The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry(18)

“Yeah, sure.” Lambiase has never been to a book party.

“I hate book parties,” A.J. says.

“But you run the bookstore,” Lambiase says.

“It’s a problem,” A.J. admits.

MAYA’S NOT-CHRISTENING PARTY is held the week before Halloween. Aside from several of the children in attendance wearing Halloween costumes, the party is indistinguishable from either a christening christening or a book party. A.J. watches Maya in her pink party dress, and he feels a vaguely familiar, slightly intolerable bubbling inside of him. He wants to laugh out loud or punch a wall. He feels drunk or at least carbonated. Insane. At first, he thinks this is happiness, but then he determines it’s love. Fucking love, he thinks. What a bother. It’s completely gotten in the way of his plan to drink himself to death, to drive his business to ruin. The most annoying thing about it is that once a person gives a shit about one thing, he finds he has to start giving a shit about everything.

No, the most annoying thing about it is that he’s even started to like Elmo. There are Elmo paper plates on the folding table with the coconut shrimp, and A.J. had blithely gone to multiple stores to procure them. Across the room in Best Sellers, Lambiase is giving a speech that consists of clichés, albeit heartfelt and applicable ones: how A.J. has turned lemons into lemonade, how Maya is a silver-lined cloud, how God’s closed door / open window policy really does apply here, and so forth. He smiles at A.J., and A.J. raises his glass and smiles back. And then, despite the fact that A.J. does not believe in God, he closes his eyes and thanks whomever, the higher power, with all his porcupine heart.

Ismay, A.J.’s choice for godmother, grabs his hand. “Sorry to abandon you, but I’m not feeling well,” she says.

“Was it Lambiase’s speech?” A.J. says.

“I might be getting a cold. I’m going home.”

A.J. nods. “Call me later, okay?”

It is Daniel who calls later. “Ismay’s in the hospital,” he says flatly. “Another miscarriage.”

That makes two in the last year, five total. “How is she?” A.J. asks.

“She’s lost some blood and she’s tired. She’s a sturdy old mare, though.”

“She is.”

“It’s a bad business all-around, but unfortunately,” Daniel says, “I’ve got to catch an early flight to Los Angeles. The movie people are buzzing.” The movie people are always buzzing in Daniel’s stories, though none of them ever seem to sting. “Would you mind going to check on her at the hospital, make sure she gets home all right?”

Lambiase drives A.J. and Maya to the hospital. A.J. leaves Maya in the waiting room with Lambiase and goes in to see Ismay.

Her eyes are red; her skin, pale. “I’m sorry,” she says when she sees A.J.

“For what, Ismay?”

“I deserve this,” she says.

“You don’t,” A.J. says. “You shouldn’t say that.”

“Daniel’s an * for making you come out,” Ismay says.

“I was glad to,” A.J. says.

“He cheats on me. Do you know that? He cheats on me all the time.”

A.J. doesn’t say anything, but he does know. Daniel’s philandering is not a secret.

“Of course you know,” Ismay says in a husky voice. “Everyone knows.”

A.J. says nothing.

“You do know, but you won’t talk about it. Some misguided male code, I suppose.”

A.J. looks at her. Her shoulders are bony under the hospital gown, but her abdomen is still slightly round.

“I look a mess,” she says. “That’s what you’re thinking.”

“No, I was noticing that you’re growing out your hair. It’s nice that way.”

“You’re sweet,” she says. At that moment, Ismay sits up and tries to kiss A.J. on the mouth.

A.J. leans away from her. “The doctor says you can go home right now if you’d like.”

“I thought my sister was an idiot when she married you, but now I see you’re not that bad. The way you are with Maya. The way you are now, showing up. Showing up is what counts, A.J.

“I think I’d rather stay here tonight,” she says, flipping away from A.J. “There’s no one at my house, and I don’t want to be that alone. What I said before is true. Nic was the good girl. I’m bad. I married a bad man, too. And I know that bad people deserve what they get, but oh, how we hate to be alone.”

What Feels Like the World

1985 / Richard Bausch

Chubby girl lives with grandfather; trains for elementary school gymnastics exhibition.

You will be amazed by how much you care whether that little girl makes it over the vault. Bausch is able to wring exquisite tension from such a seemingly slight episode (though obviously this is the point), and this should be your takeaway: a vaulting exhibition can have every bit as much drama as a plane crash.

I did not encounter this story until after I became a father so I cannot say if I would have liked it as well P.M. (pre-Maya). I have gone through phases in my life when I am more in the mood for short stories. One of those phases coincided with your toddlerhood—what time had I for novels, my girl?

—A.J.F.

Maya usually wakes before the sun comes up, when the only sound is A.J. snoring in the other room. In footed pajamas, she pads across the main room to A.J.’s bedroom. At first, she whispers, “Daddy, Daddy.” If that doesn’t work, she says his name and if that still doesn’t work, she yells it. And if words are not enough, she jumps on the bed, though she would rather not resort to such shenanigans. Today he wakes when she has only reached talking level. “Awake,” she says. “Downstairs.”