One Small Thing (24 page)

“So am I.”

“What are you going to do?” Luis asked. “You know Val and I will help out in any way, man. Val is really into Daniel. She thinks he’s a cool little dude.”

For the first time, Dan imagined the house without Avery, his whole life about his son and his work. He felt his wife’s absence like a tear in fabric, but though he had loved his life since meeting Avery, he knew he couldn’t go back. He had to stay right here. Not because he wanted it to. Not because he didn’t love Avery still, even though she was acting selfish and spoiled. But because of the little boy walking slowly on a wooden structure bridge, holding on tight, as if at any minute someone would tip him off and leave him hanging.

After Tomás had fallen asleep in the swing and Luis gently put him in the stroller and left, Dan and Daniel went to the middle of the field with the Frisbees. The sun was arcing toward the Berkeley hills and all the bigger kids had left the park, leaving nothing but tufts of upturned sod.

Daniel stood across from Dan, ten feet away, his arms stiff and straight at his sides, his face turned toward the play structure. The young mothers were packing up their babies and diaper bags and picnic lunches, rolling their strollers up the path to the parking lot.

“I want to play on the structure,” Daniel said.

“Let’s just throw this a couple of times and then we can go back for a while.”

Daniel was silent, but he crossed his arms.

“Here, let me show you how to do this.” Dan walked over to Daniel’s side. “It’s easy.”

Daniel shrugged and shook his head but looked up.

“Okay, you hold it like this. Take this Frisbee, and we’ll throw together.” He handed Daniel the neon green Frisbee. “First, hold it like this, your thumb grips it like this and you put your index finger on the edge and the rest underneath.”

Dan held the Frisbee up as an example and watched as his son tried to put his fingers in the correct position, the plastic sliding around in his hand. Probably from all the Banana Boat, Dan thought.

He dropped his Frisbee and arranged Daniel's’ thin white fingers on the disk. “There. That’s right. Okay, stand sideways. Now, hold your arm and elbow parallel, level, to the ground. Like this.” Dan held up his arm and Daniel did too. “Okay. All at once, you’re going to lean your weight on your back foot, take one step and transfer the weight to the front, extend your arm and release. It’s really important to follow through. You point with your index finger where you want to throw it. Watch. I’ll throw it at that birch tree.”

Daniel didn’t say anything but watched as Dan let the Frisbee free, the disk sailing to the trunk of the tree. He hadn’t lost it, Dan thought. Most fall and spring weekends at Cal, he and his frat brothers would play Frisbee golf up at Tilden Park, aiming at trees, fence and sign posts, running around without their shirts on, yelling, annoying picnickers and hikers equally. “See? Nothing to it. You ready?”

Daniel nodded.

“Okay. So, stand right.” Dan adjusted his shoulders and tipped up his arm. “One, two, three.”

Daniel stepped back right and then leaned forward with all his weight, but he forgot to let go of the Frisbee in front of him, instead sending it spiraling to the grass by his feet. He slapped his hands on his thighs and kicked at the grass.

“That’s okay. It’s okay. I really should have said it looks easier than it is. I’ve been throwing a Frisbee for a long time. Let’s try it again.”

“I don’t want to. It’s stupid. No one plays with those things anymore.”

“It’s not stupid. It’s good to learn how to throw. And I want to play with you, okay? Come on, let’s try it again.”

“Fine.” Daniel picked up the disk and looked up at Dan. “But I can’t do it.”

“Give it a shot. Okay, stand right, that’s it. Good. Now, one, two, three.”

Again, Daniel set up, leaning back then forward, releasing, but this time he forgot to point with his index finger. The Frisbee flew up above them and then fell back behind them.

As the Frisbee thumped to the earth, Daniel turned to him, his face red, tears already on his face. “I hate this. I’m not going to throw it any more. It’s stupid and you are stupid and I hate this and everything. I want to go home. I want my mom. I hate everything,” Daniel said, falling to the grass, hitting off Dan as he leaned down toward his son. “Go away. You don’t even want me. I can’t do anything.”

“Daniel,” Dan said, looking around, wondering if social services had spies waiting for moments like this, when it was clear Dan didn’t know how to be a parent. They’d have seen that he’d forced his boy to do something he didn’t want to. They’d see that he was just like Bill. “Stop. It’s okay. Be quiet. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made you do that. We don’t have to do it anymore.”

“But it’s too late,” Daniel sobbed.

“Too late for what?”

“No-thing. Leave me alone.” Daniel wiped his face on his shirt and sat up. “I want to go home.”

“Oh, Daniel, you can’t go home. You know that?”

“What do you mean? You won’t let me live with you any more?” He began to cry again, his sobs deep in his chest, snot pouring out of his nose.

“No. No, oh no. I meant—I thought you were talking about your mom.”

“You are a friggin’ idiot,” Randi said, her arms crossed as she stood over them. “Jesus Christ on a stick. What are you doing to him?”

“You can’t go home to where you and your mom lived. But of course you can go home. We can go home. Together. You are always going to be there. That’s where you live. That’s where you’ll live until you grow up and go to college or get married or whatever.” Dan reached out with a hand, and Daniel didn’t hit him away. He stroked Daniel’s back, feeling each rib under his hand. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

They sat together as the sun hit a row of Monterey Pines and then fell behind them, the park full of tree shadows and sudden insects rising from the grass like mist. Daniel sniffed and wiped his nose on the handkerchief Dan handed him. Dan still held onto his Frisbee and then looked up toward the trees. “Watch me lose this Frisbee,” he said, standing up.

Daniel stood up, his eyes wide. “What do you mean?”

“Just watch.” Following his own instructions, Dan released the Frisbee, and it sailed up, up to the pines, glimmering bright pink against the sunlight breaking through the branches, and then falling into the branches and disappearing from sight.

NINE

At lunch, Avery sat next to Mischa Podorov in the booth at Andrés, Brody and Lanny across from them. And though they were talking about taking Dirland Accounting nationwide, expanding the system to all two hundred offices, all Avery could feel was Mischa’s knee against hers. He pressed against her as if he weren’t pressing, his flesh constant, warm, textured against hers, the fabric of his pants gently rubbing against her St. John’s silk. Avery imagined his knee, his leg, the rounded muscles above the cap, his lean shin, strong calf. She’d seen him running one morning as she took a cab to the St. Louis office, and now those lean, muscled legs were right next to her, along with his runner’s torso, his smooth, defined arms. And from the tight firmness of his knee, she could bring forth the rest of him against her, the same tight lines, the places of softness, of hardness.

“So what do you think?” Brody asked, leaning back in the booth and wiping his mouth.

“Oh,” Avery said, startled. She tried to swallow the desire in her throat, pressing it back inside her where it needed to stay. “It’s completely doable, but we need to get the specs off to Dirland home office by Friday. Probably before.”

Brody and Lanny nodded. She’d said the right thing. Mischa pressed against her. She blinked and took a sip of water.

“Then it is all settled for now,” Mischa said. “I will present this information to my superiors, yes? And I will be in contact with you soon. Perhaps Monday. Who knows? These things move fast once the ball is in the rolling.”

Brody brought a napkin up to his mouth, and Lanny coughed.

“Fabulous,” Avery said.

Brody looked around for the server and the check. Lanny pushed out of the booth and stood up, holding out a hand to Mischa. “It’ll be great taking this the whole way with you.”

“I feel the same.” Mischa smiled.

Brody took the check from the server and stood up. “You two have dessert. Go over the integration plan. I’ll go up and start making the calls.”

Brody had never seemed like the type to save her, but as he walked away, Avery wished him back. He could keep the knees the only thing that touched. He could stare at her with knowing husband eyes, reminding her of Dan. Dan. She sipped her water and breathed in deeply.

“This will be great,” she said, turning slightly to look at Mischa in the eye.

“I think so. We worked so well together in St. Louis,
ptichka
.”

She took a sip of wine and licked her lips. “What does that mean? You’ve said it before.”

“It is bird, but not regular bird. A beautiful bird. Small beautiful bird.”

She thought of her name on his tongue, the birds in A-vary, the way she could fly in his mouth. “I like it. It sounds nice. Better than
bird
.”

“Of course. What did I tell you about English? Like German. Nothing feminine. No word good enough for you.”

Avery smiled. Her mother called her
Sweetie
. Dan called her
Aves
. But so did Valerie. Her mouth closed, Avery rolled the
p-tich-ka
against her lips and palate. A word no one else but Mischa could say.

“Well,” she said, looking at her napkin in her lap. “I think Lanny and his support staff will be in on a few offices. I know I can’t go to all of them.” But 200 other cities appealed to her. Two hundred cities without Daniel, who stared at her from the moment she walked in the house to the moment she left. What did he want? In Tulsa and Atlanta and Phoenix, she wouldn’t have to duck his gaze, turn the corners fast to get out of his view.

“If you don’t go, I don’t. I will have that written into the contract. I assure you.” Mischa moved in closer. He smelled like clean skin and soap and something spicy. One dark blonde curl hung over his ear, and she held her hands together in her lap to avoid tucking it behind his ear.

Avery laughed. “Right. I’m sure your bosses will understand that.”

“If they saw you, they would.”

When she was thirteen and dreaming of the perfect man, Mischa would have fit exactly into her fantasies. He was the kind of man she read about in the romance novels she checked out from the library and hid under her bed so Loren wouldn’t find them and start teasing her. In every story, the hero was the same: Charming, sexy, attentive, slightly foreign. Not familiar. Not Dan, who seemed to grow heavier and hairier each day, walking around unshaven with an apron on. Not her father. Someone else entirely. But even when she’d grown into her body and attracted male attention, no romance male showed up to sweep her away. No one with the right amounts of charisma and vulnerability, with a perfect body and a keening need for hers. Not even dark, handsome Dan at the counter at Peet’s and then his awkward approach toward her table came close. She shook her head. What was she doing? Did that happen in real life? But wasn’t that what was happening now?

“Well, we’ll see about that.” She picked up the dessert menu, but her stomach crackled with nerves. “I don’t think I’m going to get anything.”

“I do not think I will either,
ribka
.” He smiled and lifted his water glass to her. “Not yet.”

Later as she sat in her office, Avery had a hard time breathing, the air refusing to go deep in her lungs, caught up on her ribs. Closing her eyes, she tried inhaling through her nose, slowly, slowly, just like her yoga teacher had recommended during particular stretches. Finally, she felt her blood slow, her lungs open to take in air, her thoughts of Mischa fading to gray, nothing in her mind but office sounds—phones, footsteps, muffled conversations. She heard the whir of air from the vent, the electronic sounds of the Xerox and FAX, and then all the machine sounds faded into the place she read about in the pregnancy books, the calm in mind and body, the calm you could give your child in the womb. Avery breathed in, listened to the sounds in her body, nothing but her blood and heart and organs. No Dan, Daniel, or Mischa, with his hundred enchanting words. No Dirland Accounting. Nothing but gray. Gray. White.

“Jesus!” she yelled as the phone rang, her eyes wide. Her body cranked up with nerves, her fingers tingling, the quiet place a disappearing pin prick in her mind. Her arm shot out for the phone.

“What! Hello!” She put her hand on her chest willing her heart to beat normally.

“Avery,” said Isabel. “Why do you sound so—so surprised?”

Avery rolled her eyes. “I was having—in an important talk, Mom. What’s going on?”