If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home Now (32 page)

“Why do there have to be people like that?” I said. “Why can’t everyone be relaxed and friendly and get that my kid is trying
his hardest?”

“I don’t know. There are always a few jerks in every crowd. But I’ll do my best to make sure Noah feels good about himself
during the game.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Anything you can do to help
me
get through it?”

“I’d recommend a mild sedative.”

“Yeah, that would help.” I wondered if he was as aware as I was of how alone we were in that little office with the door closed.
I wondered whether he thought of me as just another mom at school whose kid needed extra attention, or as an interesting person
in my own right. I wondered if he had been looking for me to keep him company just now, or if he had just stumbled across
me by accident. I wondered why men looked so good in tuxes. I wondered—

“We should probably go back to the gym,” he said abruptly into a silence I hadn’t realized had fallen.

—I wondered if I was boring him.

I stood up, and so did he. He came around the desk. I fiddled with my skirt a bit, fluffing it in back where I’d sat on it,
smoothing it down in front. He watched me and said, “Maybe it’s a good thing you don’t dress like that all the time.”

“Huh?” I looked up from my skirt-fussing.

“Nothing.” He stepped toward the door. “Come on, Noah’s mom. Let’s get back to the party.”

“Don’t call me that,” I said with a sudden tipsy vehemence.

“Why not?”

“I’m not just Noah’s mom. I know you think that’s all I am. But it’s not.”

There was a pause. Then he said, “It’s the opposite, actually. I need to keep reminding myself that you’re Noah’s mom. Otherwise—”
He stopped.

“Otherwise what?” I asked, almost desperately.

He reached out and touched my hair gently and I held my breath. He shook his head slightly and dropped his hand. “Oh, you
know,” he said casually. “Wouldn’t want to send the wrong kid home with you in car pool.” He flicked his chin toward the door.
“Come on. Let’s go.” He opened the door and held it for me.

He stayed a foot or two behind me as we walked back into the gym. The belt at my waist felt a little too tight and I could
feel the muscles in my calves aching and a blister forming on my right big toe from the unusually high heeled shoes I was
wearing. I focused in on those things because it was easier than trying to figure out what had just happened. Or hadn’t happened.

You want something bad enough, you start imagining it’s a possibility. Was that what I had been doing? Or had he actually
looked at me like he wanted to touch me more? Maybe if I hadn’t had two martinis I’d have been clearer on the whole thing.
But I had and I wasn’t.

Marley Addison and James Foster had vanished. Good thing I hadn’t taken Maria’s bet. But Gracie was still standing near where
she’d been when we left. She spotted us the second we walked in—she was
looking
—and swiftly approached, graceful in heels that were even higher than the ones I was wearing. She had to be well over six
feet tall in them, which made her a couple of inches taller than Andrew.

“There you are,” she snapped at Andrew. “Where were you?” Her eyes darted over to me and back to him. She put her hands on
her hips.

“Nowhere,” he said. “Just my office. I told you I wouldn’t stick around if you were going to go on the attack with Marley
Addison.”

“I wasn’t attacking anyone. We were just talking about some of the charitable events I’m working on—she was very interested
and happy to help out. But thanks for your support.”

“This wasn’t the place for that.”

She shrugged that off irritably and turned to me. “Hi!” she said with a big, brittle smile. “So were you hiding away in his
office too? What were
you
hiding from?”

“I was just keeping him company.”
And he complained about you the whole time
, I thought. Now that she was standing in front of me, it felt like he and I were keeping a guilty secret. I couldn’t meet
her eyes.

She said icily, “How nice of you.”

“Rickie is Noah Allen’s mom,” Andrew said quickly, like he was in a rush to make that clear. “We were talking about the T-ball
game Noah’s playing in next week.”

“Oh, right—the Saturday morning league,” she said, her voice even colder. Sub-Arctic. “Noah’s the kid you coach on Sunday
mornings too, right?”

“It’s really nice of him,” I said. “Noah’s kind of bad at sports and—”

“Don’t worry,” she said, cutting me off. “Andrew will take care of that. Nothing Andrew likes better than to spend all his
free time helping out little kids who can’t play sports. That’s pretty much
all
he likes to do on the weekends these days.”

“Gracie,” he said like it was a warning, but she turned her back on him.

“Would you mind if he missed tomorrow’s little session with your son?” she asked me as if he weren’t even there. “I was just
wondering because we had talked about maybe driving up the coast to Santa Barbara for the day. There’s this amazing taco place
we both love and it’s been a while since we’ve made it there.”

“Oh, of course,” I said uncomfortably. “I don’t want to mess up your plans. Don’t worry about—”

“Hold on a second.” Andrew didn’t raise his voice, but he sounded angry. “I want to work on Noah’s batting a little more before
the game. So I’m coming tomorrow.”

Gracie raised her chin. “She said it’s fine if you don’t.”

“I
want
to go.”

She tossed her head back, and her beautiful golden hair swirled up then settled back into perfect place. “So you care more
about some kid’s batting practice than about going with me to Santa Barbara?”

“The tacos aren’t that great,” he said.

“Then maybe I should find someone else to go with.”

He studied her thoughtfully, no sign of emotion on his face. I studied him with probably lots of emotion in play across my
face, but fortunately no one was watching
me
. “You should do what you want,” he said quietly.

She flung up her arms. Her beautiful, slender, pale, smooth arms. Not a tattoo on them. “That’s a classic Andrew response,”
she said. “Helpful as always. So caring. So
invested
. So you.”

“What do you want from me?” he asked like he was curious, not angry.

She glanced at me and then looked back at him. “Well, for one thing, I’d like you to walk out to the car with me so we can
continue this conversation in private.”

“Of course.” He inclined his head a little. “Excuse us, Rickie.”

She walked away without saying anything to me and he followed close behind.

I watched them go, wondering if I’d see him again that evening. Wondering if this was a normal fight for them. Wondering if
they were the kind of couple who fought a lot because they had great make-up sex. Wondering if any part of him was wishing
he didn’t have to leave with her but could stay there with me.

I was sick of wondering. But there was no one to give me any answers.

Dad was sitting all alone in a corner of the gym. Just sitting there on a folding chair, humming quietly to himself and jogging
his knee up and down rhythmically while people bustled past him.

“Hi,” I said. I leaned against the wall next to him; there weren’t any more available chairs. “How’s it going?”

“Fine, fine.” A pause. “I’m ready to go home.”

“Yeah? How long have you been sitting here?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “I’ve been lost in thought.”

“I bet. Where’s Mom?”

He made a vague gesture. “Around. Mingling. She thrives on all this, you know.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed. What about Mel and Gabriel?”

“They sweep by every now and then.”

“They seem happy to you?”

“I’m not the right person to ask. They seemed perfectly happy to me when they were on the verge of separating.” He reached
up to pat me on the back. “So how are you doing, little girl? Having fun in your pretty green dress?”

“It’s red,” I said. Dad was color blind but it hadn’t occurred to me until then that he had the color of the dress wrong.

“Is it?” he said.

We stopped talking then and just waited there in silence, me standing, him sitting, while other people whirled and moved and
laughed around us.

Andrew didn’t come back in. I was watching for him.

I was still watching for him when Melanie and Gabriel found us. “I think we’re going to head home,” Melanie said. Her face
was bright and happy above her fringed black bodice.

“Okay.” I wanted to ask if she’d be coming back to my parents’ place later that night, but Gabriel was right there, so instead
I just said good night, and they walked off, arm in arm.

“Oh, god,” I said, watching them go. “This is either a really good thing or a really bad thing.”

“Huh?” said my father, who wasn’t much use at moments like these.

Fortunately, my mother was coming toward us. “What a lovely evening!” she said. Her mascara had slightly smeared under one
eye.

“Mel and Gabriel just left together,” I told her.

She pulled up short. “Really? That’s not a good idea.”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” I said. Now that she was worried about it, I was free to take the opposite view. “I mean, the worst
that happens is they have a nice evening together, right?”

“No,” she said. “The worst that happens is the kids get their hopes up about having a reunited family and have an emotional
breakdown when it doesn’t work out.”

Yeah, that was worse. “Melanie won’t let that happen.”

“She’s as likely to end up crushed as they are,” Mom said. She held out both her hands to my father and hauled him up to his
feet. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go.” We headed back toward the door that led out to the parking lot.

I didn’t take my eyes off of the exit as we moved closer to it. Was there a chance Andrew would come rushing back in just
as we were leaving? How long did it take to say “This isn’t working out”? Was that even what he was saying? Or were he and
Gracie tangled up together in the car at this very moment, kissing passionately, promising they’d never leave each other?

In the dark parking lot, my mother grabbed at me because I was so busy scanning the shadows for Andrew’s silhouette that I
had wandered behind a car that was starting to back up. “Pay attention!” she barked, sounding like me when I was with Noah.

I didn’t see Andrew anywhere.

My father opened the back door of our car for me and I slid in, tucking my full red skirt around me. Once we were out on the
street I let my head fall against the seat back and just gazed up at the windshield, letting the sky and the road ahead turn
into a dark meaningless blur, a little girl in the backseat whose parents were driving her home so she could go to sleep in
her narrow trundle bed.

A
mong the e-mails waiting for me when I turned on my computer the next morning was one that made my heart race with sudden
hope—which reading it quickly dashed.

“Have to cancel this morning’s session. Tell Noah I’m really sorry. I’ll see you at the big game. Andrew.”

I sat there staring at the screen, wondering if he and Gracie were having fun eating tacos in Santa Barbara.

Noah came into the room then. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “You look sad.”

“Nothing.” I roused myself and forced a smile as I quickly deleted Andrew’s e-mail.

Noah came closer and put his arm around my shoulders, which he could reach because I was sitting and he was standing. “If
you need anything, Mom, I can get it for you. Just tell me.”

“It’s nice just having you here,” I said and we stayed like that for a moment or two, his arm across my shoulders.

Then, “Mom?” he said.

“What, Noey?”

“If you want me to sleep with you tonight, I can. If you’re sad or scared, I mean.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I might take you up on that.”

“Mom?” he said again.

“What?”

“I kind of came in here to see if you could make me a smoothie. But you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

I got to my feet. “Sure. Let’s go down.”

I might not have had a boyfriend, or the slightest prospect of one, but at least I wasn’t alone.

I took Eleanor Roosevelt for a long walk that afternoon.

She jumped and waggled ecstatically as we left the house. “Don’t you ever get tired of being so happy?” I asked her. She just
thumped her tail harder and increased her pace.

Walking fast felt good: I had been feeling slightly hungover all day, and the cool air and movement helped to clear my head.
I was depressed, but being out and active was better than sitting around.

I was gone a half hour or so and when I got back Gabriel’s car was pulled up to the curb. I could hear his deep, booming
voice and laugh as soon as I entered the house. Nicole and Cameron came racing toward me, followed at a slower pace by Noah.
“Eleanor Roosevelt!” Nicole cried out. “There you are!” She and Cameron threw themselves on the dog, hugging and petting her
as if they hadn’t seen her in years, not just a couple of days. I undid her leash so she could run off with the kids, then
made my way to the kitchen, where I found Mom and Gabriel having a companionable cup of tea together.

Gabriel beamed at me as I entered and greeted him. “Rickie!”

“Hi,” I said. “Where’s Mel?”

“Upstairs. She was hoping she’d see you before we left.” Both the pronoun and the way he used it so confidently told me the
weekend was going well for them.

I ran up and found Melanie in her bedroom, tossing a book and some other stuff into a tote bag. “Hi,” I said.

“Oh, there you are. Hi.” She didn’t meet my eyes, just kept sorting through stuff on the night table with exaggerated casualness,
but her face betrayed her by turning bright red.

“Well?” I said, sitting down on her bed and leaning back on my elbows so I could peer up at her. “You going to tell me what’s
going on?”

“You know what’s going on.”

“I know you both stayed together at your house last night. But I don’t know what that means.”