When The Stars Come Out. Rob Byrnes

individual lettuce leaf made him want to scream sometimes.

      Noah shook his head. “It’s just sort of strange. I mean, my mother knowing my stepmother…”

      Tricia wagged a finger in front of his face. “We’ve had this conversation before, haven’t we?”

      It took Noah a few seconds to understand what she meant, but then he remembered.

      “Sorry. I mean, ‘my mother knowing my father’s wife.’ Better?”

      “Much,” she said, offering no further information. Several times in the past she had warned him away from the word “stepmother” without explanation, and Noah now knew better than to ask. It was her title, so she had the right to be called what she wanted to be called, even if Noah felt that calling her “his father’s wife” added even more distance to an already distant relationship.

      They sat—uncomfortable among the leather-laden comfort—for a long stretch of the mid-afternoon, vaguely looking out the window at the sliver of blue between the buildings, sipping wine, and wishing for easy conversation. Finally, Noah remembered his prepared topic.

      “So your family…They’re in Buffalo?”

      After a half hour or so listening to what he came to think of as the Chronicles of Buffalo, conversation again wound down. Noah excused himself and, finally collecting his bag from the foyer, walked down a picture-lined hallway to the guest bedroom.

      He was pleased to see that his former bedroom had not been leatherized in the redecorating process. In fact, the room retained a number of distinctly feminine touches. It was light and airy, the walls a periwinkle blue and the furniture spare and unimposing.

      He tossed his bag at the foot of the bed, then tossed himself on top of the off-white comforter, where he tried unsuccessfully to nap. He stayed there for a long time, wondering how he could escape and where he could escape to.

      A natural loner, Noah was not one of those people who prided themselves on collecting large numbers of close friends. He had a few friends—acquaintances, really—in Washington he could call when he really needed to get out of the apartment, but otherwise he was quite content to be on his own. His life had been quite similar when he lived in New York, but in the intervening years he had lost contact with his old crowd. He was now alone in Manhattan, and unless he went out by himself, he would be a prisoner of Park Avenue until it was time to go back to Washington and again face the hopelessness of The Project.

      There were always museums, movies, and theater, but he couldn’t think of them as solitary activities. Like dining alone in a restaurant, Noah felt uncomfortable flying solo at venues where everyone else came in multiples. Wandering the city might kill some time, but Noah had no great desire to wander.

      He tossed and turned on the bed for what felt like quite a while longer, mulling his undesirable options and weighing them against the alternative, which was uncomfortable boredom. When he finally looked at the clock on the nightstand, only fifteen minutes had passed.

      “Fuck,” he muttered to himself. It was going to be a long visit. Even if he left the following day, it was going to be a long visit.

      And because of those thoughts, he was actually grateful when he heard Tricia knock lightly on the guest room door.

      “Come in,” he called out, turning slightly to face her as she eased the door open.

      “Are you as bored as I am?” she asked.

      He blushed. Was it that obvious?

      “Well…you know, it’s not my house, and I didn’t bring a book, so I’m sort of…” He smiled. “Yeah, I guess I’m a bit bored. Uh…no offense.”

      It was her turn to smile. “None taken. But I was thinking we should do something.”

      “Something…? Something like what?”

      She frowned. “Anything to get out of this house. I’ve barely had a breath of fresh air since your father went into the hospital, and once he comes home…well, I might as well forget about having a life for a while.”

      “But the doctors said he’ll be back to normal in no time.”

      She blew a wisp of stray blond hair out of her eyes. “They always say things like that, but it never quite works that way. Your father was lucky, but he’s still going to need some time to recuperate. Especially with his personality. If he were a laid-back, calm man, it would be a lot easier. But he’s going to have to make an effort to relax, and I’m afraid there’s going to be a lot of stress around here.”

      “Hire him a nurse.”

      She laughed. “I can’t even keep a cleaning lady. Five years of marriage and not one has ever done a good enough job…according to him, that is. So let’s forget about getting a nurse, because I’ll be spending more time interviewing than he’ll be spending recuperating.”

      Noah knew she spoke the truth. “So what do you want to do?” he asked, vaguely fearing something worse than boredom.

      “I was thinking a bar.”

      That caught him by surprise. He thought she had been setting him up for a long dinner at whichever Upper East Side bistro was currently in vogue among the Park Avenue Trophy Wife set. Perhaps the glass of wine early in the afternoon should have been a warning to him. “His father’s wife” had, in the course of just a few hours, surprised him several times: she might have been a mistress, and she might be a lush. Noah decided that he should neither dismiss her nor underestimate her.

      He glanced at the clock on his nightstand.

      “It’s only four o’clock,” he announced. “Isn’t it a bit early?”

      “Why, Noah! I didn’t know you were such a stick-in-the-mud!” Tricia leaned against the door frame. “Never heard of Happy Hour?”

      He was wary. “I’ve heard of it.”

      “I want to go.” She affected a pout. “Take me out to Happy Hour.”

      “You are a very strange stepmother.”

      An index finger wagged in his direction. “Ah-ah!”

      “Sorry. You are a very strange wife-of-my-father.”

      To which, she said simply, “Thank you,” and—with a toss of her hair—left to change into more appropriate attire.