Элисон Скотч - The Theory of Opposites

“Tell them what?” Raina says, already done with her mini-crisis. She reaches into her purse and pulls out a prescription bottle, unscrews the cap and pops a pill down the hatch. Then she empties another out into her palm and slides it my way.

“Self-medicating?” Oliver asks.

“No,” Raina utters. “It’s good for our digestion.”

“I make no judgments.” The waitress delivers him a hot drink that smells distinctly like a perfect blend of grass and urine. Oliver takes a long sip that appears to stir some sort of nirvana within. “Oh man, Will, have you tried this? It’s exactly the cure for your skin right now.”

I consider protesting the insult but that’s just the family way, so instead I merely shake my head no . Also, it really does smell like the inside of a restroom in Central Park.

“Don’t deflect, Oliver. What sort of trouble are you in?” Raina persists. “Everyone else may buy this ridiculous Kama Sutra thing, but don’t think you’ve fooled me.”

“I’d be offended if I couldn’t just breathe through that. I try to leave each person I connect with just a little better, a little happier, Raina. Can you say the same? Does the light inside of you shine like it shines inside of me?”

“Oh Oliver, cut the crap.”

“Fine.” His head droops. “Yogi Master Dari asked me to invest in the retreat, then find some other investors, who then had to find other investors…” He flickers his hand in a little spiral, as if to indicate…and so on. Or maybe it’s to indicate that he’s crazy. I’m not totally sure.

“A pyramid scheme!” Raina cries. “You’re involved in a pyramid scheme!”

“Holy shit,” I exclaim, and then reach for the urine drink because I need a drink and my mint lemonade was never delivered.

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“Of course not,” Raina tuts. “In this family, it never is.”

As we’re leaving Pain, just as I am sliding into my Xanax haze, we run smack into Alan Alverson. He introduces himself to Raina and Oliver as Alain. Naturally, I therefore call him Alan.

“I wish we were on better terms, Willa,” he says. Then to Raina and Ollie: “I practically worship your dad. Willa knows. I would just love to be on better terms, to learn more about the man behind the miracle.”

“He’s not Jesus, you know,” I say.

“I wouldn’t call it a miracle,” Raina adds.

“You guys,” Ollie weighs in. “Don’t be bitches. Dad’s great.”

Undeterred, Alan presses on. “Like, I know that it sucks that you got fired and everything, but it’s like your dad says — if you hadn’t been texting in the meeting and Hannah didn’t have a coke problem, and Dependables didn’t have totally unreasonable client expectations, and if it hadn’t all imploded at the right time, I wouldn’t have gotten the promotion. It’s all part of the Master Plan Way! I mean…it’s brilliant!”

“That’s very noble of you, Alan.”

“Not noble,” he says. “Just the facts.”

“Hmmm,” Raina says.

“Cool dude, I get it,” Oliver says. “ I roll the same way.”

He slaps Alan on the back, like they’re comrades, like the little bastard didn’t slide right into my job.

“Well, good seeing you, Alan.” I step onto the sidewalk, my brain a little foggy, my limbs a little loose.

“Hey, did you hear? Hannah’s in rehab.”

“Really?” I turn around.

“Yeah, Meadow Air up in Connecticut. Evidently, she was way worse than anyone realized.”

“Who’s Hannah?” Oliver asks.

“My old boss,” I say.

“Meadow Air is a good one,” he replies, which seems totally normal coming from him.

“Anyway, you should write her. Or something.” Alan makes a face like he doesn’t care all that much.

“Have you?”

“Me? No. But we weren’t friends. But you should. Everyone makes mistakes, you know.”

“I thought no one made mistakes. Isn’t that what my dad says?” I remember that sext of her boobs that she sent me, of the false EPT test, of Shawn leaving.

Alan scrunches up his forehead and stares at the sky, contemplating. Then his gaze makes its way back to us, and he shrugs.

“Hell if I know. I just like your dad’s book.”

“What is one thing you hate more than anything else in the world?” Vanessa asks.

It’s Friday again, and we are power walking as if nothing has changed, even though everything has. That Shawn hasn’t disappeared into the ether, that he and I haven’t given up trying for kids, that my parents aren’t having some sort of late-in-life sexual crisis, that my brother might not be indicted as the next (not-so-masterful) white-collar mastermind, and that adult diapers didn’t ruin my life.

Nicky made it safely to Palo Alto two days ago, and now I’ve been left to face the utter aloneness of my situation. I wake up to silence; I make my coffee in silence; I check Facebook in silence.

Accept.

Ignore.

Deny.

I still haven’t written Theodore back, though I’ve googled “testicular cancer” enough to apply for a grant at the AMA.

I offered Oliver our spare bedroom but he grinned — evidently not too, too concerned about the FBI investigation into the funding of the Kalumdrali Retreat — and said the Tribeca Grand was comping him. All friends of Jennifer get comped, he said. So I took a stab in the dark and said, “Lopez?” and he said, “Aniston,” and Raina said, “Of course.”

Nicky emailed yesterday that Palo Alto was “kind of cool,” but that there were a lot of people who thought they were really granola who drove Priuses but who also wore Rolexes and fancy yoga clothes all day, and “he found that kind of fucked up.” I naturally responded and corrected his language, but he just replied and said, “Aunt Willa, this zipline in Uncle Shawn’s office is fucking awesome!” And attached a picture of himself hanging ten while soaring over Wired2Go’s open floor plan.

I didn’t write back and rebuke him because I’m not the kid’s mother, after all.

“Hello, are you listening to me?” Vanessa asks, as we stop at the crosswalk on Central Park West. It’s a grim late June day in the city. All low clouds and gray lines, the humidity swaddling the hurried New Yorkers as they scatter every which way. But I didn’t have anywhere to hurry to, no one to hurry with.

A red-faced toddler marches up next to me and punches my calf.

“Ow!”

I look down and see him, unrepentant. He narrows his eyes, like I’ve done something in his short, miniature life to offend him.

“Sorry,” his mom half-heartedly apologizes. “You know how it is.”

The light turns, and just before we step forward, the boy slugs me again.

“Jasper!” the mom reluctantly reprimands him as Vanessa and I leave them behind.

I glance back, just before we enter the park and see little Jasper screaming on the corner, his mother pulling him in for a hug. Motherhood is complicated , I decide. You can tell a kid not to use “fuck” all you want, but that doesn’t mean it will change anything, that he’ll actually listen.

“Seriously, Will, hello! Have you heard anything I’ve said? This is important.” Vanessa is now a half-step ahead of me, her ponytail swooshing through the air to match her stride.

“What? No. I’m sorry.”

She stops suddenly, and I lean over and massage my calf.

“Willa, I’m serious: are you committed?”

I want to say: Committed? To what? Meadow Air? Can they find a spot for me? A nice bed to lie down on and sleep for a hundred years?

“To the book?” I ask instead.

“Yes, to the book. To embracing the ‘theory of opposites.’ To running counter to your dad’s ideas. To daring yourself to run counter to them in the first place.”