Such a Fun Age(65)
Kelley kept his head low but raised his eyes to say, “If this is you making a dig at her age, I’d be happy to discuss the gap between you and your husband.”
Alix thought, Motherfucker. She often forgot that just because Peter looked young for his age, it didn’t mean that he looked young. But she wouldn’t be derailed. “Emira deserves to know who she’s dating.”
“No, you know what, Alex?” Kelley leaned forward with one arm on the table. “Emira deserves a job where she gets to wear her own fucking clothes. How about you start with that?”
Alix sat back. She felt the puffs in her jacket squish and deflate with a tiny whistle. “Excuse me?”
“You act like what happened to you was worse than what happened to Robbie, even though—let’s not even go there. If you love Emira so much, then let her wear what she wants,” Kelley jeered. “I’m sure I didn’t handle things well back in high school. I was seventeen, I was an idiot. But at least I’m not still requiring a uniform for someone who works for me so I can pretend like I own them.”
“Ohmygod!” Alix formed fists with both hands on the table. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. She asked! I lent her a shirt!”
“You lend her the same shirt? Every day? In the business we call that a uniform.”
“You are so completely out of line.” Alix had started her day in Manhattan, ready to tell Kelley, I know who you really are. But now she sat in Philadelphia, participating in a losing game called “Which One of Us Is Actually More Racist?” Alix cracked her neck to the side and pointed her hands like daggers on top of the table. “Emira is part of our family. We’ve never forced her to do anything she doesn’t want to do. I’ve known her for longer than you have, and I’m ready to do whatever it takes to protect her.”
“This is fucking rich. You’re unbelievable.”
“I’m not joking, Kelley. If you don’t—”
“Alex, listen to yourself!” Kelley screamed this in a whisper. “You are the same person you were in high school. God, I saw you on Thanksgiving and I thought, how the fuck did this happen? But of course this happened. Of course you’re hiring black people to raise your children and putting your family crest on them. Just like your parents, who you were so ashamed of. And of course you sent Emira to a super-white grocery store, at midnight, and expected everything to be okay.”
“Ha!” Alix tipped her head back. “So now you’re blaming me for the police interrogating Emira? That’s hysterical.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because she wouldn’t have gotten in trouble that night if she’d been wearing a uniform, now would she?”
Alix watched Kelley do a thing with his jaw, as if he were trying to catch a kernel of popcorn in the air. Her heart rate somehow tripled and she wanted to hold her hands up to her face. If she had said what she was thinking, it would be clipped segments of Wait, what I meant . . . the thing is . . . okay but you said . . . that didn’t come out right.
Kelley stood and dug into his jacket pocket. “Tell Emira whatever you want.”
“Kelley, wait.”
He threw two dollars on top of the table.
“Kelley.” Alix stayed seated, hoping her resilience would make it impossible for him to go. “We . . . Emira has become very important to us and—”
“Yeah, you guys are like family, right?” Kelley picked his salad up from the table. “Is that why you’re making her work on her birthday? Have a nice life, Alex.”
* * *
—
Alix wished to God she had thought to bring her headphones, but she also knew that any song that she played to get Kelley out of her head would make her think of him for the rest of her life. Quick crunches of snow brought her home and up to the front door. She slipped herself in and locked it tight.
She went straight to the kitchen computer and thought, Maybe one of the women from the campaign reached out. Maybe that one nice woman wrote me while I was gone. Alix didn’t have to be best friends with her babysitter. She just needed her family and her career. Her breathing had barely slowed as she clicked the email icon at the bottom of her computer screen. It flashed red with four new messages.
Between a SoulCycle promo and a sale notification for Madewell jeans, the name of Alix’s editor flashed twice. Alix whispered, “Shit.” She was so fucking late with the manuscript. But according to Rachel, this happened all the time and agents scheduled and prepared for their authors to ask for extensions. And Alix just had a baby, what did everyone expect?
The first email subject line read Are you in NYC???
Shit, she thought again. This was why social media was awful sometimes. Should she have blocked her editor? No, that would be weird, wouldn’t it? What the fuck is Kelley going to tell Emira? Don’t think about it. Just read the email.
Alix!
I saw that you and your babe were in Prospect Park! So fun! I know it’s the holiday but I’d love to catch up, especially if you need an extension? Let me know if I missed an email or attachment with your first 50 pages. Xoxo Maura.
Okay, that wasn’t so bad. Alix would write back saying that it was such a blur, that it was a lot of family time, and she would send over her first fifty pages ASAP. She just had to write them first. No big deal. Of course she’d planned to write them in all her favorite cafés and restaurants in New York City, but she’d been busy Googling Kelley. And his family. And their mutual friends from high school. And she was on vacation.