You Could Be Home by Now

by Tracy Manaster

  No wonder Alison had made their life look sunny-sweet online. It was bound to come easy to her. His wife, the professional liar. His innards puckered. The man at the plaque slung an affectionate arm around his companion and Seth wanted to tear it from its socket. He followed the couple into the meeting room. His guts resettled when the pair no longer touched.

  The meeting room was crowded, row after row of folding chairs, a wheeled cart of sound equipment, and a speaker’s podium that bore The Commons’ logo. All the men had the same haircut and everyone held cardboard cups of coffee. A table along the back displayed a carafe each of decaf and regular and a picked-over catering tray, more doilies now than pastries. Residents chattered, one voice layering over another. If it weren’t for the occasional word he caught—polyps, grandbaby, par five—it could have been the din of a North Chettenford assembly. All the gunk he’d stuffed his stomach with congealed. Up toward the front, that man, Something Stouser, who’d made all that fuss when the Crier misspelled his grandkid’s name, waved him over. Seth made his face affable, stepped forward, and tried his damnedest to think of a pleasant thing to say that was unconnected to the baby.

  Then the world went black. Cool hands covered his eyes. The word hiya crooned low and lulling in his ear. His wife’s voice, only Alison was in a towering fury and had never said hiya before in her life. He shrugged off the hands and there she was, shorn and smiling sweetly.

  Stouser shook some other spry fellow’s hand and sat. He hadn’t been waving at Seth at all.

  Alison darted forward to peck Seth’s cheek, which didn’t make any sense.

  Maybe it was the Ambien. People sleepwalked under its influence. They drove across whole towns and cleared out their refrigerators without knowing it. Maybe he’d gotten down on his knees last night for Alison. Maybe he’d quoted Neruda at length.

  Ali took his hand and rolled lightly onto the balls of her feet. She wore the suit she’d interviewed in. A single, wheat-colored strand of long hair clung to her sleeve. It would be years before her hair grew to that length again. She swung his hand in hers back and forth. That chip of a diamond he’d saved for threw back the light. For the cost of that glint, they could’ve bought plane tickets anywhere. He said hiya back. It made about as much sense as anything. This was a lotto ticket of a moment, an unearned, colossal win. Because this wasn’t how Ali did kiss and make up. Alison didn’t do cutesy and she didn’t do slippery nonapologies either. When she had something to say, Alison said it.

  And how.

  It’s so hard, finding new ways to make an ass of yourself.

  I’m supposed to be mothering a baby. Not someone who acts like one.

  Seth wrested his hand away. Alison reclaimed it and her smile broadened, taut as a tightrope. There was something wrong with her eyes. They darted minnow-like to the door. And there stood Hoagland Lobel. “Hoagie loved my presentation,” Alison said. “He gave me a lift home and back so that I could freshen up for it.”

  “Gotcha,” Seth said, because he did. They were to pretend in front of the boss because God forbid Alison feel embarrassed. He kissed her forehead because he was in Lobel’s line of sight. He kissed her forehead because as a general rule she didn’t like that. It was patronizing, she said, and it made her feel short.

  Lobel worked his way across the room. He knew everyone’s name. He had a vigorous handshake, full pump, but took tiny, mincing steps. He reached the Colliers. “Seth!” It came out sounding more like a nickname than a proper one, something he’d call a favored nephew, like Bucko or Sport. “I liked your piece this morning. Figure it should just about clear this nonsense up.” He said morning marnin’. He flashed a toothy beam.

  “Thanks,” Seth said. He looked at Alison, chic and compact. She still had no idea what he’d done. It had taken all of twenty minutes to bang out a thousand words on Lobel’s glitch. He’d worked in a quote from the man himself, some fabricated puff about being sorry for Mona Rosko’s inconvenience; Seth was in suck-up mode and had the sense Lobel got a kick out of seeing his name in print. Lobel clapped a hand on Seth’s back and Seth tried not to visibly recoil. He squeezed Alison’s hand, harder than he knew was comfortable. He kissed her forehead again.

  “The golden couple,” Lobel said. “Between the two of you, this mess will blow right over. The missus tell you why she’s here?”

  Ali hated that brand of reductive naming: the missus, the little lady, the ball-and-chain. She hated it, but no one would ever guess that from her face. Seth draped an arm around her shoulder. Her body radiated unexpected cool, though it was well over a hundred degrees outside.

  The woman was immune to everything.

  “Not a word. What’s up, Ali cat?” They didn’t really do pet names and Alison loathed that one in particular.

  Lobel answered on her behalf. No way in hell would Ali-of-old have stood for that. “We’re announcing the name change to Adahstown at the start of the meeting.” That we. They sounded like a couple.

  “Adahstown or Adahstowne-with-an-e?” Seth asked.

  “Plain old Adahstown.” Lobel said. “Last-minute decision.”

  Ali said, “We couldn’t decide. Hoagie flipped a coin.” Again with the Hoagie and the first person plural. See if he cared. She could pack her bags and Lobel’s too and run off to Gibraltar.

  Only Alison was crap at packing. He was always the one who organized their suitcases. Well, fine then. Let them get to Gibraltar and discover they had no clean socks.

  His life would be simpler, anyhow. He slipped behind Alison and began to rub her shoulders. “You’re tense,” he said.

  “Public speaking. You know me.” He did. Her case of nerves was roughly as genuine as the Hacienda’s Mission-style details. Lobel probably thought it was charming.

  “Imagine them in their underwear,” he said. She really did have a knot in her shoulders; that much at least was true. He worked it, hard and round as a coin beneath her skin. He pressed and she winced. Another response that was actually real.

  “That hurts.” She wriggled away. “Seth, enough.”

  “Sorry. Just trying to help.”

  Lobel sauntered to the front of the room; everyone stilled. “I know most of you folks are here to talk current events, but I got a big announcement first. Was saving it up for Founder’s Day, but I never could keep a secret. Some of you may know Ali here, our town historian. Well, this special lady’s come to talk about another special lady. And you heard it here first. We’re renaming our town for her.” He held a hand out for Seth’s wife. Before she could step away from him, Seth gave her shoulder another squeeze. Gentle this time, with all the tenderness he could muster. She managed a smile that was credibly sweet. He did his best to mirror it. Why not? It could turn true if they kept pretending.

  AN APPROPRIATE PLACE

  A BRIEF PIT STOP ON the Lily Birnam Tour de Mea Culpa: the ladies’ room of the Hacienda Central. HOA meeting minus three minutes, and Nicky Fucking Tullbeck was waiting in the hall. Lily retreated into the washroom. Nicky Fucking Tool-beck. Gran stood at the mirror, fluffing her hair. “Nicky followed me,” Lily said. It would sound less like tattling if he went by something grownup, like Nick. “He’s right out there.”

  Gran checked her reflected teeth for lipstick. Given the day’s trajectory, it was statistically probable she’d insist Lily apologize to the intern, too, but no: “Don’t give him the time of day.”

  “He’s not going to be asking the time of day. He’s going to be asking—”

  Gran held up a hand for silence. She poked her head into the hall. “Young man, this is not an appropriate place to loiter.” Lily didn’t catch le Tool-beck’s reply. Gran turned back to her and winked. Lily would need to run a soup kitchen while maintaining a 4.0 to properly deserve her grandmother. Gran returned to the sinks. “Let’s give it a moment,” she said.

  A glug and a flush and a stall door opened. Mona Rosko, which explained the incredible lurking Nicky. He must be setting up an ambush. Ms. Ros
ko gave her an assessing stare. “Hello,” Lily said, all Miss Friendly Teen USA, Who in No Way Sicced the Press on Your Possibly Jailbird Daughter. “How are you this afternoon?”

  Gran stepped between the two of them, even though she had this master plan wherein Lily fessed up and apologized.

  Ms. Rosko held her palms below the tap. The sensor wasn’t working right. She waved her hands beneath it like a deranged mime.

  “There was a reporter outside,” Gran said, even though it was Lily’s screwup and Lily’s apology and Nicky Tullbeck was only an intern anyway. Lily would need a 4.0, a soup kitchen, and an Olympic gold medal to properly deserve her grandmother.

  “He’s just an intern,” she said, because it needed saying.

  “I’m not surprised. There’ll be opinions today.” Ms. Rosko said opinions in a way that made her own very low ones abundantly clear. The water hissed on.

  “I was talking to this one before. About your daughter.” Lily’s voice was in full-on revolution. Everything came out as if punctuated with a question mark. “I was trying to help. I was trying to get people on your side.” Ms. Rosko pumped the soap dispenser. Lily said, “I thought if everyone knew she’s in Afghanistan—it’s the kind of thing that would get people rooting for you. I thought—”

  “Don’t help me.” Ms. Rosko began to lather. It looked like spit.

  “I only wanted to explain how—”

  “We don’t need help from you.” She rinsed.

  “The guy outside—he wants confirmation of your daughter’s name. Carrie, right? With the army?” There were simple explanations at the ready. No, I said Karen, dear. I said the Marines.

  The water shut off without warning. Ms. Rosko’s hands were still coated with foam. She waved at the tap. “Know what they charge a month in HOA fees? And they can’t even get a faucet working.”

  Lily stepped aside. “I didn’t have any trouble with this one.”

  “You’ve never had any trouble.”

  “Where’s Tyson?” Points to Gran for deflecting.

  Mona Rosko jerked a soapy thumb toward the next stall. “He’s five and a half. Old enough to pee solo. I haven’t left him on his lonesome, if that’s what you’re implying.” There was no actual sign of Tyson, but then there wouldn’t be. He was a slight kid. His feet reached nowhere near the floor.

  “Gran was only asking.”

  “And I was only telling.”

  With a simple pair of questions, Lily could wreck this woman. Are you sure it’s a good idea to have him in the ladies’ room? Won’t it lead to (gasp) gender confusion? She wouldn’t be Die Schaden Fräulein—coming soon to a theater near you!—in front of Gran though. She absolutely would not. “You should speak out at the meeting,” she said instead. “I really think people will be pulling for you.”

  The water started up again. Ms. Rosko rinsed.

  “I really do. There are thousands of people on Facebook who think you should be able to stay here. I started the group but it kind of took on a life of its own.”

  “You want to help me?” Ms. Rosko’s mouth was a blunt and colorless line.

  “Yes. I do. I told you.” She wasn’t sure, actually, not anymore, but she couldn’t not say it.

  “Good. Great. B-U-R-N down my house and sort out the insurance paperwork.” Ms. Rosko helped herself to paper towels with a series of quick jerks. In theory, Lily could get away with a charitable touch of arson. Mom and Dad had given her two hundred dollars cash for emergencies and if she used it instead of cards, the purchase of camp stove propane couldn’t be traced. She’d buy marshmallows and bug spray so no store clerk would be suspicious. She’d wear a ponytail in case of security cameras. No one would connect it to her. Everyone knew how she felt about ponies.

  “B is for bear,” came Ty’s voice. “U is for unicorn, but only in books.”

  “That’s right, Ty.”

  Gran peered into the hallway. “The young man’s gone. Lily?”

  Ms. Rosko said, “You had no right talking to him in the first place.”

  “I was only trying—never mind. You know what? He told me that your daughter’s in—”

  “My daughter is in the army.”

  “What’s her rank?”

  “Don’t you dare.” There was nothing soft about her whisper.

  “You lied to me.”

  “Everybody lies. It’s kinder that way.”

  “You made me into a liar.”

  “You’re the one who took it upon yourself to speak to reporters. I’m just looking after my grandson.”

  “What, so you told him she’s in the army instead of—”

  “My mom’s in the army.” Ty came out of the stall, thrilled in the it’s-a-small-world-after-all way people got when they found out you’d gone to camp with their third cousin.

  “—told him she’s in the army instead of—”

  “Don’t,” said Mona. “Don’t you dare.”

  “The meeting’s started.” That was Gran. “I think we all need to take a step back.”

  “—instead of—”

  “Please. That’s her son.”

  “—instead of J-A-I-L.”

  Mona looked at her like she’d said instead of spelled it. Wordlessly, she crumpled her paper towels into the trash. It was true then. Poor little Ty.

  “Do you for real know thousands of people?” he asked. Lily’s mind felt thick till she remembered: Facebook. The Thousand People Who Want Tyson to Stay. Ms. Rosko ducked back into the stall to flush for him. He began to diligently scrub his hands. The sink he chose gave no trouble at all.

  “Yup,” Lily said. “Thousands. Well, two thousand. Almost. One thousand eight hundred and seventy-six. Maybe more by now. I haven’t checked today.”

  “Wow. You know lots of people.”

  “Online.”

  “They’re like imaginary friends, Ty.” Ms. Rosko handed him a paper towel. Gran opened the door onto an empty corridor. Lily followed her out. Gran was right. She owed Mona Rosko nothing. And the woman was fantastically vile. She’d flushed for her grandson and hadn’t rewashed.

  A REAL DYNAMO

  ALISON HAD COME TO THE part where Adah Chalk was appalled at the state of frontier medicine. Seth leaned against the wall and watched Lobel inspect his manicured hand. When Ali took her place at the podium, that hand had brushed her back and Seth’s chest felt banded in iron. The Ali he fell for would have removed it from her person, intimating that he’d lose it, and painfully, if he touched her again. Lobel caught Seth looking and winked.

  Alison didn’t even mind the man.

  Alison called him Hoagie.

  Seth’s guts felt like a mess of hooked worms. He was married to this woman. From his spot along the wall, he could only catch her in profile. She held a stack of pink note cards. The Ali he’d married would’ve made fun of the one standing before him. She looked like an amateur politician. She came to the part where Adah Chalk introduced inoculations to the native tribes.

  The door opened. Every head in the room swiveled toward Mona Rosko and the grandson. Of course Seth recognized them. How many children were there in The Commons? How many thin, broken arms? Nicky Tullbeck—where had he come from?—edged toward her as if magnetized. He beamed toothily and offered his arm. The room was a collection of grandparents and want-to-be grandparents, and Seth caught variations of the same coo. A softening at the youth of the one boy, pleasure at the raised-rightness of the other. Seth came up blank on the collective noun for grandparents. A satisfaction of grandparents would do nicely. A smug.

  Alison came to the part where Adah Chalk chased a claim jumper off at gunpoint.

  Another pair of latecomers, an older woman and a younger one, arrived. They stood along the back wall.

  Alison came to the part where Adah Chalk set a ranch hand’s broken leg.

  Hoagland Lobel jammed his fists in his pants pockets. The material puckered. His hands were twitchy in there, exploratory. In Chettenford, Seth had called the cops
on a man who’d lurked just that way on the edge of the girls’ soccer field. He shuddered, aware of his body, naked beneath its clothes.

  Lobel was watching Alison.

  Every hair on Seth’s body unfurled.

  Alison and Hoagie were destined for an affair.

  Alison came to the part where Adah Chalk was the honorary recipient of the county’s first telephone call.

  A thin whistle sounded. A McCain up-front adjusted his hearing aid. Someone nearby was chewing spearmint gum. Seth’s mouth flooded. Ali and Lobel. Ali and Lobel. He wished they would. He wished it.

  You could leave without compunction a wife who slept with your boss.

  Alison came to the part where Adah Chalk organized a volunteer fire brigade.

  The possibility of leaving forked through Seth’s brain like lightning. He couldn’t look at Alison. The meeting room walls were painted yellow, maybe half a shade lighter than their old Chettenford kitchen. She’d look so at home against that color. So like home. He hardly ever saw yellow in Arizona. Most decorators seemed contractually obligated to go through the sandier colors by the gallon.

  Alison came to the part where Adah Chalk lamented the lack of a local school.

  Seth looked at her. Serene as milk. Beneath her clothes she was slimmer and stronger than she’d been when they met. None of that softness at the hip she used to pinch at, frowning in the mirror. If he were single he’d never have the guts to go for her number.