Are We There Yet?

by Kathleen West

  “I certainly hope you’re considering therapy,” Janna said. “I mean, Teddy’s behavior is pretty alarming.”

  Alice sank onto her bed. A sourness stung the back of her throat. “I guess. I made an appointment.” What could Alice do but agree? The apology, though, that had been the number one reason for her call. She felt desperate to accomplish it—accomplish something.

  Alice breathed into silence for a few seconds, and then finally, Janna spoke. “Could he do it via text? I think you’re right to make him apologize, but I’m afraid talking would only make things worse.”

  Teddy Sullivan

  The only time Teddy had been allowed to touch his phone after his mom had taken it from his backpack on Thursday was to send the apology text message to Tane. His mom had sat next to him while he did it, watching him type.

  “God, could you move?” he said as his thumbs hovered over the screen. He could smell her coffee breath and feel her curly hair brush against his cheek.

  “Just type.” She sounded angry, but she did move an inch, enough so that it didn’t feel like she was sitting in his lap.

  He’d written, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to happen like that,” and then stalled out. “I don’t know what else to say.” He dropped the phone in his lap, but she grabbed it and shoved it back into his hands.

  “How about what you’re going to do differently from now on? Like, how you won’t be tripping him in the hallways or dumping lunch on him?”

  “I didn’t dump my lunch on purpose,” Teddy grumbled. That part was totally true. He’d slipped—there’d been spilled milk next to the Quiz Bowl table, and the fall had been just horribly perfect, the pasta arcing off his green plastic cafeteria tray directly onto Tane’s premier soccer team shorts. The tripping? That he’d done after Tane had humiliated him in PE, but there was no use trying to explain it to his mother. She only understood one side of things. And that one side was never Teddy’s.

  “I hope you can forgive me,” Teddy had typed in the text message, imagining what his mother would want him to say, and then tipped the phone toward her and shrugged.

  “Fine.” She grabbed it and hit send, and then she stared at it for a while waiting for a response. There must not have been one, because she stood to leave.

  “Can I have my phone?” Teddy tried to sound normal, not too greedy.

  His mother let out a coughlike laugh. “Absolutely not.” She spat the last word as if his question were the dumbest thing she’d ever heard.

  “When—” Teddy started to ask, but she was already out the door and closing it roughly behind her. He’d try his dad later, he thought.

  But the next morning, when he and his father drove to soccer practice at Elm Creek Park, he had just as little luck.

  “When we gave you the phone, do you remember what we said?” his dad asked.

  Teddy remembered. He’d hoped he’d get a phone for Christmas in sixth grade, but he’d had to wait until his birthday in February. Meanwhile, Sadie had gotten hers on Christmas Eve. For the next two months, he’d stared over her shoulder on their way home from school, looking at other people’s Instagrams. When his parents had finally handed over an iPhone—the eight, not the X—they’d given their Spider-Man Speech, as his dad insisted on calling it, even though it wasn’t that funny. “With great power . . . ,” Teddy repeated, sullenly.

  “That’s right.” Teddy’s dad nodded his stubbly chin. “Comes great responsibility.”

  “But I didn’t do anything bad with my phone.” Besides the Spider-Man Speech, his parents were also into “logical consequences.” Teddy wasn’t always sure what that meant, but it had something to do with the punishment being related to the crime. Like, if he didn’t eat his vegetables, he didn’t get to have dessert. Or if he didn’t put away his laundry, then his room was too messy to have a friend over. But Tane’s pants in assembly? That had nothing, as far as Teddy could see, to do with his phone.

  Teddy’s dad half shrugged and kept his eyes on the road. “Still,” he said, “you can’t have it.” Teddy could see the soccer fields a block or two in front of them. He’d face Tane and the rest of the team in a matter of minutes. He’d asked his mom that morning if Tane had ever responded to his apology text, and she shook her head.

  Now, they’d be together in practice. Teddy’s legs started to feel twitchy, and he shifted, clicking his right shoe against his left shin guard. He glanced into the back seat, double-checking for the string bag in which he packed his cleats and water bottle.

  “Are you nervous?” his dad asked as they pulled into the parking lot. Teddy was, but felt annoyed about it. This was his team; he’d been on it for two years before Tane tried out. And the whole thing had been a stupid accident, basically a misunderstanding. “Do you want to talk about anything before you head over there?”

  Teddy shrugged and looked over at the clump of kids tying their shoes. He was relieved to see McCoy Blumenfeld among them. He’d always been #TeamTeddy. Landon Severson pulled up in his mom’s minivan next to Teddy’s window. As Teddy waved at Landon, he noticed his dad looking nervously in the rearview mirror and then craning his neck to see the rest of the cars.

  “What are you looking for?” Teddy asked, and then he realized. He was doing the same thing Teddy was: looking for the Lagerheads.

  Before his dad could answer, Teddy grabbed his bag and hustled out. It felt weird to have caused his dad’s embarrassment. At the last second, he realized he should say good-bye and opened the door again. “Thanks for the ride,” he said. “See you after practice.” And he re-slammed it.

  “Dude,” said Landon as they reached the field. “How much trouble are you in?”

  Teddy shrugged. McCoy looked up, eyes bulging. But the other kids on the team? Since they didn’t all go to Elm Creek, they might not know, and Teddy didn’t want to talk about it.

  “You don’t have your phone, right?” Landon asked, not catching on. “Because I’ve been texting you. The post on your Finsta was bomb.”

  Teddy remembered the caption. #pantsdrop, he’d said. Maybe he shouldn’t have written that. “Hey,” he said as he sat on the sidelines, “I’d kind of like to keep it quiet, okay? My parents don’t want me to talk—”

  He watched Landon’s mouth drop open and turned around to see Tane walking over. The kid had a huge grin on his face. Teddy swallowed hard. “Nothing to see here, fellas,” Tane said. Teddy willed himself to look away, but he couldn’t. Tane lifted his T-shirt then and showed them the drawstrings of his shorts tied tight. “Double knotted, so I’m safe. Right, Teddy?”

  And then Tane held a hand up to Landon for a high five. No, Teddy thought, but Landon did it. They slapped hands. Teddy clenched his jaw. He grabbed his bag and looked over to the spot where his dad had parked and was surprised to see him out of the car. He stood with his hands jammed in his jacket pockets, talking to Teddy’s coach near the porta-potty with the pink graffiti. The premier team had hired a new coach that year who’d been a captain at the University of Minnesota when they’d finished second in the Big 10 tournament a year ago. Teddy watched his dad rock back on his heels and then, when he’d finished talking, bob his head. The coach turned to Teddy.

  Tane’s dad approached the two men then. Jonas Lagerhead towered over them both. Teddy’s dad offered a handshake, and while Jonas accepted it, he looked pissed. The coach left the two of them together.

  “Sullivan,” he said when he got close enough. Teddy’s stomach dropped. “Lace up and take three or four extra laps.” Looking over Teddy’s head, Coach dropped the mesh bag of balls on the ground. The stack of cones he’d carried under his other arm fell a second later. “Basically,” Coach said, “don’t stop running until I tell you to. Got it?”

  As he got to his feet and started to run toward the goal on the far end of the field, Teddy swiped tears from his eyelids. It had been an accident, he thought
. At least he was pretty sure it was an accident. It had happened so quickly, and Tane was so oblivious.

  Alice Sullivan

  Alice had raced for the shower that Monday morning before her alarm even rang, both anxious and giddy about her upcoming meetings despite the problem with Teddy. The Harrisons, new clients she’d met with once before, would stop in to view the design concepts for their family room, and then Bea and Jeff Kerrigan would arrive after lunch to approve some preliminary sketches. As Alice imagined the Kerrigan design in the Elle Decor article, she saw Bea posing for the “before” shoot next to the original pink stove in the retro kitchen.

  While they obviously couldn’t use the Pepto-Bismol range going forward, Alice had already begun imagining sophisticated nods to the postwar era. Ramona had covered that initial meeting with Bea when Teddy had imploded at school, but Alice was still running point on the project. She’d been back in the office that same afternoon. She’d raced back over to the Kerrigan house and taken measurements. She’d begun work on elevations, sketches to show the couple today.

  The only trouble was that she’d have to bring Teddy with her to the office. At twelve, he was perfectly capable of staying home alone, but not now. Not when she had hard evidence that he couldn’t be trusted. Alice’s mother wasn’t available to help until the afternoon and Patrick had flown out to Cincinnati at six a.m. He wouldn’t be home until Friday. Teddy had slunk down the stairs that morning in pilled joggers without combing his hair. I’ll hide him someplace, Alice thought, thinking of the chair in her office that she could turn inward toward the wall.

  * * *

  WITH FIFTEEN MINUTES before the Harrisons’ planned arrival, Alice walked into Ramona Design wearing a slim black turtleneck and an azure statement necklace. Everything was perfect, she thought, except for the sour-looking kid at her side. She rolled her shoulders back and smiled at their assistant, hoping to convey confidence and calm, and then stopped when she saw a tray of fancy-looking pastries on the conference room table between two vases of oakleaf hydrangea. Ramona stood back from the display, considering it. Her high-waisted tweed skirt looked fabulous with her low gray bun.

  Alice loved it when Ramona went full luxury in the conference room, but why had she pulled out all the stops for Alice’s meeting with the Harrisons?

  Ramona glanced at Alice then, tipped her chin up, and grimaced at Teddy. “Isn’t there school?” she asked. Ramona was among the most innovative designers in town, but warmth wasn’t her strength.

  “Unforeseen complications.” Alice avoided eye contact. She looked instead at the RD logo that her boss loved so much in a geometric sans serif that contrasted strikingly with the soft hydrangea she preferred for the vases. “He needs to camp in my office during my meeting with the Harrisons.” She jerked a thumb toward her space, glass-walled like everything else at Ramona Design.

  “What meeting?” Ramona had hired Alice away from a large development firm five years before. They’d both been initially thrilled with the arrangement, though Ramona hadn’t seemed to anticipate the number of sick days a mother of two would need. Or the frequent midafternoon departures Alice would make to get to car pool or a soccer game. Alice made up for it by working in the evenings, but Ramona prized business hours. Last week, when Alice had missed the Kerrigan meeting, she’d let Ramona think Teddy had been sick. She cleared her throat now and glanced alternately at her boss and her son.

  “Can I have your phone, at least?” Teddy grumbled.

  “Shhh,” Alice hissed at him. Ramona had opinions about children. She didn’t have kids herself, but, as she often said, she was “an auntie to four.” Her youngest nephew had failed to write thank-you notes after the two most recent holidays, and Ramona had told Alice she was considering suspending her gift giving until he improved.

  “I have the Harrisons at nine,” Alice said, ignoring Teddy. “Their new family room.”

  Ramona crossed her arms. “It’s impossible. I’ve got the Kerrigans at nine, and I need the conference room.”

  Alice dropped her bag, a Goyard tote she’d bought when Ramona had hired her, on the jute runner. Her chest started to hurt beneath her necklace. “My meeting’s on the calendar. And besides, we’re supposed to meet the Kerrigans this afternoon. I have the sketches to show them.”

  “We almost lost the Kerrigan account after your last-minute cancellation.” Ramona’s face remained placid except for a slight twitch at her temple.

  “Can I have that almond croissant?” Teddy walked toward the tray of pastries.

  “No!” Ramona shouted, and Teddy startled.

  “God.” He slunk backward.

  “Frankly,” Ramona whispered to Alice, though Teddy could certainly hear, “I think it’s better if I take point on the Kerrigan project given your distractions.” Ramona set her jaw.

  Alice turned to her son, seeing him as Ramona must. Had he even brushed his teeth that morning? “Can you go wait in my office?” She pointed at the glass cubicle.

  “It’s not like that’ll give you privacy.” Teddy sneered.

  Alice felt a twinge in her forehead, the beginnings of a headache. “Go wait in the Starbucks, then.” She pointed at the external door.

  Teddy held out his hand. “Five dollars?”

  Alice took two steps toward him and whispered, though Ramona could surely hear, “Get a table in the back. I’ll be right down.”

  Teddy sauntered out without the cash he’d asked for. The office door swooshed shut behind him.

  Alice marched into the sample room, steady on her stacked heels. She pulled a bin labeled Harrison from the shelf where they kept active projects. “Joanna?” she called to their assistant, who had been paging through receipts while Alice and Ramona negotiated. “Could you apologize to the Harrisons about the change in location, but tell them I’ll have hot coffee waiting for them downstairs in the Starbucks?” With the open concept and glass doorless cubes, she and Ramona couldn’t very well hold concurrent meetings in their suite. Alice balanced the bin on her hip as she grabbed her bag from the floor. “Check the calendar,” she said to Ramona without looking. “It’s your system, and I use it religiously.”

  * * *

  SWEAT PERCOLATED BENEATH Alice’s turtleneck, and she could feel Teddy’s eyes on her from the corner of the Starbucks as she finished her opening spiel on colorways for the Harrisons’ new family room. Alice hoped Ursula and Jenny hadn’t noticed Teddy’s glowering, but she imagined they had. They’d both glanced back at him while Alice had reviewed colors and fabrics.

  “I’m sorry to stop you.” Ursula raised her hand, and she and Jenny shared a look. “It’s just that this isn’t what we imagined.” Alice blinked at the postconsumer recycled textile dangling from her fingers, the one she was sure Ursula and Jenny would choose for their centerpiece sofa. She let it drop on the drawings she’d made of the room.

  “Really?” Alice leaned back. “I was sure this was your style.” It wouldn’t be the first time she’d been wrong about a client’s tastes, or the first time a client had completely changed gears between brainstorming and decision time.

  Alice would pivot, as she had zillions of times before. “No problem. I’ve got two other design boards—well, not boards because we’re in Starbucks.” She thought ruefully of the fabric-upholstered wall upstairs in the conference room. If Ramona hadn’t commandeered it, Alice would have tacked up her textiles at the perfect height, under the perfect light. “But I do have other concepts I can show you.” She scooped the swatches back into her plastic bin.

  “Actually.” Jenny’s lips quivered beneath her pointed nose. “I think what Ursula means is that this”—she gestured around the café, the worn dark-wood tables, the buzz of overloud conversations, the scowling adolescent in the corner, and just then, the piercing squeal of a baby—“isn’t what we had in mind. We saw those other people in the conference room upstairs. Are we, lik
e, not as important as they are? When that couple walked in, your assistant basically pushed Ursula out of the way in order to greet them. I know our budget is on the lower end, but I assure you, this family room is a huge investment for us.”

  Alice’s shoulders rounded. “Not at all.” She shook her head. “You’re very important to me.” And it was true. Projects like the Harrisons’ family room were her bread and butter. “It was just a misunderstanding—a scheduling mishap—with my boss, Ramona.” She put emphasis on “boss,” hoping to signal to the women that she’d been outranked.

  “I’m sure that’s the case,” Ursula broke in, her expression more sympathetic than Jenny’s. “But this isn’t working for either of us. I don’t think you quite got what we were hoping for.” She put her hand on her wife’s shoulder. Alice wondered how they’d communicated their displeasure to one another during her introductory remarks. She’d missed it completely, just as she’d apparently been blind to Teddy’s problematic transformation in seventh grade. “Can we cut this short?” Ursula said. “We’ll call you if we’d like to reschedule.”

  If? Alice deflated. She shook their hands and mumbled her hope to hear from them. As she gathered her things, Teddy slunk back to the table. He slid into the banquette opposite her. “Great meeting, Mom.” His sarcasm startled her, and she jerked her head up to study his eyes. She saw a flatness there where she was used to a sparkle. Who is this kid? Anger and disappointment melded, intensifying her headache. She threw her bag over her shoulder and turned to walk out. She assumed Teddy would follow her.

  * * *

  ON THE WAY home, Alice felt Teddy’s oppressive presence in the front seat of her station wagon like the heat of an oven in summer. She kept her eyes on the traffic, avoiding accidental eye contact. First, her son had traumatized Tane, and now it seemed like he was turning on her.