This Is Where I Leave You

magically materialize in front of Phillip’s shiva chair, and the girls sit down. They are accustomed to seats appearing for them wherever they go; they assume it’s probably like that for everyone. I recognize these girls, old high school friends of Phillip’s, all of whom he slept with repeatedly, two of whom, it was rumored, he slept with together on more than one occasion.
    “Oh my God, Phillip,” Chelsea says. She is a long-legged redhead in a skirt that would be appropriate for tennis. She and Phillip were on and off for years. “I haven’t seen you since that boat party, you remember? That Russian kid with the yacht? Oh my God, we got so messed up that night.”
    “I remember,” Phillip says.
    “I’m so sorry about your father,” Janelle says. She has a pretty face underneath her spray-on tan and is slightly chunky, but in that way men like.
    “Thank you.”
    “He was such a nice man,” Kelly says. Kelly has a platinum pixie cut and a come-hither smile, and you can just picture her drinking too much and dancing on the pool table in the frat house.
    “So, Philly,” Chelsea says. “What have you been up to?”
    “I’ve been doing AR work for a record label.”
    “That’s so cool!”
    “It’s a small, independent label, a boutique,” Phillip says modestly.
    “Nothing too exciting. You guys remember my brother Judd?”
    They turn to me as one and say hi. I say hi back and try to decide which one I would most want to sleep with. The answer is, all of them. Line them up and I’ll knock them down. They are pretty and sexy and friendly and easy and exactly the kind of girls I never had a chance with back in the day. But now ...now I’m divorced and damaged, and aren’t these the kind of girls who like damaged men?
    “So what have you all been up to?” Phillip says, and what follows is ten minutes of giggles and banter, repeatedly tossed hair, and some really bad grammar. They laugh at pretty much everything Phillip says, and Chelsea, in particular, seems to hang on his every word, her chair gradually inching closer until her ankles rest easily against his. And then Tracy comes back, having spent the afternoon out of the house after her argument with Phillip. I watch her enter the room, see her register these hot young things surrounding her man as she makes her way through the chairs to Phillip’s side. “Hey, babe,” she says, smiling first at him and then at the girls. I have never heard her say “babe,” and it rolls clumsily off her tongue like a hasty lie. “How’s it going?”
    “Great,” he says. “These are some old friends of mine from high school.”
    “And college,” Chelsea reminds him with a smile.
    “That’s right. Chelsea and I were also in college together.”
    “I love the name Chelsea,” Tracy says.
    “Thanks.”
    “This is Tracy,” Phillip says. He doesn’t say “my fiancée,” or any other designation, and the omission lands with a resounding thud in our midst. But Tracy clings admirably to her gracious smile, and for the first time since I’ve met her, I feel bad for her. She’s a smart woman, and on some level, she has to know that this thing with Phillip will never work. Still, she leans forward to graciously shake hands and repeat each girl’s name as she’s introduced, like she’s at a business meeting. The girls flash their whitened teeth and extend their hands, their French-manicured nails catching the light and slicing the air like razor blades. 8:15 p.m.
    “Long day, huh?” Linda says to me. She’s sitting on a stool at the center island in the kitchen, peering down through her bifocals at the Times crossword puzzle.
    “I thought I might go pick up Horry again.”
    “I thought you might, too,” she says, sliding her car keys across the marble countertop. “You’re blocked in again.”
    “Thanks.”
    She takes off her reading glasses. “How does he seem to you?”
    “Horry? I don’t know. Fine I guess.”
    “He does not seem fine, Judd. Don’t be diplomatic with me.”
    I nod and think about it. “He seems angry, maybe. Frustrated.”
    “He hates me.”
    “I’m sure he doesn’t hate you. But he’s a thirty-six-year-old man living with his mother. That can’t be healthy.”
    “He’s not healthy.”
    “He seems fi ne.”
    “He has seizures. He wets his bed. He forgets things, important things, like locking the door or turning off the oven or putting out his cigarette before he falls asleep, or, once in a while,