“Okay, cool,” Matty answered, on to the next thought as usual. “Mom, want me to pour?” he asked, coffee carafe in hand.
“Sure, sweetheart, thanks. I’ll just be in my—the—bedroom getting started. Bring it in, would you?” Cassie took the cartons off the counter and made her exit without another word or glance at Jeremy. That wasn’t lost on Matty.
“This is weird, huh?” he said to his father as he poured two cups of coffee. “I mean, this must be kind of a mindfuck, y’know, after all this time and all.”
Jeremy didn’t immediately answer. He didn’t want to seem callous or angry, which he was at some level (Jeremy was hardly charming when Cassie appeared just now), but he also knew he had to move on, was moving on; his wife of a quarter century certainly had, with little discussion or fanfare. As for right now, he just wanted to finish his breakfast, chat with Matty some more, and get back to his script.
“It’s all a little strange, yeah, but I’m muddling through,” Jeremy answered as Matty peered into the refrigerator. “If you’re looking for almond milk, I still don’t have any.”
“What? Oh, no, I’ve started drinking it black. Just getting some 2% for Mom. But I see you only have nonfat.”
“You know me: Mr. Healthy,” Jeremy kidded as he chewed on a (thankfully presliced) sesame bagel with cream cheese. Joyce had dropped off the skim milk the day before along with some other groceries. Maybe she was trying to tell him something. Somehow Jeremy managed to stay thin without eating particularly well or exercising a lot—make that, at all. Maybe it was genetic (he was built like his dad) or maybe worry kept him lean. Either way, he needed to improve his diet and fitness. Turning fifty was no joke, which he was definitely finding out the hard way.
Matty, still standing at the open fridge, observed his bagel-scarfing father. As if reading his mind, he suggested Jeremy start going for walks.
“Get your heart going,” he told him. The phrase made Jeremy think of kissing Annabelle, which made him a little sad.
“With this thing?” Jeremy asked incredulously with a chin nod to his abduction sling. “It’s hard enough lugging it around the house much less up and down the hills.” Jeremy’s street was fairly flat but once you left it, the surrounding blocks, rustic and lovely as they were, were mostly curvy and steep. Or maybe he was just making an excuse. Here was another one: “Besides, I’m not exactly dressed for public consumption—despite my awesome sweatpants.” Jeremy hadn’t taken off the teal togs since he’d gotten them; it might be time to introduce them to the washing machine.
“Fine,” Matty agreed, “then at least do laps out back. It’s flat, close, private.” He gestured out the window at the yard.
It wasn’t big, but bigger than the yards of most of the houses on the street, where canyon-view decks were often as “backyard” as it got. Jeremy and Cassie even talked about putting in a swimming pool the first few years they lived there, but the mood—and the money to do so (her law school tuition took over)—passed.
“A half hour a day is all you need,” Matty assured his dubious dad, one ready cup of coffee now in each hand.
“I should walk in circles for half an hour? I don’t think so.” He finished his bagel, guiltily contemplating toasting another half.
“Talk on the phone, listen to music—you have Pandora, don’t you? The time will go. And you’ll be doing your body a huge favor.”
“Frankly, I think my body owes me a favor,” Jeremy tossed off as Matty was about to exit the room.
He stopped, considered his dad. “Tell you what, let me help Mom pack up, then I’ll walk the backyard with you. It’ll be fun. We’ll bond.” Matty flashed a sly grin at Jeremy (he looked so much like Cassie just then it was uncanny) and disappeared down the hallway.
Jeremy called after him: “You drive a hard bargain, pal.” He rose to make that second bagel. At least now he had a good excuse: carbo-load for the big walk.
CHAPTER
19
An hour after she so unceremoniously arrived, Cassie left the house with four packed pieces of their old black Tumi luggage (which she was doubtlessly not planning to return), a wide khaki-colored duffel bag that Jeremy didn’t recognize, three Hefty bags full of who knows what, and the two cartons Matty came in with, now filled and sealed. Jeremy would have helped Cassie and Matty out to the car but, technically, he wasn’t allowed to leave the kitchen (plus he couldn’t lift much anyway), so he stayed put and watched Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on the Food Network. The show’s jokey, tattooed, spiky-haired host was visiting a Vietnamese joint in a Sacramento strip mall, and he pronounced the food there “pho-nomenal.” The guy could be a little annoying, but he was making a lot more money than Jeremy.
While Matty was packing up Cassie’s car, she returned to the kitchen to say goodbye. Jeremy had hoped she would just drive away. No, he didn’t. Not really. Much as he didn’t want to admit it, he didn’t want to be ignored but also didn’t want to ignore her. He hated this clumsy, unkind standoff. His worry: it was going to get worse before it got better. That was the nature of divorce, wasn’t it?
Jeremy asked, “Get everything?” as he muted the TV.
“For now,” Cassie said, placing her and Matty’s empty coffee cups in the sink. Jeremy could only wonder what else she wanted. He flashed on all those scenes in older movies where divorcing couples split up their books and records, tangling over a dog-eared copy of The Grapes of Wrath or a treasured Billie Holiday album. Technology had rendered a lot of that immaterial (who gets the Kindle?) but who knows what has sentimental value until you have to let it go? How about the marriage itself?
Jeremy offered her a half-assed olive branch: “What’s your new apartment like?” Cassie seemed taken aback as if this were privileged information. “What, is it a secret?” he asked, snapping back that olive branch.
“It’s nice,” she finally answered. “It’s just one bedroom, but there’s this little sort of den area and a decent-sized balcony so … yeah.”
Jeremy nodded, thinking back on their years together, bits and pieces zipping past like a flicked deck of cards.
He rose from the table to face Cassie. “Hey, can I ask you a question?” he asked, attempting a casual tone. He was a terrible actor.
“Depends on the question,” Cassie volleyed with the faintest smile.
“What did you mean that day when you said I failed the test?” And before she could wriggle out of it, added, “C’mon, what did you really mean?” It was a question Jeremy hadn’t expected to confront today or one that Cassie seemed eager to answer. It hung there like a bat from a rafter.
Cassie studied Jeremy’s sallow, expectant face as she composed her thoughts. Her response came in two pointed words: “The party.”
“The party? As in my birthday party? That was the test?”
“That was the test,” Cassie answered with unsettling matter-of-factness. Jeremy, a dull pain coursing through his right arm and shoulder from standing in place, stared at her with such unforgiving puzzlement that Cassie was forced to continue.
“If the party went well, and it made you happy, it would mean that I still made you happy. But if you didn’t enjoy it, couldn’t enjoy it and therefore couldn’t enjoy—or at least appreciate—what I was trying to do for you, then it would show me that you were not worth fighting for. That we were not worth fighting for. Turns out, we weren’t.”
If it wasn’t quite the explanation Jeremy expected, it was yet no great shock that the fucking party was the culprit, a kind of wolf in sheep’s clothing that led to such a heedless marital demise. “You set me up,” Jeremy realized, part question, part accusation.
“Actually, you set yourself up,” Cassie redirected. That law school education sure was paying off.
Jeremy felt a pounding in his chest (forget walking to boost his heart rate, he just needed to fight with his ex-wife) and had to sit dow
n again. It was also a way of restraining himself from lashing out at her, something he knew would open the floodgates of blame, make them both say things they’d regret. To his surprise, Cassie sat across from Jeremy, then took his free hand in hers. It felt soft, warm, familiar. He gently withdrew it.
“I told you I didn’t want the party, but you threw me one anyway. What did you expect?” Jeremy said quietly.
“Frankly, exactly what happened.”
Her complacent tone was replaced with one of simple resignation. Jeremy wasn’t sure which was worse. He also wasn’t sure where to go with this. What’s done was done.
Fortunately, before anything else needed to be said, Matty bounced in through the back door. “Car’s all packed. Amazing how much stuff you can jam into that little—” He stopped short at the sight of his tense, grave-looking parents. “You guys okay?” he asked, knowing the answer but asking nonetheless.
Jeremy, breakfast plate in hand, scrambled up from the table. “Yeah, honey, everything’s fine,” he said as brightly as he could. “Hey, I meant to ask you, how’s that bark mitzvah coming along?”
“Oh, it’s a total shitshow,” Matty said. “You wouldn’t believe it. Couldn’t be crazier if it was for an actual person.” All in the same breath, he turned to Cassie. “Are you sure you don’t want me to follow you to your apartment, help you unload the car?” He swiveled back to Jeremy. “And then I’ll come back, and we’ll take that walk.”
Cassie rose, ready to go. “That’s sweet of you, baby, but no need to make two trips. Stay here with your dad,” she said. Cassie hugged Matty goodbye and left for the place she would now call home.
Jeremy and Matty were on what seemed like their eight hundredth lap around the backyard’s imaginary swimming pool, though they’d only been walking about four minutes.
“Having fun yet?” asked Matty, who was in his glory, like a kid who finally got a distracted parent to play LEGOs.
“I feel kind of foolish, especially lugging Big Bertha around,” Jeremy said into his abduction pillow. “Think anyone can see us?”
“In Jungleland?” Matty deadpanned as he swept a hand around the overgrown yard with its towering ficus hedges, ivy-shrouded fencing and lofty wall of bamboo. “Maybe someone in a low-flying plane. Or a drone.”
“Where did you get your sense of humor, anyway?”
“Not from you,” Matty elbowed his dad, “that’s for sure.”
“I happen to be very funny.”
“Your reviews are funny, I’ll give you that.”
“Were funny. And really only the bad ones. Which, I’m not proud to say, were like shooting fish in a barrel.”
“I don’t know what that means, but if you say so,” Matty said, as they entered ridiculous walk, minute five. “Do you miss it?”
“What, reviewing? Like my right arm,” Jeremy answered in a timely comparison. It hadn’t hit Jeremy quite that bluntly since he was fired (then again, no one had actually asked), but yeah, he did feel pretty wistful about his film critic days—years. Especially when he opened the Times’ Calendar now and read the work of his fellow reviewers. At least he hadn’t been officially replaced yet; that softened the blow.
“And to think I’ve been called a drama queen!”
“You asked, I told you,” Jeremy shrugged. “But working on my old screenplay again has helped a lot, so …” He almost walked into the bamboo as he rounded a curve and righted himself. Matty noticed, cocked his head.
“Walk much? Oh, that’s right—no!”
“You try getting around in this monster sling, let’s see how agile you are,” Jeremy retorted, though he knew Matty probably would’ve used it as some sort of body-strengthening tool.
“All I’m saying is, the more physical you can be, the better you’ll be at it,” advised Matty with a guru’s aplomb.
“Tell you what, let’s talk about you,” said Jeremy, who, truth be told, was enjoying this cyclic stroll if only to spend thirty uninterrupted minutes alone with his boy who, miraculously, hadn’t once checked his phone. “How’s Sven?”
“Sven,” Matty repeated flatly. “I think Sven is history.”
“Oh no!” Jeremy was sorry to hear, though not terribly surprised. He also knew this story would be good for at least fifteen diversionary minutes around the yard. “What happened?”
Here was the deal with Sven: though he was three years older than Matty, he’d had a lot less dating experience and ultimately didn’t want to be exclusive the way that Matty wanted to be. Or said he wanted to be, Matty’s track record being what it was. Still, as Jeremy had intuited, Matty was pretty hot about this guy and was taking the budding relationship more seriously than usual. “If I meet someone I’m really into, I’d like to keep it going, not fuck it up, know what I mean?” Matty confessed. “I’ve decided I’m into quality, not quantity.”
He may have just reached that verdict, but Jeremy would give him the benefit of the doubt.
“Does that mean you deleted your Grindr app?” Jeremy wasn’t entirely serious or joking; he wasn’t even sure he had the right name. Apparently, he did.
“How do you know I’m on that?” Matty asked, amused, as if his father couldn’t possibly know about anything as cool as a gay hookup app much less that his son might use one.
“I think your mother may have mentioned it,” Jeremy said casually, remembering that Cassie did recently bring it up. And was it Jeremy’s imagination, or were Matty and he walking increasingly faster? “Whatever works, just be careful,” Jeremy added. “I’m not judging.”
“You shouldn’t. A lot of marriages started with a Grindr swipe.” Matty pulled ahead of his father. “C’mon, old man, keep up,” he said with a smile. They were walking faster.
Jeremy quickened his pace. It actually felt good. “Is that what you want now? A marriage?”
“Sure. Eventually. Doesn’t everyone?” asked the guy who couldn’t commit to how he took his coffee.
Still, what would have once seemed like a perfectly logical question now felt a bit alien to Jeremy. He considered his answer; Matty picked up on the pause. “Maybe not the best topic this very second, huh?”
“No, it’s just … well, you’re young, you don’t need to be thinking about anything as serious as marriage yet.”
Matty noted, “You were only, what, two years older than me when you and Mom got married? And you were my age when you met.”
“Maybe that was too young, I don’t know,” wondered Jeremy. “Even if it didn’t seem so then.” They walked in silence. “Whatever, you fall in love with someone and all bets are off. It’s not really something you can predict—or plan.”
“Yeah, the last thing I need now is to get married,” Matty declared, unraveling the whole thread of the conversation. “But it looks like I do need a new boyfriend.” He checked the Fitbit on his wrist: “Five more minutes and you’re outta jail.”
“What if I want to keep walking?” Jeremy challenged.
“You won’t,” his son rightly predicted with a sideways grin.
Regardless, Jeremy wondered who else he could ask to take these walks with him. Yeah, they were silly, but his workout options were limited right now. He thought of Annabelle. Wouldn’t something like this count as part of occupational therapy? How nice it would be to spend this kind of quiet, one-on-one time with her, if under the guise of physical improvement. But did she want to see him or even hear from him? It wasn’t looking that way. (Didn’t she say as much by suggesting he find a new OT?) But he also knew you didn’t often develop feelings for someone who wasn’t feeling them back.
“Y’know Annabelle?” Jeremy asked Matty.
“The OT you have a thing for?”
Jeremy paused but didn’t dispute that, just kept going. “She mentioned she had a nephew, Greg or Gavin or something—no, Gabe. Thought you two might hit it off if you
were ever looking. So you’re looking, right?”
“Did you see a picture?” Matty asked, interest piqued.
“A picture? No, but I could probably get you a phone number if you wanted.” Jeremy told himself he was doing this for his son, which he was, but it felt scheming. It didn’t stop him.
“Someone’s nephew,” Matty mulled, as if an aunt or uncle couldn’t possibly be a reliably objective matchmaking source (and as if he wasn’t someone’s nephew himself). “I don’t know.”
“It was just a thought,” Jeremy said, surprised Matty was at all hesitant, maybe underestimating—or overestimating—the selection process of someone who met random strangers on his cell phone. “If you change your mind, let me know.”
“Okay, sure, get me his number,” said Jeremy’s whiplash-inducing son. God bless him.
They finished their walk, and Matty made Jeremy promise he’d do it every day from then on. Jeremy said he would, then they went inside and obliterated the loaf of homemade banana-walnut bread Joyce had brought over the day before. Maybe walking had its perks after all.
Jeremy sat at his desk waffling over whether to text or call Annabelle until he finally just dialed her number and hoped for the best. She’d left his house the last time with such vague finality it was like someone writing a long and important letter without signing or sending it. Was her message truly complete or was there a missing P.S. that would have left an opening for Jeremy if he chose to pick up on it? Or was he overthinking the whole thing as usual? He’d find out.
“Jeremy?” Annabelle answered. It was the tone of someone who didn’t play games.
“Hi, it’s Jeremy,” he responded superfluously, a bit too eager and bright. His voice cracked like a twelve-year-old’s.
“I know. It says so right here.”
Jeremy imagined Annabelle pointing to her phone. He cleared his throat.
“Right,” he stalled. “So, how are you?”
“I’m okay. How are you?” she asked, with what seemed to Jeremy like concern but could have also just been rote professional courtesy.
The Last Birthday Party Page 13