13

As soon as they’ve left, I run upstairs and change into a T-shirt that doesn’t have ketchup smeared down the front. I put on lip gloss and roll my eyes at myself in the mirror. I drive the half mile to the Hogans’ house and park on the street. His station wagon is in the driveway, and I realize that I haven’t thought this through. I’m not sure that Ethan and I have a dropping-by kind of relationship. He could be in the shower, he could be hosting a barbecue.

I text him: Hey it’s Ali. I had a quick question and I was wondering if I could stop by for a sec

Ethan: Since you’re parked right in front of my house it’s sort of hard to say no

I could not be less cool. I text back: Haha coming in

He’s opened the front door before I’ve made it all the way down the walk, and he’s smiling in that self-satisfied way you smile when you’ve caught someone doing something dumb. Also in that smile: pure delight.

He’s in the same red swim trunks and white T-shirt as earlier, and it’s unfair how good he looks. He steps aside, and I walk into the foyer, taking off my shoes.

“So what’s this? Spontaneous second date?” he says with a half smile.

“No,” I say.

“No?”

“Well yes. But not today.”

He crosses his arms over his chest. His forearms are tan and muscled, with that gold dusting of blond hair. So much about Ethan is gold. “If you came over here to break up with me, this is going to be the worst almost-relationship of my life.”

“No,” I say. “I mean I know you’re joking. Yes to a date another time, no to breaking up with you. Not that we’re dating.” I wish someone would shove a sandwich in my mouth to shut me up. I walked in flustered because of Pete, and now I’m standing in the awkwardness of how much I’d like to reach out and touch him. He doesn’t seem to feel awkward at all. He seems kind of amused, like he knows he has the upper hand.

“Come in,” he says. “You look like you’re about to flee, and that’s the last thing I want.” He leads me into the grand living room with its caramel-colored velvet sofas. The curtains are ivory silk with thin gold stripes to match the oriental rug.

“The place looks great,” I say. “Looks like you’re ready to sell.”

He crosses the room and starts opening cupboards in the oak-paneled walls. There are boxes and crates and baskets full of dried flowers. One of the cupboards contains nothing but Mr. Hogan’s high school football memorabilia. When he’s opened six cupboards, he says, “So this is what I’m dealing with. And when I say it’s the tip of the iceberg, you should believe me.”

“It’s doable. Is there a lot they want to keep?”

“They don’t want anything—they’re all about this clean-slate, Swedish-death-cleaning thing.”

“It’s a very nice thing,” I say. I think about the excruciating process of cleaning out my mother’s apartment. I dread cleaning out my dad and Libby’s house and sort of hope that’s going to be Libby’s kids’ problem one day. I think of Phyllis’s daughters sorting through all those books. I think about my own kids trying to wade through the too-small-cleat museum I’ve been curating.

“Yeah, I thought I could toss it all, but I’ve been through a few boxes and in every one of them there’s something important. Like a thousand magician’s scarves and the original deed to the house. Or a box of People magazines with my grandparents’ baby photos at the bottom. So I need to go through it all. I just got totally overwhelmed.” He looks at the open cupboards and I recognize the panic on his face. “Can we go outside?” We walk through the kitchen and he grabs two beers from the fridge. “Nuts?”

“A little,” I say.

He smiles and pours almonds from a jar into a bowl. It’s nice, this small gesture.

We walk out onto the covered area of the patio and sit in two armchairs that are facing one another. There’s a matching couch against the wall of ivy, and part of me wants to lie down there and have this whole conversation like I’m at a therapist’s office. “It’s so weird that you own this house now. Scooter Hogan, lord of the manor.”

He winces. “People, for almost two decades, have called me Ethan. I beg you.”

I spot Brenda lying on the grass taking in the last of the evening light. “How’s she doing?” I ask.

“She’s good. Now come on. Why are you here? You seem a little rattled.” He’s leaning forward with those golden forearms on his muscled thighs, holding his beer with both hands, his long fingers toying with the label.

I try to pull myself back on course. “It’s about my divorce.” Just saying the word out loud feels like I’ve thrown cold water over myself.

“Okay. And I’m sorry. I don’t think I said that before.” He looks up from his beer. “Well, I don’t even know him. Are you sorry?”

It’s a bigger question than I thought he was going to ask me. I absolutely could not stand Pete tonight. But I loved our family unit and the comfort of another adult walking into the house at the end of the day, even if for a long time that adult was my mom. I liked waking up in the morning to the sound of another person breathing. But in the past year, there hasn’t been anything about Pete in particular that I’ve missed. I’ve just missed him as a placeholder. So, “No.”

“Okay, then I’m not sorry either.”

“We’re going to mediation on Friday. It’s all been pretty easy. We’ve been separated for a year, just living apart and paying bills out of the same accounts we always used. We used to put some money into savings each year, but now with Pete’s apartment we’re just getting by.”

“Makes sense.”

“Yeah.” I fold my legs under me like I’m at a slumber party and I just got to the spooky part of the story. “But tonight he came by and told me he’s just rented a bigger place. And he wasn’t really making eye contact. We never talked about it, and I’m sure it costs a lot more, and he said we could ‘rejigger some expenses,’ which I assume are the kids’ and mine.” I put my beer down on the table next to me. “Scooter, I’m an accountant. Or I was. I wore a suit and had an assistant. I was good at it. And I’ve completely handed the reins over to him. I don’t even know the name of the mediator. He was going to pick me up and drive me.” And with that, there’s a hitch in my voice and it’s very likely that I am going to cry. I sit back in my chair and watch Brenda breathe.

“You need a lawyer.”

“The problem is we go Friday. I don’t really have time to hire a lawyer.” It’s a statement that’s also a question and a cry for help.

He doesn’t say anything. He just nods and goes into the house. He returns with tissues and a yellow legal pad. This has the effect of a doctor walking into the examination room in a white coat; suddenly he’s legit.

He takes a sip of his beer. “This isn’t that complicated, and I can google what I need to know between now and then. I can tell you right now that Pete’s trying to get his personal expenses up so that when it comes to alimony he gets a bigger piece of the pie. I know that from watching TV, not from law school.”

Of course that’s what he’s doing. “Tonight I felt like I was seeing it all for the first time. Like I just walked into the room and was like, wait, is this my life? How—and when—did I give up control of every single thing to this man?”

“You trusted him, you were a family. Listen, I’ll go with you on Friday. I’ll bring all my TV knowledge and back you up. He’ll need to sign something saying it’s okay for you to bring a lawyer.”

“And what’s he going to say about your fee? He’s not going to okay that. The first thing we agreed to was that we can’t afford to pay lawyers.”

“We’re going to barter services.”

And suddenly I’m in a porno. My face goes hot, and I am sure that Ethan with his gorgeous legs and shouldery shoulders is suggesting we swap sex for legal services. I’m twenty percent flattered, twenty percent intrigued, and sixty percent horrified that my life has come to this.

“You’ve got to help me clear out this house.” Oh. “I can’t sell it with all this stuff in it, and I can’t go through it all alone. It paralyzes me. And it could be fun. Extra time I can see you between all of those dates we’re going to go on.” This catches me off guard, and I smile.

“It does not paralyze me,” I say. “I can totally help you.” The thought of cleaning out this house makes me feel newly confident, because this is something I know how to do. Which is not something I can confidently say about sex.

“Okay, deal,” he says, and reaches out to shake my hand, his eyes smiling in a way that makes me think he saw me blush. His hand is cool from the beer bottle and he holds on for a second too long. “I’m going to start googling New York state divorce law, and you tell Pete you’re bringing an ambulance chaser for moral support. You have my permission to tell him my name’s Scooter. In this one instance, I think my alter ego’s going to help.”

I don’t know why he seems excited about this, though showing up with a skateboarder to mediation might be fun. I look at my hands and feel overwhelmed by how much there is to do.

“I think I know what you need.”

And just like that, I’m back in the porno. “What?”

“Skateboarding.” Wrong again. “When I’m wound up or anxious, I head to the skate park. I’ll show you.”