All Adults Here(20)
The movie was well-photographed nonsense. She’d missed it when it came out the first time. The actors had extraordinary faces and sometimes that was enough. Birdie snickered often, and Astrid didn’t shush her. Russell had also loved going to the movies—any movie with gangsters, with the Mafia, with machine guns, he loved it. This was different. Birdie leaned close to make comments about Johnny Depp’s gypsy character, about the dialogue, about the way the characters rolled their eyes in ecstasy when they tasted the chocolate. At one point, Birdie ran into the lobby and came back with a package of M&M’s, unable to resist. Toward the end of the movie, when Birdie reached out and put her hand on top of Astrid’s, she gave her a look, playful and curious, and as soon as Astrid felt their skin touch, she understood what had been brewing, that it had been there all the while, just under the surface, like a child who understands a language fully before they can speak it. When Birdie kissed her good night after the movie, she kissed her on the lips, and Astrid was ready. That was the story she wanted to tell her children, in some parallel universe, where all things were equally appropriate. Where she’d been a different sort of mother. For the last five years, she and Birdie had been best friends. When Elliot’s twins were born, she bought soft-edged dump trucks in two different colors, thoughtful and generous. No one ever thought about their mother’s lunch dates. Clapham was LGBTQ-friendly; all the guidebooks said so. There were rainbow flags hanging out of shop windows and restaurants. It turned out that Astrid was even friendlier than that.
The doorbell rang again, and Astrid jumped.
“I’ll get it!” Cecelia called, running down the stairs. She pulled open the door and Elliot’s boys ran inside without a moment’s pause, each of them wielding a large plastic sword. The boys weren’t identical, but Wendy had somehow kept them dressed in nearly identical clothing every day of their lives, and it took slowing both children to a complete halt and holding them side by side in order to tell which one was which. Wendy put a Z and an A on the toes of their sneakers, which they then sometimes swapped, just to mess with their minders.
“Hi,” Wendy said, stepping over the doormat. “Sorry. Hi.” She had a heavy-looking nylon bag on each shoulder.
“Thanks! And don’t worry, I’ll catch them!” Cecelia scampered off after the boys, happy to have actual targets for her energy.
Elliot followed Wendy into the kitchen. They were both in their weekend attire, which meant chino shorts with belts and polo shirts. They could golf at a moment’s notice, like rich superheroes.
“Hi, Mom,” Elliot said, and gave Astrid a dispassionate kiss on the cheek. He looked at Birdie, who was standing behind Astrid, and paused. “Birdie,” he said. “Good to see you.”
“I get my hair cut in Rhinebeck,” Wendy said, apologizing, as she had every time she’d been in the same room as Birdie, as if Birdie’s job required a follicle confession. “I’ve been going to my person forever.” Wendy had been at the top of her class in college, and then the top of her law school class. After the twins, she’d gone back to work part time at a law firm in New Paltz, but her specialty—corporate law—had been downgraded to small businesses, and Astrid knew that it did not fill her with fire and passion. Her most successful client was a man who owned most of the Hudson Valley’s Dairy Queens.
“That’s okay,” Birdie said. “They’re doing a great job, your hair looks terrific. So full. It’s hard, after childbirth, most women lose a lot of volume.”
Wendy looked pleased. “It’s expensive, but hey, it’s worth it, right?”
Elliot picked an apple out of the bowl on the counter and took a big crunching bite. “Your hair always looks the same.” Wendy flicked him on the shoulder, her fingernails clicking against each other.
“It looks great,” Astrid said. “That’s what he means.”
There was a knock at the door, and then Porter opened it, holding more food. Some Clap Happy cheese, of course, and probably a nice crusty loaf of bread. Astrid liked things prepared, things with ingredients and recipes, but everything that Porter cooked or made was—what did they call it now?—rustic. Porter ate all her meals out of a giant bowl, like one of her goats, just everything piled on top of everything else. Astrid watched her daughter wade through the bags that had been dropped by the door, the toys that Aidan and Zachary had somehow already strewn about, and one of Cecelia’s shoes. Astrid felt full of love for her daughter, who had brought things and was going to stay. Birdie told Astrid that she should tell her children things like that, when she had little moments of appreciation, that it was nice to know your mother thought nice thoughts about you, even if they were tiny little things that didn’t matter. Astrid had always kept tiny little things to herself, in addition to most things that weren’t tiny or little at all. It wasn’t small, being in love—she was in love—for the second time in her life, and at this point, when falling in love seemed less likely than, well, getting hit by a school bus. Astrid reminded herself of that, watching Birdie fill the kettle at the sink, her dark curls lying against her neck. When they met, Birdie’s hair had been mostly brown, and now it was mostly gray. Maybe all her life she’d been waiting for someone with curly hair to arrive.
“Everyone, I have something to say,” Astrid said. Porter set her things down on the counter, and Cecelia poked her head out of the hallway.