The Scenic Route (17 page)

“You're welcome,” Austin said, unsure what else to say.

“I think I was in love with you,” she said. Austin was having
difficulty breathing. “No, I know I was in love with you. I
am
in love with you. And I know it doesn't make a lot of sense for me to say. And it's not particularly fair of me to throw this at you. I don't know what I want you to say. No, that's not true either. I know what I want. But I have no idea what your feelings are or what's going on in your life.”

“I'm engaged,” Austin said. There were so many things he had waited so long to say, and that wasn't one of them.

“Oh,” she said.

She seemed so sad. So disappointed. How could he let her feel that way when all he wanted was to take her in his arms and tell her how much he cared about her. How much he wanted her. How much he always had wanted her. And he might have. If he hadn't spied Coal's face looking up at him from a silver frame with a big, goofy, gap-toothed smile.

“She has a child,” he said. “
We
have a child.”

Naomi was standing up. She was leaving. “I'm so sorry,” she said. She lifted her bag, inadvertently tipping it over and spilling lip gloss and credit cards onto the floor. A tin of mints broke open. Austin rushed to help her pick up the pieces.

“I had no right to come here and say stupid things,” she said. “I can't imagine what you think of me. Actually, I can. You probably think I'm ridiculous. And rude. And a little emotionally unhinged.”

“I don't think any of those things,” he said, kneeling beside her.

He desperately wanted to kiss her. He knew it was wrong. But he couldn't help himself. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to hold her. He wanted to take her back to his home and have one entire evening with her. Dallas had taken Coal to Chicago to see his dad. She would never know. Would it be such a terrible thing? To feel Naomi once more in his arms. They had been cheated of a lifetime together. What would be so wrong with taking just one night? As a keepsake. To have when he was older. To know that there was one night when he
loved Naomi Bloom with all his heart and that she loved him back with all of hers.

But he couldn't do that to Dallas. Naomi was already on her feet and reaching for the door handle.

“I love you,” he said, still on his knees. He was crying as he took hold of her other hand, and he saw she was also crying. “I love you so much.”

She nodded, and then she fled.

T
he leather swing was new. Hal held it steady as Mandy lay back into its hammock-like embrace and wondered if anyone had ever considered using one of these for a gynecological exam.

She was enjoying the relaxing sensation of being suspended in the air. Given her current emotional state, it seemed particularly appropriate to feel untethered from the earth. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she came to believe she had responded to Hal's latest text specifically to untether herself.

As Hal adjusted the stirrups around her ankles, she felt like she was floating beyond the mundane reality of her life. Beyond laundry and Spin class and spell-checks and footnotes. This was the ultimate in postmodern, poststructuralist theory. She was the text. Her body was the text. And her body was far more physically comfortable at that moment than she had expected. Until he got on top of her.

No more floating. It was more a feeling of being squeezed like a half-empty tube of toothpaste. A rush of air was expelled from her compressed lungs as her pinched bladder groaned and the flotsam flowing through her lower intestine pleaded for release.

Hal was kissing her insistently. But his breath smelled of garlic.
And maybe oregano. She was guessing he'd eaten Italian food for dinner. It occurred to her that it wouldn't have killed him to treat her to a meal. Just because they were having kinky sex didn't mean he couldn't be a gentleman. At the very least he could have brushed his teeth. She was tempted to tell him so, but it would definitely be a mood killer. What kind of person didn't use a mint before kissing someone? Mandy had been carrying Tic Tacs in her purse at all times since she was sixteen, just in case.

She tried to turn her head to the side, but he was intent on open mouth-to-mouth action. She tried not to inhale, but that just made her feel like she was suffocating. They were rocking back and forth with his arms tightly wrapped around her. Or rather around the swing. She could feel the seams of the crisscrossed leather straps digging into her back.

She grabbed hold of Hal's shoulders and tried to readjust her position, but he lifted himself off of her, removing her hands and buckling them into restraints dangling above her head. His skin was oily. She didn't remember that. And he was flabbier than she recalled. He was standing between her legs, his soft flesh hanging from his broad torso with an endomorphic looseness. She missed the leanness of Tad. The compactness of his frame and the way his skin gripped his tendons. There was a utilitarian aspect to his physical being, as if he didn't take up any more space than absolutely necessary.

Thinking about Tad was a mistake. She imagined him seeing her, in this place with this man. She could picture the wounded expression on his face. No, worse, disappointed, and then relieved because she wasn't his problem anymore. She flushed with shame, which Hal took as excitement. He grabbed hold of either side of her waist and pumped her back and forth like she was a martini shaker in the hands of an overzealous bartender. She considered telling him to stop, but it didn't seem polite.

On her way home along the icy sidewalks, Mandy had a decision to make. And it wasn't whether she'd be seeing Hal again. There was no question about that ever happening. No, she had to come to terms with something more fundamental. She pulled her parka tighter around her to suppress the early-morning chill as she wrestled with the implications of her recent behavior. The way she looked at it, there were two options: either she was a damaged and depraved person— or she was merely human. Maybe it was self-preservation kicking in, but she chose to believe the latter. She was a member of a mammalian animal species that makes flawed choices. And she had been making some terribly flawed choices. But what would be cathartic for her, and what she believed would be cathartic for many people, was to find evidence that this trait was not limited to only one species.

And that was why on Monday morning, she was knocking on the door of Dr. Peña-Punjabi's office. Mandy had come to sweet-talk her. Literally. She had brought chocolate truffles.

“What is that?” Dr. Peña-Punjabi said when Mandy handed her the peace offering.

“Chocolate,” Mandy said, stifling her urge to add “Something we earthlings enjoy.”

“Thank you,” Dr. Peña-Punjabi said stiffly while adjusting a strand of her glossy jet-black hair, “but I don't eat sugar.”

Mandy chose to regard this as a sign of diabetes rather than anal-retentive behavior. Though either way, Dr. Peña-Punjabi could have just accepted the gift and given it to someone else. Mandy realized that was their problem in a nutshell. Dr. Peña-Punjabi was very linear in her thinking, while Mandy was more lateral in her approach.

“I've been reviewing my notes on observed incidents of sexual
coercion,” Mandy said, “and I'm still wondering if there's room for some element of confused or contradictory behavior.”

“Amanda, we have already discussed this at some length,” Dr. Peña-Punjabi said, removing her gunmetal eyeglasses.

“I know, but I'd like to discuss it more, because here's the thing: there's no question about sexual aggression in chimps, and you've done a fantastic job over the years of documenting that. But sometimes, and certainly not all of the time, the female chimps act in ways that seem self-destructive or at least not in their best self-interest. And sometimes the male chimps seem to act out of provocation and frustration as much as aggression.”

“Amanda, I think I have made it clear that I find this line of reasoning to be muddled.”

“I don't think it's muddled,” Mandy said, holding her ground.

“I have no desire to continue this discussion.”

“But I have a desire to continue it,” Mandy said, attempting to match her adviser's formal tone. “It's years of
my
life we're talking about.”

“We have also discussed that, and if this is not work you want to do, then you should consider going elsewhere.”

“I want to do the work,” Mandy said, emphatically. “But you're not letting me do the work I want to do.”

“What you want to do is not objective scientific research. It is based on conjecture and emotion.”

“That's not true!” Mandy said, getting emotional. “Look!” She retrieved a thick stack of freshly printed notes from her backpack and placed it on Dr. Peña-Punjabi's desk. “Pages and pages of scientific observation of chimpanzee interactions.”

“You cannot assume chimpanzees have emotions.” Now Dr. Peña-Punjabi was also getting riled.

“But you're assuming they don't.”

“Because there is no way of knowing what is going on inside a chimpanzee's head.”

“That's exactly my point! And that's what I keep telling you I want to write about!” Mandy slammed her hand down on Dr. Peña-Punjabi's desk, which was probably a mistake.

“Please leave my office,” her adviser said.

“I'm sorry for banging your desk, but I'm not leaving until—”

“Please leave now, or I will have to call Security.”

“You're going to call Security on me?”

“Please leave.”

“You're going to call Security because I touched your desk. Give me a fucking break!” That was her second mistake. Dr. Peña-Punjabi picked up the phone. And Mandy figured she was entitled to a third strike.

“You aren't interested in what's going on in primate heads, because you don't have a clue what goes on in human heads. And you don't want to think about primates having feelings, because that would put them higher up the evolutionary ladder than you!” Mandy took her stack of notes and tossed them in the air so that they scattered across the office as a security guard appeared in the doorway. “Now tell me that primates always operate in their own self-interest!”

I
t was the seventeenth time Coal played the same
SpongeBob
scene that put Dallas over the top, and, yes, she was counting. She turned off the DVD and took the remote away from him. That was the wrong choice.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” he howled.

“Coal, I asked you to lower the volume.”

“I did.”

“No, you raised the volume.”

“Because I can't hear. Because you're talking too loud.”

“I'm talking to your father on the phone.”

“I want to talk to him.”

“Not until I'm finished.”

“I WANT TO TALK TO HIM NOW!”

Dallas didn't understand those mothers who think the sun rises and sets on their children. Sure, there were days she was convinced Coal was the cutest, kindest, wisest soul on the planet, but there were other days she thought she had given birth to a demon child.

“I want SpongeBob!”

“No more videos, Coal. We're going to go see Penelope.”

“I want SpongeBob!”

“You like playing with Penelope.”

“I WANT SPONGEBOB!”

“Just let him watch the video,” Jarrod grumbled over the phone.

“The problem is he knows that's what you would do,” Dallas said to her ex, “and that's why he's throwing a tantrum.”

“He's throwing a tantrum because you're taking something away from him,” Jarrod said. “I know the feeling.”

Instead of one child, she was stuck dealing with two. “I'm not taking anything from you,” Dallas said. “I'm just asking you to switch one weekend in May.”

“I look forward to my weekends with Coal. And I already bought tickets to a Junie B. Jones musical that Saturday.”

“I'll reimburse you for the tickets.”

“That's not the point.”

“I WANT TO WATCH SPONGEBOB!” Coal wailed. Infuriated that he was being ignored, he jumped up and down, stomping his feet and clenching his fists as he puckered his lips into an angry fish face. Dallas was torn between wanting to laugh and wanting to smack him. Neither was an option.

“Coal, you're six years old now, and big six-year-old boys don't scream when they don't get their way.”

“What about thirty-six-year-old women?” Jarrod asked.

“I'm not screaming, Jarrod. I'm politely asking.”

“Okay, I will give up my legal right to see my son on my assigned weekend,
if
you let him spend the summer with me in Chicago.”

“That's not going to happen.”

“Then you've got a problem.”

“WHO LIVES IN A PINEAPPLE UNDER THE SEA?”
blasted from the TV as Coal commandeered the remote Dallas had foolishly put down on the oak sideboard.

“No!” Dallas said, swiping the remote back from him.

“YOU'RE THE MEANEST MOMMY IN THE WORLD!” he screamed.

“Coal—”

“YOU'RE MEANER THAN GRANDMA!”

That was hitting below the belt. She was beginning to hate teacher in-service days.

“Coal,” she said, summoning her best-modulated parental voice, which even she had to admit sounded more hostile than dispassionate. “You are going to stop screaming. You are going to put on your coat, and we are going to Penelope's.”

“YOU NEVER LET ME DO ANYTHING I WANT TO DO!” Coal ran out of the room and up the hardwood stairs.

She had spent the entire day doing
everything
he wanted. First they went for a pancake breakfast at the Original Pancake House, which thanks to Mandy was now the only place he would eat pancakes. Then they went to the planetarium, which was followed by his favorite Coney Island hot dog for lunch and a visit to Paradise Park with two rides around the Kiddie Go-Kart track. And what was so unfair was that this squabble was likely the only part of the day he was going to remember.

“This is all your fault,” Dallas said to Jarrod.

“How is it my fault?” he asked.

Dallas didn't know how it was his fault, but so many things were. “You're making everything difficult.”

“Well, you know how I like making you squirm.”

She wasn't sure if he was being typically immature or inappropriately sexual. Or both. “Jarrod, I'm asking for a small favor. I'm trying to get married, for God's sake. Can you cut me some slack?”

“Not my job anymore. You're confusing me with your fiancé.”

“I'm confusing you with a human.”

“You've been playing the wedding card for almost a year. If you put it off this many times, you can put it off another week.”

It hadn't been a year, but it was getting awfully close. The original plan had been to get married the previous summer, but between the move, and work, and Coal, she had fallen behind with the planning, though it was beyond her why a wedding was solely a bride's responsibility. A Y chromosome didn't disable one's aptitude for calling caterers.

However, they didn't need a caterer, because they had decided on eloping. Well, she had decided. Austin had agreed in concept. Except he wanted to invite his mother. And his sister. Which meant Dallas needed to invite
her
mother. And her father. But her mother and father hadn't peacefully occupied the same city in more than twenty years, which was one of the reasons Dallas wanted to elope in the first place.

Just getting everyone to agree on a date had been exhausting. And then Len started working fewer hours, which meant Austin working more, which meant rescheduling yet again. And then her mother threw her back out, and Mandy had, well, her breakdown or whatever it was. And now Jarrod was being purposefully intransigent. She could hear Coal stomping around his bedroom. Like father, like son.

“Could you just compromise?” Dallas pleaded. She devoted her life to helping other people organize their lives. Why was it so hard handling her own? “It's very difficult to find a date that works for everyone.”

“But it doesn't work for
everyone
, does it?” he asked, sounding more snide than necessary. “You just want me to be the bad guy.”

“What are you talking about?”

“If you really wanted to be married, you'd be married already. You're having doubts, and you're looking for me to stop this train wreck.”

“You're crazy.”

“I lived with you for three years. I kind of have to be.”

She hung up on him. It didn't solve anything, but it felt good. And
that
she had no doubts about. Jarrod thought he knew her, but he didn't. He just knew how to irritate her, and she wasn't going to let him.

On the one hand, it really didn't make a difference if she delayed the wedding again. Austin had made a commitment to her. He had bought her a ring. They were living as a family. They were married in every way except a legal document. And how much did she need a legal document? She didn't need his name or his money.

On the other hand, the longer they went without a marriage license, the less he mentioned it. And the less he mentioned it, the more she questioned why. Was he having second thoughts? Did he think she was too old? Did he think she was too odd? Did he think she had forced him to propose? Did
she
think she had forced him to propose? Of course she had forced him to propose. She wasn't going to move to a generic suburb of a dystopian city for a fling. It wasn't joyficient.

But neither was feeling like she trapped him. Not that she trapped him. She had never trapped anyone in her life. Except for Jarrod. But it wasn't a trap. It was a pregnancy. He just called it a trap. And only when he was angry at her. Austin never got angry at her. And that concerned her. If he loved her, he would fight with her. Or fight
for
her. But Austin didn't fight. He got quiet. She didn't trust quiet. Quiet was where dark thoughts took root. Quiet was where doubts percolated.

She feared Austin was having doubts about her. Which made her have doubts about him. Which made her do stupid things, like snoop through his e-mail. And his office appointment schedule. (Like she was the only person who ever logged into her fiancé's work server!)
She mostly came up empty-handed. Except now her doubts had a name.

Naomi Bloom.

“When did your mom say she was coming back?” Dallas asked Mandy.

“She didn't.” Mandy was where she had been for the last three months, sitting at Penelope's kitchen table, staring morosely into space and eating Häagen-Dazs out of the container.

“She had offered to babysit for Coal,” Dallas said, perplexed that Penelope wasn't there and uncertain about interacting with Mandy, something she generally avoided.

“It's not a problem,” Mandy said, taking another spoonful of ice cream. With her mouth full, she said, “The situation is under control.”

Dallas had serious doubts about that, but she could hear Coal giggling happily in the next room as he played with Austin's old Hot Wheels set. Was it possible that Coal misbehaved only with her?

“I had wanted to ask her about something,” Dallas said, and it wasn't about Coal. Dallas knew she shouldn't want to ask Penelope what she wanted to ask, and she also knew there was no way of stopping herself once something was gnawing at her.

“Is it about the wedding?”

“Kind of,” Dallas said. She wondered if she should ask Mandy, which was an even worse idea than asking Penelope. “Do you have a cigarette?”

“You smoke?”

“No,” Dallas said, “but sometimes I like to hold a cigarette in my hand. It calms me. Did you know in World War II the staging camps in Europe were named after cigarette companies?”

Mandy was staring at her blankly. “Has Austin said anything to you?” Dallas asked.

“About smoking?”

“About me.”

“He doesn't talk about you that much with me,” Mandy said.

“Well, has he said anything in particular lately?”

“Lately he's mostly been giving me grief about my current job status.”

Mandy had no current job status. The closest she came to being productive was blogging about her lack of being productive. Dallas watched Mandy examine a lengthy strand of her unwashed hair as if it were a foreign specimen of dubious etiology. It wasn't the first time Dallas thought Mandy's obsession with her hair bordered on pathological.

“There's nothing wrong with dying your hair,” Dallas suggested.

“Excuse me?” Mandy sounded taken aback.

“If you don't like the color of your hair, there are lots of options for doing something about it. Am I being too invasive?” It was a bad habit, and she was aware of it. She just didn't always have control over it. She shouldn't have said anything to Mandy about her hair—or about Austin. Now Mandy wasn't saying anything in return, which made Dallas more uncomfortable than she'd been to begin with. And when she was uncomfortable she babbled. “I lived with a guy who used to go through my underwear drawer when I left the house. Now,
that
was invasive. At first I thought it was my imagination. But I caught him on videotape, and there he was searching through my drawer. He said he was just counting my underwear. As a rule of thumb, one shouldn't date men who count your underwear.”

“That would seem to be a good rule,” Mandy said. Dallas wasn't sure if Mandy was being sincere or snarky. Dallas also wasn't sure why she had admitted to videotaping Jarrod. But she hadn't said it was Jarrod. And she wasn't the one who was barely functional.

“For the record, I don't want to dye my hair,” Mandy said. “I just wish it was a different color. It's like wishing I was taller. Or Swedish.”

“Swedish?”

“I don't expect it to make any sense.” Mandy took another spoonful of ice cream.

“It's okay to feel sad,” Dallas said. Mandy groaned. Dallas knew she was overstepping, but what was she supposed to say to a woman who probably hadn't showered in days, who was wearing a stained high-school sweatshirt and whose goal was to be Scandinavian? “You dropped out of school, and you're moping around your mother's house. Everyone knows you're sad. Are we supposed to tiptoe around and pretend we don't know? Are you going to keep pretending you don't know we're pretending? Mandy, there are red-light people and there are green-light people.”

“Is that a chapter in your book?”

“If you had read it, you would know,” Dallas said, less insulted that Mandy hadn't read the book than dismayed that she hadn't benefited from it. “My point is there's nothing wrong with being a red-light person. Just don't make things worse by feeling bad about who you are. If you're sad, feel sad. It can actually feel good to feel sad. As long as you don't beat yourself up about it. It's the beating yourself up that gets people stuck. And if you're feeling stuck, the trick is to just take a step away from yourself. It's easy to think you have to first know where you're going. But you don't. All you need to do is take a step. In any direction. Even if it's a step backward. Because once you're moving, a body in motion tends to stay in motion.”