“I don’t know.”
“Lying. So you don’t play at all?”
“Even if I wanted to, and I don’t, I don’t know where to find a piano. I was good but I wasn’t good enough, and then I got mad about it, and then I got mad at myself for being mad. Couldn’t get out of my own way.” She paused. “Have you ever really wanted anything?”
“Aside from right now?”
“I’m serious.”
She kept making him think about his life. “Not off the top of my head. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”
“I don’t either,” she said. “But for me, the piano, you know all these guys who think they’re gonna play pro basketball, but they’re three inches too short or whatever, they’re not good enough no matter how hard they work? There’s just not enough spots for everyone. It was the first time in my life I realized I was gonna die, if that makes sense, that some things will or won’t happen and it doesn’t matter what you want. Know what I mean?”
That fast the memory broke through:
Pops kicking open the door to the bathroom, Mom on the floor, moaning, vomit trickling out of her, Brian trying to run inside until Dad backhanded him, hard enough to send him sprawling, This is grown-up shit, little snoop, go wait in the kitchen—
No. He didn’t think about that day, any of those days. That boy was gone.
“Brian? I say something wrong?” He shook his head, shoved the memory away. Thought instead of the piano he’d seen delivering pizzas to that nursing home north of town, the Jefferson Home, a black baby grand. He wondered…
Persuading the place to let her play was easy. Of course, exaggerating her credentials didn’t hurt. Graduated from Julliard, you’re lucky to be getting her… Reaching into the bottom of his duffel for two hundred bucks to have the piano tuned was the clincher.
Why was he going to so much trouble? He didn’t know. They hadn’t had sex yet, but it seemed obvious they were headed that way. But he wanted to impress her. More, to surprise her.
And he did. Her tension as he drove them out of town annoyed him—did she really not trust him?—but he forgave her when he saw how she almost ran to the piano. And she brought it to life. He’d always thought classical music was boring. Not that day. He could see her, them, in a house with giant windows overlooking the ocean, her fingers lighting up a concert grand as he and their kids—for some reason, he imagined four of them, two boys and two girls—sat watching.
Man, I am falling for this chick.
Later he would wonder whether he’d fallen for her at all or the fantasy she represented, no linoleum floors, matching Porsches in the garage. But at the time, he found her intensity captivating.
Then, craziness. The oldster lurching off his chair, dead on the floor. Brian tried chest compressions, though he knew they were useless. Nothing was bringing this guy back. His heart was pancaked like a house in an earthquake.
Afterward, Brian felt his old EMT attitude kicking in, Screw ’em if they can’t take a joke, and death is the ultimate joke. He knew he was saying all the wrong things, but he couldn’t stop himself. By the time they left the manager’s office Rebecca could hardly look at him.
Luckily, she decided to forgive him.
And they were off.
Within a couple of months they were spending most nights together. What could only be called a tidal wave of sex washed them away. It wasn’t just that Rebecca was close to insatiable. Something about the way she lost herself made it possible for him not merely to perform but to experience her.
Without really thinking, much less consciously planning, they decided to get married. And quickly.
Even now, Brian didn’t know if he’d been cynical or hopeful. Yeah, Rebecca had the money, the education, the prospects. He was marrying up. But he wanted to pull his weight too. And if her plans were more definite than his, so be it. Until now he’d let life carry him along more or less at random. Letting her choose his future for him was just another roll of the dice. He liked Becks. Cared about her. She was interesting. The FBI thing was cool. He couldn’t exactly see her kicking down doors, but she was fierce. If she thought she could handle it, he wasn’t gonna argue.
Did he love her? He didn’t know what that word meant. He tried not to look too deeply inside himself, but when he did, he saw something missing—stolen—from him too many years ago to count. Becks was no dummy. She believed in him enough to marry him. That fact alone made him feel better about himself, made him think maybe he wasn’t as broken as he thought. If she trusted him, who was he to argue?
So they went for it. And like a week later, Becks was preggers.
Which was honestly not what he was expecting. He should have, right? The way they went at it. But all those one-night stands, he’d never knocked anyone up. Sure, he’d been careful, but not that careful. He’d had a few accidents along the way. Maybe some part of him thought he couldn’t.
Wrong.
When she called him into the bathroom, Brian, you have to see this, showed him the stick, he couldn’t help himself, his first thought, Oh shit. But he looked at her, her eyes wide, overjoyed, her hand shaking a little with the excitement, and he knew that he couldn’t even possibly suggest…
So he didn’t.
* * *
They moved to Philly, found a row house east of Center City. Philly was rough, even downtown. Brian didn’t mind. Fact was he liked the idea of protecting Becks and the baby. The man of the house. He’d been in a couple of fights over the years, held his own. He handled the house, the cooking. Becks studied for the bar exam and worked. Her belly got big. She wasn’t one of those women who loved being pregnant or thought it was super sexy. Sometime during the second trimester their sex life went practically to zero, which came as a shock. Every morning Brian felt the pressure squeezing him a little more, five months, four months… He looked in the mirror and asked himself, You ready for this? To be a father? The answer that always came back was, I don’t know.
Which he couldn’t say to Becks. Because he could already see she always knew. Or if she didn’t she didn’t tell anyone, not even him. Maybe not even herself. He followed her lead, acted all practical. They went shopping for clothes, got the apartment ready. He didn’t think she had any idea about his doubts. Becks was smart, but she wasn’t super-intuitive. He saw why she liked law school, cases to memorize, rules to follow. Why she liked the FBI. Pick a side, white hat or black.
Even into the third trimester the firm didn’t give her much of a break. Sometimes Brian thought they were working her harder, like they were pissed she’d tricked them into hiring her when she was pregnant. He worked freelance, building websites. Finding jobs was tough. He could code a decent-looking site, but he didn’t like having to sell himself to some guy who owned a pizza place. He tried to psych himself up, tell him it was like walking into a bar and walking out with a girl. Only it wasn’t.
Becks said, What about a law firm, a bank? He wasn’t ready to go corporate. Besides, he came through with a couple of jobs a month, so it wasn’t like he wasn’t helping. And he figured once the baby came, her parents would help out. They’d want to, right? A new grandkid, the two of them just starting out?
But no. Her parents came for a week after Rebecca had the baby and then disappeared. Bought them a changing table and a car seat, sure. But didn’t even leave fifty bucks to cover the takeout they ordered. Rebecca’s dad giving him the fisheye the whole time. Brian had gotten along good with her mom from the get-go. Dad, not so much. He was always dropping not-so-subtle hints that Brian wasn’t good enough for his darling Rebecca, asking when Brian planned to get a job full-time. Like he’d ever done an honest day’s work in his life. Fucking poet.
Anyway, it didn’t matter because they had Kira now. And to his everlasting surprise Brian loved that little girl from her first minute on the planet. Of course, taking care of her was as exhausting as everyone had told them. But he knew she needed him—that she couldn’t survive without him. He�
��d never felt so necessary before, and for the first time in his life the thought of being needed came as a blessing, not a burden. Plus, the reality, he was more natural with her than Becks was. Funny, considering she was the one who’d wanted the baby.
Becks loved Kira, sure. She cuddled, breast-fed, changed diapers. She did all the right things, and she did them with her usual skill and efficiency. But Brian could tell she was itching to go back to the office. Not because she wanted to move up at the firm. She hadn’t changed her plan to apply to the FBI. No, she just thought being a stay-at-home mom was a waste of her time. Even if she never quite said so.
Not Brian. He liked nothing more than to make Kira giggle, whisper foolishness in her ears, rock her to sleep while he made up nonsense rhymes. Even before Rebecca’s leave officially ended, he was taking care of her most days, while Rebecca snuck back to the office to pick up memos to read at home.
Plus, yeah, they needed her salary. They both knew it. Even in his best month coding, he hadn’t made half as much as she did.
“You work, I’ll take care of Kira.”
And the die was cast.
* * *
A nondenominational minister named Jane had officiated their wedding, one of those atheist northeastern ministers. Brian had never known they existed before he met Becks. I don’t believe in God, but I want to run a church. Like, I hate food, but I’m gonna be a chef. Say what? But they were a real thing.
Anyway, Jane gave a little speech just before their vows. Marriage can be a seesaw, one side rising as the other falls, she said. An endless tug-of-war, both of you fighting for control. Or it can be a partnership, a place where your happiness is his and his yours. A sacred space, a shaded grove. Live in the grove of happiness.
Jane wasn’t married, though. And, no surprise, Brian realized pretty quick she didn’t have a clue. Their marriage wasn’t a grove or a seesaw or a tug-of-war. It was… a bus ride, maybe? With Rebecca driving and Bri eight rows back. They didn’t fight, but from the first they built their lives around her and her job. She made the money. She had the health insurance.
Brian didn’t mind. Not at first, anyway. Rebecca took to being an agent. And Brian felt he got to live the job without having to put on a suit. She told him all about it, not just the cool parts but the bureaucracy too, the forms they filled out in triplicate, their old-school computer systems. Long after everyone else switched to email, the FBI still used faxes as a regular means of communication.
He liked Birmingham too. Practically no traffic, low cost of living, and cute UAB coeds for scenery. Even after Kira started going to preschool, he had Tony. Goofball Tony. The kid walked into walls and insisted on taking two baths a day for exactly seven minutes each. He wasn’t autistic. He made eye contact, he loved to be hugged. He was just weird. So be it. Brian was glad to hang out with him.
But sometime during their second year in Alabama, he realized he was turning into a housewife. And in Birmingham, men weren’t supposed to be housewives. At the park where Brian took Tony to play, the moms gave him a wide berth. They never asked him to join their playdates. He found out why after a few weeks, when the cutest of them all—small and luscious, the opposite of his wife—sat down next to him on the bench that had somehow become his and his only.
Okay, he was turned on, he’d admit it. Their sex life had come back some now that the kids were a little older, sleeping through the night. But he could tell it would never be the same as it had been in those first few months. Becks was tired all the time. Besides, the old joke was true, just ’cause he liked Mexican food didn’t mean he wanted tacos every meal for the rest of his life. This little piece of honey-dipped cornbread next to him…
“Nice to meet you.” He put out a hand and she hesitated but then her Alabama manners took over. She had a boy who was maybe three, but she couldn’t have been more than twenty-four. She wore a little gold cross between her perfect D cups. “I’m Brian.”
“I’m Kaylee?” Women down here turned everything they said into a question. Even their names.
“Hi Kaylee.”
“That your boy? Tony?” She nodded at Tony, who was sitting backward on a fire engine, cupping his hands around an invisible steering wheel instead of the real one in the front. Why? Who knew? Tony gotta Tony.
The question surprised Brian. Kaylee must have seen him bring Tony to the park dozens of times. “Of course.”
“Like, yours?”
Finally the penny dropped. “You’d have to ask his mother, but I think so, yeah.”
“You’re not, you know”—she hesitated, finally came out with the word—“queer?”
Brian tried not to feel humiliated. So what if she thought he was gay? “Do I look queer, Kaylee?”
“Lil bit, not too much. But you can’t always tell.”
“Could you give me a percentage?”
She shook her head in a way that suggested the concept of percentages was foreign. “But are you?”
“Straight as a jaybird.”
“Oh.”
He didn’t quite understand the disappointment in her voice.
“Was gonna ask if you wanted to bring your boy over to play with Karlin? They play good together.”
Indeed, Karlin was giggling with psychopathic glee as he swung a pail at Tony’s head.
“You still can.”
“My husband said only if you’re a queer. Otherwise no guys in the house.”
Brian felt his temper rise. “He sounds confident in your relationship.”
“Okay, sure.” She stood, walked off, her heart-shaped ass taunting him with every step.
* * *
That night in bed he started to tell Rebecca the story. Then stopped. He had a sinking feeling the joke was on him. Anyway, Rebecca was crankier than usual.
“My mom’s bugging me about coming up. They haven’t seen the kids in like six months.”
“They can come down.”
“They came down last time, and the time before that.”
“Drag the kids up there?” In truth, as both he and Becks knew, the real problem was that round-trip tickets from Birmingham to Boston ran five hundred bucks. Even if they drove to Atlanta they’d spend about three hundred each, and both kids needed seats now. Twelve, thirteen hundred bucks to see her crappy parents. And he knew better than to ask them to pay.
“You need to get a job, Bri.”
He flashed to Kaylee’s red lips. That your boy? A man who didn’t have a job in Birmingham wasn’t a man. Tony would be in pre-K next year, and then Brian would have no excuse at all.
Rebecca pulled a folded piece of paper from the bedside table, handed it over. A posting for a part-time job in the information technology department at the university. She was his guidance counselor now? Looking for work for him? But…
How could he argue? “Think they’ll hire me?”
“Why not?”
That fast, he knew she’d already greased the skids. Talked to somebody. Easy enough for her. Down here they loved the bureau.
For the first time in their lives together, he hated her a little. But he took the job.
Truth was, he liked it better than he expected. The questions had obvious answers most of the time—I can’t send email, my computer is frozen, my dissertation is gone. When they weren’t, Brian had a knack for figuring out where problems lay, mostly in the intersection of hardware and software that different admins had added over the years.
What people who didn’t work in information technology didn’t understand was that although the theoretical core of modern computing was incredibly complex, the way the devices themselves fit together—or didn’t—was simpler. Mechanics didn’t need to understand the laws of thermodynamics to handle a grease gun. And Brian didn’t need to know how to write code that could pass the Turing test to figure out why the English department’s email system had gone down.
He kept that fact to himself. Most people thought computers were impossibly complicated and anyone who
could handle them as a genius. Even Becks seemed to respect him more after he took the job, though she was so focused on this big case she was working that he couldn’t really tell.
Becks and her case. Becks and the FBI. The bureau ate their lives day by day, night by night. Becks didn’t have to stay up until 1 a.m. three nights a week reading backgrounders on the targets of her investigations. No one did. These were government jobs. Wasn’t like she was putting in for overtime, either. When Brian asked why, she told him: ask for an extra buck, your FBI career was over. You were headed for a back-office job in human resources. The bureau had always considered working for it a privilege. Getting rich was not in the job description.
Fine. No overtime. But she didn’t have to work seventy hours a week either. One week, he counted up the hours she worked at home: four Monday, three and a half Tuesday…
When he told her what he’d done, she wasn’t happy. They were hanging out on the couch at the time. Brian was watching ESPN on mute, Sunday Night Baseball. She was poring over a manual on entrapment in undercover investigations, what was legal and what wasn’t, how far you could go in stringing along the target.
She put down the manual, gave him the stare. The one she gave to anyone who cut her off in traffic. To the preschool teacher who told them Kira had pulled another girl’s hair on the playground and then admitted that the other girl had yelled at Kira first. Her black eyes as flat as sunset in January with the snow already falling and a long night ahead.
Brian didn’t know if she’d stared at him that way before she’d joined the FBI. Maybe she had, and he just hadn’t noticed. Or maybe the bureau had brought out this righteous aggressiveness, or aggressive righteousness, whatever.
“Counting hours? I work twice as hard as every guy in the office. They know I’m married, they know I have kids; they’re just looking for an excuse to put me on the mommy track.”
“I thought you liked the SAC—”
“Yeah, but everybody else. I promise you. It won’t be like this forever.” She reached for him, stroked his face. “Come here, you. I’ll let you make it up to me for giving me a hard time.”
The Power Couple Page 21
