layla
I like to think I add value to the Foster family. I wouldn’t be so bold as to say that I am the glue that holds them all together, because that would be obnoxious and assuming—and we all know what happens when you assume.
That said, I am the one person who is closest to every member of the Fosters if you take each relationship as a stand-alone. Okay, well, maybe I’m not closer to Bill and Ginny than they are to each other, but I am pretty damned close to all of these people.
I’m the only one who plays poker with Bill and his gang of louts, and who’s his first mate on the SS Barbecue whenever he wants a cookout: I pass out the plates and get more buns. Scott’s more into art than sports, so he and Brett don’t connect in every way. So it’s usually me who bonds with him over his girlfriends, or lack thereof. He comes to me for advice nine times out of ten; we have our favorite TV shows that we watch. Ginny? We shop together, we have lunches at Il Pastaio on Canon every Saturday, and come holidays, we’re the ones who cook and decorate to make the Foster home the institution that it has become. Although it’s unfortunately now turning into a different kind of institution—or, rather, one or all of us are going to end up in an institution if we don’t figure out how to manage this split.
Brett’s being a total baby about his family siding with me. Which they’re not. They’re just not siding with him. They love us both, and they’re treating the situation as they would if two of the other family members got in a massive fight. Which is making Brett feel like they’re choosing me.
God, it’s ugly. He gave his family an ultimatum yesterday: It’s me or her. And he expected everyone to make a choice! This was right after he pitched a fit because I was helping organize a scavenger hunt that Bill and his friends are doing in two weeks, which he said I have no business getting involved in. Um, right. Except for the fact that the whole thing was my idea to get them to do something healthy that didn’t involve poker chips.
I understand that Brett feels like I’ve somehow co-opted his family, but he was also the one who encouraged me to get close to them. He loved how close we all were, until he stopped loving me. Now it’s inconvenient, so I have to stop?
I’m not letting go without a fight. Even then I’m not letting go. And so it’s with this in mind that I show up at the mediation Brett insisted we immediately have, in order for us to decide how to deal with our separation and who should get quality time with his family. I have to admit he’s been cool about the divorce, not pushing anything through yet or suggesting anything stupid regarding money matters. I’m glad to see there’s one line he feels too sheepish to cross, because I’m not so sure how confident I am in my counsel.
Brett suggested getting this person he’s heard about to mediate, and I agreed against my better judgment. (He was pretty convincing about not wanting either of us hit with frivolous lawsuit judgments, and I saw his point, considering how silly we’ve both been acting. But sometimes I just can’t help it. He infuriates me!)
The whole family got instructions to show up at nine-fifteen a.m. at Happy Valley Family Therapy Center, which I guess doubles as a mediation site. Handy, when that whole therapy thing just doesn’t work out. I wonder if it ever does.
I arrive with Tommy Thames at my side, wishing he’d pressed his suit. I kick myself for being shallow, but really, how hard is it to show up not looking like you’ve donned a shar-pei? He’s been bugging me about filing actual legal claims for the divorce, and so far I’ve been putting him off.
Bill and Ginny are there when I walk in, as is Trish, who looks bored before we’ve even begun. I think she’s still convinced this is just a fight and doesn’t see why we have to get all dramatic. Brett is there with his lawyer, Tim Ning, the attorney I myself first called.
Tim sometimes works for UCCC, which is how Brett and I met him. He was negotiating the divorce of the college athletic director—and oddly, his subsequent retirement—after he got caught by his wife doing something similar to the doggy paddle in a steam room with a member of the women’s swim team. He’s something of a shark, and though he was kind of funny at that cocktail party, and Brett and he sort of chummed it up, now he just looks like an asshole. He reminds me of the character Ken Jeong played as the uptight gynecologist in Knocked Up, who scares the bejesus out of poor Katherine Heigl. No bedside manner. Ning smiles and actually winks at me when I walk in. I assume it’s because he remembers that I also reached out to him when this began, but I hope he doesn’t wink at all of the soon-to-be ex-spouses of his clients.
Scott walks in wearing a Warcraft T-shirt that I bought for him two Christmases ago and gives me a half-smile as he sits on the couch next to his mom. A short man enters next, wearing short sleeves with a too-short tie, and he’s looking at us with what I swear is an apology. Everything about this man is apologetic, from the way he holds the folder in front of his chest to the way he leans toward us, though only from the neck up.
“I’m sorry,” he says, “but it’s time we begin. I’m Burt Hollander. And … Matt says hello, Brett.”
Matt? Brett’s moron friend from college? I don’t know any other Matts that he knows. I dart a glance at Brett, and he looks kind of sheepish. Tim Ning smiles at me and shrugs. I feel my temperature start to rise. How is this going to be fair? How do Brett and Matt know this guy? No one else seems to be objecting, not even my counsel, Tommy Thames. I grind my teeth.
“You can call me B—”
“Mr. Hollander?” Scott breaks in.
“Or Mr. Hollander, yes. Yes?”
“Yes,” Scott says. “I would like to say, on behalf of the Foster clan, if you will …” Scott draws a jagged circle with his right hand, but it’s not exactly clear who is included.
“Scott!” Bill snaps. His son lowers his hand and says nothing more.
“Yes, well, good point,” Burt says, as if to validate the circle. Each one of us nods in agreement, sensing that somehow this meek man is going to be deciding our fates, sitting in judgment of the whole circus. Excellent point all around.
Hollander is relieved. He smiles and speaks as though he’s announcing what we’ve just won. “I’ve prepared a list of questions for Mr. and Ms. Foster,” he says, looking around at all of us cautiously—then he realizes that we are all Mr. and Ms. Fosters. He seems very sorry.
The questions start innocently enough, and seem oddly like non sequiturs. I can’t help but feel like I’m on a game show—the prize being other Misters and Misses Foster.
“Brett, what is your mother’s favorite food?” Hollander asks.
“Uh … she likes angel-hair pasta a lot. And fish …” He trails off.
I throw my arm nearly out its socket, not unlike Horshack on Welcome Back, Kotter.
“Layla?” Hollander says, allowing me my turn.
“Ginny does like pasta, but not too often, as she shies away from carbs. When she has it, she prefers it to be cooked al dente and makes a delicious tomato-basil sauce so good there’s almost no point in ever ordering pasta out in a restaurant, because it can only suffer by comparison.”
“She’s not just kissing ass here,” Brett says. “She basically just gave my mom a rim j—”
“Brett!” Trish shrieks. “That’s our mother!”
“Can we have us simply answer the questions asked so I don’t lose my Cocoa Puffs?” Brett growls.
“If you keep talking like that,” Trish says, “I’m gonna lose my breakfast.”
“Nobody is losing their breakfast,” Ginny commands. “And you shouldn’t interrupt, Trish, dear.”
I leap into the breach: “I’d like to add that while Brett simply mentioned fish, it’s salmon Ginny likes to eat, because it’s high in omega-3 fats and Ginny read Dr. Perricone’s book and tries to live by his code.”
Brett makes a face, and I make one back.
“Brett,” Burt says, “when is Trish’s birthday?”
“March,” he says.
“March what?” Hollander asks.
Brett is quiet for a moment. It’s March twelfth, but it’s not my turn to answer.
“This is just trivia,” Brett snaps. “Layla has a better memory for that stuff. Why don’t we talk about less superficial things?”
“Right,” I chime in. “Birthdays are totally superficial. You’d never care if everyone forgot your birthday. It’s just trivia.”
“My birthday’s the twelfth,” Trish says.
“I knew that,” I say.
“Great,” Brett grumbles. “You guys can make out later.”
Sensing the temperatures in the room rising, Hollander decides to take Brett up on his earlier suggestion. “Okay,” he says, “we’ll talk about less superficial things. What are your father’s views on politics? Is he a Republican? Democrat?”
“He’s a Democrat,” Brett answers.
“Is he ultraliberal? Fiscally conservative?”
“Is that really any of your business?” Brett asks. “I mean, don’t they say never to discuss politics?”
“Politics, religion, sex, and abortion, I believe,” Trish agrees.
“I’m just trying to gauge how interested you are in the views of your family members,” Hollander says. “How well you can answer these questions shows what kind of an interest you take in them.”
“I’m plenty interested in my family. Just because I don’t know what they like on their pizza doesn’t mean I should have to share them with a nonfamily member.”
“Layla is family,” Bill says, and winks at me.
“Thank you, Bill,” I reply.
Brett had picked up a pencil and now snaps it in half.
The rest of the mediation is more of the same. Hollander asks us each about Ginny’s views on parenting. Trish’s views on religion. Pizza gets left out of it, though I could have easily answered what everybody likes on their pie, whether they like thin-crust or deep-dish, and who likes it cold the next day. It doesn’t matter. The whole thing is pretty much Brett with his mouth agape, then fuming, and me getting all the answers right.
Head in hands, he starts moaning at one point. “None of this matters. The only thing that really matters are my and Layla’s feelings toward the family and vice versa!”
“Brett, you make an excellent point,” Burt Hollander allows.
“So I have one final question, and it is for each member of the family, excluding Layla and Brett.”
“Good,” Brett says. “Let someone else be in the hot seat.”
“Layla and Brett are both drowning and you can only save one of them….”