Other People's Houses, page 14
“And I heard she came in and found her husband fooling around with her boyfriend, and stormed off.”
“That doesn’t seem likely, does it?”
“Well, he did wear a pink shirt to the school picnic last year, remember?”
“Wasn’t it an Easter theme? Didn’t everyone wear pastels?”
“Everyone that had them . . . My husband couldn’t find anything that wasn’t black, gray, or navy.”
“Oh . . . oh . . . I see what you mean.”
* * *
• • •
Three hours later. Grocery store. Produce section.
“Those poor children.”
“Exactly. What are they going to think? They’re going to come home and ‘Hey, no Mom.’ How’s he going to explain that?”
“Doesn’t Frances Bloom carpool Anne’s kids? Maybe she’s supposed to make something up.”
“Saint Frances? Good luck.”
“I thought you liked her?”
“I do. I just wish she were a little less pleasant and helpful. I’d like her more.”
“She does always seem to have it together, doesn’t she? Bitch.”
“No wonder she and Anne are friends. She’s probably fucking around, too.”
* * *
• • •
Four hours later, just before pickup. School gate. Early-bird parents with not much else to fill their lives.
“Hey . . . is that Charlie Porter?”
“Where?”
“There, heading into the office. Maybe he’s here to talk to the principal.”
“Well, that didn’t take long, did it?”
“Is Anne here, too? I’m not sure I’d even know her. She doesn’t do drop-off, does she?”
“Nah. Gets Frances Bloom to do it for her. Lazy, cheating cow. I guess she doesn’t care about her kids at all.”
“I think Charlie Porter is kind of hot.”
“Definitely. And now he’s single . . . and brokenhearted . . .”
“You’re a terrible woman.”
“I know.”
Nineteen.
Charlie waited in the outer office for Mrs. Garcia to be ready. Her assistant, Jillian, watched him surreptitiously from under her lashes, occasionally reaching for another Werther’s caramel from the dish on her desk. She went through a bag a day, and her back teeth ached in the evenings. She made a mental note to buy flossers. The candy was supposed to be for the kids, but they were all too scared their parents would find out they ate sugar. Those same parents always helped themselves, of course. Assholes. She loved the kids and despised the parents, like every other member of staff at the school.
Charlie had finished the caramel she’d pressed on him when he arrived, and now his mouth felt dry. He was about to ask her where the water fountain was when the inner door opened, and a small child exited the principal’s office. The kid looked fine, so clearly not a punishment-type visit. Maybe he was just going in for a hug; that was the kind of principal Mrs. Garcia was: sweet and friendly, unless you transgressed in the drop-off line, or sent your kid in without the correct PE kit or whatever, at which point she turned twice on the spot, reverted into her basic demon form, and released the kraken.
She smiled at Charlie, and for a second he thought he saw pity in her dark eyes. Impossible, he reminded himself, nobody here knows anything about Anne.
Once in the office he took a seat, still warm from the kid. Mrs. Garcia was a larger woman, but she moved elegantly around her office, lowering herself into her chair with a smile for the parent across from her. Mr. Porter was handsome, she thought, and wondered how long he would stay single, assuming he was finished with his wife. She was a cold fish, thought the principal, but sometimes the coldest fish was the most compelling catch. She’d seen husbands take wives back far more often than they didn’t. Men got lonely easily, she concluded. Fragile little fuckers.
“Mr. Porter, what a pleasure. What can I do for you?”
Charlie cleared his throat. “I just wanted to let you know that there’s going to be some upheaval at home over the next, you know, little while, and I wanted you to know in case Theo and Kate seemed, you know, upset or something.”
Mrs. Garcia looked concerned. She wanted to say, Yes, I heard already, your wife has been cheating and you threw her out and now your children’s lives as they knew them are going to be over, and let’s face it, that’s going to be like a total volcanic explosion and pyroclastic flow of white-hot shit rushing down the mountainside toward their little heads. But instead she said, “Oh? Nothing too serious I hope?”
Charlie reddened. “I’m not sure. Just some . . . issues between their mother and me . . . She’s moving out . . . Hopefully we will all be adult about it and they won’t feel too unsettled.”
Again, the internal voice of Mrs. Garcia, who had seen divorce and domestic violence and abuse and starvation and all manner of bullshit aimed at kids in her three decades of public service, wanted to say, Well, if you were being adults in the first place none of this would have happened, but, as always, we’re all just human beings with the frailties and failures that implies. But her audible voice said, “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Would you like some advice?”
Charlie looked at her, and for the first time since walking in felt like he was truly seeing the woman across from him. Her face was kind and patient, although she doubtless saw this all the time. He clutched at the straw she offered. “Yes, please.”
Mrs. Garcia sat back in her chair and steepled her fingers. “For your children, this will be the worst day of their lives so far. They will always remember where they were when you told them their mother wasn’t at home anymore. You need to be very clear this is not because of them, that you both love them more than anything, and that the adults will be working to make things better. You don’t need to tell them any details, and they understand that people fight and disagree, they do it all the time. But up until now it has never occurred to them that their parents would separate. They’ve heard of divorce, they know parents can break up, but it’s like I leaned across this table and told you that everyone but you can talk to animals. You’ve heard of the concept, you’ve seen it in the movies, you’ve seen it on TV, but you never thought it was real. From today onward they will never feel completely secure again, and I’m afraid that will just have to be OK. That’s life, life can change in an instant, we all know that. Today is just the day your children find that out.”
Charlie stared at her. “That’s advice?”
Mrs. Garcia smiled. “Yes, sorry. Don’t think about what you need to say, Mr. Porter, think about what they need to hear, OK?” She frowned at him. “Will Mrs. Porter be there for this conversation?”
Charlie shook his head.
“Then you should wait until she can be. They need to see her to understand she’s not leaving them.”
“I don’t know where she is right at the moment.”
Now Mrs. Garcia looked stern. “You need to know that, Mr. Porter. You’re very angry with her right now, as your wife, but she will always be the mother of your children. You need to be able to reach her in case anything happens to them, or in case you need her help. You may end up divorced, but you can never be truly separated, because of Kate and Theo.”
Tears suddenly welled up in Charlie’s eyes, and the principal pushed a box of tissues across the desktop. It was already half empty, and Charlie fleetingly wondered how many of those tears had been those of parents. “I don’t want to see her.”
Mrs. Garcia shrugged. “I’m afraid you don’t have that option. Or at least, you do, but if you’ll take my advice and put your children’s needs uppermost, even at this truly difficult time for you and your wife, you’ll put your pain aside and make things calm and friendly for your kids.”
Charlie felt his chest constrict, and the tears came hot and fast, curling him over in his chair, stealing all sense of time and place from him. Mrs. Garcia sighed and hit a button on the phone. “Hold my calls, Jillian.”
Then she got up, circled the desk, and put her arm around Charlie Porter, comforting him just as she had the little boy who’d sat in that chair not ten minutes earlier. Of course, a splinter was easier to deal with than a stake to the chest. Mrs. Garcia sat there for a while, patting Charlie as he cried, wishing she had a caramel.
* * *
• • •
Frances got a text from Charlie just as she was leaving for pickup.
I’m picking up Theo and Kate, thanks.
OK. I heard what happened.
Here if you need me.
Keeping it real. Practical. No judgment here, no comment, just a reminder she was here to help.
OK.
Frances stood in the street looking at her phone, thinking about what she needed to say to her own kids that evening. She wanted them to be aware of what Kate and Theo were going through, wanted them to look out for their friends, to make sure they weren’t floundering. They would be floundering, of course, everything just went to shit. She looked at her watch and thought of Kate and Theo finishing class. Going to get their backpacks, a drink of water, their jackets. Both completely certain they were going to walk outside, clamber into Frances’s car like every day, go home, have dinner, go to bed with a story and a cuddle. They’d step outside and see their father and some very basic instinct would tell them something was wrong. Frances’s mouth tightened in sympathy and relief that she didn’t have to face what Charlie had to.
Twenty.
Ava was uncompromising, which was typical. Her younger siblings had been sympathetic, immediately worried their own parents were divorcing, and generally over it in two minutes. Ava on the other hand was sitting at the dinner table holding forth on the perfidy of adults.
“Honestly, grown-ups are forever talking about how important it is to be honest, and not to lie, and to think about others, and all that crap, but they’re always lying and cheating.” She was spinning her knife, the little noise apparently pleasing her.
Frances was emptying the dishwasher in order to fill it again with the dinner dishes, and she looked over at Michael. He and Ava were still at the table, the younger kids having bolted as soon as possible, and he was on his third glass of wine. He was looking at Ava sadly.
“We try not to, just the same as you try not to. But grown-ups are just as fallible as kids, Ava.”
She looked scornfully at him. “Then why do you make such distinctions between kids and adults? ‘You’re too young to do this, too young to do that, you’ll understand when you’re older, you can do this when you’re older’ . . . Meanwhile, you’re behaving worse than children.”
“I’m sure Anne didn’t intend to wreck her marriage. She just made a bad decision.”
Frances was torn between continuing to clatter dishes, or going over and joining the conversation. There would always be a dishwasher to empty, so she joined Michael and Ava at the table.
Ava was glowingly self-righteous. It was always about her; her smooth prefrontal cortex wouldn’t allow her to think otherwise. “Well, when I make a bad decision you remind me that I should have thought it through, right? Consider the consequences of failure, you always say, think about both outcomes, make a plan for both. You’re apparently expecting more of me than you do of grown-ups.”
Frances shook her head, helping herself to a glass of wine. “No, we expected that of Anne, too, but it’s not our place to tell her that we’re disappointed in her, right? We’re not raising her.”
“Why not? Why is it OK to tell a kid you’re unhappy with their behavior, but you guys give each other a pass all the time.” She looked genuinely annoyed. As she stood up to get herself another glass of water, Frances looked over at Michael and made the face that meant Should we change the subject, talk about something more neutral, but she could see he was interested in what his daughter had to say. She sighed inside. She felt danger, Will Robinson, land mines ahead.
Michael tried another tack. “Maybe Anne and Charlie were unhappy. You never know what someone else’s marriage or family is really like. We don’t always get on, right? Your mom and I argue and you and I argue. Maybe they just argued more.”
Ava shook her head. “No. Charlie is nice. I think Anne was just selfish and narcissistic and a bitch.” She watched her dad’s face to see if he was going to protest the use of the B word, but he didn’t flicker. “I never liked her.” She turned to Frances. “Didn’t I just say that? The other day?” She sat back down with her water, and started unlacing her sneakers. It was getting dark outside, time to relax into the evening.
Frances took a sip of wine and nodded. “You did. But I think what your dad is trying to say is that it’s not a good idea to judge people when you don’t know all the facts and maybe not even then. You know the whole glass houses thing, right? None of us is perfect. You lied to me the other day for example.”
There was a pause. Crap. Frances hadn’t meant to bring that up, it just came out.
Ava looked at her, and shot from the hip. “And did you tell Dad you were talking to Anne’s boyfriend in the street only yesterday?”
Michael looked at Frances, and saw this strange accusation was true. Being who he was, he covered for her and came to her rescue. “Of course she did. However, she has consistently lied to me about the location of her chocolate stash since we were first living together. Humans keep things from each other, and most of the time they’re little things that really don’t matter.”
“And other times,” Ava said scornfully, “they’re things that really do matter and everything gets ruined.” She dropped her second high-top on the floor and Frances knew she’d be hunting for them the next morning.
Michael coughed. “You sound like you’re speaking from experience . . . Did someone tell you something that ruined things? What’s going on, Ava?” His voice was gentle, his eyes as he looked at his daughter so full of affection and so devoid of judgment, that Frances marveled again at the love they shared. She’d carried Ava, used the calcium from her own bones to build the child’s, ached and screamed to give birth to her, but it was her father who knew her best.
Ava gazed back at him and both her parents saw her eyes fill with tears, and saw her struggle to keep them there. She shook her head and stood up. “No, Dad, it’s not all about me, you know. Or so you keep telling me, anyway.”
She pushed her chair roughly back under the table and strode to put her plate in the sink, leaving the room swiftly enough to cause the dogs to stand up and follow her, concerned. Or maybe thinking she was leaving the house and might be up for taking them, too, who knows? Michael turned to Frances and frowned.
“What was she talking about?”
Frances sighed, and got up to go hide her face in the dirty dishes. “Yesterday Anne’s boyfriend showed up just as I arrived with the kids. Two seconds later Charlie showed up, too. It was a clusterfuck.”
Michael frowned. “But why did they wait to fight until this morning? I’m confused.”
Frances turned on the faucet to rinse the dishes she was putting in. It bought her a little time, but once she’d turned it off she replied, “Charlie didn’t find out about it then. I sort of covered for her.” She turned and looked at her husband. “Like you just covered for me, with Ava.”
“How did you manage that, exactly?”
“I pretended I knew him, and that he was heading toward Anne’s house by accident.” She watched Michael’s face, but it was difficult to read. She frowned. “I think it was stupid, but I couldn’t help it at the time. She’s my friend, and the kids were there, and I didn’t want it to all . . .”
“Blow up?”
She nodded. “Not that it helped.”
“Nope. And now you’ve involved yourself in someone else’s marriage. Or rather, the end of it.”
Frances finished with the dishwasher and shut the door. She waited until the reassuring swishing sound began. “Maybe it won’t ever come up.”
“It’s a bad habit, Frank.”
“How do you mean?” She was about to head back to the table, grab herself another glass of wine, but there was a coolness in his expression that made her stop halfway and lean against the kitchen island instead.
“I mean your obsession with getting involved. You always want to be part of what’s going on. You offer to help other people not just to help them, but because it satisfies some weird childhood desire to add to the list of people who need you.”
She looked at him and thought about what he was saying. Suddenly she was annoyed. “I think you’re full of it. I’m not forcing anyone to do anything. I have my own kids to take care of, plus the neighbors’ kids, plus the occasional kid from school. It’s not an international network of children requiring constant care and feeding.”
Michael was filling up his wineglass again, for the fourth time. This was usually the point at which things went downhill. He was generally a genial drunk, but after three glasses he could be critical, like now, and four or more usually brought out his inner dickhead. Frances got ready to concede and withdraw; she had too much shit to do to argue with Michael, who would be hungover and contrite in the morning.
Sadly, Michael wasn’t at that point. “Occasional? How many people have you as their emergency contact, Frances?”
“It doesn’t matter. You’re right, I’m too nosy.” She turned to leave the room, but he repeated his question.
“No, really, Frank. How many?”
She shrugged. “Several. Why does it matter? It’s not like anyone’s ever called me in an emergency.” She started angrily tidying, which was one of the more effective methods of countertop clearing.
“Last year you were the backup emergency contact for seven other families, not counting the ones in your carpool. And here’s the thing: You love it. You love feeling needed, you love being involved. You sign up for this thing and that thing, you know everyone.” There was a hint of disdain in his voice, a mockery Frances felt very sharply.
