Ask Again Later Page 14

  “It’s okay,” I say.

  “Shall we try to recapture our magic tomorrow night?” Will asks.

  “Another time, maybe,” I say.

  “Another time—maybe never, right?” Will says. “We’re not going to kiss anymore, are we?”

  “No,” I say.

  “Yeah, well, some guy, somewhere, just caught the break of a lifetime,” Will says.

  “Do you happen to know where he is? ’Cause he’s not returning my calls and it’s making me a little nuts,” I say.

  “Can you at least pretend this is an awkward conversation?” Will asks.

  Guest Suite

  I BUZZ MY FATHER.

  “Mr. Whitehall is here to see you,” I say.

  “I’ll be right out,” Dad says.

  “You can have a seat in the waiting room, Mr. Whitehall,” I say. “Would you like coffee, tea, water?”

  “Water, please,” says Mr. Whitehall.

  Wendy ambushes me on my way to the staff kitchen.

  “We need to talk,” she hisses.

  “Okay, what’s up?” I say.

  “It’s not a waiting room,” Wendy says.

  “What’s not a waiting room?” I say.

  “The area where people wait,” Wendy says.

  “I see,” I say. “What is the waiting room, then, if it’s not ‘the area where people wait’?”

  “It’s to be referred to as the guest suite,” Wendy says.

  “Is this another Dad-ism, or is this one of your inventions?” I ask.

  “Jim and I—let’s just say we agree on this,” Wendy says. “People don’t like to wait. It makes them feel disrespected. A guest suite sounds welcoming. It has VIP connotations.”

  “VIP connotations?” I say.

  Wendy should have been in government protocol or some rule-based job that would reward her gifts. People are always missing their true callings. They become loyal to the wrong choices.

  I carry the bottled water back to Mr. Whitehall.

  “Here you go,” I say. “I found these Hostess Sno-Balls in the kitchen. And some pretzels, too. Any interest?”

  “Sure,” says Mr. Whitehall.

  I have anticipated his needs, and for that he is appreciative. Food makes waiting seem like a treat. A marshmallow treat, rolled in coconut…and dyed shocking pink.

  “I hope you’re enjoying the guest suite,” I say. And its VIP connotations.

  “Yes,” says Mr. Whitehall.

  I walk back into the kitchen. Wendy is waiting for me.

  “You just gave away my lunch,” Wendy says.

  “I know,” I say. “I didn’t like the way you were talking to me. Do you want me to make you some popcorn or something?” I say.

  “Who eats popcorn for lunch?” Wendy says.

  Sometimes it seems like we’re all just waiting. No matter what you call it.

  Grilled Cheese

  I’M LEANING AGAINST the counter in her kitchen. My mom looks great. I’m not afraid to say what I need to say, which comes as a shock to me. The therapy is starting to pay off. And my mother doesn’t seem fragile anymore.

  “I’m thinking it’s probably a good time for me to go back to my own place,” I say.

  “Okay,” Mom says. “I was thinking maybe I’d turn your bedroom into a meditation room.”

  “I had no idea you’d be so broken up about it. Maybe I should stay,” I say. “I could sell my place.”

  “You don’t sell in a down market,” Mom says.

  “It’s New York City—there seems to be no such thing,” I say.

  “I don’t feel like cooking. Let’s go out for a grilled cheese sandwich,” Mom says.

  “I don’t think restaurants make those anymore. They would cost about a dollar-fifty, and that doesn’t seem like enough to justify having waitress service, rent, and so on,” I say. “But if you’re hungry, I’ll make one for you.”

  “No, no. Let’s go out. That place around the corner makes them. They’re on the kids’ menu,” Mom says, with too much authority.

  At the corner of Lexington and Eighty-third is a soda fountain luncheonette that makes grilled cheese sandwiches—for children.

  The waitress comes to take our order.

  “Grilled cheese and ice water,” I say, in hopes of pleasing my mother and making up for the fact that I won’t be sleeping over anymore. I’ve been ordering things I don’t want for years, in hopes of pleasing my mother. It never works, but that doesn’t stop me from trying.

  “I’ll have an iced tea,” Mom says.

  “And she’ll have a grilled cheese sandwich, too,” I say.

  “No, nothing else for me. Just iced tea,” Mom says.

  “You’re not getting a grilled cheese sandwich? That’s why we’re here,” I say. “Is something wrong?”

  She’s giving me a look.

  “I feel fine,” Mom says, “I feel great, in fact. I just remembered these people never clean their griddle. I couldn’t eat anything off of that filth.”

  The waitress stands there not knowing what to say.

  “But you let me order one?” I say.

  “Kids are resilient,” Mom says.

  “Only because they have to be,” I say.

  Rest Area

  I CAN’T HELP but miss Sam. I love it when I have a dream about him at night, and I can’t wait to go back to bed the next night in hopes that I’ll dream about him again. I’m living the most exciting part of my life while I’m asleep. It should disturb me more.

  I think I see him walking down the sidewalk today. Hope is turning into reality. My chest begins to pound. My conscientious heart is sending me a message—in case my eyes fail—that Sam is near. I walk faster, and finally I am next to him. I look up. It is not Sam.

  The disappointment will last all afternoon. I feel a homesickness I did not think was possible at my age.

  I stop at a pay phone. I call his home, when he’s at work. I want to avoid calling the place I used to work, looking for the man I used to kiss.

  “Hello,” I say, to his machine. “I just thought I saw you walking in Midtown. I promised myself if it was you I was going to tell you that I’ve missed you. But it wasn’t you.”

  Escape

  IT’S SNOWING. Perry wants to meet for a hot toddy at King’s Carriage House. I want to see a movie. We compromise and agree to do both.

  “Here’s one I’ve been mulling,” Perry says. “I’m thinking of adopting.”

  “A dog—right?” I ask.

  “Dogs are too much work,” Perry says. “Maybe I could adopt a teenager. She could run errands and stuff.”

  “Make sure you mention the errand running during the adoption interview,” I say.

  “How old do you have to be to know how to balance a checkbook and split wood?” Perry says. “I have a place in Sag Harbor; vines and trees have taken over. The landscaper wanted thirty thousand dollars to remove it. A kid might have fun doing that kind of project.”

  “Because we all know that teenagers love manual labor,” I say. “Anyway, all that yard work will be good practice for the shallow grave she’ll eventually be digging for your corpse, Perry.”

  “You really don’t think I should adopt, do you?” Perry says.

  “No,” I say.

  “Yeah, I know,” Perry says, his voice trailing off. “Being alone sucks. Do we have to see a movie?” Perry adds.

  “What is the resistance to movies?” I say. “We had a deal.”

  “I’m not a big fan of movies. When I go, I usually go by myself. My father used to take me to the movies all the time when I was a kid. He never planned far enough in advance to get a sitter. I ended up watching some really inappropriate stuff,” Perry says.

  I’m remembering the car ride home from the Hamptons with Sam. That ridiculous automated navigation system. We talked about movies at the Carlyle.

  “That must have been great,” I say.

  “No. Not really. That was his only escape, and I gu
ess it made me think he was very unimaginative. Or maybe the movies were the adult conversation he missed when he was with me. Hard to know,” Perry says.

  “I can’t imagine a parent being organized enough to select a movie, find a theater, get there on time, and remember to bring money to pay for it—my reference point is so far off from yours. I’d have killed to sit in a theater next to my father,” I say.

  “And be ignored? The movie wasn’t for me; it was his working hard to avoid me,” Perry says.

  “Or working hard to be next to you,” I say. “Working hard not to fight. Working hard to be still, and quiet, and in the same place.”

  “Never thought of it that way,” Perry says.

  “Are you on new medication?” I ask.

  “That obvious?” Perry says.

  “Well, the smart-ass has disappeared for the moment,” I say.

  “I miss the smart-ass,” Perry says.

  “Letting go of defenses is never easy. You seem melancholy, but relaxed,” I say.

  “I know,” Perry says. “It feels foreign to me. I hate it.” He smiles. “If you were my therapist, I’d tell you this has been one of my favorite sessions ever. It was so true and so all about me.”

  “Yeah?” I say.

  “I never looked at the movies as a chance to be next to someone; I always thought it was avoidance. It seems so obvious now that you’ve said that,” Perry says. “Thanks.”

  On our second toddy, midsip, I remember my father was supposed to meet me at my apartment. I was going to show him the two-bedroom pride of my existence. Then we were going to order takeout.

  I race over to my apartment building almost an hour late.

  Holiday Tipping

  WHEN IT COMES to holiday tipping, never give homemade baked goods. Always give cash. Select the magic number you are willing to part with, and tack on an additional 10 percent. It will appear very generous. I’m only telling you what I wish someone had told me. Undertipping at Christmastime will catch up with you. Someday. Somewhere. At the place of their choosing.

  I look around the lobby; Jim is nowhere to be seen. The doorman appears. It’s payback time. I can feel it.

  “You looking for your dad?” Federico says.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “I keyed him into your place. He was sitting here for a while, and he looked beat,” Federico says.

  “You let him into my apartment?” I ask.

  I’m slightly drunk, and sort of giddy. My father is in my apartment. The doorman let a stranger into my apartment. It occurs to me that I don’t even know my father’s age. I can guess. But I don’t know how old my father is. It seems like the sort of thing a person should know.

  My father is sitting on my couch watching TV. His tie is off. He has a bottle of water in one hand and a beer in the other. His boots are sitting by the front door, toes pointing north.

  Before I left for work this morning, I looked around my apartment and tried to see what it would look like to someone walking in for the first time. Flowers would help, I remember thinking, but of course I didn’t buy any because I’d forgotten my father was coming over.

  “Hey, Dad,” I say. “You must be pretty smooth to talk your way into my apartment.”

  “Yes. Very smooth,” Jim says.

  “Did you eat anything?” I ask.

  He must have. My apartment smells like a grease fire. He broiled a steak and didn’t use the fan on the stove.

  “So, was he a gentleman? Never mind, none of my business,” Dad says.

  My father has the manners of a man from a different time. He is a man from a different time. He was fifteen years older than my mother. When they married, she was twenty-seven. Men can wait to have children. The window of opportunity must seem like some never-ending field of poppies. Just enjoy! Inhale them with your eyes, nose, and every pore. There are so many beautiful flowers. Given such wonderful choices, wouldn’t you be required to admire them as a group before you can stand to select just one—and, of course, in his case, he was never able to stick with just one.

  “It wasn’t a date. I was with a friend,” I say. “We lost track of time. Sorry I’m late.”

  He opens two more beers. We play a game of backgammon. If I had taken the time to buy flowers, I doubt he’d have noticed.

  We play two rounds. Then one more round for a tiebreaker. When I sit with him for a while, I always get stuck on the same thing. How did they let it slip away—our family? My family?

  My father seems committed to making this last-ditch effort, to rein it all in, give it a tidy ending. He’d be a father who gave his daughter a job; he’d be the kind of guy who would visit his ailing ex-wife. It all just seems so sad and full of regret. Yet he doesn’t seem sad; he seems rather content.

  “What would you do differently? If reliving your life were possible?” I ask.

  “Where do I start? I would have worked harder to make a life with your mom. Yet I’m not sure working harder would have changed anything. But allowing that relationship to fail, especially the way it failed—with you girls and so on,” Dad says.

  I’m picturing a dam giving way, and things around it collapsing. The water’s reach is farther than you could ever expect.

  “Thanks for waiting up for me, Dad,” I say. I don’t say that I’ve always wanted to have a father wait up for me. “I’m sorry I was so late.”

  Fake Accent

  I CALL MARJORIE because I come across a piece of paper that has her name and number on it, and I remember I’m supposed to call her, but I don’t remember why I’m supposed to call. Because we’re sisters? Because she’s recently had a baby and people who have babies lose touch with people who don’t have babies?

  A woman with a rich European accent answers the phone. I’m thinking it has to be the baby nurse. Marjorie must be at the gym with her personal trainer, making her postbaby body even better than her prebaby body. But I thought the latest baby nurse was a quiet Colombian woman (a perk to hiring her, according to Marjorie, was that she didn’t understand a word of English and therefore could not eavesdrop). This seemed like an odd consideration, as Marjorie has a track record that demonstrates little need for secrets.

  “Doesn’t that mean she also can’t communicate with Poison Control?” I ask, concerned this hadn’t occurred to Marjorie in her postnatal haze.

  “You’re such a worrier!” Marjorie says.

  The woman answering the phone sounds as if she might be European royalty, though from what country she’s spawned I cannot determine.

  “Halo?” says this refined voice.

  “May I please speak with Marjorie?” I ask.

  Extremely long pause follows. Possibly she’s inhaling a cigarette. Blowing adorable smoke rings into the baby’s face?

  “Hey, Em, it’s me,” Marjorie says.

  “Oh?” I say. “What’s with the accent?”

  If I hadn’t asked the question, my sister would not have explained herself and would in fact have pretended she hadn’t answered the phone in a foreign dialect. She is my mother’s daughter so much more than I could ever be my mother’s daughter.

  “Oh, I’m dodging our super,” Marjorie says.

  “You’re a grown woman—you have a baby,” I say.

  “Don’t sound disappointed. It’s judgmental. Besides, you know I’m crazy,” Marjorie says.

  “Right. The proof just keeps on piling up,” I say. “I thought all of that would change when you became a mother. But you’re able to produce a staggering amount of horseshit.”

  “God gives everyone a unique gift,” Marjorie says.

  “What did you do to the super? Or do I not want to know?” I ask.

  “I saw a cockroach,” Marjorie says.

  “Yes?” I say. It’s New York City.

  “I freaked out on his answering machine,” Marjorie says. “Actually, I was still kind of drunk this morning and overreacted. I had a real harpy rant: ‘What if it goes after the baby? You’re responsible if it
chases my precious son,’” Marjorie says, laughing.

  “The super? Or the cockroach?” I ask. “Never mind, but I think you might be right about the baby nurse,” I say, remembering what I was supposed to call her about.

  “Of course I’m right about the baby nurse—she really is a better mother than I could ever be,” Marjorie reasons.

  Excellent point. Yet if you can see your deficiencies so clearly, can’t you correct them?

  “Thanks for checking in,” Marjorie says. “But I’m in a hurry. I’m about to meet Dory at Swiss Chalet; we’re headed to St. Moritz, and I have a tire around my belly—and my ass—and I need some new ski clothing and some cigarettes.”

  Dory is back on the payroll. She also has Marjorie on a strict postpregnancy diet of lemon water and cigarettes.

  “Oh, okay. Who’s watching Malcolm while you’re away?” I ask.

  “Baby nurse,” Marjorie says. “Unless you want to watch him.”

  How did Marjorie pick and choose which of our mother’s personality quirks to keep in her version of motherhood? And how did she decide which odd behaviors should be replaced to create her own unique spin on raising a baby?

  I hang up the phone. I imagine what kind of mother I’d be. I sometimes think motherhood might expose some of my better qualities. Patience. Affection. Storytelling. Why is it easier for me to imagine having a baby than having a relationship with Sam? I’m fantasizing about a relationship that doesn’t allow me to have one foot out the door. That’s a first.

  Doctor/Patient Relationships

  HE’S ALL MINE. Except that he’s also the woman’s whose appointment is just before mine (head cast down, looks like she could be blown over by a strong gust of wind, but still pretty in a bookish way, which is a quality I suspect he’d really like). I hope for my sake he doesn’t have to listen to her tales of sexual dysfunction. I hope instead it’s something he wouldn’t secretly find kind of appealing. Pyromania, for example.

  She and I have something in common—which is scary. We’re both kind of in love with Paul. I can tell by the way she leaves his office looking so territorial and reluctant. I remain forever grateful that I don’t have to see the parade of his patients and measure myself against each one of them.