I Liked My Life(14)

“No,” Eve says in a trance, handing over the protein.

“Are you serious, Katy?” Lindsey snaps, swatting the turkey from her hand. “Leave. Eve. Alone. She needs to eat.” Katy reddens. She likely just lost her spot with the cool kids tomorrow. Eve doesn’t seem to notice. Someone could tie her down on train tracks and she wouldn’t scream.

I continue the boring chant, Murray. Murray. Murray. Over and over. During tennis practice I make a game of it to break up the monotony, timing my delivery to the exact moment the ball connects with her racket.

By the time Brady hands Eve the list of twelve names, she doesn’t hesitate. “I heard Ms. Murray is nice.”

“Ms. Murray it is,” Brady agrees, circling the name and shoving the list back in his briefcase.

I want to celebrate my first real success, but Eve’s mood darkens, snapping me back to attention. “Are you gonna schedule it?”

Her open-eyed expression tells me this is a test. Eve set me up like this all the time, reeling me in with a seemingly casual question that had only one correct answer in her stubborn mind. If—no, when—I responded incorrectly, she pounced all over the perceived mistake. I try to send Brady a warning, but it unravels too fast.

“Sure. I’ll have Paula do it tomorrow.” He continues scanning the mail, oblivious to the missile en route.

“Does Paula wipe your ass too?”

Brady’s brown eyes squint until his stare is a laser on Eve’s head. The Fireman has arrived. The veins above his eyebrows pulsate under his skin. He looks like a man about to throw a punch. Walk away, I instruct them both, but Brady is too incensed to be persuaded and Eve is frozen with fear.

Brady moves so physically close that they suddenly share the same kitchen tile. “I have tolerated enough of your bullshit,” he shouts at her. Eve does not retreat. She can’t. Her firm stance enrages Brady more. “You cannot talk to me like that. What happened to your mother is NOT MY GODDAMN FAULT.” He slams an open palm on the counter, knocking over a water glass. The sound of it shattering whips Brady out of his fury, returning his eyes and face to normal. Eve backs out of the kitchen, startled by the stranger before her.

Brady stares at his hand as if it’s a foreign object. With Eve safe, I stop watching. I don’t want to fall any more out of love with my husband than I already have.

*

I find Rory on a blind date with a man who looks like Herman Munster. He has the height, flat forehead, baritone voice, and unfortunate luck of sitting in a spot where the green backlight of the Mexican restaurant hits his face, leaving a Kermit afterglow. The only thing he’s missing is a bolt lodged in his neck.

“Rory is such a beautiful name,” he says, leaning in as she simultaneously sits back. “I love the whole New Age, hippy look you have going.”

Rory slaps an artificial grin on her face. “Thanks.”

He clears his throat to buy time while he figures out what to say next. When he considers a line I know will horrify Rory, I encourage him to go for it. I wouldn’t sabotage the date if there were any chance it’d end in true love, but these two aren’t kismet, so why not make it an entertaining disaster?

“I had a newt named Rory once,” he says, “only it was a boy.”

“Really, a boy newt,” she repeats, not bothering to feign a smile. “What a coincidence.” Her thoughts are crazy with chatter: Did he seriously just compare me to an amphibian? What was Danielle thinking? How desperate do people think I am?

“I mean, what are the chances of that? Rory is not a common name, you know? And yet, five years ago, I happened to name my newt Rory. And then we both happened to get a divorce. And now you happen to work with my second cousin’s wife. That’s all pretty unbelievable, even if the newt was a boy.”

It certainly is unbelievable, Rory thinks. Who in their right mind married you?

He waits for a response to that random statement of facts with a creepy grin on his face. “Ahhh, yeah, no, it is. So, David, Danielle mentioned you own your own business in Dedham?”

It’s a successful shift in the conversation until he replies, “Yes, a funeral home. I’m a mortician.”

I didn’t have to do anything to make that funny. Rory coughs to cover the laugh that escapes and considers the possibility she’s on Punk’d. She looks at the pepper shaker for a lens of some sort, then around the bar for anyone who could be in on it. She truly expects an explosion of applause and laughter at her expense. Instead, the mortician continues, “You know, the industry is misunderstood. They paint it out to be full of people taking advantage of families at a vulnerable time. But that’s not it at all. I think of myself as someone who gives families one last favorable look at their loved one. I had this guy last week who got hit by an eighteen-wheeler. I’m not exaggerating when I say he was messed up. I mean eyes popped, arm detached—”

Rory’s last sip of wine threatens to come back up. “Jesus, please,” she says, using a hand as a stop sign.

He wears a sympathetic expression I imagine is universally loathed by his clients. “I’m sorry.” He reaches across the table and gives her hand a pat. “Have you lost a loved one in an auto accident? I should have asked before I told that story.”

“No, no, well … yes, actually,” Rory stammers, “but regardless, it doesn’t feel right to be so flippant about someone’s death.”