The Player Next Door

As Penelope and Shane yell at each other, oblivious to the pedestrians who are slowing to watch the spectacle, Cody backs away. “Stop fighting,” I hear him say, his eyes wide with distress as they ping-pong back and forth.

Neither of them hear him, too busy seething at each other.

“Fine! So make a choice. It’s either her or your son,” Penelope demands.

“Fuck you! I don’t have to make that choice,” Shane roars, all semblance of calm vanishing.

“Stop fighting over me,” Cody shrieks over them. He bolts.

A blood-curdling “No!” rises from deep inside my chest as I watch his gangly body dart across the side street just as headlights flash and a car whips around the corner.

Shane moves fast after his son.

But not fast enough.

Twenty-Eight

I must be on my fiftieth lap around the Polson Falls ER waiting area when the doctor steps out. I hang back while I watch Shane, Penelope, and both sets of grandparents gather to listen to her update on the boy they rushed here by ambulance hours ago.

Not until Shane’s head falls back with the words “thank God” shaping on his lips, and Penelope’s hands press against her chest, do I allow myself a breath again.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry …” Penelope’s mouth forms the words over and over again, shame and regret contorting her beautiful face.

Shane gathers her into his strong arms, cradling the back of her head with affection as they console each other.

I feel a prick, deep inside. A part of me—a jealous, insecure part—wishes I were the first one Shane reached for.

Behind them, the grandparents whisper and hold relieved palms to foreheads and shake their heads, chattering amongst each other with familiarity. But of course, there is familiarity between them. Cody has made them family. Their love of that boy has bonded them for life.

And I will always be an outsider in that regard.

Travis is an outsider too, hanging back, watching it all unfold. Does it bother him that Penelope and Shane will always have this deep connection?

“There you are.”

The sound of my mother’s voice behind me replaces my relief with trepidation. I spin around. “What are you doing here? You can’t be here.” I hear my despair as I glance over to make sure Melissa or Penelope hasn’t noticed her yet. The last thing anyone needs is another screaming match, this time in the hospital.

She holds up my black purse and my jacket. “You left these in the booth.”

I sigh, collecting them from her. “Thanks. I wasn’t thinking.” I hopped into Shane’s truck with him and we raced the ambulance here. I’m more than a little mystified that she would make the effort to deliver them to me.

“I also paid your bill.” She seems oddly sober for this time on a Friday night. It’s unusual for her. But it’s nice.

“Right. Let me know how much I owe you.”

She waves it off, chomping on her gum. “Don’t worry about it. Extenuating circumstances and all that. You can treat next time we go out.” She bites her lip, her eyes darting over to where Peter Rhodes stands, his arm around his wife. “That was quite the scene back there.”

“Yeah, well, Melissa Rhodes’s anger is long-standing, and misguided.” And apparently, it has seeped into every fiber of her daughter. Had my mother not had an affair with Melissa’s husband—and such a public and humiliating one, at that—would the Rhodes women be so adamant about railroading my career? I guess we’ll never know.

“Still, dating your student’s father.” Mom waggles her eyebrows. “Even I never did that.”

I know she’s attempting to lighten the mood. That’s what she does—keeps things light and fun and flirtatious. Shallow.

“You were never a teacher,” I remind her. “But you slept with Madame Bott’s husband. Does that count?”

She wrinkles her nose. “That man was so unhappy.”

I shake my head. This conversation embodies my relationship with my mother, in a nutshell. It’s why I’ll always keep her at arm’s length while questioning how I became a functional human being.

“So, is the boy going to be all right?” she finally asks.

“It seems like it.”

“Good.” Her eyes widen knowingly. “He’s going to be a real looker when he’s older, that one.”

A mental flash hits me, of Cody leaning against the Route Sixty-Six bar in ten years, ordering shots with his friends, and Dottie Reed strolling in to flirt shamelessly with men young enough to be her grandsons.

Oddly enough, the anger that usually flares with thoughts of her Blanche Devereaux behavior remains dormant. There’s no point in being angry. I have my own life, and I’ll only make myself bitter concerning myself with hers. She’ll never change. She’ll just have a harder time stuffing her sagging body parts into those skintight dresses.

I see Shane’s head swiveling around the waiting room. He’s looking for me. “Thanks for bringing my things, but you should probably get going.”