One Small Thing (31 page)

There was a thump from the bedroom outside the door and Avery pulled away from the sink and grabbed a towel, holding it to her chest, feeling her heart pulse hard until she remembered what she was doing. Mischa was waiting, wanting her, even though she looked like this? But he hadn’t seen her like this. He didn’t know her at all. It was Dan who knew her, who wanted her even if she couldn’t have a baby. Even though she had turned from him since July, ignoring everything, even his son.

Avery shut off the water and stared at herself, bending close, looking at her eyes, the way the blue was really speckled with darkness, browns and even blacks. Dan had made mistakes and fallen into them, forgetting they were mistakes, thinking that what he was doing was right. And then, years, later, he’d figured out what he wanted and hid the past, scared that Avery would see him like she was seeing herself right now. Sitting down on the toilet, her elbows on her knees, she could see it now, how easy it was to fall into what wasn’t right, to stay because mistakes often feel good before you realize the error. They felt like Mischa’s hands and lips. They felt like his erection under his pants. They felt like her mother’s long naps, her hazy grief, the worn, slightly dirty sheets that almost smelled like her husband. They felt like delirious nights and days on an apartment couch, Randi’s reality softened by whatever drugs she could get. They felt like the sun on Daniel’s neck as he crouched in the sandbox, the minutes slipping into the grains of sand on his cheek, the up and down of his breath, the noise of school echoing far away.

Avery stood up, turned, and stared at herself again, her long arms and legs, her stomach, slightly pouched out because she had missed so many days at the gym due to work. Mischa was wrong. She wasn’t perfect. She wasn’t even good. The soft Russian words were not meant for her at all.

Grabbing the white cotton robe off a hook, she put it on, tying the belt tight, knowing that she would go into the bedroom and embarrass herself and humiliate Mischa by saying, “No.” She would probably lose a client and the entire Dirland account. Later, Brody might even want to fire her. In her other life, the one before Daniel, everything she was deciding now would have seemed like a terrible mistake. “What will people think?” she’d have asked herself, worried about the stares from people in the office, Lanny’s sarcastic laugh, Brody’s raised eyebrow, Mischa’s glare from across the dark hotel room. But by making this choice, she was finally right.

Of course by the time she’d turned off the bathroom light and opened the door, Mischa was under the covers, naked, his clothes neatly lain out on a chair. Belt, pants, underwear, socks, shirt. He’d prepared carefully—two condoms were tucked into the corner of the bed stand, their dark purple wrappers shining in the flickering light from the candles he’d lit. She looked away.

“Mischa,” she began.

“A-vary,” he said, pulling back the blankets. There was his thigh, smooth and almost hairless, his hip, chest, shoulders. “Come to bed.”

“Mischa.”

“You have already said that.”

“I know.” She sat at the desk chair, holding the robe so her knees didn’t show. “I’ve made a mistake. I’m sorry.”

He blinked a few times, his blue eyes there, gone, there, gone, and then he pulled himself up to a sitting position, his mouth tight. She felt chill bumps scurry up her skin, her hair at the back of her neck rising. The Mischa of minutes ago was gone. He could be crazy. He could force her to have sex, rape her, hurt her. She’d led him on, he’d say, and it would be partially true. She hadn’t let go of his hand at the airport until they’d reached the car—she’d leaned into his body, opened her mouth to his, felt his skin under her palms. She hadn’t said no until they’d both taken off their clothes. Avery swallowed and tried to find her voice.

“I—I’m not ready for this. I thought I was. Really. I’m very attracted to you, but I think I’m doing it for the wrong reasons.”

“What could be more reason than this?” He brought a hand to his heart. “I am not understanding you at all.”

“My husband,” she said.

“Oh, this. Always this American guilt. Always this husband at home who suddenly is important. I ask you, where was he before?”

She had to be soft and reasonable, and he had to leave, now, without hurting her. “We’ve had some trouble. My husband—he found out he had a son from another relationship. A ten-year-old boy. He’s living with us now, Mischa. His mother died. I didn’t . . . I don’t know how to deal with it. That’s what I was doing here, and I’m sorry. Really.”

Mischa stared at her, and she held his gaze as long as she could. Just as she was sure she needed to bolt to the door and run into the hall in her robe—his face flushed and hard and angry—he cocked his head, nodded, and sighed. “This must be hard.”

“Yes. That’s why I wanted to do all the traveling,” she was almost panting with relief. “I haven’t figured out how to, well, be.”

“So,” he said, sliding out of bed and grabbing his pants and underwear. “I will go.”

He kept his back to her, slipped on his shirt and tie and jacket, and turned to her. She stood up and crossed her arms. “I really don’t know how to—“

“Never mind that. I think I will go back to the office and try to make some more money for the company and go out for a few drinks. This, I can do.” He sat down on the chair and tied his shoes, his hair hanging over his eyes. He finished and pushed it back with one hand and almost smiled.

Grateful, she moved toward him, but he waved her off. “No more. That’s enough. And Avery?”

“I hope that maybe your company can send someone else on the trips for awhile. What about that terrible Lanny person. He, I don’t want to look at. It is good, yes?”

“Yes,” she said, opening the door and letting him pass, a yard of air between them. “It’s good.”

Avery went into Dirland in the morning, but kept herself busy, giving the presentation to the company’s representatives from other offices, passing out the implementation calendar, handing out Lanny’s card to everyone. “I’ve got a family crisis,” she said. “Lanny will take care of everything.”

As the day went on, she swallowed her anxiety that burned in her stomach, smiling at the right times and clicking her Power Point presentation at just the right tempo, the audience murmuring their appreciation for her organized lecture, clear demonstration, the sharp blues and greens and lively fonts on the screen. Mischa was nowhere to be found, and she thanked him for the way he left the night before and the way he left now, leaving her to clean up and get out, almost without a trace.

At the Oakland airport, Avery hailed a cab and was silent for the entire twelve miles home, ignoring the cabby’s comments about Iraq, Saddam Hussein, Bush, and the Raider’s prospects for the season. When they pulled up in front of her house, she paid him and stepped out, breathing, it seemed for the first time since last night. She closed her eyes, and listened to her street, the whine of lawn mowers, the cabbie turning into a driveway, backing up, accelerating, scrub jays squawking in the bay laurels and oaks.

“Avery?”

She jerked her eyes open and turned, Val standing in front of her, Tomás in his brand new backpack. “Val. Hi. Val.” Avery let go of her carryon handle and looked at her friend. Valerie was tired, circles under her eyes, her shirt stained with carrots or sweet potatoes, a swirl of orange on her sleeve. Her Keds were fraying and spotted with dark drops—garden dirt, beet juice, baby food green beans. Her pants weren’t ironed and neither were they entirely zipped, Val’s waist not having gone back to her pre-pregnancy form yet. Maybe it never would. Maybe this was what she was supposed to look like.

Tomás crowed, waving his hands, a smile on his face, and Avery felt her insides melt, fall, leaving nothing but her heart, beating, beating. She wished she wasn’t in her suit or even in clothes at all, wanting the fall air to wrap around her. She wouldn’t even care if Ralph Chatagnier or Frank Chow saw her lumpy thighs and greenish skin. She wouldn’t care about anything.

Avery walked over to Val and smiled, putting her arms around her friend and the backpack, hugging her tight. Tomás squealed and patted Avery’s head, saying, “Maaa!”

“What is it?” Val asked, her voice muffled in Avery’s shoulder. “You’re home early. Are you okay?”

“Maybe,” Avery answered. “Maybe I am.”

“What happened? Is it something with Dan?”

She pulled away from Val and looked up into Tomás’ face, his little head a smiling pumpkin. Since her father had died, she’d made it a point to always know what she was going to do. That’s why she’d gone back to work. That’s why she’d cancelled her appointments with Dr. Browne. If she could plan, if she could decide what to do, then she was in control, wasn’t she?

She sighed and looked down at Val’s splotched Keds. If she were Dan and had to hear what Avery held inside, she’d pack bags and suitcases and kick herself out of the house. She’d slam the door and then go to the yellow pages to find a locksmith. She’d practice, as she knew how, to live without someone long enough to begin to forget him.

“Aves, what is it?”

Avery shook her head and reached out for Tomás, letting him curl his hand around her index finger. “Nothing. I hope. I really do.”

The house was quiet. In the kitchen, the dishes were rinsed and stacked in the sink, one lone marshmallow Lucky Charm on the counter. Avery wet her finger and pressed it on the blue star and brought it to her mouth, the piece dissolving into sugar between her teeth. Outside, Dan had covered the pool and leaves skittered across the top in circles. Two slightly deflated plastic blow-up balls lay on the glass table.

Avery put her briefcase on the counter and pulled off her jacket. All she wanted was to take a shower, wash away all of St. Louis, work, and Mischa. Then she would call Brody, even though she didn’t know what she was going to say to him. Already, she’d ignored his three messages on her cell phone, each one starting with, “Hey, Avery! What’s going on?”

As she turned to go down the hall, the phone rang. She stopped, listening, thinking it could be Brody, but he only called her cell. Maybe it was that Anita, needing someone to come pick up Daniel in the waning school day without his homework. Avery turned, moved to the phone, and picked it up. Maybe it was Dan.

“Hello?”

“You again.”

Avery drew in air and felt her knees lock. “What do you want? I know who you are.”

“So you know the whole story, huh? You know about your hubby and my daughter? Those two derelicts. Then he takes off and leaves her with a kid. Nice guy, huh?”

Holding the phone tight to her face, she was silent, listening to his breathing. “What do you want?”

“That’s my grandson you’ve got there. I think little Daniel needs to get reacquainted with me. Then he and I can take some nice trips—maybe Florida. I’ve always wanted to go to that Key West. That Hemingway place. Those fish—what are they? The ones with those spiky noses. I don’t know. Hawaii’s nice, too. Maui, I’ve heard. But I think that Dan could front us a little bonding time. Won’t be a thing to him now, big Cal man with the high tech job. Not a thing at all.”

Avery shook her head. “That boy doesn’t need anything but his father,” she began, suddenly remembering she was supposed to tape the phone calls. She glanced around the kitchen for Dan’s tape recorder, but she couldn’t find it. Instead, she grabbed a pen and a notepad, and started writing down what she’d remembered Galvin had said. “And you didn’t seem to need him while your daughter was alive. We are going to take care of Daniel. We are going to give him a home. We’re going to bond with him. Not you. So stop calling here, or we are going to have to get the authorities involved.”

She slammed down the phone and breathed out, dropping the pencil on her scratchy handwriting:
derelicts, takes off and leaves her, high-tech job, Key West, won’t be a thing to him now
. She didn’t even know this man, and she wanted to kill him, hating his raspy voice, his calm extortion, his greed. She shook her head and then looked up to see Flora and Daniel in the kitchen door, both wide-eyed and silent, Daniel staring at her so hard, she wanted to turn away.

“Who was that?” Daniel asked. Flora squeezed his shoulder.

“
Mi’jo
,” she said. “Let’s get your snack.”

“Who was it?” he whined. His face was pale, his eyes still on Avery.

Rubbing her forehead with the tips of her fingers, she didn’t know what to do. Wait for Dan to come home to explain everything slowly and thoughtfully to his son? Lie? Tell Daniel the caller was a salesman or the Martins wanting him back in their foster care? Or a prank call? Avery wished she could just disappear like smoke in a breeze and materialize hours later, but this was what she’d been running away from for months. This avoidance was what made her take Mischa’s hand, bring him up to her hotel room, kiss him and push up against his body. Galvin’s phone call had been ugly, but so were secrets.

“It was your grandfather.”

Daniel paused and looked up at Flora, whose lips were pressed in a tight line. I did it wrong, Avery thought, even Flora knows how to do this better than I do.