Ben
I’m going to be late picking up Kit for my mother’s party, a fact that’s not helping with my nerves at all. Right up until I’d actually asked if she’d wanted to come with me, I wasn’t even sure I’d make it to the Crestwood. I’d still been manufacturing excuses in my mind for why I couldn’t go. But then Dad had told me he was taking Sharon as his plus-one, and since he’d factored into 100 percent of my made-up excuses, I figured I was stuck.
And the thought of my whole Saturday night without Kit—it wasn’t an option. Since our trip out to the Ursinus earlier this week, I hadn’t brought up Houston again, but the fact that next week marked the end of my scheduled family leave was the ten-thousand-pound gorilla in every room we were in together. It’s not as if we didn’t acknowledge it. After all, with Dad doing better and my promises to Jasper, I’d been doing a lot more telecommuting work over the past two weeks, and more than once Kit had heard me on the phone, setting up future trips, talking to other clients, arguing with Jasper—who’d not, truth be told, given up on the idea that we could swing getting out of the non-compete if we just kept at Greg. When I’d suggested that we hang in, wait six months to do another review of the non-compete, he’d hung up on me in frustration.
Unless I asked for an extension, I was expected back in the office in nine days, and I have no fucking idea what to do about that—every single thing in my life has been reorganized by this leave time, by Kit, and my one ham-handed volley about Houston on Monday night had gone over like a lead balloon. A full life, a life I chose for myself, she’d said, and I’ve thought of those words over and over. I suppose when I’d brought up Houston, I’d done it in the context of work, but I’d meant something else. I’d meant me, us—and Kit wasn’t going to choose that for herself, not if it meant leaving here, and not, especially, after knowing me so short a time.
Truth be told, it fucking hurt, no matter how right she probably was. And though I know I need to try again, to sac up and actually tell her how I’m feeling, I don’t know the where or when of it, much less the how. All I know is that I’m going to be introducing her to my mother in the next hour, and for now, I have to put all my energy into not being the total dickwad I still sometimes turn into when Richard, my mother, and I find ourselves in the same room.
“It’s the next house,” says River, from the seat next to me. I’m late because it’d started to cloud over as we’d finished up hauling in some reclaimed wood, and River riding his bike home sounded no good to me. He’d fought me, dramatically pulling up his hood and tightening it around his face, as if this would be enough to protect him from the elements, but had relented when I’d threatened to lock his bike up for the whole weekend in the back shed. He’d waited sulkily while I changed into my suit in the back office, then told me I looked like a politician when I came out. “The asshole kind,” he’d said.
I’d laughed. I get a kick out of it whenever River and I tease each other. It reminds me of how far we’ve come since that first day he’d called me an asshole. And tried to break my foot.
I’m a little surprised, honestly, to see that he lives in a small but meticulously maintained house, the yard featuring carefully dug flower beds, the front porch lined with brightly painted clay pots, overfull with geraniums. I don’t know what I expected, but I guess it was easier for me to think that a kid getting in the kind of trouble River had been getting into would have been living in a place that bore more obvious signs of distress, though I of all people should know better.
“Nice place,” I say, pulling into the driveway, but River is already reaching with one hand to retrieve his backpack, the other clasping the door handle. This is straight out of my own teenage playbook, the same move I’d pull pretty much every time my dad took me to school in the Volvo wagon he used to have, the one that had an exhaust pipe held up by a pair of pantyhose.
“Wait. We’ve gotta unload your bike.” River sighs, a heavy, frustrated exhale, and I laugh. “You embarrassed of me, man?”
“No,” he grumbles, but he’s answered me so quick that I know he’s embarrassed of something.
I’m pretty sure I know what that something is when I hear the sound of a screen door bang shut, followed quickly by a woman’s loud, almost honking laugh—I’m guessing I’m about to meet River’s mom, who I only know as the “strange sorta woman” my dad mentioned speaking to on the phone after River was first caught at the yard. There are other voices too, light, lilting voices also full of laughter, and when I see three women emerge from around the back of the house, I figure I’ve dropped River off during some kind of party his mom his having.
I give him a sympathetic glance and get out of the truck. The woman who I think is River’s mom—the resemblance is clear—is wearing a long, floral skirt paired with a men’s dress shirt, tied at her waist. She’s got brown hair, same as River’s is at the roots, but it’s shot through with gray, and it brushes her elbows as she walks toward me. “You must be Ben,” she exclaims, her arms already coming around me. I catch River’s wince. The poor kid.
“I’m Frances, River’s mom.” She pulls back from me, keeping a grip on my arm, gently pushing me toward her companions. “This is River’s Aunt Vera,” she says, and I shake the hand of a short, red-haired woman who has River’s same hazel eyes. “And this is River’s grandmother, Sue.” Sue’s about the same height as Vera, but with white hair almost as long as Frances’s, and she’s got clear blue eyes and a big smile that she’s aimed right at River, who’s got his head ducked in obvious discomfort.
“It’s nice to meet you all. River’s been doing a great job for us.” This probably doesn’t help the embarrassment factor, but it seems like the right thing to say to the kid’s mom, maybe grease the wheels for him to get back into her good graces if he’s been in trouble.
“That’s wonderful, absolutely wonderful!” She lets go of me and heads over to River, wrapping him up and kissing his head. I hear him groan. “He’s such a talented boy. Do you know, I think it’s a gift from the universe that he got in trouble that day. A gift!” She raises one hand to the sky, and Vera and Sue nod.
This all seems a bit crazy-town to me, but it sure doesn’t look as if River’s neglected, and that’s something. I clear my throat, trying to diffuse some of the awkwardness, and nod toward him. “You’re back Monday after class, yeah?”
“Yeah,” he says.
“Well, I’ll let you all get back to…ah…” I trail off, because I’m not sure what they were doing. Maybe a drum circle or something, because I definitely smell incense.
“You should come join us!” Vera exclaims, clasping her hands together. “We’re having a bean sprout casserole. Tofu for extra protein!”
I try not to let my expression reveal anything. I’ve got nothing against bean sprouts, but tofu is how I imagine eating a sponge feels. Plus, I’ve seen what River packs when he comes to the yard, and there’s not a bean sprout in sight, so I’m wondering if he’s resigned himself to packing his own lunches in protest. “Oh, that’s very nice of you, ma’am, but I don’t want to be intruding on your family party.”
“Family party?” laughs Sue. “This is a regular Friday night!”
“We all live here,” says Frances, in explanation. “And River, of course! I’m afraid he’s a bit outnumbered, aren’t you, honey? It’s a lot of estrogen, I’m sure.”
“Not from me,” Sue quips. “I’m all dried up!”
River looks like he wants to die, and I bite the inside of my mouth to keep from laughing.
“Let me tell you what,” says Vera, reaching over to ruffle River’s hair, “He’ll make some woman a wonderful husband someday!”
“Vera,” Frances says, “that is an incredibly heteronormative thing to say.”
“Oh my God,” River says. “I’m going inside.” He stomps away, sullen, disappearing through the back gate. I try to make my face smile politely, but it may be more of a grimace.
“You’re about the most heteronormative thing I’ve ever seen!” says Vera, and is it hot out here, or am I just mortally embarrassed? “Look at you in this suit!”
“Oh, now stop harassing him,” says Frances. “Are you sure we can’t convince you to stay? River has told us so much about you and your father.”
“Which means he’s told us about three things,” says Sue. “That’s a lot for River right now.”
“Right,” I say. “He’s a quiet kid.” All along, I’d figured River tended toward quiet because of the way he speaks, but now I think maybe he doesn’t really need to fill in much of the space with this crowd. “I really appreciate the offer, but I actually have this party to get to…” When I think of it, though, my mother’s party at the Crestwood—a big bunch of celebratory toasts for Richard—bean sprout casserole sounds all right, after all. Maybe I’ll call Kit, ask her to meet me here. We can just eat and talk about estrogen with these three nice ladies.
“A date! Do you have a date?” She claps her hands, a mini-celebration for something she knows nothing about. Oh, wow. First, never mind about having Kit here, because this would be worse than whatever’s coming with my mom. Second, is this how Frances is with River? Because if I had a hooded sweatshirt on right now, I’d be pulling it up and doing some hardcore moping.
“Yes, ma’am. Something like that.”
I quickly grab River’s bike from the bed of my truck, grateful when Vera moves to take it from me. They’re chattering still, asking questions about my work and I’m not even sure that I give a full answer to anything before they move on to the next question. Even when I’m back behind the wheel, Frances is talking through my open window, thanking me again, inviting my father and I over for dinner next week. I promise to get back to her about that, but I think Dad might have a moral opposition to tofu.
When I finally manage to back out of the driveway, though, I catch a glimpse of River in the front window. He’s holding up a piece of notebook paper to the glass, where he’s written Sorry about that in big letters. I give a quick nod, wave off his concern. But I wonder about the depth of embarrassment River—monosyllabic, shrugging River—must be feeling to actually go inside the house to make a sign of apology to me. He’s living with three women—three obviously powerful, big-personality women—and no matter how nice they seemed, he’s at an awkward age, and probably the yard has been a bigger help to him than I’d considered. When I go, will River keep coming? Will he and I stay in touch? Would Dad be willing to go in for tofu and bean sprouts just to keep tabs on how he’s faring?
It’s surprisingly difficult for me to think about, and anyways, I have a terrible party to get to.
* * * *
I pretty much forget about whatever shit I’m in for when I pull up to Kit’s house and find her waiting on the porch in a black cocktail dress, fitted to her curves, cut wide across her shoulders and dipping down her chest so that perfect stretch of skin is on display, that lift of her collarbone that’s her favorite place for me to touch, to kiss. It’s a dress another woman would wear with pearls, but Kit wears nothing on her neck, and to me, it’s all the more arousing.
I beg her to let me take her inside, skip the party. I’ll let her keep the dress on if she wants. But it’s a no-go. Kit’s been excited for this, and I’ll do whatever she wants to keep her giving me that playful smile. She takes my hand as we walk into the hotel lobby—she’s been here before, she says. She’d done brunch with Zoe and Greer here a few times, but she’s never been to a private party. I want to tell her not to get her hopes up, that it’ll be good shrimp cocktail but terrible conversation, but I bite my tongue, on dickwad patrol of myself.
The party’s already been going on for about an hour, and so the room is buzzing with conversation. Catering staff circles the room with trays of champagne, small appetizers. Along one wall, an elaborately draped buffet table is laden with heavier fare, including a giant, multi-tiered cake, not yet cut. It’s over there where we spot my dad and Sharon. He’s looking good, up on his cane, more stable than I’ve seen him since I’ve been in town, and while Sharon clearly doesn’t care that she’s the only woman in this room not wearing a dress, she’s made a concession with a nice pantsuit and a silk scarf around her neck. Both she and my dad obviously have a strategy for this—they’ve piled their plates high with crab legs and oysters. My dad always says that the only way to take the sting out of eating off communal trays is by eating the most expensive stuff that’s on them. Since neither of them can wave, they both lift their plates in greeting, my dad winking at Kit.
Kit waves back, then turns her head to whisper in my ear. “It looks so nice in here,” she says. “Like a wedding reception.” Now that she’s mentioned it, it does look like that. The cake, sure, but there’s also elaborate centerpieces—white, mostly: big, fat peonies that look pretty bridal even to me—on the tables that are arranged around the dance floor.
Where Richard and my mother are dancing.
This is my cue to say something, to agree with Kit about the room, or to offer to get her a drink, but for a minute I can’t get anything out. I have this weird, nonsensical thought: Is this a wedding for them? Did they decide to redo the whole thing, as if the first one wasn’t bad enough?
The first one, in fact, was very small—“modest,” my mom said, when she’d called to ask me to come all those years ago, and when I got older I realized this had been a concession, both to my feelings and to the larger matter of taste, since Richard had proposed to my mother before her divorce from my dad was finalized. At the time, it hadn’t felt like a concession. I remember that during the ceremony itself—ten minutes, max, under a rose-vined gazebo in Hazleton Park—I’d picked at a loose piece of skin on my thumb until it bled so much that the cuff of my too-big dress shirt got stained. Dad made a makeshift Band-Aid out of a paper towel and a piece of scotch tape he discreetly pulled off one of the packages someone brought to the restaurant where we had lunch after.
Tonight, my mom looks less like a bride than she did then. She’s wearing a dark-red dress, floor length but mostly plain. But the way she’s dancing with Richard, looking up at him—she looks as happy as she did for that first wedding, and while I know full well I’m a goddamned grown-up, and that the grown-up part of me is glad that she’s got someone who looks at her that way, there’s another part of me, deep down, that’s howling and kicking like a fucking baby.
I clear my throat. “That’s my mom,” I say, gesturing to where she dances. Kit wouldn’t know otherwise. I’m all Henry, and even if I wasn’t, I don’t have any of her mannerisms, her bearing.
Kit sucks in a breath. “Holy crap, that’s your mom? Why didn’t I buy a new dress for this?” She takes her hand from mine, flutters both of hers down the front of her dress anxiously. “She looks like a catalog model. One of the really classy ones, I mean.”
This makes me laugh, and I’m so grateful for the feeling of lightness that I reach back for her hand. “Don’t tell her that,” I say. My mom and Richard have spotted us, and they’re headed this way. Kit’s hand feels small and clammy in mine. “Kit. You look beautiful. She’s going to love you.” I want to say that it doesn’t matter what my mother thinks—it hardly matters to me—but here they are, gliding up to us with this twinned grace that makes it look as if they’re doing a professional dismount from that dance floor.
“I’m so happy you came,” says Mom, leaning in to brush her lips against my cheek, patting it as she withdraws. “Clean-shaven, much better.”
I ignore this, focusing on Kit instead. “Mom, this Ekaterina—Kit. Kit, this is my mother, Laura Holland.”
“It’s so nice to meet you, Mrs. Holland,” she says, shaking my mother’s proffered hand before turning to Richard, who introduces himself, bright-white smile in full effect. “This is such a wonderful party,” Kit says to him. “You must be so grateful.”
“Oh, he is,” my mom answers, brushing her hand over the diamond teardrop she’s wearing around her neck. When she was married to my father, my mom only wore two pieces of jewelry: the plain gold wedding band that had been my grandmother’s, and a cuff bracelet with inlaid stones that my dad had bought at auction, 1930s, Tiffany studios. I wonder fleetingly where it is. No way would my father have taken it back, and so it’s probably somewhere in her giant jewelry collection, its aesthetic not really suited to her anymore, if it ever really was. Kit notices my mother’s gesture, and her lips purse together in a smile that I recognize as inauthentic, even though it’s not an expression I’ve seen on her face before.
“Well, it’s nice to be celebrating thirty years anywhere, I’d say!” Richard says in that chuckly tone he has. “Now what do you do, Kit?”
“I’m a scientist.”
“Wonderful!” he exclaims, and I realize that Kit’s vagueness was a test, and Richard has failed—he’s done nothing to betray any rudeness, but he’s the same as he always is, which is to say that he’s parsing out his time for each conversation, and even during this short exchange, he’s probably already started thinking about the next hand he has to shake.
Before that, though, he turns his attention to me. “You’ve worked wonders with your dad. Henry seems almost back to normal.” We all look over to where my dad and Sharon have taken a seat, their loaded plates in front of them. Dad has a Christmas morning expression on his face about those crab legs, I swear to God.
“Yeah, he’s come a long way. The therapy has worked wonders.”
“So you’ll be headed back to Texas soon, then?” he asks, no guile there—why would there be, after all? He’s got no idea that I’ve been sweating my return since that first night I slept in Kit’s bed. I feel her stiffen slightly next to me, something infinitesimal shifting in her posture.
“I’m supposed to head back in about a week,” I answer, and even as I do, I notice that I’m not looking at Richard when I speak. I’m letting my eyes shift around the room, a mistake. When I’d first been introduced to Richard, about two months after my mom moved out, he’d been smart enough not to do anything that suggested even a whiff of paternal care toward me. He seemed to know on instinct that he’d never have any kind of role in parenting me, and so he’d treated me as any polite family friend would, if one who tried a little hard. But when he’d gotten involved in my case all those years ago—he wasn’t my lawyer, but he’d hired the one who eventually got me out—he’d come to the detention facility to coach me for my court dates, and he got his first and last opportunity to tell me how to behave. Don’t fidget. Look me in the eyes when you answer, he’d say, over and over, and it didn’t matter how gentle he’d been about it. It had driven me crazy.
“Supposed to?” he volleys, because this is what look me in the eyes had been all about—communicating confidence in your answer.
So I look at him when I answer, “I’ll see how Dad’s doing,” even though this is entirely a lie. Dad’s doing fine—everyone knows it, and anyway, everyone, I guess, also knows my dad has Sharon. But I’m not a kid anymore, and I sell this like it’s 100 percent true.
Mom’s caught someone in her peripheral vision. She’s waving and smiling, and then she and Richard are making their apologies, thanking us for coming, promising to catch up with us again in a little bit. When they’re gone, Kit turns to me, this little quirk at the corner of her mouth. “Wow,” she says flatly, ironically. “They’re sort of—”
“Yeah.” It’s a relief, I realize, to have her to look at following this exchange, to have her, so subtly, confirm some of the discomfort that’s there between me, my mom, and my stepfather. Already this party feels about ten thousand times easier.
“He looks weirdly young, right? Kind of in a cryogenic way?”
Again, she’s made me laugh, and I tug her closer, pressing a kiss to her temple. It feels like Kit is on my team. It feels like Kit is really with me at this party. “Let’s get some food, yeah?”
* * * *
She is, in fact, entirely with me at the party. Somehow, she seems to anticipate exactly what I need here—first, she insists that we sit with Dad and Sharon while we eat (Dad gives her two of his crab legs, which at this point is the same as writing her into his will), and while I slough off my broody temperament, she talks animatedly with Sharon, eventually roping me into it by bringing up River. Kit’s delighted anew when she figures out that Sharon used to work with River’s aunt, because it’s these connections, I’ve found, that thrill Kit the most. So after we mingle for a while, I give her more of what she wants. During the toasts I lean over, whisper in her ear stories about the guests I know—this one who had a son in my seventh grade class, that one who bought a ten-thousand-dollar antique pie safe from Dad and then later dismantled it with a hacksaw so his ex-wife wouldn’t get it in their divorce.
Kit’s half listening, I know it, part of her smiling at what she hears, the other part of her thinking of my mouth so near her neck, goose bumps pebbling along her skin. It completely sucks that I can’t see her nipples through the material of her dress, but I’ve got a feeling they’re reacting. The last few weeks, I’ve made a study of Kit, of how I can get her to react to me. Right now, nothing about this party feels awkward, artificial. It’s not any of the things I was dreading. It feels fine, a little funny, even, showing her this different side of my family that’s always felt so disjointed for me.
“Dance with me,” I whisper to her, right in her ear, once the last toast has been raised.
“Oh,” she says, turning to look up at me, her eyes wide with surprise. “I think the dancing is just for…?” She trails off, looking to where several other couples have taken to the floor in the middle of the room.
“For the guests?” I smile down at her, this rush of—heat, happiness, fun—coursing through me, this way I feel only when I’m around Kit. I’ve always loved women, have loved getting to know them, have loved sleeping with them, have loved making them feel good. But Kit makes me want everything, makes me want to be her best friend, her safe place, her family, and the guy who can fuck her until she doesn’t remember her own name.
“Okay,” she says, letting me pull her toward the dance floor. “But I’m not much of a dancer.”
“You’ll learn,” I say, but I don’t really mean it, because I don’t intend to do much other than hold her body close to mine, just so I can feel her arms around me, her breasts pressed against my chest.
“Your mother’s probably going to come by and ask whether we’ve left room for Jesus between us,” she says.
I laugh, drawing the attention of a few of the other couples around us. “She won’t.” In fact, my mother and Richard are with Dad and Sharon, everyone chatting and seeming to be at perfect ease. But it doesn’t chafe the way it normally does, not right now. I realize that for a lot of years, what I wanted was someone to complain to about Mom, about Richard, but my dad had been doing the right thing in always staying above the fray about the divorce. He’d made it possible for us to even have this kind of night, where we’re all together. Now, though, to have Kit—it feels as if I have that someone, someone who gives you that little room to complain in, but doesn’t hold it against you later.
I have a vision, fleeting, of sitting beside her in my mother’s dining room, of getting through a family night with Kit as my partner, of going home with her at night after. Of being here, and not for a visit. It’s a domino effect in my head, then—what if I was here and saw my mother more? What if I could keep an eye on Dad, on the salvage yard, work with him on some of the harder stuff? What if I could stay in River’s life? What if in between—every morning, every night—I had Kit next to me?
Something must change in the way I’m holding myself, or maybe it’s in the way I’m holding her, because she leans back a little, enough to look at me. “You okay?”
“Sure,” I say, pulling her back to me, breaking the eye contact. But I keep my cheek pressed to her temple, because all of a sudden I feel—I don’t know what. I don’t want distance between Kit and me. I want her to know me. I want to say something to her, say something so she’ll know why this night made me tense, so she’ll know how fucking freaked out I am about leaving her next week. But because Kit always brings it out in me, some reckless looseness in the way I speak and act, what I end up saying to her is—neither of those things.
“Kit. I’m in love with you.” Holy fuck, I think, as soon as it’s out of my mouth. What did I just say? It’s too soon for this, or if it’s not too soon it’s the wrong place, here at this party, where I can’t distract her with sex or something else. But even as I’m thinking these things, I also know that I’ve said something true. Something I wouldn’t take back. I think I’ve loved Kit from the minute she showed me that microscope. Definitely from the minute I found her with wallpaper stuck to her hair.
So, yeah—not taking it back.
Even if Kit has gone still in my arms. Even if she hasn’t said anything.
“Hey,” I whisper, running my fingertips up her spine. “It’s not…”
She leans back again, meets my eyes with her own, huge and wet. She’s wearing contacts tonight, so my view of them is unobstructed, nothing to keep me from seeing those big tears gathering at the corners. “Don’t say it’s not a big deal.”
“All right.”
“Ben,” she says, those tears—happy tears, I hope, God, I hope—threatening to brim over. “Take me home.”