If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home Now (11 page)

“I’m a little confused,” I said, trying to choose my words carefully. “You don’t usually like anything that has to do with
sports.”

“That’s because I’m so bad at them,” he said. “Not because I don’t like them.”

“You’re not so bad. You just need to try a little harder.”

“Mom,” he said passionately, “I
have
tried. I swear. I just suck at sports. But if I’m the assistant coach, I can be on a
team without making us lose the game so all the other kids hate me. So can we go get the whistle please?”

We got the whistle.

We also picked up a kids’ book on basketball. Noah wanted to study up on it. But once we were home, he didn’t even make it
through the introduction before he had dropped the book on the table and gone to play on the computer.

Later that evening, he blew his new whistle right next to Eleanor Roosevelt’s head and the poor dog squealed and jumped about
three feet in the air. I confiscated the whistle and told him he couldn’t have it back until game day because he had violated
the rules. He screamed that I was the meanest mom in the whole entire world and slammed the door to our room in my face. I
muttered a sarcastic thank-you to Coach Andrew for bringing a whole new source of tension into our lives.

The next time I saw her, Melanie informed me there was going to be a “wrap-up” Event Hospitality Committee meeting on Wednesday
morning.

“We can skip that,” I said.

“But we’re not going to.”

“We did our part. We were good citizens. Now we’re done.”

“We’re not done until we’ve celebrated with everyone. It’s about community, Rickie.”

“You suck,” I said.

“I’ll pick you up at nine.”

This meeting was at Maria’s house, a beautiful and enormous yellow Monterey Colonial in Bel Air. There were at least four
or five gardeners working in the front yard when we arrived. The noise from their blowers and mowers was deafening.

“Sorry!” Maria shouted when she opened the door to our ring. “I forgot they’d be here this morning.” She ushered us in and
hurriedly slammed the door. “You’d think after twelve years I’d have learned not to schedule anything here on Wednesday mornings,
but I always forget.”

She steered us into an airy living room near the front of the house. Tanya waved absently in our direction from a big armchair,
where she was talking into her BlackBerry. Carol Lynn and Linda were discussing something quietly on the dark blue silk-covered
sofa and just nodded at us.

“I’m serving mimosas,” Maria said. “To celebrate being done with the festival.”

“It’s a little early for me,” Mel said.

“Just try one. I’m using very good champagne.
Dos mas
,” she told a dark-haired middle-aged woman who had just entered the room from another doorway. The woman instantly withdrew
again and Maria turned back to us. “It was my husband’s. The champagne, I mean. He had a killer wine collection. I got the
house but he stiffed me on almost everything else. Then he asked me to give him back all his wine. Which was in the wine cellar.
Which was in the house.
Which I got
.” She grinned wickedly. “I don’t think he had thought that one through entirely. Sometimes I’ll open a bottle of something
that’s probably worth three hundred dollars, just to have one glass all by myself. And let me tell you, I enjoy it very much.”
She nudged Melanie’s arm. “You probably have your own war stories, right?”

“It hasn’t been too bad,” Melanie said faintly. The truth was, she and Gabriel were headed toward the most amicable divorce
on record. They still had a joint bank account, and the only argument about money I’d heard so far was when Mel told my mother
she thought it was “icky” to demand alimony and my
mother said, “You’d be an idiot not to.” She’d made Mel meet with a lawyer, but after one meeting Melanie said the lawyer
was way too “negative” and refused to go back. I got the sense that neither she nor Gabriel really wanted to deal with divvying
things up, so they just limped along, sharing the house and his money. He wasn’t the type to cut her off and she wasn’t the
type to take advantage of his generosity, so it worked out.

“Well, lucky you,” Maria said when it was clear Melanie had nothing more to add.

The MHW (maid/housekeeper/whatever) returned with the mimosas and handed them to me and Melanie, who accepted one meekly despite
her earlier refusal. “Cheers,” Maria said, watching us closely. I obediently gulped at the drink. It
was
good. Melanie took a tiny sip of hers.

“You’re going to have to do better than that,” Maria said.

“I’m driving,” Mel protested.

“It’ll wear off by the time you leave.”

We joined the others around the coffee table, where there was way too much food, as usual. You’d think they’d learn. Or eat
something now and then. One or the other.

“All right, then,” Tanya said, punching her phone off. “I don’t have a lot of time today so we have to keep things moving.
I’m in charge of the fifth-grade campout and that’s this coming weekend, plus I’m organizing the faculty appreciation luncheon
for next week, so I’m losing my mind with everything I still have to do. I’m sure I’ll be getting tons of calls all morning
long.” She eyed her BlackBerry with a weird mixture of pride and resentment. “Anyway, I wanted to make sure I read you something
I got a few days ago.” She smoothed out a piece of paper on her lap. “This is an e-mail I received. It’s from”—dramatic pause—“
Dr. Sorenson.
” She looked up to gauge our reactions to the mind-blowing news that the head
of the entire school had taken time out of his busy schedule to communicate with her.

I yawned. Linda played with a cushion tassel. Maria took another sip of her drink. But Melanie made an encouraging noise.

Tanya cleared her throat. “Okay. So here’s what he wrote: ‘To the Event Hospitality Committee: The Autumn Festival was a huge
success, thanks in large part to your efforts. With gratitude, Mark Sorenson.’ ” She looked up. “Isn’t that nice?”

“Very nice,” Melanie said.

“Now, moving on to the next big thing—”

“The next big thing?” I repeated in a desperate whisper to Melanie. “There’s a next big thing?”

“Shh,” she said, but not before Tanya had heard me.

“There’s always something else coming up,” she said seriously. “I didn’t want to tell you all the big news right away because
I needed us to just get through the festival first—”

“What news?” Linda asked.

Tanya sat up even straighter. “At the last Parent Association meeting, they decided to split the fund-raiser into two parts
this year. An adult-only evening this winter
and
an outdoor family concert in the spring. They’ve never done anything like this before.”

“Two fund-raisers?” Carol Lynn said. “Are they nuts? It’s hard enough to get
one
event off the ground.”

“People were sharply divided on which one would be more successful, so a subcommittee was formed.” She raised her chin proudly.
“
I
was on the subcommittee. In the end, we decided doing both was our best option, but I promise you we did not make the decision
lightly.” She smiled her tight smile. “I know it’s more work, but I think we’ll have fun with this.” I wondered what her definition
of fun was. Definitely
something different from mine. “The first thing we need to focus on is the adult event,” she continued. “It’s going to be
a casino night. Doesn’t that sound like a hoot? We only have a couple of months to prepare, since it’s in January and of course
nothing gets done over Christmas break. So there’s real time pressure here. Any thoughts about the food? We’ll need to give
the caterer some direction.” Her eyes fell on me. “Any ideas, Rickie? You’re young and creative.” I didn’t know how she came
up with the creative part, but I couldn’t argue too much about the young.

I fidgeted as everyone looked at me. “Um, I don’t know. I guess… well, it’s a casino night and casinos make everyone think
of James Bond, right? So we should probably serve martinis—”

“Shaken, not stirred,” Maria put in.

I spotted croissants on the platter in front of me. “We could serve these,” I said, picking one up. “Croissants. That’s very
European.” I bit into mine.

“Too breakfasty,” said Melanie, to my annoyance—she wouldn’t have publicly disagreed with any of the
other
women. She turned to Tanya. “You know what would be cool, though? Little tiny lamb chops that you can eat with your fingers.
I had those at a party once and they were so good. And elegant.”

“We’d have to price those out,” Tanya said. “We have a couple of caterers we’ve worked with in the past. Why don’t you and
Rickie meet with them and let them know the kind of thing we’re going for and see what they suggest and how their prices compare.”
It was phrased as a question but it wasn’t a question. It was a command. “You’re also welcome to call a few more caterers
on your own, of course.”

“Us?” Melanie said. “Really?” I was thinking the same thing, only I was thinking “Us, really?” with total dread and
horror, and she was saying it with total
delight
like someone had just told her we were going to be starring in the next Leo DiCaprio movie.

“I don’t know…” I said.

“We’d love to do it,” Mel said firmly. “We’d be honored.”

“Honored” was not the word I had in mind.

Maria pulled me aside once the meeting had ended. “I had an idea,” she said. There was something imprecise about the way she
was talking, and her movements were a little sloppy. I wondered if she often got wasted in the morning. “Austin’s birthday
party is the weekend after next. He’s only inviting a few of the boys in the class, so we’ve been keeping it kind of quiet,
but I think you should bring Noah.”

“Does Austin
want
Noah to come?”

“Of course.” She waved her hand a bit too extravagantly and accidentally hit Tanya, who was walking by—right in the chin.
“Oops, sorry,” Maria said with a giggle before turning back to me. “I think it would be good for Noah. He seems like such
a sweet kid—he just needs to connect more to the other boys.”

“He’s weird,” I said.

“All boys are weird.”

“He’s weirder than most.”

She waved her hand again but fortunately didn’t hit anyone this time. “I’ll e-mail you the invitation. You can stay and hang
out with me, and if he’s not having fun, you can always take him home.”

I wanted to be grateful but inside I was groaning at the thought of having to go. I knew Noah would spend the whole time glued
to my side while the other boys played together, and history had taught me that we’d return home depressed
and more certain than ever that he’d never fit in with his classmates. But I thanked her and said I’d check the calendar.

Carol Lynn caught up to Melanie and me just as we were walking out of the house. “Hey, I need to talk to you two.” The gardeners
had moved on—you could hear a mower off in the distance, but Maria’s property was relatively quiet as we all moved together
down the walkway. “So here’s the thing,” Carol Lynn said. “My adorable little cousin is moving to LA. I love this guy. He
was in a fairly serious relationship in Chicago but she refused to move with him.”

“That’s too bad,” Melanie said.

“Oh, she was
awful
,” Carol Lynn said. “We’re actually all thrilled they broke up. Anyway, his mother—my aunt—asked me if I knew any nice young
women in LA who I could fix him up with, to kind of smooth over the whole transition. And I thought of”—she hesitated, looking
back and forth between us—“well, both of you, I guess. Mostly you, though, Melanie. No offense, Rickie, you’re just a little
young for him.”

And a little tattooed and pierced, I thought. I could just imagine what her aunt would say if he brought me home and informed
her that Cousin Carol Lynn had set us up. “No worries.”

“Oh, wow,” Melanie said with a forced smile. “That’s so nice of you. But I don’t know—”

“Come on, Mel,” I said. “Why not?”

“He’s really cute,” Carol Lynn added. “And I’m not just saying that because he’s my cousin.” The sun was bright and she reached
into her Prada purse and pulled out sunglasses, which she settled on her over-straightened nose. “He’s also sweet as can be.”

“Sounds like your kind of guy,” I said to Melanie.

“I think
you
should date him,” Mel shot back. “You’re the
one who really needs a man in her life—for Noah’s sake, as well as yours.”

“Carol Lynn thinks you’re a better fit.”

“I’m happy to set you up with him, too, Rickie,” Carol Lynn said with a shrug. “Honestly. Who am I to say what will work?
He was crazy about this other woman and I couldn’t stand
her
.” Then, realizing what she had just said, she added quickly, “Not that you’d be like that or anything. I’m just saying that
attraction is a complicated thing.”

“Give him our home number,” I said. “We’ll figure it out from there.”

“All right, then,” Carol Lynn said. “His name’s Matt. Matt Quinn.”

“We’ll look forward to his call,” Melanie said tonelessly.

T
he sun was blazing hot that afternoon, so when I picked Noah up from his first day of assistant coaching I expected to find
a discouraged, sweaty, miserable kid.

I had forgotten that the basketball teams practiced in the air-conditioned gym.

He came running toward me as soon as I came in. “Look at this!” he said excitedly, thrusting a clipboard at me. The paper
on it was covered in scribbles and names. “I helped Coach Andrew come up with a new play and the girls totally did it! See?
This
X
here is Allison and this squiggle is Pammy, and Allison passed to Pammy who bounce-passed it to Lulu and Lulu threw it in
the basket! They totally scored!”

“That’s awesome, Noey,” I said.

Andrew was surrounded by a group of chattering girls, half of whom were wearing cheap gym pull-on blue jerseys, half in white
ones, but he spotted me and extricated himself from them. “Noah did great,” he told me as he came over, trailed by the girls.
“Completely turned things around for Team Blue.”