“I didn’t know. Aaron just threw this release at me this morning.”
I show it to Gus, who scowls at it. “Oh, that’s old, they put that out on Monday. There was a fresh one this morning that told all about it, your dad and everything.”
Jesus, Aaron. I fantasize about shoving one of his cowboy boots down his throat, pointy toe first.
Gus nods. “I know, dude. Sucks.” He waves and walks off, his recorder bouncing along next to him.
I flip open my phone to check messages. A voice mail and three texts, all from Casey. Dammit, what now? The texts say, Call home and then Where r u? and Call ASAP.
The voice mail is similar. Casey telling me to call the minute I get the message.
I text back: What? Busy here.
I keep telling Casey she doesn’t need to consult me about everything. If we’re getting married, she has to learn to handle it herself when Dylan forgets his saxophone at home or Angel wants permission to go to a friend’s house.
I drive back to the office, weighing how angry I can be with Aaron for the old press release. I decide I can be pretty fucking well mad because what’s he going to do, fire me? We can barely run the paper with the staff we have now. Obviously.
And then, my dad. Good God.
At the office, I want to smash my watch on the desk, though it’s not my watch’s fault that so much of the morning has been wasted. Henning e-mailed me a great quote for the morning’s story, too: “Maybe now the city council can leave behind the sandbox-level bickering and make progress on the tough issues facing us today.” Won’t make the paper now.
I managed to restrain myself from forcing Aaron to swallow his own boot, but I did curse freely when I explained the press conference problem. He told me to type up my notes and he’d get Kate to finish the story, as long as I finished getting quotes for Kate’s holiday shopping feature.
“There, happy now?” Aaron had snapped.
“Ecstatic.” Even better than a press conference. Interviewing store managers about holiday shopping! Hurrah! Enough to make me jealous of the intern covering the shooting. I never got to cover shootings when I was just starting. But then again, we had experienced reporters to spare, back then.
Casey had sent a new text: It’s important.
“Fine,” I mutter to myself, and dial the home phone.
“Hi,” Casey says, and then right away, “Dylan’s missing.”
“What? No, he’s not, I dropped him off at school myself.”
“Well, he’s not there now. The school called this morning to say he never showed up in class.”
I suck in a deep breath. It’s probably nothing. It almost always is nothing, just like a hot news tip usually fizzles upon investigation. I recall a time at the park when Dylan was five and Mallory lost sight of him and went screaming his name in the woods around the playground. Turns out he’d been sitting inside one of those plastic slide contraptions while Mallory and Angel had an argument, and had dozed off. The effect of that day had caused her to start drinking earlier than usual. She should have just checked the damn slide.
I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose, where a headache is starting to throb. “He’s probably being a rebel.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean he’s fourteen years old. He’s hiding in someone’s car smoking pot or something. I’ll ground him for life when he turns up.”
“That doesn’t sound like Dylan. And you don’t sound worried.”
“Case, it’s only . . . 10:30. He’s probably just cutting class.”
“I don’t know.”
“Why, did he say something?”
“Not really, he’s just seemed distant. I tried to ruffle his hair this morning, and he ducked me.”
“He’s a teenager, not a four-year-old.”
“I know, but he never used to mind.”
“Just when you get used to kids, they change.”
“You don’t have to tell me that, it’s just—”
“Casey, look. I have to go. Call his cell and tell him to call us or he’s grounded forever.”
“I called it. Straight to voice mail.”
“See, he shut off his phone, which means he’s up to mischief. If he were dead in a ditch somewhere, it would ring. Anyway, he’s not dead in a ditch, because I drove him to school.”
“Not funny.”
“I didn’t say it was. Look, call me when he turns up, I really have to go.”
“Okay. Well. Bye, I guess.”
I guess. Casey’s classic hint, leaving the door open a crack, wanting me to walk through it and get into a long conversation. I guess means, Wait, don’t hang up, or Don’t walk away.
“He’s fine. He’s a boy being a boy. We’ll kill him later.”
She says “Bye” in a small voice that makes her sound like she’s twelve, a habit that sends a spark of irritation into my gut.
I’ve got ninety minutes to call mall managers before lunch with my father, the philanthropist, which means ninety minutes to figure out exactly what I’m going to say to his smug, mustached face about how he wasted my morning and embarrassed the hell out of me.
Dad always gets there first, always sits down first, every time we have lunch, and these days, since his semiretirement, he’s always having a Manhattan.
He acts like everything is utterly normal, sitting there in his salmon pink dress shirt. “Mikey!” he says, rising to greet me, but not entirely standing up, before settling back in his chair and snapping the cloth napkin out. “I’ve already ordered. I’m sure you must be busy, so I didn’t want to take up your time.”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me that was your thing at the university?”
“I didn’t know it was the same press conference. Anyway, with the Herald being so short-staffed, can they afford to care who’s related to whom? It’s not like it’s much of a conflict of interest to type up quotes. I mean, really. What are you going to do? Make me sound heroic for giving a little money?”
He sips his Manhattan, a gleam in his eye, maybe imagining this hypothetical glowing article.
“You could have saved me a lot of grief.”
“You didn’t give me a chance, anyway, you rushed me off the phone so fast.”
He leans back in his chair, his subtle smile nearly masked by his gray mustache. His full head of hair is showing signs of curling at the edges, which means it’s been too long since his last haircut. He’s really cutting loose, now.
I slump back in my chair, defeated as ever by his surpassing confidence that he’s right.
“What’s wrong, son?”
“Just having a busy day. This press conference messed up my morning, then I got handed a feature on holiday shopping, and frankly I’d rather chew broken glass then quote mall managers about their stupid sales. And now Dylan—” I slam the door on that, not wanting to show him a chink in my parental armor. Dylan will turn up and be grounded and Dad doesn’t need the gory details. “Dylan is being sullen.”
“Not unlike someone else I know,” he says, stirring the cherry around in his drink with a plastic sword.
“He didn’t used to clam up so much.”
“Maybe it’s your new family arrangement?”
“Don’t blame this on Casey.”
“Not saying it’s her fault, Mike. But you have to consider what in his environment changed.”
“Form a hypothesis and test it? Run a study with a control group? He’s not a lab experiment.”
My dad sighs and stares out the window. “Windy out today,” he comments as a piece of trash careens down the sidewalk.
Our sandwiches arrive. Turkey, no mayo, side of fresh fruit, for both of us. Very heart-healthy from Dr. Henry. Usually I order this myself, but today I wanted a Reuben and greasy fries.
He waits until I have a giant mouthful of turkey to start in on my job.
“Sorry to hear you’re having such a rough day. My offer still stands, you know.”
I choke dow
n my bite of sandwich and match his gaze. “If I want to pursue grad school, I’ll pay for it myself.”
“With what?” That smile again, at the worst of moments.
“I’m doing fine.”
“Hmmm.” He dabs at the corners of his mouth with his napkin.
With that one hmmm, he skewers my whole life, from my career choice to my disastrous marriage and the troubles between me and Casey he doesn’t even know about, yet somehow he does. I haven’t followed his advice, and as such he assumes my life is a train wreck.
The sickening thing is, he’s more right than wrong.
“How’s Mom?”
“Fine. Started a book club. Still swimming at the Y. This weekend she started winterizing the garden. How’s young Casey?”
“Fine. Getting plenty of work, so that’s good.”
“Good to hear. She should keep herself busy while the kids are at school.”
“She does. As I just said, she’s got plenty of work coming in.”
“Even in this economy? People still need computer programs, I guess. Well, good for her. And still plenty of time to help around the house.”
“She works hard in her job. She’s brilliant at it, in fact. She’s a great girl.”
“I didn’t say otherwise, Michael.”
I’m aware of the defensive edge in my voice, the paranoia even, that he’s hinting anything negative about Casey, like that she doesn’t really work. She’s always on her computer, or on the phone to clients, or e-mailing pitches to new potential clients for Web development. We talked about her getting a full-time job, but she said she likes it at home. Less distracting than being in an office.
My dad switches to water now that his Manhattan is gone. Always in control, even of his vices, which are few and carefully chosen.
Considering my life with Mallory, I have to admire this about him.
I tuck back into my sandwich, and the rest of the lunch is spent largely in silence, except for my dad fielding a call on his cell phone. He makes arrangements to return the call, and I know it’s a reporter. Kate, or someone from television.
The waiter puts the check diplomatically in the middle of the table. I don’t even bother to grab for it, knowing he would win, and in the course of winning the bill, manage to denigrate once again my career choice.
He strides off to his SUV as I stand outside the restaurant in the biting wind, looking at my phone, noting with some surprise that Casey hasn’t called to say that Dylan turned up. I swallow hard and clench my fist as I jam my phone back into my coat pocket.
I really will ground him for the whole year. I swear I will.
Chapter 3
Casey
I tap my pen on the kitchen counter as I wait for Marcy to answer her phone. Maybe Dylan is off making mischief as Michael believes, and maybe it’s with his best friend.
As she answers, I hear a din of loud conversation.
“It’s Casey, Dylan’s—” I stumble over the lack of a word for what I am to him. “Hi. Is this a bad time?”
“Not really. I’m in line at the coffee shop.”
Her words are rushed, her voice betraying impatience. It is in fact a bad time, but she’d rather get this over with than have to call me back. I don’t have time to be offended at the slight just now.
“Is everything okay with Jake?”
“Of course. Why?”
“Well, Dylan’s cutting class or something. He’s not at school, though his dad dropped him off.”
“Yes?”
I clench my fist until the nails burn crescents into my palm. “I was just wondering if you’d heard anything similar about Jacob. You know how those two are inseparable!” I laugh, making it light, not accusatory.
“Lately, not so much, actually. Grande nonfat latte please.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean—” She pauses, the noises changing as she shifts the phone, maybe pinning it between shoulder and ear. “I mean that they haven’t been talking much lately. I thought you knew.”
“No, I didn’t have any idea . . . Did they have an argument?”
“Boys don’t have arguments. They beat each other up or just quit talking. It was the latter.”
“What was wrong?”
“Jacob didn’t say. I was just making out the guest list for his birthday party, and he said he didn’t want to include Dylan.”
Jacob’s been his friend since the sandbox. Since Dylan left the public school they hadn’t seen each other daily, but with Facebook and cell phones, I figured they were still in touch.
“You didn’t ask why?”
“He said it was ‘nothing.’ You know how boys are. Well, maybe you don’t. Anyway, you can’t pry things out of them if they’re not ready to tell you. In any case, I wouldn’t have any idea where Dylan is.”
“Please call if you hear something.”
“I’m sure I won’t, but I’ll call if I do. Have to dash now, bye.”
I put my head in my hand and stare at the phone. My laptop, at my elbow, dings for new mail. I’m supposed to be working. I have deadlines for clients. Updates. Proposals. I had planned to be at the library today using the Wi-Fi until Tony got out of work, then I was going to crash on his couch until I found an apartment. That was the plan.
It still could be. I could take for granted Michael is right and Dylan is just misbehaving somewhere. The school has Michael’s cell phone number on file. I could still go.
Except I can’t. I imagine Jewel getting home from Scouts and finding only Angel here, the two of them wondering where their brother is, where I am.
Maybe Angel knows. I sit up straight at the counter.
She’s not supposed to use her phone in class, but she could check it at lunch. I send a text: Seen your brother? School sez not in class.
The silence of the house presses in on me.
I feel achy, uncomfortable, and jittery.
I push away from the counter and start to pace through the first floor, in U-shaped loops through the connected living room, dining room, kitchen, around the curved open staircase and back.
Most days it’s not that hard, not drinking. Michael doesn’t often drink, himself. I don’t go to parties, or restaurants. My old life feels like a dead skin I’ve shed along with the old boozy friends, and the small company where we all worked.
But there are times . . . when my palms start to itch and my heart feels tight and pinched. I can taste the velvety bite of it, and I can feel the uncoiling of my tension and hear my own carefree laughter, and I know that the liquor store is just blocks away and no one will be home for hours yet.
Tony’s always telling me, “One drink is too many and a hundred’s not enough.”
I don’t think it’s like that for me. I bet I could have one, maybe even two. But then I think of all the energy I’d expend wondering, Should I have this one? Is this one too many? But I’m feeling fine and not driving, but maybe I shouldn’t . . . Or the next day, Did I have too many last night? And then guilt would crash over me, I know it would. It was simpler, cleaner, simply to break off that piece of my life and set it adrift.
Then I met Michael, and he was so glad I didn’t drink that I treasured up his gladness and decided that was worth more than any drop of Jack ever could be.
These days, though, Michael hasn’t seemed glad about much of anything.
I try breathing from my gut. This attempt at breathing simply reminds me what I’m trying to avoid.
I seize my purse with its cigarettes and both the cordless house phone and my cell, and brave the snap of the November air on the back patio.
The first puff makes my head feel swimmy, and my heart slows down almost immediately.
Hurrah for self-medicating.
Michael’s disapproving stare rises up in my memory. If he only knew what I’ve already given up. But he can’t know, because he wouldn’t love a woman like that. Never again, he said. But that “never again” speech came late, after I already lo
ved him. Otherwise I might have saved us both the eventual agony.
It’s like scratching at a scab to think of this now, our first meeting. But I’m too weary to keep pushing it out of my head. Here at the end, I can’t help but think of the beginning.
I was sick that day. Feverish, pale, shaky. My head throbbed, and my sinuses were so backed up I thought I might suffocate in my own skull.
I had no friends anymore, because they were all drinkers and I was clinging to the fragile threads of a different life. So I dragged myself to the urgent care clinic alone. I actually perked up a bit in the cold, it being January, then. Nearly two years ago.
At the clinic, I saw a little girl curled up on her daddy’s lap, her arm clutching a stuffed cat gone threadbare at its paws and belly. Her hair hung limp and tangled, and she wore Hannah Montana pajamas and bedroom slippers. She had round glasses with pink frames. She was asking, moaning, really: “Daddy? How long?”
Her father was rubbing circles on her back. “Soon, baby. As soon as they can see us.”
“I don’t want to blow up again,” she moaned into his shoulder.
A wincing expression flashed on his face, something with shades of both pain and amusement. “I hope you won’t throw up again, honey. But if it’s going to happen, you tell me and we’ll get you to the bathroom.”
Her dad noticed me looking at her. He met my eyes and tightened his jaw. It was all there, right on his face. I hate that I can’t fix it.
She was too old for peekaboo. I got out my phone, a fancy phone in those days before I completed my belt-tightening. I found a funny video of a monkey scratching his butt, sniffing his own finger, and falling off a tree branch.
I glanced at him, eyebrows up. Do you mind?
He shrugged.
I said to her, “Hey. Wanna see something funny?”
She raised her head a fraction of an inch off his shoulder. I leaned across the aisle separating us and showed her the short video. She smiled. I sat back, and she said, “Can I see it again?”
I sat on the chair next to them and found every G-rated silly video I could.
When they called “Jewel Turner,” her father stood up and scooped her gently onto his shoulder. I stood up as if I belonged with them, forgetting myself. I sat back down, pretending to dust something off my pants.
The Things We Didn't Say Page 3