You Could Be Home by Now (20 page)

A
BRIEF PIT STOP ON
the Lily Birnam Tour de Mea Culpa: the ladies' room of the Hacienda Central. HOA meeting minus three minutes, and Nicky Fucking Tullbeck was waiting in the hall. Lily retreated into the washroom. Nicky Fucking
Tool
-beck. Gran stood at the mirror, fluffing her hair. “Nicky followed me,” Lily said. It would sound less like tattling if he went by something grownup, like Nick. “He's right out there.”

Gran checked her reflected teeth for lipstick. Given the day's trajectory, it was statistically probable she'd insist Lily apologize to the intern, too, but no: “Don't give him the time of day.”

“He's not going to be asking the time of day. He's going to be asking—”

Gran held up a hand for silence. She poked her head into the hall. “Young man, this is not an appropriate place to loiter.” Lily didn't catch le Tool-beck's reply. Gran turned back to her and winked. Lily would need to run a soup kitchen while maintaining a 4.0 to properly deserve her grandmother. Gran returned to the sinks. “Let's give it a moment,” she said.

A
glug
and a flush and a stall door opened. Mona Rosko, which explained the incredible lurking Nicky. He must be setting up an ambush. Ms. Rosko gave her an assessing stare. “Hello,” Lily said, all Miss Friendly Teen USA, Who in No Way Sicced the Press on Your Possibly Jailbird Daughter. “How are you this afternoon?”

Gran stepped between the two of them, even though she had this master plan wherein Lily fessed up and apologized.

Ms. Rosko held her palms below the tap. The sensor wasn't working right. She waved her hands beneath it like a deranged mime.

“There was a reporter outside,” Gran said, even though it was Lily's screwup and Lily's apology and Nicky Tullbeck was only an intern anyway. Lily would need a 4.0, a soup kitchen, and an Olympic gold medal to properly deserve her grandmother.

“He's just an intern,” she said, because it needed saying.

“I'm not surprised. There'll be opinions today.” Ms. Rosko said
opinions
in a way that made her own very low ones abundantly clear. The water hissed on.

“I was talking to this one before. About your daughter.” Lily's voice was in full-on revolution. Everything came out as if punctuated with a question mark. “I was trying to help. I was trying to get people on your side.” Ms. Rosko pumped the soap dispenser. Lily said, “I thought if everyone knew she's in Afghanistan—it's the kind of thing that would get people rooting for you. I thought—”

“Don't help me.” Ms. Rosko began to lather. It looked like spit.

“I only wanted to explain how—”

“We don't need help from you.” She rinsed.

“The guy outside—he wants confirmation of your daughter's name. Carrie, right? With the army?” There were simple explanations at the ready. No, I said Karen, dear. I said the Marines.

The water shut off without warning. Ms. Rosko's hands were still coated with foam. She waved at the tap. “Know what they charge a month in HOA fees? And they can't even get a faucet working.”

Lily stepped aside. “I didn't have any trouble with this one.”

“You've never had any trouble.”

“Where's Tyson?” Points to Gran for deflecting.

Mona Rosko jerked a soapy thumb toward the next stall. “He's five and a half. Old enough to pee solo. I haven't left him on his lonesome, if that's what you're implying.” There was no actual sign of Tyson, but then there wouldn't be. He was a slight kid. His feet reached nowhere near the floor.

“Gran was only asking.”

“And I was only telling.”

With a simple pair of questions, Lily could wreck this woman. Are you sure it's a good idea to have him in the ladies' room? Won't it lead to (gasp) gender confusion? She wouldn't be
Die Schaden Fräulein
—coming soon to a theater near you!—in front of Gran though. She absolutely would not. “You should speak out at the meeting,” she said instead. “I really think people will be pulling for you.”

The water started up again. Ms. Rosko rinsed.

“I really do. There are thousands of people on Facebook who think you should be able to stay here. I started the group but it kind of took on a life of its own.”

“You want to help me?” Ms. Rosko's mouth was a blunt and colorless line.

“Yes. I do. I told you.” She wasn't sure, actually, not anymore, but she couldn't not say it.

“Good. Great.
B-U-R-N
down my house and sort out the insurance paperwork.” Ms. Rosko helped herself to paper towels with a series of quick jerks. In theory, Lily could get away with a charitable touch of arson. Mom and Dad had given her two hundred dollars cash for emergencies and if she used it instead of cards, the purchase of camp stove propane couldn't be traced. She'd buy marshmallows and bug spray so no store clerk would be suspicious. She'd wear a ponytail in case of security cameras. No one would connect it to her. Everyone knew how she felt about ponies.

“
B
is for bear,” came Ty's voice. “
U
is for unicorn, but only in books.”

“That's right, Ty.”

Gran peered into the hallway. “The young man's gone. Lily?”

Ms. Rosko said, “You had no right talking to him in the first place.”

“I was only trying—never mind. You know what? He told me that your daughter's in—”

“My daughter is in the army.”

“What's her rank?”

“Don't you dare.” There was nothing soft about her whisper.

“You lied to me.”

“Everybody lies. It's kinder that way.”

“You made
me
into a liar.”

“You're the one who took it upon yourself to speak to reporters. I'm just looking after my grandson.”

“What, so you told him she's in the army instead of—”

“My mom's in the army.” Ty came out of the stall, thrilled in the it's-a-small-world-after-all way people got when they found out you'd gone to camp with their third cousin.

“—told him she's in the army instead of—”

“Don't,” said Mona. “Don't you dare.”

“The meeting's started.” That was Gran. “I think we all need to take a step back.”

“—instead of—”

“Please. That's her son.”

“—instead of
J-A-I-L.
”

Mona looked at her like she'd said instead of spelled it. Wordlessly, she crumpled her paper towels into the trash. It was true then. Poor little Ty.

“Do you for real know thousands of people?” he asked. Lily's mind felt thick till she remembered: Facebook. The Thousand People Who Want Tyson to Stay. Ms. Rosko ducked back into the stall to flush for him. He began to diligently scrub his hands. The sink he chose gave no trouble at all.

“Yup,” Lily said. “Thousands. Well, two thousand. Almost. One thousand eight hundred and seventy-six. Maybe more by now. I haven't checked today.”

“Wow. You know lots of people.”

“Online.”

“They're like imaginary friends, Ty.” Ms. Rosko handed him a paper towel. Gran opened the door onto an empty corridor. Lily followed her out. Gran was right. She owed Mona Rosko nothing. And the woman was fantastically vile. She'd flushed for her grandson and hadn't rewashed.

A
LISON HAD COME TO THE
part where Adah Chalk was appalled at the state of frontier medicine. Seth leaned against the wall and watched Lobel inspect his manicured hand. When Ali took her place at the podium, that hand had brushed her back and Seth's chest felt banded in iron. The Ali he fell for would have removed it from her person, intimating that he'd lose it, and painfully, if he touched her again. Lobel caught Seth looking and winked.

Alison didn't even mind the man.

Alison called him Hoagie.

Seth's guts felt like a mess of hooked worms. He was married to this woman. From his spot along the wall, he could only catch her in profile. She held a stack of pink note cards. The Ali he'd married would've made fun of the one standing before him. She looked like an amateur politician. She came to the part where Adah Chalk introduced inoculations to the native tribes.

The door opened. Every head in the room swiveled toward Mona Rosko and the grandson. Of course Seth recognized them. How many children were there in The Commons? How many thin, broken arms? Nicky Tullbeck—where had
he
come from?—edged toward her as if magnetized. He beamed toothily and offered his arm. The room was a collection of grandparents and want-to-be grandparents, and Seth caught variations of the same coo. A softening at the youth of the one boy, pleasure at the raised-rightness of the other. Seth came up blank on the collective noun for grandparents. A satisfaction of grandparents would do nicely. A smug.

Alison came to the part where Adah Chalk chased a claim jumper off at gunpoint.

Another pair of latecomers, an older woman and a younger one, arrived. They stood along the back wall.

Alison came to the part where Adah Chalk set a ranch hand's broken leg.

Hoagland Lobel jammed his fists in his pants pockets. The material puckered. His hands were twitchy in there, exploratory. In Chettenford, Seth had called the cops on a man who'd lurked just that way on the edge of the girls' soccer field. He shuddered, aware of his body, naked beneath its clothes.

Lobel was watching Alison.

Every hair on Seth's body unfurled.

Alison and
Hoagie
were destined for an affair.

Alison came to the part where Adah Chalk was the honorary recipient of the county's first telephone call.

A thin whistle sounded. A McCain up-front adjusted his hearing aid. Someone nearby was chewing spearmint gum. Seth's mouth flooded. Ali and Lobel. Ali and Lobel. He wished they would. He wished it.

You could leave without compunction a wife who slept with your boss.

Alison came to the part where Adah Chalk organized a volunteer fire brigade.

The possibility of leaving forked through Seth's brain like lightning. He couldn't look at Alison. The meeting room walls were painted yellow, maybe half a shade lighter than their old Chettenford kitchen. She'd look so at home against that color. So
like
home. He hardly ever saw yellow in Arizona. Most decorators seemed contractually obligated to go through the sandier colors by the gallon.

Alison came to the part where Adah Chalk lamented the lack of a local school.

Seth looked at her. Serene as milk. Beneath her clothes she was slimmer and stronger than she'd been when they met. None of that softness at the hip she used to pinch at, frowning in the mirror. If he were single he'd never have the guts to go for her number.

Alison came to the part where Adah Chalk raised the money to bring a schoolteacher West by auctioning her prize steer.

No one would listen to any of this if Ali weren't a real dynamo. And she was. But fuck, did he miss the heft of her hips. At the festival tomorrow, Lobel would make Adahstown official. He'd suggest a drink to celebrate, Lobel, Seth, and Ali on barstools all tic-tac-toe. Ali's drink was a 7 and 7. When she ordered it on their first date, Seth had asked why not call it a fourteen. So stupid. There almost wasn't a second date because of that. Lobel wouldn't be so inane. He'd pay the tab, his credit card a color beyond platinum.

Alison was quoting, at length, from one of the Susan B. Anthony letters.

If a town wasn't enough to land her, Lobel would suggest an Adah Chalk museum. They'd have to consult, late nights.

All around him, residents squirmed in uncomfortable seats. Some whispered. The speech had gone on long enough. They'd come for gossip, not history. Seth bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. Quiet, he wanted to say, that's my wife. He wanted to say it because maybe it would be one of the last times he'd ever say it. He was going to walk in on them at the office. Lobel could afford a hotel room, hell, could afford a hotel, but on top of the mahogany desk added to the fun. The expression of her face on the brink would be the same one it always was for him. Later, in some dim bar some three states away, Seth would tell whoever would listen that
that
was what had killed him.

People would understand. Poor Seth, they'd say, patient Seth, you've been through so much.

I gave her everything, he'd say. I gave it my all.

And the guy. I covered his ass with the press.

He'd be balls deep in pity fucks. He'd go for girls with generous breasts, thighs that bulged at the top. Throaty laughs and the overall sense of peaches in heavy syrup. He shifted, aware of the movement of his blood. That supple, building fullness. The thought of freedom. Of Alison getting it good from his boss.

In the front row, a man whispered, “I thought I was done with history class once I was out of high school.”

His buddy said, “No teacher back at PS Thirty-Eight looked like that.” He wore a fraying Dodgers cap.

Seth pushed himself off the wall. “Take off your hat,” he said. “That's my wife.”

I
T WAS NOT AN UNREASONABLE
request. When Ben was a boy, you removed your hat indoors, end of story. Beside him, the man in the Dodgers cap shrugged, surly. People got that way when called on their bad behavior; just look at him this morning with Sadie. By way of apology, Ben had come to the Hacienda early with a chivalrous eye toward saving a seat. He'd reserved one for the girl for good measure, but the Birnams were uncharacteristically late. He'd thought about calling Sadie for an ETA, but he'd gone and left his phone someplace and then Dodgers plunked down without asking, making the whole idea moot. The historian continued, intrepid. “With the second wave of the Spanish Influenza threatening her beloved school, Adah—”

“I said, take off your hat.” The young man's voice was louder now, carrying. Most folks hadn't caught it the first time, but now they were starting to look.