Page 63 of The Progressions

In my Woodsmen research, I’d already seen how that woman didn’t have a lot of friends among contractors and other business owners in the area. There were plenty of stories about how she’d stiffed them, and other moms had reported that she’d made the director of her daughter’s nursery school cry. “She sounds terrible,” I said, and Jayden nodded.

“You’ll meet everybody soon enough. Caitlyn Karma is going to throw my—she’s going to have a party for me, and I’ll make sure she invites you.”

This friend-making opportunity seemed to be working better for me than for Tyler. “Thanks,” I said, smiling back. “I’d love to come!”

“Sure,” she told me. “Like I said, there are a lot of nice people and then some do get bitchy. They’re more worried about theirtime on camera on game day. I mean, we all want to look good, but I’m there to support Zach and the team. It’s real and not because I’m putting on a show.”

I thought of Shay Galton and her performances. “Me too. Totally.”

“I’m glad you’re in the nice group,” she said. “We WAGs should stick together.”

I understood what she meant: she thought that I was part of the wives and girlfriends group. “Oh, I’m not—” I didn’t know what to say, exactly, without making myself seem weird. “I’m used to work for Tyler and I arranged this dinner to force him into a friendship with your husband” wouldn’t have been good. Neither would, “I think that Tyler and I might hook up, but obviously we’d never be a couple, and he only wants me around because he’s not as confident and in control as everyone thinks he is.”

I wanted to go to Jayden’s party, which I assumed would be a baby shower, and I wanted to cheer with her at games, too. So instead of admitting that I wasn’t at all on par with her position, I stopped in the middle of my sentence. I sipped my cocktail, and she looked at me expectantly before turning her gaze on the approaching waiter. “Here’s the bread,” she said with relief, and took a piece.

The appetizers came soon, too, and with food in her stomach, she felt better and the dinner started to go better as well—at least for three of us. None of my raised eyebrows, pointed glances, or sharp nods in his direction were making Tyler do anything butlook annoyed, and it was annoying me in return. A lot. But short of pulling him outside by his ear, I wasn’t sure what to do about it. Then I thought of the obvious.

“Sorry, I need to check on my dad,” I mentioned, taking out my phone. I saw that he was fine and I wrote to Tyler, too. “Start talking! Stop pouting like a booty hole!” After a second, he looked at his own phone and then he glared at me, which I gave right back to him.

“Is something wrong with your father?” Zach Santiago asked me.

I ended up telling him about the stroke, and how things were going at the moment. “He’s been really tired and he almost fainted at the game last weekend. He’s with Tyler’s mom right now and I know he’s ok, but he’s my only parent. I feel the need to check, although I know it drives him bananas when I do.”

“Zach’s auntie had a stroke,” Jayden said. The bread basket was empty and so was her plate, and she seemed energized. “She needed a lot of follow-up care and my mom found a good person for her downstate.”

Her husband nodded. “I brought her up to a clinic in one of the Detroit hospitals,” he said. “I can send you the name of the doctor there. We were really impressed with the care she got and it made a big difference in her recovery.”

“No, that’s ok,” I said, because I already knew that there was no way that we would be able to afford the level of treatment that I was sure they provided in a ritzy clinic.

“Yeah, I’d like that,” Tyler suddenly spoke up. “Can you send it to me? I think her dad is motivated to work on things.”

“You do?” I asked.

“Send it to me,” he told Zach, who nodded. Tyler asked about his aunt and the aftereffects she’d suffered, and suddenly, the two of them were conversing like normal people. Suddenly, we were all carrying on a totally normal conversation, to the point that Jayden admitted that she was pregnant but they weren’t making a huge announcement, and I said she should talk to my friend Iva since she had the newborn baby Balderston, and then we were making plans to have lunch together so she could do that.

“Baby Balderston?” she asked, and Tyler and I shook our heads.

“That’s an unhappy story,” I answered. “I hope he’ll have a real name soon.”

“I’ve been trying to convince her to call him Tyler, since he and I get along so well,” he told us. “Look.” Then he started showing off pictures of the two of them cuddling, of him feeding the baby, and even one his mom had taken as he changed a diaper.

“Aw, these are so cute!” Jayden said as she flipped through the shots. “You guys spend a lot of time together.”

“Not so much. You know how busy we are,” he said, and she and Zach nodded.

“They see each other because they live with him,” I explained. “Iva was getting evicted and Tyler invited her and the baby to stay with him and his mom.”

“Really? That’s super generous,” she told him, and he shrugged, shaking his head.

“It really is,” I concurred. “He immediately said, ‘She should live here, I have room.’ And his mother has been amazing with helping out.”

“My mom is staying for a month after the baby comes, and Zach’s auntie will be here, too,” Jayden said. “I think we can do it for a month, but I don’t know about longer than that. They have a lot of opinions.”

“You live with your mother, and Kasia lives with her dad?” Zach asked, laughing. He pointed at the two of us. “How does this work? Don’t you want any time alone?”

“Her bed creaks like it’s falling apart when I’m on it,” Tyler answered, smiling at me. Just like his text inviting them out, that kind of comment produced an entirely mistaken impression of our relationship. But we were in way too deep now for me to say something about it, so I just smiled tightly and let it go.

“I was thinking that I might buy a second place up here for my mother,” he continued. “She and Iva could live there together, if they wanted. My mom is wild for baby Balderston and Iva needs somewhere permanent where she can unpack and settle. She’s really worried about her whole situation, but we’ve been working legal angles to try to nail everything down.”

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