Ava opens the envelope. It’s an invitation to Bart’s twenty-second birthday party on Halloween at the VFW on Nantucket. Well, Ava thinks, if anyone deserves a party, it’s Bart. He missed his twenty-first birthday. There were no kegs, no streamers or cake, in the prison camp on the barren plains of southern central Afghanistan.
Halloween is a Tuesday this year. There’s no way Ava can attend the party, and that’s the God’s honest truth; she won’t feel guilty because her circumstances flow with her personal preference. She doesn’t want to go. It’s not only that she detests Halloween—every teacher in America hates Halloween, with all the kids hyped up the day of and in a sugar coma the day after—it’s also that Ava doesn’t want to go home. She’s afraid that if she sees that her father is sicker than anyone is letting on, and that Bart is clinically depressed, and that Kevin and Isabelle are underwater from the birth of their second baby in two years, and that Mitzi is incapable of holding everyone together—instead of dealing with the real issues, here she is, throwing a party at the VFW—Ava will feel like she has to move back.
Move back! Impossible. She has her apartment; she has a job she adores. Copper Hill is the best place to teach music in the whole country. First of all, music is an elective, so every single one of Ava’s seventy-five students—five classes of fifteen—wants to be there. Not only do they want to be there, they want to achieve. Ava has singers and piano players and composers and musical history students. And she runs the madrigal group and a club for recording music videos.
Also, Ava has a boyfriend whom she is healthily in love with. There’s no drama with Potter, no theatrics, no jealousy (not much jealousy), no tears, no senseless yearning, no insecurities (or not much insecurity, anyway).
Ava is not going home, even for a party, even for Bart. She doesn’t want to feel guilty.
Halloween is rapidly followed by Thanksgiving, and Thanksgiving is rapidly followed by Christmas. She’ll go home for Thanksgiving and Christmas… well, actually, Potter said something about taking a trip to Austria over Christmas—Salzburg and Vienna. Ava nearly shrieked with joy. To visit the birthplace and breeding ground of so many great composers—Mozart, Schubert, Haydn, Mahler, Strauss. She is thirty-two years old and has never been to Europe!
But… she has to wait and see how her father is doing.
Her cell phone rings. It’s Potter.
“Hey, baby,” Ava says.
“Ava,” Potter says. The tone of his voice makes Ava think that something awful has happened. Maybe Gibby, Potter’s grandfather, has died. Oh, Gibby!
“What’s wrong?” Ava says.
“I have to cancel on dinner tonight,” Potter says. “Trish just called. At the last minute she and Harrison decided to fly in from San Fran to attend the Shakespeare symposium at Bard College, so she asked if I could take PJ for the weekend. Of course I said yes.”
“Of course you said yes!” Ava says. “This is good news, right? I mean, a bit unexpected and last minute, but still good. I finally get to meet him! Please, bring PJ here for dinner. I was planning on making grilled cheese anyway. Or we can go out. We can go to Serendipity and get foot-long hot dogs and frozen hot chocolates. And then tomorrow we can go to the Museum of Natural History! He’s the perfect age for the planetarium, and I think they’re having an exhibit on arachnids.”
Potter laughs. “You’re much more enthusiastic about this than I thought you’d be. You’re much more enthusiastic about this than I am.”
“You always say you wish you had more time with PJ,” Ava says. “You always say you wish he lived closer.”
“You’re right, you’re right,” Potter says.
“So do you want to bring him here, or shall we go out?” Ava asks.
“I’ll bring him there, I guess,” Potter says.
“Or do you want a night with him alone?” Ava asks. “I’m so sorry… I didn’t mean to assume…”
“No, no,” Potter says. “If I were going to keep him to myself, it would be to avoid inflicting ourselves on you. I’ve told you, PJ can be kind of difficult. He suffers from only-child-raised-by-bicoastal-academics syndrome.”
“I’ve been teaching for nine years,” Ava says. “I’ve seen my share of difficult children. Maybe not that exact syndrome, but believe me, I can handle it. How many times have I told you about Micah?”
“The two of us will be over at seven,” Potter says. “I think we should stay in. Serendipity is noisy and there’s always a wait and he’ll be tired from traveling.”
“Okay, then,” Ava says. “I’ll set the table for three.”
Ava changes into jeans and a crisp white blouse and grabs her bag to go to the store. Her phone pings: it’s a text from Margaret. Drake got a reservation at Le Coucou tomorrow night at nine. Can you and Potter join us?
Ava’s heart sinks just a little. One of the best things about moving to New York has been spending time with her mother. For the twenty-plus years that Ava was growing up on Nantucket with Kelley and Mitzi and her brothers, Margaret often seemed far away, out of reach, and sometimes less than real. Ava most often saw her mother on TV—reporting from Baghdad or Paris or from the CBS studios in New York. Now that they live in the same place, they love doing things together—shopping, movies, museums, and double dates. Margaret is Ava’s best friend in the city; Drake and Margaret are Ava and Potter’s best couple friends. Last week the four of them had brunch at Le Bilboquet, then took a long walk through Central Park. All four of them have been dying to eat at Le Coucou, but a reservation has eluded them until now.
We can’t, Ava texts back. Potter’s son, PJ, is here for the weekend.
No problem! Margaret responds. We’ll do it another time.
Then the phone rings and it’s Margaret.
“Hi?” Ava says.
“Hi, sweetie,” Margaret says. “I just called real quick to see how you’re feeling about meeting PJ?”
“I feel excited,” Ava says.
“Really?” Margaret says.
“Yes, really,” Ava says, and a tinge of impatience creeps into her voice. She knows that Margaret’s only “concern” about Potter is that he has a child with someone else, an emotional landscape that Ava is unfamiliar with. Ava pointed out that she has plenty of friends who have children—Shelby and Zack have Xavier, for example—and Ava now has a niece and four nephews. Margaret then suggested that this would be different. More challenging. Ava should be prepared to be patient and make concessions where PJ was concerned. And when she finally met PJ, she should “tread lightly.” Those were Margaret’s exact words. “I’m excited to meet him. It’s been a year since we started dating.”
“I know,” Margaret says. “You may think you know Potter inside and out, but just remember, you’ve never seen him be a parent. You may be surprised.”