“She’s really not,” he says with a shrug. “Lolo doesn’t really get pissed.”
I pretend to be asleep. Boring.
“What?” He looks annoyed at my reaction. “Believe it or not, that’s a nice quality to have.”
“Sure, sure.” I shift again, increasingly uncomfortable as the medical tape on my back tugs at my skin. “It’s just not what you need.”
“You have no idea what I need,” he snaps. “If you did, we’d still be together. And I’m not talking about this with you.”
I lift a noncommittal shoulder and let him lapse into brooding silence. Which lasts maybe a minute.
“What do you mean, it’s not what I need?” he asks.
“Well. Don’t take this the wrong way, but sometimes you do this thing where you’re sort of . . . insufferable.”
He blinks. “Sure, nope. Won’t take that the wrong way.”
“You can just be a little set in your ways, and to combat that, you need someone to, you know. Ruffle your feathers. Push your buttons.”
“Until I met you, I didn’t even have buttons,” Tom says.
“Which is why you’re so much more interesting now than when we met,” I say, batting my eyelashes.
He sighs.
I inspect my nails for a moment, then look up at him. “Do they like her? Your family?”
He shrugs. “I’m assuming so.”
“What do you mean? Can’t you tell when they’re with her?”
“Well, since you’re so close to them, maybe you can let me know their feelings after we get to Chicago,” he snaps.
I narrow my eyes. “Wait. Is this the first time they’re meeting her? And why is she there without you in the first place?”
“She had a baby shower thing for a college friend out-of-state, so we were going to fly in separately. I was supposed to get there just a couple hours after her.” He gives me a meaningful look.
“Oh?” I ask, all innocence. “What happened?”
“I picked up a phone call I shouldn’t have,” he says, closing his eyes tiredly. “You can read all about it in my obituary because I’m increasingly unsure if I’ll survive this night.”
“Now, now, don’t think like that,” I say, giving his knee a little pat. “The best part of our string of disasters? It can’t possibly get any worse.”
TWENTY-FIVE
TOM
December 23, 11:04 p.m.
Not long after, I glance over at my ex-wife. “You were saying? About this not getting any worse?”
“Yeah,” Katherine admits with uncharacteristic agreeability. “It’s worse.”
When we boarded the bus, it was crowded. Five excruciating stops later, it’s beyond crowded. Every single seat is full, and I never thought I’d say this, but I actually miss the “quiet police” from our train ride. They’d never allow what I’m currently being forced to endure.
It’s a toss-up between what’s more miserable: the noise or the smells.
The guy directly across the aisle from me has been eating onion rings since the moment he sat down. And not fresh onion rings, though that would be bad enough. The scents of stale batter and reused cooking oil hang like a fog through the entire back of the bus.
The woman in front of him is clipping her toenails, and the “big one won’t cooperate.” I know this because she’s announced it loudly. Several times.
There are four babies aboard. I like babies. A lot. I’m that guy who purposely never lets his smile waver when a stressed-out parent holding a crying newborn stops in the airplane aisle and points to the open seat beside me with an apologetic grin. It would suck to be that parent, and it would suck to be that gassy, hungry baby, so I try to be patient.
But you know what? Right now, it sucks more to be me. Because not one of these babies has stopped wailing, even though all four of them have had their diapers changed while on board, resulting in a smell that is almost, but not quite, worse than the onion rings.
Right on cue, someone lets out a long, noisy fart.
“Jesus, Tom.” Katherine pulls her coat collar over her face. “That one sounded wet. The ham is really doing a number on you, huh?”
“Not. Me,” I manage to say around my deliberate mouth-breathing. “This is all your fault.”
“Okay, I’ll grant you that some of this mess is on me,” Katherine says.
“You think?”
“But some of it’s on you too,” she shoots back.
“How the hell do you figure that?” I ask, genuinely affronted. Without Katherine, I’d be home right now, reassuring Lolo that she doesn’t have to actually wear the flannel snowman nightgown that my mother bought on Etsy, my stomach happily full of eggnog and a homemade meal.
Instead, my appetite has been entirely shot to hell by farts, stale onion rings, and the aftermath of funky ham, and I’m sitting beside a woman who, I’m just now discovering, has kept in touch with my family.
I can’t decide what bothers me more: that Katherine has been cozy with my family, or that they’ve been hiding it from me for years.
“Well,” Katherine answers my question in a deliberately patient tone, as though preparing to explain something very basic to a recalcitrant child, “the fact that we’ve been delayed—”
“Multiple times,” I cut in.
“The fact that we’ve been delayed multiple times is my fault,” she continues. “But the fact that we’re on your tight, arbitrary schedule? That’s on you.”
“Arbitrary—” I have to shut my mouth a moment to keep myself from sputtering. “I’m sorry, but do you think I’ve somehow exerted influence over the date of Christmas?”
“Ah, but it’s not just Christmas, is it?” she says, wagging an annoying finger at me. “It’s Christmas Eve. I mean, honestly, Tom, you’ve never been this weird about the twenty-fourth before. Do you have a hot date with the reindeer or something?”
My jaw works in a mixture of vexation, anger, and guilt. The first two—obvious, right? The last one, though . . .
I could tell her. I should tell her.
But here’s the situation. Not only am I faced with the discomfort of telling my ex-wife—even one who hates my guts—that I’m getting married again, but I also have to explain that I want to propose to Wife Number Two on Christmas Eve because it’s a long-standing family tradition. A family tradition that I didn’t adhere to, or even really consider, when proposing to Wife Number One.
I don’t know how I can possibly deliver that news without hurting her, and as much as I’ve thought I could happily strangle Katherine today, I don’t want to cause her pain.
And even if I could get around that hang-up by simply reminding myself that Katherine’s the type who appreciates straightforwardness, the truth is . . .
I don’t know how to explain.
Not to her.
Not even to myself.
As the infernal woman’s been reminding me every chance she gets, I’m a planner. Not because I’m uptight—okay, perhaps a bit—but because I love life. I knew even in my college days that I didn’t want to be that guy that woke up at forty, alone in his messy bachelor pad, and think, Damn, I better get a move on it!