Riverside Park

“You can do whatever you like while we’re away,” Amanda said to Howard, trying to sound carefree. “I trust you completely.”

Howard looked at her from across the kitchen. “Ditto, my dear.”

Amanda only wished she knew why that pretty girl who called her husband by his first name kept parading around in her head.

Dinner finally reached the dining room table, and given the unusual collection of people they were entertaining went off rather well. Conversation with Amanda’s parents, the professors Miller, could be difficult to follow when Mother got lost in life’s metaphors and Papa wandered through lost civilizations, which is to say, to speak in their respective fields of English and history. Mother Stewart tended to talk about soap operas, so Amanda’s older friend, Mrs. Goldblum, could help out a little there. There were Emily and Teddy, of course; Grace snoozing in her carrier; Madame Moliere, and Miklov, the assistant director of the children’s soccer league in Connecticut. He was from the Czech Republic and the children called him Mickey-Luck. Also present were Rosanne DiSantos, no longer a housekeeper but a hospital LPN, Rosanne’s beau, Randy, a detective in the Bronx, and Rosanne’s seventeen-year-old son, Jason, who had to leave dinner early to go to work at Captain Cook’s. Amanda walked Jason to the door.

“The tips are really, really good on Thanksgiving,” he explained. Amanda had known this strapping young man since he was two years old. He was attending Bronx Poly Sci, hoping for early acceptance to the University of Pennsylvania to study engineering.

“Will Celia be bartending today?” Amanda casually asked.

Jason’s head jerked in her direction. “You know Celia?”

“She lives in our building.”

“Oh. Um, yeah, I guess she’ll be working,” Jason said, his face ringing with red.

Amanda returned to the dining room wondering if Jason was sweet on Celia or if he knew something about Celia he didn’t want Amanda to know. Like the fact that Howard went there while she and the children were in Connecticut.

Amanda had never entertained uncomfortable thoughts like these until Grace was born. She didn’t care what anybody said; carrying a third child at forty-three had almost finished her. Unlike her first two pregnancies, with Grace she’d been chronically tired and ill. She had also grown immensely heavy and the birth had been difficult, ending in an emergency cesarean. Mercifully Grace was fine, and after a few weeks, Amanda started feeling better. Physically anyway.

Most of the weight was off now, but Amanda’s hormones—or something—were still out of whack. Her considerable sex drive seemed to have utterly vanished. And there was no way, not with how well her husband knew her, that she could pretend otherwise. And she knew this hurt Howard’s feelings, that whatever sex life they could manage at this point was so one-sided.

Dinner flowed into dessert.

“Mickey-Luck’s going to play us tomorrow,” Teddy told Rosanne.

“He’s going to play you for a fool?” Rosanne kidded.

“No, in soccer!” Teddy said, laughing.

“Is that your real name?” Mrs. Goldblum asked the soccer coach. “Mickey-Luck?”

“Miklov,” he answered.

“Miklov,”Mrs. Goldblum rehearsed.

“I’ve got a new recipe for it,” Mother Stewart told Mrs. Goldblum. “Hot or cold, it makes no difference, it’s wonderful meat loaf. Just ask Howard.”

“With soccer and riding and music lessons,” Amanda’s mother was saying, “I’m beginning to wonder when these children have an opportunity to play.”

“I told you I didn’t like the play,” Amanda’s father said.

“Do you watch All My Children?” Mother Stewart asked Mrs. Goldblum.

“I watch all the children,” Madame Moliere answered in her heavily accented English.

“The cheeldren are great,” Miklov said, nodding. “They leesen, they practice and they do goot.”

Amanda and Howard tried not to laugh but it was difficult. There were so many conversations going on there simply was no thread to follow. Everyone seemed happy, though, which was all that really mattered. Even Miklov, who usually featured a deep sort of Slovak scowl, was smiling.

He was a good-looking young man of twenty-six whose professional career in soccer had ended in his own country with an ankle injury. Amanda never really understood how Miklov had come to their soccer league but she hoped it would lead to better things. The job did not pay well at all, which was why Howard had engaged Miklov to conduct private sessions with the children, to give him some pocket money. (Well, and to make the children better players.)

Mrs. Goldblum, Rosanne and Randy departed shortly after dessert and the wife of the building superintendent arrived to clean up. Madame Moliere prepared the children to leave for Connecticut while Amanda endeavored to sort out her parents. Mother Stewart was flying out of JFK very early in the morning so Howard was staying in the city with her tonight. After he dropped her off at the airport he would join his family and in-laws in Woodbury in time for the children’s holiday indoor soccer tournament.

Howard and Miklov took the bags down to the building’s garage and secured them under a tarp on the Navigator’s roof. Amanda’s father sat in the front seat; Amanda’s mother, Madame Moliere and Grace sat in the backseat; and poor Miklov was crammed into the rear jump seat with Teddy and Emily. Howard made sure everyone had their seat belts on and then walked to the driver’s window. “Drive carefully,” he murmured, giving Amanda a kiss on the lips.

“I shall,” she promised.

One of the greatest surprises of their marriage had been Amanda’s excellence as a driver. She loved it. Getting behind the wheel of a car gave her the same quiet thrill as when as a child, she had discovered someone had left the paddock gate open at her grandparents’ farm. It was the thrill of freedom, of suddenly having the way and the means to go wherever she wanted.

The drive to Woodbury was pleasant and the traffic not too bad. They swung into a rest stop for Emily to use the bathroom and get some gas but then everybody except Madame Moliere and Grace got out for one reason or another and it took a while to load everyone back in.

When they reached the house, Ashette, their black Labrador retriever, was overjoyed to see them. Amanda dismissed the house sitter, got her parents settled in their room and made sure Madame Moliere had her eye on the children. Then Miklov climbed into the front seat and Amanda drove him home to the Waterbury housing complex where the league had put him up. They talked a little bit about the tournament that started tomorrow. A lot of the children were away for the holidays so Emily and Teddy would probably play their whole games, which was great since Amanda wanted her parents to watch them in action.

“How are you getting on, Miklov?” Amanda asked him. She had been surprised when Miklov had accepted Howard’s offer of a bus ticket to join them for Thanksgiving dinner. Emily had not been, though. (“He’s all alone, Mommy, oh, so very, very alone!”)

“I miss my family,” he admitted, brushing his hair out of his eyes.

“Of course you do,” she said. “And I’m sure they must miss you.”

“My mother.”

She glanced over at him.

“My mother meeses me.”

“Will you go and see her? For a visit, I mean.”

“Not yet,” he said, turning to look out his window.

He probably couldn’t afford it yet. Maybe she and Howard could find some other parents who would engage him for private lessons.

While they drove through downtown Waterbury Miklov suddenly said, “This is a very happy day.” When he smiled he was very handsome, although his teeth needed some work. She had no doubt that would come in time. Perfect-looking teeth was still a very American thing.

When she pulled up in front of the dreadful-looking building where he lived she said, “Here we are.” She kept her foot on the brake, waiting for him to get out. She needed to pick up some milk on the way home. Her parents now only drank soy milk. What store would be open on Thanksgiving that would carry soy milk?

Mickey-Luck undid his seat belt and shifted to face Amanda, making the leather creak. “I will tell my mother about my American Thanksgeeving. I haf—”He looked down a moment and then raised his head to meet her eyes directly. “I say how kind you are.”

“Our family is very fond of you, Miklov. You’ve made a big difference in our children’s lives.” Because out here they miss their father terribly. So do I.

Miklov’s eyes traveled down to Amanda’s mouth for just a second and then he turned away, searching for the door handle. When he found it he stopped again and turned around. “You understand how beautiful you are, yes?”

Amanda’s eyes widened. And then she laughed a little. “Why, thank you.”

He made a fist and pounded his heart twice. “I feel it there. For you. You are so beautiful.”

Oh, save it, Mickey-Luck! she thought. It is being American that you think is beautiful, our money is beautiful, this ridiculously expensive truck is beautiful, having a family is beautiful!