I'm Fine and Neither Are You

“No, it’s not,” I said quickly.

Miles was regarding her quizzically. “Mommy?” he said.

“It is ,” Stevie insisted, still planted in the center of the floor. “It’s plastic, right?”

I nodded as we stepped around her.

“Then it is too made of dinosaurs. Because plastic is made of petroleum, and petroleum is made of fossils. And old dinosaur bones are fossils,” she said.

I stared at her with surprise. “How did you know that?”

A faint smile appeared on her lips. “I found a book about the environment at camp the other day.”

“Cool,” said Miles.

Though she had been attempting to goad Miles, she was just as pleased that she had astonished him instead. “Do you want to go play?” she asked. “I can find your old stuffed dinosaur, and we can make them a family.”

“Okay, but you can’t touch my new toy.”

Stevie shrugged. “Fine.”

They ran upstairs. I headed to the dining room, where Sanjay was at the table, tapping away on his laptop.

“Mission accomplished,” I announced.

He looked up. “Any meltdowns?”

“Not a single one. More astoundingly, he and Stevie went off to play together. How’s the book proposal going?”

“It’s going well,” he said. He stood from the table. “But I’m done for now. How about I pour us some wine and we go sit on the deck?”

“It’s only four o’clock,” I said.

“It’s Saturday, we have nowhere to be for the rest of the day, and our children are playing quietly. This is the parenting equivalent of a triple rainbow.”

Was this his way of trying to make up for our argument about his job search? I decided I didn’t want to know. “You’re right. Let’s go.”

It was nearly ninety degrees outside, and the glass of pale-pink wine Sanjay handed me was beaded with condensation. “When did you go wine shopping? And how did you know I was secretly craving rosé?” I asked.

He smiled. “I know what you like.”

Did he? “Thank you,” I said.

“Thank you ,” he said, clinking my glass against his. “I very much enjoyed not making the trek to the toy store.”

I took a sip of my wine. It was dry and delicious and definitely not the cheap stuff we normally bought. “This is fantastic,” I said to Sanjay. “Did you decide to raid our 401(k)? And the last time I checked, you weren’t even a rosé fan.”

“I got paid for a story yesterday and thought it would be nice to get a decent bottle of wine to celebrate.”

“Which one?”

“The summer music roundup for the Free Press .”

“That’s great,” I said, careful to make sure my voice conveyed enthusiasm.

He sniffed his glass. “Turns out I like rosé just fine when it doesn’t come in a box.”

I laughed and leaned back in my chair, which pitched precariously. Our deck was not level and would probably fall right off the house in another year or two. Before me, the backyard looked like a small swath of the Sahara. I had given up the idea of landscaping after one of our neighbors had mentioned how much he had spent resodding. Still, the dead grass gave me a pang. It seemed like further confirmation I would never have an emerald-green carpet my children ran barefoot on. I would not grow peonies or plant a vegetable garden where the tattered trampoline currently stood. That yard indicated my life would be just as it was for a very long time—and that was only if I had the good fortune of things not getting worse.

“So,” said Sanjay, “I have some news.” He was wearing sunglasses, and I couldn’t get a read on whether his news was the good kind or the bad.

“I talked to Alex a few days ago.”

“About the book idea?” I said.

He nodded. “She told me that it’s never been more difficult to land a deal, especially if I don’t have a platform. My lack of name recognition and nonexistent fancy degree is going to work against me.”

I was preparing to say something comforting when he added, “But she does think this book idea has legs.”

He had just taken off his sunglasses and was staring at me with a sort of excitement and intensity I had not seen since, well—since the last time we were talking about his book. “Alex thinks the clips I have are a solid start. I’m not coming out of nowhere.”

“Your work is paying off,” I said.

“Yes, and the proposal is practically writing itself. I’m aiming to have it done and ready to show agents by September.”

Sanjay had a natural curiosity as well as an eye for unearthing fascinating information others overlooked. I had often thought the only thing standing between him and the career he wanted was the ability to see the big picture and plan for it. Now here he was, taking it all in and coming up with a strategy. I reached out and took his hand, which seemed to surprise him. “I’m really proud of you,” I told him.

He squeezed my fingers. “Thank you—that means a lot to me, especially because I know the book isn’t on your list.”

I frowned. “You don’t only have to do what’s on my list. I’m glad you’ve got that.”

“I’ve got some other news, though.” Suddenly his smile was as genuine as a Rolex hanging in some guy’s trench coat. “I have a job interview,” he said.

“You do!” I immediately forgot about his fake expression and jumped up and hugged him. “Tell me more.”

“It’s for a communications associate at the College of Liberal Arts. They’re looking for someone to write press releases and website content and stories for the alumni magazine. The office is less than a quarter mile from yours. I’m going in for an interview next Thursday.”

“That sounds perfect for you.” I searched his face, unsure why his smile remained so disingenuous. “I had no idea the university had part-time communications positions.”

His face twisted. “That’s the catch. It’s a full-time job.”

“But—”

He held a hand up. “I know it’s not what we talked about. And I know it would complicate our schedule even more and I might have less time to chip in around the house, which we’d have to discuss. But literally no one else has called me back, and this job sounds right up my alley. The salary isn’t posted, but I looked up similar positions, and it would be enough that we could really make a change in the way we’re living.”

“What about your writing? Your book?” I wanted him to make more money, but I didn’t want his passion to be snatched from him in the process.

“At this point, it’s just an interview. But if it’s a good fit, I wouldn’t just stop writing. Plenty of people have full-time jobs and manage to handle side projects, too. I mean, that’s how Alex transitioned to freelancing.”

This was true. It was also true that Alex shared a studio apartment with a couple of potted plants.

My heart sank as I realized what I had done. My husband was on his way to meeting another one of my requests. But to do so, he was going to give up his dreams. Which would cause him to resent me. Which would very likely spell disaster for our marriage—the old adage “Happy wife, happy life” missed half the equation.

There was a clamor in the kitchen. I was ready to tell Stevie and Miles to go away when Lorrie emerged from behind the screen door leading to the deck. “Hiya, Kars!” she said.

Her nose was so crooked that it looked like it was sliding from one side of her face to the other. There were so many things about other people that you weren’t supposed to notice! And yet you could overlook crucial details—for example, that your neighbor wouldn’t know a boundary if it zapped her like an electric fence—until it was already too late.

Sanjay turned toward me. I could tell he was thinking, Are you ready to do something about this, or do I need to?

I stood.

“Lorrie,” I said, and maybe my voice was a tad loud. Later, it would occur to me that it wasn’t Lorrie I was mad at. I was irritated with myself for sabotaging my husband’s hopes and dreams. But in that moment, she was my target. “I’m going to need you to knock before coming into our house,” I told her. “And when you knock, you are going to wait until Sanjay or I answers and asks you to enter. You cannot keep walking in like you live here, because it’s terrifying. Okay?”

She looked confused. Maybe even a little hurt. Before she or I could say another word, Olive, who must have followed her mother into the house, pushed past Lorrie out the screen door. She stood in front of me, teeth bared. “You’re a mean lady!” she spat. “Mean!”

“Oh, oh, oh,” said Lorrie, tugging Olive back as if I were waving a knife at her. “Look what you’ve done. I thought we were friends , but friends don’t scare friends’ children. Poor Olive,” she cooed, pulling her daughter into her arms. “Poor love, had to see her own mother being scolded like a schoolgirl. Shhh now, Mommy’s here.” She kissed her daughter’s head, then glared at me. “You’re not the person I thought you were, Penny.”

“No one is the person everyone else thinks they are,” I said.

Lorrie glared at me, pulling Olive by the hand.

When they were gone, I sighed and sat back down. Saying my piece may have offered instant gratification, but the aftermath was exhausting.

Sanjay, who had not moved since Lorrie appeared, was staring at me with a mix of disbelief and wonder.

“What?” I said. I tipped back the last of my wine, which was now warm. “You told me to be more honest.”

He shook his head. “I’m not sure that’s what I had in mind.”

TWENTY

If writing a speech for Jenny’s memorial service had been painful, penning the final post for her website was excruciating. I toiled for hours, ultimately settling on a short note explaining that she had passed away suddenly from an unknown health problem. I asked readers to honor Jenny’s memory by sending good thoughts to her family, while also giving them privacy during this terrible time. I ended the post by quoting from something she had written less than a month before her death: