Page 37 of The Irresistible Distraction

“Dad wants me to join basketball. Nana and Papa said I should try to be a track star, like Dad.”

I refrain from saying “star” is a slight exaggeration. Jesse was the best in our grade and very good relative to Lake Arrowhead standards. He didn’t do well, at least not consistently, in larger tournaments, and he didn’t keep it up. Still, this is the fiction Jesse’s parents have wrapped my son in, one that’s perpetuated by the display of local medals that still adorn Adeline and Arthur’s house.

At least I understand Jesse’s logic that our son should join a team sport, given how few friends he’s made in middle school.

“What would you like?”

Sebastian looks at me, a look of pure sincerity. “I’d do just math all day if you’d just let me,” he says, which makes me want to hug him tight. “But you won’t let me do anything fun.” Which, of course, makes me want to scream.

“For now, can we focus on the positives? If you do well enough in your history class, you can double up on math. If those go well, I can talk to Principal Swenson about other options, including some online courses that might be nice.” What I don’t say is that the more difficult classes are also expensive.

If courses and eventually tutors make Sebastian happy, that is, of course, what I’ll do. The diner renovation can always be delayed, and there’s the small nest egg my parents left, which I’ve never touched.

“Thank you.” Sebastian’s voice is quiet again. “I know I’ve been moody lately, and I really do hate history, but I get why I need to do it, and I am”—he swallows, firms his lips, a look of intense focus on his face as if it’s difficult to force it all out—“grateful for the math next year.”

Now I do step forward and hug him, this child who is ten and sometimes really does not sound ten, who has immense academic curiosity but is stuck with a not-even-college-educated mother who cannot guide him.

“We’re both trying, right?” My voice is rough with emotion and exhaustion. “But you have to help me not be the bad guy here—I don’t want to have to constantly nag you about your essays.”

“It’s not due until Friday.”

“But there’s a test Wednesday, right?”

“Right. And I didn’t mean to say you can’t talk to your friend. You can talk while I study.”

Sebastian gives me a quick tight hug before he shuffles off to his room. A couple minutes later, Maggie arrives, breathless, as if she jogged here instead of being driven by Tyler, who gives me a casual wave from his truck.

“My back hurt too much to drive,” she explains when I look at her in question. She looks toward Sebastian’s door, and as if they’ve coordinated this, he closes the door. Maggie widens her eyes as she whisper-shouts, “Tell me everything.”

That thing people say about never googling yourself? Apparently, it applies to anyone you might be romantically interested in as well. Never google anyone you think you might like or want to like.

“This is bad on so many levels.” Maggie turns her phone toward me to show me not just the older pictures of Brody and his ex, Vi Shindler, from a year and a half ago, but more recent reports that they’re potentially reconciling, that they were spotted together at Nobu, looking intimate, that she might have moved into his Beverly Hills mansion.

“I mean, I love you and I truly think you’re hot by, like, Lake Arrowhead standards, but Vi Shindler is like an actual movie star.”

“She isn’t like a movie star—she is the prototypical rising starlet.” I turn my screen toward Maggie to show her the most recent shots of Vi on the red carpet, wearing a skintight golden sequined dress that barely covers her ass and shows off the rest of her assets—which, as far as I can tell, is every single part of her face, hair, and body. Her breasts are somehow full and perky in a way I don’t think mine ever have been, even before motherhood. Her stomach is . . . Who am I kidding? Someone like Vi Shindler doesn’t have a stomach, just a concavity where a tummy normally is. Where my stomach, which is suddenly feeling flabby in a way that makes me suck in a breath, resides.

Her butt is perfect. Bouncy in the has-songs-devoted-to-it way.

She has no fucking pores, no matter how much I zoom in.

And her lashes are insane.

“She has double-lidded eyes too,” I note.

“That’s only a thing Asian people notice,” Maggie says, even as she leans in closer to the screen.

“Well, I’m technically Made in China, so⁠—”

Of course I’ve heard the story from Vera, which I then rehashed to Maggie: That her nephew, Brody, was engaged, planned a destination wedding, and that they called it off at the last minute. Brody had paid for Vera’s first-class tickets and hotel room, and Vera came home with a treasure trove of stories about how awesome Brody’s college teammates, Lorelai and Lucas, were.

So. Many. Stories.

I listened and asked questions but didn’t bother to look any of them up, because why would I? At that point in time, Brody was some distant nephew of Vera’s who she liked but who never actually came to visit. His unwedding was neither my problem nor did it inspire any genuine curiosity.

But now that I’ve slept with the man? And know he’s google-able and is one Kevin Bacon degree of separation from people like Lucas Forbes-covering Murray and Vi perfection-should-be-my-middle-name Shindler, both of whom have legitimate Wikipedia entries?

“How does anyone compete with Vi Shindler?”