Such a Fun Age(45)
Because he so heartbreakingly did. His tallness was still shocking and his hands seemed almost freakishly huge. This was Emira’s boyfriend. This was Kenan&Kel. This was the guy Emira met on the train who’d told her that he was excited to see her tonight.
“Thank you.” Kelley looked up at the chandelier above the table that stretched twelve places long, and the red and brown turkey pi?ata that swiveled slightly in the blasts of heat that came up from the floors. He was seemingly assessing the rest of his evening when he said, “I see nothing has changed for you either.”
“Excuse me?”
But before he could answer, Peter was walking over and sticking his hand out to Kelley like it was a football on the first day of the season. He smiled and said, “Peter Chamberlain,” the way he did on TV.
Walter joined Peter to alight on the only other male presence in the house aside from baby Payne, who was fast asleep. Rachel, Jodi, and Tamra were interrogating Emira with drinks in their hands, and nodding furiously at all of her answers. Alix removed Catherine from her chest and placed her in a playpen beneath a soft arch of hanging moons and stars. She paced halfway up the stairs, locked eyes with Jodi, and mouthed over the banister, “Come here.”
Upstairs the kitchen was still. The counters were stocked with yams, mashed potatoes, bread rolls, and asparagus waiting on top of burners and under sweating foil lids. Next to the girls’ bedroom, Alix stepped over a case of red wine on the floor and opened the door to the tiny laundry room, which was more of a substantial closet by New York standards. When she heard Jodi’s footprints change from carpet to wood, she reached for her friend and pulled her inside.
“Jesus, honey, what are you doing?”
Alix said, “Shh!” and pulled the string above their heads. A single light bulb clicked on in the small square space. Alix realized she was about to say Kelley’s name out loud, and her heartbeat double-timed. “Listen to me,” she said. “Downstairs?” Alix put her hands on Jodi’s shoulders. “That’s Kelley Copeland.”
“Okay . . .” Jodi smiled. “I don’t know who that is.”
“Emira’s boyfriend? That’s the guy from high school who took my virginity and broke up with me and told everyone where I lived and ruined my fucking life.”
Beneath the shelves of guest towels, diapers, laundry detergent, and emergency batteries, Jodi’s green eyes went big. “You are joking.”
“Jodi, I don’t even . . .” Alix backed up against the washer and dryer, which were stacked on top of each other. “I don’t know what to do.”
“You just found out?”
“Just now.”
“How long have they been dating?”
“I don’t know, a couple months.”
“Months?!”
Alix said, “Shh!” and heard Rachel’s voice say, “Hello?”
Alix opened the door and pulled Rachel inside.
“Are you two being bad?” Rachel held a glass of wine that Alix thought might be her second of the evening, the evening that hadn’t yet begun.
Jodi grabbed Rachel’s arm. “Alix knows Emira’s boyfriend.”
“From where? I thought you just met him. He’s cute.”
Alix fanned herself as Jodi went on and explained. When Rachel fully understood, she said, “Your ex-boyfriend is dating your sitter?” Jodi palmed Rachel’s mouth and Alix said, “Shh!”
“Okay, okay, but wait . . .” Rachel removed Jodi’s hand. “That’s the fucktard you told us about?”
Alix nodded and placed her hand on her stomach. “I feel like I can’t breathe,” she said. “Ohmygod he’s here and I’m still so fat.”
Both women hissed, “No, you’re not!”
Jodi tapped Rachel’s elbow and said, “Go get Tamra.” To Alix, Jodi said, “Okay, put your head between your knees.”
Alix wanted to pace around, but she’d quarantined herself and her friend in this closet and everywhere she looked were light bulbs and Swiffer refills and canvas bins overflowing with tangled extension cords. The reality of how completely different this run-in was from the last fifteen years of Kelley Copeland fantasies came down on Alix and crushed her lungs. She was still eight pounds heavier than she’d been before Catherine. The current state of her home wasn’t the modern, minimalist environment she’d worked so hard to achieve. And there were babies everywhere, not just the sleeping cute kind but Briar with her questions and Prudence with her naughtiness and Tamra’s kids with their obedience that was somehow very pretentious. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Throughout marriage, motherhood, and monumental career changes, Alix had always found herself forming ideal scenarios of how she would see a grown-up Kelley Copeland, or rather, how he’d see her. There were the cliché pipe dreams (seeing him after a particularly good blowout, running into him while wearing heels at the airport), but there were elaborate premises that took Alix entire showers and subway rides to fully flesh out the logistics of.
In one of these more elaborate illusions, Kelley was on vacation in New York with a short, brunette, picture-taking, Longchamp-toting girlfriend. After a frustrating morning of getting turned around on the train, they’d end up at the farmer’s market in Union Square, and enter Alix: tiny Briar strapped to her front, both with messy and darling hair. She’d see them before they saw her, and she’d lift her sunglasses up onto her head (“Kelley? Ohmygosh, hi!”). And then Kelley’s girlfriend would promptly fall in love with Alix as she gave them excellent directions and recommendations for cheap cocktails on rooftops in the city. Alix would wave (“Good luck! Have a great trip!”), and she’d be the one to walk away first. She’d be wearing something classic, like a white tee and red lips.