Page 34 of Center of Gravity

Sean regarded me carefully, with what I thought might have been a little bit of wonder, before he nodded. I put my hand on the door knob before glancing back at him. “And stop calling me late at night when you’re drunk. If it’s not work-related, I don’t want to hear your fucking voice.” I left before my own voice cracked.

Back in my office, I slid behind my desk, hands trembling, and pulled out my phone. The text from Alex was a picture of Winslow wearing a harness of colorful silk scarves, captioned: “Forgot to grab the leash from your place. Think he’ll be mad he looks like an escaped circus act?”

I laughed in spite of myself, or maybe because of what had just happened. The juxtaposition was so night and day that the discord struck me as humorous, edging out the dismal awareness of Sean in his office down the hall. When I stopped laughing, I replied back:Better sleep with one eye open.

10

Alex

“The shiny pants,” Lainey said, flopping onto my bed.

I stood in front of my closet, which shared space with about three dozen boxes of Christmas ornaments my mom had stuffed there, and flicked hopelessly through my clothes. I was not a clotheshorse. Or, well, I could have been, but art had pushed me into practical territory. Very few things I owned didn’t have some sort of media stain on them. But Tom and a few of my other friends were taking me out for my birthday, and since Max—my friend since freshman year figure drawing class—insisted on a club, I was trying to find something clubby and birthday appropriate. It was harder than I expected.

“Shiny pants?” I tried to figure out what she was talking about as she twirled her Barbie in the air. Then I understood and flipped through the hangers to pull out a pair of faux leather pants I’d had since my more fashion-conscious days of high school when I was convinced clothing factored heavily into the magical equation that would result in me getting laid.

“Those!” Her nod was so aggressive her ponytail bobbed.

“No. Way too hot.” Leather and Georgia were never meant to be put together. I’d tried my damndest a few times and always ended up like a nuclear reactor in meltdown. Lainey mock-pouted when I shoved them back into the closet. She then proceeded to dismiss every other option I showed her as “ugly.”

Just before I’d flipped through my entire rack of clothing, I arrived at a pair of sand-colored linen trousers. Lainey curled her lip, but didn’t make any objections. I read that as reluctant approval. Linen was good. Linen I could work with. Aside from the annoying wrinkling, the pants were cut well and would breathe, at least. Alain, my sophomore year boyfriend had picked them out for some art opening we went to together. He was two years older and a Hamptons kid, which was pretty much the only important thing about him aside from his ability to dress. He’d done that well. And I suppose his mouth had been nice enough. While it lasted.

“What are you smiling at?”

I blinked. “Nothing, just thinking of—nothing.”

Lainey rolled onto her stomach, already bored. I threw my pants on top of her and she giggled. Then I turned back to my shirts. Couldn’t do a T-shirt with the pants. Bummer. I went with a lightweight white button down instead, scanning for any stains as I removed it. Alain had probably picked it out, too.

Winslow trotted in and inserted himself on the bed between my linen pants and Lainey. Lainey and Winslow were a raging case of instalove, with Lainey attempting to use him as a horse for her Barbies within five minutes of me letting him out of his carrier. To my surprise, the affection seemed to be mutual. Winslow had followed her around all day.

She settled her Barbie onto his back and started giggling when Winslow craned his head to gnaw on the doll’s sculpted legs. “Bad horse!” she exclaimed, then rolled onto her back, pulling a face at me upside down with her head hanging off my bed. “Marissa’s spending the night and Mom says we can have a movie marathon with popcorn and everything. Can we use your room and you have mine? Plllllleeeeeeeaaaassssseee?”

My room had the only other available TV since Dad had commandeered the living room TV for his bedroom. I considered a moment, then shrugged. “I guess. I can probably just stay at Tom’s anyway.” I didn’t think I’d be home at what Mom considered a reasonable hour and she hated when I came home in the wee hours of the morning, because she said it either woke her and then she couldn’t go back to sleep or she couldn’t fall asleep in the first place until I got home. Mom logic. I didn’t understand it.

“But, you have to feed Winslow and take him out before bed and also in the morning. Deal?”

“Done!” Lainey slid off the bed and took off running for the stairs, like she thought I might change my mind. She thundered back down again a few seconds later, scooped up Winslow, who’d been standing there confused, then thundered back up again.

After I dressed, I went upstairs and Mom called to me from the kitchen. When I went in, sitting on the middle of the kitchen counter was a small birthday cake stuffed with candles. Dad sat in one of the kitchen chairs looking green, but he smiled when I came in.

“I thought we agreed we weren’t going to do anything for my birthday,” I said, slinging an arm around Mom’s shoulder.

“We did. But you still have to have a cake.” She lifted her finger to me and leaned, shouting, “Lainey, did you tell your brother happy birthday?”

Silence, and then from a distance, “Happy birthday.”

“She’s so excited about her sleepover.” Mom scooped a bit of icing from the bottom of the cake and sampled it. “God, I’m going to have a teenaged daughter soon.”

“Is that worse than having a teenaged son?” I grinned.

“A son means you only have to worry about one dick, a daughter means you have to worry about many dicks.” Dad said it like he was Confucius.

“Jesus, John.” Mom rolled her eyes.

“Actually,” I said, following suit and sticking my finger in the icing. “That’s not necessarily true if you have a son like me. All the dicks, Dad. All the dicks.”

Mom shoved my shoulder.

“But no teen pregnancy.” He had a point. “Though, condoms. Remember. Always condoms.”