went to him. “Put your arms up.” He did, and she slid the dress over his head. She had to admit it looked pretty good. Perhaps a little like a trailer-park prom dress, but that was what Halloween was supposed to look like. “How does it feel?” she asked. “Comfortable? Move around a little bit.”
He struck a superhero pose, then ran across the floor and back again, feet stomping hard on the wood floor. Thank goodness it was just the Finnegans living beneath them, since they were both all but deaf. When he got back he nodded his approval. “It’s good.”
“I wonder if it will hold together,” she said, tugging gently at the hem. She was alarmed to see that the stitching tape was starting to pull apart when there was a knock at the door. “Wait there,” she instructed Johnny, pressing the hem together before getting up. “Don’t move.”
He stood still and she admired the costume one more time, hoping she might be able to improvise a quick fix. Maybe a glue gun? She was so distracted by the thought that when she opened the door and saw her ex-husband, it took a moment to compute. Why wasn’t he at work?
“Rick.”
“Daddy!” Johnny cried from across the room.
“Hey, bud.”
Johnny ran to Rick, arms outspread, dress coming apart more with every step. He threw himself into Rick’s arms, distributing pale blue glitter all over Rick’s Grateful Dead T-shirt.
Rick looked at his son. “What’ve you got on?”
Johnny flashed his mother a look of dramatic disapproval. “A princess costume.”
Rick looked over Johnny’s shoulder at Kit. “The column again?”
Kit nodded.
“They really ought to pay you extra for doing that. Put some money aside for therapy.” Rick laughed.
“Very funny. You’re early.”
“I know, I know, but I borrowed a car from my neighbor and I have to get it back to her by six.” Rick was six years younger than Kit, and once upon a time she had been enamored by his long-haired starving-artist persona. Now she was just weary of it.
“What happened to your company car?” she asked, dreading the answer even before the words were out of her mouth. He didn’t lose his job. Please, God, don’t let him say he lost his job.
Rick clicked his tongue against his teeth and let out a long aah breath. “I’m just not a corporate drone.” He set Johnny down. “I gave it a try—and I really appreciate your helping me get me the job and all—but it just wasn’t me.” He was unfazed by the withering look she was giving him. “The good news is, I got a gig painting a mural on the side of that old brick building on Maryland Avenue and Dobrey Street.”
“Does it pay?”
He tipped a flattened hand from side to side. “But the exposure is great. The theme is Indonesian history.” He nodded, as if that would make Kit feel all better about her son’s father’s complete lack of financial prospects.
Kit just looked at him. “Indonesian history.”
“What’s that?” Johnny asked.
“Excellent question, my friend.” Rick ruffled Johnny’s hair. “We’ll look it up this weekend.”
“You have to look it up?” Kit repeated incredulously. “You got this job without even knowing anything about it?”
Rick just smiled and said to Johnny, “Change your clothes—we have to go.”
“Okay. I’ll be right back!”
When Johnny was gone, Rick looked at Kit with pity. “Rough week?”
“What?”
“You look like hell. And you’ve got that past-deadline-temper thing going. You work too much.”
She frowned. “I have to. I’m trying to buy a house for our son. And it will be a lot easier if you keep up your support payments, such as they are.”
He waved her concerns away. “Don’t worry about it.”
It was good advice, because worrying about Rick’s lack of prospects had never made one whit of difference anyway. “So. Got big plans for the weekend? Besides studying Indonesian history, I mean.”
“Thought I might take him into the city to see the Modigliani exhibit at MOMA.”
“That would be good.” Better Rick than Kit, she figured. It wouldn’t hurt Johnny to be exposed to modern art, and God knew Kit didn’t want to do it. Modigliani gave her a headache. She didn’t like taking liberties with proportion. She was more of a Vermeer girl herself.
It wasn’t a bad metaphor for her life with Rick.
“Then again, we might stay in and watch Time Bandits.”
“Again?”
“Hey, it’s a classic.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. She’d known what she was getting into when she’d married him, and now, when he was consistently what she expected, she could hardly call foul on him for it. At least he loved his son and took good care of him when it was his weekend.
Johnny pounded back in the room. The dress was gone and he was in a Batman shirt—inside out—and shorts. He hauled his overstuffed Buzz Lightyear suitcase across the floor noisily. Buzz himself, the beat-up three-pound toy that could double as a weapon in the event of a burglary, was sticking out of the top.
“Ready to go, Buzz?” Rick asked, reminding Kit why she had loved him once. He was really good with Johnny, there was no denying it.
“Yup, he’s ready.” Johnny pointed to the obvious projection from his bag.
Kit knelt by the boy and gave him a tight hug. “You have a good time with Daddy, okay?”
“Okay, Mommy.”
She drew back and touched his nose. “I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too. ’Bye!”
“’Bye, baby.” She stood up.
“Relax a little,” Rick said to her. “These sixty-hour weeks are too much. You need to just be sometimes, you know?”
And that, she realized all at once, was why she’d married him. That mellowness, that hippie-without-the-drugs peacefulness. That was why she’d married him.
And why the marriage had failed.
Because no matter how much she wanted to be that easygoing, mellow, pass-the-nachos person, she was always going to be the uh-oh woman.
Thank God Johnny had Rick around to balance that out.
“Yes,” she agreed. “I need to be employed.” She smiled.
