I had planned these to go in as four separate chapters, interspersed somewhere. But toward the end, I got lazy. So, I had all these dialogue bits and ideas but never bothered to flesh them out. So, here:
March 8, 1975
Juliet was supposed to have dinner over at Miles and Jin's tonight, but Miles called an hour ago to bitch about Phil and then to cancel dinner. Juliet can't say she's disappointed – they'd probably end up drinking too much anyway. Besides, Eleanor's working tonight so she has the place to herself. She takes a nice, long bath, throws on shorts and a tank top, then sets up a little pedicure station in the living room. Eleanor would insist on putting down newspaper, for fear of getting polish on the rug. The rug is horrendous deep gold shag, and Juliet doesn't see how getting red polish on it will make it any worse than it already is.
She switches on the hi-fi and hunkers down to tend to her toes. She bops along to the Jackson 5, and it's not weird at all. No, not a bit. Michael Jackson's just a cute little kid, not some tabloid freak show. This is all right. Yeah. She can ignore the gold shag carpet or she can embrace it. She can forget the future and accept the present (past, whatever). Yeah. OK. She can do this for as long as it takes. 1975's really not all that bad. Yeah.
She's finished her left foot and is midway through the right when she hears heavy steps on the porch. She's not dressed to receive visitors, so she keeps quiet and scoots a foot to the right to hide behind the chair. Whoever it is will go away once it becomes clear no one's home.
Instead the door busts open. Crap, thinks Juliet. It must be Eleanor coming back, and now Juliet's got to explain the red polish on the carpet.
"You got any ziti?" James barks from inside the front door.
What the hell? He thinks he can just barge in here?
She stretches her neck out, twists around from behind the chair, pokes her head over the arm, a little prairie dog popping out of her hole. "Hello, James. Good to see you, too. Welcome, please make yourself at home."
His eyes flash over to her, and for a second, it looks like he might make some lurid comment about her state of (near) undress, her toes spread with a twisted paper towels. The mirth in his eyes fades quickly enough. "Enough with the manners lesson, Emily Post," he sneers. "So? Ziti? You got any?"
"What do you need ziti for?"
He snorts. He looks at her like she's an idiot. He snaps, "'Cause I got a first grader over at my place workin' on her art project. Whaddaya think I need ziti for? I'm makin' dinner."
What's his problem? Although the thought of him patiently helping some little girl glue ziti onto construction paper is laugh out loud funny. Poor kid. When she does laugh, he glares.
"Geez, chill out," she says. She tries to get up off the floor, but her toenails are wet, the carpet is thick shag, her shorts are too short, her tank top is skimpy, and she's not wearing a bra. There's no way to get up gracefully without staining the rug, ruining her pedicure, and/or giving him a show. With her luck, she'd probably do all three. Instead, she stays put on the floor. "Look in the pantry. I don't know about ziti, but I'm pretty sure there's a box of rigatoni in there."
While he's off rummaging through the pantry, she gets up slowly and carefully, then walks, unsteadily on her heels over to the kitchen. He's staring, distraught, at a box of rigatoni. "Sure ya don't got some ziti hidden away somewhere?"
Yes, yes. My secret cache of ziti. I keep it under armed guard over at the Arrow. He looks so disappointed, though, so she bites her tongue, keeping her wiseass remarks to herself. Who knows why he gets so emotional about some of the things he does? "Couldn't you just use the rigatoni instead?" she asks, calmly and quietly, putting a hand to his forearm. For a second, it looks like it's going to work like it always does, and she feels him relax under her hand. His eyes travel down to where they're touching, and she starts feeling only half-dressed, when his tension builds again. He's squeezing the box of rigatoni so hard she can hear the raw pasta crunch inside.
"It's gotta be ziti!" he barks. "The recipe's for ziti!"
She tried. She really did. But anyone who can be this childish and angry over pasta deserves to be mocked. "Then change the recipe! Cook the pasta longer, I don't know! Figure it out!"
He shoves the box of rigatoni at her. She grabs it and clasps it tightly to her chest while he huffs, "This is my special recipe for gettin' laid, all right? All right? Happy now?"
She can't stop laughing. "You have a special recipe for getting laid? That's the most obnoxious thing I've ever heard!"
"More obnoxious than seducin' women then stealing all their money?" he counters. She stops laughing. "Yeah, thought so, sweetheart. I ain't the sadly misguided but secretly decent lug you been thinkin'. I'm makin' a meal for her just so I can get laid. I'm horny, and I'm the meanest sonofabitch you ever met. Sorry to bust your bubble, but them's the facts."
She ignores his self-loathing. "I was under the impression that you and Joyce had already consummated your relationship," she breezes (it sometimes gets under his skin when she talks in cool, clinical, and ultra-polite tones).
"Yeah, well, I thought maybe tonight we might even try some new stuff," he leers, waggling his eyebrows (it sometimes gets under her skin when he gets too crass).
"Yeah, well," she returns (and, criminy, do they sound like third graders, or what?), "maybe rigatoni's got even more power than ziti. Ever think of that?"
He stares at the box for a second. "Hmmmm," he muses. "Maybe you're right. Could be. Hmmmm." He nods, lost in thought. "I'm imagin' the way her mouth is gonna feel wrapped around my . . ."
BLEARGH. SHUT UP. "Stop it. Shut up." She raises a hand. "I meant even more powerful than that."
He sucks on his teeth. "Nope. Sorry, can't think of anything more powerful than a good blow job."
GROSS. Oh, God, he is totally right. He's nothing but a crude and obnoxious, hormone-addled lout. And just because he's been nice to her for close to a year, and just because he likes to read, doesn't mean it's not true. He is disgusting. No, not disgusting. Disappointing. He disappoints her.
Or he's trying to goad her. She can play that game. She sounds more like a third grader than ever. "No, I meant maybe rigatoni would make you guys fall in loooooooovvee," she stretches out the word, batting her eyelashes and fake swooning. "You could get married and have lots of baaaaaabies."
(Next she's going to sing "James and Joyce sitting in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G." Yes, she is that mature. It is, however, 1975. She's not even supposed to be four years old yet, and she's been stuck on this island for nearly four years now. She's allowed to be as immature as she goddamn wants to be. And she's never putting newspaper down again for a pedicure. Screw that. Screw this whole stupid life.)
Of course, he's so mature the thought of what she just said makes him gulp. He blanches, looking at the rigatoni as if it might be the impetus to his worst nightmare come true. Ha! She thinks. I win! So, she needles further. "I'm very good with children. You should keep me in mind if you two ever need a babysitter."
"Oh, go to hell, Juliet," he fumes. "You and your wise ass." He storms out the front door. He stops on the porch and turns around. "And I don't for a single minute believe that you're good with kids. You're too damn cold. You're the kind of person kids tell scary stories about."
He turns and walks off immediately, so he misses her raised middle finger, but he must hear her slam her front door. She fumes. No. No, she's the kind of person who babysat her way through high school AND her first three years of college. Who got married too young and too impetuously because she wanted to have her own family . . . and soon. Who was more excited at the prospect of being an aunt than she was about her research working. Who's stuck here on this goddamn fucking island that took ALL OF IT away from her. ALL OF IT. Whose "best" "friend" turns out to be the sex-crazed misogynistic pig and supreme #1 asshole she knew he was from the get-go.
She throws the offending box of rigatoni at the wall. The Jackson 5 scratches, skipping to "I Want You Back." The rigatoni box bursts open against the wall, and rigatoni skitters against the kitchen floor. Juliet laughs. Right now it's easier than crying. It's 1975, and she's never ever ever getting off this godforsaken island.
March 8, 1978
Goddamn, but Juliet is furious at Rachel right now. Furious. If it's possible there's something more uncomfortable than being nearly nine months pregnant and sitting at a typewriter for six hours a day, she'd like to hear it. And it is allllllllllll Rachel's fault. Rachel is why she's so freaking uncomfortable.
She jabs at the keys, angrily clacking:
Basaltic lava composition analysis. Rock is porphyritic, potentially silica-undersaturated.
Rachel's fault, Rachel's fault, Rachel's fault, her brain singsongs. If she were thinking rationally, she'd realize that on the long list of people whose fault it is that she's typing inscrutable notes about rocks while looking like an overfilled balloon and sitting in a Spartan office building on the campus of the University of Michigan in 1978, well . . . Rachel probably doesn't even make the top five.
It's the baby making her so freaking uncomfortable, not Rachel. Rachel didn't get her pregnant, or send her back in time, or trap her on the Island or even recruit her to go there in the first place. In fact, the person on top of the "To Blame" list should probably be none other than Juliet Marie Carlson Burke Lafleur.
No plagioclase crystals readily apparent. Microscopic analysis reveals a network of . . .
But it is Rachel's fault she's still sitting here typing. If Juliet didn't want to go back, then she could quit the Dharma Initiative altogether. She could be . . . be what exactly? Sitting at home with her feet up, that's what. But then what after that? What's she going to do here, trapped in the past? And that's just it. She can't or won't be trapped in the past forever, so here she sits typing, waiting for the Dharma Initiative to one day send her back.
She's got two more pages on these rocks. Maybe they'll let her go home when she finishes. She can get off early. She types faster.
"A few new construction reports from Hydra," Alan announces, dropping a fat accordion file on her desk. Fat. Feh. Everything around here's just got to be fat, doesn't it?
She decides that it's Alan she hates. This is Alan's fault. She fixes a death glare on him.
He gulps. "I don't make the rules, Juliet. I just hand out the folders."
She stares at the new folder, overstuffed, bulging at the seams. Even the folder of meaningless construction notes mocks her. THAT'S IT. That's it. "Sorry, Alan, but I don't feel well, and I'm taking the rest of the afternoon off."
"But . . ."
Another death glare. All this Others training has to be good for something, right? They never taught her typing. That sure would've been useful.
Click Clack Click Clack. DING! Carriage return. She rolls the last sheet of geology notes off the drum and stacks it neatly on top of the rest of the ridiculous notes. Alan stares at her all the while. "Anything else?" she asks him, daring him to point out the thick construction file.
"Uh, no. So, see you tomorrow?"
Fine. Yes. Yes, fine. "See you then," she says in her politest tone. She waits for him to wander off before she struggles to her feet. She just intimidated him into giving her the afternoon off, but the intimidation might fade if he stayed to watch the absurd amount of effort it takes her to get out of this chair and gather her belongings. "Pregnant Office Work" was not part of The Others curriculum. Maybe because none of the pupils would have survived the first semester (and whose fault is that? Hers? Maybe). Maybe she's glad she's here in Ann Arbor, after all. Maybe maybe maybe.
She spends the rest of the afternoon swimming laps at the aquatic center. The rest of campus semi-tolerates the Dharma Initiative, but doesn't actually welcome them anywhere. No, this benefit (use of the aquatic center and associated campus health centers) comes because she's married to a U-M employee. Or, U-M thinks she's married to one of their employees. Good enough.
She doesn't get back to the apartment until close to six, but James had the day off, so dinner should be his responsibility. He's not a bad cook, just not a particularly creative one. Frozen lasagna, sandwiches, or his favorite, "breakfast for dinner," (i.e., he scrambles some eggs and fries some bacon).
She opens the front door and can smell the lasagna baking. Mmmmmm. Good. Bacon and eggs weren't going to cut it tonight.
James is leaning with his back against the counter, feet crossed at the ankle. He's holding a folded over newspaper at eye level, and wearing his glasses. The pen tucked behind his ear means he must be doing the crossword. He seems almost surprised to see her when she steps into the kitchen. Or, maybe not surprised, but extremely happy. God, he's freaking cute. She steps over to kiss him.
"Take a load off," he instructs. "Supper'll be ready in about twenty minutes."
He sets the paper on the counter then reaches up into the cabinet above the sink where they keep . . . she loses her train of thought, because while reaching up, his shirt lifts, and his jeans slide down, and she gets lost staring. She almost reaches out to stroke his skin there around his belly button. The skin there is soft, but the muscles below so solid, and . . .but, no. No. She really does want to eat in twenty minutes and take a load off now, so, no. And besides, he's pulled down the extra roll of paper towels, and all his clothing is back to its proper place. Mmmmmmm…
It's not lasagna, but some other baked pasta dish. Whatever it is, it's fabulous, and she says so. "You've been holding out. What is this?"
"It's . . .nothin'. Just, you know, somethin', I. . . don't worry 'bout it."
She wouldn't. It's not a big deal, except he doesn't normally get so stammery or look so embarrassed. "Someone else made this, didn't they? And you're trying to pass it off as yours?" Not that she cares, but that's kind of funny. Like he needs to impress her with his cooking?
"Nah, it's just. . . it's . . . well, it's baked ziti."
Uh huh. OK, that explains nothing. "And?"
"And . . . and I thought you'd get put out about it, but the thing is we only got one egg. I was plannin' on breakfast for dinner. Anyway, I thought I'd do this, even if you'd get put out over it."
She takes another bite. Delicious. "Why in the world would I be put out over it? This is amazing."
He laughs. "Shit. You don't remember. All this time I's worried about how you'd take it, and it turns out you don't even remember." He keeps laughing.
Remember? Remember what? She takes another bite and another, and then it hits her. She pushes her plate away. "Oh my god. This is your 'getting laid' recipe, isn't it?"
He holds up his hands. "OK, yeah, but that totally ain't what I want. Or, well, shit, yeah, that is what I want, but it ain't why I made the damn recipe. I made it 'cause I knew you'd like it, and like I said, we're 'bout outta eggs."
She stares at him for a few beats. "I'm only put out because you never saw fit to make this for me before. It's fantastic." She pulls the plate back and begins eating again. "Although, I'm not sure it's so good that I'd magically fall into bed with you." OK, there's only the bed and the couch in this apartment, so she will fall in bed with him, but the ziti's got nothing to do with it, and how it ever could makes no sense.
He sighs, relieved she's not going to go bananas over this. He scoops up a big forkful, then lets her in on the secret. "It ain't the ziti itself. It's the story behind it. See, this here's my grandma's special recipe."
All he's told her about his grandmothers before . . .they don't seem to be the type to make baked ziti. She's pretty sure at least one of them never even left the state of Alabama. Fried mac and cheese. That's something his grandma would make. "Really?" she asks, incredulously.
"Nah. My grandmas were both from Alabama, doubt they ever even heard of ziti. I just say that to make it seem special."
"And these women buy it?"
"These women ain't never heard of my grandmas before. Keep in mind, you're comin' at this with way too much knowledge. So, anyway, I talk about how it's my grandma's recipe, and how I ain't never tried to make it before, and I'm sure it ain't good as grandma's. How I've been kinda scared to make it, since grandma died and all, worried it'll remind me too much of her, too much of home, ya know? 'But now that I'm with you, I been feelin' more'n more like home every day. . . ' OK, I can tell by the look on your face, you think it's as cheesy as I do, but trust me, it works."
No, the look on her face is because his 'home' was miserable. But these poor women didn't know that. Yuck. He's a pig. Was a pig. "And that's it?"
"Well I make a big deal 'bout how it's the first time I made it, so when it turns out great, that seems kinda special to them, too. Course it ain't the first time I made it. I mean, you got any idea how many times I pulled this one?"
"No," she says. He looks like he's getting ready to answer. She thought the question was rhetorical. "And I don't want to know."
"Anyway, that's pretty much it. It's basically just a con.
"I can't believe it actually worked."
"Sure it worked. Better'n the truth, wouldn't ya say? Nah, baked ziti's a good con. I mean, Jesus, who'd go to bed with me if they knew the truth? Who I really am and what I done."
She stares at him a few seconds, waiting for him to catch on to the absurdity in that statement. He never does, though, and says, "So, whaddaya say? Baked ziti ain't never failed me before, so maybe after we're done here . . ." he angles his head back toward the bedroom.
She should say no simply on principle. Or because it's been a long day and because she's starting to feel like she should be floated high in the sky over important sporting events. Or to teach him a lesson. Or . . . "We'll see," she hedges, and when he grins, she knows his damn ziti is going to continue its perfect record.
March 8, 1985
Juliet can barely keep up with all Jimmy's chattering from the backseat. His first season of peewee hockey is nearing the end. He just made it in under the age cutoff, and the fact that he's younger than everyone else on his team hasn't seemed to hold him back at all. If he's been held back by anything, it's that he's the only kid on the team whose parents know nothing about hockey, despite the pretty penny they picked up betting on the US to win it all in 1980.
As Jimmy rambles on about the just-finished practice, Juliet nods and "mmm hmms" at appropriate intervals, while singing along to The Temptations on the oldies radio station. She prefers oldies to anything on offer in 1985, and plus, listening to the oldies but goodies avoids awkward moments like the time she blurted "I forgot all about this one!" when "Let's Hear it for the Boy" (an 'oldie but goodie,' from her perspective) came on the radio at the neighbors' house. "How'd you forget it? It just came out!" Jan wondered at the time. "It's from that new Footloose movie."
I guess, you'd say, what can make me feel that way? sing the Temptations.
"Coach don't want Ryan to get hurt, so he ain't gonna let him play center till next year," Jimmy states.
My girl. Talkin' 'bout my girl . . .
"Coach doesn't want Ryan to get hurt, so he isn't going to let him play center," Juliet corrects
"But . . ." Jimmy starts. He's going to argue that his dad talks like that. James has been remarkably good these past seven years . . . good at keeping his language clean and G-rated (or PG at least). Not so good at proper grammar. She can't expect everything.
She cuts Jimmy off. "Dad's from Alabama. That's how they talk. You're from Michigan." She hates to throw the entire population of the state of Alabama to the Strunk and White wolves, but better that than explaining that Dad speaks like an uneducated hick.
Luckily they're pulling into the garage before he has a chance to complain further. She helps him stow his gear on his sports equipment shelf. Hockey, it turns out, is gear-heavy, and his "sports shelf" is actually three shelves in the corner. They enter the house through the kitchen. It's warm. It smells wonderful. Good. She'd put together a casserole dish of enchiladas, but forgot to remind James to put it in. Seems he remembered on his own.
Jimmy bounces through the kitchen and into the den. "Wash up for dinner!" she shouts after him.
"Hey, Mom!" Rachel calls from the dining room table. Juliet waves to her.
James pops out from the pantry with a box of macaroni in one hand and a bag of farfalle tucked under his arm. "This all the pasta we got?" he demands. Good to see you, too, she thinks.
"Uh . . ." the question confuses her. Aren't the enchiladas in the oven?
"Don't we got some ziti somewhere? I think that'd be perfect."
Ziti. Oh. "Why?"
He catches her suspicious tone. He laughs, then looks to make sure the kids are out of earshot. "'Cause I'm horny, and ziti's a failsafe."
"Did you forget about last night?"
He brushes that aside with, "Last night was vanilla." She'd take offense, but it kind of was. He continues, "All right. No, seriously, Rachel's workin' on something or 'nother for school, and all we got are elbows and bowties."
"Dad's doing all the gluing!" Rachel shouts from the dining room. "He doesn't want me to get glue on the table."
Juliet states, "So what you're telling me is that you're helping a first grader with her art project."
"Thanks for the rundown, Jane Pauley. Yes, that's exactly what I'm sayin'."
"I . . ." she starts. He doesn't remember. How they got from there to here sometimes blows her mind. Sometimes normal life is even more surreal than time travel. "I think that's all we've got. Sorry."
"Mom, how come I can't have a baby sister? Dad says I can't," Rachel calls from the dining room. Juliet rolls her eyes and shakes her head. Rachel spent the afternoon at her friend Jenny's house. Jenny has a little sister, and this is a semi-regular request. Juliet locks eyes with James. That question has multiple answers that touch on time travel, human biology, and her dad's secret sordid past (future).
"Because we don't want to be out-numbered." Not really the reason why, but, even so, it's mostly true.
"Then how about a pony?" Well played, Rachel.
"We don't got room for a pony," James grumbles.
"How about a dog, then?" Jimmy's back from washing up.
Did they tag team this or what? What was she just saying about being outnumbered? "No," she answers, opening the silverware drawer and taking out four forks. She hands them to Jimmy. "Start setting the table."
March 8, 2006
"So, that's it," Jimmy finishes, closing the lid on his aquarium. "Three times a week, and if you forget, or don't make it over or something, you can double up one time. I wouldn't recommend doing that more than once, though." Juliet nods patiently. Jimmy adds, "Chances are you won't see Descartes at all. He's always hiding somewhere."
"You have a fish named Descartes?" she asks.
"Sure," he smiles and winks. "Gotta keep the tradition alive."
Let's hope she can keep his fish alive. He's going to be gone for two weeks. One week on some science teacher conference, another on spring break with his buddies. Cozumel. She wants to know why he's not taking his girlfriend with him. Also, why he's not asking his girlfriend to feed his fish and water his plants. She's afraid to ask, though. She hates that girl – woman – and doesn't want to get her hopes up. Plus doesn't want to be too "overbearing mom" about it all. So, she listens patiently while he explains the procedure for what to do if the power goes out, and the filter stops working. He doesn't explain how she's going to know from her house if the power went out in his apartment.
"And that's it," he concludes.
"OK. Did you stop your mail?" she asks him. He nods. "And your paper delivery?"
"I don't get a paper, Mom."
Right, right. She's an old-fashioned geezer, not some tech-savvy youngster. Yet, most of her adult life her "tech savvy" has served her very very well.
"What about your thermostat? Did you re-set it?"
He rolls his eyes. "Yeah, Mom, yeah."
Sorry, son, but if you ask your mother to come look after you apartment, then you better expect to be mothered about it. Otherwise, you should've asked that woman you call girlfriend.
"Last thing I gotta do is take out the trash," he says. He pulls the full bag from the kitchen trash canister and ties it off. "I'll put a fresh bag in. 'Case you gotta toss anything out when you're over here," he says. He reaches up into the cabinet above the sink where he keeps a box of Hefty bags. Reaching up, his shirt lifts, and his jeans slide down over his hips, and . . .
My God, she thinks. Can he not find a pair of pants that fits right? Or shell out a few measly dollars for a belt? Or . . . she looks again. Has he lost weight? Is he too thin? What does he feed himself? Is he eating enough? Is it healthy?
He snaps a new bag open and lines the kitchen canister with it. She watches closely. No, he looks pretty solid. But that doesn't mean he's eating properly. She can ask, can't she? She has that right, doesn't she? Except, she likes that he asked her to help like this, and if she gets too overprotective and weird, he might not ask again. But if there was a way to figure this out without coming right out and asking . . . Aha!
"Do you have anything in your fridge you need to clean out before you go?"
"Shit," he grumbles.
"Language . . ." she warns. And he might now start arguing that Dad uses that kind of language. She cuts him off. "I didn't raise your father. I raised you, and I expect you to. . ."
He laughs, interrupting her, "Yeah, good thing Grandma LaFleur didn't live long enough to be confronted with the creation she raised."
Yeah, uh huh. Not really. And there is no such person as a "Grandma LaFleur," so . .
"I'm guessing you mean you forgot to clean out your fridge," Juliet steers the conversation back to the food.
"Right." He reopens the full trash bag slouching on the kitchen floor. She opens his fridge. She peers in, looking for signs of healthy living. She pulls out three containers of Chinese takeout and dumps them in the trash bag he's holding open for her. There's a package of individually wrapped Kraft American cheese slices. No need to throw those out. They could be Dharma-era and still good. That stuff's indestructible. There's broccoli in the crisper, and a bag of baby carrots, too. Good. A large pizza box with one slice of pepperoni. Neither healthy nor an efficient use of fridge space. The second shelf has a glass baking dish covered with aluminum foil. She pulls it out and lifts the foil on one corner. This is something homemade. She's glad to see it. She pulls it out.
"What's this?" she asks, stooped into the cold refrigerator microclimate. She pulls the foil up the rest of the way, and has her answer before he gets a chance to say it.
"Baked ziti," he answers. "It's Dad's recipe. You really should try it."
She turns to him and straightens to full height. Is he teasing her? James? Both of them? Neither? What exactly did James tell their son about this 'magic' dish? Jimmy stands silently, giving nothing away. He's not even blinking, and his face is perfectly still. That is . . . unnerving is what it is.
"I have tried it," she answers in her best 'give-nothing-away' doctor's tone. She stares back at him. Two can play at this game, young man. I know where you got that unnerving little still face habit, mister. She doesn't change her tone (or lack of tone) when she pleads, "Tell me you aren't lying to these women."
"What women?"
"The ones you make that ziti for."
"Oh," he answers. He knows she knows what the ziti's all about, and now she knows that he does, too. Then his face twists in confusion. "Lie? What would I lie to them about?"
"He didn't tell you that?" she asks. "That was a big part of his shtick. Some sad story about his dead grandma's recipe."
"They actually fell for that?"
"Apparently," she answers. Although, truth be told, who's to say if they fell for the story or the dimples or the abs, or the wrists and forearms . . .
"No, of course I don't lie about it," Jimmy says. "I told one girl it was my dad's recipe. That turns out to be a half-truth. It's straight outta the Joy of Cooking. Did you know that? Word for word. He showed me."
One girl, he said. How many girls have there been? And, most importantly, "Please tell me you didn't make this for Millie."
"Tilly, Mom. I know you don't like her, but you don't have to pretend you can't remember her name. And, yes, I did make it for her. She was over here a few nights ago."
Why isn't she taking care of your apartment while you're away? Why doesn't she make sure you eat healthy? Why am I taking you to the airport? "I think she's too old for you," is what she says.
"She's not that old. Not like she was born in the Eisenhower Administration or anything."
No, she was born in the Nixon Administration – JUST LIKE I WAS. "It's just been my experience that no good comes out of being involved in someone older than you."
Jimmy responds with another of his silent stares. She stares back until he shakes his head. "The stuff you say, sometimes, Mom. Makes no sense. You realize Dad's older than you are, right?"
"Chronologically, yes, but maturity-wise, I'd say we're close to equal," she says. Jimmy laughs. "No, I wasn't talking about your father. I had a whole life before I met him, you know." And that's maybe giving away more than she wants to. "All I'm saying, Jimmy, I think you can do better. For one thing, If she really loved you, she'd make sure you eat better than this," she states, dumping a Styrofoam takeout box of chicken wings into the trash can.
Later that night, she's at home, grumbling to James about Tilly.
"Need me to draw a picture for ya? I don't get why it's so hard for you to see why he's interested in that girl."
"She's rude and doesn't really care about him. That's all I know."
"She's got big tits. What more you need to know than that?"
She glares at him, crossing her arms. "You are a pig. Maybe you think that way, but he doesn't."
"He's 26. Of course he does. And yeah, I do think that way. I mean, Jesus, lookit who I married."
"Go to hell," she fumes, turning on her heels to the kitchen.
Five minutes later, he's standing in front of her with a Netflix envelope in his hand. "Walk the Line came in today. Wanna do movies tonight?"
She's supposed to be mad at him – for being a misogynistic pig, for thinking their son is the same – but she supposes he's right. Maddening, but right. "I'll make the popcorn," she says.
"Hey," he says, reaching out to her. "Not that it ain't true, 'cause it is, but you realize I say stuff like that 'cause I think it's fun to piss you off."
He's known her for more than thirty years. Of course, he knows exactly how to press every single one of her buttons – good and bad.
And vice versa: "I know," she says. "I realize that's how men think. Probably how Anson thinks about your daughter, I guess."
His eyes narrow. She can see the Tyvek paper on the Netflix disc wrinkling where he strangles it. The muscles twitch in his jaw.
"OK, I'll get working on the popcorn," she says.
So, FYI, Rachel's friend Jenny (and her little sister Michele)? At some point in the story one of them (hadn't decided who) was going to re-connect with Jimmy at Rachel's wedding, hook up with him, then live happily ever after. I mean, real early this was my idea. But then it wasn't. When it was my idea, I had all sorts of things planned for Jenny and Michelle, and they were going to appear a little more often. Then, not.
I had the first part of this (the 1975 bit) saved under the file name "argument" which lead me to believe I had their big blowout from post-Thanksgiving 1981 written, but turns out, not so. So, now there really and truly is nothing committed to paper. Stand by. It will happen sometime. Eventually.
