I turned to look at her as she innocently nibbled a prawn. “Who did, honey?”
“Grandpa.”
“Grandpa Dennis?” I asked.
“No. The other grandpa.”
I knew that Mark Strauss (Sarah’s father) had lost both parents before he met Jayne and that’s when the anxiety hit. “What other grandpa?” I asked carefully.
“He came up to me at the party and said he was my grandpa.”
“But honey, that grandpa’s dead,” I said in a soothing tone.
“But Grandpa isn’t dead, Daddy,” she said happily, kicking the seat.
It was silent in the car—except for the Backstreet Boys—as that day came rushing back and I forced myself to forget about it while I cruised onto the interstate.
“Daddy, why don’t you work?” Sarah now asked. She was making satisfied smacking sounds after swallowing each Skittle.
“Well, I do work, honey.”
“Why don’t you go to an office?”
“Because I work at home.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m a stay-at-home dad,” I answered calmly. “Hey, where are we? A cocktail party?”
“Why?”
“Please don’t do this now, honey, okay?”
“Why do you stay at home?”
“Well, I work at the college too.”
“Daddy?”
“Yes, honey?”
“What’s a college?”
“A place I go to teach singularly untalented slackers how to write prose.”
“When do you go?”
“On Wednesdays.”
“But is that work?”
“Work puts people in bad moods, honey. You don’t really want to work. In fact you should avoid work.”
“You don’t work and you’re in a bad mood.”
Robby had said this. Tensing up, I glanced at him in the rearview mirror. He was staring out the window, his chin in his hand.
“How do you know I’m in a bad mood?” I asked.
He didn’t say anything. I realized the answer to that question required an elaboration that Robby wasn’t capable of. I also realized: Let’s not go there.
“I think I come off as a pretty happy guy,” I said.
A long, horrible pause.
“I’m very lucky,” I added.
Sarah considered this. “Why are you lucky, Daddy?”
“Well, you guys are very lucky too. You lead very lucky lives. In fact you’re even luckier than your dad.”
“Why, Daddy?”
“Well, Daddy has a very hard life. Daddy would like snack time. Daddy would like to take a nap. Daddy would like to go to the playground.”
I could see in the rearview mirror that Robby had clamped his hands over his ears.
We were passing a waterslide that had closed for the season when Sarah shouted, “I want to go on the waterslide!”
“Why?” It was my turn to ask.
“Because I wanna slide down it!”
“Why?”
“Because it’s fun,” she said with less enthusiasm, confused at being on this side of the questioning.
“Why?”
“Because . . . I like it?”
“Why do you—”
“Will you stop asking her why?” Robby said fervently, pleading.
I quickly glanced in the rearview mirror at Robby, who looked stricken.
I averted my gaze to where the Backstreet Boys CD was spinning. “I don’t know why you kids listen to this crap,” I mumbled. “I should buy you some CDs. Make you listen to something decent. Springsteen, Elvis Costello, The Clash . . .”
“Who in the hell is Elvis Costello?”
We had pulled off the interstate and were heading toward the mall on Ophelia Boulevard when Robby asked this and when I slowed down for a stop sign I saw Aimee Light’s BMW pull out of the Whole Foods parking lot on the other side of the road.
And I could see that someone was in the passenger seat. And that it was a man.
Robby’s comment about Elvis Costello, the stop sign, spotting Aimee’s car, realizing that she was driving with a man—all this happened within the space of a few seconds, almost simultaneously.
I immediately made a U-turn and started trailing them.
Sarah was lip-synching to the Backstreet Boys when suddenly she whirled around in her seat. “Daddy, where are we going?”
“We’re going to the mall, honey.”
“But this isn’t the way to the mall.”
“Just sit back and appreciate your father’s driving skills.”
“But Daddy, where are we going?”
“I’m just curious about something, honey.”
She was driving. She was laughing. I was directly behind them and she was laughing. And then she reached over and touched the side of his face.
At the next light (three blocks in which I heard nothing but her laughter and saw only the back of a white BMW) she kissed him.
I immediately had to resist the urge to press down on the horn.
I wanted to pull over next to them. I wanted to see who the guy—my rival—was.
But the boulevard was crowded and I couldn’t pull next to her in either lane. I don’t remember if the kids were saying anything to me (I had blocked them out) as I reached for my cell phone and dialed her number (I had planned to do this at the mall anyway while the kids were watching the movie) and—even in this panicked, jealous state—I experienced the pang of guilt I always felt dialing Aimee Light’s number because I had it memorized yet had trouble remembering the number of the house in which I lived.
I watched very carefully as both she and the guy (I caught a glimpse of his profile but not enough to see a face) looked at the control panel in the same instant.
I waited. Aimee picked up the cell and checked the incoming number.
And then she placed the phone back down.
Her voice: “It’s Aimee, please leave a message, thanks.”
I clicked off. I was sweating. I turned on the air conditioning.
“She didn’t pick up,” I said out loud.
“Who, Daddy?” Sarah asked. “Who didn’t pick up?”
The light turned green. The BMW drove away. As it did, the guy turned in his seat and looked back at the Range Rover, but the sun was reflecting off the rear window and I couldn’t make out any of his features. My anxiety restrained me from following them. I didn’t even want to know where they were going. Plus what would the kids tell Jayne? Mommy, Daddy followed somebody and when he called her she didn’t pick up. A car blaring its horn was my reminder to start moving again. I made another U-turn and drove toward the mall, where I circled the miles of asphalt that surrounded it until Robby leaned over and said, pointing, “There’s a space right there, Bret. Just park the car.” I did.
We went straight to the multiplex. I was too distracted by the guy in the passenger seat to proceed with this day leisurely. Could it have been Alvin Mendolsohn, her thesis instructor? No, this guy was younger, her age, a student maybe. I flashed on the profile and the blurred face but came up with nothing. I purchased the tickets for Some Call Him Rebel and was so out of it that when the kids asked for candy and popcorn and Cokes I numbly bought them whatever they wanted even though Jayne had warned me not to. I let them choose their seats in the cavernous auditorium, which was oddly empty for a Saturday matinee and I feared that I’d chosen an unpopular movie but Robby—who was a movie nut—didn’t complain. Again, I thought of all the bartering Jayne had gone through to get him here and realized that he probably would have sat through Shoah. Sarah sat between Robby and me and was drinking her soda too quickly and when I warned her not to Robby rolled his eyes and sighed while opening a box of Junior Mints and soon both of them were concentrating on the action storming across the screen. About twenty minutes into the movie when I could stand it no longer I leaned over and told Robby to watch his sister while I went to make a phone call, and I hesitated because I remembered the name of the most recent missing boy: Maer Cohen. Robby nodded intently without looking at me and I realized that no one was going to take him anywhere (unless he let them, came an unbidden thought). I paced the lobby of the multiplex while dialing Aimee’s number again and this time I left a message: “Hey, Aimee, it’s Bret. Um, I saw you about forty minutes ago coming out of Whole Foods and it looked like you were, um, having fun . . .” I laughed weakly. “Well, that’s it. Call me on my cell.” I clicked off. When I went back to the auditorium the screen was a blur. It was hopeless. I couldn’t concentrate on anything except the fact that I kept thinking I had been in that car with Aimee Light. I thought the guy in the passenger seat was myself. When I focused: fleets of black hovercraft anchored in space.