“I won’t stay where I am not welcome,” said Papa. His feelings were hurt.
I could tell Diane felt a little guilty. All the same, she put the chain across the front door so he couldn’t open it with his key. When someone from AA dropped by to check on her, she talked through the chain. A few days later someone else from AA, a guy named Penn, came over to mow the grass. He didn’t even come to the door.
I watched him through the window—the faded brim of his cap hid his face as he bent his head over the lawn mower. I wanted him to look up and see me in the window wearing my princess gown. I had been wearing it for a week, day and night, so it had a rip and a few stains, but it was still so beautiful. While Diane and the baby were sleeping, I had accessorized with her wedding pearls and tried out some lipstick.
Through the glass, I waved at the guy. He didn’t look up. Men! I put on my sparkly plastic high heels, climbed on a chair to unfasten the chain on the door, and tottered out to meet him.
He turned the motor off as I wobbled across the uneven grass. “Hi,” he said.
“It’s nice out here,” I said. “It doesn’t smell like blood.”
“Somebody’s bleeding in there?” he asked me, but I had found a dandelion and had to concentrate on my wish. “Hey,” he said. “Is somebody hurt?”
I closed my eyes and blew with all my might, scattering seeds over us. “It’s just baby blood,” I said. As he headed into the house, I had to kick off my heels to catch up with his long strides.
He found everyone alive. Diane allowed him to wash and bleach the sheets stained with afterbirth. When he made the bed, he bounced a quarter on it and gave me the quarter. While Diane slept on clean sheets, he cleaned up the kitchen and fixed tacos for everyone; then he vacuumed and mopped and cleaned the bathrooms.
“You know that’s going to come out the other end,” he said, watching me give Max his bottle. “I’m just telling y’all now—I don’t do diapers.”
“Should I call you Dad or Daddy?” I asked.
“Call me PMI,” he said. “That stands for positive male influence.”
After he left, I wrote the thank-you note for Diane and addressed it to PMI. I put it in the mailbox, where I put my notes to Santa Claus, and sometimes to God. The next day, when he brought the mail in, he held it up.
“Is this for me?” he asked.
“Of course,” I said, but I was nervous—I couldn’t write anything except the letters of the alphabet. He read it anyway.
That was a flashback, in case you didn’t notice. So … 8.5 years later, here we are helping Diane get dressed for a Match.com date. She was out of the road-sign ensemble and into outfit number two, a short gray hooded sweater dress with a full-length front zipper, thumb holes in the cuffs, and tall black boots. “How about this?”
I stared in silence.
“Just say something. I can take it. Give me two words.”
“Space suit.”
“It’s just a coffee date,” she said, frowning, as she turned in front of her mirror. “There’s not going to be a photographer or anything.”
Tiredly, I rolled off the bed. Even though my legs were aching from a recent growth spurt, I marched into her closet and got to work. In the end, we went with black velvet boyfriend pants, a fitted white tee, her jean jacket, the short black boots I coveted, and her wedding pearls. Hair teased in the back and tucked behind her ears in the front, a touch of mascara, red lipstick, and, of course, Amazing Grace.
“Well?” she asked with a hopeful smile, turning in a slow circle in front of me.
Both Diane and Kate’s mom like to think they will date a man for six months before introducing him to their children, but this never happens. At 5:30 P.M., Mr. Friend materialized in our kitchen. He wasn’t eating with us—you have to know somebody pretty well before you start passing around baked rutabaga fries. When he said something to Diane about going out for Italian after their coffees, she hesitated. “I didn’t get a sitter,” she said. (Obviously, I’m too old for a babysitter, but I can always use help with Max.)
“Go ahead,” I said. “I’ll take care of everything.”
“Are you sure?” asked Diane. She nibbled on her thumb, the way she does sometimes when she’s trying to make a decision. “I can pull out a potpie …”
“You should call Penn,” said Max. “Why isn’t Penn here? He always takes care of us.”
The date watched Diane with a big, polite question mark on his face. Diane looked distraught. “I think he’s busy tonight,” she said. She was careful not to touch her left ear—she knows that I know she does that when she’s lying. Had they talked since the Rejection?
“Penn is never busy,” said Max. “I mean, he practically lives here.” He pointed to the shoe basket by the door. “He even leaves his shoes here.”
“Who is Penn?” asked the date.
“Just a friend,” said Diane quickly.
“Your kids will be fine,” said Jack or Tom or whatever his name was. “This little lady seems quite mature. How old did you say you were?”
Dude was way older than Diane, and he’d never had kids. One of those. When they meet us, they’re all like, Oh, I love kids. Everyone always said I should have kids. Kids keep you young. Then after a few months of Max’s meltdowns, my sarcasm, picking up the dinner tabs for four, and maybe a trip to Florida, they’re like, Gotta go!
Jack or Tom was okay. He wore khakis, a short-sleeved polo shirt, and old-man shoes. He had some hair left, but not much, and it was cut over his ears. He liked Diane’s outfit, which made me proud, and he clapped heartily when Max showed him a dog trick he does with Lucky and Hiroshima. Max called him “sir,” like Diane and I had taught him. I was proud of him, but when he admitted that, no, he didn’t play any sports, there was a conspicuous hole in the conversation.
I pointed out that we were Bulldog fans, but since apparently it wasn’t football season, and none of us had any idea who had won the Super Bowl or the Orange Bowl or whatever, that line of conversation was dropped.
While Diane was setting the table for our nuked faux-beef potpie, Max insisted on having the pink napkin. Pink is his favorite color.
“Pink?” said Mr. Friend, and he slapped Max on the shoulder in a rough-and-ready, hale-fellow-well-met, we’re-just-guys-horsing-around-in-the-locker-room-slapping-each-other-with-wet-towels way. It didn’t go over well.
“Ouch!” said Max, pulling away. He glowered at the man as only Max can do.
“Pink is for girls,” said Mr. Friend, smiling too hard. “You’re not a girl, are you?”
Max’s eyes had turned very dark.
“He’s male bonding with you, honey,” I said, stepping between the two of them. I smiled brightly at Mr. Friend, who glanced at my chest and then looked quickly away.
“Excuse me,” said Max coldly. He snatched the pink napkin off the table, stuffed it in his pocket, and stomped off to his room.
Diane sighed as the door slammed. We were both thinking the same thing: Warning to Suitor: Single mother can’t control her son. At that moment, we disliked Mr. Friend, but I hadn’t given up on him yet. I bustled around the kitchen after Diane, being the Helpful Daughter, laughing gaily at any witticism either of them shared, praying we could avoid the topics of politics and religion until it was time to send them off on their date.
“What’s that perfume you’re wearing?” asked Mr. Friend, stepping close to Diane to help her put the sugar up in the high cabinet. “It smells delicious.”
He took a deep, appreciative sniff, and she half turned to face him. They looked nice together, standing close like that, blond and dark, small and large, female and male.
When a crash sounded in Max’s room, I murmured, “I’ll take care of it,” and slipped down the hall so they could kiss or whatever.
Max stood in the center of the room, clenching a pair of scissors in his fist as he kicked his bed. Little pieces of pink napkin covered the floor. “Hello, Emo,” I said, closing the door soft
ly behind me. “Overreacting, are we?”
I could fill the rest of this page with his outbursts, but it’s repetitive, so here’s a narrative summary.
1. Max pitched a fit.
2. My attempt to coach him through his feelings using the “I” statements recommended by Dr. Dhang was, as usual, an epic fail.
3. I resorted to a time-tested technique. Reaching under his pillow, I pulled the stuffed platypus out by a webbed foot. “Fred,” I said, “would you like to go for a little swim in the toilet? The current is a bit strong, but that makes it exciting.”
“No!” cried Max.
When I went back into the kitchen, I fully expected to find Diane and Mr. Friend groping each other by the sink. Get a hotel room, why don’tcha, I would say with a smirk, but they were sitting across from each other at the table. They already hated each other. Diane’s mouth was set in a hard line, and Mr. Friend was laughing one of those tinny, fake laughs that mean, F you. Evidently, someone had made the mistake of bringing up either politics or religion.
“Jesus was a bastard,” Diane said. “The reason he turned to God the Father is that he didn’t have a father, and in those days, in Bethlehem or wherever, an illegitimate child was a social pariah.” She factored in the educational level of her audience and amended, “A social outcast.”
“He was born in Nazareth,” said Bob or Ed or whatever his name was. There was that laugh again. “Jesus is the Son of God, and if you don’t believe that”—he held his meaty hands out in an expression of futility—“well, then I feel sorry for you.”
It was Diane’s turn for a mean, fake little laugh. “Carl Jung said, ‘Religion is a defense against the experience of God.’ ”
“Hi there,” said Mr. Friend, noticing me.
“You probably wish we had a TV,” I said, smiling at him. Somebody had to be nice to the guest. He smiled back. He had very nice teeth, and you don’t see that much around Kanuga.
“Y’all must read a lot,” he said, looking at the neat bookshelves lining our walls. “I guess the last book I read was in school,” he added, with a rather alarming lack of embarrassment.
I happened to know that on his Match profile, Mr. Friend had checked “Some College” under “Education,” and “$75,000–$100,000” under “Income.” Diane says you can knock two years off the education and $25,000 off the income. She had gone back to her bedroom to get her purse and jacket, so Mr. Friend continued talking to me.
“My ex-wife used to read all the time. She liked Sidney Sheldon. Do you read her books?” I shook my head, but just then the dogs announced Penn’s arrival, so I ran to the door. Max was already there.
“Whaddup!” said Penn, grinning at us as we crowded him in the doorway. He took Mr. Friend in with a swift glance, noting Diane’s date getup, the whiff of perfume. He hesitated for a moment, as if he were about to leave, but Hiroshima wouldn’t let him go. She was walking on her hind legs, balancing her forepaws on his thigh as she tried to keep up with him.
“Hiroshima, you get away from me,” he said, scooping her into his arms so she could nuzzle his ear. Hiroshima crushes on Penn. “Quit loving on me,” he said, holding her close. “I don’t even like you.”
“Look, Mom, I told you he would come!” cried Max. “Hey, Penn, will you play Pokémon with me?”
“Sure. That is, if it’s okay with your mom.”
He and Diane looked at each other. Mr. Friend cleared his throat. According to the rules of polite society, it was time for an introduction. However, Penn had a certain look on his face I’ve only seen a few times before: when we see a cop flash his lights to get through a red light, for instance. Then he would mutter, “You motherfucker.”
“Looks like she’s getting ready to go somewhere,” Penn said now.
Diane’s good home training failed her completely. She stood at the door—in her black velvet pants, holding an evening bag just big enough for a lipstick, a driver’s license, and a ten-dollar bill—struck dumb. She looked the way she does at a party when she can’t remember the name of the person who has spoken to her. She looked like she didn’t know any of us.
Mr. Friend stepped forward and tried to introduce himself, but Max interrupted him. “So, Penn, I was looking for a breeded Sentret, low level,” he said, beginning to spin around in the foyer between the two men.
“Let’s get out of the hallway so you’ll have more room for aerodynamic speech,” Penn said. “Careful not to knock that picture off the wall.”
Mr. Friend saw his opportunity to introduce himself and lurched forward with an outstretched hand. When he explained that he was here to take Diane out to dinner, I held my breath. Would Penn walk out the door? No matter how hard this guy in the polo shirt tried, he would never make PMI. He wouldn’t even come close.
Penn shook his hand, but he didn’t offer any explanation for his presence in our house. This clearly irritated Mr. Friend, especially when Penn started making a pot of coffee and knew exactly where to find the sugar.
“Penn is our nanny,” Diane told her date, when she finally found her voice. Penn acknowledged this role by telling her that she looked very nice this evening. For a moment, Diane blinked at him as if she couldn’t quite place him. Mean Diane!18 When she thanked him for the compliment, the temperature in the room dropped two degrees. I wanted to scream: We get it, Diane—you are unattainable, but this is our PMI! What are you doing with our lives?
“Nanny?” asked Mr. Friend.
“Left my apron and ruffled cap in the truck,” said Penn. “Aris, if you’ll get me a flathead screwdriver, I’ll fix the hinge on this cabinet. It’s hanging cattywampus again.”
“Why don’t you ask Max?” I said. I was afraid to leave Diane without a coach even though I didn’t know exactly how to save us.
“Because I am making a conscious decision to sidestep the prescribed sexist roles of our society, which dictate that only boys know the difference between a flathead and a Phillips,” Penn said.
“I’ll just run to the bathroom before we go out,” said Diane.
I glanced at Diane’s date, who stood in the corner with a painful smile plastered to his face, and reminded Penn that the South has always been a matriarchal society.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, dipping his head to hide a smile.
“We’ll be back by ten,” said Diane, striding back into the room. A long strip of toilet paper was attached to the back of her pants, floating behind her like a tail.
My heart did a small flip-flop. Everyone stared and then looked away except for Max, who grabbed one end of the toilet-paper tail and waved it up and down. Joe was responsible, of course. He always does something like this when Diane has a date. Last time it was a broken heel on her shoe; she had to come home early.
“What? What is it?” Diane was saying, looking around the room. In a flash Penn was behind her, slipping his hand into the back of her pants so fast that if you blinked (I didn’t), you’d miss it. The toilet paper tail was removed and discarded.
Diane was back in half an hour.
“How did it go?” asked Penn. He was too much of a gentleman to smile when she grimaced, but I detected a spring in his step when he fixed her a cup of coffee. At the risk of sounding literary, may I add that I heard the faint notes of a song in his heart as he sat down at the kitchen table with her?
“I hope I didn’t interfere with anything when I came over earlier,” he said.
“Oh no. That’s okay.”
“I should have called—can’t find my phone.”
“I should have told you.”
“Told me what? You don’t have to tell me anything.”
“There’s nothing to tell—”
I decided to give them some alone time. In my room, I checked my phone, but there was no word from my betrothed. Just a text from Anders Anderson.
just a line … 2 keep in touch …
coz u r on my mind so very much …
& even though, I’ve nothing 2 say …
U’ll know … I thought of u 2day …
I decided to respond.
Me:
:-&19
Anders:
will u forward to ur friend kate?
Me:
srsly?20
Anders:
add swak21
Me:
Dude she friend zoned u
Anders:
when?
Me:
last week
Anders:
tttt22
Me:
iyo23
Anders:
jj24
Me:
ig2r25 new Mr. Friend was here. :b26
Anders:
ifyp.27 :’(
I hadn’t heard from Billy in over a week. I refused to go on Facebook and stalk him. What if I unfriended him? I imagined him calling me, his beautiful growly-Billy voice asking me to friend him back, to come to Massachusetts and move into the basement with him. I imagined myself pinching my lips like Grandma and saying tartly to the imaginary Billy, “Well, we’ll see about that.”
17 I added the “smiling with a fur hat” symbol because I miss my mad bomber hat. Also, I didn’t want to look like I cared, if the rumor was true.
18 Yep, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
19 Tongue-tied.
20 Seriously?
21 Sealed with a kiss.
22 These things take time.
23 In your opinion.
24 Just joking.
25 I’ve got to run.
26 Tongue sticking out.
27 I feel your pain.
A couple days later, Max and I had to go to Grandma and Papa’s house because Diane had made a fresh kill on Match.com. She insisted on wearing the black velvet boyfriend pants for the next Mr. Friend. After the last date, I thought we should pack them away as bad-luck clothes, but I let her have her way.
“Now, who is the man again?” Grandma asked Diane as we walked into her house. “Where did you meet him?”
Max and I were silent. We had been taught not to give Grandma any information. This isn’t hard, because Grandma never listens.
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