sweater, blue jeans, and white tennis shoes make her stand apart from the rest of the people going in and out of the McDonald’s parking lot. Everyone else seems more muted, a black, gray and navy composite of people dressed for business, farming or trucking. It’s an eclectic yet monochromatic bunch this morning, except for my wife and her bright blue.

  Mia pulls open the car door and slips inside. “Good choice. Cleanish bathroom. Short line. Here’s your water,” she says as she hands me the cold bottle. The plastic is cheap and crackles in my hands. It’s the type of water bottle that will spill out half its contents when I open it, I know it is. The bottle will have a label explaining why this cheap, shitty plastic is better for the environment than any other, more sturdy plastic. I know it’s just cheaper. I also know I should have gotten out of the car to open the bottle. I should have gotten out, just to stretch. Perhaps I should have gotten out of the car and opened the door for my wife. I’ll do that when we stop for gas in a little while. We have all day and she could use a reminder that chivalry is alive and well thanks to Paul Strom.

  “So you think Taylor Swift is cute, huh?” Mia asks as I pull out of the McDonald’s parking lot.

  “Who?” I ask. I know who the pop starlet is, everyone does. I even like her song, “The Story of Us.” B
ut why would my wife ask such a random question?

  “I saw you checking out the cover.” Mia holds up the gossip magazine while tilting her head. Her eyes are shining as if she has caught me drinking milk out of the jug. I love drinking milk out of the jug, but alas, if my wife catches me, it’s that same disappointed, shiny-eyed look I receive. Usually, she adds a hand on the hip, but that’s hard to execute in the front seat of a Ford Flex.

  “Why would I check out some magazine when I could be checking out my beautiful wife?” I protest, pushing the accelerator hard to merge back onto the highway. I’m glad they finally finished the fifty-million-dollar project to widen this freeway to three lanes on either side. I slide back into the flow of traffic without a problem. They have spent more than a billion dollars on this road since it opened in the 1960s. What I would do for a billion dollars. Taylor Swift has a billion dollars, I’m sure. “She’s a very talented young woman, but I had no idea that was her on the cover. They all look the same with the makeup and airbrushing and all.”