James Hynes - Next

“So, what looks good to you?” a woman said to him.

Kevin looked up, but the girl behind the counter was scooping curried chicken salad into a plastic takeout shell. He turned to see a mother in a parka, holding a bundle in a snowsuit in the crook of one arm and a small wire basket full of groceries hanging from the other. She was watching him wryly, like she knew him, but out of context he couldn’t place her at first — her hair was longer than she’d ever worn it for him, and she’d put on a little weight. The smile she was suppressing crinkled the corners of her eyes. God help me, thought Kevin, my younger ex-girlfriend is middle-aged.

“Beth,” he said.

The crow’s feet crinkled deeper. “You had to think about it, didn’t you?” Still she didn’t smile.

“Sorry.” He pushed himself erect behind his cart.

Now she did smile — mostly friendly, with a hint of I’ve-got-your-number. “How are you?”

“Good!” A little high-pitched, a little too loud. “Great! How are you?”

She mimed a shudder. “Cold.”

“Me too.” His heart was hammering, which surprised him. It wasn’t like he hadn’t already run into her several times the last couple of years, in Shaman Drum or Zingerman’s Roadhouse, or on line at the Michigan Theater. There had even been some stilted e-mails back and forth. When her son was born he had sent her flowers. “You look good,” he said.

“Really?” He could tell she didn’t believe him, but she wanted to. And he was being mostly honest. She was all bundled up in her parka and sweater and scarf, so he couldn’t really check her out, but the way her face had filled out suited her. He even felt a stab of guilt, remembering how gaunt she’d looked in those last months they lived together. Was that my fault, he wondered — her hollow cheeks, the dark skin under her eyes? After all this time he still went back and forth: was he a selfish bastard, or was there no making that woman happy? After all, Kevin thought, Beth couldn’t blame him for her own scary combination of intensity and indecision. But now, flushed in the heat of her winter clothes, she did look good, really, truly. She used to crop her hair boyishly short, but now it fell to her shoulders. Her cheekbones weren’t as sharp as they used to be, but neither were her nerves right on the surface anymore, radiating every tremor of emotion. Her eyes were brighter, warmer.

“Really,” he said. “You look… calmer.”

This he regretted immediately, but she only smiled and hefted the snowsuit bundle. Kevin glimpsed a little spheric section of pink forehead; Beth’s son appeared to be fast asleep inside the cinched hood of his suit.

“You hear that?” she said. “Mommy’s perfectly calm.”

He nearly repeated Stella’s joke about Kenny from South Park, but in the nick of time he remembered that Kenny dies at the end of each episode.

“How’s he doing?” he said instead. What do you say about the four-year-old kid of your ex, who left you to have him after thirteen years together? Especially if you can’t remember the kid’s name?

“It’s a she,” Beth said.

“A she?” Kevin’s brain ground to a halt. He was certain Beth had had a son. Dear God, he thought, how could I misremember that? Okay, so I spaced on his name, but I’m too young to have forgotten the kid’s sex.

“Naomi,” she said, enjoying Kevin’s confusion way too much. “My second child.”

“Whoa.” He couldn’t disguise his surprise. “I didn’t know.”

She shrugged. “No reason you should.”

“How old…?”

“Eighteen months.”

“Huh.” Kevin’s geriatric brain sparked and sizzled uselessly. “Well, she looks very relaxed.”

“She’s like her father that way.” She was looking at the child when she said this, but then she glanced at Kevin.

“Huh.” That name he did know: Noah. A junior professor in… something. A much younger guy than Kevin, younger even by a couple years than Beth. And already the father of two children. Huh.

“Not to bring the conversation to a screeching halt or anything,” Beth said, smiling.

I mean, who’s the injured party here? Kevin wondered. As miserable as I may have made her, in the end she left me. I’m the one who got the push.

“How is he?” he said, slipping about on the high ground. “Noah,” he added. She wasn’t going to do that to him again.

“Busy,” said Beth, still watching him closely. He knew that look, and even now, when it shouldn’t matter anymore what she thought of him, he hated it and feared it. It was the look she gave him when she was measuring him against some private standard in her head. It was a look that already held the expectation that he would disappoint her. The problem was that he never knew what the standard was, and she wouldn’t tell him. It was a look that still made him angry — not the implied judgment itself, but the fact that he still let it get to him.

“I’ll bet,” said Kevin. He had no idea what he meant by that.

“Sir?” The girl behind the counter was speaking to him.

He and Beth nodded at each other, a couple of sparring partners separated for a moment by the ref, catching their breath, gauging each other’s stamina.

“Sir? What can I get you?”

“I think she’s next,” he said, gesturing to Beth, who stepped right up to the counter. “I’d like a couple of slices of the turkey loaf,” she said, lifting her chin at the girl. The bundle on her arm shifted, and through the deep-sea diver porthole of her hood, Kevin could see that young Naomi, daughter of Noah and not-as-young-as-she-used-to-be Beth, younger sister of whathisname, was awake and watching Kevin with cool, blue, unblinking eyes.

Kevin looked quickly away, then back into the kid’s gaze. You don’t know me, Kevin thought, but for a while there, I was supposed to be your father. The child just stared at him, and Kevin thought, Jesus, even the kid’s judging me. He started inching away, without saying goodbye, but then something rattled into his cart — a box of couscous — and he felt a squeeze in the crook of his elbow.

“What looks good to you, sweetie?” Stella twined her arm through his and looked up at him calmly, then let her gaze drift slowly across the platters of chicken, salmon, and tofu. Nothing, he wanted to say, not a goddamn thing. Waiting for you, I’m a stationary target, a sitting duck, a great big bull’s-eye for any ex-girlfriend and her second kid who happens by. But before he could edit this for actual conversation, Beth turned away from the case, where the girl was lifting slices of turkey loaf with a pair of tongs, and Kevin’s ex narrowed her eyes at the young woman who had appeared beside him. She shot Kevin a look that made him blanch, a look that said (and Kevin ought to know) I want you dead, and not just dead, but crusted with pecans, stuffed with feta and spinach, and mounted on a platter with an organic apple in his mouth, sliced crosswise for easy service. Then she smiled and caught Stella’s eye.

“Hi,” she said.

Stella blinked, and said, “Hi” in her professional voice.

Beth looked at Kevin. By now Kevin had recovered enough to give Beth a look that said, You dumped me, remember? When Stella noticed the two of them looking at each other, she looked at Kevin, too.

“Um,” said Kevin.

“He’s too embarrassed to speak,” Beth said, hefting her child to show that she couldn’t shake hands, “but I’m Beth.”

There should have been a little rising inflection at the end of that, thought Kevin, at least the implication of a question mark. What made Beth think Stella should recognize the name? What made her think he’d ever uttered her name to his new lover? But he had, of course, and instantly Stella opened her eyes as wide as they would go.