Never Have I Ever(6)
“I don’t know,” I said.
Except for pregnant Charlotte, I was the soberest woman in the house. Even so, I could feel the gin in my veins. I took another little sip. I wanted to be back downstairs playing, not up here disapproving. Still, loyalty had me walk Char to the door, nodding agreement as she whisper-railed.
“Who comes into someone’s house, someone’s club, and takes it over and makes everybody drunk and stupid? If I were you, I would go right up to bed and just leave them there to realize how stinking rude they’re being. Except I wouldn’t trust that Roux not to steal something.”
Upstairs, Davis would be in bed reading with an ear cocked for the baby monitor. Oliver was no doubt enjoying the sleep of the innocent, his arms thrown up over his head. I was na?ve enough to assume that my stepdaughter Madison was upstairs in bed, too.
“Yeah, that was pretty . . .” I trailed off, because what word came next?
Interesting.
Which, though I’d never say it out loud, book club often wasn’t. Char’s selections were heavy on Ladies and Society. She liked white-gloved books that explored long-dead social mores. On my own I read high-stakes fiction: Margaret Atwood, Stephen King. Or memoirs like The Glass Castle and Wild, the ones by women who’d lived risky and survived.
I understood, maybe better than anyone, that the saying “May you live in interesting times” was the cruelest curse that could be laid. I didn’t want my life to be interesting ever, ever again, but I liked interesting on paper, contained between closable covers. I didn’t mind this Roux person hijacking our decorous, mild fun. Just this once.
To Char I said, “We can discuss House of Mirth ourselves, after our walk tomorrow,” and I resolved to get up early and read the last third. I would give Char her book talk, to make up for this disloyalty. For thinking, for just a moment, Dear God, she really is a little like that orange fish, fussing in his bowl. “I’ll make us lunch, and we’ll do every question.”
Char’s eyes pricked with tears, the pregnancy hormones maxing out every emotion, and then she lurched at me and hugged me. I hugged her back, tight, feeling the arc of her inflating belly pressing against my hip. Char’s extended family was very small. An elderly, unwell father and a military brother who’d married a German girl and still lived overseas. I was nearly estranged from my own family as well. It was one reason we were so close, forming a do-it-yourself support system.
“God, you’re so nice to me. And I am such a whiner,” she said. “Okay, okay. See you tomorrow.”
I opened the front door for her, and there was Madison. She stood barefoot on the grass by the lowest porch step. She was wearing an outsize T-shirt that she often slept in, but under it she’d pulled on black leggings. Out on the lawn, just past her, the pale face of a boy floated in the moonlight, his dark clothes and darker hair blending into the night. I drew up short.
Char whispered, “That’s Roux’s kid.”
Madison turned when she heard us coming out, smiling and lifting a casual hand. She didn’t act like someone who’d been caught. She wasn’t doing anything wrong, after all. Just talking on the lawn, still within the golden halo of porch light, safe. I didn’t like it, though.
“Hey, Mads,” I said, like I’d known she was out here the whole time. “Who’s your friend?”
“This is Luca,” she said. “He’s new. Luca, this is my stepmonster, Amy.”
“’Sup,” Luca said, not reacting to my nickname. He jerked his chin by way of greeting. He had his mother’s hair but his own face. It was very angular, with long, narrow eyes and a sulky rock-star mouth. His black T-shirt had some kind of band logo on it, and he’d paired it with ripped, dark jeans and shitkicker boots. He looked as if central casting had sent over Boy Trouble.
“Nice to meet you, Luca,” Char said, stiff. She didn’t like it either. “I’m Charlotte Baxter.”
“Nice to meet you,” I echoed. “Mads? It’s about time you came on in. School night.”
“Oh, no, Monster, really? Ten minutes?” she said.
“I think now is good,” I said, mild, but I flashed her a wicked-stepmother face, so that she knew I was about to become so embarrassing.
She rolled her eyes at me but said, “See you tomorrow,” and turned to the steps.
“Later,” Luca said, and he went slouching off into the darkness.
“Mm,” Char said to me. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” She gave me a look that said we now had more than a book to talk about, then started off home.
Maddy pushed past me into the house, saying, “It’s barely even ten, A-my.” She bore down hard, very judgmental, on the first syllable, the way she sometimes called Davis “Da-ad” when they were close to getting into it.
She never used to say my name this way before Oliver was born. The baby had changed so many things. These days I sometimes forgot that I’d loved Maddy first, falling for her the very day Char brought the Wheys to Divers Down, close to seven years ago. Char’d told Davis that Seal Team was exactly what his unhappy kid needed—friends, fun, physical activity. Char had been doing a little matchmaking, introducing her single swimming teacher and her handsome, divorced neighbor. But when I first met Davis, an econ prof in button-down shirts and penny loafers, he struck me as an uptight ass. My heart had gone out to nine-year-old Madison, with her puppy-fat belly sticking out from under her crop top and her eyebrows set in a permanent scowl.