Perri O'Shaughnessy - Unlucky in Law

Paul hadn’t wanted her to leave, but having Bob sleeping in his office wasn’t working, so he came around and helped them in the end, although now she understood his vigorous objections better. Here he was getting up the nerve to propose, and she was moving out.

While Paul had unloaded boxes, Nina cleared dust balls from corners and cupboards, Hitchcock stuck his doggy snout where it didn’t belong, and Bob cut open the small pile of boxes piled on the living room floor. She had tried to stay cheerful and tried to engage Bob in making some future plans about how they would be spending their time here, but the move had been an ordeal.

Coming up the rickety steps, Nina held her case in one hand, and in the other the bag of groceries, which she set on the porch while she found her key and opened the door.

“Bob!” she called out.

“Yo, Mom!” he replied from his bedroom.

Most of their furniture was still at Tahoe, which Nina had left nearly three months before. The couch here was secondhand, and there was no fireplace to cheer the damp coastal nights. Thick area rugs covered the worn hardwood in the living room. Pillows, two easy chairs, a television stand, and a low table made up the rest of the furniture. Cheap vinyl blinds the previous tenants had installed for privacy were the only window coverings.

She put the groceries away and put Bob’s meal into the microwave.

The bare bones of the cottage, an old white frame built over a hundred years ago, would be lovely if you could see them better, she decided, maneuvering herself onto the couch with her tray. She poured herself a glass of wine and popped a wasabi-and-soy-sauced piece of California roll into her mouth. The house was ideally located, up a slope and just a block from Lover’s Point, offering a glimpse of the deep blue Pacific from its front yard. Various utilitarian renovations had taken place over the years to keep the tenants happy.

Some things would have to change, and soon. Nina was not the kind of person who considered her car or her house an outer symbol of some inner person, but she had her standards. The artificial turf leading up to the carport would have to go.

But why worry about this old place? If she married Paul, they would have to find a larger home that would suit all three of them.

After a few sips, Nina got up again. She set two new white plates on the woven blue place mats she had bought and found silverware and napkins. She set a square candle in the middle of the table and lit it, put the food on, then poured Bob a glass filled with ice and soda, and herself a tall ice water to chase the rest of the wine in her glass. The microwave beeped. From the hallway she called to Bob through his open door. “Dinner!”

“Busy,” he said.

“Come and eat,” she said. She waited, but getting no further response, walked to the open door and looked inside.

His room consisted of a bed with a wool blanket borrowed from Paul. His closet, gaping open, held a gym bag spilling its contents on the floor and empty metal hangers on the rod above. No posters decorated the bedroom walls; no bonsai tree like the one he had nursed at Tahoe spruced up this barren windowsill. Bob sat at a bare wooden table with his feet up, wearing headphones and an entranced expression.

She walked over to him and removed the headphones. “I hereby command the pleasure of your company at dinner.” She didn’t make it a question, because that opened up a discussion, and all she wanted to do was to wolf down the rest of her sushi and turn on her precious half-hour news show, which made her forget her own concerns.

“I’m not hungry.”

“You ate?”

“Crackers and cheese.”

She hesitated, then said, “Come anyway.” She led, and eventually, grudgingly, he followed.

He sat down at the table across from her and in front of his steaming taquitos, arms crossed. The late evening sun spilled over the table and over his pinched face. His hair, a dark mop, was getting long.

“So, how was school?”

Eyes as dark as black coffee glowered. “If you really want to know, it sucks.”

“Please don’t use that kind of language,” she said, knowing this was a futile battle, that she should respond to substance not style, but exhausted by the prospect.

“Well, you asked.”

“I know it’s hard, going to a new school-”

“I want to go home.”

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She closed it.

“Back to Tahoe.”

The final sushi had stuck in her throat, so she cleared it. “High school is always tough. I cried every day for the first three weeks-”

He interrupted. He was not here to listen to her experiences; he was busy fighting through his own. “People here are different.”

“How?”

Sometimes lately this boy she knew so well, inside out, put on a face she didn’t recognize. Now came one of those moments. “I can’t explain, if you don’t know. Plus, I never know what we’re going to do. I mean, are we staying or going? If you get married, do we move back to that condo with Paul? Can I go live with Uncle Matt back in Tahoe, since I don’t like it here? Do I show some guys they can’t screw around with me, or let ’em do it because I’m leaving anyway and it doesn’t matter? Do I go out for cross-country or will I have to quit? Why bother to join a club, if we’re leaving?”

His forcefulness blew her down, typhoon-style. When Bob was a toddler and he cried, she would wrap him up in her arms, kiss his tears away, and make it all better. Unfortunately, that was no longer an option. He was now bigger than she was for starters, and he seemed to have developed an aversion to her touch. “We discussed all this. There will be some changes, but they aren’t decided yet, and you will be in on any further decisions, I promise.”

“You told me I have to go to school here, so I’m going. That doesn’t mean I like it.”

“I went to that high school. Carmel High has a good reputation-you have to give it a chance…”

“Don’t tell me you had a great time, because, Mom, I’m tellin’ you, I won’t believe it.”

He knew she had not. She had rebelled against her parents, given them gray hair, run around, done all kinds of things she shouldn’t have done. “Here’s the thing I’ve learned. High school culture is its own world, and you should know the world’s bigger than that. You don’t have to hook up with that scene. You’ve been to Europe. I mean, you don’t have to wear a letterman’s jacket to be accepted!”

He sighed, a world-weary sigh befitting a traveler who was stuck in a culture where many people did view a letterman’s jacket as the epitome of achievement.

She got up and began to make herself a supplemental chicken sandwich with chicken from a can, contrarily wishing Bob did want a letterman’s jacket. He had once loved sports. “Honey,” she said finally, “I can’t stand having you unhappy. What can I do?” It was the question she had to ask, whether she wanted to hear the answer or not.

He had an answer ready. As an interim measure, until a final decision was made on where they would live, he wanted to go back to Tahoe and get his belongings. He needed his skateboard, his bike, all his things. “I can’t live out of just one bag.” He had only the things with him that he had taken on a summer trip to Sweden.

“We’ll buy you some clothes if you need them.”

“I need my stuff!”

She recognized from when he was little the stubborn yet brittle look that held tears inside. Times like these, she hated being a mother. “After the trial is over.”

“Now!”

“Soon. I can’t go while I’m in trial, Bob. You know that.” She petted Hitchcock, who was the only one who didn’t give a damn where they were, who only cared that he was with them and that his food bowl had been filled.