I'm Glad About You(67)

This spectacular appliance was one of the lures which drew Kyle repeatedly back into Dennis’s sphere. There was little or no television watching in the Wallace household, as Van had never moved off her determination that it was bad for the children. No Teletubbies, no SpongeBob, not even any Sesame Street; there was something in the pixels and the light which apparently seared their little brains and gave them autism. The fact that Kyle was even vaguely resistant to this notion undermined him even further in her eyes. He begged her to show him the studies around children and television watching so that he could perhaps provide a calming perspective on the whole thing. Also, he was hoping she might let him watch the news once in a while if he could prove that there wasn’t in fact radioactivity blasting at them and infecting the whole house, even when the kids weren’t in the living room. No go.

Of course, the underlying suspicion breathed through the house: The real reason Kyle wanted to watch television “occasionally” was that he wanted to see the completely trashy show his ex-girlfriend was on. And in point of fact, Kyle had once or twice watched Alison’s show over at Dennis’s apartment, although he would never admit as much to Van. The thing was stupid, but given the larger questions of his own life—a wife who disliked him, daughters who were afraid of him, a medical practice that was drowning him in paperwork, a God who appeared and disappeared at will—he found its inanities cheerfully soothing. Particularly since Alison has shown up, out of the blue, and reminded him that she still lived on the planet.

“You missed a good one last week,” Dennis informed Kyle, upon his arrival. “Alison making out with a naked police officer. In a swimming pool. It was riveting.”

“I thought she was back together with what’s his name.”

“Rob. They are back together, yes. Last week was a repeat. Well worth repeating, too, I must say.” He handed Kyle a whopping glass of scotch and refreshed his own. Dennis still went to AA, but mostly for the amusement factor; he took perverse pleasure in getting those chips while drinking on the side. Kyle had registered his protest—really, as a doctor, he couldn’t be expected to think it was a good idea for Dennis to destroy his liver—and Dennis had shrugged him off. Alcoholism was in the eye of the beholder, he supposed. And in fact Dennis had a point: Why didn’t those people at AA even suspect? Or did they? If they did, why did they keep giving him those chips?

But Dennis was too valuable to him, finally, to press the point. Van had banned him from their house, probably because he had made a pass at her at one time or another. Kyle wasn’t sure, but nothing would surprise him; Dennis had twice made passes at Alison, that he knew of. While Kyle was dating her. It had pissed him off of course at the time but what were you going to do with someone like Dennis, he was just an *. Anyway, that was all in the past. Dennis’s devilish approach to living was now a balm. And the scotch, and the television set.

“I got Chinese. Dumplings, moo shu pork, kung pao chicken.”

“Sounds great.”

Dennis unloaded white cartons from a brown paper bag while Kyle dropped onto the couch and reached for the remote. The set flickered to life, and he checked the listings of saved shows in the DVR. He knew that what he was about to indulge in over scotch and Chinese food was the worst sort of psychological scab-picking. But the option was going home to Van and her mother and those two bewildering little girls. There was no question: It had been a mistake to invite Alison to that misbegotten dinner party. But there was nothing to do about it now. Van had not forgiven him, and his brain hadn’t either.

Alison’s face loomed on the screen, emerging like a mermaid out of the blue water of a pool in the night. She looked straight into the camera, those unforgettable green eyes flickering with confusion and desire.

“I can’t believe you had a dinner party and you invited Alison and you didn’t invite me,” Dennis rebuked him. He dumped the white cartons of food on the coffee table in front of them. Chopsticks, paper napkins, plastic forks. There was no standing on ceremony with Dennis.

“It wasn’t me, it was Van. She thinks you’re a bad influence on the girls.”

“Not yet, but someday, definitely.”

Was that even funny? It wasn’t worth remarking that it might not be. Dennis was already watching the television set. “She looks hot,” he announced, as if this were news.

“She’s too skinny.”

“She was that thin two years ago, at Christmas.”

“It wasn’t two years ago. It was three years ago,” Kyle replied. Alison was arguing with someone now, it was hard to tell who. The sound was off.

“What was three years ago?”

“Your Christmas party.”

“The Christmas party.” Dennis nodded, digging into the kung pao chicken, wielding his chopsticks with an elegance that was somewhat surprising in a perpetual drunk. “Oh yes, that wonderful Christmas party. Remember those boots she was wearing? Thigh-high gray suede—”

“Yes, I remember the boots.”

“Is that bitter?”

“Why would I be bitter?”

“I don’t know. I know nothing, Kyle, you are ridiculously discreet, it’s one of your worst habits. You invited her to your house for dinner with your wife—”

“And ten other people.”

“Yes, and ten other people but not me. So I know nothing about your current standing with Alison. For all I know, you’ve been carrying on a torrid affair with each other via the internet this whole time. For all I know, she flies in twice a month and meets you in a hotel in Covington.”