David wasn’t that bombed, but he was having trouble getting his key to fit in his front door. It seemed too big, and then too small.
Then the door opened and his father stood staring at him, in his pajamas, and he was both too big and too small, too. David wondered if he might be Alice and if this was the looking glass. But when he looked down, he wasn’t wearing white shoes and a blue dress with a big white bow around the middle. He was grateful for that, at least.
“Come and sit with me in the living room.” His father turned and padded down the quiet corridor and David followed. The house was terribly quiet and smelled of roast chicken, as usual.
“Everything work out okay with Jonathan? I ask because I’ve got a session with his mom tomorrow, right before we stuff the turkey, and I need all the help I can get.”
“Yes?”
David shifted and pulled a thick copy of the American Psychoanalytic Institute’s monthly newsletter out from under his butt.
“Are you sure that telling so many secrets is such a good idea? ’Cause I’m kind of thinking it causes a lot of trouble when you do that.”
“Oh no, I’m absolutely sure it’s the right thing. I’ve been in this game a long time and the thing I know is that when a marriage is breaking up or a man is cheating on a woman, everyone ought to know all about all the details, so they can set to work hashing it out.”
“I don’t know,” David said. “I’m thinking those situations are delicate, you know?”
Then of course Sam Grobart launched into a long, complex set of reasons that clarified why David was wrong, but David tuned him out. He glanced around the book-strewn room and wondered why his dad was always wandering around in the middle of the night when his mom was asleep. Then his phone rang once, and stopped. David glanced at the screen. Amanda.
Meanwhile, his dad continued to ramble on about secrets and how people should give them up faster than a dollar to a beggar on the subway. And David thought, I definitely need to call Amanda. Right now.
“I need to make a call.” David went down to the street to call from there, because he was realizing that if his dad didn’t believe in secrets, then nothing in his house could be truly private. So he took the elevator down to the lobby and stepped outside.
There, in the back of a black car, was Amanda. He walked over as the window went down, and looked in at her. She was alone.
“I’m just coming back from Ginger’s.” Amanda’s voice was low and calm. “My parent’s are already in Sagaponack. I was going to stay home alone tonight.”
The door to the black car opened. David looked back at his building, which seemed far less warm and inviting than this car.
“But we’re not going to get engaged. I don’t think that makes any sense,” David said, once he’d settled himself in the seat next to her.
“You’re right. It’s just taken me a long time to deal with the fact that someone as cool as you could like someone like me.”
“Are you serious?” David asked, realizing this was exactly the sort of reason his father would use to explain why Amanda had often been so awful to him.
“I know,” Amanda said, quietly. “It’s crazy isn’t it? But it’s true.”
And they drove the few blocks to her house in complete make-out mode, with no regard for the driver, which was okay, because he was talking loudly on the phone to a cousin in eastern Pennsylvania about how to make the cranberry sauce for that night’s Thanksgiving dinner.
David and Amanda went into her house, and then into her bedroom, where David had had such a terrible moment only a few days earlier. They ended up on her bed.
“It’s so good to be together again.” David felt the tiny cuteness of Amanda and realized what he’d said was true. And Amanda, who had been so mean to David so many times, just squeezed him around the neck like she really didn’t want to lose him again. And that felt really good, to both of them.