“Nothing! Is Dad there? Did he put you up to it?”
“I’m at Aunt Joelle’s. I told her I needed to call you and she said okay.”
“Where is Dad? Did he go out?” Stephanie imagined her father sitting in a candlelit restaurant with that woman from the bar—that Laura.
“He went to a Boosters party at Mr. Schwartz’s,” Robbie said.
“He’s still doing football stuff?”
“Just this,” Robbie said. “It seemed like he didn’t want to go, but he had to because Mr. Schwartz has been so nice. He brought us Redskins T-shirts the other day. But I would never wear them because we learned in school that it’s rude to say redskins. None of the drama kids wear sports stuff, anyway. I like hanging out with high school kids better than middle-school kids. I think I’m mature for my age.”
“You are,” Stephanie said, settling into the call. She asked about Bryan, who, Robbie reported, was downstairs playing Sorry with Megan and Jenny. That meant Robbie was upstairs on the extension in their grandparents’ old room, probably lying on their old bed, with its faded paisley comforter.
“Bry is turning into a Jesus freak,” Robbie said. “We have to go to church with Aunt Joelle tomorrow and he’s so excited—”
“Have to?”
“Because Dad’s staying out late at the party, so it’s easier.”
“You don’t have to go to church.” Stephanie glanced at her roommate, who was eating her dinner and pretending to read her e-mail, not getting the hint that maybe she should step out of the room for a few minutes. “Don’t worry about Bry. It’s just a phase.”
“Yeah, but now he wants to hang out with Aunt Joelle and do church things. And then Dad is with the cross-country girls every day, and on the weekends we have to go to races. I never get to do anything I want.”
“What about the play?”
“I love the play. But I don’t have any friends. They all think I’m strange because I have to go see the guidance counselor. I have to miss class.”
“Is it during a class you don’t like, at least?”
“It rotates.”
“Well, it’s good to see a counselor. I told you I saw a counselor.” Stephanie caught Theresa looking at her, like she knew it was a lie. Well, she probably did know; she probably had to field calls from the health center, too.
“I have to go,” Robbie said. “Aunt Joelle is calling me.”
He hung up before she could set a time to call again.
“Was that your brother?” Theresa asked.
“No, my eleven-year-old boyfriend,” Stephanie said. Bitchy. For no reason. Something about Theresa’s vulnerable desire to please reminded her of her mother. She turned her attention back to her closet and found the black dress with yellow sunflowers, the one that used to be her mother’s, the one she had altered to make her own. She quickly changed into it, pairing it with black tights, her jean jacket, and black lace-up boots that Mitchell had outgrown after just two months.
Raquel was waiting for her downstairs in the lobby, by the phone booths. She wore a 1960s-style wiggle dress, made of some awful/fabulous synthetic fabric. Stephanie had never known anyone with so many cool vintage clothes.
Raquel ran her fingers through her burgundy Manic Panic hair. “Come on, let’s get out of here already.”
GARRETT LIVED IN one of the brand-new condos plopped down in a cornfield near the school. Their architecture mimicked the design of the clapboard row houses in town, and they looked odd in the middle of the empty field, the awkward first guests at a party.
The cul-de-sac street was lined with cars, parked and double-parked, almost all of them trucks and SUVs—big, shiny vehicles for the big, shiny-faced ex–football players who drove them. Dean checked his reflection in the rearview, procrastinating. He’d tried to make an effort, shaving and putting on a sports coat, but he was in a sour mood. The morning’s meet had gone badly. Missy had stopped running halfway through the race. Just stopped and started walking. He worried she was hurt and ran across the field to help her. But nothing was wrong. She was tired, she said. Her feet hurt, her legs hurt, and even her lungs hurt. Dean told her it was supposed to hurt, that if it didn’t hurt she was doing it wrong. She wasn’t even breathing very hard.
“Doesn’t it drive you crazy that these other runners are passing you?” he prodded her. “You had a good lead.”
“I know I’m faster than them, I don’t have to prove anything.”
“But you do have to prove it. That’s what a race is.” Dean didn’t know how to motivate someone who didn’t care about being beaten. “You want to tell your parents you quit your first race?”
“They’re not even here,” Missy said. “They went to watch my brother practice.”
“Finish the race. Then you never have to run another one in your life.”
For whatever reason this got her moving, and she ended up coming in third for the team, ahead of Jessica and Lori. But he didn’t compliment her. Instead he told her she had run the race poorly, and that he would rather see her run the race correctly for a slower time. Then he made her go on a two-mile cooldown, no stopping allowed. When she returned, she said she was quitting. He told her she had already quit, during the race, and that she couldn’t do it again. It was the kind of antilogic she couldn’t argue against. Instead, she said nothing, not even good-bye when her father picked her up. Her rudeness stung more than Dean liked to admit. He had to remind himself that he’d dealt with worse.
A bunch of blue and white balloons danced above Garrett’s mailbox. Garrett greeted him at the door, opening it before Dean had a chance to knock.
“Coach! I’m so glad you came. What’s this? Miller? Classic, just classic.”
Garrett’s condo was very warm inside. It smelled like potpourri and onion dip, with a hint of Mr. Clean. The furniture was a mix of new, matching items and a smattering of painted wooden “country kitchen” decorations that had to have come from his girlfriend.
“There’s plenty to eat,” Garrett said, guiding him toward the kitchen. “Connie made everything.”
“I didn’t know you two moved in together.”
“Not yet. Connie’s too traditional. But I made sure she liked this place before I bought it. It’s going to be part of a new subdivision, with a pool and tennis courts and a playground. They’re calling it Fox Knoll. I’m going to put your beer in the fridge, okay?”
Dean headed to the spread of food on Garrett’s kitchen island. There were bowls of chips, dips, salsas, pickles, a platter of deviled eggs and crudité, and a make-your-own-sandwich station with honey ham and cheddar cheese. Garrett followed him, filling him in on the team’s news, as well as his plan for the season. Dean half listened. He couldn’t tell if Garrett wanted his approval or if he was talking to him out of a sense of duty. Other people at the party were smiling in his direction, waving, and patting him on the shoulder as they passed. Dean knew almost everyone in attendance. He felt out of place.
“Oh, there’s my friend Tim,” Garrett said, nodding toward someone behind Dean. “He’s here with his girlfriend—actually, his fiancée now! They just got engaged. I can never remember her name.”
“Laura,” Dean said. Even before he turned to look, he knew it had to be her. She was so pretty, wearing a soft-looking light-blue sweater and jeans. Her hair was down in loose curls. He had to turn around before she saw him. Engaged. She’d gone and done it. He must have been her moment of doubt, her last night out.
“That sounds right,” Garrett said. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to say hello.”
Dean looked for someone to talk with. He was rescued by See-See’s mother, of all people. She walked right up to him, pointing a manicured finger toward his chest, like he was her target.
“I have to thank you,” she said. “My daughter has never been happier. And that’s saying something, because she is one angsty little thing.”
“I’m not sure we’re talking about the same See-See,” Dean said.
“She’s a real leader on the team.”
“Well, kids always show their mothers their worst.” She extended her hand. “I’m Karen, Karen Coulter—different last name from See-See, but I’m working on getting it changed back to my maiden name. Which will still be different from See’s, but so be it. Her dad isn’t so bad, really. He even said he might make it to one of the meets.”
“That’d be nice,” Dean said, slightly overwhelmed by her sudden confidences. He’d only ever seen Karen Coulter in profile, when she dropped See-See off. Up close, she had a girlish prettiness, with her sparkly makeup and pink complexion, her cheeks flushed from the white wine she was drinking.
“It would actually be a miracle if he came! He hasn’t been around much. And my second husband was no picnic. That’s been hard on See. But now, with you coaching the team, it’s like she has that father figure she’s been needing.”
“I’ve only been coaching a couple weeks,” Dean said.
“According to her, it’s made a world of difference. She’s even starting to think you guys are going to win a meet.”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Dean said, and then he felt guilty. He would never say that about the football team. He was embarrassed, he realized. He had the sense that other people were beginning to eavesdrop on their conversation and he worried it would be misunderstood, that people would think—what? That he was no longer interested in coaching football? That he was overcompensating with this nothing girls’ team? He wasn’t used to this kind of vague, amorphous shame, and he didn’t know what to do with the feeling.
“Oh, I don’t care if we win or lose,” Karen said. “I’m not the sports type at all. I just date athletic guys. I’m here with James Price, who apparently you used to coach? He’s right over there.”
A bulky, round-faced man came over, smiling widely like a child when he recognized his old coach. Dean returned the smile but could barely find little Jimmy Price, the lithe, energetic running back he’d coached for just two years before he’d graduated and gone to college—Towson, if Dean remembered correctly. He’d been a part of Dean’s first team. He had to be in his early thirties now, but his conservative clothing, combined with his weight gain, made him look older—though maybe still too young for Karen.
The next few minutes were spent catching up on the past decade of Jimmy/James’s postcollegiate life. He’d gone into sales, his product was X-ray film, and his territory had been in New England, a region he liked at first but over time grew weary of. The long winters, the Yankee reticence. Now he was back home and getting settled. He was apparently settled enough to know not to ask after Nicole, Dean noticed. Then again, maybe he didn’t even remember her.
Somewhere in Jimmy/James’s reminiscences, Dean started to feel depressed. He had become the thing he never wanted to be: a fixture. He was a person that people came back to, a person people referred to in order to assure themselves that some things never changed. And it wasn’t as if he ever got to decide that he wanted to be that person. Nicole had consigned him to it, first by being beautiful and kind, and then by being needy and vulnerable, and then by taking her life and leaving him with his sawed-off one—no, not sawed-off, that suggested a clean break, and his life didn’t feel cleanly broken. It felt as if something had been ripped out of him, leaving him exposed. People felt sorry for his kids, and he felt sorry for them, too—of course he did—but sometimes Dean thought it was worse for him, in the long run, because Robbie and Bry were already on a trajectory away from their mother. Their lives were separate from her in some fundamental way, while his was intertwined with hers in a way that was impossible to put behind him. She was always going to be with him, his ghost that no one else could see.
Dean excused himself from the conversation with the pretext of getting more beer. He got one of his Millers, but instead of stepping back into the party’s fray, where he would no doubt be called upon to recount some “classic” story, he headed to what he thought was a back porch. It turned out to be a short, steep flight of stairs leading to Garrett’s backyard.
Dean walked down to the lawn, a small, neat kingdom of freshly mown grass that stopped abruptly at what Dean assumed was Garrett’s property line. Beyond it was an open, barren field, its furrows illuminated by the waxing moon. One day it would be filled to the gills with swimming pools and playing fields and another conga line of condos. It made Dean feel a little sick. What was the point of living in the country, of getting pigeonholed and bored and old, if it wasn’t at least going to be beautiful?
He heard someone on the landing and immediately ducked beneath the condo, which was raised up about six feet, on beams, to accommodate the small hill that the condos had been built upon—the “knoll” of Fox Knoll, Dean supposed. He felt ridiculous, like a kid sneaking a beer under the bleachers, and tried to come up with an excuse for his antisocial behavior. He used to invent excuses for Nicole. She would always want to leave too soon. Often he took the fall, especially at family events.
“Dean, is that you?”
It was Laura. He felt such relief. She hurried down the stairs when he answered.
“I saw you escaping. Is everything okay?”
“I needed some air.” He gazed at her, trying to see her differently now that she was engaged. But he still felt she was his, somehow. That he knew her better. “I never expected to see you here.”
“Tim’s a Booster now, apparently.” She shrugged. “I didn’t know you would be here.”
“Of course I’m here.”
“This may come as a surprise to you, but football, sports—that’s not the first thing that comes to mind when I think of you.”
“What do you think of?”
“I don’t know.” She started to turn away, embarrassed, and he reached for her arm, awkwardly grabbing her, at the elbow. She took a tentative step toward him and he made up the difference, kind of leaning into an embrace without even trying to kiss her, which he could tell surprised her, but he wanted the warm weight of her body more than anything.
“Sorry,” he said, releasing her. “I heard you’re getting married.”
She stepped back, as if chastened. “I was going to tell you. He asked me on Thursday. It was my birthday. Everyone says it’s the best present.”
“You don’t sound too sure.”
“Well, I do feel like he kind of co-opted my birthday. The day was supposed to be about me and now it’s about us.” She made a face. “That sounds so petty.”
“It sounds like you’re looking for an excuse.”
“To do what?”
Dean took a step toward her to kiss her lightly on her lips, which were dry. She licked them quickly, and he put down his beer, which spilled immediately on the uneven ground. The smell of beer wafted up, mixing with the smells of new construction—wet cement, Sheetrock, sawdust. Dean was aware of the house just a few inches above their heads, the party above them.
“Let’s go to my car.” Dean felt high, buzzy, excited by his transgression. He felt as young as he had felt old, minutes before.
“I can’t,” she said. But she wrapped her arms around him and held him more tightly. He slid a hand beneath her sweater and touched her bare back. She shivered. “I have to get back to Tim.”
“No, you don’t. Go make your excuse and meet me at my car.” He didn’t know where this recklessness was coming from, unless it was Nicole’s ghost.
“We actually drove separately,” she said thoughtfully. “Because I thought I would get bored and want to leave early.”
“You’re bored,” Dean said, taking her hand. He kissed the inside of her wrist. “You want to leave early.”
Chapter 8
The next two weeks were all about Laura. How to see her. When to call her. They met in the clubhouse, near the football field, and behind the concession stand. Once they unrolled a tumbling mat in the equipment room near the girls’ locker room. Dean felt as if he was discovering the high school his students knew, a place full of secret sexual
corners. He and Laura even happened upon a young couple once, a girl and a boy Dean recognized from freshman gym. Their lips were so red and swollen that it was as if they’d spent the entire class period kissing. Maybe they had. Dean thought he and Laura would, if they could. But they didn’t have as much time.
One morning Laura met him in the parking lot with coffee and doughnuts. “Remember our old breakfasts?” she asked. “I liked you from the start.” He couldn’t say he felt the same without sounding like a cheater. He felt like he was cheating now. He wasn’t convinced that Nicole didn’t know. Somehow she was watching him. And yet that sense that he was getting away with something, the idea that being with Laura was some kind of cosmic betrayal, made their sex all the more satisfying. This, he knew, was the particular pleasure of adultery, enjoyed by many before him. For some reason, he’d thought he’d be immune to it.
Laura was cheating, too. She removed her engagement ring when she arrived at the middle school, putting it in her desk drawer. She told Dean she didn’t want to see it on her finger. She hadn’t broken up with Tim. It was complicated, she said. The complicated part, Dean guessed, was that she wasn’t ready to throw over the promise of marriage for him. Once, when Dean embraced her outside the clubhouse, still vaguely in view of the school, she pushed him away, saying, “I could lose my job!” But he thought there was something gleeful at the edge of her voice. Like some part of her wished to blow apart her life, to detonate all her uncertainties about Tim, about marriage, about small towns. You didn’t have to be a raging romantic to believe that love—or sex—could obliterate doubt. It could, for a time. Dean knew that from experience, from falling in love with Nicole for the first time—and for the second and third times, for all the times throughout their marriage that she was lost, and then returned to him.
He wasn’t falling in love with Laura. Or at least, he didn’t have romantic feelings about her; he didn’t walk around imagining a future with her and the boys, the four of them living together as a family. His emotions weren’t blurring his thoughts. His senses were sharper; he noticed more details: the subtle changes in Bryan’s and Robbie’s vocabularies, the variances in the strides of the cross-country girls, the moods of his students. The weather was changing, and the newly cold air seemed a piece of the sharpening, his alertness. Food tasted better. Laura looked more beautiful, the color high in her cheeks after they’d been together. And rosy from the cold, too. Sometimes she stopped by practice, ostensibly to talk about Robbie. That was the excuse if anyone ever asked. But no one ever asked. And they never discussed Robbie. There was too much guilt there, on both sides, and it wasn’t the kind of guilt that made things more exciting.
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