Better With You Here (9781609417819) Read online

  The minute I filed for divorce, Mike switched from a full-time salary to hourly contract pay at his IT job. He did it specifically to fudge on his taxes, I know, so he wouldn’t have to pay the full amount of child support he would’ve owed. If he were paying the full amount the judge calculated when we first divorced, I could easily afford a bigger apartment in a nicer neighborhood. Thinking about that used to make me want to kill him, back then.

  But I’ve stopped caring. Never mind any of that crap, because I don’t want his money anymore. I prefer to take care of myself and owe him nothing. The less I have to deal with him, the better, because he’s the single most stressful thing in my life.

  And right now, if I could just get through these weekend handoffs without losing my temper over his stupid comments, that would be a small victory. Here we are in the front of the complex, in the cold and damp, passing the kids between us again, as if we’re taking turns kidnapping them and exchanging them for ransom.

  “Hey, Alex! Little man! What’s up? You missed your dad, huh?” Mike talks way too loud, and people walking down the sidewalk glance our way to see what this big man in the striped golf shirt and khakis is bellowing about. He’s putting on his show again: The Good Dad Show.

  Alex smiles weakly and mumbles, “Bye, Mom,” as I hug him.

  “How’s my pretty girl?” Mike practically shouts to Lucia. I feel her hand claw at the back of my jacket as I hug her, and I’m worried. She doesn’t want to go. Why? Is it Missy? Missy’s son? Are they mean to her? Is it Mike, forgetting her night-light or the channel of her favorite cartoon? There’s a problem, and it’s too late for me to fix it. They’re climbing into his car now, and there’s nothing I can do. I feel horrible. Guilty. A failure.

  “Can we bring my friend Tiffany?” Lucia asks her father.

  “Uh…not this time, honey,” he says. Instead of just no. He never says no to them—that’ll be my job, later, when she remembers and asks again.

  I look up at Mike and feel a wave of fresh hatred. It’s amazing that I can feel so much hate, still, after all this time.

  Right before he gets into the car, he says, “Oh, I noticed that Lucia needs better tennis shoes. Maybe you could take care of that with the child support I’m providing. Missy’s already bought her three outfits this month, and I don’t want her to have to buy any more.” He walks away from me as he says this. Can’t even face me. Gets into the car before I can reply.

  “Go to hell,” I whisper. I glance down and see Alex watching me through the window, so I change my glare into a smile. Lucia’s staring at Mr. Beary, moving his arms in circles. She’s already insulated herself from any unpleasantness.

  I wave at both of them anyway. Alex gives a nod, almost formal-looking, as they pull out of the space and drive off. Like a proper little old man. I want to laugh and I want to cry. Maybe this one time I will end up crying, but not until I’m alone, later tonight, in safe darkness.

  I walk back upstairs, toward the apartment that’s already radiating emptiness. It’s been—how long since the divorce?—thirteen months since I moved out, last September, and ten months since we signed the final custody order, and I still don’t know what to do with myself on these first and third weekends.

  What do I usually end up doing? Nothing I can explain or even remember. If people ask, I say I’m taking a well-​deserved break from parenting—the breaks I never got during my marriage, when Mike spent weekends hiding out in the garage or at his friends’ houses. Or I tell people I’ve been studying for my certification. Or that I’m busy. Too busy to visit my old friends, with their new babies and new dreams. I can’t stand walking into their houses and seeing them look at me like I’m the Ghost of Marriage Past, a reason to say, “But we’ll never end up like them,” to each other after I’ve left.

  What do I actually do during these weekends without the kids? I sit in our apartment and think, with the TV or radio in the background. Or sit in my car and think, while driving between the bank and the post office and the grocery store.

  What do I think about? The sad past. The difficult present. The big, blank, terrifying future.

  Do I get sad? Yes, but not for the obvious reasons. It’s not Missy or Mike or the loss of the rented house in the pretty little neighborhood up north. It’s not because I’m suddenly lonely.

  I’m sad because I’m alone, and leaving Mike only makes me realize that I’ve always been alone. Now it’s crystal clear to me that if I don’t bust my butt to make a good life for these kids, no one will. Mike didn’t care when we were together, and now that we’re apart, he’s already involved with someone new, trying to hurry up and replace the marriage he threw away, the same way he used to replace broken tools or run-over pets.

  I feel like I’m raising these kids by myself. My goal is to give them a better life than I had, so it’s not as if my mother can help me, sitting there in her dark, depressing, white-zin-scented town house.

  It’s not as if my old friends can help me, either. They were smarter than I was. Every one of them waited until later to get knocked up, and now they’re all immersed in worlds of expensive strollers and homemade baby food. Not that I’d ask them for help anyway.

  No, it’s not that they were smarter…it’s that I’m a pioneer. Of my small group—Yolanda and Connie from high school, Amanda and Yen from community college, I was the first to get pregnant and get married. Even though I was the one who swore I’d never have kids, who was secretly resigned to never having my dream wedding. They were all so shocked that I went through with it. Connie especially, since she’d had the abortion. But I couldn’t do that, and so I got married.

  I said it then, and I still think so now—giving birth to Alex was the best thing that ever happened to me. It changed my life, and not just in the ways they warned us about, with the bag-of-flour babies in home economics.

  Being a mother gave me focus. Until I had Alex, what was I doing with my life? Not a danged thing. Taking random courses at the community college with no plan for a major or a future career. Working that dead-end job at the grocery store every night. What did I have to look forward to, besides the next time I’d be alone with a piece of chocolate cake or masturbating about guys I’d never have? When Alex came out of me, he handed me a mission: to raise him to be the best, smartest, most functional child possible. Everything my parents had failed to teach me, Alex would know. Every mistake I’d made in life, Alex would never have to make.

  I was meant to be a mother. I know that now, even during the sucky parts. Looking back, I can see that it was obvious—I’d already raised so many kittens, hamsters, birds, stuffed animals…My friends knew it, too, especially when they finally started getting pregnant themselves and realized that I was a treasure trove of experience and advice, instead of only “Natasha who can’t ever meet us for happy hour.” For every challenge they’d run into—morning sickness, episiotomies, breast-milk clogs—I’d already been there, done that, and purchased the souvenir beer stein. When Alex hit elementary school, I was the one looking to book occasional girls’ nights out and my old school buddies were the ones busy with diaper duty.

  And then I became a new kind of pioneer: the first one to get divorced. Again my friends were shocked—as shocked as they could express through the occasional e-mail or phone call. They probably believe that I made a mistake. Again I’m out of sync with them. I’m “Natasha who can’t ever meet us for couples nights.” I’m on my own in a different world again, figuring it out with no help from anyone.

  I felt alone throughout my marriage—emotionally abandoned because Mike couldn’t handle the responsibility of it all and preferred to live in the past. And now I’m really alone, but without the convenience of an absentee husband’s paycheck. The only way I can feel more alone is without the kids. I’ve been glued to them for so long now that I can’t remember how I used to live without them.

  What am I going to do this weekend, until they come back? Run errands and clean my kitchen. Wat
ch crappy movies on cable, lie on my bed, and mope in the dark. Put a wine cooler on the kitchen counter and dare myself to become my own mother? Call someone up, maybe?

  I’m having a vision: black hair on pale skin and blue veins. Hector. It makes me feel either nauseated or faint with sudden desire, and I push the thought from my mind.

  I have a vision of Lucia looking unhappy, Alex looking embarrassed. A little hand grasping at the back of my jacket. A tug in my uterus, a pull at my breast.

  I need to get hold of myself. Get inside and start the laundry.

  Ten minutes later I’m a laundry-bot, thinking about nothing but soap and softener as I carry our basket down the hall.

  Someone’s standing on the stairs. It’s Haley, Geronima’s friend from Tuesday’s dinner. She has her arms wrapped around her body and a set of keys in her hand. She’s staring down at nothing, her eyes pink and shiny. Her sad face is the only thing detracting from the perfection of her outfit. Sleeveless silk blouse, linen capri pants, chic espadrilles. I’m guessing she didn’t go to work in those clothes—that she simply doesn’t work. She must get a lot more child support than I do. I know why she’s standing here, though. I can tell.

  “Hey,” I say. “Kid-free weekend?”

  She looks up, startled, but then recognizes me and chuckles. “Hi. Yeah, I just dropped Jared at his father’s house.”

  “I just handed mine off to their dad in the parking lot.”

  We smile in mutual understanding. Then there’s silence. What do we say now, we two women who barely know each other? I shift the basket on my hip, wonder if I should go back to my apartment.

  Haley says, “So, would you…do you have plans? For dinner tonight?”

  We’re standing at the lockers in our middle school, and she’s asking me to the eighth-grade dance. That’s how weird this feels, trying to be friendly with another grown woman.

  “No, I don’t have plans.” I say. “I’m still getting used to the whole freedom-every-other-weekend thing.”

  She laughs, and the tension’s broken. “Well, do you want to get something to eat? There’s a new Thai place over by the art galleries. I’ve been wanting to check it out, but not by myself.”

  “Um. Okay,” I say. “Let’s do it. Let me ditch this laundry and…change real quick.” I’m wearing the cargo pants and T-shirt I threw on after work. And flip-flops. I must look like a slob.

  “Okay,” she says. “Should I meet you in the parking garage in a few minutes?”

  She’s standing there with her keys, already dressed to go somewhere, and she lives upstairs. I say, “Or, do you want to come to my place and wait there? I won’t be long.”

  She follows me to my apartment. And again I have the sensation of middle school. Meeting other girls and arranging sleepovers. But this is better, isn’t it? Because we’re grown women and we have cars. We can buy cigarettes and alcohol if we feel like it. We’re free for the weekend, darn it. It’s time to act like it. I feel a lightness come over me. Exhilaration, almost.

  This is going to be fun. Or I hope it’ll be fun.

  No, it will. Anything would be more fun than spending another Friday evening alone, feeling sorry for myself.

  Haley’s Volvo is so nice. She has a toddler booster seat in the back. I never had to use those with Alex and Lucia—they were grown before the laws changed. Haley’s son, Jared, must be smaller than I remembered. He looked at least three or four to me, but I guess not, if he’s still using one of those seats.

  I’m glad we’re in her car, with its moon roof and leather interior, and not in my beat-up blue Blazer. I try to imagine how Haley would react to the Blazer’s hideous fabric seats, the way they’re tearing at the corners and encrusted with candy and old sunscreen.

  “I love this neighborhood,” she says as we circle the galleries and boutiques and cute little cafés crammed into a six-block square. “It’s so diverse, you know?”

  She’s right. This part of Oak Cliff is new and hip, like a little piece of San Francisco. Then, less than a mile away, we have our apartment complex, which looks like a little piece of Mexico. But all around us are old houses, two-story bricks and Victorians in various phases of renewal. And the oak trees, which make it beautiful. And all around the houses we have the thrift stores and the taquerias. And my work, and the other new office buildings sprouting up like weeds.

  “Is that why you moved here?” I ask. “Because of the diversity?”

  “That was part of it,” she says. “But also because of Geronima.” She steps on the gas then, to snag a space on the street, but not before someone in a rainbow-colored car backs into it. “They need valet here,” she mutters.

  “So you’ve known Geronima a long time?” I venture. That much was clear at dinner the other night, but I couldn’t figure out how they knew each other, or if they were related, or what.

  “Mm-hmm. I’ve known her since I was a child,” says Haley. “Geronima used to take care of me.”

  So Geronima was her baby-sitter? Or her nanny? If Haley’s my age and Geronima’s in her sixties, then they knew each other over twenty years ago.

  “And you’ve kept in touch with her all this time?” I say.

  Haley shakes her head. “No. I just decided to look her up. Last month, when I…when my husband and I were separated.”

  I say, “You aren’t divorced yet?”

  She says, “No, not yet.”

  I say, “It takes forever, doesn’t it? Mike and I got our separation last September, but our divorce wasn’t final until January. Is your ex giving you trouble over Jared?”

  She shakes her head again. “No. He’s not giving me trouble over anything. It’s just…waiting for the paperwork.” I get the impression that it’s a sensitive subject for her, so I drop it. I guess I didn’t like talking about it much either, when Mike and I were first apart.

  We finally score parking a block from the restaurant, and I wish I hadn’t succumbed to vanity and put on these stupid wedge sandals, because I’m out of practice walking in heels for long distances. My little toes are threatening to slip out of the straps. But I’ll make it. This is supposed to be a fun girls’ night out. There’s no crying in girls’ night out.

  We’re early enough to get a table without a reservation. Our host, a beautiful young man with golden highlights, leads us through shimmering statues of peacocks and elephants and a cloud of dance music to a rattan table in the middle of the darkened room. We take our seats, and our attention is immediately drawn to the colorful drink menu open on the table between us.

  “Do you want to have a drink?” Haley says.

  Why the heck not? When’s the last time I had a fancy mixed drink at a nice restaurant? At least a year. God, maybe two years ago.

  Our waiter is another beautiful young man. I tell him I want a Shanghai Surprise, even though I didn’t read its ingredients. But it’s a beautiful shade of orange. Haley orders a Thai Tiger, and the waiter spins away.

  Even the menus are beautiful here, designed to look like inked papyrus on red silk. But…“Oh. This is more expensive than I was expecting.” I hate to be a killjoy, but I can’t totally forget my responsibilities, just because the kids are gone. “I’m just going to have an appetizer, I think.”

  “Natasha, please,” says Haley. “I invited you here. This is my treat, okay? Order whatever you want. I want to try some of everything.”

  Normally I’d refuse, but I can tell she’d be disappointed. Like she said, this is a place she’s been wanting to try. And I’m pretty sure she can afford it, single mom or not.

  We end up ordering calamari, three dishes neither of us can pronounce, and chicken pad thai, just in case the other stuff turns out to be too exotic. Haley’s already given up on her Thai Tiger, saying it’s too spicy. I trade drinks with her. I’ve never had a spicy martini before, and this one’s delicious.

  “So why did you move to Oak Cliff?” Haley asks me after our drinks are settled in their rightful places. “You had
a house before, right? In Dallas?”

  I nod. “We were renting a house on the north side. I couldn’t afford to stay there when we broke up, because I was only working part-time. When we separated, I made a spreadsheet of all my options.” Hearing myself say that makes me laugh, and Haley laughs, too. At the time, though, it wasn’t funny at all. “I got one of those apartment booklets—the ones they have for free at the grocery stores?” She nods. “I made a list of all the apartments I could afford, which wasn’t many. And then I cross-referenced their neighborhoods with the ratings for the schools in those neighborhoods. And when I was done, the best choice for us was Oak Cliff.”

  Haley says, “Wow. That was smart.”

  “Yeah. Well, it seemed smart. The first place we picked was a total rathole. Literally, it had mice. And mold. Lucia had allergic reactions from the moment we moved in. We stayed there for a week, and then I had to break our lease and leave. I had to practically threaten the landlord in order to get my deposit back. It was horrible. Really stressful.” Haley’s eyes are wide. “But then everything finally worked out, and now…This complex, where we all live now, was second on my list. It isn’t the greatest—you know that. But it’s good enough for right now. Until I can get some money saved and move us someplace better.”

  Haley smiles and raises her drink. “To someplace better,” she says. I clink my glass against hers. “Do you want another one?”

  “No, not yet. Thanks.” It occurs to me our apartment complex is probably a little bit more tolerable for Haley, since she only has Jared. I wonder if they have the same two-bedroom plan I do. I don’t imagine her being crammed into a one-​bedroom with her son. Actually, it’s hard to imagine her living in our complex at all. She looks like she could afford better. Why doesn’t she rent one of the houses in the neighborhood?