The Stranger

Chapter 12

When Adam got home at six P.M., Corinne’s car wasn’t in the driveway.

He didn’t know whether that surprised him. Corinne was usually home before him, but she probably wisely figured that there might be a scene if they met up at home before their Janice’s Bistro dinner, so it would be best to avoid him. He hung up his coat and placed his briefcase in the corner. The boys’ backpacks and sweatshirts were strewn across the floor, as though they were debris from a plane crash.

“Hello?” he shouted. “Thomas? Ryan?”

No answer. There was a time in this world when that meant something, maybe was even a cause of concern, but with the video games and the headphones and the teenage boys’ constant need to “shower”-was that a euphemism?-any concern was short-lived. He started up the stairs. Sure enough, the shower was running. Probably Thomas. The door to Ryan’s room was closed. Adam gave it a brief knuckle rap but opened without waiting for a response. If the headphones were loud enough, Ryan might never reply; if he just opened it, he felt as though he was completely invading his son’s privacy. The knock-and-open somehow felt like a parentally fair way to handle the dilemma.

As expected, Ryan was lying in bed with his headphones on, fiddling with his iPhone. He slipped them off and sat up. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“What’s for dinner?” Ryan asked.

“Good, thanks. Work was busy, sure, but overall, yeah, I’d say I had an okay day. How about you?”

Ryan just stared at his father. Ryan often just stared at his father.

“Have you seen your mother?” Adam asked.

“No.”

“She and I are going to Janice’s tonight. You want me to order you two a pizza from Pizzaiola?”

There are few questions more rhetorical than asking your child whether they want you to order them pizza for dinner. Ryan didn’t even bother with the yes, heading straight to the “Can we get buffalo chicken topping?”

“Your brother likes pepperoni,” Adam said, “so I’ll go half-and-half.”

Ryan frowned.

“What?”

“Just one pie?”

“It’s only the two of you.”

Ryan did not seem placated.

“If that’s not enough, there are Chipwiches in the freezer for dessert,” Adam said. “That okay?”

Grudgingly: “I guess.”

Adam headed back down the hall and into his bedroom. He sat on the bed and called the pizzeria, adding an order of mozzarella sticks. Feeding teenage boys was like filling a bathtub with a grapefruit spoon. Corinne was always complaining-happily, for the most part-that she had to food shop every other day at the least.

“Hey, Dad.”

Thomas wore a towel around his waist. Water dripped from his hair. He smiled and said, “What’s for dinner?”

“I just ordered you guys pizza.”

“Pepperoni?”

“Half pepperoni, half buffalo chicken.” Adam held up his hand before Thomas could say more. “And an order of mozzarella sticks.”

Thomas gave his father a thumbs-up. “Nice.”

“You don’t have to eat it all. Just leave the leftovers in the fridge.”

Thomas made a confused face. “What is this leftovers of which you speak?”

Adam shook his head and chuckled. “Did you leave me any hot water?”

“Some.”

“Great.”

Adam normally wouldn’t shower and change, but he had time and felt oddly nervous. He showered quickly, managing to stay seconds ahead of the hot water, and shaved away the Homer Simpson five-o’clock shadow. He reached into the back of his cabinet and pulled out an aftershave he knew Corinne liked. He hadn’t worn it in a while. Why he hadn’t worn it recently, he couldn’t say. Why he had chosen to wear it tonight, he couldn’t say either.

He put on a blue shirt because Corinne used to say that blue worked with his eyes. He felt stupid about that and almost changed, but then he figured, what the hell. When he started out the bedroom door, he turned around and took a long look at this room that had been theirs for so long. The king-size bed was neatly made. There were too many pillows on it-when had people started putting so many pillows on a bed?-but he and Corinne had spent a lot of years here. A simple and insipid thought, but there you go. It was just a room, just a bed.

Yet a voice in Adam’s head couldn’t help but wonder: Depending on how this dinner went, he and Corinne might never spend another night in here together.

That was melodramatic, of course. Pure hyperbole. But if hyperbole couldn’t feel free to roam in his head, where could it roam?

The doorbell rang. No movement from the boys. There never was. They had been trained somehow to never answer the house phone (it wasn’t for them, after all) and to never answer the doorbell (it was usually a delivery guy). As soon as Adam paid and closed the door, the boys clumped down the stairs like runaway Clydesdales. The house shook but held its ground.

“Paper plates okay?” Thomas asked.

Thomas and Ryan would eat on paper plates exclusively because it meant easier cleanup, but tonight, with the parents away, it was pretty much a given that if he forced real plates on them, they’d be in the sink when he and Corinne came home. Corinne would then complain to Adam. Adam would then have to scream for the boys to come down and put their plates in the dishwasher. The boys would claim that they were just about to do it-yeah, right-but not to worry because they’d be down and do it when their show was over in five (read: fifteen) minutes. Five (read: fifteen) minutes would pass, and then Corinne would complain to Adam again about how irresponsible the boys were, and he’d shout up to them with a little more anger in his voice.

The cycles of domesticity.

“Paper plates are fine,” Adam said.

The two boys attacked the pizza as if they were rehearsing the finale of The Day of the Locust. Between bites, Ryan looked at his father curiously.

“What?” Adam said.

Ryan managed to swallow. “I thought you were just going to Janice’s for dinner.”

“We are.”

“So what’s with the getup?”

“It isn’t a getup.”

“And what’s the smell?” Thomas added.

“Are you wearing cologne?”

“Eeew. It’s ruining the taste of the pizza.”

“Knock it off,” Adam said.

“Want to trade a slice of pepperoni for a slice of buffalo chicken?”

“No.”

“Come on, just one slice.”

“Throw in a mozzarella stick.”

“No way. Half a mozzarella stick.”

Adam started for the door as the negotiations wore down. “We won’t be late. Get your homework done, and please stick the pizza box in the recycling, okay?”

He drove past the new hot yoga place on Franklin Avenue-by hot he meant temperature of the class, not popularity or looks-and found parking across the street from Janice’s. Five minutes early. He looked for Corinne’s car. No sign of it, but she could be parked in the back lot.

David, Janice’s son and quasi maître d’, greeted him at the door and brought him to the back table. No Corinne. Well, okay, he was here first. No big deal. Janice came out of the kitchen two minutes later. Adam rose and kissed her on the cheek.

“Where’s your wine?” Janice asked. Her bistro was BYO. Adam and Corinne always brought a bottle.

“Forgot.”

“Maybe Corinne will bring some?”

“I doubt it.”

“I can send David to Carlo Russo’s.”

Carlo Russo’s was the wine store down the street.

“That’s okay.”

“It’s no hassle. It’s quiet right now. David?” Janice turned back to Adam. “What are you having tonight?”

“Probably the veal Milanese.”

“David, get Adam and Corinne a bottle of the Paraduxx Z blend.”

David brought back the wine. Corinne still wasn’t there. David opened the bottle and poured two glasses. Corinne still wasn’t there. At seven fifteen, Adam started to get that sinking feeling in his gut. He texted Corinne. No answer. At seven thirty, Janice came over to him and asked if everything was okay. He assured her that it was, that Corinne was probably just caught up in some parent-teacher conference.

Adam stared at his phone, willing it to buzz. At 7:45 P.M., it did.

It was a text from Corinne:

MAYBE WE NEED SOME TIME APART. YOU TAKE CARE OF THE KIDS. DON’T TRY TO CONTACT ME. IT WILL BE OKAY.

Then:

JUST GIVE ME A FEW DAYS. PLEASE.