by Juliette Fay
“If you’re not interested, that’s fine,” he said quickly. “No hard feelings.”
Her mind flicked to Kenneth’s look of horror in the stands, then to his condo, where Tina’s light blue furniture now roamed freely, dominating the landscape.
“I’m interested,” she said. “I’d be very happy to go out with you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.” As soon as the word was out of her mouth, she was second-guessing herself. How well did she know this man? Was she even attracted to him? He was good-looking—tall and muscular and blue-eyed. Though his eyes were so close together as to be located almost on the bridge of his nose. And he yelled a lot. Which was probably just a coaching thing. Still . . .
“This weekend isn’t the best, though,” she said quickly. “I have the kids, and I tend to make social plans on the weekends they’re with their father.” This was true, but the sad fact was she rarely had any plans at all on the weekends.
“Oh.” He sounded disappointed. “That’s about two weeks from now.”
She offered an apologetic sigh. “I’m sorry.”
“No, that’s fine. Really! It’s nothing to worry about. Let’s call it for that Saturday, and I’ll give you a jingle in a week or so with some details. How’s that for a plan?”
“Great.” That gave her two whole weeks to process all this—two weeks to worry, she realized. “And thanks for asking.”
“Thanks for saying yes!”
When the call ended, Dana put her hand over her mouth and squeezed but couldn’t subdue a wide grin. She had gone from Unwanted to Wanted in the course of a phone call!
Alder appeared and leaned in the doorjamb, crossing her arms. “He asked you out,” she said.
Dana picked up a towel to fold. “I guess he did. Grady’s coach—that one from the—”
“Yeah, I know. The huge guy who kept touching you.”
The skin prickled along Dana’s scalp. “Was it that obvious? Because I wouldn’t want people to think I was purposely . . . or that, you know, we weren’t focusing on the game . . .”
Alder shrugged. “Nobody thought anything. Besides, who cares?”
I do! thought Dana. But she knew that was the wrong answer. Why did it matter what anyone else thought? “Should I have said no? He seems like a very nice man.”
Alder shrugged again, picked up a washcloth, folded it, and set it on the stack in the linen closet. “He’s a guy,” she said, and went back into the TV room and turned out the light.
CHAPTER 9
A COUPLE OF NIGHTS LATER, DANA WAS SETTLING into bed when the phone rang. The caller ID read STELLGARTEN, K. I hope he knows he can’t talk to the kids at this hour, she thought, and wondered if he might be calling to ask about Coach Ro and that little scene at the game last Sunday.
“Hi,” he said. It was neutral enough, but Dana now knew for sure that something was bothering him. The tone was too low, as if that one note rang a whole minor chord.
“What’s up?” She tried not to smile in case he could tell and think she was gloating.
He took a breath, seemed about to say something but exhaled instead. “Well, I was hoping things would turn around,” he began.
Things, she thought. Maybe he and Tina were having trouble. Satisfaction glinted through her like something gold-plated, followed by a twinge of guilt. Don’t build your happiness on the unhappiness of others, she told herself. She’d seen that on the tag of a tea bag once.
“I didn’t know if you’d heard, or read it in the paper,” he said.
“The paper?” Had there been some sort of altercation between them? Had the police been called? In all the years of their marriage, he’d never even yelled very loudly.
“Yes, Dick Portman—you remember him. The CFO. The grand jury indicted him.” Dana had seen him at company parties. His shirt cuffs were frayed, and he didn’t seem to be spending much on dry cleaning. He was the chief financial officer. She just thought he was frugal.
“Indicted?” she asked. This was not about Tina, then. This was legitimately bad.
“It was in the paper for the whole damned business world to see. God, what an idiot. For a guy who spent his life tracking money, he certainly had no idea of how to cover his own tracks.”
“Oh, my gosh,” she murmured.
“Yes, well, the company can get back on its feet—the feds say he didn’t spend much of it, poor bastard. Appears he was just squirreling it away.”
“That’s a relief,” she said. But it wasn’t really. Clearly there was more to it.
“Oh, right,” he said with an edge of sarcasm, “it’s all fine and dandy. Except that I’m in sales, Dana. How the hell can I sell the product when it looks like the inmates are running the asylum? Who’ll buy from us now? I wouldn’t, I’ll tell you that.”
“It’s hurting your commissions,” she realized.
“Of course it is!” He wasn’t angry at her, she knew, but he needed to rail at someone. That had always been her job, to let him get things off his chest. Where’s Tina? Dana wondered. Why wasn’t Tina the one on the business end of his anger?
“Anyway,” he muttered, reining himself back in. “It’ll get better. We’ll put this behind us, put some safeguards in place, and we’ll be back on the A-list.”
“Good,” she said. “It’s important to take the long view.”
“True.” He paused. “But listen, it’s going to be a little tight for a while. Right now my income is nearly half what it was back when the divorce mediator came up with the support amount. I won’t be able to kick in what I normally do.”
Dana sat straight up. Kick in? He wasn’t just kicking in. He was the sole source of support for the household. “But how can I possibly—”
“I know,” he cut her off. “I feel terrible. But six months, a year from now, it’ll be back to normal. With all the guys leaving for other companies, there’ll be a lot of accounts to pick up.”
“But what am I supposed to do until then?”
“I guess you’ll have to tighten up a little. For instance, it’s nice to take Alder in, she’s a good kid and all, but this really isn’t the time to have another mouth to feed.”
“She doesn’t eat that much, and she’s—”
“I’m just saying, you could cut some costs. Also, I think it might be time to . . . you know . . .”
“What?” she was starting to feel frantic. “Time to what?”
“You weren’t going to stay home forever—Grady’s in second grade. What could you possibly be doing with all that time and no kids around? How can there be that many dishes to wash?”
It wasn’t as if working were a foreign concept to her. She’d begun to think about finding something part-time a year ago. But then her marriage had disintegrated, and suddenly her responsibilities had doubled. Emotional exhaustion alone had sent her crawling beaten to her bed every night. Thoughts of outside work had flown from her mind.
But what shocked her was that he didn’t see how he personally had made her life immeasurably harder. He seemed to think she dithered around all day, spritzing the plants and reorganizing the Tupperware lids. This house, this family, was her business, and she’d had her own downturn, called my-husband-left-me-for-another-woman. Dana had received a promotion as a result: she was now CEO, CFO, and COO combined. She was so angered and hurt by his utter lack of understanding that she could only sputter, “Kenneth, if you think for one minute that I’m just sitting around—”
“No,” he placated her, “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry if you took it the wrong way.”
“If I took it . . . if I . . .”
“Dana, stop for a moment and think. It’s not unreasonable to ask you to start contributing.”
She hung up on him. Dana had never hung up on anyone in her life, but her finger came out and stabbed at the little button, and she threw the phone onto the carpet so hard that the back came off and the battery popped out.
Start contributing, he said
. START contributing! As if until now she had simply been along for the ride. And what a ride it had been. Oh, yes, she ranted to herself, I’ve been LUCKY, haven’t I? Married to a man with the emotional intelligence of ALGAE! Left for some firm-skinned CHILD with bad taste in FURNITURE! And NOW! she thought. NOW I have to muddle along with less money and put up with insulting comments about my time-management skills! Dana threw off the down comforter and slid her feet into her slippers. Washing DISHES! she fumed, gliding past her children’s bedrooms. He has no IDEA of what it takes to run this house and take care of his children . . . No idea about ANYTHING . . .
And that was it, really. It wasn’t that she was so busy with the house and the kids that she couldn’t manage a part-time job—something with mother’s hours, perhaps, though those jobs tended to be low-paying and boring. No, it was the realization that the man she’d vowed to love until death had never really understood or appreciated her.
The emptiness that lived in the basement of her stomach expanded like a bellows, and her slippered feet took her to the refrigerator. Yogurt, almonds, apples, she tried to tell herself. No, those aren’t enough. Potatoes, oil, salt . . . Yes. And before she had another thought, home fries were sizzling in a pan on the stove, the smell like a drug, like crispy golden consolation.
A memory of her mother flickered through Dana’s mind. Standing over a pan, frying something—hot dogs in butter, possibly, or liver and onions—pungent, prickly smells infiltrating the house. An ash hanging from the end of her cigarette, the secret glow of the ember visible only when her mother dragged heavily on the filtered end. Her mother always dragged heavily.
Ma was lonely, Dana realized. Daddy came home after work and sat on the couch. He might have known her way back when they first got married, but eventually he didn’t seem to know anyone. Only the interior of his own body, compressed into the couch like a sunken ship.
Dana poured herself a glass of sugar-free lemonade and filled a cereal bowl with the fried potatoes. She sat down and ate and was consoled. She knew this false sense of pain relief would turn to self-recrimination as soon as the last morsel reached her lips. But for these few moments, it was a reprieve. And that was all she hoped for.
The next morning Alder was running late and slammed around the kitchen, muttering to herself before racing to catch the bus. Morgan grumbled at Dana that there was only one frozen waffle left and why hadn’t she bought more, since they were obviously running out. Grady came in wearing shorts and a basketball shirt, the shiny polyester glimmering under the kitchen lights.
“It’s too cold for that outfit today,” said Dana, still weary from her late-night fight with Kenneth and subsequent cooking project. “How about some pants and a long-sleeved shirt?”
“I’m not cold,” said Grady. He grabbed the Lucky Charms from the cereal cabinet and began to rummage for his favorite plastic bowl with the integrated straw.
“Grady, honey, it’s about forty-five degrees out. You’re going to freeze if you wear that.”
“No I’m not.” Cereal spilled around the edges of his bowl as he poured.
“Grady, I’m asking you to change your clothes.” Dana could feel her temper rising. She stepped closer to his chair, hands on her hips.
“No.” He ate, scrutinizing the Lucky Charms box as though it held the secret to making a shot from half court. If he’d stopped to look at her, had given the slightest indication that he was considering her point, she would have let it go. But his utter indifference to her request, an indifference both he and Morgan (and Kenneth!) had shown on countless occasions—this time it made her snap. She slammed her hand on the table. “I said change your clothes!”
Grady flinched, dropping his spoon with a clatter onto the table. “I’ll wear a jacket, okay?” he murmured meekly. “I’ll zip it all the way, I promise.”
It was his tone, more than his vow to zip up, that made her back down. She had scared him. It wasn’t like her to yell, and the hand slamming, that was just . . . well, she didn’t even know. It was as if her arm were attached to a string someone else was pulling.
She glanced at Morgan, standing by the toaster, waiting for her frozen waffle to pop. Morgan had been watching her, and when the lever sprang up on the toaster, she didn’t seem to notice.
“Your waffle’s done,” said Dana. Morgan turned then and flicked it out and onto a plate.
They were late, and Dana had to drive them. As she pulled in to the middle-school drop-off lane, Morgan said, “You’ve got the list, right?”
“List?”
“For the party store. You said you were going today.”
“Oh, right.” Dana had completely forgotten her promise to pick up the paper goods for Morgan’s birthday party. Ten girls would be descending on them the next night, and Dana hadn’t had a chance to get to the Party On! store. Too busy washing dishes, she grumbled to herself.
“Mom, you have to get them today, because if they’re not right, you have to take them back tomorrow and get something else. You promised.”
“I know,” said Dana, feeling that bitter edge rising in her voice. “I said I would, and I will.”
She pulled up to the curb, and Morgan opened the passenger-side door. “Have a good day, sweetie.”
“Not likely,” said Morgan. She slammed the door and merged into the flow of backpacks.
After Dana dropped Grady off, fleece jacket zipped up to his chin, she returned to the house to get the list for the party store. I have to get this car cleaned out today, she told herself. Cheez-It crumbs were sprinkled across the floor mats like orange sawdust. She ran into the house, leaving the car door open. Then the phone rang several times, and she found herself answering e-mails and throwing in a load of laundry before she managed to return to the car.
As she backed down the driveway, something brushed against her ankle. Instinctively she pulled her feet up. When the car began to move quickly down the incline of the driveway, she stomped on the brake and jerked to a stop. I’m losing my mind, she thought. She drove to Party On!, and as she pulled in to the parking lot, she felt it again, that sense that something was crawling around the floor of her car.
Then there was a blur of motion, and the thing jumped onto her lap. A chipmunk. With an oddly orange tinge to its face.
“AAHHH!” Dana screamed, swerving by a streetlight pole at the edge of the parking lot. She stomped on the brake again, her body heaved forward, and her upper lip banged into the steering wheel. She wrenched the car into park, opened the door, and leaped out onto the asphalt, screaming, hands swiping at her thighs as if the creature were still attached to her lap. With adrenaline humming through her veins, it was a few seconds before her nervous system registered that she was no longer in danger of imminent destruction.
She heard laughter and looked up. Two small children were hopping around slapping at their thighs and laughing as if they’d never seen anything so funny. “Ahhhh!” one yelled, waving his little hands in the air.
Beside them stood a woman holding a dozen helium balloons. “Okay, everyone into the car now,” she barked, and slid back the minivan door.
“Ahhhhh!” yelled the kids, falling into each other in hysterics.
“I said NOW!” She hustled them into the minivan, and squealed out of the parking lot.
Those kids are definitely not buckled in, thought Dana. Then it occurred to her that she’d been the reason for the woman’s swift departure. Dear God, she realized with horror, she must have thought I was some sort of druggie.
After a few moments of standing there wondering what on earth to do next, Dana cautiously opened all the car doors. She reached in and pressed the horn. A moment later the vicious, possibly rabid chipmunk skittered out toward some bushes by the side of the lot. Dana quickly closed the doors and locked the car.
She tried to act normal as she strode through Party On! looking for happy-face paper goods while her knees quivered and her upper lip throbbed from its collision with the steering whe
el. When she got to the cash register, she tried to smile pleasantly but ended up grimacing in pain.
“Dude, you know you’re bleeding, right?” said the clerk, his beard growing in patches around his acne.
Dana put her fingers to her upper lip, which felt oddly swollen. Her fingers were bloody when she looked at them. “Oh,” she breathed. “I banged my mouth.”
“Is that why you were going psycho out in the lot?”
“You saw that?”
“Yeah, we all heard it and went over to the window.” He bobbed his head and chuckled at the memory. “But what was the deal with honking the horn?” he asked. “That was, like, sick.”
Dana shook her head. “Please,” she implored him, “ just ring it up.”
CHAPTER 10
DANA WAS ABLE TO CONTROL HER EMOTIONS until she was back in the car, and then humiliation settled on her like crows on roadkill. The tears came when she tried to switch lanes. That’s when she saw that the passenger-side mirror was hanging from a thin red wire exposed like an artery. Apparently she hadn’t entirely missed that light pole. The mirror banged against the door panel when she made turns. Every clank made her cry harder.
When she got home, she yanked the swinging mirror from the door panel. What do you do with an amputated auto part? she wondered, eventually stuffing it at the back of the coat closet. She went to the bathroom and carefully rolled her lip up with her thumbs. There was a small gash on the inside, and her front tooth had been chipped—a triangular piece was missing.
Good Lord, she thought, I look like a Hee Haw character, and she started to cry again.
Finally she was steady enough to form a plan. Morgan’s party was the following night, and she couldn’t offer the guests chips and cheesy dip through broken teeth. Much as she hated to face Dr. Sakimoto again, she dialed the number. She would tell him she was working on the purging issue. That’s all she would need to say, that she was working on it.
No one picked up the phone, nor did an answering machine come on. Sucking on a Popsicle to ice her lip, Dana called again, with the same results. Well, this is ridiculous, she thought. Someone had to be there. She decided they must be having phone problems and got in her car, checking first for rodents lurking under the seats.