I'm Glad About You

by Theresa Rebeck

  They ticked away, unspoken, in the silence of the phone. He managed to keep his voice impersonal and cheerful. “Is it a problem?”

  “Would it matter to you if it was?” He could hear the baby gurgling in her arms, and behind, Maggie chattering away with the cooler tones of Van’s mother, who was in town. The happy contentedness of the life he was providing for all of them breathed through the airwaves. If he had come home for dinner, everyone would tense up and hide and burst into tears over nothing, and she was complaining because he figured out how to give them all a night off?

  “Of course it matters, Van, come on,” he said, allowing his voice to sound suitably conciliatory. “I just thought you’d like to have the time with your mom.”

  “So what’s the plan, Dennis is going to cook for you?”

  “No, we’re going to meet downtown, maybe at La Cucina or something.”

  “Maybe? You don’t know?”

  “Yes, we’re meeting at La Cucina, he was going to call ahead and get us a reservation.” This of course now sounded like a lie, because that’s what it was. He opted for more conciliation, rather than ratcheting things up. “I can come home,” he said. “You sound upset. Did something happen?”

  “It’s fine. It’s fine,” Van announced, clipped.

  The gurgling happiness of background noises had been silenced by all this. “I’ll come home if you want me to,” he said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “No. You should go out. One of us at least should have a life.”

  “Well,” he said. “I won’t be late.” She hung up without saying good-bye.

  How had it come to this? He no longer even tried to sort it out and simply pulled up his calendar to get a sense of his late-afternoon workload. You couldn’t cure everything online; the insurance company still allowed Pediatrics West to offer evening hours twice a week. Sometimes kids get sick at night, and a number of parents were juggling two careers and daytime appointments were impossible to schedule when Mommy’s real estate practice was taking off while Daddy had to go to a conference in Dubai. He glanced at his appointment sheet; ten patients back to back, no breaks. Some of them you’d be able to get in and out in less than a minute, but no parent was going to stand for that after sitting out there in that waiting room for more than an hour.

  The kids, honestly, were great. Sniffling, feverish, lethargic at one end of the spectrum and bursting with life at the other, they all seemed preternaturally present, their innocence and energy presenting its own kind of wisdom. You wouldn’t suspect that these adorable creatures were going to evolve into the greedy and largely dim-witted race which had spawned them, although there was a creeping arrogance which showed itself when they got a little older.

  His next appointment, luckily, was a four-year-old, Caleb. Wide brown eyes and a yogi-like slouch. Red curls. He looked up at Kyle with mournful expectation.

  “Am I going to have to have a shot?” he whispered.

  “I don’t know, what’s wrong with you?” Kyle asked him, matter-of-fact. He touched the kid’s forehead lightly. Definitely hot.

  “We think it’s the chicken pox,” the mother announced. A slender woman in a skirted suit, she pocketed her iPhone quickly and gave Kyle her full attention. This one wouldn’t be snarling about a short appointment, she clearly wanted in and out. “Or at least that’s the hope.” Oh, boy, he thought.

  “Then can I assume Caleb has not had his immunizations?”

  “Okay, I know some of you don’t approve, but this is an ethical issue for my husband and I,” the mother announced. “We don’t want that stuff in him.”

  Kids dying all over the world, and she thought vaccinations were unethical. Caleb looked up at him with those eyes. “I don’t want a shot,” he informed Kyle. His little cheeks were flushed, and now that he had gotten a second look, Kyle could see that the poor kid’s collapsed posture was probably due to muscle pain. Kyle had to resist the urge to pick him up and cradle him. The little boys, especially, seemed so vulnerable.

  “No shots,” he said, trying to sound neutral, although he really hated the careless way these people endangered their children, and everyone else’s too. How not to judge that. Yet another mystery. “Let’s see if we can just make you feel better.”

  After two hours more of this, he finished, poured himself into his car, and drove over to the back streets of Clinton, the site of Dennis’s elegantly crumbling apartment building. There were plenty of high school cronies who had settled, over time, in Cincinnati, but none of them somehow had the staying power of his pal, who had self-destructed in such a spectacularly public way. Dennis’s excessive drinking had cost him his job at Procter & Gamble, and to “teach him a lesson,” his father had told him in no uncertain terms that he was “on his own.” That meant that the monthly allowance Dennis got was really not anywhere near as large as it could have been. It was also not small enough to force him to get another job. Instead, he invented his own peculiar brand of thrift. His Victorian apartment was small—eight hundred square feet—and because it was in the back of the building, inexpensive. The place was crumbling, but it was not a dump; instead, he had managed to choose a few pieces wisely, culling them from attics of relatives and family friends. A gorgeous bedspread, an antique lamp, leftover pieces of Limoges china, the detritus of weddings long gone by. He lived in two rooms which were, truth be told, elegant and fluid with the touches of decadence. The only thing he had paid for in the whole place? A sixty-two-inch TV.

  This spectacular appliance was one of the lures which drew Kyle repeatedly back into Dennis’s sphere. There was little or no television watching in the Wallace household, as Van had never moved off her determination that it was bad for the children. No Teletubbies, no SpongeBob, not even any Sesame Street; there was something in the pixels and the light which apparently seared their little brains and gave them autism. The fact that Kyle was even vaguely resistant to this notion undermined him even further in her eyes. He begged her to show him the studies around children and television watching so that he could perhaps provide a calming perspective on the whole thing. Also, he was hoping she might let him watch the news once in a while if he could prove that there wasn’t in fact radioactivity blasting at them and infecting the whole house, even when the kids weren’t in the living room. No go.

  Of course, the underlying suspicion breathed through the house: The real reason Kyle wanted to watch television “occasionally” was that he wanted to see the completely trashy show his ex-girlfriend was on. And in point of fact, Kyle had once or twice watched Alison’s show over at Dennis’s apartment, although he would never admit as much to Van. The thing was stupid, but given the larger questions of his own life—a wife who disliked him, daughters who were afraid of him, a medical practice that was drowning him in paperwork, a God who appeared and disappeared at will—he found its inanities cheerfully soothing. Particularly since Alison has shown up, out of the blue, and reminded him that she still lived on the planet.

  “You missed a good one last week,” Dennis informed Kyle, upon his arrival. “Alison making out with a naked police officer. In a swimming pool. It was riveting.”

  “I thought she was back together with what’s his name.”

  “Rob. They are back together, yes. Last week was a repeat. Well worth repeating, too, I must say.” He handed Kyle a whopping glass of scotch and refreshed his own. Dennis still went to AA, but mostly for the amusement factor; he took perverse pleasure in getting those chips while drinking on the side. Kyle had registered his protest—really, as a doctor, he couldn’t be expected to think it was a good idea for Dennis to destroy his liver—and Dennis had shrugged him off. Alcoholism was in the eye of the beholder, he supposed. And in fact Dennis had a point: Why didn’t those people at AA even suspect? Or did they? If they did, why did they keep giving him those chips?

  But Dennis was too valuable to him, finally, to press the point. Van had banned him from their house, probably because he had made a pa
ss at her at one time or another. Kyle wasn’t sure, but nothing would surprise him; Dennis had twice made passes at Alison, that he knew of. While Kyle was dating her. It had pissed him off of course at the time but what were you going to do with someone like Dennis, he was just an asshole. Anyway, that was all in the past. Dennis’s devilish approach to living was now a balm. And the scotch, and the television set.

  “I got Chinese. Dumplings, moo shu pork, kung pao chicken.”

  “Sounds great.”

  Dennis unloaded white cartons from a brown paper bag while Kyle dropped onto the couch and reached for the remote. The set flickered to life, and he checked the listings of saved shows in the DVR. He knew that what he was about to indulge in over scotch and Chinese food was the worst sort of psychological scab-picking. But the option was going home to Van and her mother and those two bewildering little girls. There was no question: It had been a mistake to invite Alison to that misbegotten dinner party. But there was nothing to do about it now. Van had not forgiven him, and his brain hadn’t either.

  Alison’s face loomed on the screen, emerging like a mermaid out of the blue water of a pool in the night. She looked straight into the camera, those unforgettable green eyes flickering with confusion and desire.

  “I can’t believe you had a dinner party and you invited Alison and you didn’t invite me,” Dennis rebuked him. He dumped the white cartons of food on the coffee table in front of them. Chopsticks, paper napkins, plastic forks. There was no standing on ceremony with Dennis.

  “It wasn’t me, it was Van. She thinks you’re a bad influence on the girls.”

  “Not yet, but someday, definitely.”

  Was that even funny? It wasn’t worth remarking that it might not be. Dennis was already watching the television set. “She looks hot,” he announced, as if this were news.

  “She’s too skinny.”

  “She was that thin two years ago, at Christmas.”

  “It wasn’t two years ago. It was three years ago,” Kyle replied. Alison was arguing with someone now, it was hard to tell who. The sound was off.

  “What was three years ago?”

  “Your Christmas party.”

  “The Christmas party.” Dennis nodded, digging into the kung pao chicken, wielding his chopsticks with an elegance that was somewhat surprising in a perpetual drunk. “Oh yes, that wonderful Christmas party. Remember those boots she was wearing? Thigh-high gray suede—”

  “Yes, I remember the boots.”

  “Is that bitter?”

  “Why would I be bitter?”

  “I don’t know. I know nothing, Kyle, you are ridiculously discreet, it’s one of your worst habits. You invited her to your house for dinner with your wife—”

  “And ten other people.”

  “Yes, and ten other people but not me. So I know nothing about your current standing with Alison. For all I know, you’ve been carrying on a torrid affair with each other via the internet this whole time. For all I know, she flies in twice a month and meets you in a hotel in Covington.”

  “If I were fucking Alison, do you think I’d need to watch her do it on television?”

  There was a shocked pause at this, and then Dennis laughed with glee. “Well well well, well well—” he started. Kyle stood. If he could have punched himself in the face, he would have.

  “This is stupid,” Kyle said. He looked around for the clicker, but it was buried, somewhere, under those cartons. The silent movie of Alison, her green eyes, her body rising out of the water, was interminable. “Where’s the fucking clicker, I’m not watching this junk.”

  “Dude, far be it from me but if we were in an AA meeting, there would be about sixty people telling you that you need to talk about it,” Dennis informed him.

  “I don’t need to talk about it.”

  “No, you just need to drink about it.” Kyle glanced at the tumbler in his hand. It was true; he had already powered through the sizable bolt of scotch, in a matter of minutes. “Where’s the clicker,” he asked.

  “You can turn it off if you want, I don’t care,” Dennis shrugged. “I just thought we were going to watch it. And I didn’t get to see her when she was here, so I was kind of looking forward to it. But I can watch it later if you can’t handle it.”

  “I can handle it, Jesus, that’s not what—fine.” The silent television continued to flicker before them, but Kyle deliberately ignored it, concentrating on his own set of cheap wooden chopsticks, splitting them down the middle without yielding splinters. It calmed him.

  “So you and Alison got into it.”

  “We didn’t get into anything.”

  “Liar.”

  “Dennis—”

  “What? I want to know what happened, of course I want to know. She was at your house and now you’re watching her on television and talking about how you wish you were fucking her.”

  “That’s not what I—”

  “And you’re drinking rather heavily, which may be normal for me but is not for you. So maybe you need to talk about that.”

  “I don’t actually need to talk about why I’m drinking. I know why I’m drinking. What I don’t know is why you’re so interested in my sex life.”

  Dennis started, then laughed, enjoying the nasty turn. “Ooo la la, latent homophobia,” he grinned. “Goodness gracious, there’s always all that Catholicism, right there when you need it.”

  “Screw it.” Kyle was sick of this. He finally found the fucking clicker and pointed it at the television, which for a second refused to go off.

  “You’re holding it backward,” Dennis informed him. Kyle stared at the device in his hand, turned it around, and pointed it at the television. It still didn’t work. Alison was silently laughing at some young Adonis now. She had a towel wrapped around her and her hair was wet. The towel slipped suddenly, revealing a black bikini underneath for a moment before she glanced down, picked up its edge, and pulled it close again.

  “I should have just slept with her,” he said.

  The sentence fell between them, clear, final. He looked around for that scotch bottle. Dennis picked it up from the floor beside him and passed it over.

  “You really never did?” Dennis asked. “You always told me you never did, but seriously. You never did?”

  “That night at your party,” Kyle admitted. Repeated pressing got the remote to work and blessedly, the television set went blank.

  “Wait a minute. You fucked her, at my Christmas party?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You just said—”

  “We almost did.” He couldn’t believe he was admitting this, but he was tired, and drunk, and it felt good to tell it, finally, even to Dennis. “We were up in your dad’s bedroom, and we were drunk, and—you know—”

  “No, I don’t know,” Dennis said. He was laughing, delighted. “You did it in my father’s bedroom? How did I miss this?”

  “We didn’t do it,” he clarified, for the second time. “It was late, I was leaving. Who knows where you were. You were passed out somewhere. And she was up there, hanging out, and—” He paused, feeling the buzz from the alcohol, and tried to tell the story without getting the sequence wrong, or confusing the words. Dennis was just watching, finally, and finally serious. “Van and I were in a bad place. It just felt like we had, like the whole thing was a mistake, and I was trying to keep everything steady but then Alison showed up, and I wasn’t—and then it was, honestly we didn’t even have a chance to even talk to each other. And it was terrible, we hadn’t seen each other since we broke up, in Seattle, I, you know, we couldn’t, I know that’s why she, and I was so fucked up but I didn’t blame her.” He was frustrated that he was rambling, and not making his points. If he had been locked in a confessional and blathering on to some somnolent priest, it would never have passed muster. But Dennis, for all his drunken narcissism, Dennis might actually understand what it was he was trying to admit to, if he could simply find the words and admit to it.

  �
��I was in some crazy space back then, I know it was ridiculous, I wouldn’t have sex with her. And I knew, Christ, it’s not like I didn’t, man, all those years. To want something that entirely and not be able to, but all the shit they shoved into our heads? And that’s no excuse. Seriously, I’m not making excuses. She wanted to. And I was the one. I was a fucking moron.” He reached for the scotch bottle. What did it matter how drunk he was, now? “It was a power play. I was just, I wanted to win. I knew it was driving her crazy. And I’m not, listen—I don’t think it was a game for her. I don’t think that. I think she was just, we were, when we were together in it? Nothing else, you know. I’m such an asshole.” It felt great to admit it. Every shred of his stupidity laid open to the air. “I was a fucking child. And then she was gone. And it was like I woke up, one day, and I had a wife who really didn’t like me, and there was Alison, at your house, at a really stupid Christmas party. Wearing those boots. And then we didn’t have a half second to even talk, because Van was so paranoid. Which, why wouldn’t she be? But there was so much that Alison and I, we hadn’t finished, we weren’t anywhere near finished with anything, between us, and then she disappeared, it was like she vanished. I thought she had gone home. It was the end of the night, everyone else was either passed out or had taken off, and I was just, I thought maybe—her coat was still there, on the steps, so I thought she might still be there.” Having relived the memory so many times in the past three years, this part of the mystery was exquisitely present. “And then there she was, in your father’s bedroom. And we, honestly I can’t remember what we said. It didn’t matter. Maybe it’s just that we were tired of punishing each other. That’s what I thought. I was just done with all the shit in my head. She was there and I didn’t care about anything else. And then she, you know, I don’t know, she . . .” As much of a relief as it was, he couldn’t, finally, describe the moment. Dennis was hanging on his every word, and Kyle couldn’t tell it. “Anyway,” he shrugged. “We almost did it.” He took a breath.