She, Myself & I (7 page)

“Do you have any plans on Saturday?” he asked.

I shook my head. Somewhere inside of me I remembered I wasn’t planning to see him again, that the entire point of going out with him this one time had been so that I could indulge in some commitment-free sex. But mostly all I could think about was how I just wanted to kiss him again.

“Would you like to have dinner? We could go out for some barbecue or something,” Zack suggested.

“That sounds like fun,” I said faintly. Barbecue wasn’t normally my thing, but hell, I’d go to dinner at the Cracker Barrel if it ended in another one of those kisses. And maybe next time I could talk him into coming in for that cup of coffee and get this guy out of my head once and for all.

Chapter Seven

“What’s a three-letter word for ‘rug in Helsinki,’ ending with
A
?” my mother asked, scrutinizing the
New York Times
crossword puzzle through a pair of purple bifocals perched on her nose. Another pair of glasses was sitting on top of her head. Mom had been known to search the house frantically for her glasses while three pairs were stacked on top of her ash-blonde bob.

“IKEA,” Sophie guessed.

“That’s four letters,” I said. “Are we going to get this over with?”

It was Saturday morning, and Sophie and I were both camped out at my mom’s house. We were supposed to be shopping for a crib, but Soph was grouchy and intent on eating her way through the entire bag of sesame seed bagels I’d picked up at Central Market on my way over.

“You don’t have to come with us, you know,” Sophie said, blinking back tears.

I would’ve felt worse about making her cry if she hadn’t been breaking down over just about everything lately, including most McDonald’s commercials, the breakup of a couple on the soap opera she watched, and the closing of a sporting goods store near her house where she once purchased a meaningful pair of five-pound dumbbells.

“I wish Mickey were here. She’s the only one of you who’ll work on crosswords with me,” my mother complained.

“Mom, try ‘rya.’
R-Y-A.
I don’t do the crosswords with you because you cheat. What’s the point of working on them if you just look up every answer? Sophie, I do want to go shopping with you, but so far all you’ve wanted to do today is elevate your feet and snog bagels. I’d just like to get going, I have some things to do today,” I said. I was thinking about buying a new outfit for my date with Zack that evening, and wanted to stop by Saks. But if I couldn’t levitate Soph out of the green plaid chair and ottoman she’d ensconced herself in since arriving an hour earlier, I wasn’t going to have time.

“What things?” Sophie asked.

“Rya. That fits. Good, Paige,” my mom said approvingly.

“I have a . . . thing tonight, and I wanted to pick up something to wear,” I said.

“A ‘thing’? What’s that supposed to mean?” Sophie said, looking up from her bagel.

“A dinner thing,” I hedged.

“Is the word you’re looking for a ‘date’?” Sophie asked. The whiff of gossip had the miraculous effect of causing her to forget about her bagel, and she was now alert and upright, staring at me brightly.

“Hmm. If ‘rya’ is correct, then what’s a five-letter word for ‘lack of experience,’ starting with a
Y
?” my mother asked.

“No, I wouldn’t call it a date. It’s just a . . . get-together. A dinner. Nothing serious,” I said.

“So, who is it? If you’re buying new clothes for your non-date date, you must be somewhat interested,” Sophie persisted.

I hesitated. Since I hadn’t confided in Sophie when Zack first asked me out, I felt awkward doing so now. Why, I don’t know. It wasn’t like we were in competition for him. But she’d been so touchy lately, and the smallest things set her off.

“Actually, it’s Zack. He came to see me about a custody issue, which I couldn’t help him with, and he asked me out then. We went out the other night, too,” I said.

“Zack? Zack who? Wait . . . do you mean my Zack?”

“I mean your carpenter, Zack. I don’t really think of him as yours, though,” I said dryly.

Sophie looked confused for a moment, and when that passed, she just looked pissed off. Which was really sort of scary, considering she’d been ready to attack the checkout clerk for not properly bagging her groceries. God only knew what she’d do to someone who was seducing her imaginary lover away from her.

“You knew I was interested in him. I can’t believe that you’d go behind my back that way,” she said. Color rose in her face, and she glared at me.

“You’re not serious? Jesus, Sophie, you’re the one who suggested that I go out with him in the first place. Did you forget you’re married? Don’t tell me that amnesia is another fun pregnancy symptom we get to cope with?” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Ah! It’s ‘youth’! That fits,” my mother crowed, and then looked up from the crossword dictionary she’d been rummaging through. She peered at my sister over the rims of her glasses. “What’s wrong, Sophie? Are you feeling okay? You look a little flushed. Maybe you should go lie down.”

“She’s angry at me because she thinks I stole her boyfriend,” I said sarcastically.

I knew Soph was hormonal, but the absurdity of the situation was just a little much. Sophie was both very married and very pregnant, so she wasn’t exactly in the situation to be calling dibs on available guys.

“I don’t feel like going shopping anymore. I’m going to go home and take a nap,” Sophie said, her voice quavering.

“Don’t be like that,” I sighed.

“Why don’t you lie down here? I don’t think you should drive if you aren’t feeling well,” my mother suggested, getting up and following Sophie to the door.

“I just want to be alone,” Sophie sniffed. She shot me another dirty look and then waddled out the door.

My mother came back into the living room and looked at me reproachfully. I knew that look. It was her signature strike-guilt-in-the-hearts-of-daughters-everywhere look, perfected after thirty-four years of parenting. I liked to think I was impervious to it, but it immediately made me feel like I was about twelve years old and in trouble for mouthing off.

“What? I didn’t do anything.”

“You shouldn’t be upsetting your sister. You know how emotional she is right now,” Mom said. “This pregnancy has been very difficult on her.”

“It’s been difficult on all of us,” I pointed out.

“I know she’s been a little hard to deal with. But that’s normal. You’ll be the same way when you have a baby,” my mother said, returning to her usual spot on the end of the striped sofa. She sat down, tucking one foot beneath her, and took a sip of coffee.

“This coffee’s cold,” she added. “If I make another pot, will you have some?”

I shook my head, and concentrated on pushing back the tears that had started burning in my eyes at my mom’s “when you have a baby” comment. I hadn’t told my family about my miscarriage. It had happened just a few months before Scott made his big announcement. At first I was hopeful that I’d get pregnant again quickly, since although the pregnancy hadn’t been planned, losing the baby was devastating. But then Scott had moved out, and it seemed strange to tell them then after having waited for so long.

“Paige? What’s wrong? You look like you’re about to cry,” Mom said, her voice sharp with worry.

I shook my head again and took a few deep breaths. This wasn’t like me at all. I’ve never been a crier. And I thought I’d put the miscarriage behind me, so to feel the loss and pain bubble back up after all this time was disconcerting. When I was sure I could speak safely, without melting down, I said, “I’m fine, just a little PMS-y.”

“God help me, I’m surrounded by hormonal daughters,” my mother muttered as she picked the crossword back up.

My father wandered into the living room. He was wearing a bleach-stained green polo shirt, khaki shorts that were grubby with potting soil, and garden clogs, and as he walked across the taupe Berber carpet, he left behind a trail of dirty footprints.

“For heaven’s sake, Stephen, look at what you’re doing. You’re tracking mud everywhere,” my mother said, laughing.

I just stared, first at my mother, who was giggling like a teenage girl (in complete contrast to how she surely would have responded to my father’s soiling the carpet when my parents were married, which would have been to point and screech, like Donald Sutherland at the end of
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
), and then at my father, who was standing in the living room of my childhood home as though he belonged there, as though he and my mother hadn’t bloodied the entire family with their messy divorce a decade earlier.

I wondered if I were going crazy, but then remembered the advice of my old therapist, Elise, who said that if you think you’re having a breakdown, you’re probably not. Her reasoning was that if you were alert and rational enough to question your own sanity, then chances were you were fine. Of course, this logic would also suggest that then when you feel perfectly fine, you might actually be falling apart without being aware of it, but I didn’t like to dwell on that possibility.

“Hi, sweetie,” he said to me. “How’s work going?”

“Um, fine. You know, the usual. So why are you here, Dad?” I asked.

“I’ve been helping your mother out with the garden. I just cleared the summer annuals out of the window boxes and replaced them with pansies. I told her she has to fire the lawn care company she uses, because they’re ripping her off. How hard is it for them to remember to water the flowers once a week? Forget about it,” he said, as if this were a reasonable explanation for his presence.

“You’re helping Mom,” I repeated.

He nodded, and my mother beamed at him. “Can I get you some coffee, Stephen?” she asked him.

“Are you having some? Then, yes, please,” he said.

My head swiveled back and forth, as though I were watching a tennis match.
Would you like some coffee? Yes, please?
What did they do with my real parents?

“Excuse me,” I finally said. “Are we in some kind of a time warp? You two are still divorced, aren’t you?”

“Paige,” my mom said reproachfully.

“What? This is weird,” I said, and suddenly remembered that I had forgotten to ask Sophie if she’d heard anything about Mom and Dad spending time together. Now I guess I didn’t have to.

“No, it’s not. Your mother and I can be friends. And especially now with Sophie’s baby coming, we thought we should make an effort to get along a little better. That’s all,” Dad said. “Speaking of whom, I thought Sophie was here. Didn’t I see her car in the driveway? She’s still driving that gas-guzzling SUV, right? I’ve told her a thousand times she needs to trade that thing in for something more energy efficient, but you know how stubborn your sister is.”

“Yes, I certainly do. Anyway, her head started to spin around
Exorcist
-style, so she went home to rest,” I said.

“Oh,” my father said. My mother shot me another look.

“She’s just a little tired. It’s hard carrying around all of that extra weight,” my mother said.

“Yeah, that must be it,” I said, heavy on the sarcasm. “Well, since we’re not going to go baby shopping, I think I’m going to run over to Saks.”

And then I hightailed it out of there, because frankly, the two of them were starting to creep me out, what with all of the smiling and agreeing and niceness. Could it really be true that my mother and father were becoming friends?

No. No fucking way.

Chapter Eight

“Are you starving? Because I thought we could take a drive out to my house—I just put the windows in—but if you’re too hungry, we could do it some other time,” Zack said as he pulled out of the visitor’s parking lot for my building and turned right on Congress.

“No, I’d love to see it,” I said. I’d been curious about his new house ever since he’d mentioned it the day we went sailing. Before then I’d have guessed that he lived in a typical Peter Pan bachelor pad, complete with an ugly yet comfortable secondhand couch, bed linens that hadn’t been changed in two months, and a light-up neon beer sign that had been filched from a bar on a drunken bet.

We took the same twisting, scenic route that leads to Lake Travis, but turned off the main road before we got to the marina, and then turned again so that we were climbing a steep and somewhat remote road, before turning yet again up a short driveway. In front of us was an extremely cool, modern two-story house, sitting on what I could only imagine was an incredibly expensive hillside lot. Dense trees surrounded the house on three sides, while I could just make out a glimpse of the blue waters of the lake behind it.