6. Rocky

CHAPTER6

Rocky

Wyn

Saturday evening, I was running on time for a change as I got ready to go to Cock and Snacktails at Kara’s house, when my phone rang with a call from my daughter.

Sitting at my vanity doing the final touches on my makeup, I put her on speaker.

“She lives!” was how I answered it.

“Boo, Mom. I’m a girl on the go.”

“So on the go you can’t return a text from your darling mother?”

“Okay, you have to promise not to get mad.”

This was never a good opening.

Nevertheless, Manon used it a lot.

I braced.

She continued.

“I had a test and paper due this week, and I couldn’t really afford the time to drive up to Phoenix for Yves’s thing. But he was ready to do it, and I couldn’t say no.” Big breath and the real whammy. “And I have a new boyfriend. He’s a graduate student. And I’m kind of…obsessed with him.”

I immediately stated the obvious.

“I hope you were more obsessed with that test and paper.”

“He finds girls who don’t take their studies seriously unattractive.”

“I like him already.”

She started laughing.

I grinned at my vanity mirror while I swiped on mascara.

“So, Yves, Sah and me have talked…a lot, and we want to know if you and Dad are getting back together,” she said.

I swiped a black streak across my upper eyelid.

“What?”

“He’s dumping that cowface,” she pointed out.

“Manon, don’t call Myrna a cowface. She isn’t a cowface.”

“Okay, I’ll call her what she is. He’s dumping that bitchface.”

She was funny.

She was also entirely inappropriate

“Is this the girl I raised?” I asked.

“Mom, she was not cool and I’m so glad she’s gonna be gone. She was just like…weird with me all the time. Sometimes, when Dad was teasing me or giving me a hug or something, I’d catch her watching us like she was watching him flirt with another woman, and it made my skin crawl.”

What?

Euw!

“You’d never told me that.”

“Because you’d probably say something to Dad about it and then you guys would fight, and it didn’t matter because Dad didn’t miss it and he liked it a lot less than me. He wasn’t ugly to her in front of me, but I knew when he’d address it because she’d be sugar sweet for a while after.”

Well, at least there was that.

“And anyway, I got the hint that he was just not ever really into her,” she went on.

I did not care about this (lie).

This had nothing to do with me (truth).

Bigger truth: I needed to let this slide and steer this conversation into different waters that included putting the kibosh on the kids thinking, now that Myrna was out of the picture, their dad and I were reuniting.

I didn’t get the chance to do that.

“They didn’t fight,” Manon said.

“Sorry?”

“They didn’t fight. It was creepy.”

I’d grabbed a Q-Tip and some makeup remover to begin the preparations to repair the mascara swipe, but I stopped moving when she spoke.

“This is why I’m obsessed with Benji,” she declared. “We fight all the time. I totally get it now.”

Oh boy.

“Manon—”

“I’ll spare you the specifics,” she allowed (thank God). “But the first time I didn’t take his shit, the look on his face, Mom. Whoa. It was like some veil had been ripped away. He’s hot. He’s tall. He’s smart. He’s going to get his Ph.D. I’m sure in the classes he teaches, the girls write things on their eyelids like that chick did in Raiders of the Lost Ark. So, he’s twenty-four and acting like I’m five and he has to guide my way, when I’m twenty. I have a job I don’t need because my parents can afford my college, but I know I need to learn how to go to work and earn money. My grades are great. I’m gorgeous. And he isn’t the only bonbon in the box. Which was what I told him. And he realized he couldn’t steamroll me and seriously, for him, huge turn on.”

Oh Lord.

“Manon—”

“So yeah, I get it. A woman doesn’t want to be a Myrna, where you’re just kinda…there, for company or whatever she was to Dad. She wants to be a Wyn, where she’s half of the dynamic of a relationship, with emphasis on the word dynamic.”

This was supremely annoying.

Because it told me that Remy was right all those years ago, and at least one of our children learned that strength and passion and knowing your own mind and asserting it were essential to any relationship being healthy.

“So. You? Dad? What?” she prompted.

“Your father and I are divorced, Manon,” I said gently.

“Yes, I know that. So why was he sitting on your chair and holding you at his side?”

“It was an emotional evening.”

“Mom.”

She wasn’t buying my crap.

“Just because we’re divorced doesn’t mean he’s quit caring about me, honey,” I told her. “And something had upset me before I showed at his house, he knows me well, he noticed it, and he was concerned about me.”

This was my guess, but I was sticking with it like it was etched in stone.

“What upset you?”

“I’d exchanged words with Bea.”

“Good,” she said sharply.

Wow.

Manon too?

“What do you mean, ‘good?’” I queried.

“Mom, she’s your friend and she can sometimes be sweet, but only if you have a vagina. Mostly, she’s bitter. Jordy left her and she swallowed that pill whole. It was like she joined a cult. The bitter cult. And she’s a zealot. Every man is Jordy for her, even though I’m now seeing why Jordy said, ‘This is for the birds, life’s too short. I’m outta here.’ I mean, like I just said, a woman doesn’t always have to make things roses in a relationship. But Bea’s always been a pretty negative person, and that’s a serious drag.”

I had, for a long time (or until recently), wondered why Jordy had called it quits.

They had never been lovey-dovey, but as far as I knew, he hadn’t cheated, she hadn’t either, he didn’t have some other issue like an addiction or something, neither did she. I didn’t even know they were having problems.

He was a quiet guy, but when he talked, he had a wry sense of humor and an interesting, if twisted way of looking at life that I found fascinating, but he was also a nice guy.

Bea had never demonstrated devastation at this loss.

She’d been angry and self-righteous and stayed that way.

“So you and Dad are a no go,” Manon noted, and she didn’t quite hide the dejection in her voice.

“We are, Manon, I’m sorry.”

“And this thing we’re all meeting for tomorrow? And by the by, I’m staying at yours in case bitchface isn’t out of Dad’s place yet, and I’ll be there around ten.”

“This thing for tomorrow is your dad’s way of making sure Yves knows we’re his safe haven no matter what.”

“But he’s inviting us to yours, not his?”

She was as confused as me.

“Maybe he’s concerned about the situation with Myrna,” I suggested.

“Maybe.” She wasn’t buying it.

I wasn’t either, but I didn’t share that.

“Listen, honey, as much as I love talking to you, I’ve got a girls’ night tonight.”

“Is Bea going to be there?”

“No.”

“Good.”

Yes.

How I missed what everyone saw, I didn’t know.

Maybe it was just that I loved Bea, and I didn’t want to see it.

“You want anything special for tomorrow?” I asked.

“You feel like a trip to Bosa in the morning?”

“Cinnamon swirls or buttermilk?”

“Both.”

Yves would love some donuts too.

“They’ll be waiting for you.”

“Love you, Mom.”

“Love you too, my gorgeous girl.”

We hung up, I fixed my eye, finished with my hair, got dressed and then wandered into my bedroom.

But I didn’t do what I needed to do: wander out and into my car to go to Kara’s.

For some reason, I went to the French doors that led to the private, master suite patio, and looked out to the backyard.

My lot was even bigger than Remy’s, on a cul-de-sac and maybe a ten-minute drive, at most, north from his house, off Central to the east.

My house was also only ten years older than Remy’s, and the lush, mature landscaping and trees reflected those sixty years between when they were planted and now.

The pool was large, kidney-shaped, and Remy’d had it resurfaced so that the water was a deep, Mediterranean blue, not chlorinated aqua.

The space back there was open, with lots of grass, lavish greenery around the edges to help buffer the sound from Central, which was a busy city street only a block away. It also made the backyard seem like an oasis.

The entire time we were together, regardless of his hectic schedule as budding then successful architect, husband and dad, he tended our outside space himself, including the pool. He didn’t let anyone touch it, exempting Sabre and Yves when they got old enough to help, not exempting me and Manon.

Another thing he’d inherited from his father, who did not do a day of manual work in his life, but he did have firm ideas about gender roles.

This meant the yard and cars were Remy’s (and his sons’) domain, so was the garbage and recycling, neither mine nor Manon’s hands touched any of it.

Ever.

This segued into him feeling the house and the work to be done in it (unless it was maintenance or repair) was mine.

And I was not in agreement with this idea.

I would far rather garden or skim the pool than do laundry or grocery shop. I loathed both.

We fought about this after I went back to work, and I didn’t have time to keep house without help. And some of those fights got intense because I wanted to step over Remy’s firmly established boundaries, and I wanted him to do the same.

In the end, we made enough to hire cleaning people, the kids got old enough to do their own laundry and have specific chores, and then Remy and I both had PAs who could do other tasks, like running errands and doing the shopping.

However, being honest with myself, I never quite let go of how irritating I thought it was he couldn’t see I no longer had time to do tasks that were much more frequent, like cooking every night (and having the food in the house to do it), not to mention the never-ending laundry.

Now, I wished I’d let it go because really, it didn’t mean anything.

And Remy always took excellent care of the yard and pool in a way it wasn’t like he spent a half hour mowing the lawn and then done. He spent hours every week on both.

And when he left, I had to find someone to do it. I’d hired a pool service and they’d cleaned the pool, and I’d watched them then cried for an hour.

A solid hour.

Outside our boys, once it was resurfaced, no one’s hand had touched that pool. Even to do repairs on the equipment.

Just Remy.

It was like someone touching it defiled our marriage.

It was lunacy.

But that was how I felt.

I totally ignored the gardeners when they showed, and I’d struggled with using and even lying beside that pool (both of which I enjoyed doing) ever since.

I sighed, letting this go, deciding to take a swim in the morning and wash those thoughts away, then realized it was September and the pool was probably freezing before I turned my mind to assessing which handbag I was currently using.

I noted I needed a change to match my outfit and headed out to the kitchen to get it so I could take it back to the closet to do that.

I was in the hall when I realized my son was home from rugby practice (the league didn’t start until January, but they kept conditioned all year long, and by the by, his father was his coach).

That “by the by” was important, since I could hear Yves with company in the kitchen.

And hearing the voices, I knew that company was Remy.

Therefore, I walked into my glorious kitchen with its acres of marble countertops, cream cabinets and unambiguously French country flair, and saw father and son casually leaning against that luscious marble, enjoying a post workout beer.

Father.

And son.

With that father no longer being married to me nor an inhabitant of this house.

And that son being seventeen.

Both pairs of eyes came right to me, but only the older pair did a head-to-toe sweep and back again, this ending in a smirk.

Yes, you better believe I dressed for Cock and Snacktails that would take place around an island in my friend’s kitchen.

Thus, I was now wearing dark-wash, high-waist jeans, a green blouse with big white flowers on it and interesting exaggerated cuffs that went over my red fingertips, with high-heeled, fawn suede booties on my feet.

“Did I miss something in my morning scan of the Arizona Republic? Has the state decreased the legal drinking age to seventeen?” I asked the room at large.

The smirk became a smile.

“Mom, I’m at home,” Yves replied.

I raised my brows at my boy.

“He needs to learn to hold his liquor,” Remy stated.

My attention returned to him because we’d already had this argument about Sabre.

I had, incidentally, lost.

But I was okay to try again.

“You know my feelings about this, Remy,” I told him.

“I do. And you know I don’t agree with you,” he replied.

“And you know I don’t care if you don’t,” I shot back.

“Wyn, do you want him to be a sloppy, teenage-boy drunk?” Remy inquired.

“No,” I replied. “I know my son is intelligent, so he will understand when it’s explained to him that alcohol affects your mood, thinking, coordination, inhibitions, and copious consumption over time can significantly affect your health. And as he’ll understand this, when it’s legal for him to drink, because he’s remarkably intelligent, he’ll do it in moderation.”

“Baby, boys will be boys.”

It was the “baby” that got me, in both very good and very bad ways, thus it ratcheted up my annoyance.

“Yes,” I snapped. “And boys being boys means they might feel peer pressured into trashy, locker room talk about girls. And I know you’ve firmly stressed that even if said girls are absent, that is still a violation of them. And if they ever were to consider engaging in such vile byplay, they should remember their mother and sister and know such things had been said or were being said somewhere about both of them and consider how that feels. But more, how it would make their mother and sister feel. And not only refrain from doing it but tell the buffoons who are doing it to shut their damned mouths because they’re behaving like buffoons.”

“Fucking love it when you slip words like ‘buffoons’ into one of your rants,” Remy murmured.

“Remy!” I shouted.

“It’s just a beer, Wyn. It’s not talking smack about a woman because, yeah, Sabre and Yves know never to do that shit, but also, we’ve just found out, Yves wouldn’t anyway.” He looked to his son. “And no trash talking guys either, kid. What’s good for the gander is the same for the goose.”

Yves, my perfect final child, lifted…his…blasted…beer, smirked at his dad and said, “You’re heard, Father.”

Then he shot back a slug.

“Oh. My. God!” I yelled at my son.

“Don’t you have somewhere to go?” Remy asked.

I opened my mouth, but no.

No.

This was not us anymore.

It wasn’t.

He wanted to have a beer with his underage child?

Fine by me!

“Enjoy yourselves,” I bid, nabbed my bag and stomped out of the room in the direction of my closet.

I heard Remy’s chuckle.

And joining it was a replica of the same.

God!

Why could I not have three girl children?

Why?

Manon was sheer perfection when she wasn’t hinting at the sexual relationship she was having with her boyfriend (and even, kind of, when she was).

Ugh!

I switched out purses, checked my lipstick and hair (no, I did not do this for Remy (yes, that was a lie, I did this because Remy was there)) and marched out, shooting a glare to Remy and blowing a kiss to my son.

God.

* * *

Yves

Sabre’s face was already on his laptop screen, and they were shooting the shit while they waited for Manon’s face to hit it.

It did with her saying immediately, “I’m on a date, you dorks. What’s the freaking emergency I have to race to my stupid computer?”

“Mom and Dad are totally getting back together,” Yves declared.

“What?” Sah asked.

“They’re getting back together,” Yves repeated.

“They aren’t, brother, I talked to Mom about it today,” Manon said.

“When today?” Yves asked.

“Before her girls’ night.”

“When she was in the car or something?” Yves pushed.

“No. I don’t think so. I didn’t ask. Why?”

“Because me and Dad were in the kitchen having a beer—”

Manon rolled her eyes and interrupted him. “You will note Dad didn’t initiate me to alcohol with Gastineau Family Hold Your Drink 101.”

“Because Mom had been letting you have a half a glass of wine at dinner since you were fifteen, a full one starting at sixteen, and she mixed your freaking martinis herself the first time you came home for a visit from school,” Sah pointed out.

Manon shut up.

“Why do you think they’re getting back together?” Sah asked.

“Well, first, she didn’t kick Dad out. She just started bickering with him immediately, like he never left,” Yves explained.

None of them said anything.

But they all knew what that meant.

Manon spoke first.

“She seemed pretty…firm about that not happening, Y.”

“She was looking MILF, as usual, and I can say that because I’m gay,” Yves said.

Manon grinned.

Sah laughed.

“And she walked in, and for a second there, I thought I needed to figure out how to disappear in a puff of smoke because I thought he’d jump her,” Yves finished.

“This is gross,” Sah muttered.

“There are worse things than your parents having a very healthy sex life,” Manon sniffed.

“Did you hear me a second ago saying this is gross?” Sah asked.

“You guys, shut up. They’re getting back together,” Yves pressed. “He called her ‘baby.’”

Both his older siblings focused on him, he could tell, even if they were looking at his face on a screen.

“He did?” Manon asked quietly.

Yves nodded.

“What’d she do?” Sah asked.

“Nothing, it was like when they were together. They just kept squabbling. Mom was on a roll, it was her usual, totally hilarious. And Dad totally did not miss how hilarious it was.”

“Yves, bud, I hear you, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up,” Sabre said.

“Yeah,” Manon agreed, though she now seemed unsure.

“You weren’t there,” Yves told them.

“Just, you know, you’re home and around them more, so be…you know, cautious, okay?” Sah advised.

They’d all been crushed when their dad left.

Sure, their parents fought, but most of the time, it was like today. They were just two strong personalities who had no problem laying it out. Their mom would be funny, their dad would be cool and egg her on, sometimes it’d escalate and then they’d disappear in their bedroom where the argument might get loud, but then it’d get very quiet for a long time.

So there was love, a lot of it in that house, and having half of the engine that drove that love walk out the door, the buzz of the house had changed drastically and it had been hard to take.

The three of them didn’t lose him, just time with him.

But Mom lost him, and it was killer, watching that.

And maybe it was good advice to be cautious.

But since they broke up, his dad never followed him home from practice with the lame excuse that he was bringing the booze over for their get-together early, but also to grab a beer and shoot the shit, and that was not about him initiating Yves in Gastineau Family Hold Your Drink 101.

Dad could do that at his house.

It was about Dad being in a place where he could see Mom, and she could see him.

“I’ll be cautious,” Yves said.

And he would.

But still.

Their parents were getting back together.

“Can I go back to my date now?” Manon asked, and it wasn’t snotty. She wanted to know if Yves was cool.

“Yeah, sister. Have fun,” Yves said.

“Later, bros,” she replied then her face blinked out.

“You good?” Sah asked.

“Yeah,” Yves answered.

“See you tomorrow,” Sabre said.

“Tomorrow, brother. Later,” Yves replied.

Sah blinked out too.

Yves shut his laptop.

Then he picked up his phone and called Theo.

“Hey, babe,” Theo answered.

“Hey,” he greeted his boyfriend. “So, one, I’m a man now, my dad gave me a beer, and two, strap in, because I’m springing you on them tomorrow and then you’ll be on the Gastineau train and we’re all along for the ride, which is sure to be rocky, of Mom and Dad getting back together.”

Theo’s laugh was deep and rich, and Yves felt it in the two places he always felt it. In his chest, and points south.

“Looking forward to it,” Theo said.

Even though his man couldn’t see him, Yves smiled.

“Are you sure this springing me on them gig is the right way to play it?” Theo asked (again, he’d mentioned it before).

“One, Dad knows you,” Yves pointed out, because that was true. Theo played rugby with him and had for the last five years, and his dad had always been their coach. “Two, yes. I’m sure.”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” Theo muttered. “The him knowing me part.”

“Thee, I told you how it went Wednesday.”

“Him being cool, and him being cool with us doing each other are different things.”

Yves didn’t know what to say to that.

Then he figured it out. “He doesn’t know specifics.”

“He’s still going to know we’re doing each other.”

“I haven’t told them I’ve gone there. Just that I’m gay.”

“Your mom will convince herself you’re a virgin until the day she dies. You told me she’s in denial about Sah.”

“I didn’t say denial, I said she refuses to talk about it, and it takes her at least ten minutes to look any of his girlfriends in the eye.”

“Denial.”

Yves smiled again.

“Your dad, though. You told me he told you when he gave you the sex talk that he’d lost his virginity at sixteen and he understood the sex-on-the-brain thing. Just be smart about the sex-on-the-brain thing. So he gets it, he’s a guy, he’s been our age, which means he’ll totally know we’re fucking.”

“Shit,” Yves muttered. Theo was totally right.

“Tell them about me and then text me if it’s cool to come over, okay?” Theo said.

“I don’t want it not to be cool,” Yves admitted.

“You want to force their play so they’ve got no choice but to play it cool with me when you gauged shit wrong the last time and hurt your dad’s feelings. Don’t do that again, babe. I think you learned benefit of the doubt is the way to play this.”

“But you don’t think he’ll be cool with you?” Yves asked.

“What I think is, it’ll be a shock to him, and you need to give him a beat to come to terms with that before I’m in his space.”

Yves saw the wisdom of this, so he said, “Okay, you’re good with being standby until I text you?”

“Fuck yeah. I can’t wait to try these crab cakes.”

And again, Yves smiled.