by Tom Perrotta
He told me about his girlfriend, this Korean-American math whiz named Esther. She was a senior in high school, applying early decision to Harvard. Sanjay was hoping she’d get rejected and end up at the Honors College at BSU so they could finally be together like normal people.
“Her parents are super-strict,” he explained. “She’s not allowed to date or go to parties. She would go to the movies with her friends, and I would go to the same movie with mine, and then the two of us would go sit by ourselves and make out. But then some girl from her church saw us, and after that she wasn’t even allowed to go to the movies. I could only see her at school.”
They kept things on the DL until the end of Sanjay’s senior year, when it was time for the prom. Sanjay organized this crazy stunt where one of his friends dressed up as a UPS guy and came into Esther’s AP Calc class with this big box on a hand truck. He said, Special delivery for Esther Choi! And then Sanjay burst out of the box with a rose in his teeth and the word PROM? scrawled across his forehead. Everybody clapped, and Esther hugged him and said yes, of course she’d be his date. But then she called him in tears that same night and said her parents wouldn’t let her.
“That sucks,” I said.
Sanjay nodded. “It sucked so bad.”
*
I must have dozed off after that, because the next thing I knew we were off the highway, driving through Haddington, past all the familiar landmarks I hadn’t seen in such a long time. I directed Sanjay to Overbrook Street and we pulled up in front of my house. I unbuckled my seatbelt and gave him an awkward one-armed hug.
“Thanks, dude.”
“Take care of yourself,” he told me. “Maybe I’ll see you in a couple days?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe.”
I got out of the car and watched him drive away. Then I stood on the sidewalk for a while. My house looked sleepy and peaceful, the way it always did when I got home late. I hadn’t told my mom I was coming home, so I was surprised to see that she’d left the porch light on, almost like she was expecting me.
PART FOUR
The MILF
That Happened
Eve was deeply relieved, and not at all surprised, when Amanda gave her notice in late January. The only real surprise, given the mess they’d made of their friendship and work relationship, was that she’d lasted as long as she had.
“I got the library job,” she said. “Director of Children’s Events. I’ll be in charge of story time, arts and crafts, author visits, holiday celebrations, stuff like that. Kind of like here, just with kids instead of old people. It pays a little better than what I’m making now, so that’s a plus.”
“That’s great,” Eve told her, but then she caught herself. “I mean, I’m really sorry to be losing you. That goes without saying. You’re a valued member of our staff. Everybody’s going to miss you so much.”
“I’ll miss you, too. You were such a great boss.”
She sounded completely sincere, though nothing, Eve knew, could have been further from the truth. She’d been a terrible boss—completely irresponsible, not to mention legally culpable—and she’d put Amanda in an impossible position, giving her no choice but to leave.
“Thanks again for the recommendation letter,” Amanda continued. “I think it made a big difference.”
“I meant every word. You have a bright future ahead of you.”
She’d used that exact phrase in her letter: Amanda Olney has a bright future ahead of her. She was also a model employee and a beacon of good cheer in the office, not to mention a self-starter who revitalized the Lecture Series during her brief but eventful tenure. And now she was looking for new challenges more commensurate with her exceptional abilities, opportunities the Senior Center regrettably couldn’t provide. Eve had understood, even while composing the letter, that she was laying it on a little thick, but she figured it was the least she could do.
“My last day is February 13th,” Amanda told her. “That’s a Friday. Just my luck.”
“Day before Valentine’s,” Eve added, unhelpfully.
Amanda nodded, well aware of this fact.
“You doing anything? For the holiday?”
Eve shook her head. “You?”
“Nothing.” Amanda shrugged, as if it were no big deal. “Just whatever. I’m not a big fan of Valentine’s Day. It’s always kind of depressing.”
That was when it descended, the gray cloud that followed them wherever they went, the Big Awkward Thing that couldn’t be discussed or undone. It seemed completely impossible that it had even happened, except that she could—and all too often did—visualize it with mortifying clarity, though only in choppy fragments, involuntary bursts of memory that made her wince and blink, as if a flashbulb had gone off a little too close to her face: Amanda whimpering through gritted teeth; Julian moaning oooh fuck, oooh fuck over and over; all three of them breathing hard, encouraging one another, working together as a team.
It was so stupid and frustrating. They should have been able to get past the weirdness, to find a way back to being friends and co-workers who could meet for an occasional drink, go to the movies on Sunday afternoon, or keep each other company on the loneliest night of the year. Maybe there were women somewhere who could have done that, friendly colleagues who’d blundered into an ill-fated sexual adventure and then found a way to laugh it off, people who just shrugged and said, Well, that happened, and went back to being the way they were before. That would have been a healthier way to deal with it, instead of dying a little inside every time you saw the other person, as if the two of you had buried a body in the woods or something.
And it wasn’t like they were in any danger of repeating their mistake. Whatever desire they’d felt for each other had consumed itself in that single, regrettable burst of flames, and now there was nothing left. They’d learned this the hard way after the staff Christmas party, when they tried to spark it back to life with a tipsy kiss in Eve’s office that had left them both empty and discouraged.
I don’t know, Amanda said. I’m just not feeling it.
Eve nodded, conscious of a sad taste in her mouth. Let’s pretend it never happened.
Unfortunately, they weren’t good pretenders. They couldn’t remember how to talk to each other like normal human beings, or find a way to build a fence around their error. In the end, it was easier not to have to see each other at all.
“Good luck,” Eve said from behind her desk. “I hope you like your new job.”
Amanda scowled at the floor for a moment, as if troubled by what she saw there. Then she looked up.
“I’m not ashamed of what we did,” she said. “I want you to know that.”
“That’s good,” Eve told her. “Because you have nothing to be ashamed of.”
*
Unlike Amanda, Eve didn’t have the luxury of a clear conscience. She had no problem absolving her partners of responsibility—they were young (Julian was barely legal, for God’s sake), they’d been drinking, they were free to do as they pleased, no responsibility to anyone but themselves. That wasn’t true for Eve: she was the boss, the homeowner, the host, the adult in the room. The one who should have known better. Nothing but selfishness and bad judgment had compelled her to walk down the hall, barge in on Amanda and Julian’s private moment, and turn their duet into a threesome. And no, she hadn’t been checking up on Julian to make sure he was okay. Maybe she’d started out worrying that something might be wrong, but by the time she poked her head into the bedroom, she already knew what was going on. She’d heard them in there.
She just didn’t want to be left out.
That was all it was—simple loneliness. She couldn’t bear the thought of retreating to her room, shipwrecked again on the desert island of her bed. Didn’t want to lie there feeling sorry for herself—she’d wasted so much time feeling sorry for herself—while they had all the fun. So she’d behaved like a child and invited herself to the party, without a thought for the consequences.
/> It had taken her a while to understand how badly she’d screwed up, mainly because it could have been so much worse. By the time Brendan showed up, with no warning whatsoever—he’d let himself in with the spare key they kept hidden in a fake rock beneath the azalea bush—the main event was over, thank God. Amanda had gone home, too embarrassed to spend the night, and Eve had returned to her own bedroom to process what had just occurred. Only Julian remained at the scene of the crime, and that was all Brendan saw when he turned on the light: a kid he vaguely knew from high school sleeping naked in a tangle of sheets and blankets, a roll of condoms unfurled on the floor, two wrappers torn and empty. Brendan seemed more confused than upset, calling out, Mom? Mom? over and over, until Eve finally emerged from her room, clutching the lapels of her fuzzy pink robe. By that point Julian was already tugging on his jeans, talking to Brendan in a calm but frightened voice, assuring him that everything was cool, though it obviously wasn’t. Eve felt terrible about sending him home on his skateboard in the middle of the night, but it seemed like the best thing for everyone to get him out of the house as quickly as possible.
Then she lied to her son—what else could she do?—telling him that she’d thrown a little party for her fellow students, and that Julian had hooked up with one of the other guests, a girl named Salima from their Gender and Society class. This was a ridiculous, deeply unfair story—Salima was a modest young Muslim woman who would never have gone to a party where alcohol was served, let alone had sex with Julian—but Brendan was mercifully uninterested in the plausibility of her alibi. He waited for her to finish, and then announced in a matter-of-fact voice that he was dropping out of college, which Eve assumed was a melodramatic way of saying that he was homesick or had failed a test. They were both exhausted and embarrassed, for their own individual reasons, and agreed to postpone further conversation until they’d gotten some sleep and could think more clearly. But first Eve went back up to his room and changed the sheets on his bed, even though he insisted it wasn’t necessary, because she knew that it absolutely was.
*
The closeness of that call—the dizzying, weak-kneed feeling of disaster barely averted, of having been spared an unspeakable humiliation—had thrown her off her game in the days that followed, kept her from being as firm with Brendan as she should have been. She should have insisted that he return to school immediately, that he buckle down and study hard and finish what he’d started. She should have made it clear that quitting wasn’t an option. But she couldn’t locate her inner tiger mom, couldn’t find a good-faith way to access the voice of parental authority at the moment when she needed it most.
Instead she listened and sympathized—as if she were his friend instead of his mother—letting precious days go to waste while she gently interrogated him about what had gone wrong at school, and why he was refusing to go back. They spent hours hashing it over, but he never managed to give her a convincing explanation. His laundry list of grievances always struck her as vague and insufficient: his classes were boring, this one professor had a crazy accent, everyone was so PC, Zack was never around anymore, the food sucked, he didn’t have any friends. There had to be more to the story, but Brendan was a master at shutting down the conversation. If she pressed him too hard for specifics, he’d pull out his phone and start swiping at the screen with an expression of surly impatience, as if he were a busy corporate executive who didn’t have time for this nonsense.
Desperate for professional guidance, Eve called BSU and spoke to an academic dean named Tad Bramwell. He told her what she already knew—the university offered counseling services for students who were struggling emotionally and tutoring for those who were having trouble with their course work—but he reminded her that it was Brendan’s responsibility to avail himself of these resources. At Bramwell’s urging, she also spoke to her son’s faculty advisor, Professor Torborg of the Anthropology Department, who didn’t seem overly concerned about her son’s plight.
“Freshman year’s a tough adjustment,” he told her. “Not every incoming student is willing or able to meet the challenges of college work.”
Eve bristled at his tone.
“Brendan’s very intelligent. He’s just a little lazy sometimes.”
“Well,” Torborg said, after a diplomatic pause. “You know him better than I do.”
“You’re his advisor,” she reminded him. “Maybe you have some advice?”
Torborg gave the matter some scholarly contemplation. “I think it’s totally up to Brendan.”
“That’s it?”
“It’s his choice. If he wants to be in college, he should probably start acting like it. And if he doesn’t, he should probably find something else to do.”
“What if he doesn’t know what he wants?”
“Then he should take some time off and figure it out,” Torborg told her. “That’s my recommendation. I took a gap year after high school and it was one of the best experiences of my life. I went backpacking all over Southeast Asia—Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal . . .” He paused for a moment, savoring the memory. “God, Nepal was beautiful.”
“Sounds nice,” Eve said, right before she hung up. “I hope you took some pictures.”
*
Ted came over the following evening for an emergency family dinner, the three of them gathered around the kitchen table for the first time in seven years. It felt unexpectedly normal—comforting, even—to have him back in the house, everyone in their assigned seats, order temporarily restored in the universe.
At the same time, for all the familiarity of his presence, Ted seemed like a different person, not just older and heavier—Eve was pleased to note these changes, though both things could also be said about her—but calmer, too, no longer radiating the impatience that had always seemed like such an essential part of his personality. He even chewed more slowly than he used to.
“This is delicious.” He jabbed his fork at Eve’s sausage mac and cheese. “I don’t get to eat like this at home.”
“I forgot about the gluten,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Do I look like I mind?” Ted grinned at Brendan. “Your mom’s a great cook. Always was.”
As gratified as Eve was by the praise—he hadn’t always been so effusive—she was a little irritated by his air of relaxed good cheer, as if this were a pleasant social occasion rather than a family crisis. It was a part of their marriage she remembered all too well—that feeling of being out of sync with Ted’s moods, of always having to swim against his tide.
“How’s Jon-Jon?” Brendan asked.
“He’s okay.” Ted nodded thoughtfully, affirming his own statement. “Doing a lot of drawing at school. He’s very interested in circles. Other shapes, not so much.”
“He seemed pretty good,” Brendan said. “On Parents Weekend.”
“That was fun,” Ted agreed. “Just bad luck with that plane.”
Eve had heard about Jon-Jon’s tantrum on the BSU quad. She couldn’t imagine what that would feel like, to see your child in such pain and not know how to help him, and all those strangers watching.
“You know what I did last week?” Ted said. “I went to an indoor batting cage. Haven’t done that for years.”
“I used to love that,” Brendan said.
“Let’s do it,” Ted told him. “We can go to Five Guys afterward. Make a night of it.”
“Cool,” said Brendan, though Eve doubted it would ever happen. Ted was great with the plans, but less impressive with the follow-through.
It went on like that for a while, Ted and Brendan talking football and debating the finer points of The Walking Dead, a show they both loved that Eve refused to watch. She couldn’t help feeling a little jealous of their connection. The conversation rarely flowed like this when it was just her and Brendan at the table.
“Well,” she said, when everyone’s plate was clean. “Can we maybe talk about the elephant in the room?”
“Really?” Brendan mu
ttered. “The elephant in the room?”
Ted accepted the parental baton with obvious reluctance.
“Tough semester, huh?”
Brendan nodded, unable to hold his father’s sympathetic gaze.
“You want to go back and finish up?” Ted posed the question in a soothing voice, as if he were addressing a child. “It’s only another month or so.”
Brendan shook his head.
“Any particular reason?” Ted asked.
Brendan closed his eyes and shrugged, a gesture more suited to an eighth grader than a college student.
“I hate it. I’m not learning anything.”
“Well, whose fault is that?” Eve snapped.
Ted silenced her with a cautionary hand. Somehow he always got to be the good cop.
“You sure about this?” he asked.
Brendan nodded. Ted sighed and looked at Eve.
“All right,” he said. “I guess that’s that.”
“That’s that?” Eve repeated the phrase in disbelief. “That’s all you have to say?”
“I don’t know what else—”
“So it’s just sixteen thousand dollars down the drain?”
“Eve,” he said. “Don’t make this about the money.”
“I’m sorry to be so mercenary. What do you think this is about?”
“Our son,” Ted told her. “It’s about what’s best for our son.”
Eve nodded, as if impressed by his superior wisdom.
“Wow,” she said, knowing even as she spoke that she wasn’t helping anyone. “Our son is lucky to have such a devoted father.”
Ted ignored the barb—it was as if she hadn’t even spoken—which was another thing he did that drove her crazy.
“Look,” he said, doing his best Mr. Reasonable. “It’s a big school. Maybe it’s just a bad fit.”
This was a valid point, Eve knew, but that didn’t make it any less irritating.
“Don’t blame me,” she said. “I wasn’t the one—”
