Two nights later, the three of them ate dinner together at the long, mahogany table in the dining room. Candlelight, of course. Lasagna with fresh peaches and Caesar salad, Nicole’s favorite meal, lovingly prepared by Kate after work. Dinner was late, but the food was delicious.
“How was school today?” Mitch said.
Nicole looked at her mother. Her mother looked frightened.
“Mitch, I’m going to try and get along with you for Mom’s sake, all right? But don’t pretend you’re my father. Or that you’re interested in my life. All right? I mean, that’s really a pain in the ass.”
Mitch laughed. “I hate to disappoint you. But I’m not old enough to be your father, Nicole. I’m only fourteen years older than you are.”
“I thought you said you were thirty-nine,” Kate said.
He patted her hand. “I only said that to make you feel more comfortable. I’m thirty-two.”
“Maybe you’re lying to make Nicole feel more comfortable,” Kate said, not entirely pleased by this sudden turn in the conversation.
Mitch smiled. “Yes. Maybe I am.”
And so it went. One week, two weeks. A family. That’s what Kate pretended was happening, anyway. That the three of them were somehow bonding. Watching her like this made Nicole so sad she couldn’t even cry. She’d just sit stunned for hours staring out the window of her bedroom at the dusk birds sailing down the salmon pink sky, arcing black shapes against the dying days, beings whose freedom Nicole could only envy.
Mitch
It was during Mitch’s fourth week in the house that he cut Kate off. Unbeknownst to both Nicole and Kate, this was the plan he’d been working on for the past few weeks. He wanted to dominate his circumstances completely. And there was only one way to do that.
One afternoon, late, Kate came home from work tense and showing signs of needing her friend the white powder. Long day at work, the boss on her case, two of her co workers in particularly grumpy moods. She related all this as she stripped out of her clothes and lay down on the bed with Mitch. Ordinarily, Mitch would have been right there with the coke. But not today.
When he didn’t offer, she said, “I could really use a little boost, Mitch.” That was her coy name for it. “Boost.”
“You do for me, I do for you.”
Her head had been on his naked chest. Now she rolled away from him and looked at his face. “Is something wrong?”
“You do for me, I do for you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She was already getting a little shaky. “Please, Mitch, I don’t mind playing games, but give me a little boost first, all right?”
He leaned over on an elbow and looked at her. “This is a good time for you, isn’t it, Kate?”
“Yes. You know it is, Mitch.”
“Me here. You getting a ‘boost’ whenever you need it. And the sex isn’t bad, either.”
“The sex is great.”
“And you don’t want it to end, do you?”
A flutter of fear in her eyes and her voice. “Don’t want it to end? What’re you talking about, Mitch? Why would it end?”
He hesitated. Went into one of his Acting 101 routines. Looked down at the nubby bedspread, looked up at her briefly, then looked down at the nubby bedspread again. Troubled young man. Searching for the right words. Pure ham. But most of the ladies loved it. He said, in barely a whisper. “I’m going to ask you to do me a favor and you’re going to get all pissed off and self-righteous and probably throw me out.”
“I’d never throw you out, Mitch. God, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t.”
Impish grin. “That’s because I haven’t asked you my favor yet.”
“Just ask me, Mitch. Just ask me.”
So he asked her.
“Oh, Mitch.” she said. “I should’ve known you were pulling one of your jokes on me. Get me all scared the way you did.”
“It isn’t a joke, Kate.”
“C’mon, now, Mitch. I know how you like to put me on.”
“No put on, Kate. I’m very serious.”
“But you can’t be serious.”
But then she saw that he was serious.
And she got all pissed off and self-righteous and demanded that he leave the house right now. And for good.
A number of the neighbors commented on the screeching, dish-throwing, foul-mouthed argument that ensued within the walls of the Sanders place but that could be heard as far as half a block away. It went on like this, grand-opera style, for at least an hour. The neighbors hadn’t heard arguments like that since the good doctor, her ex-husband, had moved out. Things must be going badly with her live-in.
Things must be going very badly.
Nicole
When Nicole got home that night, she found her mother at the kitchen table, her head down on her hands. Something was terribly wrong. She used to sense that when she was a little girl and her Dad was still living at home. She’d come home after school in the echoes of one of their arguments and her stomach would knot up and she’d feel alone and scared, scared that one of them might have killed the other, and she would start to shake and cry and say little prayers over and over again that everything would be all right.
A half-filled bottle of J&B scotch sat on the table in front of her. One glass. No ice.
Kate looked up at her wildly in the wan glow of the kitchen stove light. She was inching back toward her bag-woman demeanor, the hair wild and ratty, the eyes sunk deep and rimmed with black circles, the mouth slack with sparkling spittle collected in the corners. She’d been at work today. How had she accomplished all this just since work?
She was sitting in her bra and panties, with her long, lovely legs crossed. She was swinging her right foot to a rhythm only she could hear.
Nicole sat across from her. “Where’s Mitch?”
“You’re late.”
“I was over at Sherry’s.”
“You should’ve called.”
“I want to know what’s going on.”
“Nothing’s going on.”
“Bullshit, Mom. Bullshit.”
Kate sighed. “I kicked him out.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s an asshole.”
“That isn’t an answer, Mom.”
“It is for me. I kicked him out because he’s an asshole. That sums it up pretty damned well, I think.”
“You’re shaking all over. He didn’t give you a boost?”
“Screw his boost. I don’t need his boost.”
Mitch’s words came back to her. About how happy her mother had been when everything was going well between her and Mitch. How he’d get all the boosts she wanted. How she kept herself looking great. How she was productive and happy. This was already like the old days. It was scary and sad. And not for the first time in her life did Nicole think of getting the gun out of her mother’s dresser drawer and putting it in her mouth and killing herself. Many, many nights during the divorce, she’d thought of doing this.
“You want me to fix you something to eat?” Kate said.
Her words, her manner put a melancholy smile on Nicole’s face. “Oh, yeah, Mom, you’re in great shape to cook. One more drink of scotch and you’ll pass out.”
“And that’s just what I intend to do, too. And don’t you try to stop me.”
Nicole sat there with her and watched her take one more drink. A good, big one. All the while muttering about how much better her life would be now that the asshole was out of it.
Nicole managed to get her to the downstairs john before she started throwing up. Then she managed to get her upstairs and in bed. Kate started snoring immediately. Nicole clipped the light off and went back to the kitchen.