“DO YOU NEED HELP bringing in the groceries?” Mark asked. He sat at the kitchen table, one leg thrown casually over the other, iPhone in hand.
“No, this is the last of it,” Jaime said, as she heaved a green recyclable grocery bag up onto the Carrara marble countertop. “Where are the kids?”
“Playroom,” Mark said, his eyes on his phone.
Jaime could hear the distant sound of a Thomas the Train DVD. She pressed her lips together. Their children—Logan, three, and Ava, nearly two—were already far too familiar with the genre of animated talking trains. Every time Mark was home alone with the kids, he planted them in front of the television set.
“When was the last time you checked on them?” she asked.
“A few minutes ago,” Mark said vaguely, still scrolling through his messages.
Jaime headed to the playroom, just a short hallway down from the kitchen. Logan sat on the floor in front of the television, his eyes fixed on the screen, where Thomas the Tank Engine was getting a lecture from Sir Topham Hatt on the merits of being useful. Ava was curled up on the blue denim slip-covered sofa, her eyelashes curled down over rounded cheeks and her mouth slack with sleep.
“You okay, sweetheart?” she asked.
Logan, transfixed by the television, didn’t answer.
“You can finish this episode, but then we’re going to turn off the TV,” Jaime said.
Logan didn’t give any indication that he had heard her, and Jaime was reminded of his father. Is the addiction to electronic gadgets genetic? she wondered. Or learned? Either way, she might as well take advantage of the lull to put the groceries away.
When she returned to the kitchen, Mark hadn’t moved. Jaime turned her attention to the groceries, a job for which she had a well-planned system. Frozen groceries were put away first, of course, then refrigerated items. Cans were neatly stacked in their cupboard, arranged by size. She had once organized her canned goods in alphabetical order—an approach that had worked well in the spice cabinet—but hadn’t liked the way it looked, tiny containers of tomato paste dwarfed by hulking cans of imported tomatoes.
Finally—and this was her favorite part—Jaime decanted the remaining groceries into their specially designated containers. Pasta went into glass jars with hinged lids. Dish soap was poured into a tall blue bottle next to the sink. Sea salt went into a porcelain saltcellar she had found in an antiques store in Palm Beach. Sugar and flour were stored in glossy stainless steel canisters on the highest pantry shelf. Powdered laundry detergent went in a large white tin box that Jaime had stenciled “laundry soap” along one side in a swirly blue font.
She opened the pantry door to retrieve the pasta jars and then stopped, blinking at the mess. A box of cookies sat opened and unsealed. Where it came from, Jaime had no idea; she never purchased anything that contained partially hydrogenated oils. A crumpled bag of Doritos lay on its side, also opened, with the top folded loosely down and not a bag clip in sight. Boxes of crackers and cereal were no longer neatly lined up, but all askew, as though someone had pulled out every single box and then shoved them carelessly back in. The glass lid to the canister that contained the almonds was gone. Jaime looked down and saw it on the floor.
“Doritos?” Jaime said. “Oreos?”
Mark raised his hand. “Guilty.”
“When did you start eating junk food?”
“I didn’t. Emily was hungry when I picked her up, so I sent her into the store with a twenty while I took a business call. What you see there is the result of a twelve-year-old grocery shopping without supervision,” Mark said, still not looking up from his iPhone.
Emily was Mark’s daughter from his first marriage. And, as Jaime had learned in the four years she and Mark had been married, the problem with being the second wife—especially when your husband shared a child with his former wife—was that the first family never really went away. Mark’s ex-wife, Libby, called and texted him all the time, keeping Mark apprised of every last detail of Emily’s life. This constant contact had only gotten worse since Emily had begun to show real promise as a tennis prodigy. Mark—already a tennis enthusiast—was obsessed. He was at the courts nearly every day, chauffeuring Emily back and forth to her lessons, consulting with coaches, spending more time and money than seemed possible nurturing her talent.
“She made a mess,” Jaime said, bending over to pick up the lid to the almond jar. It was cracked.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get her to clean it up,” Mark said. Then, raising his voice, he said, “Emily! Come down here.”
“What? Why?” a muffled voice called back from the general direction of the living room.
“I’d like to speak to you, that’s why,” Mark called back. He rolled his eyes at Jaime. “And just think, the teen years are still ahead of us.”
Emily strolled into the kitchen. She was very thin, with fair hair caught back in a ponytail and her mother’s dark, shrewd eyes. “What’s up?”
“I need you to—wait.” Mark’s phone beeped, and he stopped to peer down at the new text he’d received. “What’s this? Why is Coach Sarah putting you with Savannah for the doubles draw at the tournament this weekend?”
Emily shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s stupid, right? Savannah can’t even hit a backhand.”
“She’s not a strong enough partner for you,” Mark said.
“Yeah, but Savannah, like, cried after she lost at the tournament last weekend. I think Sarah thought it would give her, I don’t know, confidence or something to put her with me.” Emily shook her head with disgust. “It’s, like, totally ridiculous.”
“It’s not your job to give Savannah confidence,” Mark said.
“I know, right? I totally told Coach Sarah that. She said something stupid about making sacrifices for the team,” Emily said, rolling her eyes. She rested her hands on her narrow hips, and tossed her ponytail back.
Jaime often marveled at her stepdaughter’s self-confidence. She herself had been painfully shy at the same age, and would never have had the nerve to challenge an authority figure.
“I think Savannah should just give up tennis and take up volleyball or something,” Emily said.
“I thought you and Savannah were friends,” Jaime said.
Mark and Emily both turned incredulous faces toward Jaime. They looked so much alike at that moment—the high foreheads, the square chins, the matching expressions—that Jaime almost laughed.
“So?” Emily said.
Jaime suddenly felt tired, and lost enthusiasm for the conversation. “Please don’t put food back into the pantry without making sure it’s sealed,” she said.
Emily’s expression turned stormy. Jaime could almost see a bubble caption appearing over her stepdaughter’s head that read, YOU ARE NOT MY MOTHER.
“I don’t want to get bugs,” Jaime said, trying—and failing—to sound calm and not at all defensive.
“I folded the bag over,” Emily said.
“I know. And that’s great. But once you do, just put a bag clip on. I keep them right here in this drawer,” Jaime said, opening the drawer nearest the pantry to show her.
“You’re so, like, anal,” Emily muttered.
“Emily,” Mark started, without hearing Emily’s snide remark.
Jaime turned to him, relieved that her husband was stepping in. Technically, she had every right to chastise Emily for rude behavior. But in practice, doing so typically caused small conflicts to erupt into larger dramas. You’re not my mother was in fact a frequent retort. And it was hard to argue the point. Jaime was not Emily’s mother. What was more, Emily had never asked for her parents to divorce, or for her father to remarry, or for two younger half-siblings to be born. Jaime had some sympathy for her stepdaughter’s ever present resentment.
Some.
“I’m going to talk to Sarah. If she’s not going to assign you a partner you can win with, I think we’ll pull you from the doubles draw, and have you just play singles,” Mark continued.
Jaime stared at her husband. Had he completely missed how rude Emily had just been to her?
“I think Coach Sarah will be really annoyed if I do that,” Emily said.
“Too bad. I don’t want your ranking to be affected, which it might be if you’re forced to play with Savannah,” Mark said.
“Mark,” Jaime said.
“Yeah, but Coach doesn’t like it when one of us says we don’t want to play with someone she puts us with. She says it’s bad sportsmanship or something,” Emily said.
Jaime’s temper rose, filling her throat, causing her to almost choke on her husband’s name. “Mark!”
Mark finally looked up, surprised at the sharpness of her tone. “What’s up, babe?”
“Emily just called me anal,” Jaime said, hating that she sounded like she was ten years old and tattling to the teacher.
“She did?” Mark asked. He looked at Emily. “Did you call Jaime anal?”
As if I would lie about it, Jaime thought, now so furious her stomach curdled and her mouth tasted sour. Is that what he thinks? That I would make up stories of Emily behaving badly, just to drive a wedge between them?
Emily shrugged one shoulder, and studied her nail cuticles.
“Emily, apologize to your stepmother,” Mark instructed.
“Sorry,” Emily muttered, still not looking up from her nails.
It wasn’t a heartfelt apology. In fact, it barely counted as an apology at all, as it was made under duress. But Mark seemed satisfied.
“I’ll talk to Coach Sarah,” he said. “I’ll work it out with her. Don’t worry.”
“Thanks, Daddy,” Emily said. She walked over to the pantry, retrieved the bag of Doritos, and fished out a handful of chips.
Jaime wondered if she really saw a triumphant smile flash across her stepdaughter’s face, or if she had just imagined it. Jaime opened a drawer, took out a bag clip, and set it pointedly on the counter. Then she turned and strode out of the kitchen toward the playroom, determined to get Logan away from Thomas the Tank Engine before his mind atrophied into Jell-O.