Джонатан Троппер - This Is Where I Leave You

“No, I’m good,” Paul says, rubbing his knuckles. He reaches over and offers Phillip his hand. Phillip takes it and Paul yanks him to his feet, and then, to everyone’s surprise, pulls Phillip into a little hug and whispers something into his ear. Phillip nods and pats the back of Paul’s head. Then he turns to me. “You coming?”

“Unless Paul wants to hit me too.”

“What could I do to you that the universe hasn’t already done?” Paul says.

“Oh,” Phillip says, like he’s just remembered something. “Jen’s pregnant. It’s Judd’s.”

Everyone in the room turns to stare at me.

“I think I speak for everyone when I say, holy shit!” Wendy says.

“How could you not tell me that?” Mom says.

“Now I’m going to hit you,” I say to Phillip.

He shrugs. “Every man for himself.”

Then Alice stands up and very deliberately lets her coffee mug and saucer fall to the floor, where they shatter into pieces. She looks around at all of us as tears form in her eyes. “Unbelievable,” she says. And then, before anyone can say anything, can figure out what set her off, she turns and runs crying past us, up the stairs, and moments later we all jump as the door to my old bedroom slams shut and all the lights on the first floor go out.

I’ve never been in a Porsche before. Phillip’s rides low to the ground and I feel every seam in the road, every pebble, transmitted through the hard leather seat. The floor is strewn with plastic soda bottles and fast food wrappers, the ashtray spilling over with bent butts, and gas receipts.

“Nice car,” I say.

He shifts into third and guns it. “I know what you’re thinking,” he says.

“What’s that?”

“You’re thinking I’m a fuckup and Tracy’s rich, and I’m just with her because she pays my way and I get to drive cars like this.”

“Why are you with her?”

Phillip sighs and shakes his head. “I’ve been trying to grow up, Judd. I know I’ve kind of cemented my place as the family fuckup, but believe it or not, that’s not who I want to be. And having hit more than my share of brick walls, I figured maybe a better class of woman would be a good place to start.”

“So you’re not using her for her money. You’re using her for her class.”

“I’m not using her. Not any more than she’s using me. Isn’t that what love is? Two people who fulfill needs in each other?”

I shrug. “My wife spent the last year of our marriage sleeping with my boss. Don’t ask me about love.”

“Your pregnant wife.”

“My pregnant wife.”

Phillip grins. “Looks like I’ve got some competition in the family fuckup department.”

“It appears that way.”

“How are you dealing with that, by the way?”

“By trying really hard not to think about it.”

“That’s what I would do,” he says approvingly. “So, where can I drop you?”

“What do you mean? I thought we would get lunch or something.”

“There’s something I have to go do.”

“Something or someone?”

“Your faith in me is duly noted.”

I look out the window at a flock of geese flying by in a V formation, getting out while the getting’s good. “It’s not you, Phillip. It’s humanity in general.”

“Well, cry me a river.”

“Okay, drop me at Kelton’s.”

“The ice rink?”

“Yeah.”

He gives me a quizzical look. “Going skating, are you?”

“There’s something I want to see.”

Phillip gives me a wry look. “Something or someone?”

Then, without warning, he swerves across the double yellow line to pass the minivan in front of us, and for a second we are faced with oncoming traffic and our own mortality. A second later he yanks us back across and, without downshifting, turns left through the intersection on what feels like two wheels, the centrifugal force throwing me against the door. “Jesus Christ, Phillip!”

The Porsche’s tires gain traction and we rocket down the street to a chorus of angry horns from all the motorists he almost killed, and Phillip sighs. “Driving a Porsche is like fucking a model,” he says, and he would know. “It will never feel as good as it looks.”

PENNY SKATES BACKWARD in circles to Huey Lewis and the News, her legs whipping and scissoring beneath her as she speeds across the ice, executing a leap and then a spin. She is wearing black leggings and a worn gray hoodie, her hair tucked into a black ski cap. She moves with grace and confidence, her face flushed from the cold, and she doesn’t see me, shivering in my polo shirt on the lowest bleacher, falling briefly in love with her again . . . If this ain’t love, baby, just say so . . . Huey Lewis and the News are done, and the Dream Academy comes on singing “Life in a Northern Town.” Why are all skating rinks trapped in the eighties?

Penny picks up speed and then glides backward across the ice holding one leg up over her head with her hand. As she moves past, her eyes casually sweep up to the bleachers and she sees me. The surprise throws her balance off, and she goes down on her ass hard. I run through the opened door and out onto the ice, where she’s already back on her skates, dusting the ice flakes off her leggings.

“You okay?” I say.

“You scared me,” she says.

“I didn’t mean to.”

“You’re not allowed on the ice without skates.”

“Right. Sorry.” I step back through the door onto the rubber matting.

Penny skates over to the door and gives me a long, measured look. Then she reaches into one of the pockets of her sweatshirt and tosses me a key chain. “There are hockey skates in the rental shack. Go grab yourself a pair and come on out.”

“I wasn’t planning on skating.”

“And I wasn’t planning on falling on my ass in front of an old boyfriend. Things happen. Just roll with it.”

“I was never your boyfriend.”

Penny grins. “Fuck-buddy, then.”

“We never actually had sex.”

“And we never will if you keep parsing words with me.”

The hockey skates smell like something curled up and died in them. I’m laced up and on the ice in under five minutes.

I haven’t skated in years, stopped playing pickup hockey around the time I got married, but it comes back fast. While I was putting on my skates, Penny dimmed the main lights and turned on the disco effects, so we are skating to “Time After Time” through a dusky universe of spinning blue stars. It’s like we’ve been transplanted into a romantic comedy, and all that’s left to do is say something meaningful and kiss Penny at center ice while the music swells, and the happy ending is guaranteed. If you’re lost you can look and you will find me, time after time. Penny was always recklessly attracted to grand romantic gestures, to jumping into fountains fully clothed, to long, deep kisses in the rain. She dreamed of Richard Gere in his navy dress whites carrying her out of the factory, of telling Tom Cruise that he had her at hello. But we are hardly free and clear for a happy ending. After all this time, we are little more than strangers to each other, each of us pretending otherwise for our own sad reasons. I don’t even know if I’m here because she’s someone I once loved, or because I’m just lonely and desperate and more than a little sexually frustrated and our past gives me something of a head start. And there’s something off about Penny, something not quite there. I shouldn’t be here. I should be back at home, mourning my father and adjusting to the reality of becoming one myself, continuing to put all my energies into falling out of love with Jen.