Families and Other Nonreturnable Gifts

  Mom shows up around eight thirty. I tell her I’m running late and race out the door so her sharp eyes don’t have time to notice anything.

  Tom calls me a few minutes later, catching me in the car. He says I sound weird. I tell him I’m exhausted, that I couldn’t sleep in Dad’s apartment. I also tell him that Hopkins isn’t coming so I’ll probably have to spend another night or two there, and he says, “If you sound this exhausted after one night—”

  “I’ll be okay.” I ask him about his evening, and he says it was fun, that he and Lou went bowling and had a real guys’ night out.

  “Where was Izzy?”

  “Lou said she was all PO’ed about something and didn’t want to come with us.”

  “Really? Izzy?” Izzy is the last person I think of as a sulker. “I’ve never seen her angry about anything.”

  “Yeah, me neither, but Lou says she can really get going when they’re alone—that he’s the only one she lets loose on. He asked me once if you’re like that, and I almost felt bad because I had to say no. Guess I got the one perfect girl in the world.”

  When we hang up, tears of self-loathing and regret are pricking at the space behind my eyes.

  * * *

  Mom calls me around lunchtime from Dad’s apartment to say she’s been there all morning and he’s fine, but Jacob’s coming soon to relieve her. “I think this taking shifts thing is really going well,” she says almost happily. “And when Hopkins comes—”

  “If  Hopkins comes.”

  “She’s coming. She just had a medical emer—”

  “I know, I know.” I’m too tired and too dispirited to hear about how Hopkins is performing some kind of miracle back in New York. “How was your date?”

  “Strange. Sometimes when we’re together it feels like our spouses are just waiting in the next room, and we’ll all join up again in a minute. And then I remember that it’s just the two of us. But Irv is good company.”

  “Does Dad know you’re dating him?”

  “Not unless you told him.”

  “I haven’t yet, but I’ll keep it in mind when the conversation feels like it’s dying.”

  “I’m sure he’d be fine with it.”

  “No, he wouldn’t.” I have no patience today. Not for this. “Don’t fool yourself, Mom. He wouldn’t be fine with your dating anyone. You may have moved on, but he hasn’t.”

  She doesn’t say anything.

  “So when do I have to show up tonight?” I ask.

  “Jacob said he can stay until about five. I can come back then if it’s too early for you.”

  “Kind of. I was hoping to have dinner with Tom tonight.”

  “That’s fine. I’ll cover from when Jacob leaves until you arrive.”

  I hang up relieved. I don’t want to overlap with Jacob.

  * * *

  I manage to get home before Tom and immediately take a shower. Another long hot one. Now I’m OCD Lady Macbeth. Every time I go to turn the water off, I hesitate and rinse off again.

  When I decide my behavior is verging on psychosis, I get out and towel off, rubbing my skin so roughly that it stings and turns red.

  I’m still in my bathrobe when I hear the door open. I race across the apartment and throw myself at Tom, hugging him tightly around his waist. I push my head hard against his chest, wishing I could burrow all the way inside and just stay there.

  “Whoa,” he says, pulling back with a laugh. “That’s what I call a greeting!”

  I look at his handsome, kind, smiling face, and I almost blurt it all out, right there and then. It’s unbearable. I have to tell him. I can’t keep a secret from him. It’s too agonizing. I’ll burn up with the agony of it.

  But of course, I can’t tell him. For his sake, for Jacob’s sake, for my family’s sake. It kills me that I can’t. Absolution would feel so good, so much better than this wrenching guilt that makes me shudder in his arms and bury my face on his shoulder so he can’t see my expression.

  But I don’t deserve absolution. I deserve to suffer.

  And I do. All through dinner—we go out to our favorite local restaurant, a small Italian place that may not serve the best food in town but is dark and quiet and always has a table available—and during the walk back to our apartment, I suffer as we talk about his work, my work, my father, the upcoming weekend, all the stuff we’d normally talk about, only it’s like the world is melting around the edges and nothing’s quite real. Everything’s different, but I’m the only one who knows it.

  It’s lonely being the only one who knows it.

  I get why unfaithful husbands show up with flowers and chocolates. I want to do something nice for Tom. I want to show him how much I love him. So back at the apartment, I pull him onto the bed, fondle and kiss him, pull off his jeans, and give him a blow job.

  It’s not just to be nice. It’s also so we don’t have sex. I can’t yet. I still feel unclean.

  Afterward, he pulls me up next to him, ruffles my hair, and thanks me. “That,” he says, “was unexpected. To what do I owe the honor?”

  “Just wanted to do something nice for you. I missed you last night.”

  “I missed you, too.” He rubs his temple against mine. “I kept reaching for you all night long and you weren’t there. Made it hard to sleep.”

  “I guess we’re just addicted to each other.”

  “You really have to stay at your dad’s again tonight?”

  “Mom wants me to. But I swear this is the last night. He’s doing so much better. And someone’s coming tomorrow to set up one of those Lifeline alarm thingies so he can call for help if he needs it.”

  “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up,” Tom says and chuckles.

  “Exactly.” But it doesn’t amuse me the way it does him.

  Later, I give him a shoulder massage and fetch him a beer. It’s stupid of me to wait on him like this—he actually wonders out loud why I’m being so unusually nice to him—but I can’t seem to help myself.

  When I leave to go to my father’s, Tom gives me a cheerful wave good-bye. I go down to the garage, get in my car, drive away…

  And feel a shameful, overwhelming sense of relief.

  * * *

  Mom’s watching a news show on PBS with Dad when I arrive but jumps to her feet the second I enter the bedroom.

  When I walk her to the door, she asks me if I can come out to the house on Saturday. The real estate agent’s coming to talk strategy, and she wants another set of ears.

  “Is anyone else coming?” I ask warily.

  “Why?”

  Because I can never be in the same room with Jacob Corwin again. “Just wondering,” I say.

  “Well, you’re the only one I’ve asked. But I’m still hoping Hopkins might make it to town by then, so it’s possible she’ll be around.”

  I tell her I’ll come.

  We say good-bye, and then I go sit on the edge of my father’s bed. During a commercial, he tries to convince me to go home to sleep. “I’m fine,” he says. “All of this well-intentioned hovering is starting to get on my nerves. I just want life to go back to normal for all of us.”

  “It will, soon. This is the last night I’ll stay here. I promise. Even if you collapse on the floor in a pool of your own vomit, I’ll leave you alone tomorrow.”

  “But for tonight…Don’t you have a boyfriend who wants you to come home?”

  It’s an effort to sound lighthearted. “Hmm. Let me think. Tall guy? Dark hair? We had dinner together tonight, Dad. It’s fine.”

  “I haven’t always been his biggest fan,” my father says. “I never thought he was good enough for you. I know fathers always feel that way about their daughters’ beaux, but this felt fairly objective. In all honesty, your mother and I both assumed you’d outgrow him.”

  “Well, I haven’t. And I won’t.”

  “He’s good to you?”

  “Very.” I feel close to tears. Not because of this conversation, because of everything. “So
good to me, Dad. He’s the kindest, most loyal guy. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

  “Those are good qualities. Kindness. Loyalty. Sometimes I think we undervalue that kind of thing in our family.” He sighs, or maybe just breathes in unevenly, and his face contorts a little.

  “You need a painkiller, Dad?”

  “A couple of Advils will suffice.”

  “You sure you don’t want something stronger?”

  “I like a little edge of pain. Reminds me I’m not dead yet.”

  “My company doesn’t do that?”

  “Ah, it’s far too heavenly to convince me I’m still alive.”

  We’re not a demonstrative family so when I give in to the sudden urge to lean forward and brush a loose strand of gray-white hair off his forehead, I quickly straighten back up and reach for the bottle of Advil.

  I feel his gaze on me as he swallows the pills. I busy myself straightening up the items on his night table. I toss some dirty tissues into the wastebasket, stack up some old mugs and glasses, pile books on top of one another.

  “You’re a good girl, Keats,” he says as I carry the cups toward the door. “The best.”

  “Thanks,” I say, but I don’t believe him. I’m not the smartest or the most talented kid in my family—and as of about twenty-four hours ago, I stopped being honorable, which was the one thing I had going for me.

  The phone rings as I bring the cups into the kitchen. I put them in the sink and answer it on the third ring. My stomach lurches when I hear Jacob’s uncomfortable response to my hello, and I feel a burst of fury at my father for not having Caller ID on his phone. Not that he even knows what that is.

  “Oh, hi. How’s it going?” I say awkwardly.

  “Fine, thanks. You?”

  “I’m good, thanks. What can I do for you?” We both sound like we’re speaking a foreign language we’ve gotten very rusty in.

  “Sorry to bother you. Your father asked me to look something up for him, and I just tracked down the information. Could I please talk to him? If he’s not asleep, of course.”

  “Yes, of course. Just a moment.” But then I stop playing the game for one second. “Are you okay? Really?”

  He doesn’t stop playing the game. “I’m fine, thanks,” he says in the same stilted, overly polite way, and I tell him to hold on while I put Dad on the phone.

  13.

  Keats?” Rochelle snakes her head around the opening to my cubicle the next day. “How busy are you?”

  “Less than a bee, more than a beaver. Or should it be the other way around?” I’m in the middle of getting competing restaurant bids for a retirement dinner for the arts and culture instructor who started teaching at WCC before the dawn of cable TV. “What’s up?”

  “I wanted to ask you for a favor.”

  “Yeah? How’s that going?”

  “Great,” says Rochelle, coming the rest of the way into my office. “You’re very enthusiastic and would love to help me out.” She’s got a whole menswear look thing going on today: a long narrow tie and a white button-down shirt over linen pants. On someone else it would look costumey. On her, it looks fabulous. It must be nice to be five foot ten and rail thin—not that I’ll ever know.

  She takes a deep breath. “Okay, in all seriousness, here’s the thing: I’m getting an article published. It’s just a stupid trade journal, but since it’s my first piece, I’m kind of nervous about it. You’re so good at editing—would you be willing to just check it over for me before I send in the final draft? Just make sure there aren’t any glaring grammatical errors? I don’t want to make a fool of myself.”

  “I doubt that’s likely, but I’m happy to read it for you.”

  She beams. “Thanks! I’ll send it to you right away. I’d say no rush, only it’s due on Wednesday, so there’s totally a rush. But it’s not too long. Fifteen hundred words.”

  That sounds long to me, but I just say, “No problem. Send it on over.”

  “Thanks again. You’re the best.”

  So a little while later, when I check my e-mail, I get one from Rochelle with a lengthy attachment, which I download to look at when I have time.

  I also have an e-mail from Cathy Miller. “Two things” is the subject line.

  The first thing is that she’s wondering if I want to grab lunch sometime. That’s probably just an excuse for the second thing, which is a request for Jacob Corwin’s e-mail. You’re right—I might as well give it a try. Worst that happens, he rejects me and I’m right back to where I am now, alone on Saturday nights.

  I feel unreasonably annoyed at her. She has lousy timing. Why didn’t she ask me for this earlier? Now it’s just weird—weird for me to keep engineering the fix-up and weird for her to blithely e-mail Jacob with a So Keats said I should contact you…

  But if I don’t give her his e-mail, she’ll wonder why.

  I propose a day for lunch and include Jacob’s e-mail address.

  Now it’s out of my hands.

  I go to the vending machine in the back of the building and get a Snickers bar. I don’t usually eat candy at eleven in the morning, but I’m craving consolation, and chocolate seems to be the only form it’s going to come in at the moment.

  I have another e-mail waiting for me when I get back, a thank-you from Cathy—Here goes nothing! Wish me luck—and also an IM from Tom: Lou and Izzy were free tonight so I invited them over and said we’d order in.

  Great, I write back and it is. It saves me from being alone with Tom for the whole evening, which is a relief.

  And this wave of relief makes me feel guilty all over again. I love Tom more than anything else in the world, and now I’ve created a situation where I can’t bear to be alone with him because I feel so freaking guilty.

  I wander back to the vending machine, but I already know that the achy, sad feeling in my stomach isn’t hunger and no amount of chocolate will make it go away.

  * * *

  The boys are several beers into a baseball game, so Izzy and I volunteer to go pick up the Thai food we ordered—the place we like best doesn’t deliver. When we get there, the food’s not quite ready yet, so we settle into a couple of padded pleather chairs bookending an oddly ascetic-looking Buddha.

  “Maybe we should just stay and eat here without them,” Izzy suggests with a wicked grin. “They’ll never even notice that we haven’t come back. At least not until the game’s over.” As usual, she looks fantastic. Tonight she’s wearing a striped minidress with knee-high leather boots. A guy who enters the restaurant does a total double take and stops to take a longer look at her. Once he’s given her a good once-over, he nods with approval, winks at us both, and moves on to go pick up his food.

  Izzy settles back in the chair, fluffing out her blond hair with her bright red fingernails. Bangles clink around her wrist.

  She’s used to getting attention like that.

  I say, “I think the guys would eventually miss us—but only when they need someone to bring them another beer.”

  “That’s about what it takes to get Lou to notice me these days. I should make a dress out of beer cans. He’d look at that.”

  “Is everything okay with you guys?” I ask. “Tom said something about the other night—that you didn’t want to go bowling with them for some reason?”

  “Well, part of it was I knew you wouldn’t be there so I figured they’d have a real boys’ night out without me.” She screws up her nose. “But to be totally honest, I was also majorly pissed at Lou.” Part of what I love about Izzy is how straightforward she is. Her frankness is disarming because it’s combined with so much amiability: usually people wield honesty like some kind of a weapon, but she’s just happy to share.

  “What was it about?”

  “Oh, I was all PMSy, and it was making me nuts. Lou said something that annoyed me, and I just lost it.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “Honestly, I don’t even remember. That’s how crazy I was being.”

/>   “I can’t imagine you getting mad at anyone.”

  She opens her big blue eyes wide. “Seriously? I can be the hugest pain in the ass sometimes! I don’t know why Lou puts up with me.”

  “Because you’re beautiful and wonderful?”

  “Aw, you’re sweet,” she says, dismissing what I just said with a fragrant wave of her hand. She uncrosses her legs and leans forward. “We’re so lucky, Keats. Most girls our age can’t find a single decent guy to date, and meanwhile there’s Lou and Tom, best guys ever, and they love us. Half of my old friends won’t even talk to me anymore, they’re so jealous I’m already married to the man of my dreams while they’re out there dating losers.”

  I murmur something polite in agreement, but I still think Lou’s the lucky one here. He’s okay, but I like Izzy better.

  “You and Tom are planning to get married one day, right?” she says, then quickly adds, “If I’m prying, you can just tell me to butt out.”

  “No, it’s fine. We definitely plan to be together forever. We’re just in no rush to do the ceremony thing. Too much dealing with family.”

  “I was younger than you when we got married, but part of it was I felt like I couldn’t move out and leave Mom and Dad to deal with Stanny alone unless I was married. It just wouldn’t have felt right.” Stanny is her brother with special needs. “That wasn’t why we did it, though,” she adds quickly. “We just really wanted to.”

  “Planning a wedding seems so overwhelming to me right now. And there’s no rush.”

  “You’re right,” says my always-agreeable friend. “There’s no rush at all. But when you do get married, I want to be a bridesmaid, okay?”

  “I don’t know,” I tease her. “Then everyone will be looking at you instead of me.”

  “Don’t be silly. The bride’s always the most beautiful woman there.” Izzy takes the subject of weddings seriously. “And I want to be in charge of doing your hair or at least of telling a professional how it should be done. You know how much I love your hair. And I’ve already decided how you should wear it for your wedding—half up—”

  “Kate?” calls out the woman at the cash register. “Your order’s ready.”