Reunion: A Novel Read online

But she says nothing. She’s too mesmerized by the discussion of adults to dare speak out of turn.

  Peter. I used to be Peter’s favorite. But I’ve put an end to that.

  32

  talking to Rita

  In the middle of the insanity that is my father’s wake, here’s a lesson I’m trying to teach myself: scan, process, react. It’s how Elliot, when I was fifteen, taught me to drive. Scan the current environment, process what you’ve detected, and then react accordingly.

  Obviously, though, I’m not talking about driving.

  I’m talking about life. I’m talking about evaluating before acting.

  What I’m saying is this: even before sneaking outside and dialing Rita’s number, I weigh the pros and cons—and, yes, the cons are many, including but not limited to a) the three healthily poured glasses of white wine I’ve already had this afternoon, b) the fact that Nell and Elliot seem to be ganging up on me more than usual and in front of all my stepmothers, and c) I’m feeling slightly fatalistic given the state of my marriage and the state of my bank account and the state of my father’s skull, which has put me in a perhaps unstable state of mind—and I decide regardless in the phone call’s favor.

  When Rita answers, I say, “Do it.” That’s it. That’s all I say, no greeting, no nothing.

  “Do what?” she says.

  “Have sex with that kid.”

  I’m standing behind the garage, watching the back porch, making sure nobody is within earshot.

  There’s a muffling on the other end of the phone, something like the rearrangement of a device from one ear to the other. I hear a door open, footsteps, then another door close.

  “Hello?” I say. “Are you there?”

  Crouching in hiding, whatever the circumstances, always gets me a little manic, a little excited. My heartbeat starts to speed up and I think, Life, life, life.

  There’s more silence—enough silence for me to think again, Life, life, life—then Rita says, in a whisper, “What are you talking about?”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m out,” she says. “I’m in public.”

  “Are the girls with you?”

  “No,” she says. “I dropped them off at camp this morning.”

  Of course. The girls are at camp, and Rita is all alone.

  “Have sex with him,” I say. “Tomato-plant guy. Get it over with.”

  “Are you drunk?” she says.

  “Holy aphid,” I say, crunching ice into the receiver. “Aren’t people getting tired of asking me that?”

  “Do you really want an answer to that question?” she says.

  “Touché,” I say. “Are you with him right now?”

  “No,” she says.

  “Are you telling the truth?”

  “No,” she says.

  I nod like I’m some kind of guru, which I’m not and I know I’m not. “What you’ll realize,” I say, and now I’m headed off the map, now I’m headed full speed and without warning into uncharted territory, the words coming even before the thoughts are fully formed, which is exactly the kind of behavior I’m trying to avoid, “is that all men are giant babies.” Am I thinking of Elliot? Am I thinking of my father? Am I thinking of Peter or Billy? The answer: I am thinking of you all. I am thinking of every single one of you and, at least at this very minute, I mean every word I’m saying. “You think there’s something special about him, about this kid who knows that tomatoes grow better in coffee cans than in planters. You think you don’t love Elliot anymore. You’re wrong.”

  Again there is silence.

  “Rita,” I say, and now, heading back to charted territory, having weighed this, having taken this in my palm and measured its texture and worth, I say very carefully, “this is something I know about.”

  “Wait,” she says, also slow, also steady. “Firsthand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Peter cheated?”

  I cough and crouch lower. “No.”

  It’s taking her a minute to process what I’ve said. It’s nobody’s first guess that the woman is the one who’s stepped out—even another woman who is currently contemplating such a move for herself.

  “Oh,” she says after a minute. Then: “Oh.”

  “You get it,” I say.

  “When?”

  “This year,” I say. “End of last year, beginning of this year.”

  “And?”

  “And Peter found out.”

  “When?”

  “Last month.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “How are things now?”

  “He wants a divorce,” I say.

  Now there is dead silence on the other end. Not just regular silence, but bone-dead, big-eared, long-fingernailed silence.

  “Wait,” she says. “You and Peter?”

  “We’re splitting up.”

  “Does Elliot know?”

  “No,” I say. “I don’t know. Only if Nell’s told him.”

  “You told Nell but not Elliot?”

  “It’s not really a time to be concerned with etiquette,” I say. “But no. I didn’t tell Nell. Peter did.”

  “Kate,” she says. “You have to tell Elliot.”

  “Yes,” I say. “I know. But we’re dealing with other things at the moment.”

  “Of course,” she says. And of course I feel guilty because of course, yes, we are dealing with other things, but no, they aren’t really that dire. Stan’s dead. Nothing is changing that fact. My impending divorce, Rita’s potential infidelity—none of these things changes the state of Stan’s cranium, which, hopefully, is being rebuilt as Rita and I speak, since the viewing is T minus twenty hours and counting.

  “But what you’re advocating for me…” she says.

  “Listen,” I say. “You’re talking about leaving Elliot. You’re talking about walking away from a beautiful, stable home where three kids—and two parents who happen to adore those kids, even if they don’t adore each other at the moment—live. All I’m suggesting is—if you think you’re going to leave him anyway—why not test the goods of the guy you think is all that first? Test the waters, and if you still want to leave, then leave. Just don’t be all high and mighty about it. Things are going to get dirty in a divorce. They might as well get dirty now. Especially if there’s a chance the dirt might save everything.”

  “And you think Elliot would be okay with that?”

  “No!” I say, spitting out a little wine accidentally and then wiping it from my chin. “Of course not. He’s going to hate it. You can tell him or not tell him. But what I know is, he wants you. And he’ll forgive you if it means you’ll stay. Kids change everything.”

  “Have you talked to him about this?”

  “No, Rita, I haven’t.” I’m shaking my head as if she can see me, as if she were right in front of me, which, now that I’m thinking of it, I wish were the case. I wish she were here to hug me, to hold me. Whatever kind of hug Nell was talking about—a hug just to say Here I am. Here I am. Here I am. But she’s not here. She’s nowhere close to here. “No,” I say again. “And I’m not going to. I’m just throwing it out there. I just thought I’d weigh in on your life as a way to get a minute’s respite from mine.”

  I remember like it was yesterday: Peter said, “Just answer the question.” I said, “But first you have to know that—” He said, “Answer the question.” I said, “It’s not that simple.” He said, “Yes or no?” I said, “Peter, please; there was so much pressure; you weren’t listening to me.” He said, “Yes or no?” I said, “Please, don’t; I felt so lonely.” He said, “Yes or no?” Finally I looked at the floor and said, “Yes.” He said, “Billy? His name is Billy?” And on and on it went.

  “Oh, Kate,” says Rita.

  “Yeah,” I say, still crouching outside the garage, still watching the house like a thief. “I know. I know. I’m a mess.”

  33

  a partial list of the secrets I keep

&nb
sp; track of while I lie awake in bed

  most nights

  I wish more people liked me.

  I wish people liked me more.

  Sometimes I steal gum at the grocery store.

  Sometimes at Starbucks I take someone else’s order, even though I’ve paid for my own.

  Sometimes in the middle of the day I go to the bathroom and undress completely and just stare at myself in the mirror. I always look different from the way I think I should. I am always 10 percent too tall, 10 percent too large, 10 percent not as good-looking as I want to be.

  When I was fifteen and it was winter and I had sleeves to cover the evidence, I hit my thighs and my upper arms until there were bruises. I did this every day for two months straight. I was too wimpy to try cutting. Hitting was easier and cleaner. There isn’t a person in the world I’ve ever told about this.

  Sometimes, after the adoption business and after Peter had fallen asleep, I’d masturbate in bed next to him. I did it quietly. Sometimes I wanted him to catch me. He never did.

  In the middle of the night, sometimes I wake up and I can’t breathe just thinking of all the things Peter and I have accumulated. A whole moving truck’s worth of stuff. Not just a box or a station wagon or a van, but a moving truck’s worth of stuff. And I feel so empty and sad and weighed down by the emptiness. That home. That idea of home. Of a household. It’s suffocating sometimes. Before I agreed to marry him, before I told him about my debt and he helped me find a credit counselor and a debt-management service and promised to pay for everything while I paid off what I owed, before all that, it was the numbers that kept me awake—the numbers on the statement and the numbers on the calendar and the way the due dates seemed to come faster and the balance wouldn’t stop growing.

  There was a year, maybe one entire year after we were first married, that I slept through the night. But then my brain turned back on and started looking around, looking at all the crap we’d acquired, and I stopped sleeping again. When we were talking about adopting, it was the baby that I would think about at night. Some stranger’s baby. Living in our home. One more thing that we’d gotten our hands on. One more reason I’d be stuck forever. Those nights, I’d have to get out of bed and go to the bathroom and sit on the toilet with the lid down and struggle for breath. If I ever accidentally woke Peter, I’d just say, “It’s nothing. A nightmare.” And he’d fall back asleep and I’d think, I’m not lying at least. Because, really, it was a nightmare.

  AND THEN THERE IS THE SECRET that is Billy. The secret that was. The secret that is no longer a secret. He was a way to pretend all those household belongings didn’t matter, didn’t belong to me—me, the woman who, when confronted with her sister’s outdoor furniture, understands what it is to covet. The human heart is nothing if not confusing and confused.

  I found Billy online, on a message board. It wasn’t slutty. Or who knows, maybe it was. My judgment isn’t what it could be. He didn’t know I was married. The first time we met it was just for coffee. He brought his dog. That was probably what sealed the deal. I’ve never owned a dog. I’ve never owned a pet, unless you count the series of elephant fish that I had during Whitney’s reign. She’d always liked fish, so her one moment of support was in encouraging my father to let me have a small aquarium in my bedroom and one elephant fish. It died after two days. The next one lasted a little longer. The third one died the same day it came home. I buried them all in the backyard. Nell and Elliot didn’t make fun of me, but they didn’t help me bury them, either. I kept the aquarium filled with water but empty of fish for a year. At night, I’d lie awake and just watch the little treasure lid bubble open and closed. I must have kept it around so long because I liked the light, liked having a night-light that wasn’t technically a night-light. But then Whitney had the twins and everything old was thrown out. Anything that could carry germs. And I was moved into Nell’s room and the twins were given my bedroom as a nursery. By then I didn’t care about the aquarium. By then I didn’t need the night-light because I had Nell just an arm’s reach away.

  But Billy’s dog. It was this white fluffball of a thing. It wasn’t a breed I would ever have chosen voluntarily. It was small and girly and ugly. But it had a personality! And on that very first day, it slept on my feet, just right there under the table, and I had this feeling like I was looking through a window at a different life, at a different version of my life. Who was this woman with this man and this silly white dog? What kind of place did they go home to? What kind of bills awaited them there? What kind of furniture? Did they rent, or did they own? Was there a mortgage? Were they debt free? This woman looked simpler to me, smaller, more easygoing, more carefree. She owned less than I did because she’d bought less than I had. This woman slept soundly through the night. I was sure of it. And if she didn’t, she at least had a dog to check in on.

  Obviously, if these were my feelings, I should have gotten a dog. I should have put my foot down with Peter and said, Listen, guy. We’re getting a dog, okay? A baby is too much for me. But I’m unhappy. And I see that I need something that needs me. And I see that you do, too. We’re missing something—don’t get any ideas, guy, I’m not talking about a baby, okay?—but I think a dog will help. And if a dog doesn’t help, then maybe therapy—not with you leading the sessions, okay? You could refer me to someone, though. And if therapy alone doesn’t help, then maybe some of those drugs you’re always talking about. And if not drugs, then we’ll think of something. But of course, it was more than just the dog. I wanted the whole package. I wanted the whole fantasy. I wanted Billy and I wanted whatever feeling it was that the simple crude act of infidelity caused in me. It was the same feeling as taking someone’s drink at Starbucks, but better. Bigger. It lasted longer. Not that long, but longer. A week instead of an hour. And it infected my whole body—my fingertips, my toes. I liked it. That’s the thing. I liked it.

  There is maybe even the chance—somewhere way deep down in the darkness—that I wanted to do what my father had done. It was in my DNA. The way certain babies are born with alcohol in their systems. It’s there. Everyone knows it’s there. The little baby grows up and gets married and his wife looks at him every day and every day she’s thinking, Is today the day that he becomes his father? Is today the day? I didn’t become my father. I did what he had done to prove I could, to prove it meant nothing, to prove that we weren’t the same. And you know? Now that I’m thinking of it, I might even have done it to prove I was different from Nell and Elliot, too.

  Billy himself—Billy devoid of his body—I wasn’t as obsessed with as I was with the feeling of wrongness. The personality belonged mostly to his dog. Of course, I am saying this now. I am saying this after the fact. If you’d asked me then, if you’d asked me midthroe, I probably would have said he was a dish. Or something equally icky and sticky.

  When I got bored, which took only a handful of months, I finally told him I was married. He didn’t believe me. He thought I was lying. Did I mention he was younger? He was. He was in his late twenties, which, for a single man, is the equivalent of being a large puppy. I laughed when he didn’t believe me. I wasn’t being cruel. What it was was that I couldn’t help but imagine all the girlfriends before me—girlfriends! You get married and you think, Thank God, I never have to be one of those again. But then the years go by, and you think, Girlfriend! There’s a thing I’d like to be again. There’s a word that sounds young and unburdened and lithe—and I imagined all these young, long-legged, tanned girls, at least one of whom had, at some point, probably claimed pregnancy as a way to keep Billy around. It was probably an ugly and hard-learned lesson for him when he found out she was lying. Now here I was claiming marriage as an excuse to break up. Of course he didn’t believe me. It wasn’t till I showed him the ring that he finally got it. And then he got mad. And then the dog peed on the carpet. (This wasn’t a new thing. The dog was always peeing on the carpet.) And then I left. He only started calling two months ago. He left me alone through the
spring. I don’t know what happened. Probably it’s as simple as he’d never been broken up with before. Probably he went through a few more girls after me and they were boring and he’s since mistaken my being married for not being boring. But he’s wrong. He is wrong. I’m as boring as they are. I’m more boring. I’m doing him a favor being cruel like this. In the long run, I’m doing him and his future wife a favor. He’ll learn something from this. Exactly what, I can’t say. But he’ll learn something. That’s the guarantee. That’s what they teach you while you’re growing up. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Fact.

  34

  the speeches begin and end

  By six p.m. Sasha has somehow gotten everyone to move into the living room. The A/C is running full blast, but so many bodies are making the room thick and a little bit funky. What’s funny is that for the most part, the half siblings are at the sides of their mothers, which gives the occasion a Family Feud feel, as though questions will begin soon and the teams will have to fight to stay in the game. We should have done this when Dad was alive.

  Joyce is back at my side, smelling boozier than I am. Elliot, Nell, and Sasha are teamed up on the sofa beside mine, Mindy sitting half on one of Sasha’s knees, half on one of Nell’s. I have no idea what Sasha wants to talk to me about, but the anticipation feels like Christmas Eve.

  “So listen,” Elliot is saying, leaning forward now so his elbows are resting on his knees. “We thought it might be a nice thing to take a few minutes and let people say a few words about Dad.” Lily, across from me, sniffles, and Whitney puts an arm around her. Whitney, who is wearing a leopard-print halter top and has obviously had some work done, is not about to cry over Stan Pulaski, man of the hour, but it gives me a little bit of joy seeing that her daughter might genuinely have cared for the guy.

  “He didn’t want a funeral, per se,” says Elliot, and I’m not so sure about this. Stan Pulaski was a maudlin man. He liked speeches. He liked speechifying. But Elliot’s got the floor and God knows I’m not about to push for something more intense than what’s already happening. “He didn’t want anything formal,” Elliot’s saying. “So tomorrow there won’t be speeches. There won’t be prayers. It will just be a time to say goodbye. Today, though, we thought he wouldn’t mind if we remembered him together, casually, as a family.”