CHAPTER 3

HIS EX-WIFE’S HOUSE was only a forty-minute drive if traffic was good, but it was so far out of his world Alex sometimes felt like he needed a space suit.

It wasn’t the house itself, which was typical suburban: two stories of aluminum siding and painted shutters on a broad green corner bounded by neat sidewalks. Not one of the McMansions with four garages and a swimming pool and enough space for an extended Korean family. And it wasn’t the suburbs that bothered him. He’d grown up in them-in Michigan, not here, but the thing about suburbs was that they were the same everywhere-and so the strip malls and wide-laned roads and chain restaurants were familiar in a nostalgic sort of way.

It was something else. The mothers pushing strollers and chatting. The kids racing on bicycles, legs pumping as they leaned on the handlebars. The quiet, tree-shaded streets. Everything seemed settled here. Proper. The predictable result of a series of calculated decisions.

He thought of Jenn the night before, standing in his kitchen, pale and naked and unself-conscious. Holding her beer bottle by the neck and saying that all she’d wanted was to get swept up in an adventure. Beautiful, with her bright skin and small nipples and the faint marks of his fingers bruising her slender biceps. The kind of woman men could obsess over. And he cared about her, he really did. But as he’d looked at her, nothing in him had stirred the same way it did looking at the broad porch and well-kept lawn of his ex-wife’s house.

Whatever. It was a shiny blue morning, he wasn’t working until six, and he had a date with his favorite ten-year-old. He unfolded himself from his car-the Taurus was solid and cheap, but a little small for six-two-and went up the walk whistling.

The whistle died when Trish met him at the door. She wore jeans and a fitted T-shirt. Her hair was in a ponytail and her face was closed. “You’re late.”

“Traffic.”

She nodded, stepped inside. Turned and yelled over her shoulder. “Cassie!” She looked back at him. “You want some coffee?”

He shook his head and thought he saw relief in her eyes. Alex put his hands in his pockets, ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth. Glanced at the foyer, the floor spotless, mirrors on the wall, a small end table with keys and a stack of mail. He rocked from one foot to the other.

“Listen, Alex-”

“I know,” he said. “I’m late with my check. We had a screw-up at the bar, everybody’s pay was held. It should be hitting the bank today. I’ll put it in the mail tomorrow.”

“And what about last month?”

“I told you. The IRS, they-”

“You always have an excuse.”

“It’s not an excuse,” he said quietly, “if it’s true.”

“Last month wasn’t the first time. More like the tenth.”

“Trish, what do you want from me? I’m working double shifts. I live in a dump. I’m not spending money on hookers and blow. If the lawyer your father paid for hadn’t gotten the child support set so ridiculously high, maybe I could make some progress.”

His ex shook her head. “We were very generous.”

“You’re generous about letting me see her. But I owe you half my paycheck. How am I supposed to live?”

“She’s your daughter. This is a way of showing that you’ll always be there for her.”

“Hey.” His voice rough. “I will always be there for her.”

She looked downward as she spun her new wedding ring. “I know you love her. I do. And she loves you. But it can’t go on like this.” She sighed. “Listen. There’s something-”

Behind him, Cassie rumbled down the steps like an avalanche. “Hi, Daddy!” She came straight into his arms with a hug. He scooped her up and squeezed her tight. Over her shoulder, Trish opened her mouth, closed it, then looked away. Alex was content to let her. Whatever she had been about to say, it hadn’t sounded good.

Cassie was all happy chatter as they drove out of the neighborhood: the Rollerblades his ex-wife’s husband had bought her, a reality show on MTV, how her soccer team was going to the play-offs, and could he make the game?

“I’ll try, sweetie.” He stopped at a red light. “Where do you want to eat?”

They settled on TGI Friday’s, the corner booth. A perky teenager seated them, plunked down plastic tumblers of water. Eighties pop drifted through deep-fried air. While Cassie studied her menu, he studied her, amazed, as always, at her sheer physicality: her tan forearms and bright eyes and the way she twisted a curl of hair as she concentrated. She wore a tank top with lacy straps, and her ears were pierced. That was new, and he didn’t love it.

They ordered, an elaborate salad for her, hold the cheese, dressing on the side, and a cheeseburger for him, rare. “Want a milk shake?”

She shook her head. “I’m on a diet.”

“A diet?”

“Yup.” She seemed proud of it, and he didn’t push, didn’t tell her that she was perfect just the way she was, bright and beautiful and softly rounded with the remnants of baby fat. He just ordered a chocolate malt of his own, and two straws.

The server left, and they looked at each other. “So.”

“So,” she said and smiled.

“How’s tricks, Trix? Tell me everything.”

She giggled and started in, and he leaned back, content to listen. Sometimes she was solemn and asked him questions about his life that seemed like they’d been prompted by a discussion he hadn’t been privy to. But today she was her normal self, bubbly and concerned only with the everyday things that made up a ten-year-old life. Their food came, and he pushed the milk shake forward just enough that she could reach it.

“We’re going to Hilton Head next month.”

“Yeah?”

“Scott is taking us.” She always made a point of referring to Trish’s new husband by his first name, at least around him. Maybe at home she called him Daddy too, but never in front of Alex. “We have a hotel right on the beach. With a pool, too. And there’s dancing at night, Mom says.”

“Sounds like fun.” His burger was bitter and burned.

“Maybe you could come too.”

“I wish I could.”

“I bet Mom and Scott wouldn’t mind.”

He was positive that wasn’t true, and even more positive he couldn’t afford the hotel. “I’ve got to work, kiddo. It’s not summer for me.”

She wrinkled her nose. “It’s never summer for you.”

“Too true.” He put a hand over his heart. “Oh, to be ten again.”

“Grown-ups always say that.”

“We do?”

She nodded. “I think you forget how much it sucks to be a kid.”

“Sometimes it sucks to be an adult, too.” Thinking of Trish looking down, that hesitation, like she was about to say something he really didn’t want to hear.

“You don’t have homework.”

“We don’t have summer vacation, either.”

“But you can drive. And live in the city. You can do anything you want.”

“Not anything.”

“Most anything. I can’t wait to grow up.”

He felt the wince but didn’t show it. “Don’t be in too much of a hurry.”

She stabbed a tomato with her fork, eyed it dubiously, then took a small bite. “So, I was thinking,” she said, chewing. “I got all A’s and B’s last year.”

“Uh-oh.”

“And you always say I’m very mature for my age.”

“Who said that? I said that? I don’t remember saying that.”

“Yes, you did. You say it all the time.” She set her fork down and pulled his milk shake toward her. “So I was thinking that I should be able to have a cell phone.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Actually, an iPhone.”

“Specific.”

“They’re the best. You can play music on them and instant message and I could call you whenever I want.”

“You can call me whenever you want now.”

“Yeah, but if I had one, I could call you when I’m not home.” She drained an inch of the chocolate malt, then looked at him expectantly. “All my friends have them.”

“I don’t know, kiddo.”