Everything Here is Under Control by Emily Adrian

Everything Here is Under Control by Emily Adrian

Author:Emily Adrian
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Published: 2020-04-24T16:00:57+00:00


* * *

When Carrie gets back from the pool, she is sun-drunk and too lazy to cook. She pulls three kinds of potato chips from the pantry and cracks open a beer. Nina emerges from her bedroom and slumps way down in a chair to commence chip-eating, her movements mechanical as she reaches again and again for the bag.

I have left Jack sleeping on the bed in the guest room, surrounded by a fortress of pillows in case he spontaneously rolls again. Already I miss the weight of his body in my lap, the curve of his skull against my lips.

“So,” I say, “Nina’s birthday.”

“It’s coming up,” Carrie agrees.

“I was thinking, to get the celebrations underway, do you guys want to spend a night in Cleveland? My treat? And we can get Gabe from the airport in the morning.”

His name is like a foreign object in my mouth.

Nina perks up. “Yes,” she says. “Can I get my own room?”

“No,” Carrie answers.

Nina tries again. “Can we get a room with a minibar?”

I say, “Yes. You’re thirteen now. You can have all the overpriced Skittles you want.”

She turns to her mother. “Please, Mom?”

Carrie narrows her eyes at me. “Are you just trying to get away from the fireworks?”

Gabe’s flight lands on July fifth. On the fourth, all of Deerling will be ablaze, the hot air saturated with the fumes of Black Cats and Lady Fingers. It’s occurred to me that Cleveland’s pyrotechnics will be contained, supervised by firefighters, and over by 10:00 p.m.

“That’s a perk but not the reason,” I say.

Carrie frowns, working her tongue over her teeth. “Are you sure you want us to come? You and Gabe haven’t seen each other in a while. Have you ever been apart this long?”

“Sure,” I lie.

She’s skeptical. “When?”

“Gabe travels. I travel.”

“Ah. Didn’t realize you two were such jet-setters.”

“Please, come to Cleveland with me.”

“All right,” she says. “If that’s really what you want.”

Nina pumps a fist in the air. She grabs her phone from the counter and begins furiously texting. I’m still curious to know what happened between her and Maxine two nights ago, causing their goodbye hug to be so solemn and prolonged. Before I can think of a delicate way to ask, I become aware of Carrie studying me. She holds her beer to her lips, obscuring her expression.

“What?” I say.

“Nothing. It’s weird to see you without Jack.”

“I feel naked,” I admit. “Like when you realize you left your purse in the bar.”

“Can I ask you something?” Carrie’s tone is more deferential than usual.

“Sure.”

“Is Gabe good with the baby?”

I remember the night before I left, waiting in vain for Gabe to relieve me of our inconsolable newborn. He was tired, but he was also mean, which was unprecedented. Before the baby, we were so consistently sweet to each other that once, after Gabe called me out for underreporting the price we’d paid for a crate of organic peaches, Paige turned to the woman she was dating and snapped, “See? They fight. They’re not perfect.



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