First Comes Love

  “You’re the teacher. Don’t you get to pick your own room mom?” I say, as I RSVP no to an Evite for a birthday party at one of those inflatable play venues where kids are more likely to get a concussion or skin disease than they are to actually have fun.

  “Ultimately. But it’s based on volunteers. Which mother checks the little box on the form I sent home. So if she’s the only volunteer…” Josie sighs, leaving her sentence unfinished.

  “First of all, you’ll get at least five volunteers,” I say, thinking of all the eager-beaver mothers of children in Harper’s preschool class. “And even if you don’t, you could just ask another mother and hope it doesn’t get back to Andrea.”

  Despite Josie’s insistence that teaching is one of the most emotionally, physically, and mentally draining professions, I always feel like I’m missing something. I just don’t see her job as all that complicated, at least not in comparison to the politics and pressures at my law firm, and especially given her twelve weeks of vacation every year.

  “Oh, it would get back to her,” she says. “That kind of thing always gets back.”

  I nod, granting her this much. Mothers always talk. In fact, unless Will’s wife is amazingly tactful or shockingly in the dark about her husband’s past, I feel sure that half the moms have already heard the gossip about their child’s first-grade teacher. “Well, I told you that you should have intervened,” I say, remembering how I scripted the phone call with her headmaster boss weeks ago, requesting that said child be moved to another first-grade classroom due to a “personal situation.”

  “By the time I got the class list, it was too late,” she says. “It had already gone out to the parents.”

  “So?” I say.

  “So they would know that I made the switch.”

  “So?” I say again.

  Josie stares at me, then takes a long drink of beer. “So the opposite of love is indifference. And switching a kid out of my class is not an indifferent move.”

  “Well, neither is stalking,” I say at my own peril. “And that’s never stopped you.”

  Josie grins, apparently wearing stalking as some sort of badge of honor. “I haven’t stalked Will in years. Until recent developments. Besides, you can’t really count an innocent drive-by as stalking. It’s not like I egged his house. I just wanted to see where they lived.”

  “Right,” I say, thinking that Will and his wife might not characterize the late-night maneuver as entirely innocent. Creepily worrisome is probably closer to the mark.

  “Did I tell you what she drives?” Josie asks with a note of glee.

  “You mentioned a minivan,” I say, thinking that her victory is pretty hollow. “Maybe it’s his car,” I add.

  “Nope. It had a College of Charleston bumper sticker,” she says. “Her school. Her car. Please shoot me if I ever drive a minivan.”

  “Are you forgetting that I drive a minivan?” I say, wondering if she’s intentionally trying to offend me—or if it just comes that naturally to her.

  “How could I forget such a thing?” she says. “No offense. I mean—you and I are clearly very different.”

  “Clearly,” I say, marveling that we actually share the same parents and upbringing. In the next instant, I think of the only other person in the world who shared our genes and childhood. I glance at the clock—5:50—an ingrained habit whenever I remember my brother. For a long time, Daniel was my very first thought of the day, even before my eyes opened or my head lifted from the pillow. Now, all these years later, I sometimes make it until midmorning—or even later in the day—though I’m never quite sure if this is a sign of progress or a source of guilt. To mitigate the latter, I clear my throat and say his name aloud. “I bet Daniel would have driven a minivan.”

  Josie’s face clouds the way it always does when I mention our brother. Then she shakes her head and says, “Hell, no. Surgeons don’t drive minivans.”

  “Practical ones with small children do,” I reply, thinking there are few things in life as satisfying as that little button that automatically opens a sliding door before you buckle or unbuckle your helpless offspring.

  “Practical ones with small children and taste…do not,” she says.

  “Thank you very little,” I say with a glare.

  “You’re welcome,” she says with a smile, confirming my constant suspicion that on some level, she enjoys conflict, especially conflict with me.

  I push my luck. “Speaking of Daniel, Mom called yesterday….”

  “Daniel and Mom are interchangeable now?”

  “Can I finish?”

  She shrugs, then corrects me the way she would her students. “Yes, you may finish.”

  “She was talking about the fifteen-year anniversary,” I begin, choosing my words carefully, and feeling resentful for having to do so. If I could change one thing about Josie—and there are many, many things I’d change—it would be the way she has handled our loss of Daniel. The impenetrable wall she’s built around him and his memory.

  “Anniversary?” she says, picking up her beer, then putting it back on the counter without taking a sip. “I’d hardly call it an anniversary.”

  “It actually is an anniversary.”

  She shakes her head. “Anniversaries connote celebration. Years you’ve been married…good stuff…not accidents and death.”

  It is the most she’s said about Daniel in ages, and in some sick way, the words accidents and death, spoken aloud, feel like a small victory to me. “An anniversary is the date on which something occurred in the past. Good or bad,” I say, keeping my voice soft. I almost stand up to put my arm around her, but we aren’t a hugging family. At least we haven’t been in years. So I stay put at my desk and watch her from a comfortable distance.

  Josie swallows, staring down at her toes, painted a bright orange hue. I remember the time I told her that people with chubby toes should stick to neutral polish. It was a little rude, I guess, but I’d only been kidding. She still freaked, then stated for the record that she’d rather have chubby toes than stubby legs, and I swear her toes have been neon ever since.

  When she doesn’t look back up, I say her name. “Josie? Did you hear what I said?”

  She says yeah, she heard me.

  “So Mom wants us to do something. The three of us. Maybe even invite Dad.”

  “She’d have to talk to him first,” Josie snaps. “Besides, he has a new girlfriend.”

  “He does?” I ask, feeling a stab of resentment, but also jealousy that she has a closer relationship with our father. “Since when?”

  “Since…I don’t know…months ago.”

  “Do I know her?” I ask, thinking they can’t be that serious—there was no sign of her on Facebook and it was something his girlfriends always did: post photos, often on trips or at his Lake Burton house, then tag him so they show up in his feed.

  She shrugs and says, “Her name’s Marcia….She’s a court reporter.” She then proceeds to type on an imaginary keyboard as I picture a girl with a lot of cleavage and red acrylic nails.

  “How old is she?”

  “Why do you always ask that?”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know…mid-forties…divorced…two sons….So what does Mom have in mind for this awkward ‘anniversary,’ anyway? A fancy dinner? A little spin with the Ouija board?”

  “Josie!” I cringe.

  “What?” she asks. “You know Mom believes in that weird shit.”

  “She doesn’t believe in Ouija boards….She believes in signs.”

  “Well, it’s ridiculous. There are no signs. Daniel’s not making rainbows appear or dropping pennies on the sidewalk,” Josie says with a disdainful look on her face. “And you still haven’t answered my question. What does she have in mind to commemorate the anniversary of a tragic car accident?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe take a trip.”

  “Does that seem right to you?” Josie says, lifting her gaze to meet min
e. “Taking some tropical vacation—”

  I cut her off before she can really get rolling on her rant and say, “I don’t think it’s a question of right and wrong. And I didn’t say tropical or vacation. She mentioned New York, actually.”

  “Why New York?”

  “Because of Sophie.”

  “Sophie who?”

  “C’mon, Josie…you know who….Daniel’s Sophie.”

  She shakes her head and says, “It’s weird that she still thinks about her. It’s unhealthy.”

  “Maybe,” I say. “Maybe that’s why she wants to visit. To get closure.”

  “Closure? Daniel died fifteen years ago, Meredith,” she says, her gaze steely.

  “I know that,” I say.

  She stares at me a beat before replying. “And you know what else?” Before I can answer, she continues, “They would have broken up. She would have broken his heart—or vice versa. And in either event, Mom would have hated her and held a grudge the way she does with all of our exes, and she would have long forgotten Sophie by now. And instead—”

  “Instead Daniel died,” I say, thinking that that sums it all up, really. Daniel died and that changed everything, forever. And that is the part Josie always seems to be missing.

  Josie’s face goes blank before she announces that she’s going to talk to Harper.

  I sigh and watch her walk out of the room. Seconds later, I hear her and Harper squealing with laughter, corroborating one of two theories I’ve always had about my sister. That either (a) she uses children to hide her real adult emotions, or (b) she is still a child herself.

  Thirty minutes of gaiety later, Josie returns to the kitchen with Harper in tow. She retrieves her shoes and says, “All right. It’s been real. But I’m out.”

  “Where’re you headed?” I ask, though I’m really not all that interested.

  “I’m meeting Gabe for dinner,” she says, tossing her empty beer bottle into the recycling bin.

  “Don’t you see him enough as your roommate?” I ask, wondering when that situation will finally implode. No matter what they say, I firmly believe that men and women can’t be “just friends,” at least not when they’re cohabiting.

  “You’d be surprised. We both have very busy social lives,” she says. “That’s what happens when you have friends.”

  She’s directing the statement at me, having always believed in quantity over quality of friendships. The more photos you post with the more people in them means, of course, that you are having more fun. She is a thirty-seven-year-old woman who has never outgrown the concept of popularity. “Right,” I say. “Well, have fun.”

  “I will. Thanks,” she says, throwing her tote over her shoulder. Meanwhile, Harper pulls on her arm and begs her not to go. I can’t help feeling irritated, noting that my daughter never objects to my departure quite so vehemently. Then again, it’s a little bit harder to be a mother than it is to roll in and play the fun aunt for an hour here and there.

  “I have to go, sweetie,” Josie says, kneeling down to kiss Harper’s cheek before standing and making her way to the foyer.

  “Bye, Josie,” I say, suddenly and bizarrely wishing she weren’t leaving. That it were the two of us headed to dinner together.

  “See ya,” she says, without looking up from her phone as she heads out the door and down the front path.

  I watch her for a few seconds, then call out her name. She turns back to look at me, her long blond hair blowing across her face.

  “Yeah?”

  “Will you at least think about what we discussed?” I say. “Please?”

  “Oh, yeah. Sure thing,” she says in a flippant way that makes it clear she not only is lying but wants me to know she is lying. “I’ll get right on that.”

  chapter three

  JOSIE

  “Perfect timing,” I say to Gabe as he joins me at the bar at Local Three, one of our regular hangouts. I point to the pan-roasted monkfish and chilled watermelon soup, which I bribed him with after he told me he was too tired to get off the sofa. A foodie verging on food evangelist, Gabe can always be motivated by his next meal, especially when I promise to pay—which I did tonight.

  “What’d she do this time?” he asks. I haven’t yet given him any details about our conversation, only that I needed him to reverse the “Meredith effect”—my shorthand for the mix of bad feelings my sister so often gives me.

  “I’ll get to her in a second,” I say. “But first things first.”

  I hand him my phone and watch him read the email I received just as I was parking.

  From: Andrea Carlisle

  Sent: August 18

  To: Josephine Garland

  Subject: Room Mom

  Dear Josephine (aka Miss Josie)—

  Thank you for a great first day of the first grade. Edie came home so excited and I know you had much to do with that. Thanks, too, for sending E’s tooth home safely. I’m sure the Tooth Fairy will also be grateful for your care.

  I’m returning the volunteer form via Edie’s book bag tomorrow, but wanted to give you the heads-up that I’m putting my name in the hat for room mom. I feel certain that I could do a good job as your liaison to the other parents.

  Either way, I look forward to meeting you face-to-face on Open House night. I’ve heard a lot of nice things about you (and your family) from Will. Small world, isn’t it?!

  Best,

  Andrea

  “Interesting,” Gabe deadpans, putting my phone down on the bar in front of me. “What do you think?”

  I love this about Gabe. He consistently asks what I think before he tells me what he thinks—the opposite of Meredith’s approach, and really most people’s.

  “I’m not sure,” I say. “Maybe it’s a keep-your-friends-close-and-your-enemies-closer type thing?”

  “Maybe,” he says. “But I’m not getting an ulterior-motive vibe here. Other than the obvious brownnose-the-teacher angle, I suppose.”

  “What vibe are you getting?” I say, eager for his no-frills analysis.

  “I’m kind of just getting a nice vibe, actually.”

  I nod reluctantly. It was so much easier to hate Will’s wife than to deal with the possibility that she could actually be a likable person.

  “Have you written her back?” he asks, sipping the draft beer that I also had waiting for him.

  “Not yet.”

  “But you will?”

  “Yeah. I have to,” I say. “It’s policy to reply to all parent emails.”

  “And you always follow policy,” he quips.

  “I do, actually. At school, anyway…Think I should pick her for room mom?”

  “What does room mom entail?”

  “As Andrea so eloquently put it, she’d be the liaison to the other mothers,” I say, maximizing my sarcasm and exaggerating my French accent, though I’m not sure what point I’m making other than to charge her with using a pretentious noun.

  “So throw her a bone,” Gabe says. “It would be a good-faith gesture.”

  I make a face.

  “Jeez, Jo. You really gotta relax about this Will thing. He’s ancient history.”

  “I know,” I say, thinking that I’ve had at least a half dozen breakups since Will.

  “In fact, I don’t think you ever really loved him,” Gabe says.

  I’ve heard this theory of his before, and want to believe it, but never quite can, especially now that I know Will’s little girl. I think of the gap in her gum and feel a wistful pang that borders on actual pain.

  “That’s ridiculous,” I say. “Of course I loved him.”

  Gabe shrugs. “Your actions would indicate otherwise. You sabotaged that relationship.”

  “Did not,” I say, thinking that he, of all people, knew that it was a lot more complicated than that.

  “Did, too,” he says. “And now look at you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re stuck eating pork sliders with me,” he says, the king
of self-deprecation.

  “What’s wrong with pork sliders?” I say with a smile, already in a better mood.

  —

  GABE HAS BEEN my best guy friend for a long time now. It’s always the way I refer to him, although I don’t know why I include the gender qualifier when he’s really just my straight-up best friend. He grew up in Atlanta, too, but went to North Atlanta High after getting kicked out of Lovett for tapping into the computer systems and changing his friends’ grades (even though he did not need to change his own grades). So aside from some attenuated social overlap, we really didn’t know each other until my final year at the University of Georgia, just after Daniel died. Gabe came to the funeral, along with his whole family, but that alone didn’t stand out to me, as literally hundreds turned out for the service and the whole thing was a blur anyway. It was the handwritten note he sent me later that really registered. He didn’t say anything that profound, just how sorry he was, and that he had always looked up to my brother “in pretty much all respects.” A lot of people did—Daniel was that kind of all-around great guy—but the fact that Gabe actually took the time to spell out his admiration meant a lot. So when I saw him a few weeks later at East West Bistro in Athens, I went up to him and thanked him.

  He nodded, and I braced myself for that awkward line of questioning about how I was doing. But he didn’t go there, just said again how sorry he was, then changed the subject, for which I was as grateful as for any note of sympathy. We talked the rest of that night, and after last call, he walked me back to my apartment and nonchalantly asked for my number. I told him I had a boyfriend—which was a stretch, I was just hooking up with some baseball player—but wanted to be clear that I didn’t like him like that. Gabe shrugged and said that was fine, he just wanted to hang out as friends. “I’ve always thought you were cool.”

  Because I believed him, and because I was nothing if not cool, I gave him my number, and we became instantly tight. Mostly we’d sit in bars and drink—or sit in one of our apartments and drink. But we also walked his dog, an ancient black Lab named Woody, and studied for the anthropology class that neither of us realized the other was in because we both blew it off so often, and went to see bands, and smoked an occasional bag of weed.