This Is Where I Leave You: A Novel

by Jonathan Tropper

  “Unless Paul wants to hit me too.”

  “What could I do to you that the universe hasn’t already done?” Paul says.

  “Oh,” Phillip says, like he’s just remembered something. “Jen’s pregnant. It’s Judd’s.”

  Everyone in the room turns to stare at me.

  “I think I speak for everyone when I say, holy shit!” Wendy says.

  “How could you not tell me that?” Mom says.

  “Now I’m going to hit you,” I say to Phillip.

  He shrugs. “Every man for himself.”

  Then Alice stands up and very deliberately lets her coffee mug and saucer fall to the floor, where they shatter into pieces. She looks around at all of us as tears form in her eyes. “Unbelievable,” she says. And then, before anyone can say anything, can figure out what set her off, she turns and runs crying past us, up the stairs, and moments later we all jump as the door to my old bedroom slams shut and all the lights on the first floor go out.

  Chapter 23

  11:45 a.m.

  I’ve never been in a Porsche before. Phillip’s rides low to the ground and I feel every seam in the road, every pebble, transmitted through the hard leather seat. The floor is strewn with plastic soda bottles and fast food wrappers, the ashtray spilling over with bent butts, and gas receipts.

  “Nice car,” I say.

  He shifts into third and guns it. “I know what you’re thinking,” he says.

  “What’s that?”

  “You’re thinking I’m a fuckup and Tracy’s rich, and I’m just with her because she pays my way and I get to drive cars like this.”

  “Why are you with her?”

  Phillip sighs and shakes his head. “I’ve been trying to grow up, Judd. I know I’ve kind of cemented my place as the family fuckup, but believe it or not, that’s not who I want to be. And having hit more than my share of brick walls, I figured maybe a better class of woman would be a good place to start.”

  “So you’re not using her for her money. You’re using her for her class.”

  “I’m not using her. Not any more than she’s using me. Isn’t that what love is? Two people who fulfill needs in each other?”

  I shrug. “My wife spent the last year of our marriage sleeping with my boss. Don’t ask me about love.”

  “Your pregnant wife.”

  “My pregnant wife.”

  Phillip grins. “Looks like I’ve got some competition in the family fuckup department.”

  “It appears that way.”

  “How are you dealing with that, by the way?”

  “By trying really hard not to think about it.”

  “That’s what I would do,” he says approvingly. “So, where can I drop you?”

  “What do you mean? I thought we would get lunch or something.”

  “There’s something I have to go do.”

  “Something or someone?”

  “Your faith in me is duly noted.”

  I look out the window at a flock of geese flying by in a V formation, getting out while the getting’s good. “It’s not you, Phillip. It’s humanity in general.”

  “Well, cry me a river.”

  “Okay, drop me at Kelton’s.”

  “The ice rink?”

  “Yeah.”

  He gives me a quizzical look. “Going skating, are you?”

  “There’s something I want to see.”

  Phillip gives me a wry look. “Something or someone?”

  Then, without warning, he swerves across the double yellow line to pass the minivan in front of us, and for a second we are faced with oncoming traffic and our own mortality. A second later he yanks us back across and, without downshifting, turns left through the intersection on what feels like two wheels, the centrifugal force throwing me against the door. “Jesus Christ, Phillip!”

  The Porsche’s tires gain traction and we rocket down the street to a chorus of angry horns from all the motorists he almost killed, and Phillip sighs. “Driving a Porsche is like fucking a model,” he says, and he would know. “It will never feel as good as it looks.”

  12:20 p.m.

  PENNY SKATES BACKWARD in circles to Huey Lewis and the News, her legs whipping and scissoring beneath her as she speeds across the ice, executing a leap and then a spin. She is wearing black leggings and a worn gray hoodie, her hair tucked into a black ski cap. She moves with grace and confidence, her face flushed from the cold, and she doesn’t see me, shivering in my polo shirt on the lowest bleacher, falling briefly in love with her again . . . If this ain’t love, baby, just say so . . . Huey Lewis and the News are done, and the Dream Academy comes on singing “Life in a Northern Town.” Why are all skating rinks trapped in the eighties?

  Penny picks up speed and then glides backward across the ice holding one leg up over her head with her hand. As she moves past, her eyes casually sweep up to the bleachers and she sees me. The surprise throws her balance off, and she goes down on her ass hard. I run through the opened door and out onto the ice, where she’s already back on her skates, dusting the ice flakes off her leggings.

  “You okay?” I say.

  “You scared me,” she says.

  “I didn’t mean to.”

  “You’re not allowed on the ice without skates.”

  “Right. Sorry.” I step back through the door onto the rubber matting.

  Penny skates over to the door and gives me a long, measured look. Then she reaches into one of the pockets of her sweatshirt and tosses me a key chain. “There are hockey skates in the rental shack. Go grab yourself a pair and come on out.”

  “I wasn’t planning on skating.”

  “And I wasn’t planning on falling on my ass in front of an old boyfriend. Things happen. Just roll with it.”

  “I was never your boyfriend.”

  Penny grins. “Fuck-buddy, then.”

  “We never actually had sex.”

  “And we never will if you keep parsing words with me.”

  The hockey skates smell like something curled up and died in them. I’m laced up and on the ice in under five minutes.

  I haven’t skated in years, stopped playing pickup hockey around the time I got married, but it comes back fast. While I was putting on my skates, Penny dimmed the main lights and turned on the disco effects, so we are skating to “Time After Time” through a dusky universe of spinning blue stars. It’s like we’ve been transplanted into a romantic comedy, and all that’s left to do is say something meaningful and kiss Penny at center ice while the music swells, and the happy ending is guaranteed. If you’re lost you can look and you will find me, time after time. Penny was always recklessly attracted to grand romantic gestures, to jumping into fountains fully clothed, to long, deep kisses in the rain. She dreamed of Richard Gere in his navy dress whites carrying her out of the factory, of telling Tom Cruise that he had her at hello. But we are hardly free and clear for a happy ending. After all this time, we are little more than strangers to each other, each of us pretending otherwise for our own sad reasons. I don’t even know if I’m here because she’s someone I once loved, or because I’m just lonely and desperate and more than a little sexually frustrated and our past gives me something of a head start. And there’s something off about Penny, something not quite there. I shouldn’t be here. I should be back at home, mourning my father and adjusting to the reality of becoming one myself, continuing to put all my energies into falling out of love with Jen.

  And yet . . . Penny’s clear skin practically glows on the ice, and the piles of hair pouring out from beneath her cap fly behind her as she glides beside me, and there’s something perfectly pretty about her. I watch her profile from the corner of my eye, her slightly bent nose, her sculpted cheekbones, her big hopeful eyes that always seem seconds away from welling up. If you fall I will catch you I’ll be waiting . . .

  “You want to hold hands?”

  I look to see if she’s joking. She’s not. I consider telling Penny about the baby, but something stops me. I
’d like to say it’s just my not having adjusted to the reality yet, but the truth is probably a good deal more self-serving than that. I take her hand and we skate through the rotating constellations. Her hand is in a black knit glove and mine is a cold, raw claw. I can barely feel her. I could be holding on to anything.

  12:55 p.m.

  A FAT GUY with a walrus mustache and a jingling key ring shows up to open the rink for business. He waves to Penny, then disappears into a back room. A moment later the music stops, the lights come back on, and the stars disappear. As if by some unspoken agreement, Penny and I let go of each other. There will be no handholding under the harsh fluorescent lights. Walrus man reappears driving a beat-up Zamboni onto the ice.

  “You know what would be nice?” Penny says as we step off.

  “What’s that?”

  She considers me for a long moment. “Never mind, I withdraw.”

  “Come on. What were you going to say?”

  “The moment’s passed.” She smiles and shrugs. I use my finger to free a thin strand of her hair where it’s gotten caught in her mouth.

  “Thanks for the skate,” I say. “I needed that.”

  “I’m glad you came by,” she says.

  One or both of us may be lying.

  1:00 p.m.

  PENNY IS TEACHING her first lesson of the day, and Phillip is late, naturally. I sit on a bench in the parking lot, watching the other skating instructors show up, slender women in baby T’s and black leggings that leave nothing to the imagination. They greet each other with waves and laughs. Their bodies, like Penny’s, are lithe and toned, and they walk with a graceful athleticism as they make their way inside. I suck in my gut and return their perfunctory smiles as they pass, trying for all the world to look like a guy who isn’t checking them out, even though, in their skin-tight leggings, you could spot those asses across a football field.

  1:35 p.m.

  PHILLIP DRIVES US back home, somewhat more subdued than earlier. The convertible top is down, and the afternoon sun is hitting us hard, burning off the lingering chill of the ice rink. He pulls up in front of the house and we sit there for a moment, steeling ourselves to go back inside. “If we didn’t live on a dead end, I’d probably just keep on driving,” he says.

  “I know the feeling, little brother. But your problems will just follow you.”

  “I don’t know, this is a pretty fast car. How was the ice rink?”

  “It was a little strange, actually. How was your mystery errand?”

  “No mystery,” Phillip says. “I just needed some alone time to clear my head.”

  “And is it clear now?”

  “No. That was just a figure of speech.”

  We smile sadly at each other. For some reason sitting here with my little brother, it suddenly occurs to me that we will never see our father again, and I feel a crushing desolation deep in my belly. We used to do this ventriloquist/dummy act for Dad. Phillip would sit on my lap and while I was trying to do the routine, he would suddenly spin and kiss my cheek, and then I’d yell at him and he’d say “sorry” in this high, hoarse cartoon voice, and Dad would laugh until his face turned purple. We didn’t know why he found it so funny, but we relished the ability to make him laugh, and so we did it at every possible opportunity. And then, at some point, we didn’t do it anymore. Maybe Dad stopped finding it funny, maybe I decided I was too old for it, maybe Phillip lost interest. You never know when it will be the last time you’ll see your father, or kiss your wife, or play with your little brother, but there’s always a last time. If you could remember every last time, you’d never stop grieving.

  “Phillip,” I say.

  “Yeah.”

  “Your T-shirt is inside out.”

  “What? Shit.” He pulls it up over his head. “I must have been wearing it wrong all morning.”

  I nod slowly, accepting the lie, feeling sad and old and not up to the conversation. “Stranger things have happened,” I say.

  Chapter 24

  3:20 p.m.

  Today’s Inappropriately Self-Absorbed Shiva Caller award goes to Arlene Blinder, an obese, sour-faced neighbor with dark patches of varicose veins running up her thick, mottled legs. That’s an unkind description, to be sure, but the view from down here in the chairs is not a pleasant one. All legs and crotch as far as the eye can see, and, if you look up, double chins and nasal hair. And Arlene Blinder is far from anyone’s idea of a physical specimen. The small catering chair disappears into her massive bottom like it’s been swallowed, and the thin metal legs creak and moan as she settles down. Arlene’s husband, a rail of a man named Edward, sits beside her in silence, which is pretty much all anyone’s ever seen him do. Somewhere there must be an office he goes to, a job he performs, but if he does, in fact, speak, no one but Arlene has ever been around to hear it.

  “Oh, we’re expanding the kitchen,” she says, as if someone had asked. “It’s been a nightmare. First they dig the foundation for the addition and discover a boulder the size of a car. They had to bring in all this equipment and it took them four days to get it out. And then, after they dig down, they tell me the existing foundation has crumbled, and they’re going to have to underpin the rest of the house. I don’t know what they’re talking about, all I know is it’s another fifteen thousand dollars out of the gate. If I’d known it was going to be like this, I never would have gotten started.”

  For the record, there are other visitors, a handful of pleasant-faced, middle-aged women, long-standing friends of my mother, attractive women in the early stages of disrepair, fighting to keep age at bay with facials, compression undergarments, and aggressively fashionable skirts bought off the rack at Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom. They run on treadmills, these women, work out with personal trainers and play tennis at the club, but still their hips widen, their legs thicken, their breasts sag. Genetics help some more than others, but they are all like melting ice cream bars, slowly sliding down the stick as they come apart. There is something in their expressions that is either wisdom or resignation as they sit quietly around my mother and Arlene relentlessly holds the floor like a dominant elephant bull.

  “And then yesterday they knocked out the water line and I couldn’t take my bath . . .”

  “There’s an image I didn’t need,” Wendy mutters.

  “Look at her chair,” Phillip hisses.

  Indeed, the legs of the folding chair are visibly bowing, and whenever Arlene makes a hand gesture, the chair shudders and seems to sink a bit further.

  “And the contractor is running two other jobs in the neighborhood. The Jacobsons, he’s redoing their pool house, and he’s doing a family room for the Duffs. So there are days when he doesn’t even show up, and God forbid the man should answer his cell phone. So whenever there’s a problem, which is pretty much always, I have to get in my car and go track him down.”

  “When will you be finished?” my mother asks, and for an instant I think she’s asking when Arlene will be done boring us to tears.

  “That’s what I’d like to know,” Arlene says. “At this rate, I won’t have a kitchen for the holidays, and my Roger is supposed to be coming in with the grandchildren.” Her Roger was in my class, a morbidly obese kid with crumbs on his shirt who wrote a computer program that he sold for millions, bought a mansion in Silicon Valley and a mail-order bride from the Philippines.

  “It will be worth it when it’s done,” Mom says, trying to wrap things up.

  “If it hasn’t killed me by then,” Arlene says, and then gasps at the potential offensiveness of her remark. But before the awkwardness of the moment can harden into something uncomfortable, there’s a sharp cracking sound as Arlene’s chair finally gives out, and she comes crashing down to the floor with a shriek. There follows a moment of stunned silence, the kind that stops time and pulls it like taffy. Everyone’s inner child struggles to suppress a grade-school snicker. It takes a handful of women to help Arlene to her bloated feet. I look at Edward, who has gotten up
from his own chair but has been pushed outside the circle of straining women, and our eyes meet. And maybe I’m projecting here, but I would swear, at that moment, that he’s fighting back a smile that, unhindered, would split his face in two.

  3:50 p.m.

  ARLENE’S FALL EFFECTIVELY clears the house, which frees everyone else to weigh in on the news that I’m going to be a father.

  Mom: If it’s a boy, I hope you’ll consider naming him for your father.

  Linda: That’s wonderful, Judd. I think you’ll be a great father.

  Wendy: Jen is three months along? She doesn’t even have a baby bump yet. You’d better make sure she’s eating.

  Phillip: Wade may have won the battle, but you won the war. At least your boys can swim!

  Tracy: That’s wonderful, Judd. If you frame this with a positive attitude, it will be the greatest experience of your life.

  Paul: This means I might have to rethink my theory that Jen left you because you’re gay.

  Phillip: I’m going to be an uncle.

  Wendy: Dumb shit. You already are an uncle.

  Phillip: I meant again.

  Mom: Presumably, Jen’s relationship with Wade is intensely sexual. This could very well be the end of them. Her priorities are going to change. You could start fresh.

  Barry: New York is preparing the documents. We’ll have to massage the interest rates a little bit, but we’ll push it through. Believe me, in this economy, everyone wants this deal to happen.

  Chapter 25

  4:20 p.m.

  Ryan and Cole are in the pool. Cole wears Spider-Man water wings on his arms to keep him afloat. He and Ryan are engaged in an endless cycle of jumping in off the side and then climbing out to jump in again. Wendy sits suspended over the water on the far edge of the diving board, flipping through a tabloid magazine, while I pick at a platter of pastries on one of the lounge chairs. Serena is asleep in her carriage under an umbrella. The sun is just receding beyond the perimeter of the yard, and the mosquitoes haven’t yet emerged. It’s the best time to be outside.