I'd Give Anything(19)

“‘So, Dad, about that high school girl you were trying to seduce . . .’”

“Wait. That’s what you heard?”

“I heard that something inappropriate happened between Harris and a gorgeous eighteen-year-old intern. Because no gorgeous eighteen-year-old in her right mind would sleep with Harris, I figured it was more like he was trying to seduce her in his clumsy, bumbling way and she got grossed out and turned him in.”

“That is a very flattering assumption, to both me and Harris.”

“Not to you. You were a gorgeous eighteen-year-old when you met Harris, and you’re gorgeous twenty years later. So I can only assume you aren’t in your right mind.”

“Oh, okay. Thanks for explaining that.”

“Is Avery sleeping?”

“Not that I’ve noticed. And I would notice, since she’s been in bed with me every night since she found out.”

“I’m sorry, Gin. Night drives?”

“Not yet. She’s been very quiet, doing her homework, watching shows on her computer. Even in the middle of the night, she doesn’t really say anything. The child molester incident was rough, though. I keep trying to prepare myself for a total breakdown, and then I remember that I’ve never figured out how to do that.”

“Avery is sturdier than you think.”

“I don’t know about that. I hope so.”

“Can I say something else?”

“There’s more?”

“Hallelujah. Hal. Le. Lu. YAH!”

“Ha! There it is.”

“It?”

“I was thinking you’d say ‘finally,’ actually, but ‘hallelujah’ works, too.”

“Are you telling me it hasn’t occurred to you that there might be a silver lining here? That this might be a wakeup call? A golden opportunity?”

“I guess I’ve been too busy worrying about the possibly irreparable damage to my daughter’s psyche to fully absorb the perks of my husband’s dalliance with a high school girl, his subsequent attempt to bribe his coworker into keeping silent, and his resulting loss of employment and income.”

“Dalliance, huh? Vague. Old-fashioned. Slightly lighthearted. I think it works.”

“Good.”

“Hold on, though. I didn’t hear about the bribery.”

“Attempted bribery. It’s what got him fired. Someone threatened to rat him out about the dalliance, so he offered hush money or hush stock tips or hush company secrets or something. Harris says that HR did some investigating and decided not to pursue the dalliance charges. They fired him because he betrayed the company.”

“Well, it’s nice to know they’ve got their priorities straight. You know, I’m surprised you haven’t unleashed Adela on this girl. Couldn’t your mom get her deported? Or at least distort facts and manipulate public opinion so that everyone thinks that Harris quit his job to free up more time for volunteering at homeless shelters?”

I wanted to confess that I had already done the unleashing, that, in fact, I had an appointment at my mother’s house in half an hour to receive an update on her fact distortion and manipulation of public opinion, but I was overcome with shame.

“You’re funny, Kirsten.”

“Okay, but seriously, can you kick Harris out already?”

“He’s sleeping in the garage guest suite, for now.”

“And by ‘for now,’ you mean that, later, soon, he will be sleeping in one of those nice furnished apartments down the road where all the single men in town go when their wives kick them out.”

“I haven’t gotten that far. Reminder: Harris is a nice person. Or he’s hitherto been a nice person. Your dislike of him doesn’t speak well of you.”

“I don’t dislike Harris. I dislike that he’s your husband. Strongly, strongly, strongly dislike.”

“Well, that’s so much better.”

Her voice took on a musing note. “But you know, I’m not sure I’d say I like him, either. Liking is probably too aggressive a word for what I feel for Harris.”

“Liking is too aggressive?”

“What’s a word for not minding that he exists but not wanting him to be married to my brilliant, gorgeous, scintillating friend.”

I sighed. “I don’t think I’ve qualified as any of those things in a long time, since high school at least.”

“Oh, Gin,” said Kirsten, her voice going soft. “You still qualify. You’ve just kind of gone underground with the scintillating for the past, um, twenty years or so.”

“You’re mean. And brutally honest. And mean. But I love you, anyway.”

“So it’s all decided. Harris is history. Scintillating Ginny is making a comeback. And I love you, too.”



“Her parents divorced when Cressida was in elementary school,” said my mother. “Her mother remarried and lives in Florida, of all places. Cressida visits her, but she lives with her father, Peter Wall. He was an engineer, but he has lately been on medical leave.”

I was talking to my mother, talking to her, for the first time since she’d gotten sick and maybe for the first time ever in our adult lives, in her bedroom. She wasn’t in bed, nor was she in pajamas, and even though she had a perfect right to be both of those things, I was relieved that she wasn’t. Even so, the sight of her in an armchair next to the bed, her feet propped on a velvet tufted ottoman, with a blanket over her legs, was causing me minor internal earthquakes.