Deep Down True (24 page)

“Oh, turn around,” Nora had chided. “Haven’t you ever heard people laugh before?” Startled, the men had immediately looked away, causing another round of barely controlled snickering from the women.

Now, as Dana stood in the shower with the hot stream of water eroding her sluggishness, she remembered that her cell phone had rung twice during the later part of the evening—first it was Kenneth, then Jack. Both times Dana had checked to be sure it wasn’t a call from home, then made a show of silencing the ring, to Nora’s grinning approval. At the time it felt careless and wild. Now she wondered what they’d been calling about. She’d check messages on her way to work.

Once dressed, Dana went to see that the kids were up. Morgan was at her desk, back taut with focus as she leaned over a textbook, scribbling into a spiral-bound notebook to her right.

“I thought you told me your homework was done before I let you watch TV last night.”

Morgan didn’t look up. Her hand continued to jerk across the notebook page. “It is. This is just social studies. There’s a test next week.”

“Okay, well, come down for breakfast soon—a real breakfast, not just plums, okay?”

Grady was still asleep, lying facedown on his bed, his mouth open, saliva darkening a spot on his pillow. When she called his name, his eyes flew open and he grunted, “Uh?”

“Time to get up, sweetie.”

Grady rolled off his bed, landing in a crouch on the carpet. Then he stood up and scratched his side. “Did Dad talk to you? Can I go?”

“Go where?”

“To his house to trick-or-treat.”

“I thought you were going with Farruk and Travis!”

Grady groaned and sat down on his bed. “He was supposed to talk to you!”

“Well, he may have called, but I was in the middle of something and couldn’t pick up.”

“In the middle of what?” Grady squinted at her suspiciously.

“Hold on,” she said, wagging a finger at him. “What happened to Farruk and Travis? Because you can’t just cancel on them for no good—”

“
They
canceled on
me
!”

“What? Why?”

“Because they’re BUTTHOLES! And I hate them, and I’m going to DAD’S!” Grady flopped backward onto his bed and pulled the
Star Wars
coverlet over his face, his muffled sobs fierce and desperate.

She knelt next to the bed. “Okay,” she soothed, patting his exposed stomach. He flinched away from her. “Grady? Can you come out of there so we can talk about this?”

“Well, I’ve got a plan, but I can’t tell it to a bedspread, now, can I? I’m not talking to a Jedi about this plan—I need to talk to
you.
”

He peeked out from under the coverlet, Obi-Wan Kenobi’s wrinkled hand spread across his cheek. “What.”

“Here it is. While you’re at school, I’ll talk to Dad and we’ll sort everything out, okay?”

“I am NOT trick-or-treating with those buttholes, so don’t think you can make me!”

“Grady, I’m not thrilled about that word you keep using, so if you want my help, you’ll have to find some other way to say you don’t like them.”

“I HATE them!”

“What is this about? How come they canceled?”

“Just call Dad,” he grumbled, sitting up again. “I already told him everything.”

 

 

When Dana checked her cell-phone messages, she found that Jack hadn’t left one and she didn’t bother to listen to Kenneth’s. She had only a ten-minute drive to get a hold of him, and she knew his message would have no information. Kenneth hated voice mail, tended to say “Um” a lot, and got off as quickly as he could. He’d once admitted to her that it was his only shortcoming as a salesman—he could not leave a compelling message. Dana called his cell phone, assuming that he’d be on his way to work.

“Hello?” said a woman’s voice, tentatively, as if she were already regretting the decision to answer. Dana’s first instinct was to hang up and call Kenneth’s work number. But she needed to get to the bottom of this trick-or-treat problem quickly—in the next nine and a half minutes, if possible; otherwise she’d have to wait until her lunch break.

“Hello?” the woman’s voice came at her again. “Are you there?”

“Yes, I’m here,” Dana retorted. “May I speak to Kenneth, please?”

“Yeah, uh . . . he’s in the men’s room. You want to hold on? Or he could call back when he’s done.”

Done?
In some
men’s room
at seven forty-five in the morning? Where the heck was he anyway?

“I swear I’ll have him call you,” insisted the woman. “This is . . . this is Tina, by the way.”

You’re not “by the way,”
thought Dana.
You’re right in the middle of everything.

“Jeez, where
is
he?” muttered Tina. “He doesn’t usually take this long unless he’s—”

A snort of disgust erupted from Dana. Did this Tina actually think she didn’t know how long her husband of fifteen years took in the bathroom? Or that she’d care to discuss this personal and mildly revolting information with his mistress?

“Oh, ick. I’m sorry,” said Tina. “That was super inappropriate.”

Dana sat at the first traffic light, right hand gripping the wheel as if she might rip it from the steering column, left hand holding the cell phone a few inches from her ear.
Okay,
she counseled herself.
Calm down and drive carefully. You can NOT afford another accident.

“Uh, Dana?” came the voice again, squeaky with worry. “I know you don’t want to talk to me, and personally, I can’t blame you. I’d be way pissed if I was you. But since Ken seems to have fallen in or something, do you want me to just tell you about the Grady thing?”

Damn
straight
she was pissed. The bimbo seemed to get that at least. “Yes, just tell me,” Dana snapped. “I have to get to work.”

“Okay, well, Grady’s been calling a lot. Sometimes he yells at Kenny and says mean stuff, like he’s cheap because he doesn’t coach any of Grady’s teams—which isn’t true, it’s just because it’s not baseball season, and you and I both know that’s the only sport Ken has any
clue
about. Or he’ll cry and say he hates school, and all the kids are buttholes, and why can’t he just go to work with Ken.” Tina let out a whispery sigh. She sounded perplexed, even concerned. “It’s like he’s not sure if he hates his dad or loves him, you know?”

The pain in Dana’s chest, growing steadily as Tina spoke, now pressed against her lungs.
“Oh,”
she said.

“I know it,” Tina said. “Poor little guy.”

An image emerged in Dana’s mind of Grady as a baby. He’d woken from a nap while she was vacuuming. She hadn’t heard him babbling to himself, nor had she heard the babbling turn plaintive, then desperate. By the time she’d turned off the vacuum, Grady’s screams were frantic. She’d rushed up the stairs, whisking him out of his crib, cuddling him and crooning her apology. But he had arched his back and refused to be consoled. He continued to yell at her, his little pink tongue quivering in his wide-open mouth. “It’s over,” she’d kept saying. “You’re safe now, sweetie. I’ve got you.”

But it wasn’t over for him until
he
determined it was over. Not then and not now.

“Um, Dana? It’s my turn, I gotta go. Just call back when you decide about tonight. I won’t answer, I promise. Kenny’s all broken up about this, by the way.”

Good,
thought Dana, turning in to the office parking lot.
I hope he hates himself for it.
But before she could respond, Tina said, “The nurse is waiting. Bye.” And the call ended.

Dana sat behind the steering wheel, the engine silent now, Tina’s words echoing inside her chest. Oak leaves, brittle and lifeless, skittered across the parking lot, swept along by the late-October breeze.

Grady, her funny, unpredictable boy. She’d had no idea that Kenneth’s leaving had affected him so profoundly. How had she missed it?

Dana slammed her hands against the steering wheel.
Goddamn you, Kenneth!
But goddamn him for what? For leaving, yes, but people left—Dana knew that all too well. Sometimes they left even though they continued to sit right there in the same room. Which was worse, in a way, because you had to watch them leaving you over and over every day.

If she agreed to let Grady have Halloween in Hartford with Kenneth (and how could she not?), she would be alone. Morgan would be with Kimmi, Alder would probably be off with that Jet, and Dana would be left to hand out candy and scare off teenagers from tossing toilet paper through the crabapple tree as they’d once done years ago. The very thought of it depressed her.

There was movement in the periphery of her vision—Tony walking toward the door of the building, his wide shoulders hunched against the cold. One side of the leather bomber jacket flapped out, and the wind pressed his blue scrubs against the slight protrusion of his stomach. He was about five feet six inches tall, she guessed.

He caught sight of her sitting in her minivan, gazed at her for a moment, and then cocked his head toward the glass door as if inviting her to join him. She got out of the car.

“And how’s my completely indispensable receptionist this morning?”

She tried to smile. “Hanging in there.”

“Yeah?” He unlocked the door and held it open for her. “Because for a minute there, I thought you might be planning to greet our patients in the parking lot today.”

“It’s a thought,” she said, shrugging off her jacket. “I could offer valet service.”

“I’m all for improving the patient experience,” he said, smiling, “but I prefer to have you in the building. Someone to call 911 in case I drill my hand or something.” He stopped before going into his office. “Seriously—everything okay?”

The bell on the glass door jingled. She nodded to him. “Thanks for asking.” And she went to her desk to greet the first patient.

Her cell phone rang around nine. It was Kenneth, but she didn’t answer. The waiting room was full of patients, and she knew it would be a tense conversation. Not because she’d have to give up Grady for Halloween; she’d reconciled herself to that. It was the call with Tina that had her feeling brittle and desiccated, as if she were made out of straw. Tina was real for her now, no longer Kenneth’s Imaginary Girlfriend. Before today she might as well have been Kenneth’s pillow—comforting, perhaps, but without any actual human qualities.

Dana accepted that she was someone’s ex-wife, the first Mrs. Stellgarten and not likely the last. But there was suddenly a clearer sense of her own obsolescence layered onto that. How would she talk to Kenneth, how would she even seem recognizable to herself, now that she was so obviously just a figment of his past?

At lunchtime she listened to the messages he’d left on her cell phone. The one from last night was short (despite being riddled with “um”s and “uh”s) and merely alluded to a situation they should discuss. The second message began with an intake of breath and then, “Dana,” as if he were confirming her name to some anonymous third party. “I didn’t mean for her to . . . uh . . . I should have told you myself that Grady was, um . . . and I apologize for that. So would you please call so we can discuss it? . . . This is Kenneth.”

No kidding,
she thought.
I know who you are, for Pete’s sake
. His discomfort soothed her. It sounded so much like her own. This made it a little easier to dial his cell phone for the second time that day.

“Hi,” he said tentatively, and before she could respond, he added, “I really didn’t . . .”

“I know,” she said. “Let’s just talk about Grady.”

Afterward, Dana took her lunch to the kitchenette, where Tony sat with his half-eaten sub and a bottle of iced tea. She knew she would tell him about Grady—he already knew part of the story. But she surprised herself by also recounting her first conversation with Kenneth’s girlfriend.

“Sounds young,” Tony said.

“She just turned thirty last week.”

“Even younger than that,” he said, raising his eyebrows. And he was right, she realized, smiling at the suggestion of Tina’s immaturity. Tony smiled back, gave a little shrug, and added, “But hey—that’s
his
problem.”

D
ANA HAD JUST RIPPED OPEN A PACKET OF SPLENDA and was dusting the steaming surface of her tea with it when Morgan came in. “I thought you were going to Kimmi’s,” she said, surprised.

“Yeah, um, I was . . .” Morgan’s hands were tucked up into the cuffs of her fleece jacket, and her shoulders were hunched as if the afternoon chill had followed her into the house. “I just wanted to get in a little cello. I’m way behind on that piece for the concert.”

The holiday strings concert was six weeks away, and Dana was tempted to point that out, but Morgan was already moving toward the stairs. Soon a melodic humming punctuated by random moments of silence drifted down.

She’s nervous about something,
Dana realized. Morgan was not a very good musician, and she regularly complained about pieces being boring or too hard. In fact, she’d told her parents last fall she was quitting. But then Kenneth had moved out after New Year’s, and the cello had stayed.

The mudroom door opened and slammed, and Grady came loping into the kitchen without even taking off his backpack. “Can I go?” he asked. “To Dad and Tina’s?”

“Dad and I talked about it, and he’ll pick you up at four-thirty,” she said, removing the backpack from his shoulders. “He’ll bring you back in the morning. Why don’t you put your skeleton costume by the door so you don’t forget it.”

“I’m doing the ninja costume from last year. That skeleton one’s stupid.” He shrugged off his jacket and let it slip to the floor as he crossed the kitchen toward the cabinet with the snacks.

“What? Two weeks ago you were begging me for it. You thought it was the coolest thing ever.” Dana picked up the jacket and draped it over the back of a chair. Grady started to climb onto the counter, but she nudged him down and reached into the cabinet for the Cheez-Its.