Nicholas’s stare is dehydrating. “Sounds unlikely.”
“Maintenance duties?” Deborah repeats, turning to him. “Has something broken? Naomi shouldn’t be trying to fix anything. She could make it worse.”
“I have no choice,” I tell her in a low, conspiratorial voice. “It’s a desperate situation, and Nicholas won’t use his tools.” I tap my mouth with a fingernail, watching him go rigid.
“Nicholas has no use for tools,” Deborah says emphatically, unaware that we are speaking in encrypted hate. “If something isn’t working, call a professional.”
“Good thinking. Do you know which handyman that lady was writing in about?”
Nicholas is fed up. “Being handy is unsatisfying when your fiancée is so obviously distracted and barely pitches in,” he tells me with thunderclouds sweeping over his expression.
His hands are hot and sweating. I can tell by the way the fork in his grip fogs up. This is what he gets for calling me a doll on the shelf. I don’t engage with his parents enough at dinner? He’ll regret saying that.
“Harold,” Deborah barks.
Harold jumps.
“What?”
“The kids are living in a broken-down hovel. Make them call a repairman.”
The idea of Harold making Nicholas or me do anything is ludicrous. He can’t make himself stay awake for the duration of a commercial. Harold only gets up from his chair if it means walking to another chair. He and his wife are presently wearing matching burgundy sweaters, fur from his back and shoulders creeping around a Peter Pan collar in a way that has me side-eyeing how Nicholas will age. He stopped having an opinion of his own in 1995 and lives for the moment he’s told he’s allowed to go to bed.
Trust this: you don’t want to know more about Harold. He’s like three-month-old lasagna left in the back of the fridge. With every layer it gets worse.
He drinks seltzer water with every dinner and his white hair sprouts from the top of his head in short tufts of cotton, same as his out-of-control eyebrows. If you’re sitting directly opposite him, his hair is see-through and colors everything behind it with whimsical fuzz. He communicates chiefly through snorts, grunts, and belches. Once, I walked in on him while he was leafing through a Playboy and he said, “Have you ever been with an older man, Nina?”
My boss, Mr. Howard, says he knew Harold when they were younger and Harold’s “work trips” to Nevada in the eighties were actually stints at Bella’s Gentleman’s Club. Like the innocent, naïve sunbeam that I am, the words gentleman’s club conjured up genteel images of men playing cards and smoking cigars. Then Zach told me what it actually was and it left me equal parts traumatized and enthralled.
I still haven’t let Nicholas in on this discovery. It’s a pulled punch I’m saving for after I’ve already knocked him down but need to make sure he can’t get back up again. I’m getting my goddamn lemon cake and your mom is uninvited to the wedding. Roundhouse kick. I’m wearing a tuxedo and we’re eloping. Jab to the throat. We’re never naming our daughter after Deborah. High kick. I haven’t flossed in a year. Uppercut. Your dad goes to brothels.
“Call the repo man,” Harold advises. “Tell him he’s not taking anything unless he’s got a warrant. Then go stash it at your vacation home.”
I wish I could exist in whatever world Harold is in right now, holding an entirely different conversation parallel to ours. “Actually,” I say, “our news is that we’re thinking about getting a dog.”
“We are not.” Nicholas’s grip on his fork tightens.
I sip my cranberry juice. It’s revolting. “Something small, that yaps a lot. Maybe a terrier or a chihuahua.”
A muscle in his cheek jumps.
“Maybe we’ll get a cat, too,” he suggests.
Deborah looks at me, frowning. “Isn’t Naomi allergic to cats?”
“Is she?” He smiles at his clean plate. He’s finished all his food, even the bits of creamy mushroom that I know he doesn’t like. What a good little boy. I bet his tail is wagging in anticipation of being petted.
Nicholas pretends to consider. “Two cats, maybe, so the one won’t be lonely.”
“I’ve been thinking,” I interrupt. Our dysfunction is growing increasingly evident. Even Harold is paying attention now. “About keeping my maiden name. It’s what a lot of women are doing now.”
This doesn’t bother Deborah in the least. She’s glad to hear it, I’m sure. Fewer women to share her name with. Unfazed, I change tacks.
“Actually …” I tease out the word. “Nowadays, sometimes it’s the man who changes his name. Nicholas Westfield has a certain charm to it.”
“He can’t change his name!” Deborah cries.
“Why not? Women do it all the time. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”
Nicholas doesn’t dignify this with a retort, shaking his head at me. “That’s ridiculous,” his mother huffs. “He has a lovely last name. Not that yours isn’t … nice … but it’s not quite as special as Rose, now, is it? Dr. Rose is how he’s known in this community. He can’t change it now. And I’m sure he’ll want his children to carry on the family name, too.”
“We’re not having children,” I declare. “I’m barren. I lost my uterus in a Ponzi scheme.”
Nicholas throws his fork down with a clatter and stands. His business of moving around is loud, but not loud enough to disguise his mother’s startled cry. “It’s getting late.” He scowls at me. “Come on, Naomi.”
I wave a hand over my plate, feigning incomprehension. “But I haven’t finished yet.”
He grabs my hand. “Oh, you’re done.”
Nicholas all but throws me over his shoulder to get me out of that house. I can feel that my face is flushed with triumph and I know my eyes are bright and shining. A complete basket case. This is how I want to look in the picture we use for invitations. I wish I could fall down and laugh until my ribs crack, but he drags me out the door. Every muscle in his body is tense.
“Thanks for dinner!” I crow behind me. “Your adult son and I are so grateful!”
“Stop saying that,” he snaps, tugging my arm when I try to dig my heel into one of the flowers in the yard.
“Stop thanking them for dinner? That’s not very nice manners, Nicky.”
He and I suffer each other in silence on the car ride home, preparing our arguments in our heads. As soon as we pull up under the halo of our streetlight we get out and round the car, doors slamming with hurricane force.
“Don’t slam my car door.” As if he didn’t do the same.
He’s in love with his status symbol of a car and would probably marry it if it were socially acceptable. “Your car isn’t that good-looking and didn’t even win the J.D. Power award. I hope a bird craps on it every single day for all eternity.” Right on the windshield in front of his face, a big white splat.
“You’re just mad because you drive a woolly mammoth.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my car.”
“I’m sure it was in top form once. In 1999.”