Flirting In Cars

  Mack stared up at her. “Are you sorry?”

  Zoë shook her head, gently disengaging herself. “I wasn’t sure I was ever going to have a baby, but then, when I was pregnant, it felt right. I was sorry for him, it wasn’t his choice, but I didn’t want to get an abortion again.”

  “Again?”

  “When I was eighteen, I had one. I don’t regret that, either.”

  Mack stroked the side of her face. Just as Zoë was beginning to think about getting up, he asked, “Do you ever want another baby?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it recently. I don’t know that I could go back to diapers and sleeplessness again.” She looked at him carefully. “Why?”

  “Because you’re so good at it. Being a mother.”

  “Thanks, Mack. But you’re not having baby fantasies that involve me, right?”

  “No, I’m not having baby fantasies.” He paused. “Do you think Maya misses having a father?”

  Zoë sighed. “I think maybe she used to. I think it can be a little intense, being raised by one parent, because there’s no system of checks and balances. And I wish she had more positive male role models in her life. But we do okay.”

  “Maybe I could, you know, do some of that guy stuff with her. Teach her how to build a birdhouse. Take her camping.”

  “Show her how to swing a bat?”

  “I hate baseball, but yeah, if she wants to learn…”

  “I was teasing. Yes, Mack, that would be wonderful.” She had assumed that sex had pretty much been derailed, but then Mack covered her with his body, entering her again. He started to move, straining inside her with a controlled intensity that brought her along with him as he collapsed. Zoë’s hair was damp on the side where his face rested. She stroked his back. “Are you okay?”

  He pulled out so that he could dispose of the condom. Then he returned to her, letting his hair hide his face as he held her close. Zoë’s heart melted a little, the way it did when her daughter was sick or sad or needy. How strange to feel so much for a man with whom she had so little in common, with whom there was no chance for a future.

  Twenty-three

  M ack leaned against the kitchen wall, trying to avoid being run down by his sister. She was in the throes of some kind of manic cooking meltdown, and he wondered out loud what could have caused it.

  “You caused it,” snapped Moira. “Now get out of my way.”

  “But what’s the point of buying a bird that weighs as much as a toddler if you’re not going to have guests, Moira?”

  “The point,” said Moira, opening the oven door, “is that you’re not the one cooking it.”

  “But I said I’d do whatever you asked me to. You want me to stick my hand up the bird’s ass and shove breadcrumbs inside? Done. You want me to peel yams, or, I don’t know, wash dishes, I’m doing it.”

  Moira closed the oven door again and straightened up, her face glistening with sweat. “By the time I get through explaining to you how to do something, I might as well have done it myself.”

  “But it’s all done now, right? You can go and get changed. And don’t you think it might be nice, having a few people over this year? You always complain that Bill just watches the game and nobody talks to each other.”

  “Five people, Mack. You invited five people to my house on Thanksgiving without even consulting me first.”

  “They’re all contributing a dish, though,” said Mack. “So how much more work can it really be?”

  Mack’s sister flashed him a look that promised great, heaping mounds of horseshit, which he would be shoveling. “Shut up and wash the lettuce leaves. Oh, God, was that a knock at the door?”

  It was a knock. “Calm down, Sis. Honestly, you deal with panicking horses without batting an eyelash, and all of a sudden a little dinner throws you into a tizzy.”

  “Get the goddamn door!”

  He greeted the women from the liquor store at the door. The one with short gray hair was wearing lipstick, a red sweater, and earrings. The blonde with the Dutch-boy haircut was wearing jeans, work boots, and a fisherman’s sweater. Guess he could figure out their deal. “Hey, guys,” he said, then flushed, worried that you didn’t say that to lesbians. He gestured at the straw hamper in the blonde’s arms. “You gave us all that wine. You didn’t have to bring anything.”

  “It’s not food,” said the blonde, whom he now remembered was named Gretchen, flipping the top. “It’s Vita.” The French bulldog stuck out her bulbous little head, and Mack thought, great. If there was one thing his brother-in-law disliked, it was small dogs. And of course, there was more than one thing that Bill disliked. Like a lot of men Mack knew, much of Bill’s limited conversation revolved around things that bugged him, like laws against smoking indoors and cops who gave you a ticket for driving without a seat belt and the fact that the school wasn’t allowed to display a crèche. According to Bill, being an American meant being free to do pretty much what you wanted, when you wanted, in your own home, car, or business. Sometimes Mack wondered what Bill would have done in the army.

  “Why don’t you come on in,” he told the women. “I have to go fetch Zoë and Maya.”

  The gray-haired one, Frances, cocked her head to one side like a bird. “Do you want us to do that?”

  “Nah,” said Mack, eager to get away from the tense atmosphere in the kitchen. “You go meet my sister, Moira.”

  He returned, not twenty minutes later, to find that his sister was now incandescent with fury. She was bustling around the kitchen like a mare about to foal, banging pots and clanging glasses while Frances and Gretchen sat, cradling their ugly little dog and sipping very large glasses of wine.

  “I wish I’d known she was a vegetarian,” Moira snapped at Mack. Her brown hair was frizzing out of its long braid, and her face was red. She was still wearing the old flannel shirt she’d been cooking in all morning.

  “I already told you, I’ll be fine just eating the potatoes and greens,” said Frances.

  “Are you sure? I could fix a lasagna. I think I have the noodles here.”

  Mack put his hands on Moira’s shoulders. “Relax,” he said. “Go shower and change. I’ll take over here.”

  “You can’t cook!” Moira looked over Mack’s shoulder and saw Zoë, who was saying hello to Gretchen and Frances. “Oh, thank God, Zoë. Can you keep an eye on the turkey and the yams? And the gravy’s just thickening, it needs frequent stirring.”

  She left the room, and Zoë stared at Mack. “I have never once in my entire life attempted to roast a bird, let alone coordinate said bird with side dishes.”

  “I have, back when I was married,” said Frances, opening the oven.

  “Back when you ate sausage, you mean.”

  Frances laughed, shaking a wooden spoon at Gretchen, then frowned as she stirred a pot. “Oh, hell, it looks like there are bacon bits in the green beans. And she’s already put marshmallows on the yams.”

  Maya stopped petting Vita for a moment. “What’s wrong with marshmallows?”

  “They have gelatin in them. From animals’ hooves.”

  “Ew, yuck. Mommy, I want to be a vegetarian, too.”

  “Not today, you don’t.”

  “Who wants to be a vegetarian,” asked Skeeter, bringing in a crisp smell of the outside with him, along with a tray of something that smelled deliciously smoky. He took one look at Gretchen and his husky blue eyes widened.

  “My daughter does,” said Zoë, coming forward. “But I think she wants to be the kind that doesn’t actually eat vegetables. As for me, I’m a dedicated omnivore, and whatever wonderful meaty thing you’re carrying, it’s making my mouth water.”

  “Venison sausages,” said Skeeter, his eyes returning to Gretchen.

  “Ooh,” she said, winking at Frances. “Sausages.”

  “You like ’em? These are from a buck I shot myself.”

  “Mmm,” said Gretchen, looking deeply amused. “Nice tats,” she said, as he pulle
d off his jeans jacket. As usual, he was wearing a black T-shirt to show off his permanently inked shirtsleeves.

  “Thanks. I have a great guy I go to in Woodstock.”

  “Jimmy? He did these,” said Gretchen, pulling up the hem of her baggy jeans to reveal a leopard, some vines, and a redheaded woman in a fur bikini.

  “I love Jimmy,” said Skeeter, almost dropping his tray of sausages.

  “Let me take that, man.” Mack wondered how to make the introductions so that his friend would get the picture. “Skeeter here’s the owner of the Big Dog Garage. Gretchen and Frances own the liquor store. And this is Zoë, and her daughter, Maya.”

  “This is Vita,” said Maya, waving one of the little dog’s paws.

  Skeeter’s eyes kept returning to Gretchen. Mack looked at her, trying to see what she would look like if he didn’t know she was batting for the other team. Or rather, for the same team that he did. Shit, she was actually very pretty, in a boyish way.

  “You from around here,” Skeeter was asking.

  “I am. Frances moved from the city.”

  “You didn’t go to Starling High, though.”

  “Of course I did. Class of Ninety-three.”

  “So I was a junior when you started. Now that I think of it, you look familiar.”

  “I think we were in shop together.”

  “No way!” Skeeter looked astonished. “There weren’t any girls in shop.”

  “I used to go by my last name, Jones. I think some people assumed I was a boy.”

  “No way,” said Skeeter. “I can’t believe a pretty girl like you could ever be mistaken for a boy. Those guys must have been blind.”

  It was going to be a strange meal, thought Mack, meeting Zoë’s eyes.

  “Nice scarf,” said Frances, fingering the turquoise silk wrapped around Zoë’s throat.

  “Mommy’s using it to hide a big tick bite,” said Maya.

  “Really? They don’t usually bite on the neck. Let me see if there’s a bull’s-eye, because a double dose of doxycycline taken right away prevents Lyme disease.”

  “There isn’t,” said Zoë, moving away.

  “Better to check.”

  Zoë looked at Mack, who said, “I, er, already checked it.” Everyone looked at him.

  “It doesn’t look like a bull’s-eye,” offered Maya. “It looks more like lips.”

  There was a silence in the kitchen, broken by the sound of Moira’s voice yelling from upstairs. “Bill, you have to.”

  “I don’t know any of them, and I’ll come down when there’s food,” came Bill’s reply. A moment later, Moira reappeared, wearing a clean flannel shirt and a forced grin.

  “Well, Bill’s coming right down so we might as well all head on into the dining room,” she said. “How’s my turkey doing?”

  “Ready to come out,” said Frances. “Although it’s probably a good thing I don’t eat meat.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She removed the bird from the oven, and Maya said, “Wow, I didn’t know they made them that small.”

  “It must have shrunk,” said Moira, as Bill came down the stairs, radiating a silent hostility that made the little bulldog growl from her basket. “Maybe because it’s free range and organic?”

  Bill shambled past the turkey, giving it the same dirty look that he spared for the dog.

  “Hush, Vita, stop it,” said Frances, without conviction. The dog kept growling.

  “Why don’t you all go into the other room,” Mack said, “and I’ll help Moira bring in the food.”

  “We’ll all help,” said Zoë, so that everyone wound up carrying something to the long dining room table where Bill sat, looking disgruntled in his work-stained blue sweatshirt and torn Carhartt overalls. Apparently, his brother-in-law intended to make it very clear that he made no concessions to dining with company, as he had not bothered to shave, comb what remained of his hair, or clean his fingernails very well.

  Mack cleared his throat. “You want me to carve, Bill?”

  Bill shrugged. “Do what you like.” In an undertone, he added, “No one seems to care what I want.”

  Mack started carving. “I guess I’d better aim for thin slices,” he said, then wished he hadn’t when he saw his sister’s face.

  “I should have just bought the regular kind, like last year. But this was supposed to be better.”

  “It is better,” said Frances. “Not only is buying organic healthier but it promotes the farmers who are acting most responsibly toward the environment. Oh, thanks, Moira, but no yams for me.”

  “But there’s no meat in there,” protested Moira, serving spoon in hand.

  “The marshmallows have hooves in them,” said Maya. “But not horse hooves, right, Moira? Because you wouldn’t eat horse hooves.”

  “So,” Skeeter was saying to Gretchen, “where else do you have tattoos?”

  “It’s not going badly,” Mack whispered to Zoë. “At least everyone’s talking.”

  “I think your sister’s a little upset.”

  Mack turned to Moira, and therefore had the chance to see her face as Bill said, “Not more crap about the environment. You know who talks about the environment? City people who build some big honking eyesore up on some mountaintop, and then want to stop everyone else from building anything.”

  “Mom, he said ‘crap,’ ” said Maya.

  “Shh.”

  “But you wouldn’t want people building up all the wetlands and destroying the rural nature of Arcadia,” said Frances. Unlike the others at the table, she was undistracted by the food, since she had nothing but a few lettuce leaves on her plate.

  “That’s the argument outsiders use when what they really want is to price out the working-class people who’ve been living here their whole lives.”

  “That’s not true, and some careful zoning laws would ensure that Arcadia does develop.”

  “Zoning,” said Bill, as if it were a dirty word. “You put in a law that no house can be on a plot that’s smaller than five acres, and you know what happens? Most of the kids growing up here can’t afford to stay.”

  From her basket by the table, Vita began to make little unhappy grunting noises, as if she were trying to clear her squashed nose.

  “I think she wants some turkey,” said Maya, craning her head. “Or maybe I can sit with her on the floor to keep her company.”

  Mack wouldn’t have minded sitting with the dog himself. God knows he was in the doghouse for arranging this dinner.

  Zoë put a restraining hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “No, Maya, you let Frances take care of her.”

  “It’s okay, plumpkin, it’s all right,” Frances said, attempting to soothe her. The dog, picking up on her owner’s tension, began whining.

  “Jesus Christ, make her stop that noise,” said Bill.

  “Does that count as a curse?” Maya looked at her mother. “I mean, I know it’s not a bad word, exactly, but when you use it instead of one?”

  Frances half stood up. “Maybe I should go.”

  “Oh, no, please don’t.” Moira turned to Bill. “Let’s talk about something else.”

  “Like what? The fact that we might be moving to Virginia?” Bill put down his fork and knife. “Next she’s going to lecture us and say we don’t have the right to sell our property to the highest bidder.”

  Frances stared at Bill. “Are you telling me you’re thinking of selling this place to the developers? Because I’m sure you are aware that our town’s lack of zoning means that all this could be completely destroyed.” She waved her hand in the direction of the window, with its view of the mountain.

  Bill turned to Mack. “If I want to hear about goddamn zoning, I’ll ask somebody who’s grown up around here and is entitled to an opinion.”

  “ ‘Goddamn’ is definitely a curse,” said Maya in a loud whisper.

  “Maya, that’s enough.”

  Mack forced himself to swallow the bite of turkey he’d been chewing.
“Well,” he said, “I suppose no zoning’s better than bad zoning.”

  “You see,” said Bill, slightly mollified.

  “On the other hand, you don’t want corrupt idiots like Moroney free to do whatever suits him, so maybe it would be good to have a few rules in place.”

  “Spoken like a diplomat,” said Zoë.

  Bill snorted. “Spoken like a guy who’s banging a weekender.”

  “Bill,” said Moira. “There is a child at the table.”

  Maya stopped scraping the marshmallow off her yams and turned to her mother. “Mommy, what’s a weekender, and who’s banging on one?”

  Mack caught the hint of mischief in Maya’s face. She might not know what she was asking, but she sure as hell knew it was something fresh. “That’s just car repair talk,” he said, trying not to show how pissed off he was at his brother-in-law.

  Skeeter reached over and speared a sausage. “Personally, I don’t hold with this idea that there’s us and there’s them. Weekenders make up a good sixty to seventy percent of my business, and I’m not the only local guy who couldn’t survive if city people weren’t coming and spending their money in this town.” He nodded at Gretchen and Frances. “Fact is, a lot of the guys I grew up with take their business to Poughkeepsie and Kingston. And Frances may not have grown up here, but she sure is helping the town’s economy.”

  Frances raised her glass to him. “Thank you, Skeeter.”

  “Jesus, man,” said Mack, shaking his head. “And here I thought all you knew about was cars.”

  Skeeter looked embarrassed by all the attention. “Yeah, well, sometimes you got to have an opinion.” He shoved a spoonful of mashed potatoes in his mouth.

  “You know,” said Gretchen, “you ought to stand up at the next town board meeting and say some of this.”

  “It’s too late,” said Bill, sounding smug. “The town board already approved the developer’s plan.”

  Gretchen choked, and Skeeter pounded her on the back. When she recovered, she said, “That’s impossible. We just reported seeing a bald eagle nest in an old oak tree not half a mile from our store, which would be directly in the path of the bulldozers. By law, Moroney has to get an environmental impact assessment done before he can even hold a vote.”