What Comes After Crazy by Sandi Kahn Shelton

Author:Sandi Kahn Shelton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307209801
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2008-10-16T00:00:00+00:00

One evening after I get home from work, Lenny follows me into the kitchen and pops open a beer, then leans on the counter, watching me make dinner. “You’re good people, you know that?” he says. He smacks his lips, as if I’m something he’d like to pop into his mouth. “You’ve come through that uptight phase that you had, and now you’re just giving off an aura that really draws people in. Your energy is really clean now. That must feel good, that even after two kids, and putting up with me, you’ve still got it.” He’s moving over closer to me, his eyes looking filmy.

“Lenny. Stop.” Shake the salt into the water. Put the shaker down. Turn on the burner. Don’t make eye contact with him.

I go to the kitchen door and call into the living room: “Hope, Abbie, I want the two of you to go upstairs and get into the bathtub together while Daddy and I cook supper. And tonight you can turn on the shower radio while you bathe.” I don’t know how this is going to go, and I do not want them to hear any of our conversation.

They argue, of course. They fuss. Since the other day when it was perfectly fine to take a bath together, now Hope has decided she doesn’t want Abbie to see her naked. Abbie says that Hope never lets her sit in the front of the tub and besides that, she splashes. Patiently, like some kind of saintly mother, I sort out all their arguments and make them go anyway. In a brilliant stroke of parenting genius, I end up promising them each a dollar if they will do what I say. I am ready to go as high as promising a pony.

Then I go back to Lenny, who’s dreamily leaning on his elbow and drinking his beer.

“I never expected in a million years to come home and have to hit a guy on the deck. You know, I really, really thought—”

“I know, Lenny. Let’s not go into it again.”

There’s a beat of silence, and his voice changes, drops lower. “I gotta say, it really turns me on that you’re not so hung up on this monogamy stuff anymore.”

“Oh, does it?” I say. Then, because I have to, I say, “You know, that is so not the point of anything. I do believe in monogamy very strongly. It’s just that—” I look up. He’s smiling at me. I stop talking, go back to unwrapping the pork chops.

He takes a big slug of his beer and forms his words carefully. “Well, given that you’re more easy-going—shall we say, for lack of a better word—about monogamy, given that, do you ever think about maybe coming out to Santa Fe?”

“Nope, not even once. Were there any calls today while I was gone?”

“Any of your men, you mean?”

“I mean, were there any calls?”

“Hope and Abbie want to go. I’ve been talking to them about the school out there—”

“I know you have, and I wish you’d stop it.

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