I'm Glad About You by Theresa Rebeck

there—Andrew, Stella, Megan sitting down, Lianne pouring juice for three toddlers, Mom at the stove. Most of them didn’t even hear her. It was the way, finally, you dealt with so many people: You just tuned everything out. Except for Rose, who glanced up from the stove, where every burner was covered with some sort of pot.
    “Oh, Dennis!” she said, with a fond interest. She was one of his many fans in high school; whenever he came over to hang out, he flirted with her shamefully. “Where is he living now?”
    “You know, I’m not sure. He had a place somewhere over in Clifton for a while, I guess he’s still there.”
    “Maybe you should find out where his apartment is before you go to a party there,” Lianne advised. Pure Lianne , Alison thought. Can’t say anything nice, and in such a stupid way.
    “He’s house-sitting for his dad right now,” she announced, as if the room in general had inquired as to Dennis’s whereabouts. “In that huge place on Grandin Road.”
    “Well, the kids wanted to go to a movie tonight, so I don’t know what the car situation is,” Lianne observed, looking at her mother with a worried parental superiority. Alison wanted to smack her but the truth was that every one of her siblings had assumed that tone one by one, as they started having kids. The unspoken addendum to any sentence being But the kids might need that! Alison and Jeff and Megan, the last unmarried Moores, had frequently rolled their eyeballs at each other whenever someone started indulging in the whole you wouldn’t understand because you don’t have kids line of logic. But Megan was married and pregnant now and Jeff was off in Germany. Alison just had to weather this one alone.
    “Well, we have Andrew’s car and Paul’s car and your father’s car,” Rose informed Lianne. “And your car, right?”
    “Do we know if Andrew and Paul are doing anything later on? Weren’t some people going to Skyline?”
    “Oh, they were going to do that around five, I don’t think that will interfere with movie plans.”
    “Well, that’s when we would be going, right around five. They’re little kids, we need to get them home early, Mom. They need to be in the bathtub by seven thirty.”
    “How many people were thinking of going?”
    “To what, Skyline or the movie?”
    “Either one.”
    “Well, that’s my point, it sounds to me like everyone is going to one or the other.”
    “I don’t think your father is going to want to go to Skyline, or a kids’ movie.”
    “Okay, then everyone except Daddy. That’s still everyone. ”
    “Except for me,” Alison inserted.
    “But that’s the point , it’s just you , taking a whole car, which would leave us sort of stranded . ”
    “Would it?”
    “Our car sits eight,” Andrew noted.
    “Yes, but you’re going to Skyline. Which will leave us with just one of the vans, and Dad’s car, and Mom’s.”
    “And Paul’s car, right?”
    “We don’t know what Paul’s doing.”
    “If you’re going to the movies at five, it shouldn’t be a problem,” Alison said, trying not to look like her head was about to explode. “I’m sure Dennis is not expecting anyone till at least eight or nine.”
    “Well, but we might want to go get a bite after the movie.”
    “I thought the whole point was to get the kids home early.” In spite of her best intentions, Alison’s tone shifted into something a shred too aggressive and Lianne bristled. She turned back to the sink, started shoving dishes around loudly, and then she sighed, clearly communicating how selfish she thought Alison was being. Everyone in the room exchanged glances with everyone else while simultaneously avoiding eye contact with Alison, who felt herself immediately in the doghouse for having crossed a line with Lianne even though Lianne was acting like a colossal idiot.
    “I think it will be all right,” Megan said. “Who knows how long the movie will take, but Skyline is so fast! Those guys will be in