Irene ran up the stairs and knocked at the bathroom door. “Mom?”
There was no answer.
“Mom? Mr. Smalls is here.”
“Tell him I’ll be down in a minute,” Mom said. Her voice was brittle with false cheer.
When Irene returned to the living room, Buddy was opening the door.
“Hi there, Buddy.” Smalls reached out to rub the boy’s head. Buddy ran into the next room. He hated anyone touching him.
“She’s not ready yet.” Irene pointed at her mother’s chair, even though her father’s was closer. “You can sit there.”
Mr. Smalls sat on her father’s ottoman, facing the stairs that led up to the bathroom—and the stairs that led down to the basement, where her father was sleeping.
“So how’s school, Irene?” Mr. Smalls asked.
“It’s summer,” she said.
“Right, right.” He glanced toward the stairs leading to the second floor.
“She’ll be down in a minute,” Irene said.
“I thought I heard voices,” her father said. Teddy stepped into the room. He wore pajama bottoms and an undershirt, and his cheeks were shadowed. “How are you doing, Destin? Business good at the spook shop?”
“Good to see you, Teddy.” Destin stood and extended a hand. Her father hesitated, then shook. He’d taken off the bandages a few months earlier.
“I was just talking to Irene here,” Mr. Smalls said. “She’s turning into a lovely girl.” He looked down at Irene and smiled a false smile.
“Are you in love with my mother?” Irene asked.
“What?” Smalls said.
“I said, are you—”
“Of course not!”
Her father was staring at her. He knew exactly what she was doing.
From upstairs came the sound of water running in the sink, and then the door opening. Each sound seemed unusually loud. “Sorry I’m running late,” her mother said, and stopped on the stairs. She frowned. Looked at Dad, then at Destin Smalls.
“Mr. Smalls is a liar,” Irene said, and walked out of the room.
Later in the week she came home from Aldi’s to find Teddy pacing the living room. “Where have you been? We’ve got to be there by six!”
Oh, right. Wednesday dinner at Palmer’s to meet his “sweetie.” Somehow, somewhen, Teddy had started dating. She thought she knew why Teddy wanted Irene to meet the woman, and hoped she was wrong.
“Give me a minute, Dad. It’s been a long day.”
“Just get into the best dress you got. No—second best. She’s the star, not you.”
Teddy, of course, was already wearing his most expensive suit, a gunmetal-blue number with navy pinstripes, and one of his more diamond-encrusted watches. Teddy Telemachus never took second billing. “Now hurry up!” he said. “I don’t want her waiting for us.”
Her being the “sweetie.” He still hadn’t explained why he wanted Irene to come out to a restaurant with them.
“Jesus, all right already. Could you at least put in a Tombstone pizza for Matty?”
“I can’t cook,” Teddy said. “Not in this!”
“I’m pretty sure I can put a pizza in the oven,” Matty said.
“Good man,” Teddy said. “Just don’t eat the whole thing, okay?”
“Damn it, Dad!” Irene said.
Irene went upstairs, but all she could think about was going into the basement and turning on the computer. For the past two days she’d kept edging up to it, warily, as if peeking over the lip of a cliff, only to back away before she lost her footing. But a half hour later she’d approach it again, as if to remind herself that the fall could kill her.
She imagined an inbox filled with confused messages from Joshua. Or worse, an inbox with no messages from Joshua. Logging into the chat room was out of the question. If she did, she’d immediately start talking to him, which would lead to her promising to meet him at the airport on Thursday, and once she was face-to-face with him, the whole process would repeat, from first touch to hormonal tsunami to the sudden apprehension that their relationship was doomed. The only sane thing to do was nip that Wagnerian cycle in the bud. Kill the wabbit.
She put on one of the dresses she used to wear to work, back when she worked in a place that didn’t require polyester smocks. Smocks were the official uniform of those hanging on to the bottom rungs of the economic ladder; a parachute that would never open. Joshua said he worried about money, but he was in no danger of plummeting into poverty.
She emerged from the bedroom to find Teddy bouncing on his feet at the bottom of the stairs. “Is this okay?” she asked him.
“It’s kinda dowdy,” he said. “Perfect choice.”
He drove, cursing traffic the whole way. She’d never seen him this nervous. “So how did you meet this woman?” Irene asked. “You hanging out in some senior center you haven’t told me about?”
“I’ll tell you when we get there. It’s a great story, great story. Almost destiny.”
They didn’t walk into the restaurant until ten after six. Dad scanned the lobby and bar for the mystery woman, and was relieved that she hadn’t arrived yet. Irene apologized again for making him late, but he waved it off.
“Six-thirty reservation for Telemachus,” Teddy told the hostess.
“Six-thirty?” Irene said.
“I knew you’d be late,” Teddy said.
Their table was available now. Teddy hung his fedora on the brass hat rack, and Irene wasn’t a bit surprised that there were half a dozen hats already there. Palmer’s Steakhouse was Teddy’s favorite restaurant because the rib eyes were thick, the drinks strong, and the prices cheap. The average age in the dining room stayed north of sixty.
Dad positioned Irene to his left and reserved the chair on his right for his guest. The waitress was pouring water before they’d pushed in their chairs. Teddy had a thing for the waitresses, an all-Ukrainian squad with severe cheekbones, chain-smoker lips, and great legs. They moved the plates on and off the table like it was some kind of Olympic event. Nobody dawdled over the salad at Palmer’s. While you were taking your last sip of soup, the bowl would be gone before you put your spoon down.
“G and T?” the waitress asked him.
“You know me too well, Oksana. But I’m going to hold off ordering until my friend arrives.”
“Another friend, eh?”
“I’m his daughter,” Irene said.
The waitress shrugged and walked away. Teddy laughed.
“I don’t even know why I’m here,” Irene said. “What’s this woman’s name?”
“There she is now.” Teddy stood up and buttoned his coat. He met her halfway across the room and took her arm.
Irene had expected that Dad might go for a younger woman—someone in her sixties, perhaps. This woman looked to be holding tight to her early forties with the assistance of good makeup, Tae Bo classes, and money. That little black dress would have cost the entirety of Irene’s little blue paycheck. What the hell was going on here?
Dad escorted her to the table. “Graciella, this is my daughter, Irene.”
Graciella. That name seemed familiar. “A pleasure to meet you,” Irene said, and shook her hand. Then it was just a matter of waiting for the first lie. Three…two…
“I’d say that Teddy’s told me all about you,” Graciella said. “Except that he didn’t say a thing.”
Honesty, right out of the gate. Whaddya know.