Kevin, on the other hand, was beyond excited. He thrived on big events, especially a room full of strangers. He didn’t just have the gift of gab—it was as if he had invented it. He was also a talented cook, and happily began helping Jenny prepare the food while Tom finished cleaning up the house.
Jenny’s parents, Russell and Tabetha, arrived with Victoria and Lakshmi, having picked the younger couple up at the nearby train station. Russell looked tan and fit, his salt-and-pepper hair combed and parted perfectly. He took his appearance very seriously. Tabetha wore a dress and a bit too much makeup and seemed genuinely happy to see everyone. Tom said hello awkwardly, giving his mother-in-law a kiss on the cheek and struggling through an awkward handshake with Russell that felt more like a tug-of-war. For Tom’s father-in-law, everything was a competition. Everyone marveled at Tom’s new look, and even Russell nodded in seeming appreciation.
Kevin hugged everyone, whether they were expecting it or not. Russell’s face blanched at the greeting, but he suffered through it.
Eager to impress her judgmental family, Jenny had gone all out on the meal, with Kevin’s help. The spread included a glazed ham, mashed potatoes, a huge green salad, string beans with sliced almonds, dinner rolls with garlic butter, and three desserts. Tom had worked hard all week to get the ground floor in shape, as well as the spare bedrooms upstairs, but that also meant he’d been forced to shove a seemingly endless array of objects into his and Jenny’s bedroom and many of the closets. He’d even taken some things down into the basement, which barely had any room left to begin with. He told Jenny that he’d been so busy working on the rest of the house, he hadn’t had much time to get rid of what was down there. Once things settled down a bit, he’d said, they would have more time to take care of various work around the house. Jenny had laughed at that. She asked him when he expected things to settle down.
But the house, or at least the parts of the house that would be seen by the people who didn’t live there, looked great. It was the first time that Tom and Jenny didn’t feel embarrassed to have visitors there.
“So, Tom,” Russell said as they all took seats at the dining room table, the as-yet untouched food, wine, and candles looking like a still life from another century. “Jen tells us you have a new job. Something in … sales, was it?” There was a slight note of contempt behind the word “sales.” Russell stared at Tom, waiting for an answer.
“That’s right,” Tom said as pleasantly as possible. “In fact, I’m working with Kevin now.”
“How nice,” Tabetha said, pouring herself a huge glass of red wine, which her husband eyed suspiciously. “Working with your best friend must be a real treat.”
“It is,” Tom confirmed, smiling at his mother-in-law.
“Well, it can be a disaster if you aren’t careful,” Russell said, piling an obscene amount of food onto his plate. “Remember … I owned my own company for thirty years. I’ve seen people turn on each other, seen it get ugly. Broken contracts, lawsuits, you name it. I hope you two have thought this through very carefully. Yes, sir, it could get very, very ugly…,” he finished, pointing a forkful of meat at Tom and Kevin.
“Well, I guess we’re lucky, then,” Kevin said, flashing his megawatt smile. “Since Tom is already so ugly.”
Victoria burst out laughing, quickly covering her mouth. Everyone else joined in except Russell, who just shook his head and shoved the oversized piece of flesh into his mouth.
“Your sister told us about your little workout studio!” Tabetha said to her younger daughter. “How exciting!”
Tom noticed Jenny’s eyes go wide, then move to Victoria, shooting her sister a withering gaze. Victoria simply shrugged and smiled.
Russell made a sound in the back of his throat. He was always more than happy to openly criticize Tom, but he would usually keep quiet about what he considered his daughters’ poor choices. Later, he would bad-mouth them to his wife behind closed doors, who then passed the remarks on to Jenny or Victoria. After that, they would all be angry with each other.
“And how are you paying for all of this?” Russell asked, unable to stay silent, raising an eyebrow at Jenny. “The studio, the new house. There’s no way Tom’s new job is paying off that fast, and I can’t imagine that gym gave you much of a severance.”
A moment of silence blanketed the room until Victoria said, “I’m helping them out.”
“Victoria—” Russell started to say, but his older daughter cut him off.
“Dad. Do not start. How I spend my money is none of your business. No one gave you grief when you bought that midlife crisis mobile.”
“Hear! Hear!” Tabetha intoned, raising her wineglass in salute.
“Watch yourself, young lady,” Russell growled, though he was half-smiling at his more successful daughter. These days, it seemed as though she could get away with anything.
“Besides, Jenny is going to do great,” Victoria said, holding up her own wineglass. “I’m really proud of the way she’s bounced back after losing her job. Not everyone could do that. To Jenny!”
The sisters often softened toward each other in the presence of their parents, and Tom always loved to see it. Maybe Kevin was right. Maybe he’d been too judgmental regarding Victoria.
“And to Tom!” Kevin interjected, clinking Victoria’s glass. “He closed a huge deal today. Huge!”
“You did?” Jenny said. “You didn’t tell me that!”
“Well,” Tom said sheepishly, “things have been so crazy. I … I meant to.”
“That is so great,” Jenny said, staring at her husband, a big smile on her face. “I knew you could do it, honey. I knew it.”
“Congratulations,” Russell said, nodding. “That sounds … impressive.” It was the first compliment Tom could ever remember receiving from his father-in-law.
“May Tom outsell every sales associate we have,” Kevin finished. “Except me, of course!”
The table laughed at Kevin’s joke. He winked at Tom, and everyone clinked glasses and drank. Drops of red wine splashed onto the white tablecloth and spread into bizarre shapes. One appeared to Tom like a skull. He didn’t like the way it seemed to be looking at him. He realized he was getting shaky, that he wanted the chrysalis. Needed it.
Instead, he rubbed and rubbed at the little crimson skull with his thumb as the dinner guests talked and laughed, trying to alter its shape, to blot it from existence, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get the stain to stop staring at him.
* * *
The house was packed.
Word of the party had somehow reached people from all over the neighborhood, including the main street and another dead end that ran parallel to Waldrop, and a couple dozen bored suburbanites had started showing up around ten o’clock and semi-apologetically inviting themselves in, holding up bottles of alcohol as proof of their good intentions.
The rest of the meal with Jenny’s family had gone well, and thankfully, Russell and Tabetha didn’t outstay their welcome. Russell said goodbye to Tom in a way he never had before, with something almost resembling grudging respect.
Tom and Jenny planned on announcing the pregnancy to her family at breakfast the next morning—good news somehow often devolved into massive fights with her family, and this way, Russell and Tabetha would have to leave soon after the announcement and head back to Upstate New York. Regardless of his wife’s tumultuous relationship with her parents and her sister, Tom still found himself battling jealousy. He sometimes wished he had any family left to fight with.
Jenny was in a great mood, welcoming their unexpected guests with enthusiasm. She told Tom to relax when he questioned the notion of a bunch of strangers invading their home. How often did they throw parties like this anymore? Tom would have guessed that she was drunk if he hadn’t known better.
It was a good thing Russell and Tabetha had left right after dinner. The suburbanites were ready to get crazy. One of the newly arrived neighbors was apparently a DJ and he’d reco
nfigured the ancient stereo system in the living room, which was now blasting trance metal at a deafening volume. Tom and Jenny had pulled up the horrible black-and-red rug a few weeks earlier, revealing a beautiful natural wood floor that was currently slick and sticky with spilled beer and wine.
Tom was dying inside. The high of the dinner had faded, and all he could think about was the chrysalis. He felt as if he were falling down an endless black hole, depression setting in like a fever. At one point, he found himself in a corner of the living room, sipping a sweaty bottle of beer, surrounded by shadowy, chattering figures that sounded like insects.
“What the hell are you doing over here, man?” Kevin asked as he approached from nowhere. He was clearly drunk, a dark-haired woman who wore bright red lipstick draped across his shoulders, eyes glowing.
“Hey,” Tom said, feeling his gut tighten. He knew his best friend was about to call him out. “I’m just … taking it all in.”
“Bullshit,” Kevin slurred. “I know you. I’ve known you your whole. Damn. Life. You’re standing here, hating yourself, hating every person in here. Except me, of course. No one hates me.” The woman on his shoulder laughed and buried her head into his shirt, lipstick getting everywhere. “Tomorrow, when we’re nursing massive hangovers, you’re gonna wish you’d talked to more people. That you had at least fucking tried. Go ahead. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You’re wr—”
“Nope!” Kevin shouted, holding up his hand in Tom’s face and laughing. The woman was laughing, too, her teeth stained scarlet. “Stop being a wuss! Go find your wife and have some fun!” he commanded, then turned and stumbled off into the crowd, the dark-haired woman smiling sadly at Tom before following Kevin.
Tom stared after them, then polished off the rest of his beer and headed for the kitchen to get another. If he wasn’t allowing himself to visit the chrysalis, he might as well get as drunk as possible. But he’d had a lot to drink already and barely felt it, which only increased his depression and annoyance.
The kitchen was even crazier. People clearly wanted to get a look at the stain, or what was left of it. They gawked as if it were an exhibit in some fucked-up museum; a few people were even trying to take selfies with it in the background. Tom attempted to get to the refrigerator, but every time he took a step, the horde of people would eddy and shove him in the other direction, toward the basement. The door seemed to grow larger than ever as the masses of clothing and flesh, hair and ragged fingernails pushed him closer and closer to it.
At last he was pressed up against the wood. He had tried so hard to avoid it today. But finally, he wrapped his fingers around the doorknob and felt himself relax.
Tom Decker slipped into the basement at 11:43 P.M. No one saw him open or close the door. No one noticed that he was gone for just under twenty minutes. For Tom, though, it felt as if he were absent for much, much longer.
* * *
The party was booming.
Jenny wasn’t sure what time it was. Though she hadn’t had a single alcoholic drink, her adrenaline was pumping and she felt amazing.
The guy shouting into her ear was tall and really good looking, with a sick body underneath his pink collared shirt—sleeves rolled up to his elbows, khaki shorts, and designer flip-flops. She wasn’t exactly sure what Hottie McPinkshirt was saying—someone had switched the music over to Top 40 hits, and an impromptu dance party had broken out all over the house—but she gathered that he was recently divorced, lived at the top of the street, near the main drag that fed into their dead end, had a young son whom he saw every other weekend, and his name was Chad Forsythe. Of course it was.
“… and that’s what happens when you invest without doing your due diligence!” Chad said, laughing at a joke she must have missed. She nodded and smiled, slyly checking out his body yet again, and then felt a hand wrap around her wrist.
“Jen!” Victoria shouted, flashing a pleasantly genuine smile. Jenny could tell that her sister was drunk, but it looked like Fun Drunk Victoria had shown up, rather than Pissed Off at the World Drunk Victoria.
“What’s up. I’m Chad, the neighbor,” he said, pushing his chiseled chin forward.
“What’s up,” Victoria deadpanned back at him. “I’m Victoria. The dyke sister.”
The man’s mouth fell half-open at the blunt statement. Jenny bit back a laugh, wrapping her arm into her sister’s. “Have you seen Tom?” she shouted.
“Not for a while,” Victoria responded, surveying the party. Chad took the hint and turned around. Discovering another group of random neighbors, he jumped forward and launched full steam into a new conversation without a moment’s hesitation. “Last I saw,” Victoria continued, “he was standing in a corner, moping. You know. The usual.”
“Ugh,” Jenny said. “I was hoping that big deal he closed at work meant he was going to cut loose a little bit. He seemed to be having fun at dinner, once Dad got a couple drinks into him and settled down.”
“He did,” Victoria agreed. “And as much as I hate to admit it, his new look works for him. Plus, he seems to be really enjoying the job. I mean, making that deal already? Dad was right. It’s impressive.”
Jenny knew Victoria must be really drunk if she was complimenting Tom so freely, but her sister wasn’t wrong: Tom had never been so at ease around her family. Maybe it was because Kevin was there—he always made social situations a bit more bearable. She didn’t know if it was the house or the baby or the haircut, or just the job infusing Tom with some confidence, but she liked it.
“How about Lakshmi? I don’t think I’ve seen her once since dinner!” Jenny said.
“Me neither!” Victoria shouted back, draining her glass. “Come on, let’s go find them! Sister mission!”
Jenny nodded, mock serious, and pulled Victoria along, both sisters laughing uncontrollably, as if they were eight and ten again and Jenny was leading Victoria toward a pile of presents on Christmas morning.
Victoria spied Lakshmi talking to a fortysomething-year-old man and grabbed her wife by the arm.
“Thank you,” Lakshmi said, and the three of them burst into hysterics, forming a tight circle, effectively shutting the rest of the party out. “Are you having fun, Jenny?”
“Yes!” she answered, still laughing. “Though I don’t know who any of these people are!”
“At least you get to meet all your neighbors at once!” Lakshmi said, smiling.
“You want me to kick their asses to the curb?” Victoria asked dramatically, rolling up a shirtsleeve. “Just say the word, sis.”
“No!” Jenny said, breathless with enjoyment. These kinds of moments with her sister were so rare, so special. “I love this! This is like those parties on the roof in Alphabet City where random people from the building would show up. Remember that? Remember that old drunk guy who thought you were the ghost of his dead wife?”
Victoria guffawed. “Ugh! Don’t remind me! His breath smelled like old, rotten fish.”
“Eww,” Jenny and Lakshmi said simultaneously.
“I’m really happy for you,” Lakshmi said, putting her arm around Jenny.
“What … what do you mean?” Jenny answered, nervous that her sister-in-law had found out about the pregnancy. She knew she was being ridiculously secretive, but she wasn’t ready to tell anyone yet. Maybe she would have enough courage in the morning, as she and Tom had planned, when her parents came over for breakfast.
“Just … all of this. The house … the fitness studio. I know how hard it is to start a new life, a new business, how stressful it can be. But I think you’re going to do such a great job. I realize I’m younger than you, so this may sound ridiculous … but I’m proud of you.”
“You’re right, that does sound ridiculous,” Victoria said, kissing her wife’s cheek.
“Quiet, you,” Lakshmi responded.
“Thanks,” Jenny said, putting her arm around her sister-in-law, then around Victoria. Victoria put her own arms around her sister and her wife, t
oo. The party raged on around them, but they were completely separate from it for a moment. “I would love to get some advice from you about starting a new business, Lakshmi. We should get lunch sometime, maybe the next time I’m in the city.”
“I would love that, too. And we can gossip about Victoria behind her back.”
“Hardy har,” Victoria said, smiling.
“How’s Tom handling everything?” Lakshmi asked Jenny.
“Really well, I think,” Jenny responded, looking around but failing to spot him. “I mean, he spends a lot of time in the basement … He’s turning it into an art studio, which is really important to him. I stay out of his way—it’s a mess down there. But I’m so glad he’s doing well with the new job … It’s something that I was actually really nervous about.”
“Me, too,” Victoria said, not unkindly.
“I just hope he’s able to keep up with his art. I would hate for him to lose that part of himself.”
“Let’s go find that goofy bastard,” Victoria said, and Jenny smiled at her sister. It was no secret that Victoria had questioned Tom’s “worthiness,” but something seemed to be changing, and Jenny welcomed it.
The three of them broke formation, a laughing chain of humanity, and made their way to the kitchen, where the lights were still on. At that moment, Jenny felt a deep connection to her sister and Lakshmi, and to Tom, and wished that she were with him. To her delight, they found him in the kitchen.
“… had no choice!” Tom was saying to a crowd of strangers, one arm draped around Kevin’s shoulder, his eyes wide and sparkling, a huge smile on his face. Jenny had never seen him like this, had never seen him even vaguely like this, at a party. “I had to pour my chocolate milk on his head!”
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