Every Other Saturday (26 page)

When he got back to the house a little before ten, Julia was still out and Brandon was awake. He could hear the kid bumping around in his room as soon as he had closed the front door.

Elizabeth was doing lesson plans at the kitchen table. She shrugged in response to his questioning look. “He’s kind of wired tonight. I tried letting him watch TV but he couldn’t sit still.”

“Thanks. You look pretty beat.”

“Third trimester. My ankles are starting to swell.” She lifted a dainty foot in demonstration, but it looked completely normal to him. “He’ll be here before I know it. I’m going to miss my big kids, though. Are you going to look for another sitter in January?”

“Not me. I can’t handle this Saturday nightlife much longer. I’m going back to my hermit cave.”

“It’s Mrs. Mendel I worry about. I’m the only sitter Brandon tolerates.” Elizabeth glanced toward the upstairs wall, where they could still hear Brandon moving around. “But it’s more than that. She just seems so tired. I don’t know how she does it. Running the store, president of the PTA, the kids, the second job. Brandon is an extra challenge. And somehow she even found time to paint her living room. Can you imagine?”

Dave coughed and bent to rub at an imaginary scuff on his shoe leather. When he had recovered, he fished Elizabeth’s money out of his pocket. She accepted payment with a smile, packed up her Tree of Life Preschool tote bag, and was calling Mack before she was even out of the house. Dave remembered those days: when Debbie was pregnant with Lyric, he had insisted she call him the minute she was on her way home or when she arrived safely somewhere. Like everything else about his marriage, pregnancy and infancy seemed to belong to another time.

He climbed the half-stair slowly, and knocked lightly on Brandon’s door. Bran was in his pajama bottoms and no shirt, his little ribs visible as he paced around his room in an odd little triangle, muttering to himself. Dave had never noticed how skinny he was. Had the boy lost weight in the last couple of months? Maybe grown taller and his body just hadn’t caught up?

Brandon glanced up when Dave knocked but then resumed his pacing and muttering. It took Dave a moment to realize he was counting. Not one-two-three, but skipping around. Dave leaned against the doorjamb and listened until he could follow the pattern.

“So,” he said softly. “You count up by the even numbers until you get to…”

“Eighty-six.”

“Then you count from eighty-five back down to one on the odd numbers.”

“Yes.” The boy stopped, and looked at Dave as though he saw him for the first time. “Yes.”

“How many times do you do it?”

Brandon pointed at his path on the floor. “I start with twenty times up and down, but then if I land on an even number when I get to the lamp, I have to start over.”

“I see,” Dave said slowly.

“And if I have to start over, it takes forty times to fix the first time. See?”

Oddly enough, Dave sort of did see. He knew very little about OCD, but had heard Julia talk about it enough to know he was in risky territory here. Brandon seemed to be calming as they talked, and he wanted to help, but he didn’t want to say the wrong thing to set the poor kid off or make things worse. “What happens if you don’t do it?” he asked cautiously.

“They’ll be in a car wreck.”

“Who?”

“Mom. And Dad. Sometimes Christy, too, but I’m not sure if it works on her.”

“So if you don’t do this every night, your parents will be in a car accident?”

Brandon gasped as though he just realized he had stopped pacing and resumed his walk around the room.

“Buddy,” Dave said. “I’m just curious. How do you know that’s what will happen?”

“Scientific evidence,” Brandon said. “I started my laps when I turned seven. I only had to do a few then. One night I forgot to do them, and we saw a car accident the next day. There was an ambulance and everything. Then I had to do more.”

“Really.” Dave tried to keep his tone neutral. “That’s interesting.”

“Then my dad got mad at me. He doesn’t let me do them—when I go to his house, I have to do extras here—and I stopped doing them for like a week. Then he left us.”

“Oh, shit. I mean, wow.”

“You said a bad word!” Brandon stopped pacing and for a minute, looked like any other eight-year-old boy, delighted to hear a grownup do something forbidden. “You better be glad Mom isn’t here.”

Dave laughed. “Yeah. I’m kind of scared of your mom. Don’t tell her that, though, okay?”

“You don’t have to be scared of her,” Brandon said seriously. “She’s only a witch on Halloween. That’s just a fantasy. It isn’t real life.”

“Thanks, dude. I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

“Don’t worry. She likes you.” Brandon returned to his rounds.

Dave sighed. “How many more do you have to do tonight?”

“Just twelve more.”

“Okay. Do those twelve, and then get in bed, okay? Your mom will be home soon.” He wasn’t sure this was the right thing to do, but it sounded reasonable, at least.

“Okay,” Brandon said. “Good night.”

Julia came home in a flurry an hour later, carrying several bags and a foil tray of leftovers. “Thanks,” she said without looking as Dave took the pan from her. To the bags she said, “Hungry?”

“Nah. Burger and fries at the Vortex tonight. I’m not going to eat again for a week.”

“Sounds like a fun date,” she said, still focused on the bags she unloaded onto the kitchen counter. He shrugged and said nothing, helping her unload the grocery bags. Baby/Melissa seemed far away now, so many other thoughts were clouding his mind.

Julia glanced at him, and then back down at the bags. “Sorry. I took a few extra minutes to stop by Publix on the way home. I didn’t have anything to give the kids for breakfast.”

“Of course that’s fine.” He bowed his head to get into her line of sight, but she retrieved a bag of apples and turned away as though she hadn’t seen him.

“So how was the date?” She over-annunciated the
t
.

“Fine.”

“Just fine?”

“Yes.”

“Not someone you’ll be seeing again in six weeks?” Her voice was thready and tense. Dangerous. Here came the other shoe.

“Julia, I don’t know that we should talk about this right now.”

“Of course not.” She practically threw a half-gallon of milk into the refrigerator. “Silly me. What
should
we talk about?”

“Brandon was up late tonight.”

Julia froze, a box of pancake mix in hand. “What? How late? Is he okay? Did he have a tantrum? Did Elizabeth leave a note?”

“No, he’s fine. No tantrums, at least not while I was here.”

She seemed to breathe again. “What happened?”

“He was just pacing around his room. I talked to him for a bit.”

“Oh, God, you didn’t. No offense, but you don’t know how easy it is to say the wrong thing and then he’s up all night or screaming or biting…”

“I know,” he said. “I mean, I’m trying to understand. I just listened to him counting and we talked a little bit. He seemed okay.”

“He’s counting out loud again,” Julia said, more to herself than to Dave. “We had pretty much stopped that.”

She sounded tired. And she could barely look at him. Last weekend loomed between them like the enormous mistake he’d known it was. What had felt impulsive and mutually primal at the time, now seemed more like taking advantage of an exhausted and vulnerable woman—a
friend—
adding a complication to her complicated life. Maybe his online critics were right. He really was a misogynist asshole.

“I learned his pattern.” Dave tried to bring the focus back to Brandon. “He explained that he’s afraid you’ll get in a car accident if he doesn’t do everything right. He blames himself for Adam leaving.”

Julia collapsed into the closest kitchen chair. “He told you that? How did you get him to tell you?”

“I, um, I asked.”

She put her hands in her face, leaning on the table in frustration. It was unfortunate that this gesture pulled both on his sympathy and on his memories of the last time they were together. He could picture her lying on the floor, covered in green paint, with her hands over her face while he pleasured her with his tongue. He felt himself stiffening at the memory, which was utterly and completely inappropriate at this moment. Misogynist. Asshole.

“Hell, Dave. I can’t get him to talk to me no matter what I do, no matter how I beg and plead and bribe him. And you
ask
, just once, and he tells you what none of us have been able to get him to say.”

“Maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s because I’m more removed from him, not you or Adam.”

“But that’s what his therapist is supposed to be! She hasn’t gotten anywhere with him either.”

“What if you tried another therapist? Maybe a guy?”

Julia looked up at him, flaring. “You think a woman can’t be a good therapist? This woman is extremely qualified and has a doctorate from Emory.”

Dave put up his hands. “Easy. That’s not what I meant.”

She glared at him, less intimidating than it might have been because her face was splotched pink with anger and worry. Dave pulled out the chair next to hers, reaching for her hands. “I’m saying that sometimes a guy just needs to talk to another guy.”

He brushed her dark hair back from her face. “I don’t know half what you know about art or…just about anything else. But I’ve made my living for ten years off the simple fact that guys—young, old, gay, straight, athletes, academics—sometimes they just need to talk to other guys.”

“You’re saying I should switch him to a male therapist?” She looked up at him, those vivid blue eyes surrounded by red.

Dave wanted to carry her upstairs and put her to bed and guard the door for days to keep the world out so she could sleep. Maybe do some other things in that bed, too. But the last thing she needed were more blurry lines between them. He released her hands and stood up. If he didn’t leave now, he didn’t know what might happen. “Only you and Adam can decide that. As your friend, I can only give you my take on things.”

“As my friend,” she echoed.

“Yes.” He reached for his jacket. “I am your friend, Julia. And I want to help if I can.”

She still sat, staring at a spot on the table. “Good night, Dave,” she said, voice flat. He didn’t see her expression, forcing himself upstairs instead to collect Lyric and go home.

Adam got the kids for Thanksgiving Day. When they had decided this with the judge, the lawyers and the calendar several months ago, it had seemed like a good idea. Julia would have them for the weekend, and then again at Christmas. Their Hanukkah celebration with Adam would happen in between.

Sitting alone on the living room floor, drinking vodka from a Snoopy mug and watching the end of the Macy’s Parade, Julia felt less sure about the arrangement. She had refused Caroline’s invitation to her house that evening, not trusting herself to face the family celebration without her kids. And although Caroline had forgiven her for deserting her post last weekend, Julia was still sufficiently embarrassed that she didn’t want much face time with her big sister.

She’d been wondering all morning what Adam would do for the big dinner with the kids. Her first theory was that he would drag them to his parents’ for dried-out kosher turkey and noodle kugel. The possibility that Christy was serving them tofurkey and lettuce wraps was even less appealing.

In fact, as the parade gave way to the dog show, Julia was surprised Brandon hadn’t called to complain yet, or beg to come home. Her phone sat on the floor next to her, ready. When it finally rang at one o’clock, she was so relieved that she didn’t look at the screen before answering.

“Hey, honey.”

“Well, hey there,” said a deep voice. “I didn’t think we’d come to nicknames yet. But, okay, Sugar Britches.” Dave Bloody Bernstein.

“Dave. Sorry, I thought it was Brandon.” What the hell did he want?

He laughed. “I figured. I was just calling to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving. I remember it’s hard the first year by yourself.”

As usual, his kindness caught her off guard. She swallowed. “Thanks. Do you have Lyric today?”

“No. but I’m going to Debbie’s for an early dinner.”

“You are?” She stopped just short of adding, “
Why
?”

“Yeah, they talked me into it. Ganged up on me. Aaron is going to be there and I’m going to try not to shove his head up the turkey’s ass.”

Julia laughed in spite of herself. “That’s evolved of you.”

“Hopefully not too evolved. ‘Dave from the High Rise’ doesn’t have the same ring to it.”

Why the hell was he being funny and considerate when she was working so hard to be mad at him? Anger was her only defense, and he gnawed away at it like a determined little Jewish beaver.

“Are you on your own?” he asked. “Not spending the whole day by yourself, are you?”

“You make it sound so pathetic. Thousands of people across the country spend this day alone. Or working. Doctors, nurses. Waitresses.”

“So you’re working?” he said, missing the point. “When is your shift?”

“No. I’m not working.” She picked at a tiny spot of green paint on the carpet. When he started to speak again, the impulse struck her suddenly. “I have a date, actually.”

“I just thought if we were both kid-free and tired of turkey this evening,” he started at the same time. “We might get together. Eat pie. Did you say a date?”

It was only a partial lie, Julia reasoned. On their last shift together, Sean had mentioned going out tonight and she’d been politely noncommittal. “You’re the only one allowed to go on dates? Just because I don’t blog about it doesn’t mean I don’t get asked.”

“Of course,” he said. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Right. You just assume that no one else thinks I’m dating material either.” She hadn’t intended this the bitter way it came out. In fact, she hadn’t intended to mention the show to him at all. It was an unresolvable conflict that could only make them both feel worse, and she’d been embarrassed enough already.

He was quiet, and for a moment she thought he’d hung up.

“Julia, I’m sorry. I had no idea you’d heard—”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“You have to understand, about the show—”

“I totally get it.” She cut him off. “That’s my other line. We’ll talk later, okay?”

“Happy Thanksgiving, Julia,” he said sadly. “Have fun on your date.”

“You too.” She hung up quickly and stared numbly at the phone, wishing there actually had been a call on the other line to distract her. She decided it was a good idea to have breakfast before calling Sean to see whether he was still free tonight.

# # #

Sean was waiting outside the Chinese restaurant when she arrived. “Hey, darlin’.” He embraced her warmly and kissed her on the cheek. “It’s nice to see you outside work.”

“I know. I’m probably like a different person without my sexy uniform.” Julia glanced down at the low-cut sweater she’d taken on and off three times. Her bra wasn’t showing as she’d been afraid, but she tugged it upward anyway.

“You look gorgeous.” It sounded like “gar-juice” in his thick Irish brogue.

“Thanks. You look nice, too.” She gestured at his wool button-up sweater and checkered scarf. He held the door for her, grinning, as the petite hostess led them to the back of the nearly empty restaurant.

It had been years since Julia’s last first date, and she’d forgotten how awkward they could be at the beginning. The airy confidence Sean always exuded behind the bar seemed to have deserted him. He fiddled nervously with the paper packet of chopsticks in front of him, which Julia found cute and reassuring.

“Look, this doesn’t have to be a date-date, you know?” she said. “It doesn’t have to be awkward at work or anything.”

“Work?” He sounded surprised. “Not worried about that. I don’t care who knows.”

“I didn’t mean that, so much as—” she began, but the waiter arrived to take their orders, and by the time he had gone, she decided it was better to just change the subject.

“So, I’m kind of excited about this movie,” she offered. “I haven’t actually been to an adult movie in a long time.”

“That’s right—you have kids, too, don’t you?”

Too?
“Yep. A boy who’s eight and a four-year-old girl. You don’t have kids, surely?”

“Me, no. I want them, though. I came from a big family. Love kids.”

Julia racked her brain for what to say next. She was still a bit foggy from the morning, and all the natural questions that occurred to her were the kinds of things you weren’t supposed to ask on a first date. Like “How religious are you, exactly?” Or, “How many kids do you want?” And even, “Would you be happy just being a stepfather or would you want your own?”

Yeah. Stepfather was not a first-date word.

She joined Sean in fiddling with the chopsticks, her mind wandering to how her kids were doing at Adam’s and, oddly, how Dave was faring with Debbie and Aaron. Not that she cared. They could have their weird little family dynamic. She was going to be an adult and move on.

“How long have you been in the States?” she asked.

“Three years,” he said. “I’m here on a student visa.”

“You’re a student?”

He nodded. “Doctoral student at Georgia Tech. City and regional planning.”

“No shit,” she said, unable to contain her surprise.

He grinned. “I get that a lot. People don’t expect this delicious hunk of man to have a beautiful mind, too.” As he said it, he ran his hands over his chest in mock seductiveness, making her laugh.

Her phone vibrated on the table. Sean raised an auburn eyebrow. “Need to get that?”

“It’s just a text. You won’t think I’m rude to respond, will you?”

“From Caroline?”

Julia shook her head. “My ex. Or, from my kids through my ex’s phone.”

“That must be hard,” Sean said.

“What?” Julia said absently. She typed a quick “I love you! Gobble, Gobble” for Brandon to read to Mia.

“Divorce. Especially when the kids are so young.”

“Mmm-hmm,” she mumbled. Sean wasn’t going to start judging her now, too, was he?
This wasn’t my fault,
she wanted to scream.
I did not choose to put my kids through this.

“But it’s probably better, in the end, right?”

“Excuse me?”

“Not fun, obviously. But isn’t it better for everyone if two parents who don’t love each other just split up, rather than be miserable together?”

Julia chose her words carefully. “I guess it depends on how miserable you are.”

“My parents are miserable,” he said. “Back in Ireland. Scream at each other all the bloody time. We got out of there, my siblings and me, fast as we could. They’d never get divorced, because that would be a mortal sin. But I say, ‘what do ya think God and Jesus and the Pope think about you screaming and cursing at each other all the time?’ Right?”

“I guess I never thought about it that way,” Julia said quietly. It was hard hearing a topic so painful to her discussed lightly. But looking across at Sean’s boyish, freckled face, the defensiveness drained out of her. He wasn’t being malicious, and she could remember everything being crystal-clear in her twenties, too.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to bring you down,” he said. “Sometimes my mouth works faster than my brain.”

“You mean your beautiful mind?” she teased, imitating his earlier chest-rubbing gesture.

He let his gaze linger on her chest and raised an eyebrow. “If that’s your response to me putting my foot in it, I’ll have to remember to do it more often.”

Embarrassed, Julia was saved by the appearance of the waiter with their General Tso’s chicken and Mongolian beef. As they ate, Julia allowed herself to imagine what it would be like to actually date someone like Sean. They’d flirted at work for weeks, but not until now had she considered the remote possibility that something would actually come of it.

“How long do you think you’ll work for Caroline?” he asked.

She shrugged. The real answer was that she didn’t think she could handle it much longer—two jobs and two kids were wearing her out faster than she wanted to admit. “I don’t know,” she said, choosing the flirtatious response instead. “I keep thinking I’m ready to quit but the cute bartender always draws me back in.”

“Careful letting me lead you around, darlin’,” he said, returning her tone. “I’ve been known to get into trouble.”

She nibbled a bite of chicken and watched Sean eat, admiring the same quick precision he used to tend bar. He was young, and a little on the arrogant side, but she’d seen him be generous and self-effacing just as often. He was good with kids—or at least, he was good with ring bearers and flower girls—and had siblings. Hell, he was a doctoral student. Was it safe to assume he was Catholic? Did that even matter to her anymore?

Catching her staring at him, Sean held her gaze with serious intensity, and grasped a broccoli floret with his chopsticks. Instead of eating it, though, he made a tossing motion in her direction.
Be fun. Just roll with it.

Self-conscious but game, she opened her mouth as wide as she could and Sean tossed the broccoli to her, only making her move a little to catch it in her teeth. They both laughed and he reached across the table to wipe a bit of sauce off her bottom lip.

“Atta girl,” he said and she grinned proudly back as though she’d actually achieved something. Their feet touched under the table and neither of them pulled away. This part of dating, she did like.

After dinner, they walked across the shopping center parking lot to the movie theater, which was more crowded than the restaurant. Sean slung a muscled arm around her shoulders as they waited in the ticket line, and Julia found herself leaning in to him, enjoying the feel of his lean body against hers.

Admittedly, it was hard to imagine a long-term with Sean. He probably had no interest in a long-term anyway. But he was cute, and he made her laugh. Wasn’t that all she needed right now? Someone to help fill the hours when her kids were away, maybe heal some part of her broken spirit? If she could have meaningless sex—for that’s what she now understood it to be—with Dave Bernstein on the living room floor, why couldn’t she date an Irish grad student for a few months?

The simplicity of the idea was so appealing, she began to let it play out in her head. Saturday night excursions to the Irish pub. Sex and coffee on Sunday mornings when her kids were with Adam. Maybe he’d bring her the newspaper. They’d talk politics and tell jokes. And more sex. If anyone could take her mind off her problems with the store and Adam and Dave, it could very well be Sean.

They bought a popcorn to share and took their seats a few minutes before the previews started. “So.” Sean scooped a handful from the bucket. Man, he could eat. “Caroline tells me you’re friends with Dave from the Man Cave.”

Julia stiffened. “You know him?”

“That guy is great.” He beamed. “I learned everything I know about American football from his blog.”

“No kidding.” Julia gritted her teeth. So much for her escape.

“His dating stuff is brilliant. Did you read the one this week about Annie Savoy? Fierce.”

Julia shook her head. She hadn’t seen Dave’s blog for three weeks. “Who is Annie Savoy?”

“You know, from
Bull Durham
? He re-did the whole Crash Davis ‘I believe’ speech. Nearly pissed myself laughing.”