22 Where Are You?

22

where are you?

Danielle

“Put your seatbelt on and shut up!”

I pull out of the driveway of the heavily littered strip mall that contains the Charminar Indian Restaurant, open twenty-four hours; a coin laundromat; a 7-Eleven; and, of course, the most impressive of them all, the headliner, the grand high poohbah, a Spearmint Rhino Gentlemen’s Club.

I’m driving in the opposite direction of our house, trying to stop hyperventilating. I’m taking Noah to the apartment to face his father after almost being arrested for loitering and then mouthing off to a police officer at ten-thirty at night when he was supposedly at a friend’s house doing thirteen-year-old boy things…whatever those “things” are that don’t involve committing crimes.

“Where are we going?” Ethan says in a timid voice from the backseat.

“To hell if we don’t change our ways!” I scream .

I’m shocked that Noah is managing to sit stoically in the passenger seat.

When we get to the complex, I pull Noah by his ear all the way from the car to the apartment front door. Ethan is traveling a safe distance behind us in an effort to separate himself from the criminal I’m dragging.

When we get to the apartment front door I use my key, open the door, and announce, “The juvenile delinquent is here!”

The apartment is dark and quiet so I flip the lights on in the living room and kitchen.

“Alex,” I yell, not kindly. “Sit,” I say to Noah, pointing to the couch.

I’m confused. Where is he? I go to the bedroom…empty.

“Hi, Dad!” I hear Ethan say in the living room.

When I walk out, I see Alex standing in the entryway, looking disheveled. He’s sweating and breathing hard.

“Where were you?” I say in a calm voice.

Alex looks at me but doesn’t answer. He looks at Ethan, “Hi, buddy.” He then walks to the couch and stands over Noah, who is sitting with his arms crossed over his chest. “What happened?” Alex asks.

Noah is tongue-tied.

“Do you happen to know where Spearmint Rhino is?” I say.

Alex squints. “He was at a strip club?”

“That’s a strip club?” Noah says. “I didn’t even know.”

“Deliberately obtuse, obtuse, obtuse !” I say.

Alex walks over to me. “Calm down. What did the police say?”

“The cop I spoke with said they believed the boys were in the laundromat to vandalize it, and then apparently when your son was confronted by the cops, he told an officer of the law to…and I quote…‘ bite my shiny metal ass ’! ”

Alex buckles over with laughter.

“Are you serious?” I say to him. “You’re laughing?” Noah and Ethan are still silent, staring up at us.

“I’m sorry. I just can’t believe he said that. It…actually sounds like something you would say, Dani.”

“So this is my fault now?”

He breathes out and drops the smile. “No. I’m not saying that. What happened, Noah? Tell us everything.”

“You guys won’t listen because you believe that cops are always right.”

“No, we don’t, actually, but we believe in abiding by the law and respecting other people,” I say.

“I still haven’t heard what happened,” Alex says.

Noah takes a deep breath. “Listen, the washer at Jose’s house broke—”

“So you were doing their laundry at ten-thirty at night?” I say. “Bullshit! You don’t even do your own laundry.”

Alex looks at me. “They need to start doing their own laundry, it’s getting really out of hand.”

“Did you forget that we were talking about how your son got arrested?”

“I didn’t get arrested, I wasn’t even sitting in the cop car, I was leaning against it. Mom, you’re exaggerating!”

“You were handcuffed,” I say.

Noah shrugs, “They just did that for show.”

“I don’t care what it was for,” I shoot back.

“Noah, tell the whole story, start to finish. Dani, stop interrupting,” Alex says.

“Jose’s mom, Suzanna, did her laundry earlier that day. She asked us to walk down to the laundromat, which is only two blocks from their house, and look for a sweater she thought she left in a dryer. When we got down there, we were going through all the dryers looking for the sweater, and the lady that works there freaked out and called the cops.”

I’m breathing in and out, trying to listen. I think I believe him.

“Go on,” Alex says.

“So the cop comes in right when we miraculously find the sweater. Jose has the sweater in one hand and his cellphone in the other. The cop tells us to come outside, so we do. He then starts grilling Jose about the cellphone and Jose is like, ‘It’s mine, I promise.’ Jose tries to tell him what we were doing, but he wouldn’t listen, kind of like what you guys were doing to me a minute ago,” he says. Smart-ass.

“Keep going,” I say. “And leave out the commentary.”

“So, the cop is, like, pestering Jose. He’s like, ‘You steal those cellphones so you can get initiated into gangs or to talk with your gang boys,’ and we’re like, ‘No, this is our stuff!’?”

I look at how Noah is dressed. He’s wearing shorts, flip-flops, and a T-shirt that has an atom symbol on it, with the words Don’t Trust Atoms, They Make Up Everything! I mean, Noah is like the epitome of nerd in the best possible way, and I know for a fact that Jose won both the science fair and the geography bee three years running, I don’t think he’s petitioning to be in any gangs.

“So,” Noah continues, “the cop was, like, obviously talking that way to Jose because he’s Mexican.”

“We don’t know that,” Alex says.

“Kinda sounds like it to me,” I say under my breath.

Alex glances back. “What?”

“Nothing. Go on, Noah, get to the part where you told him to kiss your ass,” I say. “And that other part where you were handcuffed.”

“So, I say to the cop, ‘Why are you hassling him? We’re good kids, we’re doing his mom a favor.’ And he says, ‘No one asked you. Why don’t you keep your mouth shut, kid?’ So obviously that’s when I said, ‘Why don’t you kiss my shiny metal ass?’ I feel like anyone would have done the same.”

“No, Noah! People wouldn’t say that to a police officer . Are you crazy?” I yell.

Alex is still standing there, quietly assessing the situation.

Noah rolls his eyes. “You would have said it, Mom.”

“Anyway, so then he handcuffed you?” Alex asks.

“He told Jose to go home and then he told me something about how I was shaping up to be a felon. Before he called Mom, he handcuffed me and said, ‘This is so you don’t go trying anything while we wait for your mom.’ Like I was really gonna take off wearing flip-flops. It was all for show, to scare me. Whatever.”

“Would you have run if you were wearing Nikes?” I say through gritted teeth.

My hand is shaking and my ear is twitching. I know I’m reaching anger Defcon 3. Alex looks calm, which only fuels my frustration.

“You don’t get me, Mom!” Noah says to my face, pointedly.

“Excuse me? I don’t get you?! I grew you …in my body…like a mad fucking scientist! I totally get you! ”

“Danielle,” Alex warns. “Calm down. Let’s talk in the kitchen and try to decide what to do.”

He used my whole name. I’m in trouble. “Fine,” I say. The apartment is small. We walk three feet into the kitchen. The boys can totally hear and see us. It’s ridiculous.

I have my hands on my hips.

Alex is about a foot taller than me so he has to lower his head to talk quietly. He leans down and says, “I believe him.”

“Why?” I want to know if Alex has even thought this through or if he’s looking for an easy way out. A way to stay in the kids’ good graces. “How are you so sure?” I push further.

“Because he’s just like you, Dani…Always getting in trouble for doing the right thing.” He half smiles. There is something in his expression that looks almost like admiration.

“I would have totally done that, huh?” I say.

“Yes, you would have done the exact same thing. You’re both entirely incapable of hiding how you feel about something.”

“I hope it doesn’t get him in actual trouble,” I say.

“Look at him,” Alex replies. I look back to see Noah setting up the chessboard to play Ethan. “He’s not looking for trouble.”

“Neither am I, but it seems I have no problem finding it.”

“You’re shaking, Dani.” He takes my hands in his. It feels unfamiliar. That’s how long it’s been. I forgot how soft his hands are. They’re big and masculine, but soft.

“I’m short-circuiting,” I tell him. “My anxiety is through the roof! We still need to talk to him, Alex.”

“I’ll do the talking. Come on.”

What? This is new. Alex is doing the talking?

“Noah,” Alex says, “remember when your mom was in Salt & Straw with you guys that one day and saw that man mistreating the worker?”

“Yeah, I do remember, he was a jerk. How can a person be unhappy when they’re about to get ice cream ?”

“He implied that the girl was dumb, right?” Alex asks.

I huff. “Really? This is the analogy you’re using?”

“Yes,” Alex says with a hint of humor.

“Dad, he called her a ‘dum-dum’ right to her face.”

“Right, Noah. It was wrong of him. But then your mom went outside and knocked his ice-cream cone out of his hand.”

“Yeah, she did.” Noah looks at me and smiles, as if to say, Good job, Mom !

“But what happened?” Alex says.

“Ugh, why are we dragging this out? What your dad is saying is that two wrongs don’t make a right,” I blurt out.

Alex looks at me with slight irritation. “I want him to understand that his behavior got him nowhere.”

“I think the cop realized he was wrong for profiling Jose, so he had to use me as a scapegoat,” Noah interjects.

“That’s not the point. Never mind. Listen, Noah, you’re not in trouble. Don’t ever do that again. I’m glad you were defending Jose, but Jose got to go home and you got handcuffs. The man got a new ice-cream cone and Mom got banned from the Galleria mall. You see my point? I know you both do. We’re all tired. We are not punishing you, okay? Let’s call it a night,” Alex says.

I agree, after feeling a little wounded that I was being reprimanded alongside Noah. It’s almost 2 a.m. and I don’t want to drive home. Part of me wants to ask where Alex came from earlier, but I don’t.

“I’m gonna set up the blow-up mattress for the boys, and I’ll just sleep on the couch.”

“No, you can have the bed. I’ll sleep on the couch,” Alex says.

We’re both strangely calm in this moment, even though this situation is uncharted territory for us. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, a hundred percent.”

I commandeer the bathroom first. I brush my teeth, wash my face, and look for something to wear, but I don’t have anything here, so I strip down and throw on a T-shirt that Alex left hanging on the towel rack. He won’t care.

In the bedroom, he knocks and pushes the cracked door open as I’m getting into bed.

“What’s up?” I ask. I feel modest with him for the first time in ages, maybe forever. I point to the T-shirt. “I hope you don’t mind. ”

“No, of course not.”

He sits on the edge of the bed. This is all so strange and I’m not sure what to make of what he’s doing.

“I want to help out more, with the boys, with the household stuff, whatever,” he says in a low voice. He hardly ever talks quietly because he is so hard of hearing.

“What is this? Are you implying that I’m doing a bad job because of what happened tonight?”

“No, not at all.” He starts to get up to walk out. “I knew you were gonna get defensive.”

“Sit down, please. What is this all about?”

He sits down and angles his body toward me. I can smell a woman on him. It’s either perfume or some kind of soap or lotion. In this moment, I feel like the realization would be easier to accept if we said it out loud, if we came clean. He can say who he’s been sleeping with, and I’ll say I hooked up with my ex a handful of times, and then we can just move on. I’ll leave out the part in which I felt dogged and disposable from the whole dating experience. He doesn’t need to know that, he’s probably having a good ol’ time.

There have been many instances in my kids’ lives when I’ve used the “ripping the Band-Aid off” analogy. I think it applies here, but Alex isn’t like that. I can throw something in a closet and forget its entire existence, as if I have no sense of object permanence, but when it comes to people, my brain never stops. Alex can “out-of-sight, out-of-mind” actual people . So, in his case, he wouldn’t want to know anything. My imagination, however, lives for the possibility of what people are doing at any given moment. In my head, I’ve basically already married Alex off to whoever’s perfume this is. They have some kids, maybe three, and I’m wondering who I will be to those kids .

“Listen, Dani, I’m not bringing this up because of what happened, I swear. Other than this snafu tonight, the boys are doing great. You’re an awesome mom, you always have been. It’s not that. You just look tired all the time lately.”

“Thank you very much. Everyone knows that tired is code for old and ugly.”

“Dani, you are so skinny right now. And you’re shaking from anxiety! You’ve also been a little forgetful lately and—”

“Okay, okay, enough!” I say. “I know. I’ve been stressed. I’m sorry. I’m not dropping the ball with the kids at all though.”

“I know you’re not. I just don’t want to see you this stressed,” he says. I cock my head and look at him. He’s being sincere. He actually cares, which feels…weird. When my mother was dying and the rumors about Lars were flying, I was a nervous wreck, falling apart and emotionally depleted, but Alex barely seemed to look at me.

“I’m just worried about the show. I’ve been wanting my own show for so long and now I finally have it and I’m terrified.”

He puts his hand on top of my foot, which is under the covers. He rubs my foot through the comforter. It’s an old habit, muscle memory.

We used to be like this.

“The show is going to be great,” he says. “You have a natural sense for this kind of stuff. Let me help out more…at least until the pilot airs. I’ll do four days instead of three, okay? It’s settled.”

I nod, so he gets up to head out. “Alex?” He turns around near the door. “Thank you,” I say, and I mean it.

“You’re welcome.”

“One last thing?”

“What? ”

“I want to know when you have a girlfriend, okay? I know I don’t have a right to know, but please just tell me. You know how crazy my mind is. I’ll give you the same respect in return.”

“Okay, Danielle. I don’t have anything that remotely resembles a girlfriend right now.”

“Okay. I went on three dates with Jacob, but that’s done with,” I blurt out. “I don’t have much time for dating, but I’m sure we will both see other people at some point. It’s just better to rip the Band-Aid off, you know?”

“Okay. I will let you know.”

As soon as he walks out, I fall fast asleep. Sleep that comes easily requires a level of peace. There’s peace in knowing another parent is there with you, even if they’re in the other room. It’s something I took for granted before.

—

In the morning, I walk to the kitchen to find a note from Alex. I look over and see the boys are still sleeping on the blow-up mattress.

Dani, I had to go into the clinic to do a makeup appointment and some paperwork with Jenna. She’s bringing her baby, Sophia, with her if you guys want to come down and meet her.

I feel something in my chest. I think it’s happiness. For a long time after I had the miscarriages, I couldn’t hold other people’s newborns. Right now I feel unreasonably excited about meeting Jenna’s baby. I decide I’m going to wake up the boys with some tunes .

The Doors’ Morrison Hotel album is sticking out from the sideways stack on the shelf. Perfect.

I pull the record and sleeve out and read the writing on it. It’s my dad’s, but maybe I’ll add to it today. I put the record on and move the needle to the fourth song.

Song 4: You’re dancing in the kitchen, doing some variation of the Hustle to the song “Peace Frog”—wearing the green bell-bottoms, my favorite. You’re eight months pregnant and still getting down. Dance your heart out, Irene.

She was pregnant with me. I set the record sleeve down, turn up the volume, and do the Hustle all the way into the kitchen. The kids are now awake and staring unamused.

“I’m gonna make you guys pancakes!” I yell over the music.

“What is this?” Ethan says.

“This is The Doors. Jim Morrison, baby!”

“You’re so weird, Mom,” Noah grumbles loudly.

“Pot-kettle, Noah,” I say in a singsongy voice. “You’re the weirdest of us all. Now go take showers, both of you!”

I’m a firm believer in messing up your kids just enough to give them a sense of humor.