Page 22 of On Fire Island

“Will I still find them magically delicious?” he asked Houdini, before shoving a spoonful into his mouth. He pulled out the inner bag, picked out extra marshmallow surprises, and tossed them into his bowl. A boy after my own heart.

“Trix are probably out of the question.” He laughed through a mouthful of unicorns, blue moons, and red balloons. Houdini looked up at him, tiny beads of milk peppering his whiskers. Matty ran his hand across the cat’s back while cracking himself up.

“Silly cat. Trix are for kids.”

I understood his curiosity about adults eating kid cereal. Everytime I strolled down the cereal aisle at the market, I mourned the Cap’n Crunch–loving days of my youth before arriving safely at the Kashi and muesli. And let’s not even discuss Pop-Tarts—strawberry with white frosting dotted with sprinkles, cinnamon brown sugar, or chocolate—gooey and delicious from a two-minute stint in the toaster. What a waste of self-control that was.

By Matty’s third spoonful of Lucky Charms, Renee entered the kitchen looking strangely flustered. She was acting jittery, even nervous—I’d never seen her present either of those emotions. Matty seemed to notice too. While it was odd, it was a vast improvement from the doomsday presentation she had been sporting since the divorce. To Renee,divorcewas the worst word in the world.

Some people marry for love, some marry for money, but Renee married Tuck for sustainability. She simply never wanted to get divorced. She yearned for the sanctity of a traditional marriage, for having that one person standing beside her, or behind her, or in front of her—whatever the circumstance at the time called for. Her own childhood, paired with the hours upon billable hours of hearing other couples’ war stories, made her all the more thankful when she finally stumbled on Tuck. Short, dull, reliable Tuck.

While I knew Ben was the one because he took my breath away, Renee’s tell was the opposite—she breathed easier when Tuck was around. Short, dull, reliable Tuck, with the only girl in Scarsdale High history to win both most likely to succeed and prom queen on his arm. The first thing people said when they heard the news of his cheating was, “I’m surprised he had it in him.” It was one of Renee’s first thoughts as well.

Being keenly aware from her occupation of every sign of infidelity made it pretty simple for Renee to see when something was amiss in her own marriage. Plus, she had all the tools. When herantennae went up, she began tracking his phone and it didn’t take long till she saw that he was a frequent flier at the Sherry-Netherland hotel. She waited outside until she saw him exit, with his assistant of all people. They kissed goodbye on the corner of Fifty-Ninth and Fifth. Renee was close enough to see his tongue sloppily jutting in and out of her mouth. She crossed the street to Central Park and threw up behind an oak tree.

She thought about asking the standard question you always hear in the movies—Do you love her?—but realized she didn’t much care. It was the betrayal that fed her anguish. She packed up his things, left them in the hallway, and changed the locks. This isn’t to say she wasn’t upset; she was really quite devastated. She had lost control of her marriage, and control meant more to Renee than most anything else.

Though from the look she was currently flaunting, she might have let that go as well. She seemed loose. Renee was not loose. Her tendency to be tightly wound was the thing that had unraveled her marriage. At least that’s what Tuck implied.

At my insistence, Ben had met Tuck for a drink one night after Renee had thrown him out. (It was before my diagnosis or I never would have pushed him.) Their personal connection was negligible, really. Ben only tolerated Tuck’s company because of my friendship with Renee and his love for Matty. To Tuck, I imagined it was something more. Tuck was not a guy’s guy and, to make matters worse, he wasn’t particularly aware of his shortcomings. It was probably the reason he insisted on playing in the Homeowners’ Game, even though he wasn’t any good. Ben would say, “The great Tuck Tucker is a figment of his own imagination.” Tuck had little self-awareness, though apparently a bit more when it came to his infidelity.

Ben didn’t ask Tuck for an excuse when he met him for thatdrink, but Tuck was quick to explain himself. He claimed that Renee had no interest in him sexually. That she lay there bored during sex, thinking about work. And it wasn’t conjecture. On more than one occasion, just as they finished, he described how she rolled over and scribbled down notes on the pad on her nightstand. And they weren’t about his performance. In contrast, Lola loved sex with Tuck—and it wasn’t his imagination. It turned out that Lola was a screamer. Tuck made Lola scream. Tuck madesomeonescream was more the point. Ben didn’t really have answers beyond that.

Renee was often transactional in her relationships and possessive with her time—doling it out like the aproned master portioned out gruel to the boys at the workhouse inOliver Twist. I often teased her, calling her the queen of multitasking. I was sure that what Tuck had said was true, but there was no way I was breaking the girl code by admitting it.

“Did you ask why he didn’t address these issues with Renee before looking elsewhere?” I inquired, speaking to the weak link in Tuck’s excuse.

“No,” Ben said, the way a husband does when trying to avoid saying the wrong thing. I wasn’t letting him off that easily.

“I’m just saying, if he wasn’t happy, he should have told her so. Don’t you believe that?”

“Please don’t do that thing that women do, where you question what we have because of other people’s relationship failures.”

“Please don’t do that thing that men do, making ridiculous comments like ‘that thing that women do.’ ”

He laughed. “You got me there, sorry. I didn’t ask because I don’t really care. Tuck is a giant dweeb, and I think Renee would be happier with someone else. Someone who makes her scream.”

As if I had conjured him, the long-haired, shirtlesssomeone-to-make-her-scream dashed down Renee’s stairs—landing with a playful thud in her kitchen.

I guess she had to put one-night stand back on her bucket list. I was dying to know how the second night came about.

She looked painfully embarrassed and proceeded as if everything was as it should be.

“Good morning, Matty, how did you sleep?” she asked, while kissing him sweetly on top of his head.

“Fine,” he replied, along with a quick glance at the kitchen clock. It read 9:00 a.m. He didn’t return the question. He had no desire to know how she slept.

The man-child, who, as you can imagine, looked as different as humanly possible from Tuck, the wandering-eyed number-crunching bad lover, came in for an introduction.

“Hey, man, I’m Gabe.”

Renee tried to get it together. “Yes, sorry. This is Gabe; Gabe, this is my son, Matty.”

Gabe reached out for a fist bump, revealing a small yin-yang tattoo on his wrist that I hadn’t previously noticed. Matty studied it while barely bumping back. The painful introduction continued.

“Gabe is a drummer,” Renee relayed hopefully.

Relief inexplicably flooded Matty’s face.

---