If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home Now (37 page)

“No,” I said. “I was worried I’d forget to be a decent mother.”

“What about this one?” He dropped my hand and nudged my ankle with his toe.

I raised my foot a few feet in the air so we could look at it. “That’s a hummingbird. We used to have a lot of them in our
backyard when I was little. I don’t know what happened—they don’t come as much anymore. I miss them.”

“And this one?” He touched the snake on my upper arm.

I let my foot drop back down on the bed with a thud. “Ah, that. That one has special significance.”

“Really?”

“Yes. It signifies that I was drunk one night and not thinking clearly.”

“Why no tramp stamp?” he asked.

“Too trendy.” I turned on my side so I was facing him and ran my finger down his chest. He had a good amount of hair, enough
so he looked like a guy, but not so much he looked like a
hairy
guy. “You got any tats anywhere I should know about?”

“I think you’d have found them by now.”

“They’d have to be well hidden,” I agreed.

“I’m not into that whole thing,” he said. “Permanently defacing yourself. It seems like something you’d always regret. Or
at least I would.”

“Yeah, well it’s nice to have
small
things to regret,” I said. “Makes such a nice break from the big ones.”

He rested his arm across my shoulder, letting the weight of it pin me down. “Where does tonight rank on the list?”

“Depends,” I said. “Is this a one-night-only kind of thing or something longer-lasting?”

“Rickie,” he said in a tone that mingled annoyance and patience. “Do I seem in any way at all like someone likely to be in
search of a one-night-only kind of thing?”

I closed my eyes and moved my face close to his chest and breathed in his warm, salty, musky scent. “No,” I whispered happily
against his skin. “You really, really don’t.”

“All right, then,” he said. I curled my legs up against his stomach and he folded his arms around me and I didn’t move for
the longest time, just listening to his heart beat under my ear.

Neither of us slept much that night, so we got up pretty early and made it back to my house in time for Noah’s lesson. I was
glad
I
wasn’t the one who had to run around for an hour on only a few hours of sleep, but Andrew rallied Noah with his usual good-natured
enthusiasm, and pretty soon they were both tearing happily around the backyard.

My mother had welcomed us a little stiffly when we first arrived, and once Andrew was outside with Noah, she motioned to me
to sit down across from her at the kitchen table. “So,” she said, crossing her arms. “You spent the night together.”

“It was nice.” I was too happy to be defensive.

She didn’t waste time with pleasantries. “What about the girlfriend?”

“He broke up with her. I mean, he already had when we saw him at the park yesterday.” She was raising her eyebrows, so I quickly
added, “Really, Mom. I swear.”

“You’re sure?”

“Andrew’s a good guy. He wouldn’t have spent the night with me if he hadn’t broken up with her. He’s not like that.”

“He does seem like a good guy,” she said. “I’ve liked him from the beginning.”

“Me too. Well, almost from the beginning.”

“All right, then. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t setting yourself up for being hurt.”

“I’m pretty careful about that kind of thing, Mom. These days, at least.”

She smiled briefly, then leaned back in her chair and glanced around the kitchen. “Don’t you usually bake him something when
he comes to work with Noah? I could whip up some brownies…”

I grinned. “I think it’s okay to skip the brownies this time, Mom. All things considered.”

“Hmm. I guess you’re right.” She shot me a sideways glance. “But if we should decide to get Noah a math tutor or something
in the future—”

“We’ll find a more traditional way to pay him,” I said. “Promise.”

There was a pause and then we both started laughing and we didn’t stop for a long time.

T
anya said, “I have the details of the family-concert event right here. Ah, Melanie, there you are. Could you please…?”

Melanie, who had just walked in and was still hovering by the doorway, obediently scurried over to where Tanya was sitting,
took the papers she was holding out, and distributed one to each of the women sitting around Tanya’s immaculate and vaguely
antiseptic family room.

“Our job this time is to provide a picnic dinner for approximately a hundred and fifty families,” Tanya said, tapping the
paper with a perfectly manicured finger. “I’ve done a little research, and I think our best approach is to hire one of the
local bakeries to make sandwiches and cookies and then buy drinks and fruit at Costco. So I’ll need each of you to…” I never
did hear what she wanted from us because Melanie had finished her task and come over to the sofa to sit down next to me, and
I wanted to talk to her.

“I miss you,” I whispered. “I feel like I hardly see you anymore.”

She put her purse on the floor and whispered back, “I miss you too. But I love having my old life back.”

“And everything with Gabriel is good?”

“So far, really good. And the marriage counselor is amazing.”

Maria must have been listening, because at the end of the meeting she grabbed Carol Lynn and they pounced on us. “Did I hear
you say you’re back with your ex?” she asked Melanie.

“Yes,” Mel said. She added, with just a touch of defiance, “And it’s been really nice.”

The two divorcées exchanged a glance. “Just be careful,” Carol Lynn said. “Stay alert.”

“There’s this computer program,” Maria said. “I used it on Jonathan. It keeps track of everything they’re doing online. You
should try it for a while. Just to make sure—”

“I don’t really want to.”

Maria rolled her eyes. “Well, of course you don’t
want
to. No one
wants
to do stuff like that. But sometimes it pays to be smart instead of trusting.”

Carol Lynn put her hand on Mel’s arm. “We just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“Then don’t make me feel like I’m making a mistake,” Melanie said. Her voice was quiet, but there was an edge to it I’d never
heard before. “I’m doing what’s right for me.”

“We’re older than you,” Carol Lynn said. “We’ve seen things you haven’t.”

“I can take care of myself,” Mel said. She walked off and I followed her with a pleasant shrug at the two older women.

A couple of days later, Maria Dellaventura, Debbie Golden, and I took our three boys out to a build-your-own-sundae frozen-yogurt
place in West LA. I had been surprised when Maria stopped us as we were walking out of school and asked if they could join
us. I didn’t think Austin would want to go anywhere with our uncool guys, but he actually seemed happy to be included. The
three boys sat at their own table, scarfing down yogurt and trying to top each other in coming up with disgusting combinations,
like mustard and onions on mint and raspberry yogurt. They were six-year-old boys, so this was endlessly amusing to them.

Debbie and I told Maria about the T-ball team. “Wish I’d known about it earlier,” she said. “I would have signed Austin up.
How did you know they’d get Coach Andrew?”

“He arranged it for us,” Debbie said.

“Teacher’s pets!” Maria said.

“He just knew our boys needed the extra help.”

“Did you hear the gossip about him?” Maria asked.

“What’s that?” Debbie leaned forward expectantly.

I looked up sharply.

Maria lowered her voice. “Word on the street is that he broke up with his girlfriend to go out with one of the moms at school.
But no one knows who.”

“Wow,” Debbie said. “If I’d only known he liked older women…”

“I know, right?” Maria said. “But what are
you
talking about? You have a husband. I, on the other hand—well, let’s just say that this cougar would have left her cage months
ago if I’d thought I had a chance with the guy. But he’s so young it never even occurred to me.” She turned to me. “Like you,
Rickie. He must be right around your age, right?”

I licked my spoon and shrugged. “I guess.”

“So who do you think it is?” Debbie asked her. “Any ideas?”

“Well, the person who told me all this said there’s this one mom who’s always going to talk to him about her kid. She has
a second-grade girl. I can’t remember her name. And she’s even older than I am. But apparently she’s always in there with
him. And usually wearing something low-cut and very tight.”

I concentrated on scraping up the last drops of yogurt.

Debbie said, “Well, you can’t blame her. The guy is a sweetie-pie and cute.”

“She’s married, though. You can blame her for
that
,” Maria said. “Plus, you know… leave something for those of us who are actively looking. Rickie knows what I’m talking about,
don’t you, girl?” She winked at me. “You getting any action these days? Any dates with handsome young men you can tell us
about so we can at least have a vicarious thrill?”

“In my dreams,” I said cheerfully, and not completely dishonestly. “Does that count?”

“If it doesn’t, I’m worse off than I realized.” She flipped her hair back over her shoulder. “We should start getting together
on Saturday nights, Rickie. We could watch stupid chick flicks and do tequila shots. It’s pathetic if you do it alone, but
if you do it with someone else it’s a party.”

I laughed but didn’t commit.

“Anyway…” She poked at her yogurt with her spoon. She hadn’t actually eaten more than a bite or two of it and the rest had
melted into goo. “Since you guys are so buddy-buddy with Coach Andrew, see what you can find out. The universe owes me some
juicy gossip.”

“He doesn’t really seem like the cougar type,” Debbie said.

“Oh, who knows?” Maria said. “Who knows what goes on behind anyone’s closed doors?”

Behind a closed door, later that same night, I was throwing myself up into the strong arms of my son’s PE coach and wrapping
my legs around his waist. “I haven’t seen you in like
forever
,” I moaned dramatically.

“I believe it’s been three nights.”

“Well, it felt like forever.”

“To me too.” He held me tight against him, and we kissed long and hard.

He set me down and I stepped back. I glanced up at him coyly. “So someone told me today there’s a rumor that you’re sleeping
with a school mom.”

He groaned. “Oh, great. That didn’t take long.”

“They don’t know who. But they all assume she must be at least a decade older than you.”

“If they just thought about it… I mean, there’s only one mother at the school who’s the right age for me.”

“There is one suspect. Some mother who’s always finding excuses to go talk to you about her second-grade daughter. How come
you’ve never mentioned her?”

“I have,” he said. “Therese Paulson. I’ve complained to you a ton about her.”

“Oh,
her
,” I said, relieved. “You hate her.”

“It’s true she won’t leave me alone. But I don’t think it’s an attraction thing. She just has too much free time on her hands
and wants to micromanage her kid’s school life.”

“I bet it is an attraction thing,” I said. “She probably totally wants you. You’re oblivious to this stuff. You didn’t even
notice how much I liked you.”

“To be fair,” he said dryly, “you hid it well. Remember the whole I-don’t-want-him-to-be-my-son’s-PE-coach thing?”

“Shut up. Anyway, how long do you think we can keep this a secret?”

“Clearly not for long if people are already gossiping about it.”

“Will you get in trouble?”

“That’s not the right question,” he said, advancing toward me.

“What is?”

“The right question is whether you’re worth getting in trouble for.”

“Oh,” I said. “Am I—”

“Yes,” he said before I’d gotten any further. “Yes.”

Not long after that, Noah informed Ms. Hayashi that he didn’t need to go to PE anymore now that Coach Andrew was coming over
to his house almost every night.

Dr. Wilson, Andrew, Noah, and I all had a little discussion about that in the principal’s office. Noah was made to understand
that whatever happened at home was private and in no way affected his school schedule. After he was sent back to his classroom,
Andrew and I were made to understand that while Dr. Wilson “could not and would not legislate personal relationships between
the faculty and parent body,” if we were overly indiscreet or Andrew showed any partiality toward any member of our family
in the carrying out of his duties, any subsequent meeting would be less genial. He managed to sound both disappointed in us
and resigned to the situation. I wondered how often something similar had happened in the past. I definitely got the feeling
we weren’t the first couple to be delivered this particular speech.

We slunk out of his office as cowed as Noah, but once I’d recovered from the meeting I actually felt a huge wave of relief.
Keeping our romance a secret had been more of a burden than either of us had realized until it was lifted, and, while we weren’t
about to go around advertising it, I was just happy I could now safely give Andrew a quick good-luck kiss before T-ball games
or drop by his office after picking up Noah.

Of course, my living situation kept things complicated, no matter what. There were only so many evenings I could dump Noah
on my parents and escape to Andrew’s. My mother was often out at meetings for her various boards and causes, and while my
father was always happy to have Noah in the house
with him, I knew it meant Noah would spend the entire time watching TV and eating junk food and staying up late.

Fortunately, Andrew was a good sport about coming over and hanging out at the house with us. We’d have dinner, watch a movie,
maybe play a game, get Noah to bed on time—and save anything more intimate for the nights I was able to go to his apartment.

There was one time, though, when he was over and everyone else had gone to bed, and even though our intention was just to
watch TV, our hands met under the throw blanket we were sharing, and then our hands were exploring, and then we were kissing,
and then I was pretty much on top of him, and who knows what would have happened next, when the sound of footsteps and some
movement beyond the partially opened family room door made us fly apart, frantically settling our clothing back in place.