Multiple Listings

by Tracy McMillan

  “I’m serious, Nicki,” he says. “I haven’t had that much tequila. I don’t know, it just seems like your dad is actually a really good guy who just got caught in the system and now he’s worked his ass off to live right. He deserves a chance.”

  “You’re such a liberal,” I say playfully. But seeing my dad through Alex’s eyes is making me soften a little. “I like that about you.”

  “I also want to do it for you,” he says. He kisses me. “I’m serious.”

  I can’t believe he would do something like that for me. In fact, having a guy be this nice to me is giving me anxiety. Good thing we’re almost home. I can already hear Cody’s music coming from his bedroom window.

  “Cody!”

  I shouldn’t yell, but it’s too late, I sort of did. You can hear some shuffling from inside the room. I poke my head in the window.

  “What’s going on in there?”

  “Mom, are you drunk?”

  “I wouldn’t say drunk.” I feel momentarily grateful that unlike me, Cody’s growing up with a mom where being drunk is newsworthy and it’s okay to say it out loud. “Sorry. What’s happening?”

  “I’m fine, Mom.”

  “Are your friends fine? Do they need a ride home?”

  “Their ride already came,” Cody says. “And Ronnie took Peaches home.”

  “Oh really? Shoot, I told her I would give her a ride.”

  Cody looks at my condition. “Yeah, um, no.”

  “Okay, honey,” I say. Maybe now that I’m talking to a sixteen-year-old, I’m drunker than I realize. “I have to pee. I’ll see you in there,” I say, meaning inside the house.

  I head into the house toward the bathroom. For a minute I think about putting in my diaphragm, but immediately reject the idea as lame. That’s not my particular brand of Bad Mom. I’m more the lady who works a little too much and wants her kid to do well in school a little too much and gets a little too much takeout. I’m not the lady who’s trying to get laid a little too much. Thank God.

  I flush the toilet and head back outside. Alex is lying down on the grass now, looking up at the sky. “The stars are really beautiful tonight,” he says.

  I like guys who like stars.

  I don’t care what Peaches says. Alex is a good guy and I think this relationship has possibilities.

  * * *

  The minute we leave the doctor’s office, Cody asks if he can drive. “Mom, please?” He’s just had his thumb injury checked and lucky for him, he only partly lacerated his tendon, so after two weeks of wearing a hand splint that made him look like he was half dressed in a mummy costume, he’s now been given a clean bill of health. Which means he’s able, if not exactly ready, to get back behind the wheel. “Please? I’m so far behind. I really, really need to practice.”

  I make an I don’t know face and mumble something about how Cody just got his splint off.

  “Let the boy drive, Nicki,” Ronnie says. “He wants to get his license, and he needs all the practice he can get.”

  It’s getting to the point that when my dad tells me something about Cody, I just shut up and listen. It’s like the two of them have some sort of mental telepathy that I’m not in on, and never could be in on, unless of course I had a penis. I had no idea I was so out of touch with my kid, and I said as much to Ronnie one day. He told me it’s not that I was out of touch, it’s just that a woman can never teach a boy how to be a man. Only another man can do that. At first I was dubious, but over the past few weeks I’ve been “schooled” (as Ronnie would say), and now when Ronnie uses his it’s a dude thing tone of voice I just step aside and let the testosterone happen.

  “So I guess this leaves me in the backseat?” I open up the car door and get in.

  “Yeah, Mom,” Cody says, giggling. “Welcome to my world. I had to sit back there until I was eleven. You’ll get used to it.”

  “Ha!” Ronnie laughs. He motors the passenger seat back a few inches, forcing me to tuck my legs in, and gives Cody a fist bump. “Son, you’re killing it.”

  Cody pushes the start button in the dash and it’s immediately obvious he’s done it before because the car is roaring to life. At the same time, he adjusts the rearview mirror and kicks back in his seat, shoots a glance at the shifter, and with his right hand confidently throws it in reverse like it’s no big deal. Then he checks his first mirror, then the other one and with his uninjured hand, sweeps the steering wheel half a rotation to the right, and pulls out of the parking spot in one clean move.

  “Damn, boy.” Ronnie throws a look my way. “You got skills.”

  I’m not sure whether to be terrified or impressed. “How do you know how to do all that?”

  “Because,” he says, as he swipes the blinker down and pulls into traffic. “Ronnie.”

  “Because before he cut his thumb, I was teaching the boy to drive. That’s how.” Ronnie smiles impishly. “And I’m a great teacher, right?”

  “Right,” Cody says. He has a look of self-satisfaction on his face that belongs to a guy in his midtwenties. He holds out a fist for another bump.

  “You took him out without asking me?” I say to Ronnie. “In what car?”

  “In this one!” Ronnie claps. “Which car did you think?”

  “Whenever you walk to your yoga class, or get your nails done with Peaches, Ronnie takes me out,” Cody says. “Or he did, until I cut my finger. But I’m good, Mom. Just watch. You’ll see, I’m awesome.”

  “He’s right, baby,” Ronnie says to me. “He’s really good. Look at him!”

  I’m astounded as Cody pulls into traffic. It’s hard to get too mad, though. How did I not realize until this very moment that Cody’s childhood’s going to be over in about ten minutes and I’m extremely not ready for it? On the other hand, thanks to Ronnie, he appears to be readier than I imagined. If Cody can do life the way he drives this car, maybe I don’t have to worry about him so much after all. He’s damn good.

  “Cody, you’re lucky I think you’re so cute,” I say. “Because otherwise you would be in major trouble.”

  “I hope you think I’m so cute,” Ronnie says back.

  “Actually, Ronnie,” I say. “You are in major trouble! Taking out my car without permission.” I make it clear from my voice that I’m kidding.

  “The boy needed to learn to drive,” he says. “I hadda do what I hadda do to help him. Anything for my boy, here.”

  “You’re forgiven. Now for the important questions,” I say. “What’s on the radio?”

  Maybe there’s something we can all sing along to.

  23

  * * *

  RONNIE

  I finally found a job. Actually, I didn’t “find” it—it found me. A couple of days after the Thanksgiving dinner party, I got a call from an unknown number (I almost didn’t even pick it up) and it turned out to be the office manager from that company Alex works for. They said Alex recommended me for a PA position and would I like to come down and interview for the job? I’m like, what job? I was down there in a half hour! Not that I even knew what a PA does.

  I started on Monday. Now it’s Thursday, and I know what a PA does—everything. PA is short for “production assistant,” a term from movie sets where you basically do all the things no one else wants to do. I answer the phones, make coffee, deal with the mail, and grocery shop for all the snacks in the break room. But my biggest responsibility is handling lunch. Every day I choose a restaurant from a list of places nearby, then pass out the menu to everyone in the office so they can pick something. I start with the CEO, who is something like twenty-nine and dresses like a lumberjack, and work my way down the hierarchy. There are twenty-three people total, and they all get a free lunch. I have half a mind to offer to cook for everyone because I could save this company an awful lot of money if I did. But maybe I’ll try to stick around for a while before I sugges
t that.

  Most of the day I sit in my “office area,” which is really just a desk off the break room, and watch the world go by. There are also some good-looking girls working here, I won’t lie. They flit around all day—from their desks to the bathroom, back to their desks, to the break room, and back to their desks again. Some of them have on little skirts and boots and giggle all the time. Others are the kind who just wear sweaters and jeans and don’t like to show their bodies too much. I wouldn’t have given them a second look when I was younger. In my advanced age, I can appreciate their beauty, too. They are all way too young for me (or “obvs,” as the girls would say), but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy looking at them.

  The best part about my desk is that it’s right in the middle of everything, so people stop by and chat with me. I want to know where they’re from, what kind of music they listen to, how long they’ve worked here, what their job is, and whether or not they’re in a relationship. I think I’ve learned more about the world in the past four days than I did in the previous seventeen years combined.

  “What’s for lunch today, Ronnie?” I look up from the menu book where I’m trying to decide between the Italian place and the soup-and-salad place. It’s Addie, one of the sweatshirt girls who works in coding. “Better not be the soup-and-salad place.”

  “Addie! Well, miss, I’m sorry to say, I think it is going to be exactly that,” I say. There are two factions in the office—the miniskirt girls who don’t eat any bread, rice, pasta, basically any white food, and the sweatshirt girls who do. It’s practically a civil war. “We had carbs yesterday, I’m afraid.”

  “Sucks,” Addie says. “The marketing girls need to realize that becoming Taylor Swift isn’t a life goal.”

  “Ha!” I laugh, and clap my hands. Addie’s funny and very real. “You’re a good girl, Addie. You got a boyfriend?”

  “Ronnie, I’m not into guys,” she says. “Is that not clear?” She motions at her flannel shirt.

  “Okay, you got a girlfriend?”

  She smiles. “No, but I’m working on it.” She leans over the little pony wall that separates my desk from the walkway and lowers her voice. “Do you know that girl Liz in IT?”

  I lean in. “As a matter of fact, I do! She’s cute!”

  “Isn’t she?”

  “Should I put in a word for you?”

  “You actually talk to her?” Addie sounds excited. “Is she in a relationship?”

  “That, I don’t know,” I say. “But I can certainly find out.” I open the three-ring binder and take out the soup-and-salad menu. “I’m about to take the lunch order. When I get to Liz, I’ll drop a hint real sly. Get the lowdown.”

  “Yes!” Addie gives me a big smile before heading back to her desk. “You rock, Ronnie.”

  I have to admit, these kids are good people. So nice, they’re forcing me to change my mind about people who go to expensive colleges and have doctors for dads. I woulda thought they were stuck-up or rude. Turns out to be far from the case. They are some of the most thoughtful and sincere people I’ve met in my life.

  My first day here, the office manager introduced me as Ronnie Daniels, a guy who just spent a whole bunch of years in prison, who is doing this job as a condition of his parole. I told them when they hired me that I didn’t want to hide my past. It’s part of who I am, and I think being honest about it might even mean I can help some people. At the very least, they’ll be a little less prejudiced against convicts if, once upon a time when they were in their first job, they met a guy named Ronnie who actually spent some time in prison. Since then, a couple of kids have dared to ask me what prison was like—so I dared to tell them. I told them it wasn’t that much different from what they’re doing right now. I told them everything changed for me the day I realized I could spend most of my time in there waiting for the moment I was going to get out. Or I could just be where I was and be free right now. My choice.

  Sometimes I want to sit all of these kids down and give them a big speech on everything I’ve learned about life. I want to tell them being young is a lot better on TV than it is in real life, so they shouldn’t compare their insides to other people’s outsides. Being young is about trying to find yourself, figuring out who you are, and just as important, who you aren’t. Everyone they know is wondering how their lives are going to turn out. Will they get the great job? Will they get a boyfriend/girlfriend who is nice and fits with their life plan and—this is the big and—they want to have sex with really bad? Why does that seem so hard to find?

  The truth about being young is that it’s just a phase. Everything is just a phase. It all passes. You go from being a kid, to being a kid in college, to being a kid with a job, to being married, to having kids, then a house and a dog. And then pretty soon your kids grow up and you get older and all the stuff you spent your life putting together starts to go away—you downsize the house, retire from the job, trade full-time kids for part-time grandkids. None of it lasts. You just have to enjoy it while it’s here.

  Not that they would believe me.

  In twenty minutes, I’m done taking all the lunch orders and I’m about to fax them in, when Carmen, the receptionist, approaches me. She’s still got the little phone system earpiece sticking out of her ear.

  “Ronnie, there are some men here to see you.” She seems a little tense.

  “Are they delivery guys?” I have paper and office supplies coming. But they never arrive that quick. “I only ordered it a half hour ago.”

  Carmen shakes her head. “I don’t think so. These guys are wearing suits. And there’s two of them.”

  My heart skips twenty beats. I’m in trouble. My whole body knows this feeling. It’s like my subconscious does a million little calculations and spits out a warning: I’m in trouble.

  “Who are they?”

  “I don’t know,” she says, impatient this time. She glances over her shoulder. “They want you to come out and talk.”

  I have to pee. My stomach is rumbling and I feel like I might just have diarrhea on the spot. Not good. “Can you tell them I’m gone?”

  “Too late.” Carmen looks sick, like she knows she’s gotten me in trouble. “I already told them you’re here.”

  Carmen turns to look again, and once she moves her body I can see that they are at the far end of the room, heading in my direction. If I could burst into a dash I would. But I’m frozen. I can’t move even though I know what’s about to happen.

  They are coming and I can’t stop them.

  The biggest thing I’m feeling is mortified. Nicki’s boyfriend got me this job and now I’m going to embarrass him and humiliate her and him both. Why is it that I can never stop hurting my child? Is there some part of me that can’t stop screwing up? What is my problem?

  “Ronald Daniels?” the guy on the right says.

  “Yes.”

  “Multnomah County Sheriff’s Department,” he says evenly. “You’re under arrest.”

  * * *

  I’ve been in here three days now. Back into the world of buzzers and slamming doors. Of voices over loudspeakers. Of keys and uniforms. Of strip searches and screamers. Of a world painted cream and light blue—colors scientifically proven to induce “calm.” (Yeah, right.) Of stainless steel toilets, and trays passed through tiny windows in doors, and shades that can only be drawn from the outside.

  Back behind bars.

  I’ve called the house three times so far. First no one picked up. Then Nicki picked up and hung up. Then, no one picked up. I’m trying to figure out what’s happening. Is anybody coming? Am I going back to Sheridan? I’m tormented by the not knowing.

  One thing I’m sure of: Melissa put me here. She had me picked up on a parole violation. (I don’t even know what exactly yet, but it’s not hard to find a violation—all parolees are breaking at least one of the rules most of the time.) It’s my fault. You c
an’t just get a woman all strung out on you and think she’s going to let you walk away—I know that. Even worse, I never officially broke it off with Melissa. I was hoping I could let her down easy by slowly letting the whole relationship fade out. You know, let it die of neglect. I got so caught up in my new life with Nicki and Cody I thought she’d just forget about me. Just let it go real easy. I’d moved on, why couldn’t she? It’s not like in reality we were really going to have a future together. But Melissa Devolis doesn’t give a goddamn about reality. She’s lost in a time warp of Daddy issues, and isn’t about to let me leave without fulfilling her fantasy of getting the bad boy to turn good for her. After I didn’t love her the way she wanted to be loved, she decided to punish me by taking the only thing I have: my freedom.

  “What the fuck.” My cellmate is awake. And he’s talking. “What the fuck.”

  I’m in a cell with three other beds. The beds are filled with a rotating collection of drunk drivers, assaulters, car thieves, drug addicts. People being human in ways that make other people want to lock them up. People who still have people in their lives who will bail them out.

  Right now there are just two of us. Me and my friend here, who’s been lying dead on the floor on a dried river of old pee since he arrived four hours ago. Now that he’s sitting up, I can see that he has a busted lip and his left eye is puffed almost shut.

  “Looks like you lost,” I say.

  “I’m lost?” He’s still trying to figure out where he is. He must have been really drunk.

  “Looks like you lost,” I say, louder. “The fight.”

  He’s in his midtwenties. Working guy. Probably went out for some darts and a few beers and his big mouth got him here. He touches his face and winces. Pain is the only thing about this experience so far that isn’t confusing to him.

  “Can’t remember it, huh?”

  “Fuck, man,” he says. “No.”