What Came First (31 page)

Now, at the bookstore, Sydney ignores my easy-reader suggestions and continues to frown at the text-heavy page. Fifteen feet away, Harrison has dropped the
Where the Wild Things Are
monster on the floor and has moved to a stuffed Runaway Bunny
.

Sydney turns the page, “reads” a little more, and shakes her head. “I don’t like this one.” She shoves the book back on the shelf and pulls out something with a black cover clearly intended for older girls.

“Wendy? I thought that was you!”

I turn around. “Oh! Hi, Mary . . .”
Think, think, think
. . . “Jane.”

It’s Mary Jane from scrapbooking, wearing shorts, a tank top, sneakers, and an expression that looks way too relaxed. I look around for her children, whom I’ve never actually met but could probably recognize from their perfectly trimmed photographs.

“Your kids here?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “Day camp. Up at my church. Nine to three, four days a week. They
love
it. They play on the playground in the morning, before it gets too hot. Then there’s crafts inside and sometimes a movie, then after that they go back outside for some water play.”

“Is it just this week?”

She shakes her head. “It goes till school starts.”

My pulse quickens. “Do you have to belong to your church?” For three weeks of freedom, I’ll convert to pretty much anything, if necessary.

“I don’t think so. I’ll e-mail you the information, if you want. I’m pretty sure there are still some openings.”

We chat a little more, and then Mary Jane wanders off to the romance section while I say a silent prayer, thanking God for keeping my children quiet and nondestructive for that five-minute stretch. Sydney sits Indian style at my feet, her chin resting on her knuckles, her eyes fixed on a print-heavy page. She giggles. If I didn’t know better, I’d really think she was reading. Still smiling, she turns the page and glances up at me.

“Can I get this?”

“You can only get one book,” I say. “So why not pick out an easy reader?”

“Easy readers are boring.”

“No they’re not!” (Yes, they are.)

“I like this one.” She holds it so tight, the spine threatens to break.

“Fine.” I’ll save my battle strength for Harrison, who is going to want one of those stupid, overpriced stuffed animals. “But it’s going to be years before you can actually read it.”

“I can read it now. It’s about a body switcher.”

A body switcher. Lovely. Why doesn’t anyone write books about ponies and pioneers anymore?

I say, “So read some of it to me, then.” I’ll pretend to be impressed by her fake reading. Then I’ll buy her the book along with something for Harrison and get the heck out of here.

Sydney narrows her dark eyes at me before turning her attention back to the open page:

Leaning over Sydney, I check the text. It can’t be—but it is. Sydney is really reading—slowly, haltingly, but she is doing it.

“Oh my God, Syd. But how . . . At the end of the year Mrs. Rath said you were just sounding out the words. She said she had you try a level-two book, and you couldn’t do it.”

“I didn’t like Stick-up-her-Rath.”

“Sydney!”

“That’s what you called her to Daddy.”

Oh, shit. I’ve really got to be more careful.

“So you could read all along, but you just didn’t tell anyone?”

“I guess.”

“Stop throwing those on the floor! Are you here with an adult?”
Fifteen feet away, a bookstore employee scolds Harrison, who made it his mission to empty the rounder while Sydney was reading. Sydney was reading!

“Can I get the book?” Sydney asks.

“I didn’t do anything,” Harrison tells the employee. “It was Dodie.”

Sydney gets the book, of course. And, when he threatens to throw a tantrum, I abandon my no-toys injunction and buy a big stuffed Eric Carle–styled ant for Harrison.

At home, I make the children peanut butter sandwiches (with jelly for Syndey and marshmallow fluff for Harrison; no crusts for either), which they hardly touch because they are so full from the oversize chocolate chip cookies I bought them at the Barnes & Noble café. Never one to let food go to waste, I finish the sandwiches. I’d already eaten the crusts. Then I microwave a piece of pizza because the other stuff didn’t register as food.

Once the kids are resettled in front of the television, I call Darren.

“Sydney can read,” I announce.

“Really? That great.” He sounds insufficiently impressed. His computer keys rattle in the background.

“No, Darren, I mean she can
really
read.”

“I know. You said that. I’m happy.”

“I’m not talking picture books. I took the kids to the bookstore and Sydney picked up this book . . .” The saga feels less dramatic in the retelling. I leave out the bits about Harrison and the stuffed animals.

“That’s awesome,” Darren says, sounding less than awestruck, computer keys continuing to click, even when I tell him that Sydney outshines every kid in her kindergarten class, even the ones who went to tutors.

“You could stop typing and listen to me,” I say. My jaw is tense.

The clicking stops. He sighs. “I’m just trying to get some work done. I’m listening.”

Suddenly I have nothing else to say, except, “Will you be home regular time?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, see you then.”

My laptop sits on the kitchen desk. I turn it on, open my e-mail program, and compose a note to Laura Cahill.

I brace myself for a wave of irritation. Of course Ian learned to read when he was four. But instead I feel a surprising kinship with Laura Cahill. There are so many ways to be lonely. Laura’s loneliness is different from my own, but it is there, no doubt about it.

Eric acts like the whole thing at the clinic never happened. I wish I could do the same, but even after I find out that there’s no baby on the way, I can’t stop thinking about that little blond boy. Even worse, every time I see a kid with streaky blond hair, I wonder,
Could that be his?

“Do you ever think about him?” I ask Eric, breaking the silence on yet another Friday-night drive to his mother’s house in Glendale.

“Who?”

“The boy.”

“What boy?”

“Ian.”

“Oh.” He pauses. “No.”

“How do you feel about him?” I press.

He shrugs. “I don’t.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I’m indifferent.” He glances in the rearview mirror, flicks on the blinker, and changes lanes.

Later that night, he doesn’t sound so indifferent when he’s checking his e-mail.

“Oh my God.” He’s on the bed, leaning against some pillows, the laptop balanced on his knees.

“What?” I’ve just doused a Q-tip in eye makeup remover. My hand jerks, and the gel splatters.

“Nothing.”

“It’s obviously something.”

“Just—I haven’t checked my e-mail in a while and . . .”

“What?”

“Laura Cahill sent a couple of pictures. Of her son when he was little.”

I yank a couple of Kleenex from the box on the back of the toilet and wipe away the spilled gel. Eric is waiting for me to ask to see the pictures, but I’m not going to do it. I’ll just make myself crazy. Maybe if I can pretend to be
indifferent,
eventually I’ll start to feel it.

He’s still staring at the laptop. “This is so weird. He looks like . . .”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

He expects me to press him. Does he look like you? Like your brothers? Or your nephews, maybe? What a shock that shared genes
make people look alike
.

Instead, I say, “But of course, you’re indifferent.”

“No. I mean, yes. I am. It’s just—this picture. It’s weird.”

I am not going to ask him who the picture reminds him of.

“Everything about this experience is weird.” I snap the top back on the eye makeup remover and squeeze watermelon-flavored paste onto my toothbrush. I really wish he’d start buying mint.

I turn the water on high and scrub my teeth till my gums bleed.

When the doorbell rings, I fish my American Express card out of my purse and yank open the slightly sticky front door, assuming our pizza has arrived. As such, it takes me several moments to compose myself when I discover Eric Fergus, in a T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops, standing there instead.

Since my conversation with his fiancée, I’ve thought about calling him countless times and actually started to dial twice. My internal battle isn’t about Vanessa’s right to happiness versus mine, but rather her right to happiness versus Ian’s, and in that, it’s no contest. Ian says he wants a dog, and maybe he does, and maybe—probably—I’ll break down and get him one. But someday he may feel lonely, even with a dog, and then it will be too late.

“I’d say I was in the neighborhood, but I wasn’t,” Eric says, smiling shyly. Smiling like Ian.

“No, I wouldn’t think you would be. But it’s good to see you.”

Eric’s car, a beat-up blue Ford Focus, sits at the curb. My mother instinct kicks in: is that little car really safe to drive in Southern California traffic?

Although it is after six o’clock, the sun still glares and the temperature hovers above ninety. Eric’s face glistens with perspiration. He holds something in his hands. “I wanted to show you this. I would’ve just e-mailed it, but I don’t have a scanner.”