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“Shitty’s gone on vacation,” Bob said to Alicia a week after Kent’s twelfth birthday, “so that’s the last we’ll hear from those boys until he gets back in August.”
He was wrong, however. Kent continued to Facetime them regularly during his vacation with Camilla, including a downright enthusiastic review of Disney World from his hotel room. Twice, Jack emailed Bob irritated photographs of furniture Kent’s cat had damaged in his absence. They did drop off the radar once Kent got back to Providence, but remembered to return Bob and Alicia’s call the day after Jack’s birthday.
“We saw Zootopia with Bitty last night,” Kent explained briefly, before launching into a detailed description of the movie’s most exciting part.
“He’s Mr. Bittle,” Kent elaborated later in the conversation. “But he said I could call him Bitty because that’s what Chowder calls him sometimes. They’ve all got hockey nicknames so Chowder is Chowder and Nursey is Nursey and Dex is Dex. It’s because of their parents. He used to play NCAA Division I.” That was the most they got out of him before he pushed Jack in front of the screen.
“Oh yeah, Bitty,” Jack said, when Alicia asked him. “His kids are good skaters, they were in the Falconers Novice camp. I liked the camp. My knee’s not healing up the way it oughta, so we’re gonna decide after training camp if I’m skating the first half of the season. If I’m not, George talked to me about doing more kid outreach. We might invite some of the camp kids back to join the team regular season.”
“The Novice team?” Bob asked. “Jack, why not coach Kent’s team?”
“Oh yeah,” Jack said. “Kent’s not doing hockey this year. His heart’s not in it. We got him figure skates today.”
“Kent told you that he wants to do figure skating?“
“Euh, no. He asked Bitty to tell me, so Bitty gave me some recommendations about equipment and clubs.”
“How long has—” Bob spluttered.
“Jack, who is Bitty?“ Alicia cut in.
Jack paused, then focused his eyes on them instead of his usual roving gaze. “Eric Bittle,” he said. “He has a website.”
“Dad,” Kent said, from the side of the screen. “Are you done talking to Pépère and Mémère? I wanna tell them about figure skating.”
“Yeah,” Jack said, and made room for Kent—then, to all appearances, wandered off entirely.
“Oh yeah, and Bitty made pie for us last night,” Kent said proudly. “It was really good.”
Alicia took a moment to bury her face in Bob’s neck, in lieu of screaming with frustration, before putting a smile on and turning back listen to her grandson with all appearances of delight.
“No, Mrs. Z,” Shitty said as he drove out of the airport parkade. “They’re not dating. I don’t think Bittle even has Jack’s cell number, he just always calls the landline.”
“What?” Alicia shrieked. It felt good to allow herself a shriek. Eric Bittle and his cookbooks and his hauntingly vague and chirpy author bios made her feel like shrieking. Shrieking What have you done to my son?! “But we already packed gifts for his children!”
“They’re nice kids,” Shitty allowed. “Kenny likes ‘em. He follows Jack to hockey practice so he can watch ‘em play and talk with Bitty. But I honestly think Kenny likes him more than Jack does. Mentor figure, kinda.”
“Oh, well,” Bob said, sounding a little defeated. “Might as well be nice to someone who’s nice to Kent.”
“We brought Kent a leotard,” Alicia said anxiously. “I’m not sure if it’s exactly what he’ll need, but we wanted to—show our support.”
“It’ll be appreciated,” Shitty said, as he merged into traffic. “I’m still not sure what’s going on there, but tell you the truth? It feels like a good thing.”