42.

“How was the night?” Dad came out of the kitchen with a plate of cheese. He’d been at work all day, working on a deal, which he rarely did on Sundays anymore. “How’s your friend Donna?”

“Okay.” I eyed the cheese and thought of Mom with a plate of Brie resting on her chest, how she’d dig at it and keep it lying around on her bed all night. Dad always precut his cheese and put a predetermined, matching number of crackers—in this case, six—on his plate. Then he would sit down purposefully to eat, as though it were an eating “session.”

“How’s she liking Barnard?” He swiveled in his chair. The only thing Dad knew about Donna was that she went to Barnard.

“She didn’t say,” I answered, relishing the first few moments of an Ian-free room. He’d finally gone to sleep after a never-ending stream of hungover hours I’d spent feeding, changing and entertaining him and trying not to call Will. As much as I wanted to talk to him, I didn’t know where he was with the adoption thing—how much he was going to push it—and I was afraid to find out.

“What did you guys do?” he asked, a chipper lilt in his voice. I didn’t know why he thought seeing Donna would make me feel good about things.

“Not much, Dad, we just went out. Hung out.” I picked up a New Yorker and leafed through it, trying to find the movie reviews. “The whole college thing makes people very smug, doesn’t it?” I asked. “Is everybody just so damned happy with themselves? Their schools? Their jobs?”

“What do you mean, smug?” Dad asked, watching me carefully.

“Just, you know, just very, very pleased with their little lives. Donna’s doing some integrative studies thing. She thinks this somehow makes her very, very special. Her prof this, her prof that. She’s reading St. Augustine. So what?”

“Is she enjoying it?” Dad asked, inserting a stack gingerly in his mouth.

“Yes, she’s enjoying it,” I said. What an asshole, I thought.

“Sometimes smugness, if I understand what you’re getting at, is just another way of dealing with anxiety.”

“Huh?” It occurred to me that I’d never complained about my friends to him. I’d preferred to let him think we were sophisticates; any dirty laundry was too cool to be leaked to outsiders.

“Most people have a lot of anxiety, Thea,” he said. “Even when things are going well.”

“What does that have to do with it?” I asked. “I’m just saying she’s being annoying. Her GPA and how it’s the highest in her seminar, blah blah.”

“Maybe she doesn’t want it to end,” he said, sweeping crumbs to one side of his plate.

“Doesn’t want what to end?”

“Whatever success she’s experiencing at the moment.” He picked up another cracker and held it pensively in front of his mouth.

“What, is something up at work?” I asked.

“No, it’s okay.” He leaned back. “Not great. It’s been a tough year. I’m only down thirty percent, better than some, but I’ve still got lots of layoffs.”

“Are you going to get the ax?”

“Who knows?” He sighed, setting the plate on the ottoman. “I’m sure I’m on someone’s list.”

“You’re being very cool about it,” I said.

“Not cool, just resigned, maybe. Now, how about that salad? I’ve got some Parma ham and I’ve boiled some eggs to throw in.” He got up and went to the kitchen with his plate.

“Great,” I said, stretching my sore, hungover muscles on the couch.

“In the meantime, it’s no fun having to fire a bunch of people. A lot of them have kids Ian’s age.”

“Do you call them into your office”—I lowered my voice, trying to imitate him—“Look, I have some bad news.…”

“It’s not a game, Thea,” he said, turning around from the kitchen counter to glare at me.

“I didn’t say it was. It’s just that you never seem to be …”

“To be what?”

“I don’t know, too engaged in what people think anyway.”

“What kind of thing is that to say?” His back was to me again and he was making big sweeping motions with his hands, tossing the salad.

“Well, why don’t you have any friends? How come you’re alone so much?”

“Am I alone? I wouldn’t describe it that way.”

“Besides us, I mean, and work.”

“You take up more of my life than you realize.” He pulled the plastic string on a bottle of olive oil and the wrapper popped off. I had a guilty pang that came in a rush. What was that supposed to mean? Were we really that much of a burden? Then I immediately resented him for pinning all his social failures on us.

“Look, Thea,” he said. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m not that interested in what a twenty-five-year-old kid starting out has to say. Why does he need to get up on the table and do the Macarena, or whatever.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

He peeled an egg and dumped the shells into the garbage. “Why does he need to make an impact that way? Moreover, why does he need to tell me, to explain to me, that that’s what he does at parties? Why is this a defining feature for him? One he needs to tell people about? Tell me about?” He shook the new olive oil into the bowl.

“What’s your point?” I asked. “That you don’t care?”

He made a shooing motion with his hand as he carried out the bowl on two plates. “I don’t know what the point is, maybe I am intrigued by these people, these young guys who come in so eager and giddy, with their elephantine egos, their inflated, fragile sense of self.” He shook his head and sat down at the table. I dragged myself to the chair in front of him. “Maybe I’m even fond of them. From afar, ideally.” He rubbed his hands together. “Salad du chef.”

We chewed in silence.

“Maybe we should go wake up Ian,” Dad said. “He’ll cheer me up.”

“Wake him and die,” I said. My phone rang and I reached for it on the table.

“Thea, please, don’t answer the phone at the dinner table.” He scowled. “You don’t see me doing that.”

I hit the green button. “Your bikini?” I recognized Carmen’s slightly scratchy voice. “It sold in less than an hour. I remember looking at my watch. It was, like, forty-seven minutes after you left.”

“No way,” I said quietly.

“I think she was Brazilian, I’m not kidding. I was going to call you right after, but I had to catch a train to Wellfleet for a family thing and I ran out of juice. I just got back. Anyway, you should make more. How long did it take you to make that one?”

“A while,” I admitted. “But I think I can ramp it up.”

“Well, why don’t you do, like, two or three more and bring them in. You have the yarn, right?”

“Yup,” I said. Dad was glaring at me, but I put my hand up, gesturing, Wait till you hear this.

I hung up, my heart racing, some weird baroque music sounding in my brain. I felt like a window had opened up in my head again, cool air blowing through it, the same way I felt in Carmen’s shop when I was first there with Vanessa.

“So something really exciting just happened.” I looked at Dad, picking up my fork.

“What’s that, Thea?”

“I sold a bikini.”

“Bikini?” Dad focused on stabbing his last lettuce leaf.

“Vanessa taught me how to crochet, and I made this bikini, just like one I had when I was a kid—there’s a picture of me at the beach on Charter, Nana made it. Anyway, this woman Carmen helped me, a lot, actually, and then she sold it in her shop. That’s what she called to tell me.”

“I didn’t realize you made swimsuits,” he said, standing up with his plate. He either wasn’t listening or was really dense.

“She sold it for three hundred bucks,” I called after him as he headed to the kitchen. He turned toward me and paused at the mention of money.

“That’s great,” he said. “That’s terrific, Thea.” He continued to the kitchen, looking befuddled and slightly worried, as though my earning three hundred dollars were potentially illegal. “Some more salad?”