37
Mallory
Monday Morning
Four DaysAfterthe Outing
Mallory opens the sliding glass door to her parents’ kitchen to find her mother’s tongue halfway down the throat of a giant of a man with a paunch straining the front of his police officer’s uniform.
“Hey,” she says, and they break apart.
Her father stumbles back in surprise, struggling to keep his balance as he falls against the fridge. Mallory stifles a gasp, ripped back to the beach when she was eleven and a figure in the distance lumbered on the hot sand. The figure she had been convinced was her dad. The figure who seems very much like the one before her.
The memory passes like a hot gust of wind, and Mallory manages a “Morning, Mom,” but can’t follow it with a “Dad,” the word too foreign to release.
Her mother eyes her quizzically before turning to her half-packed lunch on the counter. Mallory is too exhausted to pretend to be the happy, perfect daughter. As she waits for the reason she came—to be alone with her father—she opens thedoor to the pantry, rummaging through every shelf, looking for nut crackers.
“Dinner’s in your court tonight,” her mother says, straightening the badge on her father’s shirt. “Don’t forget.”
“Never again,” he says. “The last time I forgot, you fed me kale salads for a week as punishment. Thankfully MallieMoo taught me how to set reminders on my phone.”
She did? I did?
Her mother scoffs. “A double-edged sword. Because that means you also know how to set them on mine. Do you know how embarrassing it was when my phone dinged with a reminder that you loved me every fifteen minutes?”
“Embarrassing, how so?” he says.
“I was in a staff meeting.”
“It was sweet.”
“And at the same time, creepy,” her mom says with a smirk.
Mallory feels like an intruder. This isn’t her family. These aren’t her parents. This easy, comfortable, loving relationship bordering on soft-core porn isn’t something she grew up witnessing. The brightness in this Mallory’s life runs much deeper than her wardrobe.
She pulls out her phone and slips on her reading glasses. A dozen tabs lie open in her browser. The articles on the multiverse she’d been trying to read last night scrambled her brain. With the police investigating if Grayson is a “missing person” and requesting an interview with her, Ilena, and Aubrey, she’s feeling the scratchiness of an orange jumpsuit against her delicate skin. Is there not a single academic who can tell her in words with less than a dozen syllables how multiverse theory works and how universes can cross—how to force them to cross?
A new email arrives from the morning show, confirming that the team who filmed in Mallory’s apartment last night will be at AIM that morning to shoot more B-roll. And there’s alsoa message dictated by Shandy herself regarding the interview the day after AIM goes public:
Ms. Mallory Latham! My, what a score it is to get you! I aimed high, right? Come wearing the color of money, because you’ll be rolling in it!
Added by the assistant:
Ms. Shane is being literal. She requests you wear green and Mr. Fields wear a matching green tie.
Mr. Fields. No one’s told the morning show that Grayson won’t be on it.
She starts to forward the email to Noreen for scheduling when her mom sets a hand on her forearm.
“Mallory?” she says. “Walk me to my car?”
“But it’s right there.” Mallory points to the driveway, anxious to get her father alone. Him being a police officer could have been a hindrance, but considering her mom’s saccharine story about the reminders on her phone, she’s now sure she can totally use this teddy bear of a man for her own advantage.
“You can carry this.” Her mom pushes a tote into Mallory’s arms that’s as light as a bag of cotton balls. She turns to her husband. “No sausage. Cholesterol, remember?”
The pout Mallory’s father issues seems entirely out of place for a man in his sixties and one hundred percent out of character for a man who abandoned his family. He winks at Mallory as she takes off her glasses and follows her mom out the sliding glass door, onto the back porch, and to the small electric car parked behind the house.
“Here you go.” Mallory hands off the tote. “Careful, you could strain a fingernail.”
