Two Girls Down(7)

“Yeah, isn’t it good? I had it at Carrie’s house. Her parents are doing this pescatarian thing.”

“Pescatarian?”

“You know, just fish and vegetables, no meat.”

“Sounds boring,” said Cap.

Nell shrugged. “Who knows. They read some article.”

He watched her eat, use the chopsticks like a professional like he taught her. Jules with all her intellect couldn’t do it, tried until she got splinters in her fingers. There was a time toward the end of the marriage when Cap showed Nell how to pick up ice cubes with chopsticks, just so Jules would feel left out. How desperate and stupid, he thought later. If he were to title the last year of their marriage, it would be “Desperate and Stupid.”

“What’re Carrie and Soph up to tonight?” he asked.

Nell didn’t look at him, pushed her food around with the sticks. About to lie, Cap thought.



“Ridgewood, maybe,” she said.

She didn’t elaborate. She was good. Answer only the question asked. No additional information.

“I ran into Chris Morris at Valley,” he said. “Ruthie Morris’s dad.”

Nell laughed and pointed at him.

“I totally made you, Caplan.”

“What?” said Cap.

“Let’s go over the scenario,” she said, drawing an invisible chart on the table. “You run into Chris Morris, exchange hi-how-are-you’s; the conversation turns to your daughters, and somehow the subject of a dance at St. Paul’s comes up. He says, Ruthie’s going, isn’t Nell going too, and you act cool like, Oh maybe she just forgot to tell me about it. But you want to be subtle, and you figure I’ll crack if you ask about Carrie and Sophie’s whereabouts, because chances are they’ll be at the dance. Yes?”

Cap leaned back in his chair and smiled. How could you not love the critical mind of this girl? She was literally the best of him and Jules—smart, funny, honest, kind. How could she not have twenty boyfriends? His answer was that she was too good for them. Her answer, if she would ever share that with him, would be considerably more frustrating: that those little Proactiv-smearing, dubstep-listening, malt-liquor-drinking punks at school weren’t interested.

“What am I going to say next?” he said.

Nell thought about it.

“Why aren’t you at the dance, Nell?” she said.

“Pretty good.”

“So,” she said, leaning back like he was. “What do I say now?”

He shook his head. “You’re better at this than I am, Bug. I don’t know what you say.”

Now that the game was over, Nell suddenly seemed tired. They both started eating again.

“I didn’t feel like it. St. Paul’s guys are pretty dumb.”

“Dumber than DW guys?”

“No, but the St. Paul’s guys act like animals around girls. Actually, that’s doing animals a disservice. The St. Paul’s guys are totally socially disabled.”

“But Carrie and Sophie still went, right? They’re probably standing in a corner making fun of people. You could be doing that, too. You’re really good at that,” said Cap.



“Okay, here’s the thing—they might be standing in a corner making fun of people, but deep down they really want one of those guys to come over and talk to them, and they make fun of them so they can counteract the possibility that no one will come over and talk to them. So I didn’t want to do that. It’s depressing.”

She had apparently thought this through. She did not seem sad.

“What about Ruthie Morris, does she stand in the corner too?” said Cap.

“Uh, no. Ruthie’s on the dance floor, probably drunk, not wearing a bra.”

“Really? Little Ruthie Morris?”

“Dad, she’s not little anymore. She’s not the brightest bulb on the tree. And there’s a rumor she’s into autoerotic asphyxiation.”

Cap choked on a bite of spring roll and coughed, felt the air squeak around the blockage in his throat.

Nell found this hilarious and laughed. “Do you need the Heimlich?” she said.

Cap shook his head, drank half his beer in one sip, and recovered.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” he said.

“Autoerotic asphyxiation,” she said, matter-of-factly. “When someone likes to get choked during sex.”

“I know what it is,” Cap said, holding his hand up like he was stopping traffic. “How do you know what it is?”

“I saw a Dateline about it.”

“Really? A Dateline?”

“Yes, Dad, not a big deal.”

Not a big deal. Cap didn’t ask any more about the dance, or about braless Ruthie Morris. He pictured poor Chris Morris’s face when and if he ever found out his little girl was into the rough stuff. Then he looked at Nell and was thankful.

Soon they finished eating. Nell put the plates in the dishwasher and went to the living room. Cap wrapped up leftovers, started another beer.

“What movie do you want to watch?” she called to him.

“How about one where someone crosses a mild-mannered guy and then he goes nuts and seeks revenge?”



“Okay.”

Cap put the containers in the fridge and heard the news coming from the other room.