I undrape my arm from Carolyn, now sleeping next to me in my bed, and prop a few pillows to keep her safe in case she rolls, then go to find my phone.
Carl picks up on the first ring. “How’d it go in court?”
“Better than expected. I’ve got my daughter with me right now. We worked out an agreement,” I say softly.
“Good for you.” Then, without missing a beat, “You taking the day off?”
“Do you mind?”
“Enjoy her. They’re grown up and out of the house before you even know it.”
After Carolyn’s breakfast, I call my mother. “I need you to do me a favor.”
And before I know it, she shows up at my door with a car seat and a stroller. “I didn’t even have to buy them, Janie gave them to me. And she has a high chair for you too, but I couldn’t fit it in my car.”
She hands them over and walks right past me, pulling Carolyn out of her baby seat. “Look how big she is!”
“Can you believe it?”
“So now I get to spend every other Saturday with my granddaughter? How nice is that!” She says this more to Carolyn than to me and Carolyn giggles.
“I could eat her up,” my mom says.
I let my mom have some time with Carolyn while I get dressed and call Laurel.
“How’d it go?” she asks, her voice strained. I realize the phone didn’t ring once on my end, she picked it up so fast.
“Nervous?” I ask.
“No. Well, maybe a little. I thought I’d hear from you at the crack of dawn.”
I smile. “See, I’m better at this than you give me credit for.”
“I guess so.”
“When do you want to pick her up?”
“I have a couple things I have to finish for school and I wanted to go for a bike ride. I haven’t been on my bike in ages. Do you mind?”
“Take your time. My mom is here. Maybe I’ll take her on a walk.”
“You don’t have a stroller.”
“I do now. And a car seat.”
“Wow. You are getting the hang of this fast.” Laurel laughs.
After my mom leaves to help Janie with the twins, I feed Carolyn her lunch. When she starts rubbing her eyes, I put her down in the crib. She falls asleep without so much as a sound.
Flicking on the TV, I see the Mets game is just about to get started, so I make myself a sandwich, grab a soda, and when I return to the living room, I find Ava standing in the center of it, wearing a tight see-through black lace dress with a red bra and thong prominently exposed under the lace. Her heels are at least four inches high, bringing her height up to six feet. Black eyeliner is smudged all around her eyes and her hair is a tousled mess. This isn’t how someone dresses at 1:30 on a Saturday afternoon. I realize she’s probably been out all night and is just coming home or, better said, coming to me for a quickie before she passes out for the day.
“What are you doing, Ava?”
She smiles. She has red lipstick on her tooth and her eyes are bloodshot. She’s still wasted.
“I was on my way home and thought I’d come say hi.” Her speech is a drawl, not quite slurred, but definitely affected by whatever she’s indulged in. She reaches to take off a shoe and she loses her balance, catching herself on the chair. She sits down to take off the other.
“Ava, you can’t be here. Not today.” I put my sandwich on the table and pull her up. “You’ve got to go.”
“Are you playing hard to get? I like it when you do that.” She grabs my face between her hands and kisses me hard and deep. I taste liquor and cigarettes, maybe even marijuana too, and I try to pull away, but her drunken grip is strong. I reach down to her waist and push her firmly.
“What’s wrong, sweetie? I haven’t seen you in weeks. Come on.” She starts unzipping the side of her dress and whispers, “I want you.”
I try to grab her hand so she’ll stop taking her clothes off, when I notice Laurel is standing outside the screen door, watching all of this unfold, with her mouth partially open.
“Laurel!” I exhale.
Ava snaps her head towards the door.
I jolt to the screen and open it, but Laurel doesn’t move.
Ava zips up her dress and gawks, “Laurel?”
Then she swaggers closer, pointing her finger at Laurel’s face. “You’re the one Danny had the baby with.”
“How do you know?” I demand angrily. “I never said anything to you.”
“Word travels fast in a small town, lover boy,” she drones.
I cross my arms.
Laurel doesn’t move or say anything, but she glances from Ava to me then back to Ava.
Ava braces against the door for balance and continues. “I’ve heard all about you. I’m Ava.”
Laurel still doesn’t move or say anything.
Then Ava adds, “Danny’s girlfriend.”
This is the last thing I want Laurel to believe, so I blurt, “You’re not my girlfriend, Ava. Jesus!”
For an instant, Ava seems genuinely hurt by my remark.
She stands up straighter. “Right. Not girlfriend. I meant to say, what’d you call us, Danny? Oh yeah. Fuck buddies. We’re fuck buddies.” She shoots a hard look my way. Her voice is terse.
I don’t say anything.
She pushes past Laurel, barefoot, and heads down the sidewalk in the direction of her house, past kids playing soccer in the street, and looking completely out of place in that see-through dress in the middle of a bright, sunny Saturday.
I know I’ve hurt Ava’s feelings, and though I do feel bad, I care more about what Laurel thinks to chase after her. Laurel pushes past me into the house.
“Where is Carolyn?”
“She’s asleep in my room.”
She heads to my bedroom then comes back out, her face flushed with anger.
“Is Carolyn safe here?” she demands.
“What?” I stutter. “Of course she is.”
“That girl reeked of booze. It’s 1:30 in the afternoon!”
Laurel paces in my small living room while I try to best characterize my relationship with Ava. I feel like a slimeball. There’s no good way to describe it.
Apparently, I don’t do a decent job of it, either, because after I finish, she asks a million questions.
“So she’s your brother’s ex and now you go out with her?”
I nod. “They went out in high school. He’s twenty-eight years old with a family now. They were together a long time ago. And I told you I don’t go out with her.”
“Right. You just sleep with her.”
“Laurel.”
“She’s six years older than you!”
“Well, five years. She’s twenty-seven. Look. I ran into her at a party a few years back. I asked her out, but we never had much in common. She tends bar at this club on the pier called The Grille. People bring their boats over from the Hamptons and dock there to hear music. It’s a scene. And she gets really caught up with the money.”
“What do you mean?”
“She gets hit on a lot by these Wall Street guys who throw around a lot of money. I won’t hear from her for months and then, like today, she’ll just show up. But I’m telling you, as far as Carolyn is concerned, she’s harmless. You don’t have to worry.”
Laurel sits on the couch and is silent for a long time. After a while she whispers, “Were you…with her last year?”
“You mean last summer?”
Laurel nods.
“No.”
She stares at her feet.
“The only girl I spent any time with last summer was you.”
Laurel looks up at my face, searching for truth.
“I’m not lying,” I assure her. She doesn’t seem convinced. So I continue.
“We started seeing each other again last December. Four months after you left. It’s off again on again with her. And I’ve been wanting to find a way to tell her not to come around anymore.” This is the truth. Ava and I aren’t good for each other.
&nb
sp; Laurel stands. “I want you to promise me that you’ll never ignore Carolyn, you know, if she shows up.”
I hold up my hand. “Carolyn will always be my first priority, I promise. You think I fought this hard so I could screw this up?”
“I guess not.”
Laurel smooths her hair. I reach over to grab her hand.
She won’t look at me, but she lets me hold it.
“You can trust me,” I whisper.
“Okay.” She pulls her hand away and starts collecting Carolyn’s things.
Chapter 17
With my father serving time and unable to get into trouble at the bars, the weight of worrying I’m going to get a call to come pick him up is lifted. It is a sad day when a son is happy his father is in prison.
As I drive across the Bronx, then the George Washington Bridge, finally entering into Pennsylvania, I feel like a new person. No longer just Mitch’s son, who dutifully bails out his father time and again, stuck in a small town at the end of Long Island. But someone who is his own person, working towards a degree, starting a new life with a kid, opening a new chapter.
It’s only a matter of time before he is out and in trouble again, but the realization that he’s been such a burden to everyone in my family and how good it has been not to have to worry about him is just plain…nice.
After several hundred miles of driving, I pull into a small fishing village called Watkins Glen at the south end of Seneca Lake. My eyes are drawn to this huge, glistening lake with its clear water reflecting the autumn colors of the trees that surround it and the marina that sits smack in the middle of town. I decide to park the car and stretch my legs. I’ve only got about twenty miles left to go and Laurel won’t be back from classes yet. I have time to kill.
A cool breeze brushes off the water as I make my way out onto the pier. I had no idea when Laurel said she had moved into her grandparents’ house on a lake that it would be this spectacular. It must stretch for at least thirty miles, because you can barely see the other end of it. Red, gold and orange colors are speckled along the perimeter upon rolling hills covered by trellised grapevines that ramble down to the water.
I take a seat on a bench and watch as a few fishermen on a Bayliner motor into the marina. Once they are docked and tied, the men take pictures with their catches of the day. I have to say, given the size of the fish they hold up for the camera, these guys know a thing or two about fishing.
After they’ve got their catches moved to their coolers and covered with ice, they shake hands with the boat captain and head to the parking lot. While he cleans off the deck, I move in close enough to be in earshot and say, “You guys had a good day.”
He looks up at me, with a baseball cap on his head that says NASCAR. He can’t be much older than I am. “Pretty average for this time of year.”
“You fishing for trout?”
“Trout and salmon, mostly. You a fisherman?”
“I run a charter on Long Island.”
“You here on vacation?”
“Here to visit my daughter. She lives in Dresden.” My daughter. It still sounds weird coming out of my mouth.
“You should join us sometime. Boat goes out most Wednesdays.”
“Maybe I will.” I walk over and shake his hand. “I’m Danny Santoro.”
“Nick Whalen.”
“Whalen? Good name for an angler.” I smile.
“I’ve been hearing that my whole life.”
We laugh.
“Nice boat. Is she yours?”
“Yup. I bought her when I graduated from the Coast Guard a couple years ago. She’s an ’87, but the way I take care of her, you’d never know it. Runs like new.”
“Cool. I’ve got a Bertram Cruiser. ’76. Down on Long Island.”
“That’s a classic.”
“It belonged to my grandfather.”
I look around the bustling marina. “I never knew this place existed.”
“You got a daughter up here and you’ve never been?” He takes off his baseball cap and takes a sip of Coke.
“She’s only six months old and her mother just moved here, so no, I haven’t. I’ll be coming up every other week now, though.”
Nick reaches into his fleece jacket and produces his card. “Next time you’re here, give me a call and we’ll show you how it’s done in the Lakes region.”
“Sounds good.”
After we part ways, I find a deli and order a sandwich. When I check my phone, I see it’s 3:30 p.m. and I pull my keys out, heading back to the car. By the time I drive the twenty miles left in the trip, Laurel should be home from class.
Once I leave Watkins Glen, other than a winery every couple of miles, there doesn’t appear to be much around in the way of civilization. After going a few miles on an otherwise deserted highway, other than passing an occasional stretch limo bringing people from winery to winery on a tour, a long wooden fence comes into view on the right side of the road.
My GPS announces, “You have arrived.”
“Arrived where?” I say out loud.
There’s a boarded-up old barn on one end of the property and a small cottage peeks out from behind a couple of elm trees down a long dirt drive. In between the two structures are rows of grapevines. Two run-down sheds sit on the other side of the property. Once I’m pulled into a makeshift parking spot alongside Laurel’s SUV, I notice how beautiful the view of the lake is here. But that’s just about all this property has going for it, and that’s coming from me, who doesn’t exactly come from a life of luxury.
Laurel greets me at the front door. Her hair is tied back in a ponytail, which I always like, and she’s wearing skinny jeans tucked into tall boots with a heel that puts her at least two inches taller. She looks good. Not just everyday good, it’s like she dressed up or something. For me?
“How was the drive?” She gestures me inside.
Carolyn is sitting on the floor in the living room and I swoop in and pick her up. She giggles and touches my face. Laurel watches our interaction and I wonder what she’s thinking, but I don’t ask.
When I’ve gotten all the smiles out of Carolyn I can get, I finally answer. “It took a little over six hours. I stopped in Watkins Glen for something to eat.”
“Oh. That’s a cute town.”
“Yeah. And pretty much the only town. There’s, like, nothing once you head up Route 14 for miles.”
“I know.” She rolls her eyes.
“You like living here? It’s so isolated. So not…you.”
“What do you mean? I spent almost every summer here when I was a kid.”
“You’ve always seemed like such a city girl. Maybe I had it wrong.”
She laughs. “No, you don’t. It’s been an adjustment, trust me. Come on, I’ll give you the tour.”
There’s not much to the house: a kitchen, dining room and living room and three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs.
“This will be your room,” she says, pointing to a small room without a closet with a twin bed and a dresser because that is all that will fit.
“I cleaned out the drawers so you have a place to put your clothes if you don’t want to live out of a suitcase every time you come.”
“Thanks.”
“I went grocery shopping yesterday so the fridge is stocked too. I didn’t get any beer though. I don’t have a fake ID and every place is so strict up here. But the good news is there is a liquor store twenty super-convenient miles north of here in Geneva.” She smiles and I laugh.
“Or you can go to the winery up the road and pay twenty-five dollars for a bottle of Riesling made from grapes grown on this property.”
“Really?”
“Yup.”
“That’s cool.”
“I guess. Around here that’s about it as far as cool goes, though.”
I grab my bag from the backseat of my car and run it up to my room. When I come back to the living room, Carolyn is on a blanket on the floor, surrounded by toys. Laurel has the
television tuned to a PBS show with a big purple dinosaur who sings and dances. Carolyn doesn’t seem to be paying attention, she’s too distracted trying to put plastic rings in her mouth.
Laurel is sitting nearby on a chair, going through a book bag. When she sees me, she says, “I’m going to head back over to campus to go to the library and afterwards some friends are having a party in their dorm. You don’t mind, do you?”
That explains the outfit. It wasn’t for me after all.
I shrug my shoulders.
“I don’t have much of a chance to go out anymore. So I thought I’d take advantage of the fact you’re here to say yes to an invite once in a while.”
“That’s cool.”
Laurel stands. “Carolyn will probably be getting hungry soon. There’s plenty of baby food in the pantry closet. Her formula is in there, too. Diapers and wipes are upstairs by the changing table in her room.”
I stand up. “What time do you think you’ll be back?” I ask as she walks towards the front door. I realize I sound like her father, not her friend.
She shrugs her shoulders. “If I drink, I might stay over. What time do you need to leave tomorrow?”
“I thought I’d stay until you were done with classes so you don’t have to put Carolyn into daycare.”
“Oh, thanks.” She starts out the door and then she turns. “Do you need the car seat, in case you want to go anywhere?”
“I’ve got one installed in my car already. Did it the other day. Only took an hour to figure it out.”
She smiles. “Well, have fun with Carolyn. I have my cell phone. I’ll see you around three tomorrow.”
I watch her walk to her car. Her ass looks perfect in the jeans she’s got on and the heels only make it look hotter. But someone else is going to be getting a piece of it tonight. Not me.
Carolyn suddenly starts crying and I go into the living room. She’s staring at the purple dinosaur on the screen, who is now doing pirouettes, and she’s wide-eyed with terror. I flip the channel to find the local news and join her on the floor.
I know this custody arrangement is about me and Carolyn, but I hope it doesn’t mean this is going to be Laurel’s excuse to get a night in of partying every two weeks.
After Carolyn has made a mess of her dinner, been bathed and changed and finally put down for bed, I look at my watch. 8:30.
Yours and Mine (Freshman Forty #2) Page 7