Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney - The Nest

Once Leo decided to put a proposal together, take himself and Paul seriously, and approach Nathan with a multifaceted well-thought-out plan for bolstering and expanding, he started having fun. His mood lifted. He was sleeping better than he had in years, waking up before Stephanie and going for a run in Prospect Park, no matter how cold. He spent his days reading, researching, thinking, and working so hard at times he lost track of time. He’d forgotten how good it felt to be interested, absorbed, stimulated. He made dinner some nights: huevos rancheros, beef stew, French onion soup. “You’re making me fat!” Stephanie complained one night. “Don’t let me have seconds.”

If he could get something going, Leo started to think that maybe he could borrow money to pay his family back and leave his investments intact, maybe even borrow from Nathan. Rebuilding wasn’t unthinkable. He’d done it all before. And if his efforts stopped being interesting? If he stopped having fun? He still had money in the bank. He still had options. Doing some research, putting together his ideas, meeting with Nathan — it would all be, to use one of Nathan’s favorite expressions, “win fucking win.”

Downstairs, the doorbell rang. Leo walked to the front bedroom and looked out the window. Bea was standing on the front stoop, shivering and clutching something in her arms. He went down and opened the door.

“IT’S MY STUFF,”she said, handing Leo a leather case he vaguely remembered buying for her ages and ages ago. “Meaning, I wrote those pages.”

“You still have this,” he said, examining the satchel. “I don’t remember it being so nice. This is nice .”

“To be honest, I haven’t used it in years. I thought it was lucky and then I thought it was unlucky and, well, here it is, here they are, and here I am. Ha.”

Leo examined Bea’s face, tried to make eye contact. She looked stoned. He undid the front straps and peered inside. “Lot of pages in here.”

“I think it’s a quick read. I don’t know what it is yet, exactly, but—” Bea looked uncomfortable. “I was hoping you’d read and then pass along to Stephanie.”

“You want me to read it first?” he said, surprised.

“Yes.” She shoved her hands deep into her coat pockets and looked up at him with a weak smile.

“Like the old days, huh?”

Her face bloomed. She looked eighteen again, eager and bright. “That would be nice. I miss the old days.”

Leo thought of the night of the hospital, Bea leaning close and saying, “I heard something else.” He had an unexpected urge to bend down and hug her, tell her that whatever she was worried about was going to be okay, reassure her the way she’d done for him that night. As quickly as the odd inclination appeared, it was gone and in its place a flash of annoyance. Anger even. When was she going to grow up? He wasn’t responsible for her, for reading her work anymore. “Okay. I’m looking forward to it. As soon as I can. Probably not this week.”

“No hurry. When you get to it. Really.” She wondered what had just happened. One minute Leo was there and the next he wasn’t. Confused, she stood and kept nodding at him until she started to look like one of those bobble-head dolls of Derek Jeter or the pope.

Definitely stoned, Leo thought. “Do you want to come in?” he asked, impatient.

“No, no. I have to get to work. I just wanted to drop that off.” She sighed, and he thought he saw her shudder. “I went to this party at Celia Baxter’s. Lena Novak was there.”

“Shit. She must be a complete nightmare by now.”

Bea gave a wan smile. “She is such a fucking nightmare you wouldn’t even believe.”

“I believe.”

They both laughed a little and things seemed lighter again, nice. Bea reached into her purse and pulled out a Ziploc bag of cookies. “I stole these from the party,” she said. “The entire platter.”

“I approve,” he said. “Not a Celia Baxter fan either.” Leo had slept with Celia once, years ago, and when he didn’t return her numerous calls, she’d shown up at his office swollen faced and crying and looking as if she hadn’t showered in days.

“Take them,” Bea said, handing him the bag. “I have tons more at home.” She gave him a quick peck on the cheek and headed off toward Flatbush Avenue, waving her hand a little behind her. He closed the door, opened the bag of cookies, and ate two. He took the leather case upstairs and put it on a shelf. He’d get to it after his meeting with Nathan. This week was all about Nathan.

Behind the wheel of her parked car and in spite of the cold Melody had fallen deeply asleep. She was dreaming about her babies, how solid and steadying their weight was against her chest, on her lap, in her arms. Tap, tap! Tap, tap! Someone in her dream was tapping on a window, wanting to come in. Tap! Tap! Melody jerked awake and as the two figures standing outside the car lowered their grinning faces down to hers, she drew back, embarrassed and confused.

“Too early for naptime!” one of them said. Melody smothered a groan and tried to smile. It was Jane Hamilton, another mother she knew from school, laughing as if she’d just told the world’s most hilarious joke. This she did not need today.

“Save the disco naps for the weekend!” the other woman said. Melody could never remember her name, the one with the oddly shaped curly hair she thought of as the Poodle. Jane and the Poodle were part of a clique (she’d resisted using that word at first but, incredibly, there was no other designation that fit the social stratifications of school parents) who occasionally included Melody in a monthly Mom’s Night Out. The evenings were usually at someone’s house (when Melody would go because the drinks were free) or sometimes at a local bar (when she would not go and hope nobody noted the distinction). Everyone would swill Chardonnay and the conversation would invariably turn into wine-lubricated screeching about sex and how the husbands wanted it too often and bargaining tips for blow jobs.

Melody didn’t want to hear about anyone ’s sex life, much less drunk suburban mothers who didn’t even seem to like their spouses — or their children — all that much. Apart from the indecorousness of it all (which horrified her, she would never talk about Walt that way, she would never think about him that way), she thought the women were willfully shallow and tedious. Melody tended to sit through those evenings nearly silent, occasionally laughing along when everyone else laughed or nodding her head in agreement with some of the milder declarations about school: The kids had too much homework; the assistant principal was a bitch; the eleventh-grade English teacher was hot, but definitely gay.

Melody removed her keys from the ignition, grabbed her handbag, and opened the car door, bracing herself against the chill winter wind.

“We missed you at the meeting,” the Poodle said.

“What meeting?” Melody asked, alarmed. She never missed school meetings.

“Oh, she didn’t need to be there,” Jane said. “Plus, it was boring.”

“ So boring,” the Poodle said.

“What meeting?” Melody asked.

“The college financial aid thing,” Jane said. “The forms and the requirements, blah, blah, blah.”

Oh. Melody realized with a sinking feeling that when she’d dutifully copied all the parent gatherings from the college counseling calendar into her own at the end of last summer, she’d ignored the workshops about financial aid. How had things changed so quickly? And how had she not remembered that pompous bit of editing sooner.