Devil In The Waters, Book 3, Chapter 6a (partial)

By four o’clock, Josh had enlisted a troop of fun-seekers from Swanson—all with children—but now he wondered how it would look to Kimmy when she arrived. Was it too obvious?

Meyer and Sophie picked him up after work because Kimmy wouldn’t get delivery of her new car until Monday. But Josh invited Leah, Samara, and Gabrielle from work and one of Samara’s single mom friends tagged along, all of them bringing their young ones over to Pickering for dinner and fun at The Monkey House, an indoor trampoline amusement park. Sure, he was with his cousin and Sophie, but how out of place did he look, the one guy here who didn’t have a kid?—And he was the one who set the whole thing up . . . It was likely when Kimmy showed up she would see right through his charade. He could picture himself through her eyes, coming in, seeing him jumping on a trampoline and trying to shoot baskets with Soph, a grown man alone at what looked like a kid’s birthday party.

It occurred to him he could lie, say he just tagged along, but he’d been doing that a lot lately. Lying. Or at least leaving things untold. This was a rough time for them as a couple, and he wasn’t the only one who knew it. Kimmy was fully aware. Well, not fully aware. There were things he hadn’t told her.

One minute Kimmy was looking to get pregnant again, the next she’s back on the pill and into the workforce. Capricious, yes, but he got it. She got stuck doing those baskets because Kimmy couldn’t be idle, and she wanted out. Baskets wouldn’t be her thing. So her brain said: Let’s make a baby. It hurt that that wasn’t what she wanted either. It’s what he wanted. But they’d just gone through a failed pregnancy.

If Kimmy wanted to work, so be it. He’d stand behind her. But he had to find the nerve to be more truthful, and mind the manipulative tricks, juxtaposing his and Kimmy’s life with friends of theirs already with children. Kimmy was too smart to be manipulated.

“You tracking Kimmy again?”

Josh’s eyes darted up from his Find My Phone app, caught by Meyer looming over his shoulder, sucking iced tea through a paper straw.

“She’s almost here,” he said, tucking his phone away, feeling only marginally guilty this time in comparison to the other night. They were expecting Kimmy here at The Monkey House, and he was only checking to see how far away she was.

He sat at a heavy black picnic table—two of them pushed together for their party—in a narrow alley of tables that ran along the busy center floor space of the huge warehouse. He sat backwards, his back to the table dotted with baskets and paper plates spotted with French fry grease and smears of ketchup. Gabrielle was behind him on the other side, wiping her eight-year-old’s mouth with a napkin, ready to send him back out to one of the trampolines where he hopefully wouldn’t bounce himself into sending up his hot dog and fries all over the walls.

Meyer came around to sit beside him on the bench. He scooted over to make room. Meyer slurped iced tea from the extra-large wax paper cup. They watched some kids they didn’t know horsing around and giggling on a trampoline across from them. The place’s main floor was divided like a grid, square stalls with trampoline floors and low padded walls, everything black except for the neon trampoline surfaces and the padded columns running up to the high rafter ceiling.

Meyer set his cup down, said, “Please, don’t tell me you guys are having trouble.”

He turned to regard Meyer who kept his eyes across still. He said, “Me and Kimmy?”

Meyer turned, but didn’t look him in the eye. “You guys have always been, like, my idols. I wish I had it with Hyun like you and Kimmy do. I always admired you guys.”

“Why do you ask that?” It made him nervous to think there might be something Meyer could see that he couldn’t.

Meyer nodded his chin to Josh’s lap where he’d been holding his phone. “You checking up on her. All that stuff you said on the weekend. That guy—what’s his name, the one from high school, he’s Kimmy’s boss now . . . Devlin, Devlin Stone . . .”

“Does it sound bad to you?”

“A little, but . . .”

“But what?” he asked, needing to hear more.

Meyer said, “I wouldn’t have . . . It’s you, you know?”

“What do you mean?”

“I wouldn’t have thought anything bad about Kimmy before, her going to work for some guy, some good-looking guy—“

“How do you know what he looks like?”

Meyer shrugged, cocked his head, rolled his eyes up, embarrassed. “I looked the guy up.”

Josh laughed. “You did not.”

“I was thinking about you guys. I care about you two.”

“Thanks, man,” he said, touched, thumping a fist on his cousin’s thigh. “Okay, what were you saying?”

“I get it. Checking up on her, worrying . . . But Kimmy’s not like that. You know her better than I do, I know, but she’s . . . Kimmy.”

“So you say it’s me?”

“I said I get it. After you told me on the weekend, it got, like, my palms sweaty thinking how you must feel. Fuck, it was terrible with Hyun. God, what a time . . .” Meyer shook his head, face drawn, remembering. “But Kimmy isn’t Hyun.”

“Hyun didn’t fool around on you.”

Meyer shrugged. “Look, Kimmy’s got a good head on her shoulders. I don’t know anybody more in my life who’s got their shit together better. You know what I’m saying . . .”

“I do. I know.”

“Just don’t let bad thoughts get in your head, they can make you do crazy things.”

“You got crazy?”

“I got a little crazy,” Meyer chuckled, rolled his head around to look at Josh. His eyes drifted over Josh’s shoulder. He said quieter, “Hey, what do you think of Quinn?”

“Samara’s friend?” Josh turned to look behind. Quinn was on a trampoline with three kids, both her hands holding onto her son Harley’s. They bounced together. Quinn was a dirty blonde, a nurse, full-figured but petite with a cute face and a button nose. He said, “She’s really cute.”

“You think so?”

Josh turned back. “Careful, though. Named her kid Harley, her ex could be some big biker, out of the picture because he’s in prison.”

Meyer spied Quinn still, smiling, punching Josh’s shoulder saying, “Good old Cuz, always looking at the bright side.”

“It’s a gift,” Josh said, thinking then of his lucky cousin hooking up with Quinn, getting married, having two kids, maybe putting a third in Quinn’s belly by next winter.

A bony knee jabbed his thigh, little arms clambering around his neck, Sophie climbing on him. He laughed and braced her before she accidentally got him in the goods. Leah was there, returning from a jump chamber, face shiny with sweat, an entourage of six-to-ten-year-olds still amped and looking for fun. She jabbed a thumb over her shoulder, saying, “All right, you two, your turn . . .”