think we should have a toast to Alice on the publication of her wonderful book.” Kat raised her glass in the air.
“Absolutely,” Todd said.
“Oh, don’t. It hasn’t been published yet,” I protested weakly. I did not share Kat’s gift for gracefully accepting compliments.
“And it’s not a novel, right?” Howard asked. His lips were stained red from the wine. “I thought Kat said it was just a book of puzzles for children.”
The truth was, it was just a book of puzzles for children. But something about the way Howard said it rankled me.
“That’s right,” I said, striving to keep my tone neutral.
“It’s a book!” Kat said. “A book that Alice wrote. That’s what’s so exciting. How many people can say they’ve written a book?”
“These days? As far as I can tell, just about anyone,” Howard said with a condescending smile. “Haven’t you ever heard of e-books? Self-publishing? Anyone who ever fancied himself the next Ernest Hemingway suddenly has a platform. Not that any of these so-called writers have actually read Ernest Hemingway.”
Kat looked at her husband coldly. “And what about you? Have you ever read Hemingway?”
The words hung between them in an icy silence, until Todd waded in.
“Alice wasn’t trying to write the Great American Novel,” he said. “She’s a logician. Her book is meant to teach children how to solve logic puzzles.”
I know I should have appreciated his defense. But when I saw Howard shrug and splay his hands in front of him as though he couldn’t be bothered to keep up with the nuances of my career—not that anyone was asking him to—I became irrationally annoyed at my husband. Why did he need to put me into my little box, to put a label on me that Howard would find less threatening?
“I think what Alice has done is amazing,” said Kat, my staunchest supporter. “To you, Alice.”
She raised her glass again and blew me a kiss. I smiled back at her and felt my irritation recede.
Despite Howard’s temperamental mood, Kat rallied to make the dinner a success. I could tell that one of her goals for the evening was to win Todd over. Not that it was hard. Like most people, Todd found it easy to like someone who was nice and funny and seemed delighted to be talking to him.
“So, Todd,” Kat began, topping off his wineglass. I’d already had so much wine, my head was spinning a little. I hoped that Todd would be okay to drive us home. “Are you an only child, like Alice?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Todd said, which made Kat laugh. “Seriously, if you met my younger brother, you’d understand. His greatest accomplishment in life is that he can chug a beer and then burp the alphabet.”
“But that’s an incredibly useful skill!” Kat exclaimed. “You could hire him out as an entertainment for children’s parties.”
Todd chuckled. “That’s an idea. Maybe he can fall back on it if his current career selling energy drinks online isn’t a success.”
“Just the one brother?” Kat asked.
I glanced at Todd and wasn’t surprised to see a shadow cross his face.
“Just one I grew up with,” he said. “I had a half brother from my father’s first marriage. His short-lived and ill-fated first marriage.”
Kat nodded, her expression understanding. She knew all about children who were born of short-lived and ill-fated relationships.
“They were divorced when Brendon, my half brother, was a baby, and it was pretty contentious,” Todd continued. “Afterward Brendon and his mother moved to Georgia, where I guess she was originally from. We didn’t see a whole lot of him growing up. He was eight years older than me, so when he did come to stay for a few weeks in the summers, he didn’t want much to do with me.”
“So you’re not close,” Kat concluded.
“Well, no, we weren’t. Unfortunately, he passed away last year,” Todd said.
“I’m so sorry,” Kat said. “He must have been very young.”
Todd nodded in thanks. I thought he’d end the story there, but the wine was making him verbose. “It was actually pretty terrible. We were there at the time. Alice, myself, the kids. We were all at my parents’ house for Thanksgiving. Brendon was drunk, as he often was, and he fell down the stairs. The fall killed him.”
“Oh, my God,” Kat exclaimed, looking at me. “How horrific.”
“It really was,” I said, shaking my head. I didn’t like to think about that night. “We called the paramedics, but it was too late to save him. I was so worried the children would wake up and see him...well, lying there. Luckily they slept through the whole thing. But it was an awful night.”
“I thought drunks never got hurt,” Howard cut in. On the word drunks, he slurred the r. “That they always walk away from car accidents.”
“It’s hard to walk away from anything when your neck’s broken,” Todd said.
There was a brief moment of silence.
“Why don’t I bring in dessert?” Kat suggested.
* * *
“What an asshole,” Todd said once we were in our car.
“Are you sure you’re okay to drive?”
Todd waved me off, and he did seem sober enough, so I let it go. He pulled out of the drive, sending a spray of gravel in his wake.
“How did those two end up married? They seem like complete opposites,” he continued.
I shrugged. “It happens. Maybe he was less grumpy when they met.”
“Grumpy? Is that what you’d call him? You make him sound like one of Snow White’s seven dwarfs.”
“Well, how would you describe him?”
“I thought he was a dick,” Todd said.
I laughed and leaned back in my seat. “He really was awful, wasn’t he? From what little Kat has told me about him, I certainly wasn’t expecting Howard to be genial. But I also wasn’t expecting him to be so hostile. I got the feeling he resented our being there, and his having to play host.”
“He spent the entire night trying to one-up me,” Todd said. “When I told him I play tennis, he claimed he was good enough to play for his college team. When I told him what I do, he said he’d thought about being an architect but decided he’d make more money in finance.”
Todd’s tone was unusually bitter. I imagined I was not the only one who had been impressed by the size and scope of the Grants’ house, particularly against the backdrop of our current financial crisis. But that wasn’t something either one of us wanted to get into. And even if we had no choice but to discuss our money woes periodically, we rarely
