The Pick Up

by Allison Tempe

  He ate dinner in silence and then put on a movie, but he fell asleep halfway through it. When he woke again, the house was still empty and silent. He made his way upstairs, past the photo of the last time his family had been happy together, and went to bed alone.

  Adam tried hard not to be disappointed when he didn’t hear from Kyle again on Saturday. He had come back from his run to find an empty apartment, with no sign of Kyle but the uneaten snacks from the previous night on the counter. He eventually found a note that said gone to get us breakfast, back soon, so he’d taken a shower and made some coffee. Kyle hadn’t come back. There had been one text message, a short apology that a deadline for work had changed, and then nothing.

  Adam went to Rebecca’s for dinner on Saturday night. He had still been out of sorts enough that she had picked up on it and managed to get a few details from him before he caught himself.

  “Did you apologize?” Rebecca asked as they stood in the kitchen, washing dishes again.

  “For what?” he said. “I went for a run, and when I got back, he was gone. I sent a text message.”

  “You apologized in a text message?”

  “There was nothing to apologize for!”

  “Right. Sorry,” she said. “Sensitive topic. Pete’s girlfriend broke up with him by text yesterday.”

  “Pete has a girlfriend?” Adam didn’t know Rebecca’s kids were old enough to date.

  “Had a girlfriend. Aren’t you listening? They broke up.”

  “Isn’t he a bit young?”

  “He’s fifteen,” she said. “I’d had several boyfriends by fifteen. Didn’t you?”

  That made Adam laugh. “Not really. At fifteen I was still coming to grips with the fact that I didn’t want a girlfriend and wasn’t ever going to.”

  “So what are you going to do?” Rebecca asked.

  “About Pete’s girlfriend?”

  “About Kyle, numb nuts!”

  “I have no idea. It was stupid to get my hopes up anyway.”

  “You had your hopes up?” The pity in Rebecca’s voice made him cringe.

  “Back down. You’ve got enough kids; you don’t need to mother me too.”

  She stuck her tongue out at him. “Can you believe that little witch broke up with my baby by text message?”

  “Welcome to the new age. Did she say why?” He reached for another glass to dry.

  “She said he didn’t spend enough time with her. But they have three classes together every day, and she was over twice last week. That has to be enough. I’m pretty sure I nearly walked in on them making out in the den on Thursday. They did not need more time together.”

  “Teenagers.”

  “Don’t joke! I’m not ready to be a grandmother. I haven’t had The Talk with Pete yet.”

  Adam’s laughter grew louder at that.

  “It’s probably too late at this point. The internet has already done your job for you.”

  “Don’t say these things.” Rebecca scrubbed at a plate Adam was pretty sure she’d already washed. “I want them to be my babies for a little while longer. Is that too much to ask?”

  “I’m thirty-three, and you still treat me like I’m thirteen.”

  “Shut up.”

  Monday was weird at school. Adam still hadn’t heard anything from Kyle. Caroline had come to class with a new doll that she’d asked to present for show-and-tell. She’d made her presentation with Fenton flair and theatricality.

  Tuesday was easier. Adam decided what he’d felt on Friday had been a mistake. Kyle had been looking for an outlet while he played parenting hooky, and now Adam was back to being the teacher. He focused on the deluge of texts Rebecca sent him about her barbecue on the weekend. Rebecca and her plans were familiar territory at least.

  When he dismissed the class for their afternoon period in the library, Caroline stayed at her desk. Her face was flushed, her hair hung limply against her forehead.

  “Caroline?” He crouched in front of her. “Are you feeling okay?”

  “No.” Caroline sniffled.

  “Should we call your dad and see if he can come get you?”

  As they stepped out into the hall, a small hand slid into his.

  Typically, sick students were left in the care of the administrator until parents came to pick them up, but no one protested when Adam sat next to Caroline to wait for Kyle. And if it wasn’t strictly appropriate for her to snuggle up to his side, the only response that earned was one raised eyebrow from the administrator, which disappeared when the phone rang.

  Kyle arrived about fifteen minutes later. He rushed into the office and went straight to the desk.

  “I’m Kyle Fenton you called to say my daughter Caroline in Mr. Hathaway’s class was sick,” he said in one breath. The administrator gestured with her chin over his shoulder. Kyle turned.

  “Hi,” Adam said.

  “Mr. Hathaway. Hi.” Kyle’s eyes shifted away from Adam’s face, and for once, the formal name didn’t have its usual teasing sound beneath it.

  “I think she has a fever.” Adam shifted Caroline against him. She had fallen asleep at some point since they had sat down. She felt like a furnace.

  Kyle knelt and brushed Caroline’s hair from her face. “Hey, Bean.”

  She blinked, groggy. “Daddy?”

  “Yeah. Mr. Hathaway says you don’t feel so good?” he said. She shook her head and rubbed her eyes. Kyle scooped her up.

  “Thanks. You didn’t have to stay with her.” His tone wasn’t accusatory, simply polite.

  “I had a library period.”

  Kyle smiled and turned back to the desk.

  “Do I have to sign anything before we go?” he asked.

  “That’s fine, Mr. Fenton,” the administrator said. Kyle nodded once at her, then nodded to Adam, and walked out of the office without another word.

  Caroline wasn’t at school the next day, which didn’t surprise Adam, but when she was absent again on Thursday, he worried. It wasn’t uncommon for kids to miss class with a cold, but it was rare that they missed more than a day, even when they needed to. Working parents and the complexities of child care meant that he’d seen his share of ailing students come back to class before they were ready. He didn’t blame the parents, but he wished his classroom didn’t have to do double duty as a petri dish. Maybe Kyle’s unorthodox employment situation made it easier to keep Caroline home.

  Adam’s worry grew when she wasn’t back on Friday. Three days was a long time by any standards, unless Caroline was sicker than he would expect. Parents usually called the school if their kids had something infectious like chicken pox. If Caroline’s absence was anything truly serious, he hoped that whatever awkwardness there was between him and Kyle wouldn’t keep the other man from letting him know.

  On his lunch break, and against his better judgment, Adam sent Kyle a text.

  Hope Caroline’s okay. Class is quiet without her.

  A simple, professional, concerned text. He nearly dropped his phone when it buzzed seconds later.

  She’s fine. Thanks for checking in.

  A simple, parental response. Adam waited for more, and felt like an idiot for doing it, but the phone remained infuriatingly silent.

  Back at his apartment that night, he had just turned his TV on when the phone rang.

  “Hello?” he said.

  “Hey.”

  “Hi.” Adam’s mind raced. All the questions that had been tumbling around inside him all week vied for priority. “How’s . . . how’s Caroline?”

  “She’s fine. Better. Honestly, she probably could have gone to school today, but it was already Friday and my dad had the day off, so they kept each other company. I hope that’s okay?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “Oh, no, I . . . I wouldn’t want her getting behind. School’s important, and she missed a lot this year already. I don’t want her too far behind everyone else. If she’s got work to catch up on, let me know, okay?”

  �
�Kyle. It’s first grade. Today we watched a movie about the environment, had relay races in gym class, and made Mother’s Day cards.” In fact, it was a relief that Caroline had been absent when he’d announced the craft. There were lots of alternatives in the curriculum for the lesson, to address situations where students didn’t have a mother to give a card to, but it had been easier to not make a big deal out of it, one way or the other.

  “Oh,” Kyle said.

  Adam mentally kicked himself. If it was awkward for Caroline to deal with Mother’s Day, it had to be awkward for Kyle too. “Shit, Kyle, I’m—”

  “No.” Kyle actually laughed. “No, it’s fine. It was going to happen. I can’t hide it from her. If it wasn’t this year, it will be next year. I’m glad she missed it, but I can’t protect her from Mother’s Day forever, you know?”

  This was so not the conversation Adam had hoped to have when the phone rang.

  “No, I guess not.” He gnawed on his lip and tried to think of a way to change the subject.

  “I’m sorry,” Kyle said. “About last Saturday.”

  “You’re sorry? What for?”

  “For disappearing. It was stupid. I was driving back to the house to get some stuff for breakfast and then there was this woman in front of my van, and she didn’t look both ways and I didn’t see her because I’m an idiot and . . .” Adam’s stomach dropped. “It was like Olivia, all over again, though the woman didn’t resemble her at all. But I couldn’t . . . I needed . . . I couldn’t come back after that. I was having a great time though. Before that. It was so great to be someone’s friend and a grown-up, and not someone’s daddy or the prodigal son returned, or the poor guy whose wife died.”

  “You miss her.” The sentence felt like he was giving up.

  “Every day.” Kyle’s voice was quiet. “You know, it’s funny. Our relationship didn’t have the most conventional start. And then it got worse after Caroline was born and nobody slept for six months. It took us a long time to figure out who we were to each other. But the last year, I really thought it was all going to be okay.”

  The honesty made Adam’s heart squeeze.

  “But enough about me,” Kyle said. “My sad sack of a life is pretty good. I have a roof over my head, my dad admitted that last night’s squash and cauliflower casserole wasn’t horrible, my kid is on the mend from whatever contagion she picked up at that incubator we otherwise call an elementary school, and it’s practically the weekend. And I blew last weekend, but whatever. Water under the bridge. No more apologies, okay? No matter what the other person says. No apologizing.” Kyle’s tone picked up to his usual cheery voice. “What about you? How was your week?”

  “Kyle, I’m gay.”

  The decision to say it had been instantaneous. He’d practically spat the words out before doubt had crept up on him.

  There was a silence over the phone. As it stretched, old anxieties started to percolate.

  Suddenly, there was a clatter on the other side of the phone, followed by Kyle’s muffled voice.

  “Shit! Sorry!”

  “You said no apologies.” Adam’s throat hurt.

  “Adam, are you still there?”

  “Kyle?”

  “Adam?” Kyle’s voice was far away, like he was talking in a tunnel.

  “Kyle?”

  “Adam?” There was a fumbling noise and then “Adam?”

  “Kyle?”

  “Okay! Shit. Sorry. I mean . . . sorry . . . shit.”

  “Kyle, what happened?”

  “I . . .” He was panting. “I dropped the phone. And then I accidentally turned the mute on and I couldn’t hear you and then I . . . Sorry.”

  “You said no more apologies.”

  “That was before I knew what you were going to say!”

  Adam straightened. Cold tension crept across his neck and shoulders. “Is it a problem?”

  “That you’re gay? No! Of course not, why would it be?”

  “Most people don’t drop things when I tell them.”

  “You surprised me, all right? I ask you how you’ve been, you’re supposed to say not bad, school’s been busy, you’re looking forward to the weekend. Then you ask me if Caroline and I are still coming to the barbecue at Rebecca’s. Not—” He seemed to catch himself and continued softly. “It’s not a problem. It is so not a problem. Just unexpected and—” Kyle sucked in a noisy breath. Adam ground his teeth. Fuck. He sat there, alone in his apartment, where he couldn’t see Kyle’s face, and doubt made his heart beat faster.

  “And?” he asked.

  “And nothing. You caught me off guard. But it makes sense and I’m glad you told me. I’m sorry for dropping the phone.”

  Adam smiled in spite of himself. The whole situation was suddenly just so Kyle. “No more apologizing.”

  Kyle laughed. “Right. Sor— Sir.” He drawled it out. “Mr. Hathaway. Sir.” From somewhere on the other side of the line, Adam could hear Caroline calling for Kyle.

  “You have to go,” Adam said.

  “I have to go.”

  “Are you and Caroline still coming to the barbecue at Rebecca’s tomorrow?”

  “Yes, Mr. Hathaway. I believe we are,” he said. Adam pictured him smiling, dimples getting deeper all the time.

  “Then I’ll see you there.”

  “Daddy!” Caroline’s voice was closer now.

  “Coming! Sorry, Adam, I’ll—”

  “No apologies.”

  “Good night, Mr. Hathaway.”

  “Good night, Kyle.”

  Saturday afternoon, Kyle was elbow deep in macaroni. Rebecca had insisted he didn’t need to bring anything to her barbecue, and he’d insisted that he did. It had started to get awkward, but she’d relented when he’d offered macaroni salad. So now he was trying not to singe his fingers as he tossed steaming pasta around in a strainer.

  He was about an hour behind. Caroline was feeling better, but still wasn’t a hundred percent and had slept in, which meant breakfast was late, and so cleaning up had been late. Caroline had demanded cuddles on the couch while she watched the episode of Princess Amazonia where Prince Arvin gets kidnapped by the monkey tribe for the billionth time since she’d come home sick on Tuesday. They really needed to release a new season ASAP because Kyle had caught himself humming the monkey tribe’s war chant while he’d been on the phone with Shannon. He was starting to wonder if maybe the king of the monkeys was gay, because the way he looked at Prince Arvin . . .

  “Kyle, I’m gay.”

  Okay. So maybe the whole day was off-center because Kyle had been off-center since his cell phone had tumbled out of his hand the evening before. His behavior still made him want to curl up and hide in a closet—and the irony of that metaphor was not lost on him at all—but at the same time, Adam’s admission made everything seem so much more complicated. Before yesterday, Adam had been his friend, and his daughter’s almost unbearably hot teacher. Kyle had been able to lust after him from afar, while appreciating Adam as a friend who didn’t treat Kyle like he was the seventeen-year-old he’d been when he left town, but now . . .

  Now . . .

  It was too soon to get involved with someone. Kyle knew that. The panic attacks and the way he couldn’t wear certain clothes from his closet told him that. He hadn’t been expecting that with Adam, and yet, the idea of it, now that it was a possibility . . .

  Kyle shook his head, scooped a large spoonful of mayo into the bowl, and stirred the salad together.

  “Jelly Bean!” He carried the bowl to the front hall and set it by the door.

  “Yeah?” she said somewhere upstairs. Kyle climbed the steps and headed to his room.

  “I’m changing my shirt, and then we’re going to go meet Haley and Lily and Uncle Ben and Auntie Kirsten, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  He rummaged through his closet, rejected six comic book T-shirts before finding a red checked button-down in a rumpled pile on the floor. It reminded him of a picnic blanket and seemed
appropriate for the day’s events. He dashed downstairs and into the laundry room where the ironing board stood waiting. They were supposed to meet at Ben’s and drive over together, and if Kyle got Caroline in the van at that exact moment, they’d only be a few minutes late. He barely gave the iron time to heat up before he gave the shirt a quick pass and threw it on.

  “Bean! Let’s go!”

  He heard her little feet running down the hall, and a moment later she appeared, a vision in rustling purple polyester as she swept down the steps in her princess dress.

  “Bean.” Kyle sighed. They were going to be so late. “What are you wearing?”

  “I’m a princess.”

  “Yes, I can see that.” He tried not to sound impatient. The princess dress was an inside-the-house-only wardrobe choice, and she knew it. “What happened to the clothes I put on your bed?”

  “I don’t want to wear those. I want to be a princess.” Caroline pouted. Kyle squatted down so he was at eye level with his daughter.

  “We’ve talked about this. You can’t wear the dress outside.”

  “But I want to be a princess.” Her lower lip stuck out, and she jutted her chin toward him.

  “And sometimes princesses have to wear shorts and T-shirts so they don’t get their nice dresses dirty,” he said. Her lower lip pushed out farther and started to tremble. “Bean, we don’t have time to argue. Uncle Ben and Auntie Kirsten are waiting, and I need you to get changed.”

  “Will you make my hair fancy?” Her voice wobbled.