Father's Day, page 21
I feel my hands clammy and my forehead too. It’s a beautiful fall day though. It’s not the weather. Nerves, I guess. I take a tiny pink pill—Xanax—from the small container Henry gave me. I wasn’t far off on that shrink fantasy, was I?
In the long run, of course, taking the train would be much easier, faster too, but right now, that train would probably kill me. Sometimes it’s better to take a little longer in motion than to melt down in wait. Sometimes you just need to keep moving.
So I run to the car rental place instead, the one on Fourth Avenue—Sunshine Rentals—and pick out a small blue car from the teeming lot. Virtually indistinguishable from all the other blue ones, and not so different really from the white ones or the red ones either, but I choose it.
I ask the man in the office if it has a CD player.
He tilts his head to one side, silky blond hair falling in the same direction. Looks back at me, squinting, as if I might be pulling his leg.
Apparently they all have CD players now. Who knew?
His hair moves every time he does, in fact, lurches forward with every step, then swings back, comes to rest again just below his ears.
He hands me a long form with several carbon copies attached.
Hair sways toward me with the forward movement of his arm.
His form puts me in mind of Penn Station all over again, looks as if it could stop me moving for a good long while. Like Amtrak, only on a preprinted form this time. I don’t panic though. I simply begin to fill in the blanks, and eventually he hands me the keys to the little blue car.
Thank you.
I rush back out to the lot, my own hair like a dreary brown helmet, I’m sure, not moving an inch. It takes me a while to find the little blue car again too. I thought I remembered exactly where it was, but it turns out I don’t.
There it is—next to the one with the Tennessee license plates.
I hang my suit bag on the plastic hook in the back, and lay my overnight bag in the floor well of the passenger’s seat. Shotgun, we used to call it, back when it mattered if you knew to use low beams in fog.
Slip into the driver’s seat now and close the door behind me, all vacuum packed and sealed up tight. I hate the smell of new leather. I’d like to go back into the office and ask the man for an older car, but I can only imagine the paperwork that would entail. So I start the ignition instead, and push down on the buttons that open the two front windows.
I dig a few CDs from the overnight bag on the floor and lay them out—just so—on the passenger’s seat beside me. Feel a wave of sadness when I spot the Blockbuster case inside. I load the Best of Dusty Springfield into the little slit of CD player, like slipping a shiny dime into a parking meter, only horizontal, and right on the dashboard of the car.
Push the lighter for good luck.
It’s a long drive.
I wish I could say that my driving skills have improved dramatically since the day of the yellow Shetland sweater, but I can’t, not honestly at least. I suppose they may have improved a little bit, matured with age maybe. I may well be at the low end of competent by now.
I saw the video yesterday when I was roaming through the classics section at Blockbuster. September Affair, I read on its spine. I pulled it from its place in the perfect row of videos. Not much interest in the classics, I guess. “Starring Joseph Cotten and Joan Fontaine,” all in loopy red script on the front of the cardboard box. A photograph of Joan Fontaine in a trim traveling suit. The synopsis on the back just as I remembered it: The story of Sheila and her married doctor, except Sheila’s a violinist in this version.
I rented it on the spot.
It seemed only fitting to say good-bye to my father and that lovely married doctor on the same weekend.
I drive all the way to First Avenue, then turn left, heading north. There’s not much traffic today.
“Just drive all the way up First Avenue,” that’s what the silken-haired man behind the counter told me. “Until you can’t go any farther.”
I didn’t write any of it down. It didn’t seem very complicated to me.
“Make sure you get into the left lane,” he said.
I remember that distinctly. It seemed very important.
“In ten blocks or so, you’ll drive over the Willis Avenue Bridge.”
I wrote that down—Willis Avenue Bridge—on the back of the Sunshine Rental envelope, with all the carbon copies stuffed inside. I check it now, just to be sure. There it is: Willis Avenue Bridge.
“When you cross the bridge, you’ll see a sign for New England,” he said. “Just follow the signs.”
It sounded simple enough. But First Avenue just doesn’t end. He never mentioned that First Avenue is infinite. I don’t see any bridge either, not even on the far horizon, just more road. And it’s getting uglier too. Starting to feel very Bonfire of the Vanities to me, driving along First Avenue in what can’t possibly be Manhattan anymore, looking for a bridge I’ve never heard of.
Now I’m frightened.
I pull the car over to the side of the road and turn off the ignition.
Doesn’t something awful happen to that man in Bonfire of the Vanities? Doesn’t he run someone over, or get shot? What if the man at Sunshine Rentals made up the Willis Avenue Bridge? I press the button on the dash that locks all the doors. Click. Reach for my overnight bag in the well of the passenger’s seat. It doesn’t feel like much of a joke to me: Making up directions.
I dig out my cell phone. Dial the numbers and press send.
“Henry?”
He’ll know what to do.
“Matthew,” he says. He sounds surprised. “I thought you’d be on the road by now.”
It’s nice to have someone to call.
“Am I interrupting you?” I ask.
Some little girl could be drawing her heart out at this very minute, a chunky blue crayon gripped tight in little fingers, trauma gushing forth onto a thick sheet of construction paper. But I suppose he wouldn’t have answered the phone then, would he?
“Not at all,” he says.
“Do you know where the Willis Avenue Bridge is, by any chance?”
“Sure,” he says. “It’s all the way at the end of Third Avenue.”
“No, it’s not,” I say, bouncing back at him, as sharp and fast as a hard rubber ball. I sound like my mother.
But I’m sure the guy behind the counter said First Avenue. I pick up the rental envelope again, but it just says “Willis Avenue Bridge” on the back, just like the last time.
“Yesss,” he says, dragging it out, clearly annoyed with me, but trying to keep it in check. “It’s at the end of Third Avenue.”
I’ve really got to work on this. I know how awful it is to be on the receiving end of her speeding bullets, and still I shoot them out, right and left, without the least provocation.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I got bad directions, and I’m a little lost.”
“Not to worry,” he says. “Can you get yourself over to Third Avenue?”
“I think so,” I say. “I’ll call back if I can’t.”
“I’ll be here,” he says.
I start the car again and turn left. Drive south on Second Avenue for a good long time, then back up Third Avenue, to the very end.
Yes, there it is.
The Willis Avenue Bridge. Just where Henry said it would be.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Monochrome Outfits
“DARLING,” SHE SIGHS, a little exhalation mixed in with each syllable, as if she were fortifying herself with a breath of air before explaining something I really should have understood on my own. Sounds like she’s talking to a remedial math student. And I was always good at math.
I’ve just walked in from my drive.
I see the evidence of preparations under way: Cases of wine and sparkling water stacked up tall against the far wall. Empty chafing dishes in shiny stainless steel, waiting to be filled with finger food and heated up with Sterno, the small blue flames flickering underneath. My father’s cocktail party is the day after tomorrow, almost a year to the day since he died.
“What are they doing in here?” I ask, pointing to a pair of navy wing chairs, fitted one on top of the other, like interlocking pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. They belong in the far corner of the living room. Everyone knows that.
“They’re on their way to the cellar,” she says, shrugging her shoulders. “The caterer wants better flow.” She doesn’t look impressed.
My mother wets a thick yellow sponge and begins wiping down the countertops. They already look spotless to me. I walk over to another group of cases, a lower stack by the window: Every kind of booze under the sun. I try to imagine what I’ll order. Try to imagine who’d order Wild Turkey.
It was a good decision to drive here. Kept me otherwise engaged.
“I have three words for you,” she says, really enunciating now—for the lecture hall, for a whole class of remedial math students.
I turn to her.
“Yes,” she says. “Three little words.” Volume turned up loud.
What’s she talking about?
She moves away from the sink, toward the center island, standing behind it as if it were a podium. She tugs at the hem of her navy turtleneck and straightens up a little taller—just the way you would if you were standing in front of a room full of people.
I should feel a little less stupid now. This isn’t about me.
“Statute,” she says, vowels as broad as Katharine Hepburn’s. She’s from the Main Line now, just the poshest math teacher ever. She raises her index finger in the air—first word—so even the stoners in the very last row can see.
But it’s just me here in the kitchen with her.
She waits a beat: “Of,” still a little loud, raising a second finger, making a “v for victory” sign. Another beat. “Limitations,” she says, and there’s the ring finger. Three words, three fingers—a veritable Boy Scout’s pledge waving in the air. She’s gone from zero to sixty in under three seconds, like those sporty cars on television commercials. I have no idea what she’s talking about.
“Yes,” she says, again with a little sigh mixed in, “there’s always a statute of limitations.”
It’s as if I’d asked her a question—name the capital of North Dakota maybe, or some other question far too stupid for asking—and then developed a specific case of amnesia. I remember everything in the world except the question I just asked. Don’t know what to make of it when she says, “Bismarck,” with a little sigh.
“What are you talking about?” I ask.
“Statutes of limitations,” she says, as if nothing could be clearer. Happy enough to demonstrate her mastery of the plural case too. “It’s a legal term.”
“I know that,” I say.
“Do you?” she says, giving me a knowing look—a canted face and a raised brow. If this were a soap opera, they’d cut to a commercial now.
“Of course I do.”
Her knowing glance doesn’t make her look nearly as superior as she’d hoped, I’m afraid. Tilting her face like that only draws attention to the sagging skin at her jawline.
I’m feeling an unfortunate desire to please rearing up though, threatening to overtake me in a stroke. Maybe it’s tenderness for how old she looks. I try to hold myself back from defining the term out loud. Will myself not to. I know her little patter has nothing to do with any actual statute of limitations.
But I can’t help myself. I really want to be the teacher’s pet. “It’s the length of time you have after an accident,” I say, in spite of myself, “to make a claim against the person who caused it.” I feel smaller now for having spoken. And even more certain that the span of time between an injury and its resulting lawsuit has nothing to do with what’s going on here.
“Exactly.” She nods, smiling. Pleased with the dark-haired boy in the third row.
“I still have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say.
She looks at me as if I must be playing dumb. She’s blinking hard, as if no one could be this stupid in actual fact.
“This isn’t a courtroom,” I say.
“Darling, do you think I don’t know this isn’t a courtroom?”
I may not know what she’s up to at the moment, but I’ve got a general sense for her game: A big offense is usually her best defense. I just don’t know what she’s defending against yet.
“I’m just telling you that there are always statutes of limitations in place.”
“Yes,” I say, “I think I’ve got that part down. You’ve said it four times now.”
I feel tired. It’s a long drive here.
She makes a small moue with her lips.
I lean against a tall stack of wine and soda, let them bear me up.
“Don’t do that,” she says.
I move away from the cases.
“Maybe you could move onto the next part,” I say. “When you tell me which particular claim of mine you’re not going to allow.”
She looks at me for a beat, as if she might speak, then squeezes out the sponge over the sink instead, forcing out the excess water. “What makes you think this is about you?” she says eventually. She doesn’t stop squeezing until she’s gotten every last droplet.
It’s a fair point, I think.
Very little in this household ever has been.
“Let’s get back to Henry,” I say.
Goldstein smiles at me like a proud papa from across the room. Getting down to work at last.
I smile back at him. He’s a nice old man.
It’s rare for me to be so direct: Why, oh why, Goldstein, I asked— within the very first minute of this session too—with lovely Henry banging down my door, a child psychiatrist of my very own, why am I trudging around the Downtown Club like a fat man on a crash diet, just walking and walking, hoping all that exercise will somehow justify the chocolate cupcake of my dreams? Why do I sit on the Pump Line for hours on end, the hungriest telemarketer who ever lived?
“Where’s your father in this?” he asks.
But I don’t have a clue.
Don’t know a thing about that.
I can see he does though.
Goldstein looks like he’s hit pay dirt over on his side of the room. A lock of white hair fallen down onto the middle of his forehead, not yet pushed back into place. That only happens when he thinks he’s onto something big.
Oh yes, I know all the signs.
Just don’t know what to make of them.
“Can you see your father in this relationship with Henry?” he asks. His voice is soft and kind enough to break my heart. He really wants me to get the answer right. But I don’t know where my father is. I haven’t got a clue.
“I don’t know,” I say finally, after a respectable pause. Vaguely ashamed of myself.
I wish I could start this session all over again. Come out of the gate a little slower this time.
I wish I knew the answer to his question too.
I’m sure he does. Oh yes, I’m sure he’s got this dance choreographed to a fare-thee-well. Nearly everything refers to my mother or my father here—nearly every event in my contemporary life. I can take my pick: Him or her. Sometimes I choose right, sometimes I don’t. I don’t know how to answer his question today though, asking about my father directly.
And he’s not spilling any beans yet. No, he’ll make me rehearse all the steps first, just practice and practice. Move through the steps, and then once more from the top.
“Really?” he asks.
He’ll keep leading me through the dance until I see the pattern for myself.
“Really,” I say.
It’s awful when I see it, lovely too—like a magnificent natural disaster. Will you look at how beautiful that twister is? We both sit silent then, letting it sink in. Oh yes, we’ve been through this plenty of times before. What a hollow feeling in my stomach there’ll be—such an emptiness there when I see it at last, what this resemblance is all about, how far I’ll go to sabotage myself.
He always makes sense in the end. Goldstein’s an excellent choreographer. Only I have no fucking idea where my father is in this, old man—that’s what I’d like to say. But I don’t, of course. There’s no need to be vulgar.
He wants me to stick with Henry. That much is clear. Yes, it’s obvious in his voice and his posture and the soft-looking wale of his corduroy trousers even. Everything in this room wants me to stay with Henry, but I don’t want to. So what do you make of that, pants?
“Why do you think you keep rejecting these perfectly nice men?” he asks.
I don’t know.
“What are you so afraid of?”
He keeps talking, but I can’t even hear him anymore.
“Getting out before they turn their backs on you.”
Stick, stick, stick—that’s all I hear.
“Because they’ll turn their backs on you eventually, right?” he says. “They’re bound to disappear.”
Stick.
“Without a trace.”
Oh!
Really?
But he left plenty of traces, Goldstein—all over the backyard, they were.
“Why do you opt, always, for the ones on this crazy telephone service of yours instead?”
It’s called the Pump Line, Goldstein!
“Always on the verge of hanging up on you.”
Stick with Henry, stick with Henry.
“So seductive and entertaining.”
But I don’t want to stick with Henry.
“Fun while they last,” he says. “But focused entirely on themselves.”
No! I don’t believe it. Not those sexy boys on the Pump Line!
“Turning to the very one who’s guaranteed to turn away.”
They’re not exactly the spitting image of her—with her salt-and-pepper hair and funny turtleneck outfits.
He can’t be right. Can he?
I just don’t know.
I suppose I could stick with Henry for a little longer.
Goldstein’s looking straight at me now.
I don’t really want to though.
