Monsters (14 page)

“Why don't you put the phone down?” Tommy says in this soft, understanding tone.

She acts like she doesn't hear him.

“Honey?” he tries again. “Sadie, honey?”

“What?” she snaps. “Jesus, Dad, can you give me like a minute's peace?”

He pauses, takes a breath. “Have you noticed that we have company? Maybe you could say hello.”

She sighs and sets her phone down loudly. She looks at me and says, “Hi, I'm Sadie, and you must be fucking my dad.” She picks her phone back up and turns to Tommy. “Can I go?”

Tommy drops his head forward, folds his hands at the back of his neck. “Fine.”

She walks out, and I put my hand on his arm. “Well, she's got a lot of spunk,” I say, in my best
Let's look on the bright side
tone.

“Yeah.” He nods. “I knew you'd like her.” He rubs his face with one hand, but then he pulls on this relaxed smile. “Hey, buddy, what's up?”

I turn, and Stevie's standing in the kitchen doorway.

“Ben pushed all these buttons and now the movie won't play.”

“I didn't!” Ben says from where he's hiding around the corner. I can hear in his voice that he's trying not to cry.

“Not a problem, man. I can fix it.” Tommy pushes his chair back and stands up, walks into the kitchen. He rubs his hand through Stevie's hair as he walks past him. “You guys want some popcorn?”

“They just had dinner. They don't need any popcorn.”

“Go tell your mom we're gonna make popcorn,” Tommy says, and I hear Ben giggle.

Stevie looks at me, his eyes wide, and I shrug like I'm giving up.

“She says okay!” he yells, and runs after Tommy.

I take my glass of wine and walk into the living room.

“My dad really likes little kids.” I hadn't seen Sadie, but there she is, sitting in the corner, curled up on this upholstered linen chair. It looks like the kind of spot a little girl would curl up in to read. I bet she's been hiding there for years. She makes a face. “I mean, not like that. Not creepy. But he likes them.” She looks down at her phone but doesn't pick it up. “Probably because they believe all his bullshit.”

The rest of the room is arranged facing away from the chair she's in, so I just lean against the back of the couch. “I'm not sleeping with your dad,” I say, but Tommy's right, I am a terrible liar. I'm sure she doesn't believe me.

“Whatever,” she says. She doesn't look up at me. She's staring at her fingers. She's found a loose thread at the edge of the chair, and she's trying to tug it free. “I guess you're a little old for him anyway. Most of my dad's girlfriends are like barely older than me.”

It's like she wants me to hate her. “You want to tell me why you're so mad at him?”

She shrugs. She's such a pretty girl. Sharp angular bones, thin skin. She looks like she's made of glass. She shifts her feet, and I see these thin white scars around her ankles. They look old, but I wonder if Tommy knows. If I had to guess, I'd say no.

I wait, but she doesn't say anything. “If it makes you feel any better, I think he's an asshole too.”

She smiles, but she's trying not to.

“Let me know if you change your mind,” I say. I stand up and move back toward the dining room.

“Hey,” she says as I reach the door.

“Yeah?” I turn back to look at her.

She's standing now and starting to move out of the room. “I'm sorry about dinner.”

“It's okay,” I say. “I know.”

•   •   •

We carry a bottle of wine out to the pool deck and lie on the lounge chairs. “To kids.” Tommy raises his glass in a toast.

“At least mine will be leaving tomorrow.” My parents will get in town late afternoon, and they're taking the boys straight to Anaheim. They have a reservation at the Disneyland Hotel.

“Maybe Sadie could go with them,” he says.

“Sure.” I nod. “My parents would take her. But it might cost you.”

“Name your price,” he says.

We just sit for a while, quietly. It's cooling off, and there's a breeze. I tuck my feet under me to keep off the chill.

“So did you always want kids?” I say finally.

“No,” Tommy says. “I didn't want them at all.” He pours another half-glass and holds the bottle out to me, but I shake my head. “Sadie's mom really hounded me on it. She really, really wanted a baby.” He sighs. “And then we split up before Sadie turned two.” He raises his glass. “So great fucking plan, huh?”

“I've heard worse. You weren't married, were you?”

“Uh-uh. Thank god.” He shakes his head, smiles a little, but it's a tired smile. “She's cost me a small fortune in child support. I can't even imagine what a divorce settlement would have looked like.”

“That's very calculating of you.”

“Not calculating,” he says, “realistic.” Then he laughs. “That's not why I didn't marry her though. It just adds to my relief.”

“Huh,” I say. I finish the wine in my glass, hold it out for him to fill.

“She was just very, I don't know, motivated,” he says as he leans back, setting the bottle on the ground next to him.

I raise an eyebrow. “Motivated is bad?”

“No. I mean, she was very serious about making the most of every opportunity for publicity, whatever.” He shrugs. “If I told her ahead of time where we were going for dinner, she'd tip off a photographer.”

“Seriously?”

“That's not even”—he waves one hand—“most of the women I've been out with would . . . or do. It just gets old.”

“You poor thing,” I say. I shake my head, push my lip into a pout. “All those gorgeous young women taking advantage of you.”

“You're hilarious.” He drains his glass, picks the bottle back up, and then he turns toward me, sitting sideways on the lounge chair. “This was different though. We were living together. We had a kid. And then when we split up, she was like . . .” He shakes his head. “She was doing all these interviews about ‘life after Tommy' and making sure there were all these shots of her on vacation with Sadie. We had to get lawyers involved. She was selling pictures of my kid.”

“She wasn't.”

“Oh yeah.” He nods. “She's a great mom.”

He's leaning forward, resting his arms on his knees, holding the bottle of wine and his empty glass between us. I reach over, rest one hand on his arm.

“Sorry,” I say.

“I'm used to it.” He tips the last of the bottle into his glass, and I
pull my hand away. “Honestly, the fact that you're just back in Nebraska doing your own shit, that's one of the things I like best about you.”

“Are you sure you're not a poet? Because that's like the start of a sonnet—‘The thing I like about you is that you're so far away.'” I lean back into the chair and pull my knees into my chest. “Please, keep going.”

He laughs. “You know what I mean. Just that you're not caught up in this whole . . .” He waves his hand in a sweeping circle like he doesn't know the word for it. “I like that you don't want anything from me.”

“That's not entirely true.” I gesture toward the empty bottle with my glass.

“Okay, then I like that you're only using me for my wine cellar,” he says, standing up and walking toward the house.

“It's a good wine cellar,” I say. I close my eyes and listen to the door open and close behind me, and I think,
Fuck. I shouldn't even be here.

•   •   •

We drink a lot of wine, and by the end of it, I'm feeling sleepy. My eyes keep fluttering closed.

“C'mon,” Tommy says, standing up. “We have to get you inside before the kids find us passed out here in the morning.” He offers his hand and pulls me up, and when I'm on my feet, we're standing close, inches apart, and then Tommy's mouth is on mine. I think how Tommy is like a planet, a center of gravity, throwing everything off-balance. I pull back, and there's just a whisper of air between us. Nose to nose. It's as far as I manage to go.

“Sadie would kill me,” I say.

“You're probably right,” he says. “But she sleeps late. I think we'll be good.”

“No,” I say. “I feel weird about this.”

I step backwards, pull my hand out of his, but he grabs my wrist and draws me back. Kisses the skin along my jaw.

“I'm serious, Tommy.”

“So am I, Stacey. Don't piss me off.” He kisses me again, and when he does, he holds my lip between his teeth. He doesn't really bite me though, and even if he did, I wouldn't mind it. I kind of like things a little rough.

•   •   •

We spend most of the day at the production office with Jason, but my parents are supposed to be on their way for the kids. I keep checking my phone and texting them. I don't know if they're running late or if they just aren't looking at their phones.

“We should go,” I say to Tommy finally. “I don't even know when they'll be here. If they show up to get the boys and I'm not there, my dad'll flip.”

Jason looks up from his computer. Tommy's been sitting next to him, and they've been super intense about whatever it is they're looking at. I'm relieved that Tommy stands up to leave as soon as I ask.

“You still scared of your dad, Stacey?” Jason says, smiling. “Seem a little old for that.”

“Watch it,” I say. “I don't seem old for anything.”

“Right. Right,” Jason says. “I misspoke.”

“My dad just gets worked up pretty easily. I don't like to upset him.” But then I smile. “My dad's adorable. My dad's pretty great.”

“No wonder you're not into Tommy,” Jason says, and Tommy turns to give him this
What the fuck?
look. “Tommy only appeals to girls who hate their dads.”

“Who says Stacey's not into me?”

“Stacey's too good for you,” Jason says, and he gives me this smile like he hopes I'm not too good for him. His third wife must be on the downhill slide.

I laugh and shake my head. “Let's just go.” I wave to Jason as we're walking out.

Tommy opens the car door for me, and as I slide in, he says, “You seem pretty into me.”

“Not really,” I say. “I'm just bored.”

Tommy gets in and starts the car.

“You know, maybe you should just drop me off.” I wave my hand back and forth between us. “I mean, if they thought anything . . .”

He turns to look at me. “You're serious?”

“They're my parents.”

“And they're a little conservative?”

“Hardly.” I turn to look out the window. “My parents are like, I don't know, intellectual hippies. My dad's an ethnologist. He studies cultural variations on kinship structures. Actually, he co-teaches a lot with the Women's Studies faculty. Not that it's called that anymore. It's Gender and Identity or Gender and Sexuality? I can't remember.”

“So that's where your work comes from?”

“Probably, yeah.” I nod. “A lot of it anyway.”

“And your mom?”

“Art history. Mostly folk art.”

“So dinner at your house was like a fucking college course every night.”

“Definitely not.” I laugh. “They were both working a lot. It was mostly me and Jenny.”

“I thought you had this great childhood?”

“I did. My parents just weren't home for a lot of it.”

“Sounds idyllic.”

“Jesus, Tommy, they just . . . They were very progressive. They were encouraging. They gave me a great education. So we didn't do a lot of family dinners. So what?”

He lifts one hand from the steering wheel in a quick wave. “Don't get defensive. It's just finally making sense. I mean, it's always seemed kind of weird that your work is all ‘Fuck the patriarchy!' but then you're like this suburban housewife.”

“See? They're gonna love you. Please, call me that in front of my parents so they can lecture you on the denigration of traditionally female spheres. While you're at it, maybe you could say something about not doing chick flicks since you want your work to be taken seriously.”

Tommy laughs and pulls left onto the street that leads to his house. “I make a lot of money doing chick flicks.” He hits a button on the opener clipped to his visor and the gate to the drive swings open.

“No car yet,” he says as he pulls in and parks in front of the house. He shuts the engine off and turns toward me. “All right, so here's the plan for your very progressive parents.”

“You're leaving?”

“No, that would be rude.” He sets one hand on my knee and slides his thumb along my thigh. “I'm just going to act like I'm not fucking you, and you're going to act like you're not damaged by it.”

“Fuck you.” I reach for the door handle, pop it open.

“Oh, come on, Stace,” he calls after me. “That was a good one.”

•   •   •

The boys come flying down the stairs and launch themselves at my parents almost the minute they're through the door. Everything's running behind schedule, but still the boys haven't packed up the last of
their things. I send them back upstairs, and Sadie offers to help them. Today, she's being super sweet. She seems to have fallen in love with Stevie, and it's mutual. He's holding her hand.

“Can I get anyone a drink?” Tommy says.

“Please,” I say, nodding, but he just stands there waiting, his hands in his pockets.

“What can I get you?” he says finally.

“Mom, you want some wine?” I say, setting my hand on her arm.

“No,” she says. “Do you have any scotch?”

“Definitely.” He walks behind the bar and pours a scotch, hands it to my mother. “Stacey, red or white?”

“Red,” I say. “Dad?”