Her mouth eventually managed to make words. “What are you doing here?”
He set the bag on the counter. “You didn’t know I was coming?”
“Why the hell would I know you were coming?” Anger, even fake anger, was good. It gave her something to hold on to.
“Your brother invited us to a picnic,” he said.
“Buddy?” And then: “Us?” She flashed on the unknown child in the pack who’d run past her. “Jun is here?”
“Yeah. It was my weekend, and I figured, hey, adventure.”
She couldn’t think of what to say.
“He didn’t tell you,” Joshua said.
“Nope.”
He blew out through his lips. “Okay. I’m so sorry. We’ll go.”
“You can’t,” she said. “I’ve got four pounds of ground lamb shoulder in the car.”
“Four pounds?”
“I thought Buddy was overestimating, but it turns out, he may be right on target.”
“Right,” he said. “Us and the karaoke guys.”
He helped her carry in the groceries and put the perishables into the already crammed refrigerator. During the process she tried to figure out what was happening in her body and in her brain.
“So…” he said.
She stopped him. “Where’s Buddy?”
“Outside?” he said.
She took Joshua’s hand and pulled him outside. Buddy was in the yard, crouched over the same device he was working on yesterday. Two cables, one red and one blue, ran from it for a couple of yards, then vanished into the lawn.
“Buddy,” she said. He didn’t respond. “Buddy, look at me.”
He stood up reluctantly. The thing he’d been fiddling with was an orange canister. The cables terminated at a junction that was topped with a big red button.
“What is that, a bomb?” she asked.
Buddy’s eyes went wide. Then he shook his head.
“I’m kidding,” Irene said. “Buddy, I wanted you to meet Joshua in person. See, he and his daughter came all the way from Arizona.”
“We met,” Joshua said. “He was in the street when we pulled up.”
“That’s awfully nice,” she said.
“Don’t be mad at him,” Joshua said into her ear.
“Is there anyone else coming I should know about?” she asked Buddy. “Anyone else dropping by? You know, in case we need more lamb shoulder.”
Buddy grimaced.
“Who?” Irene demanded.
“Surprise,” he said quietly.
“Jesus Christ.”
The kids ran through again. Somehow they’d acquired water pistols, and the older kids were carrying giant Super Soakers, the AK-47s of squirt guns. Jun was grinning and yelling with the rest of them. Sooner or later, someone would be crying, but for right now they all seemed happy. Buddy eyed them, then covered the red button with a metal cap that snapped shut.
“The garage,” she said to Joshua, and took his hand again. There was no logical reason she needed to physically drag him around. It’s that she got a charge every time she touched him, fizzing up in her bloodstream.
Graciella’s Mercedes wagon took up most of the space. Irene popped the back hatch and gestured for him to sit beside her.
“Nice car,” Joshua said.
“It belongs to the mob,” she said. “Long story.”
They said nothing for perhaps half a minute. The air warmed between them.
“You left kind of suddenly,” Joshua said.
“I hope I didn’t get you fired,” she said.
“Me? No. Others, though…”
“Really?”
“The gender gap struck a nerve. The manager you interviewed with, Bob Sloane? Already gone. Technically he’s on leave, but that’s just until they finish the paperwork.”
“Wow.”
“I still don’t think they’re going to hire you, though,” he said.
“Thank you for being honest.”
“I’m trying.”
Do not kiss him, she thought. Kissing him would ruin everything.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I’ve been trying to call. Did you get any of my messages?”
She looked away, embarrassed. “A few.”
“And you haven’t been online, either. You didn’t leave me any choice. I had to come.”
“I told you we were done.”
“But that’s all you said! You were so mad after the interview. You started packing, and all you’d say was that it wasn’t going to work out, we didn’t have a future, and you had to leave.”
“Because it’s true,” she said. “We’re just messing around. You’re not leaving Phoenix. You can’t. I don’t blame you for that.”
“So come to me.”
“I’ve got a job here,” she said.
“Aldi’s?”
She didn’t like the way he said that, even though she usually said the name with the same tone of disbelief: Aldi’s? “No. I’ve got a job offer with a company. As a—” It sounded ridiculous to say chief financial officer. “As head of finance.”
“Really? Irene, that’s great!”
“And I want to do it.”
“Of course you do,” he said. “I mean—” He took a breath. “I’m really happy for you.”
He was telling the truth. Even though it meant that she was choosing the job over him.
“I just want you to be happy,” he said. “You deserve to be happy.”
Also the truth. And she felt horrible.
“What we had was fun,” she said. “Those nights in Hotel Land—I loved that. But it wasn’t real life. It wasn’t serious.”
“I thought it was pretty damn serious,” he said.
“You need to find someone who can be with you and Jun. And I need someone who can handle me and Matty. This was never going to work out.” She kissed his cheek. “I enjoyed every minute of it, but it’s over.”
“Over?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. She kissed his cheek again. “So sorry.”
FRANKIE
Frankie had become a ghost to his wife. Loretta made up her hair as he talked, did her makeup. Ignored him as he dressed. Then she walked straight through him—or near enough.
He followed her downstairs. She said hello to Teddy, asked about the men in the living room (“Radon testing,” Teddy told her). She poured herself a cup of coffee and then walked out to the backyard.
The entire time, she’d never looked at Frankie, even as he said, over and over again, “Loretta, I’m sorry.”
Buddy had turned the back patio into an outdoor kitchen. Ground lamb sat out in big stainless steel bowls, and a plate held a mound of freshly chopped mint. God he loved Mom’s lamb sausage. Buddy was at the grill, wrapping potatoes in aluminum foil. Loretta thanked him for the breakfast rolls. He nodded and kept working.
Loretta lit a cigarette—her first, and favorite, smoke of the day. He stood beside her and they pretended to watch the kids playing. The medium-sized Pusateri boy had lost his Super Soaker and climbed a tree, and the younger ones were trying to shoot their smaller water pistols at him. Luckily they were ignoring the orange canister that sat on the lawn only a few feet away from the tree. Left over from one of Buddy’s projects no doubt. And knowing Buddy, it could have held anything, from compressed air to mustard gas.
After two minutes, Frankie broke—and broke the silence. “Come on, sweetie,” he said. “Please say something.”
If she’d just talk to him, he had a chance of winning her back. She’d been mad at him in the past—God yes, a hundred times—though never as completely, as thoroughly as she was now. But if she listened to him, he could find a crack in her anger, and slip in a few words. He could crowbar his way into her heart.
His greatest fear had always been exile. The day Loretta decided she’d had enough and left him, taking her love, and the girls, away from him. He knew that on his own he was nothing. Less than nothing: A subtraction. A black hole. A taker. If all that taking served no purpose, if he couldn’t turn around and pour it all back into his family, he was lost.