Table for Seven: A Novel

by Whitney Gaskell

  “You’d better answer it,” Fran said.

  It was the unspoken parent code. Children could be ignored when they were safely at home, badgering you to buy them something or for more TV time. But calls from children when they were away were always taken.

  “Hey, Iris,” Will said. There was a slight pause, and then a ragged intake of breath. Will tensed. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

  “Can you come get me?” Iris asked.

  “Of course. I’ll come right now. Where are you?” he asked.

  She was crying now, and Will could barely understand what she was saying. “I’m at the police station.”

  AS SHE AND WILL drove to the police station, Fran felt numb.

  “What did she say?” she asked again.

  “I’ve already told you everything,” Will said.

  “Tell me again.”

  “She said she was at the police station and asked if we’d pick her up. I said yes. Then she hung up.”

  He sounded too calm, Fran thought, but then wondered if he was feeling numb, too.

  “But why is she at the police station?”

  “I don’t know. Trust me, I’d tell you if I did,” Will said.

  They lapsed into silence. Fran began to chew on a fingernail, a bad habit she’d had since childhood. Normally when she did this, Will would reach over and gently pull her hand down, reminding her to stop. But now he let her gnaw away, not saying a word.

  When they got to the police station—the outside of which was painted in bright Caribbean pinks, blues, and greens, as though these colors would disguise the sobering business conducted within—Will pulled in to a spot in the mostly empty lot. He sat for a moment, perfectly still, while Fran fumbled with her handbag.

  “Are you leaving me?” Will asked suddenly.

  Fran’s stomach made a nauseated lurch. “I don’t think this is the best time to talk about it,” she said.

  “No, I need to know now. Are you leaving me?” Will’s hands were still on the steering wheel, and the car was idling.

  “I think …,” Fran started, then stopped, sucking in a deep breath to summon her strength. Her mouth felt very dry, and her throat was so tight, the words barely squeezed out.

  “I think we should consider separating.”

  Will sat silently, his hands not moving from the wheel. Fran glanced over at him, wondering what he was thinking. But Will seemed frozen, not even blinking.

  Finally, not able to take the silence for one moment longer, Fran said, “Are you okay?”

  Will finally turned toward her. His eyes were glittering with unshed tears. Will, who she’d never seen cry before, not even when his mother had died. For the first time, Fran felt the weight of what she’d done. And it was unbearable. She loved Will, even if she wasn’t in love with him anymore. She didn’t want to hurt him. And yet, she didn’t see any way that she could avoid it.

  “This isn’t any kind of a life,” Fran whispered. “We never make love. We never even kiss. It’s like we’re roommates. Good friends, comfortable with each other, but that’s not a marriage.”

  “I guess that’s the difference between us. When I tally up everything we have going for us—our life together, the girls, our house, everything—I think that outweighs all of the bad,” Will said.

  “Can you honestly say you’re still in love with me?” Fran asked.

  “Yes,” Will said instantly. Then, after a painful beat, he said, “But I take it you don’t love me.”

  “Of course I love you,” Fran said. “I’ll always love you. But this, what we have together”—Fran made a circular gesture with one hand—“it’s not enough for me. Not nearly enough. We’ve talked about it before, but nothing ever changes.”

  Will absorbed this blow, flinching as though her words were physically painful.

  “Is there someone else?” he asked.

  Fran thought of Coop, of the way she could barely breathe when he was close by. She had no idea if he felt the same way—in fact, she seriously doubted whether any feelings he might have for her were as strong as hers for him—but in an odd way, Coop didn’t really matter. He wasn’t the issue. It was the promise of Coop, or of someone else. Someone that Fran could love completely and without reservation. Someone who, when he touched her, would make her want to fall into his arms, all languid eyes and jellied limbs.

  “No,” she said. “There’s no one else.”

  “Are you moving out?” Will asked.

  Fran suddenly felt overwhelmed by the magnitude of this conversation. In all the times she’d pictured them discussing the dissolution of their marriage, she’d never thought it would take place in a car. Parked in front of the police station. With Iris waiting inside for them.

  “I don’t know. I mean … we don’t have to make a decision about that right away,” Fran said. “I was thinking we should wait until after the holidays. I don’t want to spoil Christmas for the girls.”

  Will stared into space. “So, what? We’re supposed to pretend everything’s fine until then?”

  “We have a lot of experience with pretending everything’s fine, don’t we?” Fran said, her lips twisting in a bitter smile.

  “No, actually. I really thought we were happy,” Will said quietly.

  The smile vanished from Fran’s face. There was nothing, not one single thing, humorous about this situation.

  “I’ll sleep on the couch for now,” she offered. “And we’ll take some time to figure out how everything else is going to work.”

  “No, I’ll sleep on the couch,” Will said.

  “I don’t mind.”

  “Yes, you do. Your back will start to bother you,” Will said. He hesitated. “What are we telling people?”

  “Nothing, yet,” Fran said. “I don’t want the girls to hear it from someone else first.”

  Will nodded. “I suppose we should cancel the dinner party.”

  “What? Why?” Fran asked.

  He finally turned to stare at her. “You want to go ahead with it?”

  Yes, Fran thought. Yes, I want to go through with it.

  She’d only seen Coop the one time since he’d gotten back in town. Part of her—the sensible part, she assumed—had hoped that his absence from her life these past few months would make it easier to get over the fantasies she’d been having about him. But if anything, it had been just the opposite.

  “I think we should. It will be fun,” Fran said.

  Will looked incredulous. “Fun?” he repeated.

  “It could be,” Fran said, feeling defensive.

  “You don’t think we might be just a little distracted by whatever is going on with Iris?” Will gestured to the police station. “Not to mention the fact that our marriage is apparently falling apart?”

  “I’ve already invited everyone over.”

  “So uninvite them.”

  “No,” Fran said. She shook her head. “Then we’ll have to say why, and the entire thing will be a huge drama, and I don’t want to do that.”

  Will sighed. His face—usually so youthful—suddenly looked years older. “Fine, I don’t want to fight about it. Do what you want, as usual. Let’s go in and get Iris,” he said.

  Will and Fran walked into the police station together, both of them silent. The building was new and everything was clean and shiny in an industrial way. At the front desk—the reception area, Fran thought, before realizing that this was ridiculous, it was a police station, not a hotel—a uniformed officer took their names and told them to take a seat in the empty waiting area. The room was decorated with maroon chairs made out of the sort of indestructible plastic that would probably survive a nuclear holocaust, and fake ficus trees in basket planters. Posters on the wall warned against DUIs and listed the warning signs of drug addiction.

  “It’s so quiet,” Fran said.

  “I guess six o’clock isn’t the rush hour for criminals,” Will said.

  They lapsed into silence again. After they’d been waiti
ng for about ten minutes, another officer—also in uniform—came out to the waiting room.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Parrish?” she asked.

  Fran’s heart gave a sickening lurch, as she and Will stood. It reminded her suddenly of the time when she was pregnant with Rory, and the ultrasound tech had become concerned that the baby might have a heart defect. She’d been referred to a fetal medical specialist for a type II ultrasound. And even though everything had turned out fine, and Rory was born healthy with a beautiful, strong heartbeat, the wait to find out what the specialist was going to say had been excruciating. She and Will had sat in a waiting room not unlike the one they were in now, clutching hands, united in their terror.

  “Come right this way,” the officer said, after introducing herself as Selena Rodriguez.

  She led them to a room with a long table flanked by more indestructible plastic chairs and a long mirrored window along one wall.

  “Oh, my God,” Fran said, recognizing the setup from the police detective shows she watched. “Is this an interrogation room?”

  Officer Rodriguez smiled. She was short and plump, with kind eyes and pretty long, dark hair. “It’s just a convenient place for us to talk,” she said.

  Fran nodded. She and Will sat down on one side of the table, their backs to what Fran assumed was a one-way mirror, and Officer Rodriguez sat across from them, placing a folder on the table in front of her.

  “What has Iris done?” Fran asked.

  Will elbowed her gently. “What has she been accused of doing?” he corrected her.

  Fran flushed. Of course she shouldn’t talk as though her daughter’s guilt was a foregone conclusion. She’d seen practically every episode of Law & Order.

  “Iris was pulled over on US-1 for speeding,” Officer Rodriguez said.

  “Wait, what?” Fran asked. “Iris was driving?”

  The policewoman nodded. “The officer asked to see her license, but she said she didn’t have one.”

  “That’s because she’s thirteen,” Fran said.

  “She finally admitted that, which is why she was brought down to the station.”

  Fran’s mouth gaped in a horrified O. She glanced at Will. He seemed composed, but she could tell by how pale he’d turned that he was equally stricken.

  “Whose car was she driving?” Fran asked.

  “It belongs to a boy named Alexander Hitchens,” the officer said.

  Xander, Fran thought furiously. Iris’s so-called boyfriend, who I still haven’t met.

  “What happens now?” Will asked.

  “Iris broke several laws. She was underage, operating a car without a valid license, speeding. The underage charge alone is a second-degree misdemeanor, which can carry a five-hundred-dollar fine and up to a sixty-day jail sentence.”

  Fran gasped, as a vision of Iris dressed in an orange coverall with the jail cell doors sliding shut behind her swam up in her thoughts. “What?”

  “But that’s very unlikely. It’s more likely that you’ll be able to work out a plea agreement with the state attorney. Iris will probably end up having to do some community service hours.”

  Fran rubbed a hand over her face. She wished Will would put his arm around her, but he sat as still as a statue.

  “I’ll go get Iris,” Officer Rodriguez said, standing. “She’s pretty shaken up.”

  “She better be,” Fran said, crossing her arms over her chest, as though that would keep her fury from erupting.

  “Thank you,” Will said.

  Once they were alone, Will looked at Fran. “You need to calm down,” he said.

  “We are in a police station. Picking up our daughter. Because she was driving some older boy’s car. Even though she doesn’t have a driver’s license,” Fran said, biting the words out.

  “I know where we are.”

  “She could have been killed. She could have killed someone else.”

  “I know,” Will said again. “But I still don’t think you should lose your temper.”

  “If there has ever been a time and a place to lose my temper, this is it,” Fran said.

  “We have to take Iris home and deal with her there. In private,” Will said.

  “I already know how we’re going to deal with it. She’s grounded forever. No cellphone, no Facebook, no sleepovers, no contact with friends,” Fran raged. “And she’s going to pay back every last cent of the fine.”

  “No contact with friends? How are you going to manage that? She’ll see her friends at school,” Will said.

  “No more school, then,” Fran said.

  Will’s eyebrows went up. “So, what, you’re going to homeschool her?”

  “If that’s what it takes,” Fran said.

  “I see. And what about your job?”

  Fran opened her mouth, about to say that she’d quit if she had to, if that’s what it took to keep their daughter on the straight and narrow, when suddenly she remembered—she was about to become a single mother. She’d said she wanted a trial separation, but she and Will both knew what that really meant. Divorce. She stared at her husband. He looked back at her, sad resignation stamped on his face.

  The door opened and Iris walked in, shoulders slumped and arms wrapped around herself, with Officer Rodriguez right behind her. Iris’s cheeks were red and splotchy, and her thick black eyeliner was smudged. She looked younger than her thirteen years and even more vulnerable. When she saw her parents, her face crumpled.

  “I’m so, so sorry,” Iris wailed.

  Will and Fran both stood, the legs of their chairs scraping against the industrial tile. Fran’s anger drained away. Will was right—there would be a time for Iris to face the consequences, which would be swift and tough. But for right now, Fran was just thankful that her daughter was safe. She opened her arms, and Iris stepped into her embrace, and sobbed unrestrainedly on her mother’s shoulder. A moment later, Fran could feel Will’s arms going around them both.

  “You both must hate me,” Iris said, her words thick with tears.

  “Shh,” Fran said, stroking Iris’s hair. “It’s going to be okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  AUDREY SAT AT HER desk, going over the monthly payroll. Her mind kept wandering, though. It touched on Coop, skated over to Kenny—who had unsurprisingly begun to make noise about wanting to take their relationship to a new, physical level, which was something she didn’t think she could go through with—and finally landed on Fran, which caused her anger to simmer up again, black and foreboding.

  How dare she, Audrey thought for the thousandth time since the night of the Wexlers’ dinner party. How dare Fran tell her she’d been deluded about the state of her marriage. Yes, Ryan had a problem with alcohol. But Audrey was sure they would have worked through it. Unlike Fran, she would never have given up on her husband.

  It was all just an attempt to deflect Fran’s own marital deficiencies, Audrey decided. Fran was looking for any excuse to justify ditching a perfectly good marriage, just because boredom had set in. How selfish can you be? she thought scornfully. Fran was going to upset everyone around her, especially her daughters, all because she didn’t still get weak in the knees when Will walked in the room.

  “Grow up,” Audrey muttered out loud.

  “Excuse me?” Lisa asked.

  Audrey looked up, startled. She hadn’t noticed Lisa passing by her office. And now the young woman was looking surprised and a little hurt.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean you,” Audrey said. “I was talking to myself.”

  “That’s not a good sign.” Lisa grinned. She had clear ivory skin, spattered with freckles, shiny dark hair, and bright green-blue eyes. The fact that she didn’t live a particularly healthy lifestyle—she ate junk, never exercised, and freely admitted that she fell asleep with her makeup on more often than not—didn’t matter. Her glowing appearance was good marketing for the spa. “Why do you need to grow up? You’re the most grown up person I know.”

  Audrey flapped a hand at her. “Not
me. I was thinking about someone I know.”

  “Who? That hot guy who had the pedicure to impress you?” Lisa asked.

  Audrey blinked, taken aback. “What?”

  “You know. James Bond.”

  “James Bond?”

  “Yes. The guy who looks like the actor who plays James Bond,” Lisa said.

  “Are you talking about Sean Connery?” Audrey asked, bewildered.

  “Is that his name?”

  “That’s the name of the actor. He’s Scottish, I think. In his seventies, I would guess,” Audrey said.

  It was Lisa’s turn to blink in confusion. “Huh? I’m talking about the guy who plays James Bond in the movies.”

  It suddenly occurred to Audrey that Lisa was young enough—and, yes, it had to be admitted, dim enough—not to realize that the James Bond movie franchise was forty years old.

  “Okay, which actor are you talking about? I have no idea who plays James Bond these days,” Audrey said.

  “His name is Craig something. No, wait—it’s Daniel Craig.”

  “I know who you’re talking about. You think Coop looks like Daniel Craig?” Audrey asked, oddly buoyed by the idea. She could see the resemblance. Not in their features necessarily—Coop’s features weren’t as chiseled, and his eyes didn’t droop at the corners, but now that she thought about it, they did have the same sort of roughly hewn sex appeal.

  I slept with someone who looks like James Bond. Audrey was pleased at the thought. Okay, not the real James Bond. But the actor who plays him.

  Then Audrey remembered. She wasn’t seeing Coop anymore. She was dating Kenny. Short Kenny with the protruding ears. Kenny, whose touch made her shrink away.

  Lisa nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, totally,” she said. “He was hot in, like, a raw way. Do you know what I mean?”

  Do I know what you mean? Audrey thought. Yes. I know exactly what you mean. She tried to banish the stomach quiver that thoughts of Coop always set off.

  “I really need to finish the payroll,” Audrey said.

  “Okay,” Lisa said good-naturedly and strode out of the office, a bounce in her step. Audrey could picture her, ten years from now, with a brawny, big-shouldered husband and four cheerful children, all of them excellent soccer players and solid C students.