Carpool Confidential

by Jessica Benson

  I am not a patient person.

  If we’d had any kind of conversation involving mea culpas, chest-beating, or impassioned declarations on how certain people’s lives had turned out to be not worth living without gazing daily upon the face(s) of certain other people, I had totally missed it. And it’s true that I did walk the dog quite a lot, but I was pretty sure that if such an event had been going to take place, I’d have at the very least known about it, maybe even have been asked to buy snacks for it.

  Despite my endless mantra of patience, there were many moments when I debated forcing a confrontation—where’s the money, where have you been, what are you doing here—but decided to give it a little time and see either if anything was going to come clear on its own or if Rick was going to initiate. At any other time of my life, even the idea of living this way would have been way too frustrating to think about, but considering the last several months, it wasn’t that hard. It felt a lot like a combination of him pretending he’d never left and me sort of pretending he’d never come back. It both saddened and amazed me how good at pretending I seemed to have become.

  On December 28, Rick asked if we were going to any New Year’s Eve parties. Back when the invitations had come, I hadn’t even been able to conceive of spending the night among dressed-up, happy, drunk people. When I said no, we were going to have a quiet family evening, I saw something—disappointment, fear, I wasn’t sure—flash across his face. I made a dinner that took all day to cook. Then Harmonye left for a party, and Rick and I acquiesced to the begging and let the boys stay up for the fireworks. At 11:30 we bundled up, took a bottle of champagne (and some sparkling apple juice), and went up to the roof terrace to watch the fireworks.

  The boys were transfixed and exhausted. I was…sad. I looked at Rick in the glow of a particularly spectacular arc of light and felt a tug. I remembered thinking that James Spence was better looking but that I could see inside Rick because I knew him so well. Tonight, I looked at him and knew that I couldn’t see the illumination inside anymore. The light was reflecting off the window. That scared me more than anything that had come yet.

  That night, bolstered by champagne and the usual misguided stuff about new years, new beginnings, I tried.

  We got the boys to sleep, which was difficult, because tired as they were, they were completely over the top with excitement. Rick went to bed and I went to finish cleaning the kitchen. When I was done, I walked down the hall, pulling my sweater off over my head, and almost jumped out of my skin when I stepped into the bedroom, my head coming out of the sweater, and I saw Rick standing there. It was weird. So far we’d been like polite roommates. I was pretty sure this was the first time we’d both been together in the bedroom with each of us admitting we were awake. There had definitely been a little fakery involved on my part and, I suspected, an equal amount on his. I took a deep breath. “Do you want to be here, Rick?”

  I saw it again, that flicker of something, fear, in his eyes. “I’m here.”

  “Yes,” I persisted, “but do you want to be?”

  He ran his fingers through his hair. “Are you asking me if I’m head over heels in love with you?”

  “I guess so.”

  He crossed his arms, walked over to the window, and stared out. The FDR Drive was bumper to bumper with people trying to get home. I should have felt like I’d already arrived there, but I didn’t. “I love you, Cassie”—he turned and faced me, arms still crossed—“but I’m not in love with you.”

  I waited for the pain. It hit. Not with the searing intensity it might have, I guess, but it did come. “Oh.”

  He continued. “We’re together, the boys have a family again. Why can’t that be enough? Do we have to push further?”

  I looked at him. I suspected we did. But I wasn’t ready to push him out the door just yet. I felt a stab of longing for the sense of security I used to find in him. Everything was churning around in me—fury, sadness, fear, melancholy over what used to be, hope for the future, too much champagne, too rich a dinner. “Should we start over?” Could we?

  He’d walked into his closet and was looking sadly at his mostly-emptied-on-eBay shoe racks.

  I took a step further. “I know you were fired, Rick. I know something has happened. Why don’t you tell me the truth and we can make a fresh start. Sell the apartment, sell Nantucket. We can make a killing on both of them compared to what we paid and move out to—Connecticut, maybe, send the kids to public school, which there is like private school anyway. That alone would cut our cost of living drastically. You can take some time. I can write. We could have a yard, which Cad would love, get into gardening. Maybe even”—I was afraid to look at him— “have that third baby we used to talk about.”

  I wasn’t sure why I was trying. Something in me couldn’t accept letting it end without one last sincere effort on my part. I wanted to be able to look in my children’s eyes and know I’d done everything I could. Judging by the speed with which he took a step back at the baby idea, you’d have thought I’d just mentioned I’d had a bath in radioactive spew. Doing everything I could was not going to be enough.

  “I wasn’t fired.”

  I looked at him. “You weren’t?”

  He shook his head. “No. I quit. What makes you think I was fired?”

  Someone was lying here, and I wasn’t sure who. “I just thought you…when I tried to claim the expenses from Bowers & Flaum, they said you’d been terminated.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “A guy named Patrick in the CFO’s office.”

  He shrugged. “Never heard of him. He must have made a mistake.”

  “Why are you here, Rick?” I didn’t expect to hear a real answer but knew I needed to ask again.

  He reached for my hand. He felt familiar yet new. It was our first real physical contact since he’d been home. He took a step toward me, jerkily. Despite everything, I could feel a tug toward him. Physically we’d always been well matched. And there was so much, so many years between us, that the memory of them was sweeping away all of Randy’s and Jen’s advice, all my common sense. He put his arms around me. He smelled good and familiar and like home and my past. I leaned into him. “Here?” I asked. “In your closet?”

  “Why not?” He smiled down at me. “It’s not like there are a lot of clothes taking up the space these days.”

  That rare flash of humor went through me. I reached down to undo his belt.

  “God, I love the way you do that.”

  What had he emphasized there? Was he implying someone else had done that? Whatever. The moment was gone. I dropped my hands and stepped back. “Sorry.”

  He put his hands up in the air to show he wasn’t going to try to grab me. “All right.”

  I didn’t know whether to be more relieved or disappointed. As I went into the bathroom to take a shower, I heard him whistling in the bedroom. “I Write the Songs.”

  36

  Somewhere in the Night

  We coexisted until the kids went back to school. After the closet night, I was pretty much biding my time. Rick announced that they would be resuming rehearsals, now at Performance Space 6. I lived much as I had when he’d been gone.

  On the second day after they’d gone back, Humphrey showed up, arriving at ten on the dot, bearing a bag of bagels and two deli coffees. I could not have been more wrong with my Columbo guess. First of all, he was more like somewhere between twenty-five and thirty than the close to fifty I’d envisioned. Second of all, he was a god. He looked like he should have been jogging down a beach somewhere in California with a surfboard under his arm, not sitting at my kitchen table with an old-fashioned notepad.

  “Here.” I gave him all my stuff and a photo of Rick and tried not to stare. We sat down at the dining room table, where I told him the whole story, including the firing that wasn’t and the weirdness with the house on Nantucket. Then he started asking me questions.

  M.A. wandered through, late for school. “Wow.” She s
topped with her mouth hanging open. I didn’t blame her. If I’d strolled out, unsuspectingly, and found Humphrey sitting in the dining room, I’d have done the same. She popped her mouth closed. “Are those bagels?!”

  Nice cover. “Yes,” I said. “Imagine that.”

  “Oh, wow!” she said. “I thought so.”

  I tried not to laugh. “Would you like one?”

  “Sure.” She picked one up and said, oh so casually, “Hi, I’m M.A.”

  “Who’s late to school,” I said firmly, hoping to make a point of her major under-aged-ness.

  She looked mutinous but dragged herself out.

  He smiled at me. “Don’t worry about her. I like older women.” And then went back to asking me questions while I thought did he mean me? Surely he can’t have meant me? Letitia called right after the one about Rick’s shoe size (eleven).

  “So. What do you think?”

  “Hot.”

  “Excuse me?” Humphrey looked up.

  “The coffee,” I pointed at the tepid cardboard cup.

  He went back to scribbling in his book.

  “We’re not serious,” Letitia said. “It’s more a friends with benefits arrangement, but still, don’t get any ideas.”

  I closed my eyes. “There are some things I just don’t need to know.” Like, for example, that Letitia even knew what a FWB was. Plus, he clearly had not meant me. Oh well, I’d survived more crushing blows than that in recent memory.

  “A woman can’t live completely by the Rabbit, Cassie. Can I talk to him?”

  “Sure.” I handed the phone over.

  “Hi, Letty,” he said, his voice going all squishy. “Sure. OK. Right. Oh, absolutely. Dinner first? Sounds great.” He hung up and smiled at me. “So who’s Jordan Hallock?”

  I stared at him. “Our interior designer. Why?”

  “Any reason she would be in your house on Nantucket?”

  “No. Why?”

  “My Cali case took me to Boston. While I was there, Letty mentioned the whole saga of the Nantucket house, so I took a swing out there.” He put a photograph on the table. “She answered your door. I hung around and took this later.”

  It was definitely Jordan. “How did you know who it was?”

  He gave me a look. “It’s my job. Wanna call your husband and ask him?”

  I nodded, not sure I could speak.

  “If he asks how you know, say the Realtor found out.”

  I nodded. Rick had a brand-new cell that I hadn’t entered on speed dial yet, so I had to find the number. It took three tries before I got it punched in right. I wasn’t really expecting him to answer, but he did. I could hear someone warbling “Can’t Smile Without You” in the background. It occurred to me that the Time Out piece might have been optimistic. “Rick.”

  “Hi, Cassie.” I could hear him speaking to someone. “No, that’s the second scene.” Then back to me, “What’s up?”

  “Rick, is Jordan Hallock in our house on Nantucket?”

  Silence. “Don’t be ridiculous. Why would you think that?”

  I floundered for a second. “Janice, the Realtor, told me.”

  “Damn.” He sounded pissed. “It was going to be a surprise, Cass, and now it’s ruined.”

  “What is?” I was feeling really stupid here. I didn’t know what to think or believe.

  “I’m having the house redecorated. It’s gotten kind of grungy.”

  I opened my mouth to say I loved the house and didn’t want to change a thing and how could we afford it and— Humphrey was drawing his index finger across his throat, shaking his head. “OK,” I said to Rick.

  “You’re going to love it.” He hung up.

  Humphrey looked sad. “Gimme a week.”

  After he left, I took solace in writing my blog.

  It was actually a relief when Rick called a little later and said he had to head out to Dallas to look at a replacement for the current set designer and would be gone for a few days. He left me the number of the hotel there and said to call if I needed him. I called Humphrey and told him where Rick was going.

  Everything felt unsettled.

  The task of dealing with M.A. was looming over me. But she steadfastly refused to do anything or talk about anything. Not only that, I was seriously beginning to worry that she was actually losing weight, which did not seem like it could be a good thing. It was making me want to rip my hair out by the roots. And where was Katya? I called her cell first thing every morning and last thing every night and never got an answer. Even for her this was a prolonged period of serious irresponsibility. I added worrying that something had happened to her to my list of things to obsess over.

  Jared and Noah, after their initial elation at Rick’s return, seemed to be sensing that things weren’t right. Jared was clingy and needy, crying every night at bedtime, and Noah was belligerent. I was dreading telling them he was gone again.

  Two days after Rick left I got a call from the headmaster’s office at Meetinghouse—Noah was there. When I called back, his secretary didn’t want to say too much on the phone. Could I come in immediately? This, as any parent will know, was not a request. It also made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, because neither of my children had ever been in any kind of trouble at school. Ever.

  Noah, it turned out, had punched Liam, one of his best friends, in the face. He steadfastly refused to answer any questions. I could almost see the shrink bills tripling before my eyes. He was sent home with me for the rest of the day. “How come Daddy didn’t come get me?” he demanded as I was walking him home. “He doesn’t have a job anymore, does he?”

  Good freaking question. “He’s in Dallas, remember?” I explained.

  “Can I talk to him?”

  I hesitated, then thought, Why the fuck not? I tried Rick’s cell, no answer, so I pulled out the hotel number he had left and dialed it. “Room 512. I’ll put you right through.” Said the cheerful voice at the Four Seasons Dallas at Las Calinas, but that rang into voice mail too.

  “It was better back when he was really gone,” Noah said as we walked into the apartment. At least then we could pretend he cared about us.” Then, displaying his new trick, picked up from M.A., he slammed his bedroom door so hard that something crashed in the kitchen.

  The next day it was M.A.’s turn to be sent home for swearing at her art teacher. While I was sitting in the kitchen, mentally preparing for the showdown that needed to come—this was it— Randy called.

  “What are you on?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “You know, Paxil, Welbutrin?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Xanax?”

  “Sadly, no.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  “Pretty much,” I said. “I’d probably be feeling better if I was. Why?”

  “You do know we’re practically the only ones, right? It occurred to me the other day that the only way anyone could possibly deal with this stay-at-home mom committee stuff is to medicate themselves into oblivion, except I can’t right now. So I started casually asking around to find out what people are taking, and they’re all on something. Even Sue. Apparently she can’t even stand herself. I think I have to go back to work.”

  “I’d ask around the office, too,” I suggested. “I’m guessing the percentage is pretty similar.”

  After we hung up, I paced around, waiting for M.A., who was talking a hell of a long time to make her way home and not answering her cell, getting more and more riled up. Until, finally, my conversation with Randy fresh in my mind, I went into the bathroom, dug Rick’s untouched, post-9/11, now-expired Ativan out of the medicine cabinet, and washed one down. If everyone else was doing it, why not?

  Ten minutes later, with M.A. still not home and her cell still going cheerfully to voice mail, I washed another down. It must have been because they were so old combined with my stress level, but they were doing nothing. Together the two of them had taken only the most microscopic edge off the anxiety
, so fifteen minutes later, I took a third.

  Which did not slow my reflexes when the phone finally rang. “M.A.?”

  “Cassie?”

  I almost dropped the phone. It was Katya.

  “What’s going on?” The connection was awful. “I just spent six weeks trekking and then another six in the ashram, and now it’s like all the serenity work I’ve done is wasted. I’m a nervous wreck. What the hell is going on? I had to hear from Mom that you have my daughter.”

  “Check your phone,” I said. “It’s no longer taking messages, I’ve left so many.”

  “Oh, I lost that. Have to get a new one, using a borrowed one now. I can’t believe you let Harmonye leave school. I’m so stressed.”

  “Gee, sorry,” I said. “I’d have thrown her out on the street if I’d known taking her in would increase your stress level.”

  “It’s not about stress, it’s about Enlightenment.”

  I laughed. “Who needs Buddhism when you can have Ativan?” I said, distracted by the thought that I might just dig out some of my old Grateful Dead discs. I hadn’t heard “Box of Rain” in a long time. “Why don’t you get on a plane and ask her yourself if you’re so concerned.”

  “Oh, I will. I’ll be there—” Her phone cut out, so I had no idea whether she was in the midst of saying as soon as I humanly can or when pigs fly.

  I called Randy. “You’re right. We should all be on something.” And when M.A. did finally walk through the door, who knew how many hours later (good thing there was quite a while before I had to pick the boys up), I wasn’t even aggravated by the angry, surly expression on her face. “Hi, honey.” I got up and hugged her. “I have good news. Your mom is coming, um, sometime.”

  Instead of greeting this with pleasure, M.A. burst into hysterical tears. “When? Oh, God. Shit.”

  “It’s okay, sweetie.” I rubbed her arm. “It really is. I know your mom has her weak spots, but she really does love you.” (I hoped like hell I was telling the truth there.) “And she’s not judgmental and—”