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Max continues to struggle in school. He breaks a fish tank when he can't stand how loud the bubbles are and gets kicked out of school. Dr. Pelikan suggests they send him to a private school in which his needs can be better met. Needs not being met: Haddie's. In all the hoopla about the new school, Adam and Kristina forget her championship soccer game.
Crosby spends the day babysitting the unbelievably adorable Jabar. He's less adorable when he throws up in Crosby's car. This minor inconvenience leads Crosby to question if he is capable of fatherhood. Things go further badly when Jabar breaks part of Crosby's mixing board at work. Crosby chickens out with Katie and, in front of the kid, lies about who Jabar is.
Julia has finally had it with Raquel, especially when it seems like Raquel is horning in on Sydney's swim lessons. So, in response, she dons her swimming togs and takes over, Mommy-style... with terrible results. Sydney's upset and Joel is mad, but ultimately Sydney does learn to swim.
Sarah goes to the coffee shop where Jim works and breaks things off... right after he introduces her to all his coworkers, who then write a rude word on her car when it won't start. She and Drew bond over fixing it. Honestly, this is the least of her problems -- apparently she has been sleeping in a twin bed with her daughter, too afraid to ask her dad if she can move into his office because of the condoms she found in his desk. Finally, he admits that he and Camille are having problems.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Max is in class, trying to work on a writing assignment when he is overcome by an annoying noise. It is driving him crazy, making it impossible to concentrate. It's the bubbles from the classroom aquarium. Across the otherwise silent room. Y'all, Asperger's is hard. I feel so terribly sorry for children who are ultra-sensitive to things like noise and tags in their clothes and whatever else. Max takes deep breaths, trying to block it out. He clenches his teeth and begs the teacher to please turn down the bubbles. The kid is obviously in noise hell and, finally, he methodically walks over to the tank and stares in while his teacher insists that he return to his seat.
At Crosby's, Jasmine drops off Jabbar for the day with an armload of board games. She is on her way to the city for a dance audition. "Break a leg," Crosby tells her, awkwardly (because everything he does is unnecessarily awkward). She says she really might -- it's been years since she did this. Crosby says surely she will have no problem, given how, if he remembers correctly, she's so limber. Ugh. Jasmine rightly looks kind of grossed out at the mention of this in front of her little son, but she heads out anyway, leaving Crosby with Jabbar. "Oh," he asks, "when we play games, I need to let him win, right?" Jasmine says Crosby might not have to let him. Crosby smiles. "He cheats, okay..." he says, nodding. Hee. Jasmine says, no, Jabbar's a genius. "Well, can I get you something to drink?" Crosby asks the kid after his mom leaves. Jabbar says yes. "Whiskey?" Crosby asks. "Or beer?"
At a local pool, Sydney is taking swimming lessons with her dad when Julia walks in, fully dressed in lawyer-wear. People, Erika Christensen is too hot for this show, okay? She is blazing, and we haven't even gotten to the part where she has on a bathing suit. Also, how hard did she roll her eyes when she read this script for the first time? Oh, the snickering writers. "See, Erika, it'll be all about how intense you are about your amazing swimming record? Hilarious, riiiiiight?" And you know she was like, "Yes, hilarious, just like when you insisted my character be named 'Julia,' thus making my DAILY 'aren't you Julia?' encounters even more weird." She kneels at the side of the pool where Joel swims over with Sydney. "Mommy, look!" Sydney says, laying out in her father's arms and blowing bubbles in the water. "That's great, sweetie," Julia says. "Let's see some swimming!" Sydney says okay, and... does the exact same thing. "What is she doing?" Julia asks Joel. He rambles on about how she's getting acclimated in the water and feeling safe. Julia obviously considers this nonsense. "She could do that in a bowl of soup when she was two," she cracks. They are interrupted when none other than McSkank herself, Raquel, splashes over to say hello, complete with tramp stamp on full display due to her bikini. "Raquel has a tattoo, see it?" Sydney says. Julia says, yeah, everyone sees it. Indeed, who couldn't? It's a Sanskrit word across her lower-back, hip to hip. "It means 'abundance,'" Sydney adds. Julia: "I'm sure it does." Oh, yes. I'm sure.
Raquel slinks over to Julia with a look of deep concern on her face. "I have something for you," she says. "Joel told me about your nephew, Max, and his... condition." Julia is surprised, either that Joel shared this info with Raquel, or that she cared enough to mention it. She is even more surprised when Raquel presents her with a stone she picked up in Tibet last summer. "For comfort and good luck," Raquel says, bowing, and asks that Julia please give it to her brother.
He'll be needing it. Moments later, we see Adam and Kristina at the school, watching the clean-up crew dispose of a huge amount of water and broken glass. Max pushed over the tank. "Were they able to save any?" Adam asks Kristina. She says no. "So, that's it, then," he says, grim. "We're out of here." Kristina sighs and says, yes, probably, adding that "I was gonna make fish for dinner, too..."
Sarah is meeting cute Jim at the coffee shop where he works. "AW!" I think, seeing how happy he is to see her. As a matter of fact, the whole staff is happy to see her. So happy they laud her with free fancy coffee drinks. I get a strange thrill seeing Lauren Graham sit down to a cup of coffee... I miss Lorelai, okay?! Anyway, eeeeverybody's happy -- except Sarah, even when Jim introduces her to the staff and makes cute coffee jokes. "I really had fun the other night," she begins, mentioning a few dozen times how nice it was, and how nice a time she had doing uh, "you know," and how nice Jim is. Finally, he gets it. "Nice," he says. "Yeah." His fellow baristas can see by the back of his head what's happening and are growing concerned. "You know, the timing right now is not great," Sarah says. Jim, sarcastically: "Is that it?" She says she just got to town and is living in a room with her daughter and everything, soooo... Jim cuts to the chase. "I got it," he says. "It's not me, it's you." Sarah sighs. "Exactly!" she says. "It's not you, it's me." Outside, in her beater car, she sighs again. That was hard, but at least she gets to leave, now, with her dignity. Oh, ah. No, she does not. Her car won't start. And, naturally, her cell phone is dead. I'd call it improbable, but it would happen to me. What's improbable is that the first place she dashes in to ask to use the phone is the coffee shop that employs the man whose heart she just broke five seconds ago. Him and all his angry friends. They give her an all-powerful withering stare that only a tribe of retail workers can muster, and she darts back out to find another phone.
As we finally rocket into the intro, can I say again that this show wins outright for its soundtrack? Whoever is putting it together is doing a seriously bang-up job. How great is Brett Dennen's "Make You Crazy"? What a hook.
Let us do a quick review. What would you consider, in five words or less, to be the real lesson of the preceding five minutes? Something about living in the moment? Blah blah blah, love the one you're with? Yadda something life handing you yadda lemons? Internet, you're wrong. Here it is: "Don't. Piss off. A Barista." So simple, really, but it's so important to remember, especially for Sarah whose car is now rolling into her parent's driveway on the back of a tow truck, the word BITCH emblazoned in the grime of the front windshield.
Later, as she works under the hood, her dad comes out to see what's up. "Angry baristas," she says, noting the windshield work and, gesturing to engine, "bad starter motor." No, no, Zeek says. It looks to him like a blown head gasket because of all the coolant leak damage he can see. She assures him all of that is old. "I replaced that eight months ago," she says. He looks up with pride. "You pulled the head and replaced the gasket, yourself?" he asks. Sarah: "You know who taught me." Zeek is thrilled. That's his girl, he says, and excitedly goes on that they can work on the car together like old times. Sarah, however, is dejected. "I think it's a goner," she mutters when, like a silent wraith of angst, her son Drew appears over her shoulder having heard all. "God, again," he groans and keeps walking toward the house while Sarah tries to put the best spin on it. "No, Grandpa and I are gonna fix it," she says, all cheery, but Drew is already stomping off, faster now because Zeek is pursuing him, grouching about how Drew smirks and mumbles.
Haddie, wearing her soccer uniform, bursts through the door of her house. "We won! We won!" she yells, dancing into the kitchen. "We're going to the final!" Her parents are subdued, to say the least. "That's... great," her mom says, half-apologizing for missing the game. Adam tries to compensate for their absentee status by asking when the exact date of the final game is. "Why are you guys being weird?" Haddie as
ks. Adam and Kristina try to act like they're not being weird, but their forced normalcy, sitting in the kitchen, makes Haddie look to the source, Max, who is playing on the floor. "I got kicked out of school," he says. Haddie's cynical face falls. "Oh," she says. "You know what, big guy? That's their loss. That school sucked." Max does not look up.
Playing on a different floor: Crosby and Jabbar. Little man is handing it to Crosby, Candyland style. "One more," he says, after beating Crosby yet again. Crosby says there's only so much defeat he can take. "I can play even easier," Jabbar offers. This is the cutest kid ever on television. Seriously, I am fully Team Jabbar. Crosby asks if there's anything else he wants to do, seeing that they have a solid six hours before Jasmine returns. "Ooo," Crosby has an idea. "ESPN, anyone?" Ha! But Jabbar says he doesn't really watch sports. "We can watch more SpongeBob!" the kid says, but Crosby suggests they not be too hasty to do that. "I would hate to see you O.D. on Bob," he says. Finally, Crosby suggests they go for a car ride. "That's what my dad used to do," he says, leaving unspoken that this is what his dad used to do to burn off the hours with the kids before bedtime. Not that I would know anything about this, now. Jabbar says okay, but asks if he can take his Candyland board. "Oh, would you?" Crosby jokes, and tickles the kid into adorable squeals.
At Dr. Pelikan's office, Adam and Kristina review the ordeal of the fish tank. "Were there any...?" the Unseeable Pelikan asks. Kristina: "Survivors? No." He says that as Max's school has suggested he "find a new placement," meaning "you don't have to go home but you can't go to school here," he suggests a therapeutic school, Footpath. This has also been recommended to Adam and Kristina, but they cannot get the director of the school to call them back. Pelikan says he's sure the lady will call them week sometime. "My son, Max, doesn't have a school to go to," Adam says. "What am I supposed to tell him?" Pelikan has no answer for this, but smiles blandly. He reminds them that Footpath is not only really hard to get into, it's super expensive, double the tuition of even a private school. Adam says the money doesn't matter, and Kristina smiles. What if, Kristina says, Pelikan called the school on their behalf to grease the wheels? "Don't make us come and sit in your waiting room on a daily basis," Adam says, not really joking. Kristina: "Because we'll do it. We will."
On the streets of San Francisco -- oh, only instead of Karl Madden and Michael Douglas, it is a middle-aged slacker and a cute five-year-old -- Crosby and Jabbar go up and down the hills in Crosby's old convertible. "What do you think of these streets?" Crosby asks. "They're like roller coasters, right?" Um, yeah, they actually are, and Jabbar is feeling it. "Can you take me home now?" he asks in that sort of half-pitiful, half-secret-emergency voice that every parent MUST learn the hard way. Crosby, though, doesn't get it, until: "Now I remember why my mom says I can't eat chocolate," Jabbar groans. "I'm intolerant." Aw. "You're what?" Crosby yells over the car noise, but his only answer is the tell-tale splat of lactose on the dash.
Joel is overseeing bath time at home when Julia comes in. Sydney is actually taking a bath in her swimsuit, practicing her "swimming." Julia smirks. "Question," she says, turning to Joel. "Yes, counselor?" he asks. She wonders if "we" are at all concerned that Sydney has had five swimming lessons and all she can do is blow bubbles. Except... the way she asks it, by snarkily imitating her own child blowing bubbles like someone in a mental hospital, does not appeal to me. "Uh, we are not concerned," Joel says. "I know you were on the swim team and you were really, really good." Julia corrects him, here: "I was not just really, really good. I was All-CIF." Joel is impressed. "You Bravermans are so cocky," he jokes as they go in to watch Sydney splash around. "Mommy, look," she says, doing her bubbles routine again. "I'm swimming!" Julia can't take it. "That's not swimming, baby," she says. "Don't let anybody tell you that that's swimming." Which... maybe she's so insistent about it for safety reasons? Like, she doesn't want her daughter to throw herself into a pool thinking she can swim, when she actually can't? I don't know, but it's bitchy. The bitching has only just begun, though, for now she notices some writing on Sydney's hand in the style of the ultimate tramp stamp. "Just like Raquel's!" Sydney says. "It means 'abundance!'" Julia's teeth nearly pulverize as she turns a gritting smile to Joel. "Swim time's over!" he announces.
The night is not going so well for Crosby, either. He shows up at Adam's, desperate. "You've dealt with kid puke before, right?" he asks the second Adam opens the door. Adam: "Uh huh." As they stand over the convertible while Crosby sprays it down, Adam listens as his brother laments the difficulties of parenthood. "Come on, man," Adam says. "You had Jabbar for like, half a day?" Dude, exactly. But then again, Crosby has a good point -- Adam had time to prepare for his role as a father. "My kid," Crosby says, "came out talking and walking -- a three-foot-tall Candyland Master." Adam distractedly tells him to give it time and Crosby snaps that that's easy for him to say. Adam sighs. "You know what, Crosby?" he says, staring blankly down the street. "However hard you think it is, having a kid? Just double it." Crosby's upset -- Jabbar will be coming over again, and he has no idea what to do with him. "What am I supposed to do?" he asks. "Take him to the studio?" Adam asks if Crosby wants him and Kristina to watch the kid. "Dude, seriously?" Crosby asks, excited. Adam: "No, jackass, he's your son! Grow a pair! Deal with it." Awesome. First of all, there is nothing better than doling out a well-deserved "jackass." Secondly, it's the truth -- a hard one, but still. Crosby asks what it is that makes the whole parenthood thing worth it. Adam shakes his head. "What makes it worth it is the connection, the bond you feel," he says. "They're yours. You're a part of them." Crosby is worried he won't feel that connection, though. "You will," Adam says, and leaves his bro to do some more scrubbing on the stank.
Back at the Braverman compound, Sarah is struggling to go to sleep. This could possibly be because she is having to share a bed with her teenage daughter. Oh, did I mention it's a TWIN bed? People, no. No one would do this. Wait -- no one but college kids hooking up in a dorm would try to share a twin bed. Obviously, it isn't working and they are both miserable and squealy. Elbows fly, covers are thrown, Sarah falls out of bed and threats are scream-whispered in that tone reserved for very tired people very late at night. Finally, Amber says that this does it, she is asking her grandfather tomorrow if he will move his office out of the guest house so that Sarah can sleep there. "You can't do that," Sarah insists, through faux-sobs of tiredness. "Why are you being such a weenie about this?" Amber asks. She says every time she brings up Grandpa, Sarah gets all weird. "You're usually so ballsy!" she says. "What's going on?" Sarah can't answer. None of this would happen if, I don't know, someone would buy a cot or an air mattress. Or, get this, sleep on a couch. And, is Sarah sleeping in all her clothes? This scene is dumb.
The day, Adam is at work when Julia arrives wanting to take him to coffee to bend his ear. She wants to go to Berkeley Coffee, of course, since the people there give her all kinds of free stuff ever since she set Sarah up with Jim. Obviously, by the way she is chattering, Adam says, she has had a few too many. Plus, he says, he has to leave early today for Max's school thing, "so is it okay if we just talk while I answer some emails and just half-listen to you?" She says that will work. She gives him the rundown of the swimming situation: "Joel has Sydney in this Zen swimming class, which is basically a joke," she says. "And then there's Raquel, which..." Adam interrupts: "Raquel? The hot one?" Ugh. "Oh, is she hot?" Julia says. "I hadn't noticed." Adam rolls his eyes, but Julia doesn't even care about Raquel, reall
y. "Do you remember what a great swimmer I was?" she asks. Yes, he says, even remembering she was All-CIF. "I was! Thank you!" she says. She's mad, she says, because she doesn't get a say in how her daughter learns to swim. "Me!" she reiterates. "All-CIF!" Adam: "Because you have to work." Exactly, Julia says. But Adam puts the nix on that excuse. She doesn't have to choose between being a mom and having to work. "You may not be there all the time," he says, "but the time that you do have, you can make it count. She's your daughter. Teach her how to swim. She'll remember that for the rest of her life." Julia is thrilled -- this is just what she wanted to hear. With hugs and kisses, she prepares to head out, but remembers the Tibetan prayer stone from Raquel. She passes it on to Adam, and though they laugh about it, she does relay that it is for comfort and good luck, with Max.
Later, Adam and Kristina walk the halls of the lauded Footpath Elementary. To protect themselves, they do the thing where you find negatives about the thing you really, really want. I did this just yesterday on a car lot. I mean, I can't really buy a car right now, but I need (mostly want) to, so I was like, "yes, well, it's nice but aren't these wheels a little round?" They are doing the same, noting every speck of dirt and spot of peeling paint. They seem to be fooling themselves until they pass an open classroom. Inside, kids work at tables together pretty peacefully while attentive teachers cruise around helping them. There is a boy at one table in a sailor costume. A look of true poignancy passes over Kristina's face. "We probably can't afford this place, anyway," Adam says, hoping for the opposite, and Kristina says she knows, knowing exactly what he means. They meet with the school director and jabber so much and so crazily in her face that I feel like she is probably wanting to suggest they attend her school, themselves. Calm down. Initially, she does not want to meet with Max yet, because she is pretty sure they won't have a place for him until the school year. But they jabber her into submission. "You look a little like Oprah!" Kristina says, as she nervously jabbers herself out the door, and I can see the director of the school making a mental note that Max could not possibly be as weird and annoying as his own parents.
But, look, pushing your way through something is obviously the Braverman Way. Proof: over at the swim class, Julia is making a big splash. Oh, come on. Give that one to me. Girlfriend rolls up poolside in full-on racewear. A real racing style swimsuit, cap, goggles, the whole nine. Mama looks fine, too. She struts confidently to a starting block, shakes out a little warm-up, sets herself, and launches into the lane, swimming masterfully across the pool, kick-turning and swimming straight up to the amazed Joel and Sydney. "Mommy!" Sydney says. "You look like a fish!" Julia whips off her cap. "Want me to teach you how to swim like a fish?" Julia asks, and Sydney says yes. Aw, yay, I think. Julia is winning! But, not so fast. Carrying Sydney to the edge of the pool, she chats about how Grandpa Zeek taught her to swim, dropping her in the deep end of the pool when she was two. Oh, I just love people like that -- parenting by fear! Ha ha... wait, no I really do not. Anyway, Julia's not doing that. She tells Sydney to trust her, and has her hold on to the side of the pool while she edges a few feet away. Sydney is scared, and says she doesn't know how to swim. "I saw you kicking," Julia says, soothingly. "That's all you need to know how to do." She tells her to kick off the wall and swim to her. All the other parents and kids watch nervously, along with Joel, who is hanging back from the scene. Finally, when Sydney says she can't do it, he joins Team Julia. "Yeah, you can, honey," he says. "We know you can." They promise she will be okay, and she says she'll do it. The thing is, she doesn't kick off from the wall at all, she merely lets go of it and immediately sinks. Joel gets nervous. "She's gonna kick," Julia says as they watch Sydney kind of flail around under water. "She's sinking, is what she's doing," Joel says, but Julia says to give her a second. Raquel looks mortified. After a few more seconds, Sydney kicks to the surface. "Help, Daddy!" she screams, but to Julia this is a success. "You swam!" she cries, as Joel rushes to Sydney's side, but Syd ain't having it. "You DROWNDED ME!" she screams at her mother, who looks shocked that her child would be upset about swallowing about a gallon of pool water. "She... swam..." she mutters to the judging crowd as Joel carries away the hacking Sydney (who, frankly, could tone it down about 93 notches).
Sarah and Zeek are at the junkyard, looking for pieces of junk to use on her own piece of junk. They're walking around banging on hunks of metal when Sarah asks what Zeek would think about her moving into his office for a while. "Why the hell would you want to do that?" he asks, dismissively. "It's all moldy." She says she knows, but the small room she's sharing with Amber is a little tight. He tries again to deflect, mumbling that he uses his office to work. "Right..." she says. Finally, she gets up the nerve to quietly ask the real question. "Dad," she says. "Why do you have condoms in the office?" Zeek doesn't look at her. "I don't want to talk to you about that," he says and walks away.
Back at the pool, Sydney must be in the locker room changing while Julia talks to Joel. "I just thought..." she says, kind of shrugging it all off. He interrupts. "You just thought you could pop in, have your way, and pop back out again?" Dude, harsh. And, yet, apt. Julia is surprised at his serious reaction. "You're mad," she says. He says she should have told him she was coming. "She did swim," she says, smiling in that way that people do when they are wrong and don't want to apologize. "You saw that." Joel won't play, though. "See you at home," he says, sighing. Finally, as he walks away, Julia does what needs to be done. "Joel," she says. "Sorry." It's not much, but I was impressed she apologized, especially as she sees Sydney come out of the locker room escorted by none other than Raquel. Ugh.
Crosby is having a little Take Your Surprise Kid to Work Day at the studio. For the love of God, why anyone would bring a child to a recording studio... it is about the most child-unfriendly place in the world. The number of cords that can be messed with and broken and knobs and things to be spilled on, and glass and trillion dollar microphones... I just got a cold chill thinking about it. Still, Jabbar is super-impressed as Crosby shows him how to build the mix, and he jams out a little, bobbing his head and killing me with cuteness. He loves it when Crosby jumps the volume, making the switches move together. "Don't tell anyone around here what you just saw," Crosby whispers. "I don't want anyone to know how cool my job is." Hee. They are interrupted by a band coming in to record. "Oh, look," Crosby says, "it's The Happy Hollows!" Apparently this is a real band, currently getting some real attention. And, wow, after seeing them play a little on this show I was so about to write them off -- I am worn out by the breathy little girl voices in indie rock, y'all. Kind of ready for big girl voices to come back, and to come back in tune and singing words that mean something. I grew up loving Kim Deal, too, okay, but a little goes a long way. Anyway, I was over them but I couldn't help listening to several songs, and I did really enjoy this song. Now, where was I? Oh, yes. The lead singer, Sarah, asks Crosby who the little guy is. "Oh, this is my sound engineer assistant, Jabbar," he says, cutely. Sarah, with a mushroom-trip smile, asks if she can speak to Crosby alone for a second. "Is he gonna impinge?" she asks, but Crosby says no, Jabbar never impinges. "Because this is really important to us," she adds, and it may seem bitchy, but she is so right. Substitute "expensive" for "important" and it would be the most accurate. I could completely understand why they would not want a little kid hanging around. Crosby tells her to take how important it is to her, and quadruple it -- "that's how important it is to Jabbar." Heee. Why does Crosby kind of make me like him sometimes? I think it is a total accident -- I really only like him when he says the word "Jabbar."
Sarah is once again under the hood of her rustmobile, covered in grease, when Drew comes home from school. "Um, maybe you should let Grandma and Grandpa help us buy a new car?" he says, causing her to splutter. "In this family," she explains, "we take care of ourselves and we don't expect other people to help us." She feels like she should keep up with the Serious Parenting, so she struggles on. "Which is why, by the time I was your age, I knew how to change a tire and... bake a casserole..." Drew acts sarcastically impressed with the casserole, but hell, that IS a really important skill. Sarah continues. "... and break into a car, and fashion a teepee out of wood and leather..." Drew rolls his eyes for the 39th time, says "really, Mom," and slouches toward the house. "I don't think you get the point, do you?" Sarah says, but he says yes, he does get it (eyeroll). She raises her grease-black hands: "Then give me a hug." Ha! With a final eyeroll, he sighs and goes in. "You're still my favorite son!" she calls after him, her only son.
Crosby is setting up mics as The Happy Hollows warm up in studio. Jabbar, behaving like some kind of magical five-year-old that time forgot, sits in the booth at the board, touching nothing. Except, no -- that's not what happens. He TRIES to touch nothing, but that lasts about one minute. Finally, he gives in and starts tentatively pushing switches and, with great sound-god flair, gives a big dramatic shove and breaks off one of the switches. D'oh! Naturally, this causes him to react like any child would. He runs away to hide.
At Footpath, Kristina sits on a bench with Pirate Max while Adam paces in front of them. Kristina plays with Max's hair, which gets right on his nerves. Adam stops pacing to tell him there's no pressure, just to be himself. "I will," Max says, as if he could be anyone else. Kristina, jittery, offers him a snack. "I've got crackers, a banana, an apple, some trail mix," she says. "I have a granola bar, Chinese mix, an apple..." Awesome. The mom snack bag is not something I look forward to in my future, especially since I will probably compulsively eat all the snacks and then my daughter will be all mad that I can only offer her a half of a stick of gum and a slightly gnawed candy cane I found at the bottom of my purse. Max notes that she repeated apple, and asks if something is wrong. "You're saying the same thing over and over again," he says. "Which is what you do when something's wrong." Kristina: "No we don't. No we don't." To everyone's relief, especially Max's, the principal comes out to take him in for the interview. "No pressure," Adam repeats.
Back at the studio, Crosby returns to the booth to find Jabbar missing. He takes off at a trot through the building and finds him in the kitchen, sitting on the counter. "Man, you scared the crap out of me," he says. "Sorry," Jabbar answers, triply cute from only moments ago. Suddenly, from behind the open fridge door, Katie appears. "Hey, fiancé!" she says to Crosby who, last time I checked, was not technically her fiancé, rather her maybe-I'll-marry-you-sometime-kind-of-later boyfriend. He is shocked to see her, especially in the context of his kid, sitting right there, who he has not even told her about. The kid, by the way, for whom she is making a chocolate milkshake while she rattles on about dropping by to hear the band record. Finally, just as Jabbar is about to once again make the fatal lapse of judgment that allowed him to previously forget his probs with chocolate, Crosby reluctantly steps in to save him. "He can't drink that," he says, taking the glass from Katie. "He's lactose-intolerant." Katie is confused that he would know such a thing about a child who is a stranger to them both. "Who is this little fella?" she asks. Here, Crosby is at a fateful crossroad. He has a chance to man up and tell the truth, or at least allude to a truth about which he can speak with her later, in private, or he can lie. He lies. "I don't know," he says. "One of the girls up front asked me to watch him." Jabbar, being the only mature one in the room, remains silent, but he can't help looking hurt. His big eyes crinkle up a little, like he just watched Peter deny him three times. Brutal. Crosby feels bad about it, you can tell, but still. Then again, this Katie chick seems ridiculous and unstable, so was it really the best moment to bust out the whole story? Well, obviously he should have told her already, but whatever. In conclusion: it sucks.
Adam and Kristina are still in the school hallway when Sarah arrives to lend them support. She has coffee. "To... calm us down... thanks, Sarah," Adam snarks, but he really is thankful. He's still very nervous and fidgety, and Sarah notices he's rolling something around in his hand. "What's that, a rock?" she asks. "It's a Tibetan prayer stone," he tells her. "Oh, God!" she says. "It's come to THIS?" They start to bicker a little until the principal comes out with Max and everybody begins chattering at once. The principal tells them she'll be calling them tomorrow, and as they stand there, Max casually asks if Haddie won her game. Man. They forgot Haddie's game. Sarah has to laugh a little. They all rush out for the field where they find Haddie, alone, leaning up against the goal post with her trophy. Many apologies are offered, but she brushes them off: "Can we just go, please?" Y'all, that is my worst nightmare. My late father, who I loved more than life itself, was not, shall we say, the best at being places on time or... on the right days. You know, details. But, it sometimes affected me very strongly. My greatest fear is that I will not show up somewhere I'm supposed to be for my daughter. She's eight-months-old by the way, so I'm perhaps being premat
ure in worrying about soccer games? Still, I remember oh, so vividly what that feels like, to be sitting there waiting.
Back at the ranch, Sarah is reading up on her car repair manual when she hears some familiar clanging outside. It's Drew, taking on the mantle of Braverman auto mechanics. Sarah is impressed that he was able to remove several very tight bolts. They discuss wrenches and oil. Just your typical beautiful mother-son moment. It rules.
Haddie is in her bedroom when Adam knocks on the door. "It's fine, Dad," she says, without him even saying anything. "I'm over it." But Adam says it's not fine. "There are some days when you just blow it," he says. "And that is what happened today." He says that he feels terrible about what happened, and knows that she's been going through a hard time, especially in these last several weeks when things have been rough with Max. "Weeks?" she says, finally. "Try years." Adam asks what she means. "Why is everybody acting like this Max thing is big news?" She lists out the lifelong symptoms and issues Max has had with his behavior. He knocked over her tenth birthday cake because he was afraid of the candles; they had to switch rooms because he couldn't be by the air conditioner; they all have to bow to his whims whenever he wants to watch TV. "It's never-ending," she says. "Ever since I can remember, it's been all about Max." Adam looks stunned to be realizing this. "You're right," he says, simply. "You're absolutely right." Without belaboring the point, Haddie asks if Adam thinks Max will get into the new school. He doesn't answer, but picks up her soccer trophy from beside the bed. "I am very, very proud of you," he says. "In so many ways." Oh, my goodness, the tears. I can't help it. My husband rails on this show because he says it's a bunch of upperclass whiteys whining about their diamond shoes -- and yes, good grief, there is a good bit of that -- but come on. The small, real moments of life come for us all, and they are at times beautiful and terrible. So far, this show is doing a good job doling out one or two of those an episode and they are cutting me to the bone.
Mean ol' Mommy Julia arrives home from her late night at work. "The price you pay for taking a little dip in the middle of the day," she says, smiling tiredly at Joel. Yeah, speaking of that, he says, and calls Sydney over to show her mommy something on her video recorder. It's a video of her, swimming! "You swam!" Julia says. Sydney says yes, she did, away from the side and back. Joel quietly whispers that she never would have been able to do it without Julia "torturing" her. Julia smiles through her tears and has Sydney show her again and again.
On the pier outside his houseboat, Crosby and Jabbar wait for Jasmine. "How much longer?" Jabbar asks, all sad. Crosby takes a deep breath. "Hey, listen," he says. "You know what I told that lady, before, about who you were? I just got really scared. It was stupid." Jabbar thinks about it and says it's okay, he understands. With that, he reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out the broken switch. "Is that why you ran and hid?" Crosby asks, "Because you broke this off the mixing board?" Jabbar: " I thought you'd be mad." Crosby smiles. "You know," he says, "I would have done the exact same thing." Yes, well, that's because you're like a five-year-old, but okay, it's still adorable. Jabbar!
Zeek and Sarah are in the driveway, saying goodbye to the clunker. "You're not going to cry over this thing, are you?" he asks, as she tears up. "It's just, Amber said her first word in it," she says. "'No.'" Drew, she says, came within three blocks of being born in it. She says it hardly ever worked, but the day she needed to move them out of Seth's house, it started on the first try. They give the tow truck the go-ahead, and it pulls away. Zeek chooses this moment to explain why he was so cagey about her moving into his office. "Your mother and I haven't been doing very well," he says. "I've been spending a lot of time in the guest house. I've been sleeping there." He says that's why he told her not to move in, and says he knows he was selfish. He insists, now, that she should move in. "Don't worry about your mother and I," he says, "we're gonna be doing okay." Sarah looks worried, but I am sure she is glad to have a place to sleep, although it occurs to me now that she could have been sleeping in that car the whole time.
Adam and Kristina are awake at 7:30 the morning. Adam asks when the Footpath people are supposed to call. Kristina says 11. "I'm not gonna make it," Adam says. Kristina: "You want to make out?" Heee. Welcome to my marriage. It's my answer to everything. He doesn't get the chance to think over what I consider to be an excellent offer because the doorbell rings. It's Julia and her family, coffee in hand, come to take him and his family swimming. He laughs, but says he can't go, since they are waiting for a very important phone call. Somehow, Julia knows it's not for four hours, and the invasion is on. It's an all-Braverman swim at the pool, and everyone is having fun and jumping off the diving board, acting a fool. Poolside, Kristina and Camille are discussing Hungarian goulash when Adam's cell phone rings. I don't know why Kristina can't answer it, but she makes Adam get out of the water to grab the call -- it's Footpath. Max is in! Yay! This is celebrated by the whole family with much splashing.
The morning, Adam and Kristina escort Max through the halls. "You mind if I run ahead?" he asks, as they hover behind him. "It's 8:14." They say yes, and watch as he goes. Kristina reaches down to find Adam's still holding the prayer stone. She removes it and replaces it with her hand. That night (I guess -- who knows what day it is, ever?), Sarah shows up at Jim's house. "Can I come in?" she asks him, and like any man in the world would when faced with Lauren Graham on his doorstep, he can only allow himself to hesitate for a split second. "You like lasagna?" he asks. She smiles and walks in. Yay, twice!
Al Lowe is a writer and musician living in Atlanta. She can be contacted at deepsubject@gmail.com.
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