The Privileges

No one ever looked in the old Lego box that was inside a drawstring bag that was at the bottom of the toy chest that he sat on to read or to draw. He didn’t need to look inside the box to remind himself what was in there-he could tick off its contents in his head at any moment of the day, or while lying in bed at night-but once in a while he liked to open it up anyway. It made each item seem even more valuable to know that everyone else had given up on it, because he was the only one in the family who knew the secret, which was that things might disappear but, thanks to him, rarely was anything ever really lost. He held each object between his fingers for a while, recommitting it to memory; then he packed them all away and opened the door of his room and walked past his mother at the kitchen table and into the living room to hear Flight of the Bumblebee again.

For Christmas break they were going to a resort in Costa Rica; some guy from Morgan Stanley Adam still played basketball with had said the beaches there were the most beautiful beaches on earth. To the kids, one resort was the same as another, which was to say a kind of paradise where all strangers were nice to you and your parents never said no to anything or asked how much it cost and all you had to do to get anything you wanted was to pick up the phone. April was also mindful, though she knew she shouldn’t be, of the jealousy these trips engendered in some of her school friends, who maybe got to go skiing for a couple of days or spent the break in Florida in the hot, featureless homes of their grandparents.

Just a week or so before they were due to leave, the most recent hire at Perini-a guy named Bill Bre

“Fuck you it’s not my thing anymore,” Adam said, laughing. He called Cynthia and told her to get the sitter they used, or some other sitter, it didn’t matter. They hadn’t been to a real meat-market bar like that in a long time, long enough that everything about it seemed hysterical now. The men-if you could even use that word, since despite their suits and loosened ties they all looked about twenty years old-nodded meaningfully to the pounding music and generally stood around hoping for disinhibited women to fall on them like some humanitarian airdrop. Parker and the rest of them were in heaven. Bre

“This, losers, is my husband,” she shouted when she saw him, because you had to shout in there to say anything at all. Even so, they smiled and nodded and were likely only pretending to have caught, or cared, what she was saying. A beautiful drunk woman standing alone, even for five minutes, drew these guys like touts at a racetrack; they were too young and callow even to check for a wedding ring. “He is more of a man than any of you will ever be. Especially you, fatso,” she yelled, gesturing to one guy, who just smiled.

“Hey now,” Adam said.

“You have lost a step, though,” Cynthia said in his ear. “I mean, these bottom-feeders bought me three drinks while I was waiting for you to come back with this one.” She took one glass out of his hand, took a sip from it, and then with drinks in both hands put her arms around his neck and started making out with him. He felt a little vodka splash on the back of his neck. He wasn’t sure whether or not this was hilarious. The circle of guys may not have been able to hear anything she’d been saying to them, but this kind of display they understood, and with no hard feelings they turned away to see what else was available.

Cyn stopped kissing him for a moment and screamed after them, “His dick is bigger than yours too!” That they heard. In fact, a number of people seemed to hear it. “Okay,” Adam said, putting his hand gently on the small of her back, “I’m thinking it’s time to call it a night.”

When they were out on the sidewalk she turned around toward the bar’s façade and made the sign of the cross. It was only about ten blocks home but under the circumstances he thought they’d be better off in a cab. He watched her as they rode, eyes closed, head against the window. He hadn’t seen her this drunk in years; or maybe he had, but the difference was that he’d been that drunk too. She held her liquor like a champion, so if she was this far gone-and without him-it could only be because she wanted it that way. They got off the elevator and she went straight to the bathroom; Adam waited by the front door while the sitter, Gina, a round girl from Barnard about whom he knew absolutely nothing other than that she was from Mi

“No problem,” she said. “It’s not like it’s a rough neighborhood.”

He waited until the elevator door closed. Walking back through the foyer he saw that Gina had written on a pad underneath the phone, “Cynthia-Your mother called,” and then underneath that, “2x.” He went to the bathroom to make sure she was okay, but the door was open again and she wasn’t in there. She wasn’t in their bedroom either. He found her in the kids’ room, sitting on the floor against the wall between their beds. Her eyes were wide open.

“We need a bigger apartment,” she whispered. “They can’t keep sharing a room forever.”

He nodded and reached out his hands to help her to her feet. When she was on the bed in their room he took her shoes off and brought her a couple of Advil and a glass of water. The room was lit only from outside but she lay back on the pillow with her forearm over her eyes.

“You okay?” Adam asked her. She nodded. Then, because her unguardedness was contagious, as drunk people’s often is, he said, “Hey, Cyn, can I ask you something?”

Without moving her arm from her eyes she gestured grandly with her hand, like, Knock yourself out.

“When you go to that shrink,” he said, “what do you talk about?”

She gri

He nodded, though she couldn’t see him, and kept lightly stroking her hip with his fingertips. The radiator hissed softly.

“Now,” she said, lifting her arm from her face. “Time to show me what you’ve got. Come on, stud. I knew you’d be good when I saw you in that bar.”

She started struggling with her jeans. He stood up beside the bed to help her, and by the time he had them off, she was asleep.

The next morning he took the kids to school and let her stay in bed; he put the note about her mother’s phone calls next to the coffeemaker where she’d see it. She scowled; okay, two more Advil and something to eat before I start to deal with that, she thought, but no such luck, at about five minutes to eight the phone rang again. Ruth sounded tense and offended, though that was pretty much par for the course.

“I called three times last night,” she said.

“We were out late. Which is why a stranger answered the phone. We got home way past your bedtime.”