There's a Word for That

by Sloane Tanen

  “Bunny Small,” the woman said, shaking Gail’s hand.

  Janine’s stomach dropped.

  “The Bunny Small?” Amanda squeaked.

  Janine smiled without warmth. Was this a joke?

  “Well, I don’t want to interrupt. Just wanted to say hello. You’ve got a lovely family here, Martin. Congratulations.”

  “Marty,” he said and took a seat.

  “Sorry?” Bunny asked.

  “Marty, not Martin.”

  “Yes, right. Well, see you, Marty.”

  “Bye,” Amanda said, waving, glassy-eyed. Gail remained standing, watching Bunny leave.

  Marty pulled on the hem of Gail’s dress. “Would you sit down, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Please do not tell me she is the ex-wife,” Janine said. “Please.” She slumped over the table, fingers laced together over the back of her head.

  “We were married three hundred years ago, before I met your mother.”

  Janine didn’t lift up her head. “You were married to Bunny fucking Small and never bothered mentioning it?”

  “She wasn’t Bunny Small when we were married. She was a script reader. Why are you behaving like you didn’t know?”

  “Because you never told me!” she shouted, straightening up. Then, looking at Amanda: “Never told us!”

  “I thought I did,” he said with a dismissive chuckle. His mood seemed to have improved now that his secret was out. “And what was there to say? It’s dust in the wind.” His eyes lit up as he apparently decided he should share another juicy piece of information, seeing as he had everyone’s attention. “I’ll tell you this, though. We got a little loaded last night. She was so far gone, she was quoting passages from her own books.”

  Gail made a little gasping sound. “I’m sorry. You got drunk with your ex-wife in rehab?”

  He nodded as though Gail would appreciate the irony. “I slipped the masseuse five hundred bucks for a bottle of nineteen-dollar vodka,” he said with pride. “Bunny can’t hold her liquor any better than she used to.” He laughed again.

  Janine snapped to attention as she thought of something. Exactly what did her dad mean by “three hundred years ago” precisely? Could her father be Henry’s father too? Had she had sex with her half brother? She started perspiring as she considered the possibility that she’d unwittingly committed incest. And then, focusing on her spoon to stop the spinning, she pushed away those thoughts. She would deal with the immediate issue instead.

  “Getting drunk with Bunny Small,” Amanda said excitedly. “That’s crazy.”

  “What did I tell you?” Janine asked Amanda. “What did I tell you? He doesn’t want to get better. It’s all a big joke to him. Isn’t it, Dad?”

  Her father tried to look offended, but he just seemed embarrassed, as if maybe sharing his little story hadn’t been the best idea.

  “You drag us all out here and for what, Dad? Attention? You think that’s a funny story? What the hell are you doing here? And as far as your secret marriage,” Janine hissed, not about to let him get away with his lies, with not protecting her from committing incest, “what the fuck, Dad?”

  “Hey! What’s the matter with you?” he asked, stunned. His forehead was bunched up. His eyes flashed with concern.

  “What’s the matter with me? Are you kidding?”

  He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Okay, maybe you’re right. Maybe the booze was a bad idea. But it’s not like I killed someone. And so what if I didn’t tell you that I was married before you were even born? Big deal.”

  “This is a big deal!” she nearly shouted. She looked at Amanda for support. “Hello?”

  Amanda, recovering from the shock of Janine’s outburst, looked at her sister, then at their dad. “I agree you should have told us.”

  “That’s it?” Janine asked her. “That’s all you have to say about this?”

  “Christ,” he moaned, rubbing his head. “Can I get an aspirin in this place?”

  “I see no reason why not,” Gail said. “Apparently you can get just about anything you want in here.”

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” Janine said, standing up.

  “Janine,” Marty called as she walked away. “Hey!”

  “Let her go,” she heard Gail say. “She needs to process it. We all do, Marty.”

  The text from Gail appeared as Janine sat on the toilet. What had it been, three minutes?

  Hi, honey. I’m waiting outside the bathroom. I didn’t want to follow you in. So, I’ll be outside the bathroom. Waiting for you.

  “He’s something else, isn’t he?” Gail asked as Janine exited the ladies’ room. She crinkled up her blue eyes, pulled Janine over to a nearby seat, and handed her a tissue before taking one herself. “Drinking in rehab! Who ever heard of such a thing? Only your father,” Gail continued, trying not to cry. “So thoughtless.”

  Janine suddenly found herself painfully aware of the charm of Gail’s company. She was dependable and sympathetic, an irresistible combination for the needy. “I’m sorry,” Janine said. She had her own reasons for being angry but all this couldn’t have been easy for Gail either.

  “Bunny Small,” Gail said, wiping a glob of mascara off her face. “I understand he’s not obligated to tell me every last person he ever married, but that he was married to her, was drinking with her,” she whispered. “In here!”

  “Maybe we should tell Mitchell?”

  “Not yet,” Gail answered, fishing through her cosmetics bag. She cleaned up her face using a mirror in a small gold compact and then snapped it shut. “No, I think I’ll handle it. Besides, what would they do to him? Make him stay here longer, with her? Force him to paddle around in a canoe? He’s got to understand that his actions have real consequences, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Janine nodded, unsure exactly what she was agreeing to.

  Gail’s voice was full of resolve when she spoke again. “I’ve invested a lot of time and energy in your father, you know. And he just…he obviously just doesn’t understand the way things work.” Then a shade of panic clouded her tenacity. “You don’t think something’s going on between them? Bunny Small and your father?”

  “No,” Janine said, happy enough to reassure Gail on that front. “He’s not a cheater. He just likes to flirt.”

  Gail nodded, comforted. “Mm. And they have no chemistry together. Anyone can see that.” She took a deep breath, satisfied. “I’ll have a talk with him later. Help clarify things. Anyway, I’m more concerned about you now,” she said with seemingly genuine affection. “You were very angry in there.”

  “I’m fine,” Janine said. Her voice cracked.

  “Oh, honey. You are not fine.” Gail swallowed Janine in a hug and a cloud of cloyingly sweet perfume. Janine had to work to hold back the tears. Nothing undid her like maternal affection. It was her kryptonite.

  Gail sat back and took Janine’s hand. “C’mon, sweetie. Tell me.”

  “He just invents these narratives, like, Oh, yeah, I told you that I used to be married to her, blah-blah-blah. It’s insane. He just wants to sweep all the problems or whatever under the rug, pretend it’s normal, that everything is okay. Meanwhile he’s a fucking drug addict, clearly not fine, but we’re not supposed to talk about that because—what? It makes him uncomfortable?” Janine let out a mocking laugh. “Just like my falling apart after my mom died made him uncomfortable so he encouraged me to slither away to New York rather than telling me to go back to acting or to high school, to college. How about making me do something with myself? How about being a parent? I was fifteen!”

  “I think you’re conflating a lot of issues,” Gail said, obviously confused at the conversational turn. “You can’t blame him. It was a very difficult period. He did the best he could.”

  “I do blame him. And he didn’t do the best he could! He did what was easiest. He just paved over the cracks with an allowance and an apartment and the delusion that everything was fine. He had to know it wasn�
�t. I know he means well, but he lies to himself until he believes the bullshit he’s saying. Which brings me back to this secret first wife. And don’t tell me it’s the drugs. It’s not the drugs. It’s his personality. I always forgive him and this is just unforgivable.”

  “Now, that was a shock.” Gail paused, clearly more interested in Marty’s first marriage than in Janine’s issues with her father. “But hardly unforgivable. I’m not making excuses for him, but I can certainly imagine it would have been difficult for him to tell you girls so many years later. He wants you to idolize him. He doesn’t want to do anything that might mar your perception of him.”

  “Seriously? He’s getting loaded in drug rehab with an ex-wife I never knew he had. It’s a little late to pretend he’s Ward Cleaver.” Then, thinking of Henry, Janine stood up quickly and started pacing in tight circles. “Fuck!” she said loudly. “Fuck!”

  “You’ve got to calm down,” Gail said, looking around the room, then at Janine, confused by her uncharacteristic dramatics. “I can’t excuse his drinking with her. But I think you’ve simply got to think of his not mentioning his marriage as a calculated omission.”

  “Yeah? Well, I just had sex with the son of his calculated omission,” she blurted out. “With Bunny’s son.”

  “Is that what this is really about?” Gail suddenly smiled, blue eyes sparkling. “Well, good for you! He must be very wealthy.”

  Gail was certifiable. Janine had no words.

  “What’s his name?” Gail asked. “Bunny Small’s son?”

  “Henry,” Janine said. She was wondering if she should talk to Henry or just casually disappear from his life. She wasn’t quite ready to discuss her bigger concern, that Marty Kessler could be his father. Not with Gail anyway.

  “Henry,” Gail repeated, almost wistfully. “Like the character, of course! That’s wonderful.” She looked at her watch and immediately stood up, smoothing the green dress over her girlish hips. Janine could feel Gail’s urge to get back to her dad now, to show him how forgiving she was, to tell him how she’d saved the day by talking his fragile daughter back to the shores of sanity. “Look, honey, tell him how you feel, clear the air, but not today. It’s his birthday dinner. Let’s try and get through this, all right? And one more thing…”

  Janine looked up at Gail.

  “Patch things up with Amanda? It’s important to your father that you two get along. She’s had a hard run lately, with the divorce and the kids. She needs you.”

  Janine exhaled, resigned. Gail reached into her bag for a small perfume bottle. She spritzed her wrists and rubbed them together. “Let’s go back in now,” Gail said, and she teetered off in the direction of the dining room. Then, from a few steps ahead, without looking back, she said, “And smile, Janine. You’re practically as pretty as Amanda when you smile.”

  Marty

  Marty spent the morning making calls. Once Gail had been assured he wasn’t getting it on with his ex-wife in the detox ward, he had to admit she’d been pretty decent about the whole thing. Of course, Gail had made it clear that his transgression would cost him. But that wasn’t news. If he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life alone, it was looking more and more like he’d have to marry Gail. Lately he’d come to think of himself as the Sisyphus of matrimony. He just wished the boulder would stop pulverizing him on the way back down. Anyway, at least she was helpful. She’d even managed to talk some sense into Janine, help her understand that she’d overreacted.

  Perhaps it hadn’t been his finest moment, but he was nonetheless mystified over his daughter’s uncharacteristic rage. Hurting Janine was the very last thing he wanted to do. The simple truth was that he was embarrassed about his exceedingly brief first marriage. The whole thing was clearly a mistake, a youthful transgression he’d hoped to bury, just like that ducktail pompadour he’d gotten on his seventeenth birthday. He’d never seen any reason to tell his daughters (or anyone) about that first marriage. What possible good could have come of their knowing?

  He wanted to apologize, but he also wanted to talk to Janine about his financial situation—about her financial situation. His dinner with Bunny had floodlit just how poorly he’d managed the money he’d earned, how easily he’d given it away. He’d misled his girls into thinking they didn’t have to worry. They did have to worry. They wouldn’t be left with nothing, but if he wanted to keep Gail happy—and he knew what Gail expected for her services, for her companionship—they wouldn’t get much. He owed his daughters the truth or, at the very least, a version of it.

  “So we’re good?” he asked Janine on the phone after a clumsy plea for forgiveness. “You gotta know I feel like a real asshole. The booze was a stupid move and maybe I never told you about Bunny because I figured it would just complicate what was already your fairly complicated childhood.” He laughed. “The marriage was a blip.” He paused. “And I’m sure I told you at some point?” He took in the silence on her side of the phone. “I guess I never did. Sorry.”

  “Okay,” she said, gracefully accepting his apology.

  “Good. Anyway, I need to talk to you about something else now,” he started, trying to come up with a way to tell her about the grim reality of her financial future.

  Janine, as Marty had expected, wasn’t interested in hearing it. He could practically see her digging her fingers into her thighs, holding her breath, once he got to his will. He couldn’t help but be touched that his daughters always found these conversations so distasteful, especially compared to Gail’s response; for her, the topic seemed to function as an aphrodisiac.

  Over the years he’d tried to talk to his girls about what they could expect, but they always received the information as clumsily as he delivered it. They had a childlike faith that it would all work out and that he would never actually die. All three of them behaved as if his will were akin to that earthquake-preparedness kit he kept in the trunk of his car. Good idea to have it, but best not to dwell on an unpleasant and unlikely scenario.

  “It’s just that I always thought there would be enough,” he tried to explain to Janine. “There was so much for so long and…I’m just sorry is all.”

  “Stop, Dad. Everything’s good.”

  A short pause, as he didn’t know what else to say. “Maybe you could go buy yourself something?” he said, his voice catching on a sob. “You should do that. Treat yourself to something nice. Put it on my credit card.”

  “I’ve got to go, Dad. Amanda’s texting me.”

  “What about?”

  He was happy enough to change the subject and he was pleased his daughters were communicating.

  “I don’t know. Something about Hailey. It’s fine,” she said, anticipating his next question. “Talk later. Love you.” And she hung up.

  Marty stared at the phone. He wasn’t sure that he’d accomplished what he’d set out to do, but at least he’d tried. That was better than nothing.

  Janine

  Janine hung up with her father and reread Amanda’s text.

  Can you come over? I need a favor for the kids. It’s an emergency.

  Janine didn’t want to deal with Amanda’s problems. She was obsessing about that conversation with her dad and wondering what possible job opportunities there could be for middle-aged former child actresses with no work experience or skill sets. She took a deep breath and swallowed a Xanax to calm the wave of panic. She messaged back.

  What kind of emergency?

  Kevin’s an asshole.

  What does that have to do with me?

  Now he says he can’t stay with the girls next week while I’m away. One of his dipshit patients is “in crisis” and Kevin claims he can’t abandon him.

  Again, why do I care?

  I’m not comfortable going to San Francisco with the cast if I don’t have anyone staying with the girls. I HAVE to go to SF!!!!

  Was Amanda kidding? Janine typed quickly.

  To clarify, you want ME to take care of your precious daughters? As of yesterd
ay you weren’t even letting me see them. Now you want me to be their babysitter? That’s funny.

  Please don’t be a pain in my ass right now.

  No way. I don’t know anything about kids. Just send them to San Diego for the week.

  Jaycee is on probation and she can’t miss school. Hailey just had surgery. I can’t send them anywhere. They’re not cats.

  Can’t they just take care of themselves?

  What about their behavior suggests they can be left alone together? I have nobody else to ask, Janine. Unless you want me to go to Gail. Have I ever asked you for a favor? Ever?

  She didn’t have the emotional wherewithal to deal with Amanda today, not after that conversation with her dad. Not after the horrifying story Gail had relayed about Jaycee whacking her sister in the face with a stick. Fuck. Her phone chimed again.

  Sorry. I’m stressed. Just come over so we can talk about it. You can hang out with Hailey. She’ll be thrilled. Like Make-a-Wish Foundation thrilled.

  Janine went to the bathroom before responding.

  Fine. I’m leaving in ten minutes.

  Can you leave right now? I have an imp meeting. Thanks.

  Fifteen minutes later, Janine parked in front of an ugly stucco apartment building in Brentwood. She checked the address again. Janine always thought of Amanda as having nice taste. She remembered the house Amanda and Kevin had owned in San Diego as being modest but charming.

  “Welcome to mediocrity,” Amanda said after she opened the door and gave Janine her perfunctory version of a hug. She was dressed in a powder-blue pencil skirt, heels, and a matching blazer so tight it doubled as a Wonderbra. “Jay’s back at school. Hailey’s asleep.”

  “Okay,” Janine said, stepping inside, taking in the space. She had been wondering if maybe she could move in with Amanda if things got really bad financially. No way. The apartment had the sterile, anonymous look of a bachelor pad. It was like a hotel-brochure photo without the benefit of a long lens. How could her sister live without art on the walls, without rugs on the floor or books on the shelves? In LA, living in an apartment past the age of thirty suggested something had gone wrong.