Perfect Tunes - Emily Gould Page 0,29
full of wine. It started getting cold, and the sun turned the browning lawn copper.
Laura and Callie exchanged glances when they heard Daisy’s car in the gravel drive. The bottle of wine, mostly empty, stood between their mugs. As she approached, Daisy smiled at them until she saw the mugs.
“Girls, I’m sorry, but it’s very hard for me to be around any kind of drinking or drugs or addictive behavior. Can you please keep your drinking out of my house?” Her voice wasn’t chilly and commanding, it was wheedling and sad, a little-girl voice. She went inside, letting the door slam behind her. They heard the dog greeting her, then the sound of Dylan’s parents talking in his dad’s office in voices that started out hushed and then became louder.
Laura felt ashamed but also angry at Daisy for making her feel that way. She felt bad for Daisy, of course, but also it was an international crisis, a time of intense worldwide mourning and panic, and people who drank wine should be allowed to drink wine at such a time.
“Asking people around you not to drink because you have a problem seems really selfish and inconsiderate,” she whispered to Callie.
Callie finished her mug in one long chug. “Totally. I mean, we’re also being inconsiderate, but she’s being cuckoo.”
In the kitchen, Dylan and Davey were standing at the kitchen counter chopping vegetables badly and laughing. A boom box with a cassette deck was playing Led Zeppelin, a welcome change from the nonstop disaster coverage on NPR. Whatever they were cooking seemed far from completion. Laura walked up behind Dylan and put her arms around him, sniffed and got a lungful of weed’s buttery-popcorn smell. If she and Callie had been inconsiderate, Davey and Dylan had been worse.
Just then, Daisy burst into the kitchen and stomped over to the fridge. She swung it open with some force, assessed its contents, then slammed it shut, as though it wasn’t her own fridge but some impostor’s fridge put there purely to annoy her.
“What’s for dinner?” she asked the boys.
Davey smiled. “Old family recipe.”
“I didn’t know you could cook,” said Laura.
“He can’t! We just thought it would be fun,” said Dylan. “We’re making a stew, Mom. I got the meat out of the deep freeze in the basement.”
“That’ll take ages to defrost!” Daisy’s voice was high, panicky.
Dylan shrugged. “Well, it’ll defrost eventually. We can put it in the microwave. Right?”
Daisy was rummaging through the fridge. She pulled out a block of cheddar cheese and, peeling back an edge of the plastic packaging, took a bite out of it.
“I happen to be very hungry right now. What people who drink don’t realize is that alcohol has calories that make you feel full. Other people need to eat food.”
Davey had his back to the confrontation, still determinedly chopping carrots. Laura and Callie exchanged glances and tried to move toward the far corner of the room as invisibly as possible. The dog stayed in the kitchen, staring at Dylan and Daisy with her head cocked expectantly.
“Chill out, Mom,” Dylan said, and sighed. He had a resigned air, as though he was used to having this conversation, or conversations like it.
“We’re making dinner. I thought you’d be happy not to have to cook. We can order takeout and have the stew tomorrow if you’re really worried about how long it’ll take.”
“Takeout! Do you think you’re in New York City?”
Laura felt herself suppressing nervous laughter. The whole situation was ridiculous. Daisy and Dylan had to know that on some level. She waited for one of them to burst out laughing.
Instead, Dylan walked over to Daisy with his arms outstretched as if to hug her, but the knife he’d been using to cut vegetables was still in his hand and Daisy backed away quickly. Behind her glasses Laura could see a big expanse of the whites of her eyes. The next moments registered mostly as a blur of color: greens and oranges of the cut vegetables, the white tile kitchen, Daisy’s pastel-purple sweater, Dylan’s black shirt and silver knife.
“Are you trying to murder me?” Daisy screeched.
“No, Mom, Jesus Christ, I’m trying to hug you. What the fuck?” he shouted.
Daisy collapsed in high-pitched, keening sobs. She sounded, again, like a child, not an adult. Dylan embraced her, he had to, but Laura saw his face over her shoulder, stony and artificially aged-looking. She caught his eye momentarily, but he shook off the contact, staring up at the ceiling.
Dinner was very late, and