Table for Two

by Nia Forrester

  “I can’t get it out of my head,” she admits. “What you told me about you and Melanie. What you told me about you and Rayna. It’s just ...”

  “I know,” I say.

  It’s there in her eyes—she’s wondering whether I am the kind of man she should be with. Whether I am the kind of man it’s safe to trust. I am inches away from losing her, I can feel it.

  I know Dani is into me. But even so, she’s smart enough to know that throwing caution to the wind will not work in the long-term. She is strong enough to choose to hurt now, to prevent herself from hurting later.

  I walk over to her sofa and sit, hands clasped between my knees, feeling my heart begin to gallop a little. She comes and sits in on the arm of the chair across from me, and from the way she’s looking at me, I know I’d better come up with some deep, compelling, hard-to-refute arguments. Otherwise, I will be leaving here a newly-single man.

  “I feel like I’m being unfair,” she says. “Because I knew all this. Or most of it, anyway. About how you used to be. But coming face-to-face with that woman, with Melanie, and then this whole thing with you possibly having another kid? I mean, how am I supposed to …?”

  I say nothing.

  “But y’know what?” she says. “I know I’m not being unfair. I’m entitled to be disappointed. I’m entitled to be hurt. And so I’m going to let myself be those things. And I need you to do the same.”

  “What does that mean?” I ask, narrowing my eyes, sensing that I’m not going to like the answer.

  “Don’t come over here and try to talk me out of it. Don’t come over here and try to … make it right. It just is what it is, and it isn’t like you don’t have other, big fish to fry with all that’s happening with Little Rocket. Maybe you need to give that some focus, and I need to …”

  “Dani. Don’t do …”

  “I’m not doing anything, Rand. Other than saying we both have some stuff to take care of, so maybe we should take care of those things. And then …”

  “Reassess.”

  “Yes.”

  I lean back. “You’re the second person I’ve had tell me that lately. That I need to reassess something.”

  “Then maybe you ought to listen.”

  “So you want to what? Cool out with you and me?”

  “No,” she says right away. “But I want us to give each other the space to do what we need to do for ourselves. You need to deal with what’s happening with Rocket. And with … all that other stuff. And I need to work on making a living. I got a new client today. An important one. But y’know what’s been on my mind? You. You and your potential baby momma. And you, and Little Rocket. And you, and … and you, and you …” She shakes her head. “It’s not healthy. Not for me.”

  “Applying those life coaching skills, huh?” I ask, trying not to sound bitter.

  “Rand, don’t do that. Don’t make light of what I do just because you don’t understand, or respect it.”

  “Of course I respect it. Because I respect you!”

  “Then respect this: we need to take the time and space to handle our stuff.”

  “And you don’t want to see me?”

  “Yes, I want to see you, I want to talk to you … every night if I can. Every day. But not at the expense of what we should be focusing on. You, on Little Rocket. Me, on my work. Let’s just try not being so … consumed by ‘us’ for a while. And see how that works.”

  “The other night. You said your heart is with me.”

  Dani’s eyes are suddenly wet. She nods.

  “It is,” she says, and her voice is much smaller than before. “I love you … I love you so much, you don’t even know. But I’m just so freakin’ … pissed that there might be some other woman who had your second kid, when I wanted so damn badly for that to be me.”

  Those last words—…when I wanted so damn badly for that to be me—just about knock me in the center of my chest. To hear Dani say she loves me isn’t much of a surprise. She isn’t one to hide her feelings. I’m not even sure she would know how, even if she wanted to.

  I’ve seen that love, for a while now. But as long as she never said it, I didn’t have to confront my own feelings for her, and how fucking scary they are. But she’s going well beyond that. She’s saying she wanted (or wants?) to be the mother of my kids.

  No woman I have known, or at least none in my experience, have laid something like that out there, as bravely, and as honestly as that. The women in my experience ‘accidentally’ get pregnant. Or they use pregnancy to save a marriage that they already know cannot be saved.

  “I’m not going to let my life get eaten up by that, though,” Dani continues. “So, you need to figure all your crap out. And I need to figure all my crap out. But I’m here. I’m …” She shrugs, and looks defeated. “I’m here.”

  I came over with every intention of breaking her down, but she’s broken me down, and it doesn’t feel good. She went deep, deeper than I think I’m ready to go.

  “How about tonight?” I ask, trying for a lame joke to lighten the mood. “Do I need to go figure it all out tonight?”

  Dani lets me off the hook, like she always does, and dissolves into laughter. She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. “Oh, shut up. No. Not tonight. Tonight, I want you to stay with me.”

  That’s all I need to hear before I close the space between us, and pull her into my arms.

  Freya is waiting at the restaurant when I get there. Sitting in a corner booth, she has glasses on, and is studying the menu.

  I pause for a moment and watch her, seeing for the first time the traces of grey at her roots. Rand told me she is nine years older than he is, which makes her just over forty. She is both a young, and an old forty-year-old in her bearing. Or maybe not ‘old’ so much as …wise. Wise, beyond the average for someone her age. So capable and such a take-charge personality, I sometimes watch her with her family, and find myself hoping that one day I will be the same way with mine.

  Freya is the person who, if she were ever so unfortunate as to be in a burning building, or crashing airplane, would tell everyone else to calm down, and not panic.

  She looks up and sees me, and I smile, picking up the pace of my steps.

  We exchange brief kisses on the cheek, and she points at something on the menu as I take my seat.

  “Since when,” she begins, “has it been cool to charge eighteen dollars for a burger?” She shuts the menu and slaps it on the table, shaking her head. “But you know I’ma order it anyway.”

  I laugh. “I might join you. When in doubt, choose the burger.”

  “Or maybe the salad.” Freya grimaces. “You look really good, Danielle. All lean, and fit. Keeping up that running, huh?”

  “Trying to. Yeah. I’ve been missing a few days here and there, but yeah, I’m keeping it up pretty well.”

  “Good.” She looks around for a moment as though searching for our waitperson, then turns her attention to me once again. “Why don’t I just tell you why I asked you here?”

  Classic Freya. Direct, and to the point.

  “I haven’t spoken to Rand since the other day, and I just wanted to check in with you. See how he’s handling things with Rocket.”

  “Call him,” I say.

  “I will, but I wanted your read, too. On how he’s planning to …”

  “I don’t know, Freya,” I say, shaking my head. “I know he spoke to the director at the preschool and they’ve asked that Rocket see someone, so he’s planning to arrange that.”

  “And has he?”

  I shrug again. “I know he took it seriously.”

  “But you don’t know whether he …”

  “Freya,” I stop her. “Do you trust Rand?”

  She sits back and looks affronted. “Of course, I trust my brother.”

  “Good,” I say gently. “Then do that. Trust him.”

  Her mouth falls open a little, and she exhales a short burst of breath. She is just about to say something; somethi
ng that looks like it will be rather sharp, when a server appears.

  We both order the eighteen-dollar burgers, and I ask for an unsweetened iced tea. When we are alone again, Freya meets my gaze.

  “Of course, I trust my brother, Danielle,” she says again.

  “All I’m saying is, if you trust him, then let him figure it out. Little Rocket is his son, and …”

  “Wait a sec …”

  “I’m not trying to offend you, I swear,” I say holding up a hand. “I know what a support you are to him. How he relies on you. But when he got all snippy with you in his kitchen the other day, you know why he did that?”

  She says nothing.

  “Because he knew that even if he alienated you for a hot minute, he has me. Another willing shoulder to lean on. He leaned on you, now he’s trying to lean on me to do things he needs to do. And we’re letting him.”

  Freya surveys me for a few long moments and then the corners of her lips turn slightly upward. She tilts her head to one side.

  “Rand told me this about you,” she says slowly.

  “What’s that?”

  “How you dissect situations. And people. How you break things down. He said it’s a gift.”

  I can’t hide my smile. “He said that?”

  Freya nods. She reaches for her glass of water and takes a sip. “Yup. He does not know what to make of you, Miss Danielle,” she says. “He doesn’t know what to make of how he feels about you.”

  “What does he feel about me?” I can’t help but ask.

  Freya laughs. “Do you trust Rand?” she asks, playfully mimicking my tone with her when I asked the same question.

  I think about it for a moment, and then nod. “Yeah,” I say. “I do.”

  “Then do that,” she says. “Trust him. When he’s ready, he’ll tell you what he feels.”

  I roll my eyes at her, and she laughs, reaching out and patting my hand, then squeezing it briefly.

  “I hear what you’re saying,” she tells me. “And even more than that, I know you’re right. I coddle Rand. Always have. But even more so after he had Rocket. And after Faith died. But you’re right. My brother is a strong, capable, but very spoiled man. And it’s time I stop.”

  I nod. “It’s time we both stop.”

  ~13~

  “Rocket. I’m telling you for the last time. Put on the shirt.”

  “No! I don’t like it. I’m not wearing it.”

  “It’s the only one we’ve got that’s clean. So you are wearing it. Put it on. Now.”

  “No.”

  “Rocket …” I lower my voice to the most threatening bass I can muster.

  “No!”

  My son goes darting out of the room, bare-chested, and wearing only his shorts and socks. I don’t have time for this bullshit. Today is the first meeting with the behavioral therapist, and I’m cutting it close because I need to then drop him off at my sister’s and make the drive up to Bristol. Freya and I settled on an alternate weekend schedule when she will keep him for me while I go to Connecticut, and this is her weekend.

  It’s also the official ten-day mark since I took the paternity test, and I’m on edge. After a week passed, I called them, asking about my request to have the test expedited and they told me they were “unable to fulfill that.” When I complained, the bored-sounding woman on the other end of the line told me that “everyone wants their paternity test expedited, Mr. Reese. Everyone.” I have no problem believing that’s true.

  Because the last ten days have been hellish for me. I lie awake thinking about how I would handle it, if Rayna’s kid is mine. How I would introduce the news to Freya, to Dani, to Little Rocket. There is no clean way to tell people you have a child you didn’t know about.

  Freya will flip, and my son will no doubt be confused, and maybe even feel replaced. Not to mention, I would have to make peace with the idea of Rayna in my life for the foreseeable future; a constant reminder of how much of an asshole I was to my now-dead wife. And Dani, if she even stuck around, would be reminded of that as well.

  “Rocket!” I go charging after him, and find him in my room, inexplicably standing on my bed, as if he plans to take flight.

  “I don’t want to wear it, Daddy!” His face contorts and then he dissolves into noisy tears. But they are just tears, not one of his rage-filled tantrums. It’s crazy how I’ve begun to attach intensity-levels to his breakdowns. That’s why this appointment is necessary.

  “Look, man,” I say, sitting on the edge of the bed but not making a move toward him. “It’s my fault, okay? I needed to wash your train shirt and I didn’t. But this is the only one that isn’t stinky.”

  Rocket gives the ghost of a smile at the word ‘stinky’ though there are still tears coursing down his cheeks.

  “You gon’ to wash it later?” he asks.

  I nod. “When I get back from Connecticut. Auntie Freya has lots of your other clothes at her house, though.”

  “I want her,” Rocket says, dissolving into a new round of tears.

  “I know,” I say, holding up the shirt and coaxing him toward me.

  Still standing on the bed, he takes two steps in my direction, and stops.

  “Hands up?” This time I ask him quietly, instead of ordering him.

  Rocket studies me for a second then nods, and raises his arms so I can slide the shirt over his head.

  “Sit, little man,” I say.

  He sits, and allows me to pull the shirt on him. I smooth it down, pat him in the center of the chest and smile.

  “See? Look at you … on fleek.”

  Rocket looks at me, his eyes are still wet, and mournful. I wonder if I’m at fault. If two years of dark moods, sadness and long periods of silence have broken my son. Did I transmit all that darkness, and pain to him?

  He leans against me, sighing deeply, like someone carrying the weight of the world.

  “I want Dani,” he says in a small voice.

  “Yeah,” I say, hugging him close, in a way I seldom do. “I want her, too.”

  This is beyond surreal. Beyond ridiculous. And I don’t know how I allowed SJ to rope me into it, but now I see why he felt he had to.

  He hasn’t even been a client for a month, but has easily occupied about eighty percent of my time. At first, I thought that like June, my other high-maintenance person, he mostly wants someone to talk to, with whom he can be completely honest.

  He’s told his fiancée I’m helping him with mental blocks related to football, but really, we’re talking about his cheating. At first, he just seemed to want to unburden himself, unloading a litany of his carnal sins with other women. And then when I got sick of listening to that, and told him so, he said I didn’t understand.

  ‘It’s easy to be a cheater when you’re in the League,’ he said. ‘Much harder to be faithful.’

  I told him in no uncertain terms I didn’t buy it, and this was his solution—that I would come with him on the charity circuit. He and Jennifer have just established a foundation to promote literacy and academic achievement among young athletes, and she is the executive director.

  Because it’s the off-season, charity is SJ’s full-time job as well. He travels from city to city, visiting schools, afterschool programs, junior football leagues and other athletic clubs. He gives a pep-talk to the kids, signs his autograph, poses for pictures, and leaves behind a big check.

  Sounds benign enough, so I didn’t get it when he said he wanted me to travel with him on two of his East Coast stops—New York City and Washington DC. Since both are day-trips, and after checking with Jennifer, I agreed. In the back of my mind, though, I was wondering what the point could possibly be.

  But now that we’re in DC, I see the point.

  I don’t know where they came from, or even how they got wind of the news that SJ would be here, but there are scores of women at the event. Single, and scantily-clad women; women who obviously are not there to support literacy and academic achievement programs. Women who hav
e no compunction about shouldering some kid aside to get next to SJ.

  In the crowd of about one hundred people, only about thirty or so are the kids who will benefit from SJ and Jennifer’s donation. Fewer than a dozen are program staff at the community center where the event is being hosted. And the remainder are onlookers and parents. But as I look out into the crowd, a disproportionate number of those ‘onlookers or parents’ are women under twenty-five in tight, revealing clothing, wearing too much makeup for the early afternoon, and holding up their smartphones to take pictures.

  SJ is working the crowd, now that his speech is done, shaking hands and posing for pictures. And one in three of the people requesting those pictures are women who whisper something into his ear, lean in a little too close, and then shove their phones at me, asking if I can take the shot.

  I try not to react when one of the women reaches down and grabs his butt, giggling when he jumps, and trots out of her grasp, but laughing good-naturedly, all the same. I look the other way when another woman kisses a scrap of paper, scribbles something on it and slides the paper into his breast pocket. And I walk away to avoid losing patience when yet another hussy, brazenly, with children waiting to speak to SJ, invites him out that evening to get “turnt up Chocolate City style.”

  By the time SJ and I are in the chauffeured car, headed back home, he is trying not to look smug.

  “Okay,” I say, breaking the silence. “But all of those women were gross. And compared to Jennifer? A complete class-act? I don’t see how you could possibly …”

  “Jen is a class-act,” SJ acknowledges. “But women like the ones we saw back there. You don’t get with them because you’re lookin’ for a class-act.”

  “Ugh,” I say, before I can stop myself.

  “Hey. Hey. You said when we first met that you’re a judgment-free zone.”

  “You’re right,” I say. “Sorry. It’s just so …”

  “You can’t tell me you ain’t never seen some of that. And you’re with Rocket Reese? C’mon now.”

  “No,” I say shaking my head. “Never. Rand doesn’t attract that kind of attention. Not like that.”