“I met the neighbor just across from us.” There it is, that word,us.Danielle pauses, then goes on. “Her name is Candy. I think she might be preparing to become our Mrs. Kravitz.”
“Great.” It’s the last thing we need. “Did you explain our situation?”
“No, I caught her running out the other day. I didn’t have time. You can tell her if you want.”
“I’m not telling her anything.”
I catch a minuscule huff from Dani. I am an avoider; it irks her.
“I’m gonna go say hi to the boys,” she says.
As she walks away I head to my car to deposit the coffee-splattered sheets. On my way back she’s walking toward me with her phone in hand. “Alex, I need to call Connie. She has news for me. Can you stay a bit longer?”
“Yeah, sure,” I say, even though I know I don’t need to stay if she’s just going to be on the phone.
“By the way, did you remember to give your mom that soup pot she left last time? It’s so big, it takes up half the cabinet.”
“When would I have given it to her?”
“When she was at our house the last three days,” she says, not irritated, more matter-of-fact.
“How did you know?”
She takes a deep breath. “Alex, I talk to our children every day. I’m glad you didn’t ask them to lie for you. I don’t care at all that your mom was helping you out. To be honest, it was acomfort knowing she was there. Until you get your feet wet, I do worry about you juggling it all.”
“I’ve juggled it all before,” I snap back.
Calmly she says, “You’re a good dad. I’m just saying it’s a lot to handle, and no, you are not used to doing it one hundred percent on your own, if that’s what you’re implying. I could tell from twenty feet away that you’re exhausted. Your hair is going in every direction; you clearly haven’t shaved in three days, the boys look like ragamuffins, and…” She doesn’t take her eyes off mine when she says, “You have an enormous green stain on the bottom of your shirt. What is that? Pesto sauce?”
I start laughing uncontrollably then. She smiles as I laugh like a lunatic. “You’re right, Dani,” I say between hysterical bursts of laughter. “You’re right!”
“You’ll get used to it,” she shoots back. “I need to call Connie. I guess you can go. You don’t need to stay.”
It occurs to me that I’m going to have the apartment to myself for four days…no kids. I glance at the boys and then back to Dani, who looks impatient. Her eyebrows are arched, waiting for me to reply. I’ve always wanted to be at their practices, not just their games, but Dani always had that covered. “No, I want to stay. Go ahead and call Connie.”
Dani walks away and stands in the shade of a massive jacaranda tree. If she didn’t have a phone to her ear, it would look like a painting. The huge violet bunches of flowers almost appeared to be floating around her.
Making my way back up the bleachers, I position myself so I can still see her out of the corner of my eye. Across from her, through the chain-link fence I spot Noah glaring at me. He looks down at his arm and back up. I mouth, “I’m sorry.” He shrugs and then focuses on the field, where Ethan is practicing with the team.
From my periphery I notice an abrupt movement. I look over to see Dani jumping up and down with excitement. She puts her hand to her face, over her eyes. From twenty yards away that’s how I know she’s crying. I’m watching her as she continues talking excitedly. She glances up and catches me staring. I look away quickly and pretend I’m not interested.
I’m watching the baseball practice, but my mind is somewhere else. I notice Dani is walking up on my right side. I look over. She’s scrolling through something on her phone. Her cheeks are red and she’s wearing an expression that is not quite a smile, but not a frown either. It’s the flattened lips that convey satisfaction. When she looks up at me finally, I say nonchalantly, “Good news?”
“We’ll see. You know how dizzying the ups and downs of this business are.”
Tell me, Dani. Tell me everything.
I’m scolding myself inside for caring. This is exactly the kind of thing that wore me out and pushed me away. Her jobwasdizzying, for everyone. The constant highs and lows; all the good offers that fell through, the colleague drama, and worst of all, the inadequacy she always felt as a writer, which she took out on me. Asking me day after day for years to read early drafts she had written…drafts of just about anything, from the three books she had started but never finished, to silly short stories, spec scripts, even personal letters. Sometimes it was just convoluted pages that merely constituted her stream of consciousness the night before, after having too many glasses of wine.
If I said anything to Dani that remotely resembled criticism, she would fly off the handle, even if it was meant to be constructive, so I learned to say nothing at all.
Still, like it was muscle memory, I wanted to ask her whatConnie had told her that had her jumping under jacarandas at the kids’ baseball practice.
She continues scrolling through her phone as she takes a seat next to me. I look over at her and she looks up. “What, are we supposed to sit on opposite sides of the bleachers now? That’s weird,” she says.
“Nobody said that,” I tell her.
“You gave me a look.”
