Such a Fun Age(28)

“Yes.”

“It’s awful,” he warned. “You can’t leave after I tell you this. There was like, a lot of other bullshit involved with her and how she wrote me letters all the time and all this other stuff, but when I actually ended it, I said, ‘I think it would be best if we went our separate ways, and that those paths never again connected.’”

Emira covered her mouth. Against her palm she said, “Noooo.”

“Yep.” Kelley took another sip and said, “I thought I was very cool.”

“What is wrong with you?”

“I was seventeen years old.”

“Yeah, I was seventeen once too, bro.”

“Okay okay okay, I don’t know. She wrote me all of these very flowery and poetic letters all the time, and I think I felt like I had to break up with her in the same elevated tone, but it did not go down that way. And I’d like to say that that was the dumbest thing I ever did in high school, but it most definitely was not.”

Emira stood up straight. “What else did you do?”

“It wasn’t exactly things I did but . . . things I thought? Like . . . you know how Valentine’s Day was invented by card companies? What I thought I heard was car companies. Till college, I thought that like, Toyota and Kia invented Valentine’s Day. Which I did think was odd, but still a thing that happened. Actually, no, wait. Even worse than that? I thought that the word lesbian had a d on the end? Like—lesbiand? And I thought it was a verb.”

“Kelley.” Emira covered her mouth again. “No, you didn’t.”

“I absolutely did,” he said. “I thought that one woman could lesbiand the other. Till I was like, sixteen. Why am I telling you this?”

Emira laughed. “I honestly don’t know. But tell me the breakup line one more time.”

Kelley put both hands on the counter and cleared his throat. “‘I think it would be best if we went our separate ways, and that those paths never again connected.’”

“That’s really beautiful.”

“Thank you.”

Emira leaned against the counter with her hip bones first. She watched Kelley take the fifty-eight-dollar wine bottle and tip the remaining liquid into her glass.

“Do you want to call me an Uber?” she asked.

Kelley set the empty bottle on the tile. “Not really, no.”

Emira nodded and said, “Okay.”





Eight


Back in New York, long before Catherine was born, Tamra poured wine into three glasses. “Everyone has to share their most embarrassing moment.”

“I love when Tamra drinks,” Jodi said, “because she turns into an eleven-year-old girl.”

The four women sat on wiry patio furniture next to plastic shovels, pails, and a kiddie pool covered in leaves in the ivy-surrounded space that was Rachel’s backyard. Tiny white lights hung overhead. On the other side of the sliding glass door was a downstairs studio that Rachel used for guests. A queen-sized bed folded out from the wall where a very little Briar slept with her thumb in her mouth. Tamra’s daughters, Imani and Cleo, slept next to her, on the other side of Jodi’s daughter, who was soon to be a big sister (Jodi sipped a club soda with lemon). Rachel’s son, Hudson, was in Vermont with his grandma. It was the first time the four women were together without the immediate presence of their children.

Rachel quietly closed the sliding door with her elbow and her slippery black hair whipped behind her. “My answer to this question is more of a time period, and it is defined by my son’s penis.” She set four white plates on top of the table, next to a large pizza with tomatoes, pepper flakes, and basil on top.

“Don’t tell me this, la la la la.” Jodi raised her hands to her ears. She’d learned three days prior that she was pregnant with a little boy, whom she would later name Payne. Her thick red hair glowed as she reached over a large bug-repellent candle for the same slice of pizza as Alix. She retreated and said, “No, Alix, you go first.” It was Jodi whom Alix had first met in the waiting room when Briar had her four-month check-up. Jodi had introduced her to Rachel and Tamra, and Alix could still feel Jodi’s sweet concern and the gestures she made to make Alix feel at ease.

Rachel sat back with her arms at the sides of the patio chair. “In the grocery store, in the line for coffee . . . ‘Mommy, a penis is private.’ ‘Mommy, you can’t play tag with a penis.’ ‘Mommy, I have a penis and our dog has a penis and you lost yours so you need to be more careful.’”

“Oh God,” Tamra said. “Why is he being all Freud on you?”

“Okay, so these guys already know my embarrassing moment,” Jodi said, turning to Alix. “But Prudence went to a church camp with her cousins last summer and one of her counselors called me in because Prudence had carefully explained that her mommy took little boys and girls into a room and put them in front of a video camera.”

“Oh no.” Alix laughed.

“And the children that cried?” Jodi leaned forward. One of her green eyes went wide and the other closed. “Those were the bad ones, and they don’t get to come back again.”

Tamra chuckled through her nose. “I remember this.”

Rachel shook her head. “I fucking love that kid.”