With all my stuff in the house, I figure I have no choice but to stay, so I push the cedar door open with a flourish. I walk into the kitchen to find Laurel and Mike sitting at the table, tears rolling down Laurel’s face. They are startled to see me.
“What are you doing back? You said you wouldn’t be home until after five,” Laurel says.
Mike doesn’t speak. But by the way he looks at me, he’s pissed at the sight of me, I can tell.
“What’s going on?” I ask. It comes out more accusatory than I mean it to. But given the fact she and I have been sleeping naked next to each other the last few nights, he’s not the person I want to see right now, especially since she didn’t tell me he was coming over.
“Mike wanted to talk.”
I nod my head, but the hair on the back of my neck bristles. “That’s cool.” Even though it’s not. “Don’t let me interrupt anything. I’m going to rinse off.”
I take an extended shower, my music blasting, with the hopes Mike will be long gone by the time I’m done. When I look out the foggy window, I see his car pulling away. I take a deep breath and clamor down the stairs.
“What was that about?” I say from the kitchen doorway.
Laurel’s cheeks are tear stained. “I don’t know.”
My breathing starts coming out in ragged puffs as my pulse throbs through my veins. It takes me a few seconds to work up the composure to ask, “What do you mean you don’t know? You don’t know about what?”
“About you. About him. I’ve never been more…lost. This is turning into a love triangle.”
“Love triangle?” I grunt. Something dies inside of me with those words. I thought I had won her over. But a triangle has three points. She’s still got feelings for this guy.
She doesn’t look at me. Good. I don’t want my face to reveal what a blow she just threw my way.
“I didn’t know we were talking love here,” I blurt out.
It’s a dickish thing to say, but the love triangle comment was pretty harsh on her part too. Especially after I just bought a pack of condoms per her request.
She glances in my direction, but doesn’t look at me. “We’re not. I mean I care about you a lot. I care about Mike for different reasons. And there’s clearly some mutual attraction between you and me…”
“And between you and him, too!” My hands start shaking as I feel the jealousy boiling inside my core. I put them behind my back.
She stares down at the floor.
“I thought you had made up your mind. That’s what this week was about.” My voice comes out stringy, not secure. I don’t like it.
She shakes her head. “I had no idea he would show up here. We got into a huge fight. I told him everything I knew. The Adderall, Ashley. I even told him about us.”
She stands and walks to the sink, filling a glass of water. “He got upset and he kept apologizing. Saying he’s been under a lot of stress, talking about all this stuff going on back home…” She keeps her back to me.
I stand with my arms crossed in the doorway, because I know what is coming. It is inevitable. She won’t give up on this guy.
She sniffles and wipes her face. “He said he’d promise to lay off the drugs and he swore he and Ashley were just friends. He went on and on.”
I cross my arms and bite my lower lip, letting her continue.
“He promised he wouldn’t touch the Adderall anymore. He said he didn’t want it to end between us. That he’d try harder.”
Here it comes.
The burning in the corner of my eyes is unbearable. I take a deep breath and force myself to hold back the tears. She doesn’t turn around. Even though the last thing I want is for her to think she’s had any effect on me, if what she’s doing is breaking up with me, I’m glad she won’t face me.
When I’m finally able to regain some composure, I say, “I’m confused, Laurel. Hadn’t you already ended it with him? Weren’t you done? These past few nights between us…”
It comes out desperate and I feel pathetic. I’ve never pined for a girl. Not like this anyway. I stand straighter. I’ve got to put myself back together.
She turns and finally looks at me. “I didn’t break up with him. I told him I needed time to think. I haven’t seen him or spoken to him until today when he showed up here.”
“So how did you leave it now?”
“He asked me to give him a second chance, said he knows he was putting too much pressure on me.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. It’s like one bullet after another. “So you’re considering it?”
Silence.
The pain is so strong inside my chest, I feel like I’m about to explode and I give in to it. “You know what? You’re right!” I yell. “You should go back to him. Don’t give us a second thought. You’ve been making excuses for this guy for months and you obviously feel he’s something worth hanging on to.” I start pacing the floor while she stares.
I stop and glare at her. “You know what I really think?”
She shakes her head, silent at my anger.
“I think you aren’t ready to be in any kind of relationship! With anyone but yourself, that is. You’re selfish, self-important, self-preserving, self-deprecating! Whatever self-involved mood you’re in, at the end of the day, it’s all about you!”
“What are you talking about?” she shouts. I’ve never heard her angry before.
“You’re fucking selfish and closed off and confusing as all hell! You invite me into your life and your bedroom and then you kick me out.”
“I’m not kicking you out! PLEASE!” she shrieks.
I don’t let her continue. “You’re constantly making up your mind and then changing it. So you know what? This time, I’ll make it easy for you. I don’t want to do this with you. There. I said it!”
“Danny!” she tries to interject, but I continue my rant.
“You’ve treated me like a doormat since the beginning. I didn’t see it. I thought there was something special between us. But now I realize I had it wrong. Maybe in your head you want to believe you can be happy with a fisherman from Long Island. You’d like to think you’d be fine slumming with someone like me. But when given the choice of an Ivy League boyfriend who can’t get through a Saturday night without popping a prescription pill – someone with all this white-fucking-collar promise – or me? Let’s face it, Laurel, I’ll never live up to the potential you’ve got built up in your head. We’re too different. You think you’re too good for me!”
“I don’t think I’m too good for you,” Laurel whispers, sliding onto the floor, her arms folded around her knees.
I ignore her. “You didn’t even have the decency to tell me you were pregnant! You didn’t put my name on Carolyn’s goddamn birth certificate! Her own father isn’t on her birth certificate! How fucked up is that?”
She squeezes her eyes shut. “Are you going to hold that against me for the rest of my life?”
“I wouldn’t if you didn’t keep screwing me over! But why should I expect anything more from you?”
“Danny, I was trying to be honest with you.”
I walk over to where she’s crouched on the floor and stand over her. “I’ve been listening to you complain about Mike for over a month now, making excuses for him, pretending that you and I don’t know what’s going on. You’re an incredibly confused girl. And now you’re messing me up. I was fine before you showed up.”
I watch the tears stream down Laurel’s face until I am just so disgusted, I have to leave.
I march upstairs and throw my clothes into my duffle bag and then return with it slung over my shoulders. “I’m leaving.”
“Please don’t.”
“I thought maybe we could make this work. But I can’t stay here with you in this house every other week. You’re not good for me. You’re toxic.”
Her mouth quivers.
“I’m going to talk to Steve. I want to have our custody agreement amended.”
&nbs
p; She doesn’t move and I don’t look back as I walk out the door, climb into my car and race all the way home, making it back to my place in under five hours.
Chapter 35
With the approval of Judge Mattheson, for the remainder of the fall, I no longer need to travel Upstate. But Laurel still brings Carolyn down to see me every other weekend. Only now, when she gets here, my mother meets her at the ferry landing, not me, so we don’t have to see each other. If Laurel and I need to communicate, it is via text.
I expected Laurel’s father to have a field day with the one-sidedness of the amended agreement, but there was silence on their end and no appeal. I assume Laurel had something to do with that, but I don’t bother to ask.
At the end of November, with Thanksgiving approaching, Laurel texts me to see how I want to work out the holiday, since I’m supposed to have Carolyn. She’s going to be at her father’s place all week, which is now a house in Nassau County and not an apartment on the Upper East Side. She mentions in her text that since she’s been doing all the driving, she’d like for me to come and get the baby.
“I can send my mother,” I text back.
She immediately replies, “I’d feel better if you got her. Your mother told me she doesn’t like driving on the expressway.”
The truth is my mother isn’t the greatest driver, especially on the LIE.
“Okay,” I text back, reluctantly, and my stomach knots up.
On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I drive the hour and a half to Manhasset and pull up to a Tudor in a cluttered neighborhood of big old homes right around the corner from a shopping mall. My stomach has been burning for hours, but I ignore it and knock on the door.
A woman with short hair, about Laurel’s height, answers holding a baby boy. “You must be Danny,” she says and she pulls the door further so I can come inside.
“Are you Sheryl?” I ask.
“You’ve got it. And this is Tray.” She raises the baby’s hand in a wave. “Carolyn’s uncle.” She smiles and I can’t help but crack one at the irony of that, too.
I follow her into a whitewashed living room with wood floors that have been stained deep ebony.
“You can take a seat. Laurel’s upstairs, getting Carolyn ready.”
I do as I’m told and look around the room. It is sparsely furnished with a couple of Pottery Barn couches, a coffee table and a playpen in the corner. There aren’t any curtains on the windows. And there are a bunch of moving boxes in a corner that haven’t been opened yet.
“Did you find the house okay?” Sheryl asks.
“Not a problem. When did you move in?”
“Three weeks ago. It’s been a little chaotic with the baby and the holiday. I still have a lot of unpacking. My family is flying in from Michigan today, so maybe I’ll get some help while everyone’s here. Laurel’s dad is picking them up from the airport right now.”
I relax my shoulders, hearing I’m not going to have to see Laurel’s father. It’s bad enough I have to face his daughter. I don’t need him lecturing me or threatening to take me back to court.
“You’re from Michigan?” I ask, trying to be polite, shifting my weight. Where’s Laurel already?
“I am. But I’ve been in New York for a while now.” Sheryl can’t be much older than Ava, twenty-eight or twenty-nine maybe. It’s odd to think this is Laurel’s stepmother.
“Listen, I’m going to change this little guy. Laurel should be down soon.”
I realize I am shaking my leg, so I shift on the couch and focus on keeping it still.
After an uncomfortably long wait, Laurel appears in the doorway, holding Carolyn in one hand and a suitcase in the other. She’s wearing a fitted long-sleeve top and skinny jeans tucked into tall boots. I guess her foot is all healed now. She looks good. Well, maybe better than good.
I don’t move and neither does she, and we watch each other until Carolyn starts fussing and Laurel puts her into the playpen. She turns and looks at me again, still not saying anything.
When Sheryl returns with Tray bundled in a snowsuit, she glances back and forth at the two of us, the silence between us palpable.
“I’m going to Whole Foods. Do you need anything, Laurel?”
“No, thanks.” It’s the first time I’ve heard her voice in over a month.
“Okay. Well, nice meeting you, Danny. Enjoy your Thanksgiving.”
“You too.”
They disappear down a back hall.
Laurel sits on the couch across from me. “How are you?” she asks tentatively.
I don’t feel like trying to force casual conversation. Not with her anyway. “What kind of clothes did you pack for Carolyn?” I ask, not bothering to answer.
“There’s a dress for tomorrow. Then a bunch of shirts and pants, pajamas…the usual. Why?”
“The Skylars are having a swanky Thanksgiving party tomorrow at their winery, and my mother said to make sure Carolyn wore something nice.”
“The dress I packed should be fine.”
I nod my head. “Okay then.” And I stand.
She stands with me. “Do you need some help? Putting her in the car?”
“I can handle it, Laurel.” It comes out just as curt and assholey as I mean for it to. I pick Carolyn up and grab the bag from the floor, heading toward the front door without saying good-bye.
Before I’ve gotten outside, Laurel calls from the living room, “I broke up with him.”
I stop and stare at the door, keeping my back to her.
She continues. “Right after you left. I called him and told him it wasn’t going to work.”
I still don’t turn around. Don’t say anything.
“I just wanted you to know. We’re not together anymore.”
I bite down on my lip and I look back at her. She’s got a hopeful expression on her face like breaking up with Mike is going to change anything between us. Does she honestly think I want to go there with her again?
I clear my throat. “I don’t know what to tell you, Laurel. Good for you. I hope you’re happy. I really have nothing else.”
She puts her hands behind her back and looks down at the floor.
“Have a nice Thanksgiving,” I say and pull the door open. “I’ll bring Carolyn back on Friday, around noon.”
Chapter 36
Battling the eastbound traffic on the expressway the night before Thanksgiving turns an eighty-one-mile trip into a four-hour ordeal, with Carolyn screaming in the backseat for most of it. As mad at her as I am, if this is what Laurel goes through every other weekend, doing seven hours in the car each way with a screaming child, I give her a lot of credit. By the time we pull up in front of my apartment, I am spent.
Snow flurries blow across the lamppost in front of my house and the wind makes the air feel much colder than thirty degrees. Once I’ve fed Carolyn, given her a bath, and played with her to the point where her eyes start drooping with exhaustion, I put her to bed and then press the speed dial on my phone.
“Hey, baby.” Ava answers on the first ring.
“You coming over?” I ask.
“I’ll be there in five,” she purrs.
Since everything went down with Laurel last month, I’ve begun calling Ava on a regular basis. Now that all the Wall Streeters have closed up their houses for the winter, she has no parties to go to, and the place she tends bar is dead. She has nothing else going on. She doesn’t seem to mind when I ask her to come over at the drop of a hat, nor does she seem to care that I don’t ever invite her to spend the night, even when I don’t have Carolyn here.
She shows up at my front door, wearing heels and a long coat. As soon as she closes the door, she slips it off and I see the heels are the only thing she has on.
“I like your outfit,” I say and lunge at her, pressing her against the wall and raising her arms over her head. I hold them there with one arm while I unfasten my belt and zipper with the other. She opens her legs and I thrust myself inside her, closing my eyes. While
I move in and out, I try to force Laurel’s face out of my head, but I can’t, and though I really want the release, need the release, I’m unable to finish. I pull out of her, zip back up and walk into the kitchen for a beer.
She follows me, slipping her coat back on. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I sit down at the table and she slides into the seat across from me.
“You saw Laurel today, didn’t you?”
“So?” I look up from my beer. “I had to get Carolyn.”
“You’ve got it bad for that girl.”
“That’s not true.”
She smirks. “Danny, you can’t hide it. It’s all over your face.”
“No, it’s not,” I snip.
“You’re in love with her.”
“No, I’m not, Ava. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I don’t?” She sits back, pulling her coat across her. “Ever since you came back from that week up there with her in October, you’ve been a different person.”
“How?”
“Well, for one, you never ever used to call me to come over. I always initiated it. Now I’m getting phone calls from you four, five times a week. Any time of day or night. You’re trying to push her out of your head by using me.”
“You’ve got it wrong, Ava.”
“I don’t think I do.” She reaches around and grabs herself a beer from the fridge.
“Maybe I’m just into you a lot more now.” As it comes out of my mouth, even I know I don’t sound convincing.
“Ha!” She laughs. “As flattering as that sounds, we’ve been doing this off and on for, what, two years now? If there was ever going to be anything more between us, it would have happened already. I mean, I adore you, don’t get me wrong. Even when you were Joe’s annoying little brother all those years ago, you always held a special place in my heart.”
I’ve never heard Ava talk so openly. She continues. “But I’m getting older and so are you. You’ve got a kid now. I’m turning twenty-eight next week and I’m still tending bar at The Grill.” She takes a sip of her beer. “Maybe we both need to make some changes.”
Yours and Mine (Freshman Forty #2) Page 14