Nora Goes Off Script(31)

“Want a beer?” my boyfriend asks.

“Sure,” I say. My kids run off and I stand there watching him. He gets in the back of the beer line, hands in his jeans pockets, until one and then two and then ten people notice him and turn around. Based on his body language, he seems perfectly fine with it. Soon the whole line is in conversation with him, laughing in turns. A little girl hands him a pen and a paper bag, and he signs it. As the line moves, he almost seems like he’s keeping the conversation going, asking questions, nodding. The lady from the too-fancy-housewares shop joins the group, and they exchange a few words.

I imagine him coming to this thing year after year, remembering names and key facts about everybody, watching the kids grow up. He’d cry at Mr. Mapleton’s funeral and remember how he’d just met him after he got the new hip. “She’s stoned,” someone is saying, and I snap out of it to see Kate and Mickey standing next to me.

“I am not,” I say. “Just lost in a daydream of sorts.”

“And here he comes,” says Mickey, nodding at Leo making his way back to us with two plastic cups of beer. “How am I ever going to compete with this?” Mickey’s a firefighter in town and maybe the best guy I’ve ever met. Neither Kate nor I feel the need to reassure him.

“Hey, Kate.” Leo hands me my beer and shakes Mickey’s hand. “I’m Leo.”

“Well, you seem to handle a crowd pretty well,” says Mickey. “If I were you, I might have just stayed in the car.”

“Oh, it was fine. I knew half of them from my shopping spree in town. Nora makes me buy her a lot of stuff.”

I give him a shove and he puts his arm around me. I hear Mickey say to Kate, “Wow. You weren’t kidding.”

“Are you guys free tonight?” Leo asks. “We were going to barbecue and I’m sure we have a lot? Or I could go to the market?” He is asking me for guidance here, and I am slightly stunned to see him acting like we’re a couple and we share a barbecue.

“That’s a great idea,” I say. “Bring the kids. Come at five?”



* * *



? ? ?

Leo is disappointed that I have enough food and he doesn’t get to go to the market. Bernadette thinks we should eat out on the lawn in front of the tea house. I try not to watch as she and Leo remove the legs from my kitchen table to move it outside.

When I get back from taking Arthur to town to get grip tape for his bat, Leo and Bernadette are waiting for me on the front porch. “We need your car,” Bernie says. In an hour they are back with a yellow-and-white-striped tablecloth, matching napkins, and six strands of white lights. I can barely see Bernadette behind the enormous bouquet of sunflowers she’s carrying.

“I’m on-set design,” she tells me.

“Have you guys lost your minds?” I ask as they get to work.

“A little.” Leo shoots me a smile.

There’s no way Arthur and I spent as much time preparing the food as they spend setting the scene. Leo’s found a ladder and some twine. They hang the lights between the trees on either side of the lawn, making a long sparkling ceiling over the table. Even before the sun goes down, it is breathtaking.

When dinner’s over, and the kids are playing Wiffle ball in the front yard, Kate and I are aggressively filling Mickey’s wineglass. We are not discussing this, but we both want him to feel comfortable and maybe get past the fact that he doesn’t think Leo really works for a living.

Kate’s telling stories about her work. She runs a nonprofit parenting program for people living in underserved communities. The program runs on almost no budget and the sheer force of her will, and the stunts she pulls to make ends meet are heroic. Leo is asking all the right questions that indicate that he is listening to every word she says, making Kate more animated and forthcoming than I’ve ever seen her. This is Leo’s superpower, and it’s possible that it’s getting on Mickey’s nerves.

Leo and I sit facing the tea house and the forest behind it, and he says to no one, “It’s so beautiful here. It’s like every day something new has bloomed.”

“Wait till July when the hydrangea come in,” Kate says. “They’ll blow your mind.” The word “July” hangs in the air. Kate and I lock eyes and I look away. Mickey is leaning back in his chair watching Leo.

Leo doesn’t miss a beat. “Can’t wait,” he says. He squeezes my hand, and I know in that moment that I want Leo and those hydrangea blooms to be in the same place at the same time more than anything else. It scares me how much I want him to stay.

“So where are you from?” Mickey starts his interrogation.

“New Jersey,” Leo says. “Exit Eighty-two.”

Mickey laughs, and I’m not sure if that’s nice. “And now you live in Los Angeles?”

“And New York,” he says.

“And Cap d’Antibes,” I say and roll my eyes.

“Yeah, I can see why you spend so much time in Laurel Ridge, must be a nice break,” Mickey says.

“It’s pretty good,” Leo says and puts his arm around the back of my chair.

Kate smiles at us, and everyone’s quiet for a second until Mickey says, “I just don’t know what the hell is going on here. Like, are you staying? You’re just going to live here? How do you know you won’t get sick of this?”