Such a Fun Age

by Kiley Reid

  Kelley wore slate-colored pants, a black coat, and something adorably chambray underneath. He walked with two black men, also informally but expensively dressed, and Alix smirked, thinking, Oh, you’re good. If Kelley felt better about himself by surrounding himself with unknowing human beings, then fine. But he wasn’t going to do that with Emira.

  Kelley and the men next to him were holding plastic containers with colorful build-your-own salads and forks inside. He finally noticed her, and for the second time that day, Alix felt as if she were the mother of teenagers. She watched him register her presence and slip into what looked like shameful shock. His entire body seemed to be saying, Mom, what are you doing here? I’m with my friends. Go home. He slowed his pace and Alix clipped toward him.

  “Whoa. What are you—”

  “I need to talk to you. Right now.”

  The two men next to Kelley took a step back from her as if she were contagious.

  Alix pointed to a building next door. “Let’s go in there.”

  Inside a building lined with windows, there was a double escalator that led up to a hallway of shiny elevators, and to the side of it, a dozen tables and a café were set up on the lobby floor. The whole place glowed and echoed in blue. A ginormous and hideous Jeff Koons piece dangled from the ceiling, spewing holiday cheer over the white tile. Alix found an open seat for two, and Kelley pulled out the chair across from her. She took her gloves off finger by finger and told herself to breathe.

  “What’s up, Alex?” Kelley sat down so carefully that it hurt, as if he were afraid to make any sudden movements. “How did you know where I worked?”

  “Hi, guys!” A pixie-haired woman appeared next to their table. “So this is sparkling water and this one is flat. Your waiter will be here in a—”

  “We aren’t staying, sorry,” Kelley stopped her.

  She said, “Okay!” with the same inflection, but still placed the glasses on the table and left.

  “You’re honestly asking why I’m here right now?” Alix’s stage presence kicked in and her voice came out smooth and smart. Inside, however, she was absolutely panicking. Had she really just decided to see Kelley and done so within twenty minutes? Maybe it had been a mistake, but she was here now, and he was waiting for her to continue. “I’m here because I’m concerned, Kelley,” she said. She enunciated the word concerned as if it were an idea he may or may not be familiar with.

  “You’re concerned? Wow.” Kelley laughed. “I’d love to hear more about why you’re concerned.”

  God, he was cute. Even when he was being a dick. Had he been this cute at Thanksgiving? There were tiny flecks of brilliant gray hair in places at his temples that she hadn’t noticed before. Alix swallowed and focused on the bubbly water in front of her. “I don’t think it’s fair of you to start dating my sitter and expect me to be quiet about it.”

  “Alex, come on.” Kelley put his boxed salad on the table. “I don’t love that she’s working for you either. But the fact is that you and I dated more than a decade ago and she’s gotta make her own—”

  “Oh God, this has nothing to do with us dating, so get over yourself.” The opportunity to say this to Kelley, to put air quotes on the word dating, with her hair blown out and her body six pounds from her pre-baby weight—Alix could practically taste it and the words were salty and warm. “Actually, I wish it had to do with you and I dating. You and I could have absolutely dated and broken up like normal people. That would have been great. But because you didn’t believe in the concept of privacy, and because you saw black athletes as your ticket to popularity, I can’t help but have an opinion on you filming Emira in a grocery store, and then deciding you should date her.”

  Kelley looked at her as if he possibly smelled fire. “Alex, what are you saying right now?”

  “I’m not finished.” Alix held up a flat hand in the air. “If you think I’m going to sit back while you try to look cool with someone who is like family to me, then you’re crazy.” Alix took a second to pause for effect. “If you’re still okay fetishizing black people like you did in high school, fine. Just don’t pull that shit with my sitter.”

  Alix watched Kelley take this in. She was furious, but she couldn’t stop focusing on how attractive his face was when he was confused. How could she hate someone so much and also want him to think she was sexy? In this garish thing that was apparently a restaurant? At that moment, another waiter came by and dropped off menus. When he asked if they wanted to start with an appetizer, Kelley barked, “We’re not together,” and the waiter said, “Okaayy.”

  Once the waiter retreated, Kelley pressed his hands to the edge of the table and blew out through his mouth. “Okay, let’s back up because there’s a lot to unpack here.”

  For some reason this phrase made Alix want to throw the bubbling water across the room. She crossed her legs and watched Kelley prepare to speak as he ran his tongue over his front teeth.

  “You didn’t have the best senior year, and that obviously still affects you. But at the end of the day, I broke up with you.” As he said this, he rested his palms upward on the table. “That’s it.”

  Alix shook her head. “This has nothing to do with—”

  Kelley cut her off with, “Let me finish. I broke up with you. That’s all. And I’m sure you’ve broken up with people too, and you understand how it works by now. It’s not easy for anyone involved.”

  Alix’s mind couldn’t land on what he was saying. It was all so loaded—she knew she’d analyze every bit of it later—but this seemed to block her from retaining any of the information. On one hand he looked exhausted, not angry, which made her want to throw up into the stretch of her scarf. On the other hand, he assumed she’d broken up with people? More than one? Did this mean that he still found her attractive? Was it a completely inappropriate time to clarify, So you still think I’m pretty?

  “That’s the only crime I’ve done against you,” Kelley went on. “I know you disagree with me on that, and I don’t understand why, all this time later, you can’t consider that maybe you didn’t have to call the cops that night?” Kelley proposed. “But as for you and me, I was seventeen and we broke up.”

  Alix looked up at the reflective glassy ceiling. “Again. I came here to talk about Emira.”

  “Okay, fine. As far as Emira goes . . .” Kelley stared at the table as if he were still trying to piece everything together. “I mean, honestly I’m shocked that the word fetishizing is even in your vocabulary . . . but Alex, I’m in love with Emira.”

  This comment felt like he’d reached in her chest and shooed her heart as if it were a bug that had landed too close.

  “And sure,” Kelley said. “I probably thought the black kids in high school were much cooler than the white ones. I don’t think I was the only kid who thought athletes and rappers and rich kids, including yourself, were cooler than everyone else. But Robbie and I are still friends. I was in his fucking wedding. It doesn’t matter how we became friends. And it doesn’t matter how I met Emira either.”

  Alix hated herself for her immediate thought, which was What wedding!? Why didn’t I see the pictures? Ohmygod, did Robbie block me?

  “And in my relationship with Emira?” Kelley widened his eyes. “No one is being used for anything. And more importantly, Emira is an adult. So maybe you don’t like it, but it shouldn’t be any concern of yours who she chooses to spend her time with.” Alix froze as Kelley put air quotes over the word concern.

  Alix wanted to scream and she wanted her voice to echo up into the gaudy and pretentious space. How dare you be diplomatic about this?! she thought. I get it, we’re through, but don’t date my fucking babysitter. And don’t act like I’m crazy. We were in love with each other. How else was I supposed to react? And how else was I supposed to see you again? The more Kelley had gone on, the calmer he got, and the more it seemed like he was slipping away. Alix w
anted him to hear the things she wasn’t saying, but she also refused to go home on good terms with this person who’d ruined her senior summer. New York City was still in her veins. Alix knew her hair and skin looked amazing. If Kelley thought he could leave this table without any repercussions, if Emira thought she could just ask for cash and call Peter by his first name, then they both had greatly underestimated her.

  “So what I’m hearing is . . .” Alix grinned. “That you haven’t told Emira exactly what you did to me?”

  Kelley put his forehead to his hands and said, “Jesus, Alex. I didn’t do anything to you—”

  “You can believe whatever you want,” she said. “But Emira has a right to know who she’s really dating. And if you don’t tell her about what you did to me, about everything that led to your best friend Robbie getting arrested, then I absolutely will.”

  Kelley choked out a laugh. Had Alix gone too far? Tamra had told Alix to not tell Emira what he’d done, but she didn’t say that Alix couldn’t get Kelley to tell Emira himself.

  “Alex . . .” Kelley sighed. “You came down here leading with the fact that you think I’m using Emira. But now it’s about a letter that I never even received?”

  “They are related,” Alix said through gritted teeth. “If it doesn’t matter and you didn’t do anything wrong, why haven’t you told her what you did to me?”

  “Why haven’t you told her what you did to Robbie?”

  “All I did was protect my sister and my sitter.”

  “Ohmygod, Alex. You’re still doing this? ‘I need to protect my black babysitter’? Just so you know, Robbie is still five-foot-five and—”

  “You know what?” Alix cut him off. “How about you tell Emira what happened, how Robbie just happened to know where I lived and the code to my house, and let her decide for herself. Since she’s so grown up and mature I’m sure she can make up her mind.”

  Kelley kept his head low but raised his eyes to say, “If this is you making a dig at her age, I’d be happy to discuss the gap between you and your husband.”

  Alix thought, Motherfucker. She often forgot that just because Peter looked young for his age, it didn’t mean that he looked young. But she wouldn’t be derailed. “Emira deserves to know who she’s dating.”

  “No, you know what, Alex?” Kelley leaned forward with one arm on the table. “Emira deserves a job where she gets to wear her own fucking clothes. How about you start with that?”

  Alix sat back. She felt the puffs in her jacket squish and deflate with a tiny whistle. “Excuse me?”

  “You act like what happened to you was worse than what happened to Robbie, even though—let’s not even go there. If you love Emira so much, then let her wear what she wants,” Kelley jeered. “I’m sure I didn’t handle things well back in high school. I was seventeen, I was an idiot. But at least I’m not still requiring a uniform for someone who works for me so I can pretend like I own them.”

  “Ohmygod!” Alix formed fists with both hands on the table. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. She asked! I lent her a shirt!”

  “You lend her the same shirt? Every day? In the business we call that a uniform.”

  “You are so completely out of line.” Alix had started her day in Manhattan, ready to tell Kelley, I know who you really are. But now she sat in Philadelphia, participating in a losing game called “Which One of Us Is Actually More Racist?” Alix cracked her neck to the side and pointed her hands like daggers on top of the table. “Emira is part of our family. We’ve never forced her to do anything she doesn’t want to do. I’ve known her for longer than you have, and I’m ready to do whatever it takes to protect her.”

  “This is fucking rich. You’re unbelievable.”

  “I’m not joking, Kelley. If you don’t—”

  “Alex, listen to yourself!” Kelley screamed this in a whisper. “You are the same person you were in high school. God, I saw you on Thanksgiving and I thought, how the fuck did this happen? But of course this happened. Of course you’re hiring black people to raise your children and putting your family crest on them. Just like your parents, who you were so ashamed of. And of course you sent Emira to a super-white grocery store, at midnight, and expected everything to be okay.”

  “Ha!” Alix tipped her head back. “So now you’re blaming me for the police interrogating Emira? That’s hysterical.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because she wouldn’t have gotten in trouble that night if she’d been wearing a uniform, now would she?”

  Alix watched Kelley do a thing with his jaw, as if he were trying to catch a kernel of popcorn in the air. Her heart rate somehow tripled and she wanted to hold her hands up to her face. If she had said what she was thinking, it would be clipped segments of Wait, what I meant . . . the thing is . . . okay but you said . . . that didn’t come out right.

  Kelley stood and dug into his jacket pocket. “Tell Emira whatever you want.”

  “Kelley, wait.”

  He threw two dollars on top of the table.

  “Kelley.” Alix stayed seated, hoping her resilience would make it impossible for him to go. “We . . . Emira has become very important to us and—”

  “Yeah, you guys are like family, right?” Kelley picked his salad up from the table. “Is that why you’re making her work on her birthday? Have a nice life, Alex.”

  * * *

  —

  Alix wished to God she had thought to bring her headphones, but she also knew that any song that she played to get Kelley out of her head would make her think of him for the rest of her life. Quick crunches of snow brought her home and up to the front door. She slipped herself in and locked it tight.

  She went straight to the kitchen computer and thought, Maybe one of the women from the campaign reached out. Maybe that one nice woman wrote me while I was gone. Alix didn’t have to be best friends with her babysitter. She just needed her family and her career. Her breathing had barely slowed as she clicked the email icon at the bottom of her computer screen. It flashed red with four new messages.

  Between a SoulCycle promo and a sale notification for Madewell jeans, the name of Alix’s editor flashed twice. Alix whispered, “Shit.” She was so fucking late with the manuscript. But according to Rachel, this happened all the time and agents scheduled and prepared for their authors to ask for extensions. And Alix just had a baby, what did everyone expect?

  The first email subject line read Are you in NYC???

  Shit, she thought again. This was why social media was awful sometimes. Should she have blocked her editor? No, that would be weird, wouldn’t it? What the fuck is Kelley going to tell Emira? Don’t think about it. Just read the email.

  Alix!

  I saw that you and your babe were in Prospect Park! So fun! I know it’s the holiday but I’d love to catch up, especially if you need an extension? Let me know if I missed an email or attachment with your first 50 pages. Xoxo Maura.

  Okay, that wasn’t so bad. Alix would write back saying that it was such a blur, that it was a lot of family time, and she would send over her first fifty pages ASAP. She just had to write them first. No big deal. Of course she’d planned to write them in all her favorite cafés and restaurants in New York City, but she’d been busy Googling Kelley. And his family. And their mutual friends from high school. And she was on vacation.

  But then Alix scrolled to Maura’s second email, which was sent an hour after the first.

  Hellooo? Alix love, let’s schedule a chat. I’m getting concerned that I haven’t seen any work from you, especially since most of the work in this case is already done. I know writing a book is quite a feat, especially with two little ones, but I want to make sure we’re on the same page (oh God, what a bad pun) before we move forward. I’d hate to have to amend our contract but I want to do what’s best for both of us here. Let’s talk soon. Maura.

>   Amend our contract? Could they take her advance away? What if she’d already spent it? This slap on the wrist from Maura felt like Alix’s mother had caught her drinking wine coolers in someone else’s car, opened the passenger-side door, and said, “Alex. Let’s go.” How fast could she write fifty pages? Or thirty? Hadn’t she had an outline for all of this? This was supposed to be easy and fun! What was Kelley telling Emira?!

  And that was when she heard it. With her palm pressed to her chin as she leaned against the standing desk, Alix heard Catherine emit an annoyed drip of baby sounds. Alix turned to the counter and seized the black-and-white baby monitor screen. There was Catherine in her crib. Kicking in her sleep sack.

  It was as if all her organs rushed up and squeezed into the space around her ears. But wasn’t Peter just . . . How did I . . . But I thought Emira had . . . She couldn’t have been . . . Alix ran and opened the girls’ bedroom door, and there was Catherine, who, now startled from the door opening so quickly, started to cry. Alix swooped her into her arms and held her against her beating chest. Had she been screaming or crying? Had she accidentally swallowed something? Did the neighbors hear her cry? Was she completely traumatized? Alix had left her daughter at home. Alone. What if something had happened?!

  You never leave a baby. It’s unlikely something will happen to it, but what about to you? Alix could barely remember walking home. What if she’d been hit by a car? What if she’d had a seizure and was left unconscious? Emira and Briar would be at a movie and God knows where else for hours, and Catherine would just be by herself in a fleece zip-up sack? How could she forget a person who’d been strapped to her for the past five days? What would she have said? Had Kelley really made her forget her own baby? Her brand-new baby, who already looked like a replica of herself? When was the last time Alix had cried this hard? Probably when Kelley broke up with her. Alix pressed her hand against her mouth and said, “I’m so sorry,” into it. Catherine calmed and waahh’d softly into her ear.