Such a Fun Age

by Kiley Reid

  Alix set Catherine back down in the Bumbo, retrieved a Whole Foods bag from a bottom drawer, and opened up her refrigerator. She filled the grocery bag with two bottles of water, a frozen tortellini dinner, a can of soup, a can of chili, a pack of Briar’s animal cookies, and a bottle of red wine.

  Emira came into the kitchen. “Wait, Mrs. Chamberlain, what is this?”

  “This is yours.” Alix pushed it into her arms. “I’m sure you have food at home, but this is better than anything you will find at a grocery store right now.”

  “Whoa . . .” Emira adjusted the bag in her arms. “This is really, really nice.”

  “Just do me a favor”—Alix beamed—“and come very hungry on Thursday. And Emira, I mean it. You’re not coming to babysit. You’ll be here as family. Okay?”

  Emira pouted a little in a way that made her look quite young. She pulled up the back of her leggings and said, “Okay.”

  Twelve

  On Thanksgiving Day, at 4:06 p.m., Emira stepped out of a yellow cab in beige faux-suede boots. Kelley held the back of her arm as she spotted previously made footprints in the snow on the way up to the Chamberlain front gate. It was the first time all day the snow had stopped falling, and above their heads, it balanced an inch high on naked trees, wires, and window ledges. Emira stopped with one hand on the gate latch, and the other around a bouquet of purple and yellow daisies. Through the cold, she could see her own breath.

  “Hey. Do we need a code word or something?” she said.

  Kelley stuck his hands into his pockets and matched her low tone. “A code word for what?”

  “If you’re like . . .” Emira blushed. “If you’re not having a good time and you want to leave.”

  “Ohhh, okay. How about . . . ‘I don’t want to be here anymore.’”

  Emira shoved his chest and opened the gate. “Boy, stop.”

  “We’ll be fine. I’m happy to be here,” he said. “I am expecting excellent wine, though.”

  “I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.”

  At the top of the landing, Emira went to take out her key, but today was different. She could already hear women’s voices inside, along with multiple children who could speak in full sentences. Kelley stood next to her—so holiday handsome—in dark jeans, a red sweater, and a black coat that went down to his knees. They’d spent the last twenty-four hours together at his apartment having lots of sex, watching bad movies, and ordering in, and Emira felt more like an adult than she could have ever imagined. She looked up at him and whispered, “I feel weird using my key.”

  “Okay . . .” He placed his finger on the doorbell. “Wanna use this?”

  Emira said, “Yes,” and Kelley pressed the button. Together they waited and Emira held her breath.

  “Hey.” Kelley touched her waist as the doorbell chime sang. “What’s your boss’s name again?”

  “Mrs. Chamberlain.”

  “Do I have to call her that? What’s her first name, just in case?”

  “Umm . . . it’s like”—Emira adjusted her thick black braid on her shoulder—“Ellix?”

  “Ellen?”

  “No.” Emira put her head to his shoulder. “It’s Alex but it’s weird. It’s like, uh-leeks?”

  “Emira.” He grinned. “How do you not know this?”

  “I do, it’s just not what I call her. Just call her Mrs. Chamberlain. Shh!”

  They readjusted and waited in silence.

  In the painful pause, Kelley, once again, leaned toward Emira. “Is she European or something?”

  “I don’t know, maybe?”

  “What do you mean maybe?”

  “Jesus, Kelley. I don’t know, she’s white.”

  Kelley laughed into the top of his coat. “Okay, miss. Let me kiss you before they come.”

  Emira leaned into him, and she felt his lashes close on her face. They backed away as Mrs. Chamberlain opened the door.

  “Emira, you made it!” Mrs. Chamberlain’s blond hair was curled at the ends, and it flew with the gust of the door. Fumes of candlelight, pumpkin pie, and brandy came with her.

  Emira said, “Hi, Mrs. Chamberlain, thanks so much for—” But then Mrs. Chamberlain said, “Ohmygod,” with both panic and recognition, as if she’d almost walked into a very clean glass door.

  Emira watched Mrs. Chamberlain’s face go into the same warfare that her daughter’s did when schedule did not go according to plan, or when Emira tried to read to her at night. With her hand on the door, Mrs. Chamberlain seemed to brace herself as if she were preparing to be hit, or as if she already had been and barely made it out alive.

  Kelley seemingly woke up, blinked twice, and said, “Alex?”

  PART THREE

  Thirteen

  Alix checked herself in the mirror (she wore a deliciously chunky oatmeal-colored sweater over tight jeans and brown boots). She walked downstairs with Catherine in her carrier (she whispered to Tamra, “I think she’s here”), and then, as she swung the door open, she stepped back and tapped herself fifteen years into the past. In front of her stood both a grown man and a high school junior, and this person that embodied them both was saying, “Alex?” as if he knew her.

  There, next to her babysitter, stood Kelley Copeland, William Massey High School, class of 2001. Alex Murphy’s first everythings (blowjobs, sex, I love you, heartbreak), and a million insecurities in between. On top of his unbelievable presence on Alix’s front stoop, the way he’d said her name had momentarily paralyzed her. Alex. It sounded whiny and pedestrian, and it felt like she’d discovered a vegetable deep in a refrigerator drawer, forgotten so long that the mold it gained had also started to gain mold. Her heart buzzed as she thought, No, it’s not possible, but the more they stood before her, she thought, Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

  Emira laughed once and said, “Wait, what?” as she looked from Alix to Kelley.

  Catherine started to squirm in the cold and Alix said, “Umm, come in, come in . . . it’s freezing.”

  Emira and Kelley stepped into the vestibule, and Alix closed the door behind them thinking, Kelley Copeland is in my house. Past the vestibule door, Alix saw all the people she loved most surrounded by the campy Thanksgiving decorations she’d piled high in her trunk just days before, all glittering beneath a dumb fucking turkey piñata. It was all much akin to the over-the-top décor her parents would have paid for someone to assemble on 100 Bordeaux Lane, and for a moment Alix actually thought, How fast can I throw all this garbage away? It wasn’t supposed to look like this. It was supposed to be a joke.

  “Is this the wonderful Emira?” Jodi’s beige poncho flowed past her elbows as she came forward. “We’re so happy to meet you. I’m Jodi.”

  “Don’t be scared.” Rachel hugged Emira next. “We just feel like we know you already. Hi, boyfriend. I’m Rachel.”

  “Kelley. Nice to meet you.”

  Fuck fuck fuck.

  Tamra came down the stairs appearing, as she typically did, presidential and important. She opened both of her arms to Emira as if she were a ringmaster at the top of the show, and said, “Emira? Bring it in, sister.” She embraced Emira as Alix tried unsuccessfully to lock eyes with Jodi. “Happy Thanksgiving, girlfriend. Let’s get you a drink.”

  The three women seized Emira and took her to the bar, where the bartender asked if she’d like red or white. Just outside the front vestibule where she’d read so many of his text messages, Alix stood with Catherine and Kelley. Catherine kicked her legs and chewed a sock she’d pulled off her foot. For the first time ever, Alix wished she hadn’t strapped her daughter to her chest.

  “You look . . .” Alix had no idea what to say or where to put her hands. “Very much the same.”

  Because he so heartbreakingly did. His tallness was still shocking and his hands seemed almost freakishly huge. This was Emira’s boyfriend. This was Ken
an&Kel. This was the guy Emira met on the train who’d told her that he was excited to see her tonight.

  “Thank you.” Kelley looked up at the chandelier above the table that stretched twelve places long, and the red and brown turkey piñata that swiveled slightly in the blasts of heat that came up from the floors. He was seemingly assessing the rest of his evening when he said, “I see nothing has changed for you either.”

  “Excuse me?”

  But before he could answer, Peter was walking over and sticking his hand out to Kelley like it was a football on the first day of the season. He smiled and said, “Peter Chamberlain,” the way he did on TV.

  Walter joined Peter to alight on the only other male presence in the house aside from baby Payne, who was fast asleep. Rachel, Jodi, and Tamra were interrogating Emira with drinks in their hands, and nodding furiously at all of her answers. Alix removed Catherine from her chest and placed her in a playpen beneath a soft arch of hanging moons and stars. She paced halfway up the stairs, locked eyes with Jodi, and mouthed over the banister, “Come here.”

  Upstairs the kitchen was still. The counters were stocked with yams, mashed potatoes, bread rolls, and asparagus waiting on top of burners and under sweating foil lids. Next to the girls’ bedroom, Alix stepped over a case of red wine on the floor and opened the door to the tiny laundry room, which was more of a substantial closet by New York standards. When she heard Jodi’s footprints change from carpet to wood, she reached for her friend and pulled her inside.

  “Jesus, honey, what are you doing?”

  Alix said, “Shh!” and pulled the string above their heads. A single light bulb clicked on in the small square space. Alix realized she was about to say Kelley’s name out loud, and her heartbeat double-timed. “Listen to me,” she said. “Downstairs?” Alix put her hands on Jodi’s shoulders. “That’s Kelley Copeland.”

  “Okay . . .” Jodi smiled. “I don’t know who that is.”

  “Emira’s boyfriend? That’s the guy from high school who took my virginity and broke up with me and told everyone where I lived and ruined my fucking life.”

  Beneath the shelves of guest towels, diapers, laundry detergent, and emergency batteries, Jodi’s green eyes went big. “You are joking.”

  “Jodi, I don’t even . . .” Alix backed up against the washer and dryer, which were stacked on top of each other. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “You just found out?”

  “Just now.”

  “How long have they been dating?”

  “I don’t know, a couple months.”

  “Months?!”

  Alix said, “Shh!” and heard Rachel’s voice say, “Hello?”

  Alix opened the door and pulled Rachel inside.

  “Are you two being bad?” Rachel held a glass of wine that Alix thought might be her second of the evening, the evening that hadn’t yet begun.

  Jodi grabbed Rachel’s arm. “Alix knows Emira’s boyfriend.”

  “From where? I thought you just met him. He’s cute.”

  Alix fanned herself as Jodi went on and explained. When Rachel fully understood, she said, “Your ex-boyfriend is dating your sitter?” Jodi palmed Rachel’s mouth and Alix said, “Shh!”

  “Okay, okay, but wait . . .” Rachel removed Jodi’s hand. “That’s the fucktard you told us about?”

  Alix nodded and placed her hand on her stomach. “I feel like I can’t breathe,” she said. “Ohmygod he’s here and I’m still so fat.”

  Both women hissed, “No, you’re not!”

  Jodi tapped Rachel’s elbow and said, “Go get Tamra.” To Alix, Jodi said, “Okay, put your head between your knees.”

  Alix wanted to pace around, but she’d quarantined herself and her friend in this closet and everywhere she looked were light bulbs and Swiffer refills and canvas bins overflowing with tangled extension cords. The reality of how completely different this run-in was from the last fifteen years of Kelley Copeland fantasies came down on Alix and crushed her lungs. She was still eight pounds heavier than she’d been before Catherine. The current state of her home wasn’t the modern, minimalist environment she’d worked so hard to achieve. And there were babies everywhere, not just the sleeping cute kind but Briar with her questions and Prudence with her naughtiness and Tamra’s kids with their obedience that was somehow very pretentious. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Throughout marriage, motherhood, and monumental career changes, Alix had always found herself forming ideal scenarios of how she would see a grown-up Kelley Copeland, or rather, how he’d see her. There were the cliché pipe dreams (seeing him after a particularly good blowout, running into him while wearing heels at the airport), but there were elaborate premises that took Alix entire showers and subway rides to fully flesh out the logistics of.

  In one of these more elaborate illusions, Kelley was on vacation in New York with a short, brunette, picture-taking, Longchamp-toting girlfriend. After a frustrating morning of getting turned around on the train, they’d end up at the farmer’s market in Union Square, and enter Alix: tiny Briar strapped to her front, both with messy and darling hair. She’d see them before they saw her, and she’d lift her sunglasses up onto her head (“Kelley? Ohmygosh, hi!”). And then Kelley’s girlfriend would promptly fall in love with Alix as she gave them excellent directions and recommendations for cheap cocktails on rooftops in the city. Alix would wave (“Good luck! Have a great trip!”), and she’d be the one to walk away first. She’d be wearing something classic, like a white tee and red lips.

  Alix had even dreamed Kelley into her future. She hadn’t exactly finished her first book but maybe she’d write another, and this time, it’d be a book for young girls. A forty-six-year-old (hopefully pudgy or balding) Kelley would stand behind his daughter in line at the Barnes & Noble on 86th Street (they’d drive all the way from Allentown and stay in a hotel by the train in Astoria). Alix would open her book and sign the title page for the inspired tween. She’d look up at Kelley, smile, and say, “Did you know that I knew your dad?”

  But here he was, nowhere near chunky or bald, explicitly reminding her of the night that ruined her high school career. And not only was he here, Kelley Copeland was dating Emira? Her Emira? The fact that he knew Emira at all seemed unbelievable. Could he tell when she was mad? Was he allowed to touch her hair? What did Zara think of all of this, did she approve? And then Alix touched her forehead, coming to what she knew was an adolescent realization, but nevertheless she thought, Ohmygod. Kelley and Emira have sex. Simultaneously. With each other.

  With two-and-a-half-year-old Cleo in her arms, Tamra opened the laundry room door. Rachel came in behind her and the room seemed to meet its capacity. Tamra whispered, “What the . . .” as Cleo pointed upward and said, “Light, Memmy. Hot, hot.”

  Tamra said, “That’s right. Don’t touch.”

  Jodi rubbed Alix’s back in slow, circular clips. “Okay, Tam? Here’s the situation.”

  When Tamra was caught up, she nodded and said, “Okay. Alix? Hey.” Alix stood up, her face flushed and her head throbbing. “It was high school, a very long time ago. This is going to be okay.”

  “I know it was a long time ago!” Alix wasn’t anywhere near ready to be okay about Kelley Copeland. She placed her hands over Cleo’s ears and said, “Would you be calm if your ex was currently fucking Shelby?”

  Tamra reflected on this and said, “Okay, I get it.”

  Cleo covered both of her eyes and asked the room, “Where’s Cleo?”

  “How did this happen?” Alix said to no one.

  “Babe, you are so red right now,” Rachel said. “You gotta cool it.”

  Jodi’s maternal instincts couldn’t ignore Cleo. She tickled her side and said, “We see you, lovey.” A child started crying downstairs and Jodi looked to Tamra. “Is that my kid or yours? I feel like it’s mine.”

  “Okay, this looks ba
d. We gotta get outta here,” Tamra said. “Listen. Just be cool. Pretend that you went to high school with him, and that is it.” Tamra would have kept going, but her face turned. She looked at Cleo and said, “Did you just poop?” She lifted the child to smell her behind and then reported back, “No, we’re good.”

  This gesture devastated Alix and she couldn’t help but think, Oh my God, my friends are such MOMS. Alix found it remarkable how she could be both in love and embarrassed at so many things at once. There was the age and status of her friends (Rachel, divorced twice at thirty-five. Jodi, the mommiest mom ever, also thirty-five. And Tamra, though impressive in every other way, was quickly pushing forty). And then there were other numbers that suddenly seemed mortifying. The height of Alix’s husband (the same as her, 5’10”), her own post-baby body (141 pounds), and most of all, the fact she’d lain in bed the night before and been so pleased as she counted in her head how many African American guests would be present at her Thanksgiving table. This number had totaled to five.

  Rachel shook her head. “I wanna kill him.”

  Jodi said, “I think there was a This American Life where this happened.”

  Tamra nodded. “I know which one you’re talking about.”

  Jodi asked, “Are you going to tell Peter?”

  Peter wouldn’t know what to do with this information in the context of the evening. Alix needed him to be his charming self and keep Kelley occupied with gracious hospitality. She said, “Not tonight.”

  Rachel waited a second before asking, “Are you going to tell Emira?”

  This sent Alix back inside herself. She looked to Tamra and said, “Tam, what do you think?”

  “You’re not telling anyone anything tonight, okay?” Tamra decided this for Alix and for the rest of the group. “She and Kelley are probably having the same conversation we’re having right now anyway. But listen, I’ll take care of Emira. Peter and Walter are already taking care of Kelley. You went to high school with him and that’s it. What a coincidence. How funny. That’s all.”