“Same difference.”
“You have my okay.”
Melina was in the kitchen whipping cream to go with the raspberry pie when Mary Ann’s husband came in the back door. He returned her hi, and said, “How’s the party going?” but Melina could tell he didn’t care.
“It’s going great,” she said.
He opened the fridge, pulled out a bottle of beer, said, “I’ll hide out upstairs,” and took off. Real personable guy. No wonder Mary Ann didn’t include him in her social life and wanted to hang out instead with the likes of the tall distinguished-looking man and the hipster hottie guy Melina had seen earlier.
Josh came next, dragging a sports bag across the floor. He stopped when he saw Melina. “What are you doing here?”
“Helping your mom. How’d your game go?”
“We won by fourteen.”
“Did you get much playing time?”
Josh sat down on a kitchen stool. “About twenty minutes.”
“Good for you. You still going out tonight?”
He looked wary. “Why?”
“Your mom gave me the car keys and some instructions for you.”
“Instructions? Shit. She won’t stop harassing me about taking the car.”
Melina ejected the cream-covered beaters from the stand mixer, held one out to him. “You want?”
He took it and licked the cream off and she did the same to hers. She had just figured out that there was something porny about them doing this together when Josh said, “So where are the keys?”
“Aren’t you going to shower first?”
He pointed to his wet hair. “Duh. I showered at the gym.”
So he had. And either the shower or the exercise or both had flushed his face, brought blood close to the surface of his skin, made him look vulnerable. And kind of sweet. “Okay, then.” She picked up the keys from the counter, handed them over, pulled a piece of paper out of her jeans pocket. “I’m supposed to remind you that everyone has to wear their seatbelts.”
“Yeah, yeah, and no drinking, and be home by two. I know.”
“Where are you going, anyway?”
Josh dropped the licked beater into the sink. “To a movie.”
Look at him: almost seventeen and awkward and about to go out with some younger girl who would probably act as thoughtless and immature as Melina had at that age.
“Be good, now,” she said. “Don’t be an idiot like I used to be.”
His cheeks stained redder still and he smiled, and Melina noticed his good teeth, noticed the absence of the braces he’d worn as long as she could remember. When had they come off? Must have been a few years ago, now. But she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him smile.
“I don’t know why everyone’s so convinced I’m going to do something stupid,” Josh said. “I’m pretty boring.”
“Don’t call it boring, call it sensible. I wish I’d been more sensible a couple of years ago. I wish I’d gone to the movies with someone like you instead of doing some of the stupid shit that I did.”
He fumbled with the keys, opened the door to go. “Tell Mom I’ll do everything she says.” He winked. “Maybe.”
He wasn’t a bad kid, that Josh. And nothing like his dad.
Alice came down from upstairs and found Mary Ann in the kitchen pouring coffee into a carafe. “I’m in shock,” she said. “Lavinia fell asleep in Kayla’s room.”
“Why don’t you let her stay over?”
“She’s never slept away from me in her whole life.”
“This can be the first time.”
“What if she wakes up in the middle of the night?”
“I’ll try to soothe her, and if I can’t, I’ll call you.”
The idea of a night alone was vastly appealing, provided Alice could get over the feeling of guilt associated with it. “Are you sure?”
“Positive. Is Melina coming down?”
“Soon, she said. She’s playing a video game with Griffin.”
“Then while we’re alone, I have to say that I couldn’t believe how Hallie monopolized Drew during dinner, and how you cozied up to Tom.”
“I was talking to him about the station.”
“So it wasn’t you who changed the place cards?”
“Someone changed them?”
“I didn’t think you’d done it. Hallie must have switched them when she wanted to sit beside Drew. Good thing there’s still dessert ahead, in case I want to make a move.”
“I won’t talk to any males for the rest of the evening, I promise.”
“You know who I ended up spending some time with, though?”
“The one who brought the baby vegetables?”
“Yeah. Danielle. I like her.”
“Does that mean you won’t make a play for her husband?”
“I think I’ll stick with Hallie’s instead. And anyway, I’ve seen Danielle’s husband. He’s round and bald.”
“Oh god. That reminds me.”
“What? Let’s take this coffee in.”
Alice followed Mary Ann into the dining room. “You’ll never guess who I ran into the other day.”
Mary Ann set down the coffee, sang out, “Here’s coffee. Anyone for tea?”
“Me, please,” Alice said, and they returned to the kitchen, found Melina at the sink, rinsing dishes.
“Jake Stewart,” Alice said.
Mary Ann plugged in the kettle. “I haven’t seen him in years. How’d he look?”
“That’s what made me think of him, when you were talking about baldness. He’s extremely so. Hairline up to here.” Alice indicated a spot on the top of her head.
“And the rest of him?”
“He’s noticeably lined in the face. You know how some fair complexions go?”
“Like mine?”
“No, like his.”
“You don’t make him sound very attractive.”
“On the contrary, I prefer him with no hair to fling around.” Alice made eye contact with Melina. “Melina, this must sound awful to you, the way we’re talking.”
Melina closed the tap. “Sorry. What did you say? I couldn’t hear over the sound of the water.”
Alice said it was okay, never mind.
“Where’d you run into him?” Mary Ann said.
“At the supermarket. He was in Oakdale to visit his parents, but he lives in Brooklyn. We might go for lunch sometime.”
“Is he single?”
“I didn’t ask him, Mary Ann.”
“Maybe I’ll come along if you meet him for lunch. I’m curious to see how he’s changed.”
“Sure,” Alice said, even as her subconscious mind startled her by saying not on your life, and, just in case, throwing up foot-thick walls around her thoughts about Jake.
9
June 1987
Alice sat on a wooden bench in Mary Ann’s backyard, picked at the label on an empty beer bottle, and checked her watch for the tenth time since she’d arrived. It was only eleven o’clock, and she’d promised she’d stay at Mary Ann’s grad party — “the last party of our high school lives!” Mary Ann had billed it, “the last chance to see everybody before you go to England!” — till midnight, at least. Make that till midnight at the latest.
Mary Ann had invited various athletic teams, most of the marching band, her student council buddies, and anyone else she’d run into during the last week of school, so the large crowd making too much noise around Alice was a strange mix of cool kids and misfits. When two of her nerdy pals from the history club drifted over, she chatted with them, asked about their summer plans and where they were going for college, and falsely promised to keep in touch.
She peeled the beer label off in one piece, crumpled it in her hand, and stood up on the bench, looking for Mary Ann. There she was, across the yard, with Davey and some tall guys who must be basketball players. Alice would go over there, say her goodbyes, slip out the side gate, and head home.
She navigated her way through several gro
upings of people engaged in raucous conversation, and successfully avoided contact of the spilling or burning variety with the various drinks and spliffs that were waved around. She was halfway to Mary Ann when Jake Stewart loomed up in front of her and declaimed her name: “Alice Maeda!”
He stood very close to her and grinned drunkenly. He smelled of beer and smoke and aftershave and a primal maleness that the arty, intellectually inclined guys Alice usually gravitated toward did not tend to emanate. His good bone structure — he had a strong, straight nose, wide-set eyes, and a firm jaw — framed by his long hair, gone wavy in the summer heat, made him look roguishly handsome. If you liked that sort of thing.
“Hi,” she shouted back. “And bye. I’m leaving.” She tried to move past him but he didn’t give way.
“Don’t go yet,” he said. He didn’t sound too drunk. “I want to talk to you. I’ve been looking for you.”
“Some other time, maybe.”
“No, now. Please? Come.” He reached for her hand and she let him take it — out of curiosity — and lead her through the press of people. What he could possibly want to say to her? She had known him since kindergarten, but they rarely spoke.
He led her in the back door of the house, through the crowded kitchen and dark dining room, to the empty living room. When they’d sat down on a sofa, side by side, she said, “So here we are. What’s up?”
The sofa sagged slightly in the middle, and they were seated so close together on it that her thigh, under a thin cotton skirt, touched his shorts-clad one. But the novelty of the situation — that she was practically sitting in the lap of a species of male (genus golden boy) with which she was unfamiliar — intrigued her. So she did not inch away. She stayed put, curious to see what would happen next.
He turned toward her, reached over and tucked her hair behind her ear with his finger, traced the hoop of her earring. “Oh, Alice.” He’d dropped his voice into a lower register. “Where have you been all my life?”
Alice laughed out loud. And said, “That was so cheesy it was funny.”
He didn’t smile.
“You meant it to be funny, right?”
“Yeah, of course. But hear me out.” His right arm had somehow come to rest along the sofa back behind her, the soft hairs on his forearm tickled the nape of Alice’s neck, and his hand cupped her shoulder. He was such a smooth operator, he seemed to invite her ridicule. Yet she found herself staring at his mouth, and wondering what he could do with it, wondering if he could tie a cherry stem in a knot with
his tongue.
He said, “Do you realize that this is the last day of this stage of our lives, the last night before everything changes?”
He must have been talking to Mary Ann. Or he was the kind of guy who liked to express deep thoughts when he’d had a few.
“Nothing will ever be the same after this. We’re all going to scatter, and go out in the world in search of adventure, and new horizons, and whatever the fuck else we find. But what if what we’re looking for turns out to have been right here, under our noses, the whole time?”
Such bullshit he was spouting, and familiar-sounding bullshit, too — Alice had heard some of the same phrases in the valedictorian’s speech at the graduation ceremony. Or maybe in the principal’s remarks. “So what are you saying?” she said. “That we should seize the day?”
“Yes! You get it! That’s totally what we should do.”
“Like, seize the day and make out?”
He hesitated for a second, smiled, and said, “Exactly! Exactly.” And he leaned toward her, his head tilted to one side, his eyes half-closed.
She was still amused, but she was turned on, too — yes, she was. His nearness, his rogue look, the attention he was paying her, his corny seduction techniques — her body responded to them all. The crotch of her underwear was wet, and her breathing had turned shallow.
She opened her mouth, loosened her tongue, and felt Jake’s cheek against hers. When he pressed his lips against the tender skin below her earlobe, she gave in, let out a rapturous sigh, reached for his thick, rapidly hardening dick, and copped a feel through his shorts.
He moaned quietly in her ear, and said, “Let’s get out of here, go over to my place. My parents are away, I’ve got the house to myself.”
Hold on. That was a bad idea. A terrible idea. No matter how much she wanted to, she should not now go sleep with Jake Stewart. She did not want to become the latest notch on his belt, the last holdout at Five Oaks to succumb to his charms, the tawdry topic of conversation the next day among his friends.
From the back of the house, a male voice called, “Jake! Where are you, man?” And another voice, closer, yelled, “Yo, Jake!”
Jake muttered “fuck,” removed his arm from the sofa back, and slid along the seat cushions just far enough away from her that when his buddies walked in a few seconds later they might not realize he’d been playing her like a goddamned violin, heavy on the vibrato. A casual observer might think they’d just been sitting and talking in the dark room, maybe reminiscing about their emotional elementary school music teacher, Ms. DaSilva, who had taught the fourth graders to sing “Both Sides Now,” and wept when they performed it.
Two guys stopped in the doorway of the living room, their hulking bodies silhouetted in the light that spilled out from the kitchen behind them. “Jake, you coming?” one of them said.
“Give me five minutes.”
The posse went outside, and Jake said, “I have to go out for a bit, but why don’t you meet me at my house later?” He’d slid back close to her and his hands were on her again — one stroked the back of her neck, and the other rubbed her bare knee. It was an impressive display of ambidexterity, but the spell was broken. She’d remembered who she was, and how she didn’t belong there, and where she was going.
“Thanks, but I don’t think so.” She smiled — no hard feelings. And no hard dick for her to play with either, unfortunately.
Jake stood up, and ran his fingers through his hair. “I’ll leave the side door unlocked. If you want a night you’ll never forget, come by.”
She said, “You know what kills me? That your cheesy lines actually work most of the time. They do, don’t they?”
He was at the door, on his way out. He pointed at her. “You know where I live? At 5 Forest Lane. I’ll ditch the boys and meet you there in an hour. Hour and a half, tops.”
“Goodnight Jake,” she’d said. “Have a good life.” And she’d gone home to lie in her bed, and toss and turn, and think for far too long about what might have been.
10
September 25th, 2010
When Danielle came home from the dinner club at ten-thirty, the kids were asleep. The kitchen was as clean as she’d left it after lunch, and the dishwasher wasn’t full, wouldn’t need to be run until the next day.
Benny was in bed, watching TV. “How was it?”
“I had fun. There was lively conversation and good food and I didn’t lift a finger.”
“I’m glad someone had a decent meal tonight. My stomach’s upset after eating those greasy hamburgers.”
“Did the kids like them?”
“Yeah.”
There were so many caustic replies Danielle could have made to this, but the evening had put her in a mellow mood. So she said, “A couple of people were curious about the farm, including Mary Ann’s mother. She wants to come out and see it.”
“Could this lead to some new business for either of us?”
Danielle had the impression Sarah was just interested because she was interested, but who knew? “Maybe.”
“In that case, I don’t mind so much missing out on a home-cooked meal.”
Sam was at his desk, on his computer, when Hallie walked in. “You’re home early,” he said.
She took off her jacket. “What a mistake that was. A group of more out-of-touch suburban moms you can’t imagine. I bailed as soon as I could.”
“How was the food?”
&
nbsp; “There wasn’t even a green salad. I had to eat one of the tasteless salad rolls that I brought because everything else was so high calorie or carby.”
Sam was pretty sure he would have liked at least something on the menu. “Why did you go, again?”
“Every so often I get curious about what other women do for kicks. But no more dinner club for me.” She walked into the kitchen, shook some ice cubes into a glass, ran the water. “Oh, by the way, I met a computer guy at the party, and I asked him to come out to the house some Saturday and check out our PCs, see if he can fix your printer.”
“Okay. Are you going up to bed? I’ll join you.” He closed his document. It was time to shut down. He’d been struggling with an awkward transition passage in his novel for over an hour, since the girls had gone to sleep.
“I think I may work out,” she said. “Run a few miles on the treadmill. Don’t wait up.”
Kate was in bed reading when Tom came home, at midnight. “So?”
“My crostini were enjoyed by all.”
“And?”
“Most of the food was unremarkable, with the exception of a rustic Chinese noodle dish and some fragrant baby vegetables.”
Kate took off her reading glasses. “Don’t torture me with food talk. What were the people like? Who did you talk to?”
“I spoke briefly with Alice Maeda about the station restoration, and made small talk with some neighbourhood women who seemed to approve of the Main Street development.”
“And nothing exciting happened?”
Tom sat down on a chair and untied his shoes. “Hallie was in fine form.”
“Doing what?”
“She sequestered Drew in a corner to talk computers and appeared to be pressing her bony knee against his thigh.”
“What’s he like, this Drew?”
“He’s young and sincere, has a beard, and dresses like a Brooklyn hipster.”
“Knowing Hallie, she’ll tell me he was all over her and she had to let him down gently.”
“I would certainly call her the aggressor in this case.”
The Oakdale Dinner Club Page 9
