“Spinach,” said Moira. “Who serves vegetables at a bunko bash? We’re here to get drunk and fat, aren’t we? We want hypertension! Clogged arteries and dead brain cells!”
“The tarts have lots of cheese,” Glynn said as she walked to the door. Because of her luck, she expected anyone and everyone—the cops, the firemen, the physics department of the local high school—everyone except her ex-husband’s girlfriend, that is. But it was her ex’s girlfriend, Stacey. So-proper-except-for-liking-to-leave-rubbers-around-to-advertise-her-sexual-peak Stacey, standing there in her skinny jeans, holding Glynn’s son’s hand.
“Glynn,” Stacey said. She was as tall as a model, with perfect, even teeth. “I’m happy you’re home.”
“What?” Glynn said, looking toward the street for her ex-husband. “Where’s Derek?”
“Out of town,” Stacey said. “He was called away this afternoon. They had some sort of problem with the plant in North Carolina or South Carolina. One of the Carolinas.” Stacey made spacey comments when she was uncomfortable; that’s what Derek, Glynn’s ex-husband, had said. “He took a two o’clock flight.”
When Glynn was uncomfortable, she got anal and aggressive, which Derek had also pointed out. “Derek left this afternoon?” She looked at Joey, who was glaring at no one or nothing in particular. “What about Joey?”
“Yeah,” said Joey. “What about me?”
Stacey’s absurdly full lips quivered. “Derek said it was all right if I took Joey to dinner before dropping him off here.”
“But why didn’t he call me?” Why didn’t he warn me? Glynn thought. But of course, that was ridiculous. Since when do you need to be warned that you have a son? You always have a son, don’t you? When do you suddenly not have a son?
“He did call. He talked to your husband.”
At this, Joey looked at his mother. “Dumb George.”
Glynn closed her eyes and leaned against the doorjamb.
Stacey pulled herself up to her full height, her Armani glasses sliding down her nose. “Look, if you’re busy, I can take Joey for the night—”
“No. No,” Glynn said, horrified at the turn this conversation was taking. “Of course not.”
“It’s just that I have to work in the morning. New client. You know the drill.”
If Glynn had had access to a drill . . . Do not think about drills. She took Joey by the shoulder and peeled him away from Stacey’s side. “I can care for my own son.”
Stacey’s hands tightened around her shoulder bag. “I know,” she said. “I was just saying . . .” She brushed away a lock of her hair, which was thick and wavy and perpetually windblown, like that of an actress at a photo shoot. Glynn could see that she was trying to be civil, and she felt a teeny bit sorry for her, an ass-impaired woman in her skinny pants. Yes, this was the person who had told Joey that his mother had “issues.” Yes, this was the person who had told Joey that perhaps his mother was “a little too afraid of being replaced.” Yes, this was the person who was ten years younger than Glynn, with better skin, better hair, and a better job. Glynn hated her guts, but she liked her feelings pure and unadulterated by pity. She wished Stacey would say something incendiary so that Glynn would have a good excuse to smack the fancy eyewear off her face and then keep smacking. Heat, entropy.
But Stacey, Glynn knew, was from somewhere out east where they jumped horses in their spare time, where they did not say incendiary things to their lover’s ex-wives, except behind their backs.
“I guess that’s all, then,” Stacey said. “Derek should be back in time for Joey’s Wednesday visit.”
Glynn nodded. Stacey gazed down at the top of Joey’s head. With her eyes, Glynn dared Stacey to try to touch him. But she didn’t. She just turned around and walked away, her bony turkey back straight and tall.
After she had gotten into her car and driven off, Joey looked up at Glynn. “She says it’s about time you got a job.”
“Well, she’s right about that,” Glynn said, sitting on the stoop.
“I told her that you were my mom. That’s your job.”
Glynn smiled up at him. “And you’re right about that.”
Joey reached out to pluck some bright red berries off the bush crouching next to the door. “Are we going to be outside for a while?”
“For a while.”
“It’s kinda cold.”
“Yeah, but you’re a tough guy.”
The tough guy nodded, shaking the berries like dice in his hands. “I’m going to smash these on the sidewalk.”
Her question was pure reflex: “Why would you want to do that?”
“It will look like blood.”
Sigh. “Of course it will.”
It appeared that the girls had devoured the tarts and moved on to the contents of the freezer. The smell of tomato sauce spiced the air, and Glynn could see the frozen pizza boxes littering the countertop.
Moira staggered into view, framed by the decorative arch separating the front hallway from the kitchen. “Ho!” she said thickly, swaying as if she were a sailor just finding her sea legs. “What’s the kid doing here?”
“He’s just saying hi.”
Glynn steered Joey into the living room and promised to give him a slice if he went upstairs and hung out with George. Quietly.
“I don’t want to be quiet,” Joey said. He spied the bunko bunny, which lay on its face on the floor by the losers’ table. “What’s that?”
“It’s Moira’s, and she’ll be really mad if something bad happens to it, okay? Please go upstairs and be quiet. Mommy has some friends over.”
“So?” he said loudly, thickly, swaying on his feet, like Moira in male, and in miniature. The woman whose name Glynn always forgot skipped into the living room, a bouquet of gnawed pizza crusts in her hand, stopping abruptly when she saw Glynn and Joey standing there.
Joey snickered. “What’s that lady doing with her face?”
Glynn took him by the arm before he had the chance to either get a chokehold on the bunko bunny or do another of his wicked impressions and brought him upstairs to the bedroom, where George was playing video games. When she’d married him—her George, lover of nonlinear foreign films and discordant, arty jazz—she hadn’t figured on the video games. The explosions and the blood and the bodies bursting like firecrackers.
“Hi, Joey,” George said. To Glynn, he said, “I thought he was at his dad’s.”
“He was. What’s-her-face dropped him off because Derek got called out of town. She said he spoke to you about it.”
“Derek did call, I forgot to tell you. But I’m sure he didn’t say anything about anyone going out of town.”
Glynn was equally sure that he had, but she didn’t want to get into an argument about it. George did the best he could, she knew he did, but he still hadn’t quite grasped the fact that Joey wasn’t a housecat with his own kitty door to the yard.
Joey staggered around drunkenly, rolling his eyes back in his head. “What are you doing?” George said.
“Moira,” said Glynn. “Look, the girls are still here, so could you keep an eye on him for a while?”
“Sure,” he said. “How long’s a while?”
“I don’t know. A while.”
“Can I play Mortal Kombat, Mom?” Joey said.
George put the console on the bed. “Can I take him with me if I go out?”
“Go out where?”
“You know,” said George. “The Addams Family?”
“Who’s that?” Joey said.
“No! You guys just stay up here. You’re not even supposed to be home, remember?”
“Phone home,” Joey said, and held up his finger. “Can I call Dad?”
“What?” Glynn said, more sharply than she wanted to. “Why?”
“Because he’s my dad. Children should always be able to call their fathers whenever they need to,” Joey said, his voice prim, sounding much like a certain assless person.
Do not say shithead do not think shithead. “I
didn’t say you couldn’t call your dad. Of course you can. But he’s out of town right now.”
“So I’ll call the town he’s in.”
“You know, I think I am in the mood for a little Mortal Kombat,” said George, relenting. “You can be that chick with all the arms, if you want.”
Glynn gazed out the window, watching the trees buckle under a sudden wind. Joey had always been a somewhat moody and stubborn child, but all the changes in his life had turned him cranky and mulish. Glynn had read all the books, knew the stats, understood that in the long run, boys fared much better in remarried families, in the company of other boys. Joey seemed to tolerate George well enough, and vice versa. But their common interests were the bloody sort—the war games, the crime dramas, the nature specials that began with some sweet animal baby sticking its innocent nose out into the world and ended with some bedraggled-looking predator making a snack out of said baby. When she protested, they called her a girl, which made her furious, because she was beginning to suspect that gender had something to do with it all. Why couldn’t she just get along with Stacey? her ex wanted to know. He certainly didn’t have any problems with George.
Ha. That was because her ex was more successful than George, or thought he was. And because, while Joey thought George was okay, he clung to his father like a kinkajou to a banana. These things vindicated the ex in every mind but Glynn’s.
Besides, she “got along” with Stacey just fine. They managed. Glynn didn’t appreciate the snide little comments and judgments delivered via her son, that’s all. She didn’t care for the preferences and desires and observations of this strange woman creeping into her life, this spacey-Stacey-seepage.
And she didn’t like the woman’s stupid, beautiful face.
When you got right down to it, this was all her ex’s fault for trying to turn his girlfriend into his son’s mother, for assuming that if there was a lunch to be made, then his woman would make it; a nose to be wiped, then his woman would wipe it. Glynn knew her ex would be content with a little hero worship and the ability to retreat to the drawing room when there was some child-made mess to clean up—part of the reason she’d left the bloodless asshole in the first place. It wouldn’t be long before Stacey or some other Stepford Girlfriend was helping with homework, taking an afternoon off to cart Joey to the dentist, or staying home with him if he was sick. When would Stacey start believing that she had a right to an opinion? When would she tell Joey to call her Momma-Two or Stacey-Mommy or some other such horror? What if he wanted to? What if he could sense his own mother’s distraction and sought comfort from the other woman trying to win his favor? What if he turned into one of those wretched men who were always seeking comfort from some other woman?
Glynn shuddered, suddenly frantic. She’d have to draw the line somewhere, but where to draw it? The Little League games, the parent-teacher conferences, something.
The ringing phone banished thoughts of pelting Stacey with baseballs and chalk-choked erasers. George snapped up the receiver with one hand while still punching buttons on the game console with the other.
“Yeah, speaking,” he said. “Yeah.” He glanced at Glynn, then at Joey. “No, we’re not doing anything, either. I’ll be by in five minutes. I’ll bring Joey.”
“George,” Glynn said, her voice a warning.
“Relax,” George said after he’d hung up. “Stiller’s wife left him with the kids. We’re just going out for a little ice cream.”
“Ice cream?”
“Ice cream,” George said firmly.
“Hey!” yelled someone from downstairs, Moira. “Someone die up there or what?”
Entropy measures the tendency of energy to disperse, to diffuse, to become less concentrated in one place or one energetic state. But entropy, sometimes called time’s arrow, moves, comfortingly, in a logical direction, something that could be anticipated, something that could be understood. Rocks don’t roll uphill of their own volition. Water doesn’t freeze without impetus. Kettles don’t suddenly heat up by themselves.
Glynn watched her husband and her son slip out the front door, tearing off one of her fingernails with her teeth, considering the physical laws that governed her personal universe: people shooting every which way, bouncing off one another, and spinning out on unknown trajectories. Ice cream, she told herself. He said they were just going out for ice cream. She had to start trusting them sometime, hadn’t she? Otherwise, where would her husband and son end up launching themselves?
The girls had rearranged themselves in her absence, the winners moving to the head table and the losers to the losers’ table. They’d played several rounds, someone rolling for Glynn, and Glynn and Moira had come up winners. Now Roxie and Lu sat across from each other at the winners’ table. Both blanched with embarrassment when Moira said: “Hey, you guys are practically related! It’s like some sick game of six degrees of separation or something!” After that, they played a few more games in relative silence, until Moira got bored and grabbed the dice.
“Come on, fours!” Moira yelled, the word fours sounding like force. One four. One four. Two fours. She rolled three sixes—five points there—then nothing. “Damn it,” she grumbled. She tossed the dice to Roxie, who tried to catch them with one hand and missed.
As Roxie plucked the dice out of the carpet, Lu said, “I meant to tell you, Glynn. There are some openings at my agency. That is, if you’re still looking for a job.”
Roxie rolled a four. “I thought you worked for a real estate agency.”
“I do,” Lu said.
“Oh,” Glynn said, looking from one woman to another. “I didn’t know real estate agencies need librarians.”
Moira slapped a palm on the table. “Everybody needs librarians.”
“They don’t need a librarian. They need an office manager.” Lu took the dice from Roxie. “I’m sorry. I thought you just wanted something to do during the day, when your son’s at school.”
“She needs a job, not a little something to do,” said Moira, slurring. “Some of us have to work for our bunko antes, you know?”
“Sorry,” Lu said. “I just thought . . . sorry.”
“No,” said Glynn. “Thanks for letting me know.”
Lu shook the dice in her hand. As there had been a bunko drought since she’d gotten hers, she’d brought the bunko bunny with her, propping the thing on the table. Before each roll, she eyed it warily, as if it might suddenly begin leaping about.
Roxie swallowed visibly. “So, Lu. What’s your husband up to these days?”
“He’s in Virginia,” Lu said, blowing her bangs off her forehead. “Then Tennessee, then Georgia.”
“Does he have to go?”
Lu frowned. “Sure he has to go; it’s for work. . . . Crap. I’m busted. Here—” She thrust the dice at Glynn.
“So you’re a single girl this month?” Roxie asked.
Lu snorted. “I’ve got Devin full-time. I’ll have the other boys this weekend, because their mom is going out of town.”
“It must not be easy for you, Lu,” Roxie said. “With the boys. Stepfamilies can be so complicated.”
“You think?” said Lu. She was pretty, but in a hard way. She had a U-shaped line forming underneath her nose, possibly from sneering too much.
“I don’t know. Joey’s doing all right with George,” Glynn offered.
“Ward’s kids are okay. Mostly, anyway,” Lu said. She met Roxie’s eyes. “Their mother’s another story.”
“Oh, I’m sure she’s trying,” Glynn said.
“Yeah, well, she could try a little harder.”
Glynn threw the dice, sending one careening off the table. “Heh,” she said. “I guess I don’t know my own strength.”
Roxie leaned back in her chair. “Kids aren’t easy whether they’re your own or someone else’s. Believe me, I know.”
“Yes,” Lu said, her face softening, the little U-shaped line smoothing out. “Of course you’re right.”
??
?We all just have to do our best,” Roxie added.
Lu put her elbows on the table, her expression suddenly open. “But then, that’s the thing, isn’t it? Everyone is doing something different, and everyone thinks whatever they’re doing is best.”
Another loud bang, the front door flying open, whacking against the wall. The girls swung their heads toward the noise in unison, like a herd of prey animals at the crack of a branch.
“Mom! Mom!” Joey shouted, running into the living room. “I saw a dead guy!”
“Was it my ex-husband? Please say it was my ex-husband!” Moira said, nearly tumbling out of her seat. Her eyes found Roxie. “You date Tate. You date my ex! How could you?”
Roxie laughed, got up, and helped Moira back into her chair. “You were the one who set me up with your ex. How could you?”
Glynn looked at George, who was standing in the hallway, half-sheepish, half-irritated. He’d probably told Joey to keep it a secret, not knowing, not understanding that Joey would be too excited to keep his mouth shut, that children don’t have the willpower for mystery.
“He was hit by a bus! But he wasn’t all smushed up or anything.”
Glynn sighed. Really, after all the death they’d witnessed on TV, was it so bad that her husband and son had gone out to see an actual dead person? Death was an inevitable part of life, wasn’t it? Part of the cycle of things.
Then again, maybe the vodka-tonic had addled her brains. She should have fought harder, that was her problem. So many things seemed inevitable to her, had the hypnotic perfume of fate about them, that she was beaten before she even began, like the one lame antelope on the plain.
“Why didn’t he look smushed, Mom?”
“I don’t know, Joey. Sometimes people don’t look smushed even when they should look smushed.”
“Mr. Stiller is going to drain all his blood into a bucket. That’s what George said. Right, George? They hang the guy from hooks.”
The woman whose name Glynn always forgot gasped in horror and sucked on her lips so hard that they disappeared into her face.
With her son and husband and all the girls watching, Glynn rested her forehead against the cool table. There was no controlling this, her luck. She would have to let Joey go a little; she was already doing it. Through her, Joey and George were united in all their gross and glorious boyness; through Joey, she and her ex-husband were locked together forever in their awkward, stupid dance. And if Derek married Stacey . . . well, her stupid-beautiful face would be everywhere. And they’d all expect Glynn to make room at the parent-teacher conferences. The Communions. The weddings. The baby showers. Joey’s relationships would become something else, something outside of Glynn’s reach, as prodigious as that reach—the reach of mothers—was. And wasn’t she herself moving out of her own reach? Becoming some other woman, married to some other man, possibly, soon, mother to some other person. Dispersing. Spiraling outward into the world, both more and less than before.