Page 42 of Room for Us
What kind of special asshole was this husband of hers?
Upper East Side means she’s rich—or rather, he is. Old money, probably. With her laid back style and lack of designer labels, it’s hard to imagine Zoey rubbing elbows with the kind of women who dominate that particular niche of New York culture. It’s even harder to imagine her wanting to.
When Janice and I were looking at elementary schools for Daphne, I foolishly mentioned one on the Upper East Side. Janice just about had a coronary, then regaled me with story after nightmare story from clients of her yoga studio who either escaped the neighborhood or didn’t conform and lived to regret it.
The thought of Zoey living there, unhappy and alone, makes me want to punch something.
“You didn’t belong there,” I find myself saying.
She glances at me, startled and angry. “How would you know?”
I’m saved from replying by a friendly tapping on my window. A tiny, attractive woman in her mid-fifties, with Zoey’s curls, waves at us and pulls open my door.
“Hi, guys! I’m so glad you could make it tonight. It’s wonderful to meet you, Ethan. I’m Alana, Zoey’s mom.”
“Thanks for having me, Alana.”
I hop out of the car and offer a hand, but she hugs me instead. Her surprisingly strong embrace forces air from my lungs and cracks something in my back. I’m being hugged by a fairy who moonlights as a boa constrictor.
“Let’s get this over with,” grumbles Zoey as she marches past us toward the open front door.
Alana releases me with a gasp of mock horror. “My my, what bit her on the butt?”
Definitely not me.
Although...
I interrupt my own thought, smiling brightly at my hostess.
“So, what’s for dinner?”
25
Dinner feels like stepping into a TV sitcom where the audience knows something the actors don’t. Or one of the actors, at least—me. I’m missing the punchline, my cues all wrong.
Zander is being especially weird. Smiling too much. Showing too many teeth when he speaks. And his girlfriend, Cameron, won’t stop staring at Ethan with a starstruck look on her face. When Ethan passed her a dish, she almost fainted. Mom isn’t drinking, but she might as well be; she laughs too loudly at everything Ethan says, her eyes shining with admiration.
What’s wrong with these people?
I partake of the meal in sullen silence. I’m being a brat. Immature and insecure, answering questions in monosyllables whenever someone tries to draw me into the conversation. But no one seems to notice or care about my mood. All their attention is on Ethan, whose charm tonight is supernatural. He’s engages Zander about his plans this fall to attend Boise State for mechanical engineering. Cameron is moving with him and attending a community college in the area. They’ve been together three years and plan to get married when they graduate.
I didn’t know that, which makes me feel even shittier, which in turn makes me act even worse.
How is this Ethan the same man who arrived in Sun River five days ago? I kind of miss that version of him—the ornery, irritating one. It made things immeasurably simpler.
Now everything is a mess. For one, I’ve stopped counting down the days until he leaves and instead started counting the days he’s still here. Thirty-seven. Seems like a long time. Too long. Not long enough. How am I supposed to pretend nothing is amiss for that long? Or that I haven’t thought about him manhandling me eight million times since it happened yesterday?
Was it only yesterday? It feels like a lifetime has passed—a gruelingly long one of unmet sexual need.
After dessert, I jump at the opportunity to wash dishes. It’s the least I can do after my performance at the table. My mom squeezes my arm as I pass.
I shouldn’t have told her about the dream. God only knows what she’d say now if I told her he grabbed my tits and I moaned like a harlot.
Somewhere, my great-grandmother Rosie, the notorious floozy, is smiling proudly.
“That she is.”
“Not now, Aunt B,” I hiss, my hands busily scrubbing plates and stacking them in the dishwasher.
