“Well, I’m about to begin my practice,” she says, and removes my coat from the hanger.
Apollo has put something in a bowl and I see him light a match and begin to burn it. As the elevator arrives my nostrils fill with a smell I know but have trouble naming. I focus on this, knowing I’ve cooked with this familiar herb. When the elevator reaches the ground floor again, it hits me: sage. He’s burning sage to rid the bad energy of Belle McElroy from the white, perfectly ordered, and purchased world of Kathryn Peterson.
CHAPTER 35
Triple Witching Hour
WHEN MY family boards an airplane and the seating configuration is two rows of three seats, there will be one lone passenger stuck with the five of us. I always feel for that person, sitting there innocently, not knowing we’re about to become their living hell for the next few hours.
Today that person is an elderly woman, neat and prim. Except for the visual groan on her face as we settled ourselves, she’s been ignoring us. We’ll be in her turf for hours and my sense is she already can’t stand us. We do better with sullen teenagers or Hispanic men. Not to categorize humanity, but I’ve come to learn which bunches of people come installed with a gracious tolerance for small children.
Bruce and I had one magnificent showdown, worthy of reality television. It happened in the comfort of our home, in front of our caregiver, in front of our kids. It was a textbook example of everything you aren’t supposed to do as a parent.
I had come home from a business dinner where I only stayed for the cocktail portion of the evening. Instead of my usual glass of white wine, I had not one but two dirty martinis and not one bite of food. Drinking my dinner turned me positively fearless. I walked into our apartment at 9 p.m. with some vision of a quiet house and possible husband romance. Instead I opened the door and was assaulted by the television blaring some sexy talk in front of three young faces. Caregiver and Bruce sat there, bookending the kids and both talking animatedly into their cell phones. The whimpering dog told me he hadn’t been walked, and my peripheral vision caught sight of the dish-strewn kitchen table. The children weren’t tuned in to Handy Manny but what seemed like an X-rated movie, Mr. and Mrs. Smith. This wasn’t some cozy movie night at the McElroys, this was the television babysitting my kids long after bedtime because neither adult in the house could summon the energy to put them to bed.
“I’ve just finished my fourteen-hour work shift so I thought I’d skip dinner to come home early and help you two out,” I said sarcastically.
Caregiver jumped up. “We thought you were coming home later,” she muttered as she headed to the kitchen and started banging things around.
Moments like that parents expect young children to run with outstretched arms to their mother, but I was no match for Mrs. Smith—er, Angelina Jolie—who picked that moment to mount Brad Pitt’s hip and keep my kids’ eyes on her flawless thighs. While straddling Brad, her knife, which she kept tucked into her garter belt, revealed itself.
Bruce, whose finger was in the air—implying I should hold my fire—finished some sweet sign-off and ended the call.
“Who the hell were you talking to?”
“Belle, Jesus, my mother called.”
“Your mother? You don’t give your mother the time of day, never mind miss a movie for her. When the hell did you start being nice to her?”
“I’m always nice. I’m like a bag of niceness, all the frickin’ time.”
Jolie and Pitt then attacked someone, breaking stuff in their house, shooting at bad guys, destroying everything, implying the sex was inevitably great and by all appearances not having to clean up the mess they made. That was exactly what I wanted to do.
I made a dive for the television, trying to turn it off manually, but some plastic stacking rings on the floor got under my feet. I fell flat on my face.
“I want to break stuff too!” I yelled, grabbing some of the rings and furiously throwing them at Bruce. “I want to HIT someone.” Even the rings disrespected me, being too light to get far and falling about three feet short of Bruce.
“Chill, Belle. This movie is, like, PG-13 and these kids are being parentally guided. What the hell is your problem?”
“My problem is you won’t get off your fat ass to either work or turn into a dad who acknowledges he needs to do more of the mom stuff.” The red plastic slide that’s been sitting on its side was next on my hit list.
“Would it kill anyone in the house to do this?” I said as I turned the slide upright, letting little rubber balls spill everywhere. “Am I the only one who notices anything around here?”