Flying

  “Hi, guys,” she said, and was greeted with a chorus of “hey” and “hi, Mrs. Cooper.” She gave Tristan a raised-brow look. “I sure hope you’re going to clean this all up.”

  “I didn’t think you’d be home until later,” Tristan said.

  “Clearly.” Stella looked around the room again, calculating how long the group must’ve been ruining her kitchen. It didn’t take long, she knew that, but it still looked longer than a few hours, which it should’ve been if Tristan had been with his dad until this morning. “I’m going upstairs to unpack. Tristan, if you have laundry, please bring it down so I can get a load started before tomorrow.”

  Behind her, the room erupted again into laughter as she left the kitchen. She wasn’t happy about the idea that maybe Jeff had fallen down on the parenting job again, or that Tristan had been home by himself this weekend. For the most part, his friends were good kids, and she’d rather have them hanging out here than someplace else. Still, it wasn’t a good idea for her empty house to be where they did it.

  She thumbed in Jeff’s house number, knowing Cynthia would be the one to answer it. The situation with Matthew and Caroline had made Stella even more careful about how she dealt with her ex-husband and his new wife. “Cynthia. It’s Stella.”

  “Oh, hi, Stella!” Cynthia always sounded so chipper. So perky. It was disgusting.

  “Hey. Is Jeff around? I need to talk to him about Tristan.”

  “Jeff went to Atlantic City for the weekend for a poker tournament. He won’t be home until late tonight.” Cynthia sounded slightly less perky about that.

  Stella paused in sifting through her dirty laundry. “Was Tristan with you this weekend?”

  “No.” Cynthia sounded hesitant now. “Was he supposed to be?”

  “Yes, actually. I was out of town.”

  “Oh. Stella, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I guess Jeff didn’t know either. Do you want me to leave him a message?”

  “No,” Stella said. “I’ll call his cell phone.”

  That set Cynthia off. “Oh, oh...”

  “I’ll handle this, Cynthia. Thanks.” Stella disconnected before the other woman could say anything else, and dialed Jeff’s number. Typically, he didn’t answer, but that’s what voice mail was for. “Jeff. Please tell me you did not go to Atlantic City knowing your teenage son was left home alone for the weekend. I’m sure you won’t call me back when you get this, but don’t think we’re not going to talk about it.”

  Downstairs, the look on her face scattered those boys like leaves in a brisk autumn wind. She barely had to say a word before they were all making stammering excuses and fleeing, leaving a guilty-faced Tristan to stand in front of her among the detritus of what had clearly been a weekend-long orgy of takeout food and video games and whatever else it was teenage boys did when they were alone. She didn’t want to think too hard about it.

  “You have something to tell me?”

  “I was going to clean it all up before you got home,” Tristan said.

  Stella lifted an eyebrow. “You realize that’s not the point I’m trying to make. Right?”

  Tristan stayed silent, which was probably smart. She gestured at the kitchen. “Clean this up. Now.”

  Upstairs again, her phone alerted her to a message from Matthew. She thumbed in his number instead of replying via the app. “Hey.”

  “Hey.” He sounded wary.

  Stella paused. “Bad time?”

  “The girls are here. Caroline’s just dropping them off now.”

  Well, at least he’d answered her call rather than letting it go to voice mail. “Ah. Sorry I didn’t warn you I was going to call. I just got home and found the house a mess. Tristan was here all weekend with his friends. Apparently his dad blew off his parental responsibilities in favor of a boys’ weekend away.”

  “Uh-huh. Uh-huh.”

  She paused again, closing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose. “Caroline’s still there, huh?”

  “Yes. Yeah. Uh-huh.”

  It would’ve been funny, maybe, if Stella weren’t already annoyed. Or if it was, in fact, humorous instead of slightly insulting. She breathed out a low, irritated sigh and caught sight of Tristan trying to sneak past her door unnoticed.

  “I’ll talk to you later. Maybe,” she amended. “I’m sure you’ll be so busy with the girls you won’t have time.”

  “Hey, that’s... Yeah, okay. Sure. Sounds good.” His voice, so carefully neutral, curled her lip.

  “Whatever,” Stella said, and disconnected. Tucking her phone in her pocket, she rapped on Tristan’s door, waiting for him to answer before she opened it. “Hey. We need to talk.”

  Tristan sighed, head hanging. “I knew you’d be mad.”

  “So why did you do it?” She’d have sat to talk to him, but as usual, every open inch of space in his room was covered with crap she didn’t have the strength to yell at him about. “You know how I feel about you being here alone.”

  “I’m gonna be seventeen, Mom! I’m fine! I can take care of myself.”

  “It’s not that I worry you can’t take care of yourself, Tristan. I don’t want a house full of boys here while I’m gone and can’t be here in case something happens. And I’m sure that your friends’ parents don’t want them hanging around unsupervised either. I’m a mom. I know this stuff.”

  Tristan didn’t say anything, though at least he looked ashamed and not belligerent. It could go either way with him, these days.

  With a sigh, Stella leaned against the bedpost. “I want to trust you, but stuff like this is exactly why I can’t.”

  “We weren’t doing anything bad,” he said defensively. “All we did was play Honor Bound 3 and watch movies.”

  “When did you find out your dad wasn’t going to be home?”

  “Friday afternoon. After you were gone.”

  Stella frowned. “He didn’t tell me he’d changed plans.”

  “I didn’t want to hang out there with Cynthia. She doesn’t care if my friends come over, but it’s weird, Mom. She makes us sandwiches and is sort of...annoying.”

  Stella could completely see that. But that didn’t change anything. “You should’ve texted me right away.”

  “Would you have come home?” Tristan tossed the question at her, and Stella fumbled it. “No. I didn’t think so. You’re too busy with your boyfriend to bother.”

  Stella had not yet started calling Matthew her boyfriend; they hadn’t talked about what they were. But she’d made no secret of him and hearing her teenage son say it in that snide tone didn’t make it sound very good. “That’s not fair.”

  “Well. It’s not fair that you’re always running off to spend time with him so that I have to deal with it either!” Tristan shoved at a pile of papers on his desk and sent them fluttering to the floor.

  This raised an eyebrow. “I’m hardly always running off to spend time with him, Tristan. I’ve been to Chicago three times in two months.”

  “You’re on the phone with him all the time.”

  “You talk with your friends all the time,” she pointed out, calmly, she thought, though the idea that her son might’ve heard the content of her conversations didn’t settle too well in her gut.

  “That’s different.”

  “Because you’re the kid and I’m the mom? I’m not allowed to have friends?” Stella shook her head. “Tristan, that’s not fair. And, look, I’m sorry if you think my attention’s been taken up too much with Matthew. I’m sure it might seem that we spend a lot of time together, but we really get very little—”

  “All the time,” he said sullenly. “You’re always on your phone, messaging him.”

  Coming from the boy who practically needed to be surgically separated from his phone, this was pretty rich. Stella didn’t laugh,
though, too aware of how this argument could spiral out of control. She was tired and angry and annoyed, and coming down off the high of the weekend was hard enough without all this stuff too.

  “And that’s my business. Not yours.” Stella looked around the room. “Clean the house up, or I swear to you, Tristan, you won’t like what happens.”

  He didn’t answer her, didn’t say a word until she was at the doorway, when he muttered, “Whatever.”

  It was exactly what she’d have said, and she had to bite back a snarky reply. Instead, she turned to face him. “When you’re done, we can watch a movie or something, okay? If it’s not too late. I was thinking of ordering Chinese. You can drive with me to pick it up.”

  This turned his head. He needed a certain number of hours’ driving experience before he could test for his license, and he wasn’t quite there yet. “Really?”

  “Yes.” It felt a little like rewarding him for bad behavior, but she didn’t want to fight with him.

  “Great!” He bounced up, and Stella lifted a warning hand.

  “Clean up first,” she said.

  Tristan nodded. “Got it.”

  Back in her room, still trying to get her suitcase unpacked, Stella pulled out a T-shirt that wasn’t hers. Oh, she’d worn it to sleep in, but it was Matthew’s. Sinking onto the bed, she pressed her face into it, breathing in the scent of his cologne that still clung to the fabric. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

  She shouldn’t miss him this much so soon. He shouldn’t mean so much to her...but he did. And as she breathed in the smell of him, she thought of him touching her. Kissing her.

  “Mom?”

  Embarrassed, Stella tucked the shirt into her lap as casually as she could. “I’ll be ready in a few minutes. Okay? Is the downstairs clean?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Will I think it’s clean if I check it?” Tristan grinned sheepishly. Stella laughed. “Go back and finish up.”

  When he’d gone, she pulled her phone from her pocket, not expecting a notification of a message from Jeff and not surprised there was none. She opened the app and typed in a message to Matthew—the woman’s face, a cloud thought bubble, the man’s face.

  Thinking of you.

  But although the D alongside the message turned to an R, indicating that he’d read the message, Matthew didn’t answer.

  “Ready now?” Tristan asked from the doorway, and Stella put away her phone, determined to give her son the attention he’d claimed he was lacking.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “Girrrrrl! You look so good!” Jen waggled her eyebrows up and down and made Stella turn in a circle. “Feels like it’s been forever since I saw you. How’s tricks?”

  “Good, good. You look good too. I like your skirt, totally cute.” Stella impulsively hugged the other woman, whom she hadn’t seen in weeks. Jen had quit to take a job at an art gallery in downtown Harrisburg, and now that they no longer worked together, it had been harder for them to get together.

  “So, how is it back in the old place?” Jen helped herself to a bread stick. She gave Stella a small grin. “Miss me?”

  “Oh, hell yes. You thought it was quiet before? Now it’s like working in a graveyard.” Stella shrugged and took a bread stick for herself. “I shouldn’t eat this.”

  “Yes, you should.”

  Stella laughed. “I’ve been eating way too much lately, that’s all. And not working out.”

  “Working out, gross.” Jen laughed, and gave Stella a knowing look. “He’s a good cook?”

  “Oh, no. But he likes to eat out—in restaurants!” Stella shook her head before Jen could say anything. “Perv.”

  “I bet he likes to do the other thing too.”

  He did indeed. Thinking of it now, Stella flushed. It had been a long week and a half since they’d seen each other, and she was looking forward to heading to Chicago tomorrow.

  “So it’s going well?”

  “Yes. I almost hate to say anything, so I don’t jinx it.”

  “Long-distance stuff can be hard,” Jen said.

  Stella nodded. “Yeah. But it’s easier than it used to be, I think. I mean, we talk every day. Video-chat, stuff like that. Can you imagine what it was like before the internet and cell phones? I had a boyfriend in college. Over the summer I was lucky if I got to talk to him once a week or got a letter in the mail.”

  “I had a boyfriend like that.” Jen waved the bread stick. “Found out he was banging some skank when he sent me the wrong letter.”

  Stella made a face. “Ouch.”

  “Not that I think you should worry about that,” Jen said hastily.

  Stella laughed. “I’m not. I mean, we haven’t talked about being exclusive or anything. We didn’t get that serious about it.”

  They hadn’t had to. Between Caroline and the girls and the time he spent with Stella, it would’ve been unlikely for Matthew to be tomcatting around, and Stella hadn’t ever told him about her previous flying turnarounds. They’d fallen into their relationship like old friends falling into step along a path leading to... Well, she had no idea what lay around the bend, but she was willing to find out.

  “You get all dreamy-eyed when you think about him. Looks kind of serious to me,” Jen said.

  “I like him.”

  “And he’s your boyyyfriend,” Jen teased. “Thought you didn’t want one of those pesky things.”

  Stella chewed the inside of her cheek for a second. “I didn’t. But it happened. And it’s perfect, really. We see each other when we can, but we can’t possibly see each other all the time, so we each get our own space without having to fight for it, you know what I mean? We talk all the time, but we can be doing other things too. He’s got his life, I have mine, and so far we don’t have to really make a lot of changes to either of them.”

  “But...don’t you miss him when you’re not with him? Don’t you hate not being able to just see him whenever you want?”

  “Sure. I miss him.” More than she wanted to admit, actually. “But it is what it is, and what can I do about it right now? He’s got young kids, so he’s not going to move here, and I won’t move anywhere until Tristan’s in college, at least, so that’s another couple years.”

  “But you’ve thought about it!” Jen seemed tickled by this, leaning over the table. “You have, I see it on your face.”

  “Well, sure, I’ve thought about it,” Stella said. “We haven’t talked about it or anything, but, yeah. I think about it.”

  Jen leaned back in her chair with a smug grin. “I knew you’d want a boyfriend sooner or later.”

  “Pffft.” Stella rolled her eyes, but laughed along with her.

  The conversation turned to other things. Jen’s relationship, for one, which was also getting serious. The art show opening on Sunday at the gallery. Jen had some pieces in the show, and she wanted Stella to come and bring Matthew.

  “I’m going out to Chicago this weekend, damn. How long will they be in the show?”

  “Couple weeks. Maybe next weekend,” Jen said.

  “We only see each other every other weekend,” Stella explained.

  “Ah. Well...bring him the weekend after next. It’ll be the last weekend of the show.”

  “Oh...well, he’d have to come out here, then.”

  “That’s kind of the point,” Jen said. “You mean he’s never flown out here any of these times?”

  “I get free travel, remember?” Stella said. “Courtesy of Pegasus Airlines. It’s the one thing I fought Jeff to keep. So, no, Matthew’s never come here. How could I ask him to spend that kind of money for a weekend, when I can just as easily go out there? And Chicago has a lot more going for it than good old Lebanon, PA.”

  “Amish country,” Jen said with a snap. “Or you coul
d bring him up here to Harrisburg. Show him the sights.”

  They both burst into laughter at that—Harrisburg was the state capital and a city, but a small one with not much to see. Still, it would’ve been nice to go to the gallery show with Matthew. Show him off to her friends.

  “I’ll ask him,” she said.

  * * *

  Back at work, Stella settled into her chair and pulled up her queue. Today she had only a handful of photos to work on, each requiring some detailed work but not much. By two o’clock she was finished. She thought about clocking out early, but honestly didn’t want to lose the hours, and besides, more work could come in if she left, and it would pile up. Since tomorrow was Friday and she wouldn’t be in, there was the potential to come in Monday to a shit-ton of zits and wrinkles and saggy chins, something she’d rather not have to face while still coming off the Matthew high.

  Instead, she did something she hadn’t done in ages. She opened up her instant message window. Back when she’d first started, she’d had her IM open all the time to keep in touch with Jen and the couple other coworkers she’d liked, as well as a few online friends.

  She hadn’t been thinking of Craig when she clicked open the program, though his user name was still in her contacts list. It was kind of like a time machine when she saw the names, some of them she’d forgotten ever knowing. It took her back to those days in the coffee shop, the hours she’d spent looking for work and chatting online with strangers. The hours she’d spent chatting with him.

  And there he was.

  Hi!

  The message icon bounced with his name until she clicked on the message window.

  Hi, she typed. How are you?

  She hadn’t heard from him since their disastrous date. She’d half expected him to call her, but he hadn’t, and she was relieved. And then things had started heating up with Matthew and she’d shut Craig out of her mind almost totally. Until now.