The pool was probably something to behold back in 1980. It’s hidden away from any natural light, occasional tiles darkened like age spots. An old lady in a bathing cap is doing slow laps, and two more are sitting on chaise longues around one of the little tables with pebbled-glass tops. The ceiling is dentist-office low.
“Nice, huh?” I say.
The kid’s staring at a landscape with ceramic vases painted on it, which makes it look like we’re in a low-res Greece or maybe Rome or something. He taps the fakey-jake sky and looks back at me smiling, like he’s finally figured out the answer to some frustrating question.
We lie on our striped towels in the chill AC around the warm pool, and take turns diving in. He keeps his T-shirt on, like I’d have done at thirteen. I display my padded hairy belly to the world, then we go back to the room and put the TV on and drop into our phones. Someone can’t figure out the software licenses in accounting, but otherwise everything at work seems to be going along fine without me. Amelia asks how Darren’s getting along and I text her back a pic of him staring at his phone on his drooping hotel bed, and it all feels nice, like we’re still married. I compose and delete a few texts to her, then finally put the phone down to stop myself from sending any of them.
I say it’s time for dinner, and Darren doesn’t change out of his T-shirt, so I tell him it’s a special occasion. I’m grateful I don’t have to explain that I want the game-show prize to be something special. He puts on a button-down shirt, pleated khakis, and a clip-on tie — it’s a bit much but also pretty damn sweet.
We go tripping along the nautical hallway, my kid’s loafers — loafers! — squeaking on the plush plastic-y fibers. When we get to the restaurant there’s a printout taped to the window, seventy-two-point Calibri telling us it’s closed for a private event.
Kid and I peer in anyway. He’s on his tiptoes to see what’s going on, bringing his white athletic-socked heels right out of the backs of his loafers. At first I think it might be a wedding, but then I see that it’s probably a work event. There’s an easel with some poster board I can’t make out through the foggy glass.
I’m not the kind to go places I’m not wanted, so I bring Darren to the host desk and ask where the spa’s other restaurants are. The lady explains that there’s just the one, and sorry it’s closed for a party, someone should have told me. I ask what else is within walking distance and she explains that there’s nothing unless we want to get a sandwich from the Starbucks. That’s when I start getting really mad, but Darren’s there so I swallow it all down. He heard enough of my yelling back when I was married to his mom.
We stand in the hallway and I pull out my phone, but just looking at the car apps, imagining sitting in the back of a Camry in traffic, pits my stomach. I don’t want to get back on the highway, don’t want to wait at lights and pass three Applebee’s on the way to what other chain restaurant we’ve chosen. I put the phone away. “Come on, we’re going in,” I say to Darren, and before he can protest I’ve pushed through the doors and gone into the private event.
“Whoa, Dad,” he says under his breath as we step to one side, into the shadows. I crashed enough weddings back in my crazier days to know that you stay as still as possible until you’ve picked your strategy.
Looks like the event has been underway for a while already — maybe it’s technically a lunch? — and the conversation is drunken, the buffet mostly picked over. There’s plenty of waxy little cheese cubes, though, and some raw broccoli, and, no way, what looks like chicken fingers! The placard is in French, but I know a chicken finger when I see one. Darren can eat around the creamy blue cheese center.
I tell him to wait at the quiet end of the buffet while I grab some plates, since that’ll bring me close to the nearest clot of drunk office-party guys — this office does seem to be all guys, at least the ones who’ve stayed this late. I nod to four hair-wave polo-shirt bros with their napkin-wrapped beers, like to say, Hey, office stuff, that work we all do, crazy, amiright?
I get four nods back, then return to my kid with the two plates, their porcelain scuffed gray from innumerable meals. Feeling the office bros’ eyes on the back of my head, I hand Darren one and ask him if he doesn’t want to make up his own dinner and has he seen the chicken fingers yet? I’m hyper aware of these guys’ focus, am sure they’re passing around theories about us, because they’re in that late-party zone where no one has anything to talk about but they’re intimate and cheerful and a topic you’ve discovered together is proof of how amazingly everyone gets along, them against the world. Them against me and my kid. Potentially. I dunno where this is all going to go.
We get our food and then find an empty table where I can move enough smudgy wineglasses and napkins to one side so that we can eat together. Darren’s laying into his chicken fingers and I’m eyeing the bucket with the open wine bottles and we’re just being peaceful and companionable until I sense those guys nearby.
“Hey, are you two with—” Here they say the name of their company, which I honestly can’t remember, but it was one of those full-name-of-a-hometown-guy kind of small-fry investment joints.
“Nope,” I say, keeping my eyes on my plate.
Darren keeps his eyes furiously on his food too, but in a maybe overdramatic way, like we’re in a black-and-white movie avoiding Nazis.
“We were thinking this little guy could be a new junior analyst or something.” It’s the same bro speaking, and he’s probably the one drunk or naturally aggressive enough to make this confrontation happen. Not that I think they’re going to start an actual fight — they just want to make us feel shitty for a while so they can feel un-shitty together. I get it. I’ve done it before.
I look right into them. “Look, guys, we’re just trying to have dinner here. We’re not causing any trouble.”
They make side-eye at one another, and that’s how I know I’ve taken the wrong tack. Now I’ve turned from a foreign adventurer to a freeloader taking handouts. I could have explained that the spa rented out its restaurant without thinking about its guests, and that’s why I’m here eating food they don’t want anymore anyway, but I don’t feel like I owe these bros any explanations.
“Guess you didn’t see the sign,” lead bro says. “This is a private party.”
“We’re not doing any harm,” Darren mumbles.
I raise an eyebrow at him. He just said that? My kid?
“What did you say?” lead bro huffs.
“We’re minding our own business,” Darren says. “You should try it.” He takes a preposterously large bite of chicken finger and starts chewing.
Maybe it’s called cordon bleu, this chicken?
“We’re just thinding our own thisness,” lead bro says, with an extravagant lisp. “Well, this is a private party, and you’re not on the list, so you being here is our business, faggot.”
My world clanks and drops. Blood buzzes through my ears.
“They’re not causing any trouble, man, just let it go,” says one of the other bros. They suddenly come into focus, a trio of pastels — pink, green, and blue — behind lead bro’s orange. One of their hands is on lead bro’s shoulder.
“They’re not done ramming themselves down our throat on every TV show, now they’re coming to our parties and eating our fucking food.”
For the sake of Darren, I will myself motionless despite the rage pushing my limbs to move and fight. Do these douchebags think we’re together? Me and my thirteen-year-old kid? Whatever version of the truth lead bro is thinking, it’s not working for me. I push back hard from the table, enough to send my chair clattering to the floor. A couple of other guys in blazers look over, and go back to their conversation.