by Sara Zarr
“I eat the way I eat because it makes me feel better, not because I don’t like gluten and dairy.”
“I’m only having this because there’s nothing else.”
She walked behind him and opened the fridge with the obvious intent of proving him wrong. “Oh,” she said.
“Yep.”
He drained his pasta before it all turned to mush, stirred in the nacho sauce, and scraped it into his bowl.
“I’m making a grocery list,” she said, typing into her phone. “Any special requests?”
He imagined her asking the guy the same thing before she went to the store earlier. Any special requests? Maybe she had two lists on her phone. One for him, one for home.
“No.”
“Kyle, come on.”
“Just whatever,” he said, and sat at the island. “I don’t care.”
“Okay, then. Bon appétit,” she said, before heading down the hall toward Megan’s old room. What was she going to do when Taylor was home from finals in a few weeks?
The kitchen seemed to throb with loneliness. Kyle’s dinner now struck him as disgusting enough to take a picture of and send to Emily.
#masterchef
That got her to reply at last.
WHAT IS THAT
He hovered his thumbs, wanting to ask, Where were you? Are you sick of me and my problems? Instead, he went with: dinner obvi
BTW, she wrote. Sorry about earlier. I was in class, then study group and then we did a practice SAT and I wanted to wait until I could pay full attention bc . . . YOU SAW YOUR MOM’S BOYFRIEND. are you ok?
Kyle exhaled. The lonely and forgotten feeling he’d had all day started to dissipate.
I don’t know. I think I’m starting to get in touch with my anger.
Nice, she replied, with a devil emoji.
Not sure I like it, he said.
Yet again, Emily’s eternal pause.
His shoveled in a few spoonfuls of the mass of orange undercooked-overcooked pasta. Then felt a jolt of pain again when he thought about Nadia saying “Now I don’t trust you.” Is this how it would be? Her words coming out of nowhere? And now, also visions of her body the first time he’d seen her all the way naked on a green comforter in her room, soft and rounded and golden.
He punched himself lightly on the thigh. Stop. Then harder. You asshole.
“Okay,” he said aloud. “Okay.”
He ate more of his neon dinner. Jiggled his leg fast. Scarfed down the pasta and pulled up a video of the barn-raising dance scene from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and propped his phone against the empty fruit bowl on the counter. He needed every available trick for escaping the accusing voice in his head.
The part where the brothers stole the girls away from the uptight dudes in suits used to make him laugh. The dancing style was kind of dumb and there was all this big exaggerated winking, and the whole thing had struck him as funny. Then one time Emily pointed out that the guys were treating the women like property or something and the scene didn’t really get good until the women starting getting to choose who they danced with, and the guys were showing off for them and trying to get them to choose rather than just yanking them around the dance floor. “Rape Culture: The Musical,” Emily called it once.
He liked was how strong those dancing dudes were, though. The girls, too. Doing cartwheels and jumping on and off tables and hopping around on what was basically a balance beam, all while holding axes. It was pretty badass, and the ridiculous and acrobatic musical number was just what he needed. The sounds and images on his phone pushed the ones in his head out until they seemed far away, something seen through the small end of a telescope.
When it was over, he rinsed out his bowl and the pot and put them in the dishwasher. His phone chimed again. He dove for it.
Did you see the wife and kid? Emily asked.
It took him a second to understand. The wife and kid of his mother’s boyfriend. No, he hadn’t seen them, and he hadn’t even thought about them. Wow, he really was an asshole. Now he wondered what their names were, and if the husband and wife got along and thought everything was fine, or if they’d found out in the time since Kyle’s dad had told him what was happening and now they were living like Kyle’s family was. Or if it was something in between, if the wife or the kid or both had a sense that something was wrong but didn’t know for sure that their lives were in the process of shattering.
Just the guy and the house.
Also I talked to Nadia today. it’s definitely over.
He read over his own text, feeling the defeat.
This one time during his sophomore year, when Ito was trying him out on varsity, a game near the end of the season had gone into an eleventh inning. Coach Ito had stuck Kyle out in right field for most of the game, and then they were at bat in the bottom half of the inning and Kyle was at the plate with two outs, their last chance to score with the opposing team one up. He had a headache from being hungry and thirsty and having been outside for four hours in the ninety-degree afternoon. As he stood at the plate, he decided, just decided, he was going to strike out so the eternal, frustrating, hot game could come to an end and he could get into his mom’s air-conditioned car and get shakes at the drive-through like they always did after a game.
He’d swung at three terrible pitches in a row, and it was over and his team lost and all he felt was relief.
“You didn’t even fight for it, Baker,” Ito had said, shaking his head as Kyle made the walk from home plate to the dugout. “You just gave up.”
That was exactly what he’d done with Nadia.
He heard the front door open and close, and a few seconds later his dad was in the kitchen and Kyle looked at him and knew the truth. He and his dad, they were both quitters. Cowards. They could do hard things, to a point. Demo and rebuild a kitchen: sure. Load a quarter ton of rocks, one at a time, onto a trailer and unload them, one at a time, at a customer’s house for a custom landscape job: no problem.
But when it came to stuff like . . . those moments you really really needed to be understood but were also afraid of it, or you wanted to say what you actually meant without getting laughed at, or you felt like if you didn’t grab onto someone, you might fall off the planet and go spinning into space all alone . . . that kind of hard stuff—well, they sucked at it.
“Hey,” his dad asked, then did a double take. “You’re looking at me funny. Any chance that has something to do with the call I got from school about that note you forged? I said that I signed it to avoid a hassle, but don’t do that again.”
Avoiding a hassle was his dad’s entire approach to life in a nutshell. “You’re not even fighting for it.”
“What?”
Kyle’s frustration surged. “You’re giving up. With Mom. You’re going to let it all fall apart.”
“Kyle.” His dad held up his hand, daring him to say one more word. “You’re way too young to have the remotest idea how complicated this is.”
“Complicated” was a cop-out word Kyle noticed adults using whenever they couldn’t rationally explain their dumb opinions or actions.
“Me and Nadia broke up. I let it fall apart. And now—”
“Don’t compare a thirty-year marriage to a high school crush.” His dad opened the fridge and, guess what, still no food. He closed it again. “It’s been a bad day, and I’m not in a frame of mind to talk about this or be accused of giving up. I’m not the one out there screwing around.”
“But what are you doing about it?” Kyle knew he was pushing.
“I’m trying to keep the goddamn bills paid here, is what. That’s all I have to give at the moment, and if you want something more out of this conversation, too damn bad.” He rubbed his face. He turned in a circle in the kitchen. “I’m starving.”
Kyle could have said he’d seen a can of tuna in the back of the pantry. That there were crackers on the high shelf. But why couldn’t his dad even face a little obstacle like what to eat without literally spinning
in circles?
“I made a contact at Coldwell Banker today,” Kyle said. He put Dawn’s business card on the counter. His dad stopped looking so lost for a second and picked it up. “You should email her a brochure and stuff. She said she’s always looking.”
“You cut school to do Baker and Najarian business? I know you’re worried, but school is your number-one priority.”
“That’s not why I cut.”
His dad was still looking at Dawn’s card with this puzzled and tired expression. “Thanks for this,” he said. “Good looking out.”
“Yeah, well.” Kyle stopped himself from saying “Someone has to.” Instead, he got the tuna and crackers out and set them on the counter for his dad.
8
WHEN KYLE walked into the weight room the next day, the guys barely looked up. It was like they’d collectively decided to freeze him out. Coach Ito gave him a nod of acknowledgment and pointed to the whiteboard where he’d written the workout of the day, but that was it.
Fine. He did his cable rows, his lateral lunges, and his planks, counting under his breath along with his Hamilton mix. In his peripheral vision, Coop and Mateo were doing medicine ball slams back and forth, harder and harder as if they wanted Kyle to look. When Kyle went back for a second set of cable rows, Coop said, “No wonder Coach decided you couldn’t be on the roster. Your form is shit and you look tired already.”
Kyle ignored him.
“Everyone thinks Ito shouldn’t have even let you come back for workouts after you went AWOL.”
“He did, though, so.” Kyle stretched out his shoulder. Some of the other guys were watching. “Sorry for bailing. It won’t happen again.”
“I knew you could hear me through those things,” Coop said.
“Guys,” Ito said. “Work your muscles, not your mouths.”
Kyle took his earbuds out and stood up; Mateo slammed the medicine ball to him. “Baker, dude,” he said. “If you want to go dark and fall off the face of the earth and never play baseball again, you can. But we’re supposed to be friends. Being sorry about bailing on the team is only part of it. I’m not only talking about since Arizona. You’ve hardly talked to us all year.”
Kyle slammed the ball back. “I had a girlfriend.”
“Had?” Coop asked.
Mateo held on to the ball, watching. “You guys broke up for real?”
“For real.”
He felt like the whole room had tuned in to their conversation, even Ito, pretending like he was looking at a bunch of wrinkled papers on his clipboard. He imagined how they’d all be staring if they knew about his mom, too.
Ito caught Kyle’s eye, then walked through the room spinning his finger in the air like Wrap it up. He called out, “Let’s finish the workout and get out of here on schedule.”
Both of Kyle’s parents were in the kitchen when he got home. It felt like they were waiting for him.
Divorce. They looked like people about to say the word.
“Hey.” He dropped his bag on the floor, tossed his keys onto the island.
His dad was leaning on his elbows the way he did whenever his back bothered him, his Baker & Najarian polo stretched tight over his belly. On the other side, his mom was thinner than ever. It was like every pound she had lost had wound up on his dad. There was a plate of cookies between them. Had his mom baked for the divorce announcement?
“We want to talk about something for a sec.” His mom filled a glass of water from the tap and handed it to Kyle.
Sometimes two people who love each other very much drift apart . . . Kyle narrated in his head. Shouldn’t they wait and do this when his sisters were home? At least Taylor?
“I just got off the phone with Grandma,” his dad said.
An image of his grandpa in a hospital room flashed through his mind. No, no.
“Everyone is okay,” Kyle’s mom said. He hated how good she was at knowing what he was thinking. “They are old, though,” she continued. “That’s not news, but maybe you don’t realize the farm and the big house are a lot for two people, plus managing the parcels they haven’t leased, and at this point—”
“They’re selling,” his dad said.
“Selling?” Kyle asked. “Like, the farm?”
“And the house. All the land, the whole thing.”
Kyle looked from his dad to his mom and back again. A giant chunk of family history and tradition, another piece of his childhood, demolished. And they were all matter-of-fact about it, just like they were with the affair.
“Do Megan and Taylor know?” Kyle asked. What about Emily?
“Not yet,” his mom said. “Are you okay?” She reached for him, and he moved his arm away.
“Why? Why didn’t they, like . . . pass it down?”
His dad hesitated and then said, “The short answer is money. They’ve been leasing out parcels, but the property taxes are so high, and the drought and the fires—”
“I don’t really understand how they got into such sudden dire straits, financially, so fast,” his mom said, “but there it is.”
“It wasn’t sudden, Karen—it’s been a burden for a long time. The only thing that’s sudden is having a buyer willing to take on the entire property.” He looked at Kyle. “One of the big wineries made an offer on everything.”
“I do feel like they’re acting a little desperate,” his mom said. “They could at least negotiate and maybe try to keep the house. That’s just my opinion.”
So now they were going to fight. Kyle wanted to laugh. They’d decided to live with cheating, but the farm was a fight. Okay.
“How do you know they’re acting desperate? How do you know they didn’t negotiate?”
“Because I know, Jeff, because they aren’t like that. They aren’t . . . I don’t know. Savvy.”
“You think they could run a farm as long as they did and manage all those leases and employees without knowing what they were doing? Anyway, I think we all feel Mom and Dad dodged a bullet last year when the fires didn’t touch the farm. We might not be lucky next time. None of the kids want to take it on.”
“Not even Uncle Mike and Aunt Jenny?” Kyle asked.
“Especially not them. They see it up close day to day.”
“You don’t want the house you grew up in to stay in the family?” his mother asked. “Explain that to me again, Jeff? Especially after everything we’ve invested.”
Kyle wished the fan over the stove would suck him up and then beam him to a beach somewhere, or even just to his room.
“‘We?’”
“Okay, fine. The company. Which technically is ‘we,’ since I am a partner, but I know you always see it as you.”
“Can I go tell Taylor and Megan, or are you guys going to?” Kyle asked, mostly hoping to shut them up.
“We’re about to call Taylor,” his dad said. “This summer will be the last big thing with everyone there. We want to make sure everyone comes, which means—”
His mom took over. “We were thinking that no matter what happens, no matter what’s going on between your dad and me, we should go this summer as a family.”
No matter what happens. Kyle looked at his dad, who said to the ceiling just above Kyle’s head, “We’ll put everything on hold until afterward. Go to the farm together and make it a nice memory for everyone. Maybe you can even help us talk Megan into it.”
“Yeah, okay.” They had no idea how much that was not going to happen.
“Really try, okay, Kyle?” his mom said.
“If it matters so much, why don’t you talk to her?”
“She won’t answer my calls.”
“Text her.” He stacked a few cookies in his palm and started toward his room. He needed to talk to Emily.
“Come on, Kyle,” his dad said. “You know you want her there too.”
Seriously? His parents were going to be a team now, when it came to coercing him? Yeah, he wanted Megan there. He wanted Megan there and Taylor and his mom and dad like they u
sed to be. He stopped in the hall and looked up, momentarily blinded by the recessed pinspot they’d put in last year. He closed his eyes, seeing sunbursts and floating blobs of black.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll try.”
Can we FaceTime? he said. I just heard about the farm.
Ugh I know. It’s terrible. Alex has been crying her eyes out since my mom told us yesterday.
Yesterday? And she hadn’t thought to mention it? He swallowed a mouthful of cookie, then hit the video button to call her.
She declined the call. We’re just sitting down to dinner, she said. Sorry!
Oh ok
Sitting down to dinner. Like, what a family does. He imagined them—Aunt Brenda and Uncle Dale, Alex, Emily—at their table, eating a meal that had more than one food group in it. How come Emily got that and he got this. His mind went back to his grandma’s kitchen and being there with Emily, juicing the limes. How they had this connection and she’d been so I’m here for you and been such a good listener and someone to believe in and rely on. To Kyle, that had meant: no matter what. Now she felt as far away as the rest of them.
He texted Megan. Dude we need to talk.
Her typing bubbles came right away, and Kyle felt a little hope. But her reply was Can’t, dude. Try me in a few days.
A few days?
He even tried Taylor. Call me after you talk to Mom and Dad.
His message to her came back undeliverable with a red exclamation point. He hit “try again” about four times, then gave up. Finished off the cookies. Brushed the crumbs off his shirt. He kicked back on his bed and thought about homework, then instead looked for some good musicals clips to cheer him up. There was Gene Kelly with a cartoon mouse, then Gene Kelly with Leslie Caron dancing by the river in An American in Paris. That one was too melancholy and romantic for him to handle. He found the really sexy one of Kelly with Cyd Charisse in Singin’ in the Rain where Cyd is all legs and fringe and his mind finally stopped spinning on how everyone had left him behind.
He conjured Nadia. Told himself, just this one last time. Imagined her in a dress like Cyd’s and high heels to match, the muscles in her thighs flexing and flashing in sparkly cloth. Dancing for him, leaping into his arms—her hips resting on his, her breasts pressing against his chest while she stared into his eyes with total trust that he could hold her and not let go. He pushed his shorts down a little, reached into them, and tried not to think about how using Nadia this way felt wrong, when a message from Emily bannered over the video.