I’m eating veal picatta sitting across from my husband or ex husband at a restaurant he’s eating chicken. He says to me that all he asks is to see our son once a week. This impresses me. I don’t want to see our son at all.
I excuse myself to the bathroom and leave my phone at the table. Instead of going to the bathroom I hop on a bicycle outside and ride around Soho. I run into Nicole Chaplin and Brooke Chaplin — no relation . I also accidentally burst into a one-room store front office where they sell Yankee tickets and scream “I love the Yankees.”
When I look down I realize I’m wearing a Yankees jersey. Then I panic and head back to the restaurant, wondering how much time has passed.
I get lost on the way back I can’t find the street I’m going the wrong direction. I ask a woman if I can look at her phone. I figure it out and get back to the restaurant. I think about how little I want to kiss and/or touch this husband of mine. I’m repulsed by him. He’s the Albanian boy I went to high school with but never once spoke to. I don’t know a thing about him. All I know is I’m not attracted to him. I try to think of excuses and explanations as to where I’ve been for so long. But when I get back to the table he’s laughing with the waiter and doesn’t seem to care. Then we’re home. It’s my mother’s loft in Soho. I do poor job of shoving a bicycle behind a couch. Our son comes home. My ex-husband tries to pull little flakes of dry skin off our son’s face and tries to fix his pimples. I tell him to stop it and at the same time realize how many imperfections there are on our son’s face. Then I say, u really do love ur son. I’m about to ask my husband/ex-husband (whose name I suddenly believe is Drogo) what it is he does for a living. I know it’s the first question I’ve ever asked about him ever. But then I realize how disgusting our pubescent son’s inner ears are. I make a joke along the lines of “clean ur ears.” Our son reacts negatively to this. He says his dad—not Drogo, but his “actual dad”—told him it wasn’t good or necessary to clean his ears. Then I say something insulting, and my own mom walks in. She immediately asks my “son” if he has cleaned the drain in the shower. The kid says no and storms off to do it. I’m yelling about his ear wax. My mother is yelling over me. The kid is yelling. And Drogo has gone off to help. I think to myself: He’s a good dad.