Knitting Under the Influence

  Sam gave her a hard look. “Are you saying that because you really think so, Kathleen, or because you don't want to feel guilty?”

  She smiled sheepishly. “Both.”

  The kettle whistled. Sam took a blue-and-white pot holder out of a drawer and carefully wrapped it around the teakettle's handle, then poured the water into the cups. Steam rose up in puffs around his hand. He had boiled exactly the right amount of water for two cups. “I’ve got to admit I’m surprised.” He put the kettle back on the stove and the pot holder back in its drawer before turning to her again. “Just a few weeks ago, you told me you were going to marry Kevin and live off his fortune for the rest of your life.”

  “I never said I was definitely going to do that—I just said it was an interesting possibility.”

  “One that you seemed very invested in pursuing. What happened?”

  “Nothing happened.” She shifted, pressing the flat of her back against the counter. “I guess I just got bored.”

  “What happened to the young woman with plans and forethought? The one who wasn't going to be like her mother and throw her life away on some loser? The budding philanthropist?”

  “They got bored, too.”

  “I see.” He dunked the two teabags, then got a clean mug out of the cupboard and deposited the used teabags inside. He put that mug in the sink. “Do you want milk or sugar?”

  “Sugar. A lot.”

  “Are you sure you wouldn't just prefer a tea-flavored cup of sugar?

  “Are you offering?”

  “Sit down, Kathleen.” She sat while he doctored the tea and then he joined her at the table and slid a cup and saucer across to her.

  She picked up the cup and put it to her lips. “Fuck,” she said, dropping it down onto the saucer with a clatter. “It's really hot.” She put her fingers to her burned lip.

  “Brilliant,” Sam said. “You watched me boil and pour the water with your own eyes, but you had to burn yourself to realize it was hot?”

  “Whatever.”

  “Try thinking before you do things, Kathleen. You'll get hurt a lot less.”

  “But will I have as much fun?” And suddenly—crazily—she thought of leaning forward and kissing him. And immediately rejected the idea. Kiss Sam? Who was stern and disapproving and usually annoyed with her? The thought was both untenable and exciting—tempting the way the idea of setting off the fire alarm on a school corridor is tempting and not something you'd ever actually do.

  Distracted by the thought, she took another sip of tea and immediately scorched her lips again, but this time suppressedthe curse that rose to her tongue, so Sam wouldn't know she had been stupid not once but twice.

  Sam was stirring his tea slowly with a spoon. “You said you wanted to talk to me about something. Was it just to tell me about Kevin?”

  She brought herself back to the conversation. “Sort of. It's connected. I wanted to let you know that I’m quitting my job. Since you helped me get it. It's not that I hate it or anything, but it's kind of not that exciting and—”

  “And you've already used up and discarded the boss's son, so what's the point?”

  “Shut up.”

  He didn't. “Jackson has two more sons, you know. There's no reason to quit yet. They're married, of course, but I think you and I both know that marriages aren't necessarily permanent. You could even argue that the extra obstacle will make it a more exciting challenge, couldn't you?” She didn't answer, just glared at him, so he shrugged and went on, still stirring his tea. “Actually, I think you made a mistake going after Kevin in the first place, Kathleen. His brothers are bigger players than he'll ever be.”

  “I didn't go after him. It wasn't like that.”

  He stopped stirring and looked across the table at her, his eyes flat and unreadable. “Oh, please. You can tell anyone else that. But not me.”

  She couldn't meet his look. “All right,” she said after a moment. “Maybe it was like that.” She poked, defeated, at the handle on her teacup.

  He resumed his mocking tone. “So are you hoping I’ll find you another job? Because I’ll have to put some thought into it.” He placed the spoon carefully on the saucer, to the side of his teacup. “Do you care how handsome the son of the boss is at your next office? Or is it enough for him just to be roughly the right age? I can't promise Kevin-quality looks and broad shoulders every time, you know. Come to think of it, does it even have to be a son? Or could it be, say, a nephew? Or a daughter?”

  “Sorry not to laugh,” Kathleen said, “but you're not actually being funny. I just thought you should know I was quitting, that's all. Since you got me the job. Which I am grateful for, whether you care or not.”

  “You never took that job seriously.”

  “Come on, Sam. I was pouring coffee and stapling papers most of the time. How seriously could anyone take that?”

  “That's all you're qualified to do.” He took a careful sip of his tea and lowered the cup. “So what's the next job going to be?”

  “I haven't decided yet. But I’m not going to rush into anything this time. I’m going to sit down and really think about what's right for me, how it's going to work out in the long run. Not just grab at the first thing that comes along.”

  “You've really matured since I met you, Kathleen, you know that?”

  “Shut up,” she said. She pushed her cup away. “I’m going to go watch TV.”

  “Mine, I assume.”

  “Well, I don't have one.”

  “Can't you find somewhere else to watch?”

  “Not without putting on shoes. I’ll be quiet, I promise.”

  “All right,” he said. “But don't bother me. I have a lot of work to do.”

  “I won't.” She stood and picked up her cup of tea.

  “That doesn't leave this room.”

  “I know. I was going to put it in the sink.”

  “Bullshit,” he said. “You've never once cleaned up a dish around here.”

  “You see?” she said. “I have grown. So there.” And she put her cup and saucer in the sink.

  But she was lying. She had picked it up to take into the other room.

  IV

  When Sari was almost done at work, she called Kathleen. I need a drink,” she said as soon as Kathleen answered. “I need to talk to you and have a very large drink and you need to tell me I’m not a horrible human being.”

  “I can tell you right now that if you're a horrible human being, the rest of us are in deep shit,” Kathleen said. “You're the most decent person I know. But I like the drink idea.”

  “Should I call Luce?”

  “Of course.”

  The bar was in Brentwood Village. Sari got there first and had their drinks already set up at a table by the time Kathleen walked in wearing a torn sweatshirt and no makeup, with her hair pulled back in a sloppy ponytail. “Is Lucy coming?” she asked as she slid into a chair and picked up her drink—vodka and cranberry juice, same as Sari's—with a nod of thanks.

  Sari shook her head. “She's working late and then she's going to meet some friend of David's.”

  “How dare she have a wonderful time with a wonderful guy instead of being miserable with us? Doesn't she know I just broke up with my fiancé? What kind of friend is she?”

  “It is kind of a betrayal,” Sari said. “And what's up with her going straight from one great guy to another when I haven't even had a date in months? She's definitely getting more than her share.”

  “Wouldn't it be nice if friends could always be in sync?” Kathleen said. “Like you could all be happily in love at the same time and then have your hearts broken at the same time? Then there wouldn't ever be availability issues or resentment or anything.”

  “That never happens,” Sari said. “One person's always running around thinking that love totally rocks while the others are curled up in a fetal position listening to Alanis Morissette and sobbing.” She took a sip of her drink. Then another. “But when you think about
it, maybe it's for the best. If everyone got depressed at exactly the same time, who'd be around to cheer you up and pull you out of it? You'd just sink deeper and deeper. It could get ugly.”

  “That's so not how it works,” Kathleen said. “Misery loves company. The only way to cheer up is to feel like other people are even more miserable than you are—especially your closest friends.”

  “Aw,” said Sari. “That's so sweet and generous of you. Remind me to avoid you whenever I’m happy.” “I was joking.”

  “Doesn't matter,” Sari said. “I’ll never be happy again anyway.”

  “You are in a funk,” Kathleen said. “Tell me about your day.”

  And Sari did.

  “First of all,” Kathleen said when Sari had finished, “you are so not the bad guy in this. You couldn't be cruel to a kid even if you tried, and Cute Asshole Guy is way out of line trying to lay a guilt trip on you. You know that, right?”Sari stared morosely at her drink, which was already depressingly close to empty. “I don't know. He has a point. I shouldn't have cut things off with the kid just because— I mean, I knew who Jason was from the beginning. If I had a problem with it, I shouldn't have started working with Zack in the first place.”

  “You didn't know the guy would come on to you,” Kathleen said. “That changes everything. Anyway, even if the kid misses you and cries a little now and then, you haven't actually hurt him, have you? I’m sure you're the best therapist there and all, but I’ve got to assume there are other decent ones at the clinic—”

  “Of course.”

  “So there you go. The kid's totally fine. Jason Smith was just trying to make you feel bad. And I’m guessing he succeeded.” She tilted her forehead questioningly toward Sari, who smiled weakly. “Well, don't let him win. You're the best girl around, and who should know better than me?”

  “No one,” Sari said. “I wish you'd been there to defend me. Or that I’d at least defended myself a little. I could have said—” She stopped. “I don't know what I could have said, but something. Instead, I just sat there like an idiot while he told me how mean I was to Zack and then let him leave thinking he'd won. I’ll be up all night torturing myself about it, thinking about all the things I should have said. It'll keep me up for weeks.”

  “Yeah, but if you had said something, you'd probably be up all night wishing you'd said something completely different or even that you'd just kept quiet. These things never go the way you want them to.”

  “Life doesn't go the way you want it to,” Sari said.

  “And on that cheerful note, we drink,” said Kathleen. They clinked glasses.

  V

  With Zack coming to the clinic four days a week, it was inevitable that Sari would run into the Smiths again and she knew it. She thought a lot about what she might say if Jason accused her again of having been cruel to Zack but didn't like anything she came up with.

  The truth was that she actually felt pretty guilty about abandoning Zack, which made it hard to come up with a good argument defending her right to have done so.

  Every day at work, she worried about running into Jason and reopening all the old wounds, and every night she went to bed relieved it hadn't happened.

  Mostly relieved. There was a tiny bit of disappointment mixed in there—whether she liked to admit it or not, there had been a thrill to seeing Jason and, with that gone, the days just felt like work again, tedious and monotonous and extremely unsexy.

  And a sense of unfinished business hovered over her. She wanted to see Jason again—she needed to see him again, to set everything straight so they could be done with each other.

  She wanted to see Jason again.

  She turned a lot whenever she heard a man's voice at the clinic.

  Her heart would start knocking hard against her chest for a second or two, and then she would realize that it wasn't Jason, was just some other guy who had no right to be standing there talking and not being Jason. And the disappointment and relief were just about equal.

  One Thursday, a couple of weeks later, Ellen was out at a school IEP meeting, and Sari had gone into her office to try to find a clients folder that Ellen had sworn she'd left on the credenza in there. Sari's back was to the open door when she suddenly felt something hit her from behind—and there was Zack, throwing his arms around her leg and clutching it to his small chest as if he were drowning and her leg was the only flotation device he could find.

  With a rush of delight, Sari bent over him, sniffing at the good sweet little boy smell of his hair and neck.

  “Sari,” he said. “Hi, Sari.”

  “It's good to see you,” she said and squeezed his shoulders hard. When she lifted her head, she saw Jason watching from just outside the open office door, his face tight and expressionless.

  Still holding on to her leg, Zack looked back at his father. “Sari,” he said.

  “Yeah,” his father said. “I remember.” He held out his hand to Zack. “Come on, pal. We have to go.”

  Zack shook his head. “Sari.”

  “She's busy,” his father said. “Too busy for us. Come on.”

  “I’ve missed you, Zack,” Sari said. “How are you?”

  “How are you?” he replied politely.

  “No, say, ‘Good,’ Zack.”

  “Even if he's not good?” Jason took a step forward, into the office. “That's the great thing about autistic kids, isn't it? They'll say what you tell them to, even if it's not true. Why don't you teach him to say, ‘I don't miss you at all, Sari’?”

  Sari stared at him. “You don't need to make me feel guilty, you know. Zack is fine. He's doing great.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “The way he's talking to me. I can tell he's making progress.”

  “Sure,” Jason said. “Whatever gets you through the night.”

  “Stop it,” Sari said. “Stop it. You're not being fair.” She swallowed hard, then plunged in. “I didn't quit to be mean to Zack. I quit because it was all too hard. And he's okay. He's going to be fine. He's got Christopher, who's a really good therapist, and he's got you to take care of him. And Maria, too, who means well even if she's—” She stopped, shook her head, got herself back on track. “Anyway, the point is he's going to be fine, you know he is, whether he sees me or not. Because you're doing the right things for him. So it's not fair to make me feel bad about it. I love the little guy.” She rubbed Zack's back. “I think he's great. And I would have kept working with him, only it was too hard.”

  “Why do you keep saying that?” Jason asked. “That it was too hard? What was so fucking hard about it?”

  “You know,” she said. “High school and—”

  “You recognized me the first day we came in,” Jason said. “And you started working with Zack anyway. And kept working with him for a while. So that's not it. That's not what made it so hard.”

  “It was part of it,” Sari said. She brushed her fingers through Zack's curls, looking down so she wouldn't have to meet Jason's eyes. “And then you and I started—I don't know what we started doing. But I didn't feel right about it. I kept trying to stop—”

  “Yeah, I noticed.”

  “But I couldn't.” No matter how hard she swallowed, the swelling in her throat wouldn't go down. She was grateful at least that they were alone in Ellen's office, not in one of the public areas. “It was all too much. Thinking about Charlie and seeing you all the time and knowing that Zack needed my help—I just couldn't take it anymore.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jason said after a moment. “I probably shouldn't have been so hard on you the other day. But I hate it when Zack cries like that. I can't stand it. And then seeing you sitting there, not caring, filling out your little forms like it had nothing to do with you at all—” His voice, Sari noticed, was as shaky as hers. “I told you, I used to watch you two together and I thought he meant something to you. And that meant something to me.”

  “He did,” Sari said. “He does. I miss being with him. But it's
all been so complicated that it just seemed better for everyone if I stayed away.”

  “That's exactly what Denise said that night you came to dinner. And you said she was wrong.”

  “I’m not Zack's mother,” she said. “I’m Charlie's sister. And that makes all of this … impossible.” There was a silence and then she sighed and said, “Okay. That's it.” She gently removed Zack's hands from her leg. “Time to go, sweetheart.”

  “Hold on,” Jason said. “Just hold on a second. It's my turn to say something.”

  “I think it's been—”

  “I said hold on.”

  Zack suddenly let go of her leg and slid down onto the floor as if he had become too bored with standing to do it any longer. He flopped onto his back and looked up at the ceiling.

  Jason said, “I’ve been thinking. Since we last talked. And if I was ever mean to your brother back in high school—and maybe I was—God knows it's possible, even if I don't remember it—if I was, I’m sorry. Deeply and horribly and painfully sorry. If I could go back now and help him out, I would.”

  “I know,” she said. “I know you would. But only because of him.” She gestured down at Zack.

  “What do you mean?” Jason said.

  “If Zack hadn't been born—if you'd had the perfect golden child you thought you'd have—you'd probably still be walking around, acting like an asshole, thinking you were better than everyone else—maybe even still being mean to anyone who was different, maybe even teaching Zack to be mean to the other kids at school—”

  “Whoa,” he said. “I would never have taught my kid to be mean … But say it's true that if things had been different, I’d have been different—doesn't the same go for you? If Charlie hadn't been born, do you really think you'd have been such a saint your whole life?”

  “I never said I was a saint.”

  “Pretty much—all that talk about how you were never mean to anyone in high school…” He ran his hand through his hair. Some of it stayed sticking up, and Sari had to fight the urge to reach up and smooth it down. “Of course having Zack changed me. I don't think I was ever really as bad as you seem to think I was, but either way, I’m a more decent human being now and I’ll freely admit it. Does it matter why? You had a brother a couple of decades before I had Zack, so maybe you had an advantage there. But you and I ended up in the same place. And for the same reason.”