Read Online When It Happens to You by Molly Ringwald - Free Book Online

Charlotte said.
    â€œI’m sure she does.” Phillip took a deep breath and let the air out slowly.
    â€œHere, let me help . . .” Marina reached out and swiped the towelette across Charlotte’s face, neck, and bare arms.
    â€œI don’t need sunscreen!” Oliver crowed. “I don’t get sunburned ’cause I have dark skin already!”
    â€œNot so fast,” Marina took another towelette and performed the same task on her son. “Skin cancer is for everyone,” she said, handing the used towelettes to her son. “Go throw these away, and then you can do more monkey bars.”
    The children scampered off, screaming something unintelligible.
    â€œThanks,” Phillip said. “And the neglectful parent of the year award goes to . . .”
    â€œWhatever. You owe me a Coke.”
    Phillip smiled at her and then glanced down at his BlackBerry.
    â€œSorry, I have to put this fire out.”
    â€œGo ahead,” Marina said.
    She took off her hat and wiped away the perspiration from her forehead, then put her hat back on. It had been several months now since she and Phillip had begun meeting for a standing playdate, usually every other weekend when it was Phillip’s turn with his daughter. Phillip and Charlotte’s mother had separated some time after the holidays, and though Charlotte seemed to be taking the situation in stride, Phillip carried the air of a man condemned. Not wanting to pry, Marina didn’t ask for the specifics of his marital difficulties, but she surmised from his guilty countenance that he was in some way responsible—while knowing enough about relationships to acknowledge that their failure was rarely, if ever, unilateral. They all have a built-in expiration date, Marina thought, and if people would just realize this up front they could save themselves a lot of pain. Why not just appreciate the time they have together—the exalted sex, the precious antecedent moments of rapture, the delight of finding the sublime in the banal? Instead, we demand that the other hold up a mirror and reflect back to us everything we hope to believe about ourselves. And we love them for it . . . until the mirror becomes too heavy to hold, or breaks altogether, and then the punishment never ceases. But, ah, this was coming from Marina. She had not had even one sustained relationship since her son’s birth, and strikingly few before. For years she had more or less resigned herself to a life alone, but then recently she found herself drawn to the sad and guilty man beside her.
    Phillip bobbed his knee up and down while he listened with mounting impatience to the caller.
    â€œUh-huh. Uh-huh.” He nudged Marina with the tip of his foot and mouthed the words “ I’m sorry. ” She waved her hand at him and deliberately turned to watch the kids playing in the distance to give him space. The children had taken a break from the monkey bars and now sat facing each other, their legs in a V, toes touching, talking. She could tell that Oliver was telling a story, and she tried to decipher its subject from the grand hand gestures. Charlotte threw her head back and the high tinkling laughter traveled all the way to the bench where their parents sat.
    â€œGod, it’s nice to hear her laugh,” Phillip said. He had finished the phone call and slipped his BlackBerry into the breast pocket of his broadcloth button-down.
    â€œI think Ollie could make anyone laugh. He could make the Taliban laugh,” she said.
    Phillip smiled and ran a hand through his closely cropped blond hair. “Christ, it’s hot. I’d like to round up all those global-warming naysayers shoulder to shoulder and just watch them bake.”
    Marina laughed. “Well, that would be my entire family.”
    Phillip raised an eyebrow with interest. “No kidding.”
    â€œYup. No such thing as global warming. Evolution is questionable. And, of course,