Good On Paper

by Jennifer Millikin

  But, no. Nothing. Just a hop into conversation as though nothing disrupted its flow in the first place.

  I guess we’re just going to act like it never happened.

  11

  Natalie

  Why does the sight of that blonde-haired, doe-eyed little snot eating food off the ground give me such pleasure? Surely that’s not the right feeling to have? As I watch, his two small fingers reach out, pinching a pea like a crab seizing whatever the hell it is crabs eat.

  Allegra, my father’s new wife, peeks under the table and spots her precious angel inserting the pea and what I assume are at least three million microscopic bacteria into his mouth.

  “No, Jagger. No!” She moves quickly, her chair scraping against the red tile floor. I wince at the sound it makes, but it’s a good cover up for the amusement that was surely showing on my face.

  Allegra comes up from under the table with Jagger in tow. She sets him back down in his chair and whips out an iPad from her purse. Within seconds Jagger’s eyes are wide, the screen putting him in a trance.

  “I wish we would’ve had those when you girls were small.” My father nods at the iPad. “Maybe we would’ve gone out for dinner more often.”

  I eye him, trying not to show the disgust that’s making my stomach churn. We didn’t go out because people would’ve wanted to know why Mom wore a sweater in July.

  The words die somewhere in my throat. I don’t know if Allegra knows about the abuse. I don’t know if Allegra experiences it herself. She’s wearing a cowl neck sweater tonight, but of course, it’s November. Maybe I should pay them a surprise visit in the summer.

  “Yeah, iPads are great,” I respond. Instead of paying attention to me, he’s looking around the restaurant. First at the shelf on the right, where there is a large porcelain statue of a cat, then around the whole place. It’s a small restaurant, so it doesn’t take long for him to finally look back at me. In the past year, the gray in his hair has increased ten-fold, and the bags under his eyes have become a permanent fixture. I wonder how often he is mistaken for Jagger’s grandfather?

  Our conversation, which was paltry at best, ceases completely. The air is thick with discomfort. I have almost nothing to say to the man who raised me. Nothing to say to the man who used his hands to push me on the swings then used those same hands to hurt my mother. A fissure split him in two the first time I noticed a bruise on her arm. I cannot reconcile the two versions of my father, and a small part of me hates him. Not just for what he did to her, but for what he did to me and Sydney. He took away our happy family, an offense so grievous it pours over every good thing he’s ever done, leaving nothing but midnight black on memories that should be white.

  “So, Henry,” my dad starts, pausing to assess what hearing Henry’s name will do to me. “How’s he doing?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since the papers were signed.”

  My dad looks surprised. “You said you were leaving him. I didn’t realize it was final.”

  I nod. “Oh. Hmm.” What is my response supposed to be?

  “Was he bad to you?” My dad’s voice is gruff as he entertains the possibility that perhaps I suffered the same fate as my mother.

  I stare at him until he begins to look uncomfortable, then I say, “No, Dad. Not in the way you’re referencing.”

  He has the decency to look embarrassed. Allegra rubs his forearm in a soothing way that pisses me off, and he sends a tight smile in her direction. Maybe she does know about the abuse.

  “Henry wasn’t good or bad,” I say, removing my silverware from its place inside the rolled up paper napkin. I place the napkin on my lap and set out the silverware. “He wasn’t the right man for me. I made a mistake when I married him, and the longer the marriage went on, the more apparent that became.” I don’t feel like airing our dirty laundry. Besides, there is no use telling my father that every day I woke up feeling like I was choking on my own fear. He would never understand such a feeling.

  Quiet descends again, punctuated every few seconds by a child’s voice from Jagger’s iPad. I’m so grateful when the food arrives that I shove a steaming piece of orange chicken between my lips and scald the roof of my mouth. Oddly, the pain is almost worth it.

  When dinner is over, my dad pays the check and tells me they’ll be staying in the city tonight instead of heading back to their home in Connecticut.

  “We have a hotel,” he says, and Allegra smiles at him, her eyes shiny with excitement.

  She looks at me and explains. “My sister lives in the city, and we’re having Thanksgiving dinner with them tomorrow.”

  “That’s nice,” I respond, hoping my smile looks genuine.

  Allegra’s eyes widen and she grabs for my arm. “You can come, of course. My sister would love to meet you.”

  My arm is still in her grip, and even through all our layers, it feels wrong to be touched by her. Like I’m cheating on my mother. “Thank you for the invite, but I’m going to Pound Ridge with Aidan. His parents’ place,” I add when I see my father’s confusion.

  We say goodbye, and I’m the first to turn around. I wait seven seconds, then peek back around. There they go, their backs to me, walking with Jagger between them. My dad holds hands with him and then grins down at something Jagger has said. I frown at the sight, and my orange chicken threatens a reappearance in the world.

  They look so happy together, and I wonder if they truly are. Then I wonder why my mother, my sister, and I couldn’t make him that happy.

  It would be really fucking nice if my sister would stop being my sister for two seconds and agree to give me backup at my mom’s tomorrow. I’ve threatened, I’ve cajoled, I’ve even promised to find a guy to help her release steam for a night. It all got me nowhere.

  “I disown you,” I announce to Sydney, cradling the phone between my shoulder and my ear so I can continue throwing things into a bag.

  “Not possible,” she responds, crunching on a chip. “Tell me about seeing Dad.”

  I sigh. I don’t really want to talk about seeing my father, but I know she’s curious. Due to proximity more than choice, I see him more often than she does.

  I recount the story, word for word, and Sydney responds the way she should in all the right places. Until I get to the end, anyhow. She doesn’t care about them walking hand in hand, looking picture perfect.

  “You have to get over that shit, Natalie. Dad moved on. Mom is basically a lunatic. I say you forget about seeing her tomorrow and just go to Aidan’s. He’s more family than they’ll ever be.”

  “Yeah…” I say, my voice trailing off. If he’s family, then I pulled an incestuous move.

  “What?” Dread colors Sydney’s question.

  “It’s nothing.” I shake my head even though she can’t see me. “It’s just that I got really drunk last week and said something stupid and now things are weird between me and Aidan.” My gaze falls down to my nearly full bag. “It should make for a great drive tomorrow.”

  “What did you say?”

  Heat colors my cheeks at the thought of my words. I don’t really even care that I undressed in front of him. It’s not like I did a dance and peacocked around the bathroom before slipping into the tub. And besides, he turned around until I was safely underwater.

  “I asked him why we’ve never gotten together.” I cringe, picturing his expression. His mouth had set in a grim line, and that confused me. I don’t know what my goal was in asking him that question, but it certainly wasn’t to upset him. He should’ve laughed. Rolled his eyes. Joked about my drunkenness. Why on earth did my question upset him?

  Sydney lets out a low whistle. “What did he say?”

  “He said ‘You know me, Nat. I’m not a commitment guy.’ That was the end of it.”

  “Well, that was awkward.”

  “Um hmm.” Sitting back on the bed, I push my overnight bag out of the way and cross one ankle over the other.

  “Nat?”

 
“Yeah?”

  “Why did you ask him that question? I thought you guys were on the same page about being platonic.”

  “We are.”

  She doesn’t say anything, and I know she’s silent because she’s waiting for me to give her more to go on.

  I sigh in a deep, annoyed, dramatic way. I don’t want to have this conversation because I don’t know what to say. I don’t know why I asked the question, so how the hell am I supposed to explain it to someone else?

  “I’m not sure why I asked him that. I really, truly do not know. One minute I was soaking in a bath and the next I was asking him the worst thing ever. And—”

  “Wait. Back up. You were in a bath when you asked him?”

  Oh. Right. I hadn’t mentioned that part before.

  “After I threw up on myself, Aidan ran a bath for me. I was light-headed and didn’t want to be alone in the bath. He stayed, but turned around until I was safely under bubbles.”

  “I’d say you crossed a line before you even asked that question.”

  “Thanks, Sydney. That’s helpful.”

  She laughs at my sarcasm. “I’m just saying, the lines were already blurring. It makes perfect sense why you asked him. You were drunk, vulnerable, and a line in your friendship was already starting to resemble a watercolor.”

  I like her justification. In fact, I like it so much I’m going to go with it. “That sounds about right,” I tell her. “I believe you just won your case, Ms. Maxwell.”

  She barks a laugh. “Unfortunately, I can’t help you with your other problem.”

  “What’s that?” I ask, adjusting the pillows behind me.

  “Mom. You’re going to have to take one for the team.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  We talk for a few more minutes, then hang up. I climb off the bed and look down at my open overnight bag. There’s just enough room for one more thing, but I don’t know if I have the guts to do it.

  12

  Natalie

  Despite all the noise on the crowded street, I hear the roar of the engine before I see the car. I look down through the busy street crowded with cabs and regular vehicles, my eyes seeking out a small sports car. When Aidan drives out of the city, he always does it in a shiny black Porsche 911 Turbo. He generally denies himself the use of his trust fund but allows himself this one small pleasure.

  In the lane closest to me, four cars back sits Aidan and his temporary toy. Traffic is at a standstill, but I can still hear the engine purring. Our eyes meet through the windshield, and Aidan guns the engine. The sound of it reverberates through my chest. Even from this distance, I can see the light in his eyes, the way his fingers grip the steering wheel. The light is red, but it won't be for long. With my heavy bag weighing me down on one side, I hurry down the sidewalk. Aidan gets out and moves to the back of the car, lifting the trunk. When I get there, he takes the bag from my shoulder. I must not have zipped one side all the way, because a few things spill out onto the dirty street.

  “Shit,” I mutter, bending down to snatch my brick red and ivory striped pajamas from the ground.

  The light must've turned green because the car behind us inches forward.

  Aidan reaches for my pajamas and stuffs them into the bag. I spy my face cream under the car. My really expensive face cream.

  “Aidan, I need that!” The stress of the situation causes my voice to rise a few octaves. I point under the car and look up at Aidan. The car behind us honks, and it's not the short sound of a polite honk. No, it's a long, loud blast and it's so goddamn close that it sounds like a foghorn trumpeting right into my ears. Aidan glares at the driver and flips them off. The driver returns the motion and turns on his blinker, trying to move around us. He is still mouthing who knows what as he speeds past us.

  “Happy Thanksgiving, asshole,” Aidan yells back. He walks to the driver side, opens the door and leans in, and suddenly the hazards are flashing near my head.

  Aidan reappears beside me and bends down so we're nearly eye to eye. “Okay, now that that's out-of-the-way, what is it you need so badly? Please don't say it's a tube of lip gloss.”

  I reach out and pinch his arm. “Of course not. It's only the world’s most expensive face cream.”

  Aidan nods, but his expression is derisive. “Ah, yes. Face cream. An item that can be bought at nearly every street corner in America.”

  I reach out again to pinch him, but this time he knows it's coming and grabs my wrist mid-air. “I’m kidding.”

  He drops down onto his knees and peers underneath the car. It's so low to the ground that it can't be easy for him. After a few seconds, he grips the bumper of the car with his left hand, his right hand disappearing underneath. A moment later he sits up with his arm outstretched, his fingers curled around my precious bottle of youth in a jar.

  “Thank you,” I tell him, resisting the urge to wrap my arms around him. We both stand, and I tuck the bottle back into my bag and double check that it's zipped properly.

  “You're welcome.” He slams the trunk closed and glances at me. “Please don't lose it in the garbage. I'm not a big fan of dumpster diving.”

  Laughing, I walk around to the passenger side and open the door. I have to bend my knees to slide into the low profile car. The light has gone through a full cycle and is red again, but just like before, I know it won't be red for long.

  “Not too shabby,” I say when Aidan gets in and closes his door. My fingers slip over the supple leather seats.

  “It's a 2018,” Aidan grins. “I lucked out. They just happened to have this model available.”

  From the center compartment, he produces his black driving gloves. It's not until this moment that I realized he didn't have them on during the face cream fiasco. He makes a show of putting them on, trying to entice me to comment. I say nothing, looking out at the street.

  “You should probably start to drive unless you were looking to get into another verbal altercation,” I say, pointing up at the now green light.

  Aidan taps on the gas pedal and the car flies forward, sending me slamming back into my seat.

  Aidan looks at me sheepishly. “It takes a little getting used to.”

  I nod my head, my lower lip captured between my teeth to keep from laughing.

  I spent a lot of last night stressing over what this car ride would be like. Needless to say, I did not anticipate making a spectacle of ourselves in the middle of a crowded Manhattan Street. It was just what we needed to break the awkwardness that's been sitting between us.

  “How was your week?” It seems like an innocuous enough question, and a good way to start conversation.

  Aidan runs a hand through his unkempt hair and shifts gears. He seems to be considering my question, and then he answers. “I guess it was okay. None of those little shits wanted to do any work this week. They came into my classroom already on vacation.”

  “To be honest, I'm pretty sure I went into work already on vacation this week.”

  “If I was in your line of work, I'd want to be on a permanent vacation.”

  I roll my eyes. Aidan and accountant really doesn't mix. Then again, I never thought Aidan and math teacher mixed either, and yet somehow they do. Maybe it's because Aidan doesn't look like a traditional math teacher. Even in his work clothes, which consist of jeans and a button-down shirt, there's something about him, some underlying wildness. Like even though his wildness can be tempered, it can't be tamed.

  “I could definitely do your job,” I say confidently, crossing my arms in front of myself.

  “I have no doubt that you could.” Aidan looks over at me. “The question is, do you want another number job?”

  I think about my manuscript. At this very minute, it's tucked away in my bag, down at the very bottom. Maybe if the opportunity arises, I’ll show it to Aidan's mom. Maybe. Even five minutes of her time would be worth its weight in gold. I hate the idea of taking advantage of my connection, but I know it’s foolish not to.

 
; I reach forward, pushing buttons until the radio comes on. Then I push more buttons until I find something suitable to listen to. “You know what kind of job I want, Aidan.”

  Aidan makes a fist and shakes it in front of him. “Take it. Make it yours,” he says in a rough voice. I'm almost positive he's quoting one of those war movies he likes so much.

  “I saw your manuscript in your bag, Nat.”

  “Forget you saw it, Aidan. I brought it so I can work on it if I have downtime.”

  “It’s finished.”

  “There are always little things I can tweak.”

  He holds up one hand and mouths the word ‘fine.’

  We settle into the drive as Aidan moves farther out of the city. The streets are quieter than I thought they would be for a holiday. Probably because people usually travel the day before, not on the actual holiday. I change stations again and find Christmas music, and then I leave it there. Some people don't believe in Christmas music till after Thanksgiving, but I am firmly not one of those people. I've even been known to listen to Christmas music in July.

  I'm humming along to my fifth Christmas song when Aidan does it. The dreaded nose pick. We're just about to get on the I-95 and are waiting at a red light. He removed his gloves a few minutes ago, probably because they were getting hot, and now his fingers are free to roam.

  “Are you finding anything good in there?” I can't help myself. Not pointing it out might kill me.

  Aidan withdraws his finger from his nose and gives me a dirty look. “I had to do something with my hands to keep them from reaching over and quieting your humming.” For clarification, he places a cupped hand over his own mouth.

  In the past, his comment wouldn’t have bothered me. But for some reason right now, sitting in this car, trying as hard as we can not to think about what I said and let it affect us, his comment sets a flush to my cheeks. Something has shifted between us and I feel vulnerable.