Rafael Yglesias - Only Children

“Something wrong at home?”

“I have to go,” Diane said, but not moving.

“Half an hour?”

“It’s never half an hour.”

“Maybe they want to tell us we’re making partner.”

“They wouldn’t do it like that.”

“Harold said he’d take us to the Century Club.”

“I’ve been there,” Diane answered.

“Me too,” Didi said in a little girl’s whine, and stuck out her tongue.

Diane laughed. She let her shoulders sag and laughed. Didi’s eyes twinkled. Diane envied her freedom. Didi hadn’t steered into the wife and mommy expressway, with only a narrow breakdown lane for divorce, its next exit middle age.

“Have Peter take care of the kid,” Didi said. “He can order a pizza for dinner.”

Again, Diane laughed at this picture. Didi tilted her head, curious, the way she looked when listening to an important but self-deluded client. “Peter’s not home,” Diane answered.

Brian Stoppard looked in. “Ladies?”

“Diane has to go home,” Didi answered.

“Just for half an hour,” Stoppard said. “My car will take you home. Won’t be much longer than if you fought that.” He nodded toward the traffic below. “Take you half an hour to find a cab or get there in the subway.”

His argument was specious, but he had appealed, like a good lawyer should, to Diane’s self-interest. She went, and quickly downed two drinks, talking too fast, squeezing in everything, conscious that, once she left, Didi would have Harold and Brian to herself, and besides, she noticed how they both looked at Didi, especially Harold, that old fart, his watery eyes lingering on the swell of Didi’s blue blazer, dazzled by the small diamond earrings uncovered by Didi’s boyish haircut. She’s much prettier than I am, Diane thought, seeing Didi through her whitened liquored vision: young, self-assured, a movie actress playing a lawyer, some kind of capitalist wet dream, a killer associate with tits. Didi had highlighted, or dyed, or hennaed, or something’d, her hair. It was redder, fresher. Sure, Didi had time for hairdressers and Saks and winter vacations, and late sessions at the office.

“I gotta go,” Diane said. The sentence came out as a single slurred word. I’m high, she thought.

“I’ll walk you to the car,” Stoppard said, and by God, he took her arm, as if she might not be able to walk.

Stoppard held her elbow as they walked down the gloomy Century Club staircase to its gloomier lobby. The old black men who took the coats, stood guard at the front desk, and opened the door seemed funereal, only recently freed by the Civil War, still mourning President Lincoln’s loss. The thought made her giddy. She turned to Stoppard. “Are Didi and I gonna make partner?”

He smiled. “You’re drunk,” he said cheerfully.

“Be responsive. I don’t care anymore. I’d just like to get over the suspense. I hate suspense.”

Stoppard just smiled, that fucking poker smile, slight, ironic, tasting some future delight, contemplating some past triumph. He went to get her coat. Diane tried to make eye contact with one of the black retainers. Her glance made him uncomfortable.

“Good evening, ma’am,” he said at last, somewhat desperately.

Stoppard helped her on with her Burberry. She was so tired of it and the rest of her lawyer uniform. She missed the frayed oversized army coat she had worn in college. Inside, the army had felt like a comfortable blanket, but she looked tough in the mirror. “No answer, huh?” she said when Stoppard took her outside to his limousine.

Stoppard paused this time, his face dark and aged, his eyes glowing black in the amber haze of the street lights. “Are you seeing a therapist?”

“No!” She was insulted that he would think she might. Therapists were for people like Peter, for all those spoiled princesses. Therapists were there to console people after their defeats.

“I think you should.”

“Huh?” I must have heard him wrong. Stoppard recommending a therapist? Would he make someone a partner who had cracked as an associate?

“Before you had your baby, you would never have blundered and asked me a question like that. And then I give you a chance to think it over, and you repeat the mistake. You never would have shown that you had any doubt you’d make partner in the old days. That’s the kind of insecurity I expect from Didi. If you doubt it, maybe I’ll start to doubt it. I don’t know if it’s motherhood or your marriage or what, but something’s got you off-balance.”

She felt her stomach contract on the day’s emptiness. Taking Byron to the test had been her lunch, the cocktails her only sustenance. Her mouth went dry. She tried to replay Stoppard’s speech even as he was finishing; she tried to calculate whether he was advising, admonishing, or dismissing. Was he friend or foe now? “I think you’re overreacting,” she said quickly, knowing, from somewhere, that that response was the perfect camouflage for confusion.

Stoppard surprised her. He lifted his chin and laughed up at the buildings. When he was finished with this exhibition of hilarity, Stoppard looked at her with pity. “Go home, dear. Think about what I said.”

She was baffled and found herself inside the car, without remembering getting inside. She sat stupefied, her brain stuck on the last exchange. Why did he laugh? “I think you’re overreacting.” What’s funny about that?

DADDY HOME. Daddy home. Daddy home.

Luke was free of gravity again. He twirled in the air, the long wait over.

“Look, Luke, I brought you something.” Daddy pulled out a shiny package, a toy in a bubble, with bright-colored letters all around.

It was He-Man!

“Do you know what this is?” Daddy said. “Byron’s mommy told me about it.”

“Is that one of those action figures?” Mommy said.

“Yes, it’s He-Man!” Luke said. She didn’t know, couldn’t know. “That’s He-Man!” Luke said loud, very loud, so she would know.

“He’s pretty special, huh?” Mommy said.

“It has a story with it,” Daddy said, holding a bright square of still cartoons in his hand.

“Read it to me,” Luke said, worried it was too soon. Daddy still had his coat on.

“Sure. Let’s see, ‘He-Man meets Ram Man.’ ”

“Why don’t you take your coat off first?” Mommy said.

Daddy looked at Mommy.

“Hello,” Mommy said to Daddy, as if they’d just met.

Luke laughed. Mommy knows Daddy.

“Hi. How was your day?” Daddy said to Mommy.

“A little tiring,” Mommy said.

Mommy didn’t tiring. She didn’t sleep. “Sorry,” Daddy said.

He began to bump and shake. He-Man danced in Luke’s hands. He-Man’s body moved! Just like Byron’s He-Man. It was the same!

“Look.” Luke showed them. The arms punched. The legs walked. The stomach twisted. He-Man was the same as Byron’s, but brighter, his colors everywhere, not missing like Byron’s.

“I think you’d better hang it up,” Mommy said.

Luke clutched He-Man. He wanted to keep it. “It’s okay here,” Daddy said, and pushed his coat away. How did he get it off?

Daddy read about He-Man. He could smash walls. He made friends with Ram Man, who had a metal head and legs that jumped. And there was an evil, which means bad, man made of bones. When Daddy finished, he said, “He-Man has his own TV show. Did you know that?”

“Yes,” Luke said. But what is a show?

“It’s on in the morning. We can watch it together.” Daddy looked at Mommy. She nodded at him. “Did Mommy tell you about Pearl coming tomorrow to play with you?”

“No.” Why here? Why not in the park?

“Pearl’s gonna come here and play and help Mommy.”

“Help Mommy?”