A Window Opens: A Novel (25 page)

“Well, even looking like a scarecrow, we’re glad to see you guys. Don’t forget to put your money in for the Tricky Tray. We got tickets to
Beauty and the Beast
, a new car radio donated by Sully, a personal training session with Trish. You’ll want to win.”

My mom took my dad by the hand and started leading him to a booth. “We will. Thanks, Tony.”

I felt awkward eating in front of him, but my dad made a
That’s ridiculous
face and gestured for us to get in line at the buffet. By the time we were done, my plate was laden with marinated artichokes, mandarin oranges, and cubes of jack cheese—all the fixins’ that push the envelope on the definition of salad. My mom’s plate demonstrated characteristic restraint: a pile of brown-edged iceberg topped with goopy balsamic vinaigrette, with a handful of abused-looking pickled beets for garnish.

“Dad, is there anything we can order for you? I mean, a hot towel at least?”

He opened a blank screen on his phone and tapped out, “No worries. Here on a full stomach.
”

“When did you learn how to use emojis?”

He typed back, “Margot taught me.”

Then he tapped to the notepad app, where he already had a list of questions ready to roll: “What are the kids going to be for Halloween?” and “What’s the Book Lady reading these days?” and “How is it going for Nicholas?” My dad pointed to this one and waited.

“So far, so good. He’s gathering some good clients. And he does
not
miss Sutherland, Courtfield. Not even for a minute.” This was all true. The work wasn’t as sexy as what Nicholas had been doing at the firm—and there were certainly no spur-of-the-moment trips to Luxembourg for top secret meetings. But the new clients paid their bills on time, and suddenly strangers were thumping his back wherever we went.

“Such great news—he deserves it. Who needs that pressure cooker? He seemed so happy and relaxed when he came by to help Daddy with his paperwork last week.” My mom leaned over and smoothed my dad’s lapel, irritating him.

“Wait, what paperwork?”

“Oh, just—”

My mom was about to answer when my dad started pecking away at his phone. We waited until he held it up for us to read: “Some business related to my estate. I needed a notary.”

“You mean, your will?”

He nodded, grimacing slightly and holding his hands out in a gesture that telegraphed, “What are you gonna do?”

How to respond? “Well, gee, Dad. Way to be on top of it, I guess.” I wasn’t surprised that Nicholas had helped out, but I did wonder why he hadn’t mentioned it to me.

J
udy and Elliott came to town for Columbus Day weekend. Work at Scroll didn’t stop for observance of the discovery of the New World, so Nicholas was on his own as houseguest cruise director. I was a little relieved to board the train on Monday morning; my office felt like a respite. Normally I loved my in-laws’ energy, but now it was a painful reminder of my own fatigue.

The gang came to meet me for lunch, a tense affair where Nicholas ordered two Bloody Marys and the kids were whiny and peevish and all in a lather about ordering banana cream pie for dessert—which, for some reason, Nicholas vetoed.

I suggested that we all go to a Halloween pop-up store on Sixth Avenue to pick out costumes. Margot gravitated toward the slutty section and Oliver fell for the grim reaper carrying a bloody chainsaw, leaving me to wonder what had happened to the butterflies and basketball players of yore. Luckily Georgie remained smack-dab on the puppy and wholesome witch continuum.

We finally settled on modest and adorably matching zebra costumes
for the girls and a blue, face-obscuring unitard for Oliver. While I paid an astronomical sum for this bounty, Margot started agitating for a set of bloody fingernails on display by the cash register. “Absolutely not. We’re already spending a lot of money on costumes. You don’t need these.”

“Please? They’re so creepy and cool. Just one pair?”

“I said no. We’re not made of money.”

“You’re so
mean
.” This was a new response to any perceived injustice. I hissed crazily, “You will
not
talk to me like that. Stop behaving this way or you will
not
have a Halloween costume.
At all
.”

I delivered the Vulcan death grip to her upper arm, a particularly harsh version where my fingernails nearly dug into the skin.

With every customer in line and my in-laws looking on, Margot’s eyes filled with tears. “Sorry, Mommy. Please can I still get a costume?”

“Fine, Margot. But you pushed me. And you’ve
been
pushing me. Imagine me like a rubber band—you can only stretch so far and eventually I’m going to snap back. I’m human.”

“Alice, relax. Can you just sign the receipt?”

Nicholas seemed to have only witnessed the part where I lost my temper, not the part where Margot nagged and rolled her eyes and generally acted like exactly the kind of adolescent I swore I would never have. You’d think I would have learned my lesson by now, having also pledged at a certain point that I would never be the parent of a toddler who threw chicken nuggets on the floor at restaurants.

“Fine,” I said. “We’re done here. I have to get back to work, anyway.”

“Alice, it’s hard, we totally get it, we know you have so much going on—”

I stomped past Judy and her good intentions and stormed out of the Halloween superstore.

By the time I got back to my office, I’d boiled the whole incident down to a funny anecdote.

“Just be glad your kid is happy to be a panda,” I told Matthew. “Before you know it, he’ll be Freddy Krueger.”

•  •  •

That night, Oliver waited for me by the platform in his blue man costume. Through the mesh face-covering, he said, “You were terrible today.” It was like receiving negative feedback from a Martian.

“I’m sorry I left like that, but you guys need to learn that money doesn’t grow on trees.”

“Okay, but we just wanted the bloody fingers.”

“So you can’t always get what you want. That’s life.”

“Well. You were still mean. Do you like my costume?”

Some background: when Oliver first learned to talk, I offered him a cookie after dinner one night. He shook his head. “Two cookies.”

“No, I’m offering you one cookie.”

“Two cookies.”

“Oliver, you can have one cookie or no cookies.”

“No cookies.”

I still don’t know why I dug in my heels about that extra cookie, but to this day I think of that conversation as a metaphor for Oliver. He is dogged.

Which is how I found myself on the walk from the train station to our front door, arguing with a blue man about fake bloody fingers.

•  •  •

I was about to fall asleep when Nicholas’s hand moved off my shoulder and started to explore.

“You have
got
to be kidding me.”

“Um, no . . .”

“Seriously, Nicholas, now is not the time
or
the place.”

“Actually, Alice? This
is
the place. But why don’t you let me know when the time is right? I’m sick of getting it wrong.”

“Good night.”

G
eorgie’s first tooth fell out while Nicholas was washing her hair in the bathtub. It disappeared into the suds like a little pebble, and we let out such a whoop, Oliver came running. “George, the tooth fairy is coming tonight!” He was over the moon with excitement, even though our tooth fairy is so lame, she forgot to come the last time he lost a tooth. (The next morning he came downstairs, grumbling, “The tooth fairy was a no-show.”)

Later, I lit a lavender-scented candle (helpful for insomniacs, or so said SleepBetter.com) and I was settling in to read on the couch when I heard the all-too-familiar sounds from the kitchen: Refrigerator door opening, check. Clink of glass bottle on counter, check. Bottle opener removing bottle cap,
hiss
, check.

“Nicholas, you’re having
another
beer?”

“Yes. Is that a problem?” Suddenly, he stood in front of me, hands on his hips, looking rakish in a white undershirt. I knew exactly what he would smell like if I pressed my nose into the dip between his neck and collarbone: Tide, Head & Shoulders, shaving cream. My favorite
cocktail in the world—now tinged with a hint of alcohol, no matter the time of day.

“It
is
a problem, yes. Nicholas, when was the last time you went one day without drinking? You practically pass out after dinner—”

“Pass out? Seriously?”

“Yes. Seriously. I know how many cases you’re going through. I can count.”

“That’s rich, Alice. Did it ever occur to you that I’m
exhausted
? You’re gone all the time, I’m trying to hold it together for the kids, I’m knocking on doors all over town
hoping
to find someone who’s about to declare bankruptcy—how do you think
that
feels? You’d have a couple of beers, too.”

“Oh, really? Remember when we had three kids under the age of six? And Cornelius was a
puppy
? Did I toss back multiple martinis when you were in Geneva for two weeks and Georgie had whooping cough?
No.
I held it together, Nicholas. That’s what I need you to do.”

“Seriously, Alice? I’m sorry I’m not a pillar of strength like you are.”

I stalked out of the room so briskly, my candle snuffed out. I hissed, “I am
sick of this
.”

From the top of the stairs, a voice pleaded, “Can you guys stop? The tooth fairy might get scared.”

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Had a dream about my dad last night, which made me think of your family. How are you all holding up? How is your dad? He sounds like a great guy; I hate that you (and he) have to go through this. It really sucks. Update me when you have a chance.

Jessie had to leave early to practice for a wedding expo at the Paramus Park Mall, where all the local bands would audition their best songs for betrothed couples. I came home early and we had a quick debrief in the
front hallway as she headed to her car, guitar case in hand, hair gelled into blue spikes. “Cornelius’s ear smells funny; I’m worried he might have an infection. Margot is finishing her algebra homework; Oliver needs to be tested on his spelling words, and Georgie is at Violet’s. I told Susanna we’d be there around five.” Jessie said this all in one breath, no hesitations. Then added, “Hey, thanks for getting home early. I hope that wasn’t too much trouble.”

“No trouble at all. Break a leg tonight. I know from personal experience, you’d be good luck for any bride and groom.”

When I arrived at Susanna’s, she was in the sunroom off her living room, frantically punching numbers into a calculator with oversized buttons made of rainbow-colored plastic gems. She had a pen behind each ear and a pencil stuck in a bun at the back of her head. The floor was littered with printer paper, graph paper, file folders, and paper clips. Apparently the Blue Owl didn’t share Scroll’s strict rules about office supplies.

“What are you doing holed up in here?”

“I’m just figuring some things out about the store.” She looked like she was about to cry—and when I sat down next to her and wrapped my arm around her thin shoulder, she did. “Oh, Alice, I really don’t want to get into this with you.”

“Stop, Susanna. What’s going on?”

“Nothing immediately, but you know we’ve been struggling. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to make rent and Paul thinks I should just throw in the towel.” She ran the cuff of her gray cardigan across the bottom of her nose. I thought of her on a low green stool, reading
The Twits
to a circle of rapt kids at story hour.
If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.
I remembered Georgie’s little overalled rump resting in my lap as we listened; the other exhausted moms leaning against bookshelves and smiling at the familiar lines. Mom’s morning out—that was mine.

“Things will work out, don’t you think? The holidays are coming and—”

Susanna scrambled to her feet, grabbing an armful of papers.
“Thanks. I appreciate the sentiment, but honestly? You’re the last person who should be reassuring me. Whether you want to admit it or not, Alice,
you
are part of the problem.”

She pointed at me, then left the room.

•  •  •

One Friday, Nicholas encouraged me to come to work with him for a day. In the peace of his spare but attractive office, I checked my black keychain toggle for the sixteen-digit code that would grant me access to the virtual private network (VPN), then waited a full ninety seconds while my computer labored to connect to a remote server in Cleveland. (Remember dial-up Internet? Same speed.) Then I navigated through the Inventory folder to the spreadsheet named GameOn (GO). The numbers unfurled slowly on my screen, one column at a time.

The data pertained to Joystick’s one hundred best-selling video games, including sales figures, median household income, median age of players, and average playtime per game, per level. The spreadsheet also included a one-line description of the object of each game—
Player storms enemy compound to capture evil drones
or
Assassins unite in the name of conquering gremlins on the planet Vibra
—and letter grades indicating levels of violence, profanity, gambling, and sexual content. Many games were designated CV, for “comic violence.”