It took Rose days to get ready for the party.
We should have just booked a place, she thought, dusting the baseboards. Then I wouldn’t have to clean.
In addition to the shopping and the wrapping, the calling of mothers of those children with allergies, the tracking down of those who had not yet RSVP’d, the assembling of gift bags and the ordering of cakes, there was the cleaning.
When Rose complained of this task to Josh, he rolled his eyes.
“The house looks fine.”
And indeed, to him, it did. Rose kept a neat house, but it was not in her eyes clean … or at least not clean enough to be seen.
While Josh thought of Isaac’s party as a gathering of boys, Isaac’s friends from school and soccer, Rose saw it as an invitation to judgment by the larger counterparts who would accompany them.
Namely their mothers.
Mothers whose eyes would look past the balloons and the streamers and see the dark spots on the carpet, the dust behind the television, and the crumbs by the toe kicks. Mothers who would notice the weeds on the beds next to the house and the cobwebs on the stucco.
So she dusted. And mopped. And weeded. She power-washed the garage door. Took a broom to the sides of the house.
She even deep-cleaned the rooms no one would have any business visiting. The bedrooms got a thorough going-over, because even though the party would be held downstairs and in the backyard, one never knew.
But still there were things she could do nothing about. The stubborn stain on the couch. The dry patch in the backyard.
Isaac had invited Simon from his soccer team, which meant that his mother would be coming. What’s-her-name, with the boobs and the judgy look.
Rose hated the thought that she would be here, seeing the inside of her house. Feeling sorry for her when she saw the dry patch (Oh, poor Rose, can’t afford new sod) or the stain (Well, of course it’s stained; Rose can barely keep up).
But … Kaitlin, that was her name … was just one of the invading horde. Rose felt vulnerable to all of them.
But Zackie invited who Zackie wanted. And he was a popular boy.
So Rose cleaned and hoped they would be able to put the bounce house over the dry patch. She bought a pair of throw pillows to hide the stain.
There was, of course, another person Rose thought of while she cleaned.
Hugo.
He would be coming, too. She thought of how he would see the details of her life: the family portraits on the wall, the granite countertops, the row of little hooks holding the children’s jackets and backpacks.
This, too, was uncomfortable, in its way. But a less formed feeling than being seen by Isaac’s friends’ parents. It made her unsettled to think of him here among her things, in the same room with her children and Josh … but those uncomfortable feelings were mired in the warm syrup of her other emotions.
Several times she caught herself thinking of the kiss … but each time she shook it off. No time for such nonsense with a party to plan.
* * *
Josh disappeared the morning of the event. Rose had been planning on his being there to sign for the deliveries and supervise the inflating of the bounce house. But when she called for him to answer the doorbell, he didn’t reply and she had had to do it herself, which put her behind schedule on getting the fruit cut for the trays.
As the deliverymen were backing away, Josh pulled into the drive, his face apologetic. “Sorry, sorry, that took longer than I thought it would.”
Rose was tense. She didn’t even want to know where he had been, she just wanted him to “keep the kids out of my hair.”
Josh kissed her forehead and headed inside, eager to be with the children, happy. “You’re such a good mom.”
Somehow everything got done. Rose was tying balloons to the door when the first car pulled up. She smiled and waved at the mother behind the wheel. “Hi, guys! We’re so glad you’re here!”
* * *
Adam was very interested in the cake.
He had seen it yesterday when they got home from school. A long white box on the counter, smelling of sugar and vanilla.
Mom had let them look at it as she moved things around in the fridge to make room.
“It says, ‘Happy Birthday, Isaac,’” said Zackie, but Adam didn’t need him to read it to him. He could read it very well himself, thank you very much.
It had Spider-Man and Darth Vader and Pokémon on it. Isaac had insisted that he wanted a cake with all three, even though Mom had said it might be a little confusing. Zackie said he didn’t care. Adam remembered that Isaac had told him Pokémon wasn’t cool anymore … but he guessed his brother had changed his mind about that.
Adam told his mom that he wanted a picture of Hugo on his birthday cake.
She had given him a funny look for a moment and then ruffled his hair. “You don’t know what Hugo looks like, honey.”
“Yeah, I do,” he’d insisted. “He looks like Han Solo and Indiana Jones.”
Mom had laughed. “Harrison Ford?”
Adam had no idea who that was, but he’d nodded anyway. Whoever Harry’s Son Ford was, he must look like Hugo.
Mom had pulled the cake out again this morning, carefully taking it from the box and setting it on the end of the counter, next to a pile of small paper plates and plastic forks.
“No touching, Addy,” she’d reminded him.
It was hard. It smelled so good, even better now that it was warming up. But Adam was a good boy and he listened to Mommy. He visited the cake several times before the party started, resting his nose on the countertop, studying the spray of the sugar paint on its surface, the pattern of tiny waves made by the piping on the edge.
Dad had let all three of them jump around in the bouncy before everybody got there. Isaac and Adam had wrestled, throwing themselves at each other, landing and rolling around the quilt of inflated vinyl. Penny had laughed at them, throwing her tiny body on top of their pile.
But as soon as his friends had arrived, Zackie wanted no more to do with him. He ran off with the bigger boys he saw at school and told Adam to play with Penny. “We don’t want to play with babies,” he said when Addy tried to keep up with them.
The pile of presents on the little table Mom had set up grew larger and larger. Adam wondered if Zackie would share. Probably not.
Dad was busy watching Penny and talking to the other parents. Mom was busy picking up plates and cleaning up, her mouth a thin line in her face.
So Adam went back to visit the cake.
But somebody was already there, looking at it.
A man in a blue jacket. Shorter than Dad. A little fatter, too.
Adam labeled him a “daddy,” as he did with all men of a certain age.
“Don’t touch it,” he warned the man.
The man looked over at Adam. Surprised.
“Not even to taste the frosting.” Adam wanted to be sure the man knew the rules.
“I won’t,” he said, and smiled. But the man was looking at the cake again. Maybe the man thought he didn’t have to obey the rules. Grown-ups sometimes thought they didn’t have to. “You can’t even do it if you think they won’t know. ’Cause my brother will know.”
Adam nodded at Isaac in the backyard. His brother had put on a paper crown and was leading his friends back into the bounce house.
“You’re Adam?”
The man knew his name. Adam furrowed his eyebrows at him. Suddenly he realized that even though this man was a “daddy” he was also a “stranger.” He’d been talking to a stranger. A stranger who knew his name.
The stranger pulled something from his pocket.
“I brought something for you … I didn’t wrap it, ’cause it’s not your birthday.”
He held out a small, shiny compass. The red arrow wobbled in its center, trying to find north.
Suddenly Adam was not so wary. “Cool!” he said, snatching it from the man’s hand. He couldn’t wait to show it to Isaac. At least now he’d have something he wouldn’t have to share. Something Zackie might be willing to trade for access to his new toys for a little while.
He bolted for the door.
“Adam!” he heard his father. “What do you tell the nice man?”
“Thanks!” he said, barely turning back to answer. He needed to find Zackie.
* * *
Josh had watched Adam’s interaction from a distance—appreciating the calm, direct way his youngest son addressed the man by the cake.
Goodness, Adam was different from Isaac. Isaac would have ignored the man or run away. But Addy had had a whole conversation with him, forgetting his manners only when he had been given a gift.
“Thanks for that, by the way,” Josh said, walking toward the man after Adam disappeared into the backyard. “It can be tough to see your big brother get all the presents. I’m Josh. Isaac’s dad.”
The man took his hand, shook it. “David.”
Josh loved meeting other fathers. It made him feel he was meeting a fellow brother in the fraternity of parenthood. He looked out on the backyard, trying to find the smaller version of the man next to him. “Which one’s yours?”
“Uh—”
“You’re here!” Rose was at the door, both hands full of dirty paper plates. Her eyes were a little too bright, smile a little too wide. She was tense, he could tell; Rose hated parties.
“Honey, you know David?”
Josh saw a brief something pass between David and his wife. A pulse of some kind.
And then Rose was talking, quickly. “We went to elementary school together. I ran into him in the grocery store. He just moved here and doesn’t know anybody.” She set the plates down and stood next to Josh, wrapping an arm around his waist.
An old flame, he mused. Worried I’ll be jealous. I’ll have to tease her about it later. He squeezed her shoulders, playful. “Well, he knows you!”
David hadn’t said anything yet. Just goggled at the two of them. He must be one of those socially awkward types.
“I thought it might be nice for him to meet some people. So I invited him to the party.”
His wife, adopter of strays. “David, you should come to dinner. Can we do that, Rosie?”
Rose nodded. “Of course we can.”
Josh gave David a broad smile. “It’s a date, then.”
* * *
Rose had stayed with Josh and Hugo as long as possible. She was worried that Josh would start quizzing Hugo before she had caught him up on the lies she needed him to tell.
But she needn’t have worried. The sound of Adam and Isaac fighting in the bounce house had rung out over the party, and both she and Josh had excused themselves quickly from Hugo’s side. They had found the boys on top of each other, their little foreheads sweaty. Adam was trying to pry a small round something out of Isaac’s hand.
“Give it back to me! It’s mine!” he cried, clawing at his brother.
Rose could tell by the look on Isaac’s face as he twisted from him that Adam was telling the truth. Whatever it was in his hand, Zackie’s face had that mean, greedy cast it got when he was up to no good.
Rose hated birthdays.
“You take care of this,” she said to Josh. She didn’t want to yell at Isaac on his birthday. Didn’t want to be convinced she was raising a bully.
He wouldn’t always be a bully, she knew.
It was just … sometimes it was hard to remember that.
Josh had it all sorted by the time everybody gathered around for cake. Adam was still sniffling, sitting next to his brother, taking shuddering sips of air, but the tears had stopped and Isaac looked as if there had been no altercation at all. He beamed over the cake (such a handsome boy) and counted the candles, confirming that there was one to grow on.
Rose noticed Simon’s towhead at the far end of the table, but she had not seen evidence of Kaitlin or the “mammary twins.” There was a collection of fathers whom Rose had not met hovering in a group, just behind the children’s table, their noses pressed down into their BlackBerrys. Simon’s absentee/divorce-considering dad must be among that number, not working this Saturday.
And there behind them was Hugo. Looking out of place in his blue windbreaker among the polo shirts and North Face pullovers.
Rose smiled at him.
He smiled back.
Josh lit the candles, blocking the breeze with his hand. Isaac got them all out with one blow.
* * *
A while later, Rose sat next to Hugo. Alone at the picnic table, the breeze lifting the tablecloth. Above them the sun filtered through the cottonwood tree, setting a lacy shadow to dance over them.
If she closed her eyes, she could have been dreaming.
She had brought him a slice of cake, carrying a plate for herself. They sat in silence while they ate, watching the kids in the bouncy, hopped up on sugar now, their parents letting them burn off as much energy as possible before they had to drag them home.
“You have a beautiful family.”
Rose quirked her mouth. “Thank you.”
“Josh is a doctor?”
“Trauma surgeon.” Rose cringed a little at this automatic answer, hearing Josh’s influence in it. His insistence on the distinction between a doctor and a surgeon.
“Wow.”
Rose shrugged. “He works hard.”
So much was buried in that statement. He’s never home. He’s pompous sometimes. We miss him. I miss him. He’s proud. I’m proud.
Hugo was quiet for a moment. Watching the children.
“Do you … think it could have been us?”
She pursed her lips. “What do you mean?” she said … though she knew.
“Do you think, if we had met earlier … that maybe…”
“Maybe.”
There was a beat, and Rose knew that they were both thinking of their kiss.
Hugo was the first to speak. “But we didn’t … meet.”
“No.”
“He’s very lucky. Josh.”
Rose didn’t say anything. She never believed anyone would be lucky to have her … even when Josh said it himself she never thought he meant it. Not really.
Suddenly Hugo stood, brushing the crumbs from his pants. “I have to go,” he said, and started walking toward the house.
Rose called after him, quietly enough so that only he would hear, “See you tonight.”
He turned back to her. He nodded to show he understood. “See you tonight.”
* * *
Zackie was an “asshole.”
Adam felt the rightness of this illicit word he had overheard from one of the fathers. The way the word fit over his brother.
Asshole. Asshole. Asshole.
Of course, he didn’t say it out loud. Adam was a good boy and he knew it was a bad word.
But if he kept it in his head, just said it to himself, no one would know. You could think about bad things, but as long as you didn’t do them or say them, you didn’t get in trouble.
Asshole. Asshole. Asshole.
Zackie called him a baby in front of his friends. Zackie told him he wasn’t allowed in the bouncy. Zackie took the cool compass that the man had given him and tried to keep it.
Asshole. Asshole. Asshole.
Dad had given it back to him. But not before Zackie had made Adam cry, in front of all the bigger boys.
Asshole.
Tomorrow Isaac would want to play Hugo again. He would want to talk while they fell asleep. He would pretend that none of this had happened, that he had been nice to Addy. That he loved Addy.
Asshole.
After everybody ate the cake (which didn’t taste as good as it had smelled), Adam had gone inside. He was tired of being ignored by the bigger boys. He wanted them all to go home. He wanted the bouncy to pop and for it to fall on all of Zackie’s friends and then they would cry and throw up on Zackie and then the party would be over.
’Cause when Zackie’s friends were gone, Zackie would go back to pretending that he liked Addy best of all, and Adam liked that more. Even if he knew Zackie was just pretending. He didn’t mind.
The house was almost empty. Everybody was in the back. All the grown-ups were standing around talking with their drinks.
Adam pulled out the bin and carried it to the small table Mom told them to use for their Legos. Mom had made them put away the map they had constructed of Hugo’s island. She had said they could put it together again when the party was over. When Isaac’s birthday was over.
Adam laid the flats on the table. Some of the structures had remained fixed in place when they had put it away. Small green plastic fronds jutted up around the cut-paper Lagoon they had pasted to the board. A few mounds of brown blocks, showing the hills around the island. Gray to show the Rock Cove. One of the boards was marked up with a forking of Magic Marker where the swamp met the beach.
Mom had been mad when she’d seen that, but it didn’t come off when she’d tried to scrub it.
In the bin were the labels he and Isaac had written with the names of the places and then cut carefully with their safety scissors. Adam piled these neatly on the edge of the table, next to the plastic spider rings he and Isaac collected at Halloween. Mom said their legs were too spindly to be like they really were, but it was the best they could do.
Outside, the big boys were racing around the yard. Yelling, happy.
Assholes. Adam tried out the plural form. It felt good.
He pulled the mess of tissue paper and toothpicks that was meant to be the Blanket Pavilion out of the bin. Isaac had made it, with Adam supervising. It had looked pretty good at first, but now it was kinda wadded up, crushed by the Legos in the box. Adam set this on the beach of flat pink and white pieces.
A vague pressure tugged under his belly and he felt a little bit of wetness spread on the fabric of his underpants. A warning drop, Mommy called it.
Adam ran to the bathroom. He did not want to wet his pants in front of the big boys.
* * *
Rose watched Hugo disappear into the darkness of the house. He was sad, she knew.
But why had he said it? Why hadn’t he just kept it inside the way she had?
She thought of his face when he’d asked her if it could have been them. How sad it had looked when he wondered what would have happened if they had met before.
Before Josh. Before Isaac and Adam and Penny. Before the facts that made up her life had been locked into place.
Oh, Hugo.
She had wondered it, too, of course. Was that why they dreamed of each other? Were they somehow supposed to end up together?
But only since the kiss.
The kiss had sparked the questions …
Until the kiss, she had just been excited by the reality of Hugo. Fascinated by the fact that someone else shared the mystery of their dream.
She hadn’t for a moment wondered about the maybe of it all.
Until the kiss.
But the answer was a resounding No.
It had to be.
How was she supposed to consider a life without her children? That they were the product of some cosmic mistake.
And Josh … oh goodness, Josh.
She loved him.
He was a good man. A smart man. A good father.
And he loved her well … better than she loved him.
From Josh sprang everything: her children, her life, her being.
But then why Hugo? Why this rising sticky lusty feeling?
Why had the universe conspired to send her dreams of the same person every night of her life and then present him to her now, when there was nothing to be done about it? When her life was already locked into place. Her husband chosen. Children born. Investment plans selected.
How inconvenient it all was. To meet the man from her dreams now.
It made Rose grumpy.
Hugo shouldn’t have said it aloud. He should have kept it in. His disappointment in seeing the fixedness of her life. He should have seen what she saw: the catastrophe inherent in the impulse.
Rose heard a distant cheer. The backyard had emptied while she’d been thinking, the straggling parents walking casually to the side yard.
Another excited whoop of children’s voices carried over the corner of the house. What was going on over there?
Rose stood and made her way across the yard.
Turning the corner, she could see that the children had clumped around a central point. Rose made her way through their parents, benevolent smilers at the group’s edge.
And then she heard it.
The distinct trill-ring of a bicycle bell.
In the center of the group stood Isaac, his head wrapped in the shiny maroon of a helmet, his feet on either side of the bicycle’s frame.
“Oh, my God, Dad! This is so cool!” He was looking up at Josh.
That bastard.
* * *
Adam washed his hands, even though he was pretty sure he hadn’t gotten any pee or poop on them. He used the paper towels Mom had put in the bathroom for the party, instead of using the good towels or his pants. He turned off the light and opened the door.
There was a man kneeling by his Legos. Playing with them.
Adam pulled back into the dark of the bathroom, suddenly shy.
Adam recognized him as the daddy/stranger who had been thinking about touching the cake. The one who had given him the compass. Adam could feel it there now, in his pocket.
The man was leaning over his little table, putting things on it.
Adam watched him pinch up the little pile of labels. The man smiled as he read them … then he placed them, one by one, on different parts of the table.
Something caught his eye in the bin. He turned away for a moment and Adam could see him pluck two tiny objects from the pile. The man paused, looking at whatever it was in his hand. Then suddenly he turned back to the map, lifting the crumpled wad of the Blanket Pavilion and placing the objects under it.
A cheering sound carried in from outside.
Assholes, thought Adam.
But the man turned toward the voices, like he was remembering something. He stood quickly. Adam was surprised when he didn’t go out back; instead the man thumped his way to the front door. Adam heard his footsteps get fainter and then the sound of the front door closing.
When he was gone Adam left the safe darkness of the bathroom, rushing to his Lego table.
The daddy/stranger had put everything in the right place.…
Well, almost. He’d put a few Spiders just outside of the Lagoon, when everybody knew they all belonged in the Chasm—unless they were hunting.
But the man had put all the labels right where they belonged. “Rock Cove.” “Swampland.” “Green Lagoon.”
Adam lifted the Blanket Pavilion.
Under it the man had set two mini-figures. A dashing man and blushing woman. He had set them on their sides under the tissue. Facing each other.
Adam set the Pavilion back on top of the figures, his mind turning.
* * *
Josh already had Isaac out on the street while their guests were leaving. Zackie was skidding along, feet pushing against the ground, waving good-bye to his friends with Josh at his side. Rose’s husband was helpful as ever, making sure everyone had their goodie bags, shaking the fathers’ hands, hugging the mothers, remembering everyone’s names.
Rose wanted to murder him.
She got them inside with the promise that they’d open presents as soon as they’d picked up. Isaac came swiftly, dumping the bike midway up the drive. She glared at Josh, hands on hips, as he made his way toward her. He picked up the bike to pull it into the garage, and before she could even say anything he said, “I know. I know … but, later. Okay?”
Screw him. And screw later.
But Rose waited. She wrote the names on a legal pad while Isaac opened presents. He’d be doing the thank-yous tonight. Josh held Adam on his lap while Isaac opened presents. Assured him he’d get his turn on his birthday.
There was a brief moment of tension when Isaac caught Rose pulling the large rectangular box she’d wrapped from the bottom of the pile.
“What are you doing with that?” he asked.
“I need to take this back,” Rose said with a quick glance at Josh.
“But—”
“No buts, honey. You got some really great presents.” She smiled at him, trying to soften the blow. Isaac pouted.
Josh moved to intercede (Come on, honey, just let him have it), but she cut him off with a look. Don’t say anything.
Rose put the wrapped Lego box in her closet, hoping she would be able to find the receipt without too much trouble. She hit the lights, trying to keep her temper about the whole thing in check.
How much had he spent on that bike, anyway? Certainly more than the hundred dollars she had spent on the Lego set … but only after she’d called all over town and searched the Internet to find the best price.
So, no, Isaac was not getting to keep the Legos, no matter that it was his birthday. No matter that he had already seen the present. No matter that he had heard the rattle of the blocks inside and already knew what was beneath the paper.
Because Isaac’s dad had gotten him a bike. A bike would have to be enough.
Rose stopped for a moment in their room. She sat on the edge of the bed.
She was a petty person.
Why was she punishing Isaac for something Josh had done?
But still, they couldn’t afford to spend so much.
How much was that bike, anyway?
Maybe she wouldn’t return the Legos. Maybe she would just tuck it into the attic. Save it for Christmas. Give it to Isaac then.
The monitor on her bedside lit up with a little cry. Penny was up from her nap. Rose went to get her and brought her back down to join the boys.
* * *
Why did Josh buy that bike? What drove him when he woke up the morning of Isaac’s birthday party to look up listings of local bike stores, despite the fact that he knew he would suffer the wrath of his wife?
He didn’t rightly know.
And when he slipped out of the house without telling her, gone to run his fingers over the soft leather of saddle seats, to smell the off gas of those still prickly new tires? What was he thinking?
He had seen Rose secure the wrapping paper to the expensive kit of Legos the night before. He had smiled at her and nodded when she had said, “He’ll like this, won’t he?”
But somehow when he looked at the box later, he could only imagine the disappointment in Zackie’s face. The “not-bike-ness” of the present.
It’s just that things in his life had been feeling so right. The pieces all perfectly aligned. Like a family portrait drawn by Adam, two big happy faces, three smaller happy faces.
And that wrapped present Rose had shown him …
It was not right.
He thought of how grown-up Isaac looked the night he brought home chicken for dinner. His voice was deeper than Josh remembered it being the week before. Not changing yet, but carrying more gravity than it had previously. He would be a teenager before Josh knew it.
A teenager should know how to ride a bike.
It was ridiculous that the boys didn’t already know. A product of an overcautious mother and a dad who worked too much.
This particular thought was tripping its way along his dendrites when he saw the bike he wanted for Isaac. The bike he could picture his son on.
It was gorgeous. Shiny red and chrome. The tread of its tires was a pattern of flames licking at their whitewalled centers. Its seat was two-tone leather, even more flames stitched here, probably by hand.
A proper boy’s bike.
Josh barely noticed the four-hundred-dollar sum that the clerk rang up. His mind was too full of thoughts of what Isaac would look like on his beautiful new bike. How grateful he would be.
Josh felt giddy with the knowledge of what was in his trunk all through the party. Knowing that no matter what, the look on Zackie’s face would be worth it.
And it was. Isaac loved it. Josh could tell this was a moment he would remember for the rest of his life.
And Rose?
Well, sometimes people needed a little push. He remembered in medical school some of his teachers had encouraged them to … well, if not to bully, then to lean on reluctant patients. They were the doctors, after all; they knew best.
She was going to let the boys have bikes sooner or later … so why not now, when Isaac so dearly wanted it? When he could get it in front of all of his friends and enjoy it on his birthday?
Josh was certain she would come around. There was nothing else for it.