Dear Stephanie,
Hope you’re having fun at school! We’re fine here but we miss you. You’ve probably heard from your dad how well Megan is doing. She’s a runner now on his team. Her picture was in the Sunday paper. I put a clipping in the box.
Love,
Aunt Joelle
Stephanie unfolded the newsprint and there was Megan running, the camera catching her midstride, head-on, so that she appeared to be floating above the ground. Her expression was pained, making her seem older. Behind her was a huge expanse of sky bordered by pine trees. Where were they? It looked like Colorado. Stephanie skimmed the article, which covered several cross-country races across the county. Megan’s surprise win was mentioned in the first paragraph. The reporter noted that she was coached by “Willowboro’s former football coach.” That bugged Stephanie. It was like her father was getting credit for Megan’s talent.
She opened her father’s box, expecting something practical like her mail from home. Instead she found a fleece jacket. She unfolded it, baffled by the gesture. It was the kind of present her mother would have sent her, because her mother always wanted her to wear the thing that everyone around her was wearing. And she would have been right about this jacket because everyone had them. It was kind of a joke between her and Raquel. They called them Muppet pelts.
Stephanie pulled it on. It was cozy, she had to admit. She got why people wore them. She checked her reflection in the full-length mirror that hung from the bedroom door. She had lost weight and her clothes fit her loosely, her boring clothes: faded brown corduroys, a black turtleneck, black Chuck Taylors. The purple fleece was a dose of richness; it would be called aubergine or maybe just plum in a catalog. She recalled a line of dialogue from the matinee she’d gone to on Sunday: “a plum plum.” The movie had stayed with her longer than she’d expected. Much of it took place in an abandoned farmhouse that reminded Stephanie of an old, falling-down stone house that she used to play in as a kid. It was in the woods, on the other side of the creek. You had to cross over at the shallow part, where Robbie and Bry liked to build dams. Maybe it was one of Professor Haupt’s Lincoln houses. As a little girl, Stephanie dreamed of buying the house when she grew up — buying it and fixing it up. She was obsessed with fixing things up. When she drove through town with her mother, she would try to imagine how everything would look if the buildings were remodeled and made to appear new again — still with their old façades, but with fresh clapboard and shingles and doors. It bothered her that things got old and fell apart. It wasn’t until she was older that she learned to see the beauty in decay and even gloom. Grunge had schooled her in that sensibility. Or maybe it was her way of learning to live with her mother.
Stephanie got her books together to go to the library. She was tired and depressed, but she had to catch up on her reading for her medieval studies class. She thought of Professor Haupt telling her not to study history. He was one of those people who told you not to do the things they clearly enjoyed, some kind of defensive irony. Or maybe it was the luxury of those who paid nothing for their happiness. She was never going to be like that. She was never going to pretend like she wasn’t feeling something.
THE AWAY GAME was in Plattstown, a half hour’s drive. Dean dropped the boys at Joelle’s before dinner and headed toward the highway, a route that took him by Coach’s. He pulled into the bar’s parking lot knowing that he was never going to make it to the game. It was an out-of-body feeling. He knew he should go for the sake of his players, but they were playing fine without him. They weren’t going to be a championship team, like last year’s, but Dean doubted that he could have brought them to that level anyway. They were too young. Key players had graduated. Last year’s team had been special; there was an intensity to that group, a brotherly dynamic that let competition, love, and aggression mix together. He wondered if girls could have that, too, if he could build the cross-country team the same way he’d built the football program.
He didn’t notice Karen Coulter coming into the bar. She sat down next to him, ordered an Amstel Light, and then nudged him with her elbow.
“Looks like you’re having some deep thoughts,” she teased.
“Hey, you.” He was flirtatious without exactly meaning to be. There was something relaxing about her presence; she was the kind of person who made you feel more casual about life. “Ready for tomorrow?” he asked.
“I’m not the one running. Thanks for talking to See, by the way. She’s applying to University of Maryland. She said she might get in free because her grades are pretty high. Is that true?”
“Yeah, it’s to keep the smart kids in state. To prevent brain drain.”
“Do a lot of kids take it?”
Dean shrugged. “Most of my football players didn’t qualify.”
Karen smiled and sipped her beer. “I would love for her to stay in state. It’s crazy, she barely talks to me these days. Sometimes I think she’s trying to prepare me for next year, when she’s gone.”
“Stephanie kind of did the same thing.” Dean didn’t know why he was bringing up his daughter. He didn’t really want to talk about her. It was too painful.
“How’s she doing, by the way?”
“She’s good. .” he began, vaguely. He was going to give a quick gloss. But then, to his surprise, he told Karen everything.
“It’s not as bad as you think,” Karen said. “She’s going through a rough time. I mean, who wouldn’t be? Considering what she’s dealing with.”
“I know. It just kills me that I can’t do anything.”
“What do you think your wife would do? If she were alive?”
“I don’t know,” Dean said, a little taken aback by the question. “This wouldn’t be happening if she were alive.”
“You don’t know that.”
Dean tried to imagine the scenario. Right away he saw Nic sitting on the front porch with her tea, pushing the lemon back and forth with a spoon, not saying a word while he stood there waiting. They would argue, eventually, the same argument they always had about the way she withdrew, and how this was his fault, because he didn’t understand what she was going through. But how could he understand if she didn’t explain?
“You’ve done what you can do,” Karen said. “She’s not in danger. Now you have to wait.”
“Thanks,” Dean said. He felt a little ridiculous. “Let me buy you a beer. Where’s your friend James, by the way?”
“He dumped me!” Karen said it with a certain amount of relish. “I was too old for him, I guess.”
“If you’re old, I’m old.”
“I have news for you: you’re middle-aged. Unless you’re planning to live past ninety.”
“Maybe I am,” Dean said. Life already seemed long. One day, his marriage to Nicole would be just one part of his life, not the whole of it.
They talked for a while longer. Karen worked at a company that manufactured aboveground pools as well as lawn ornaments, but her own yard was unadorned. She preferred gardening. She talked a little about her divorce, and a little about her dating life. She kept things light, but Dean could see that it was a learned lightness. He admired her way of being in the world; she protected herself without being guarded. He had the sense that she would come home with him, if he wanted. And he did want it. He needed to sleep with another woman in his own house. It was an obstacle he hadn’t yet acknowledged to himself.