Whole World Over Page 12

  Alan had despised what he took in her voice to be an air of superiority, for being there to experience George’s simple joy in person. (“Our” George? Oh thanks for sharing!) But Alan was too smart to let on. And perhaps his son’s callow haste meant only that he felt secure, that he wasn’t worried, that he was having a good time where he was—and wasn’t that what Alan should wish for? The lesser of two anxieties?

  Tonight Consuelo, the babysitter, was the one to begin and end Alan’s call. (“Mr. Alan,” she called him when she answered the phone, or “George’s Daddy,” as if he were some lord-of-the-manor and not this discarded, remote appendage to the family, like a far-flung cousin.) Consuelo told him that Greenie wasn’t there, which meant she was at the Governor’s Mansion, in that other man’s kitchen, cooking up a feast. If she had been in New York, she might be off at her own kitchen, cooking for others as well, so Alan’s jealousy was misplaced. But he would have liked to ask exactly what George (not the damned chauffeur) thought this separation meant, how he envisioned the future.

  OH, THE IRONIES OF “TREATING” COUPLES with threatened unions when your own was fractured. What sort of list would he make, Alan wondered as he ate his plate of prawns in garlic sauce later that night. (Now that he was living by himself, Alan made a point of never eating takeout right from the disposable cartons; this would be akin to drinking alone…though that, alas, was something he did do now, more often than in the past.)

  So then:

  Pros and cons of living without Greenie (about living without George, there were only cons, or that’s how it looked right now):

  Pros:

  • Leave toilet seat up (the bed was another story; that he made, thus far at least).

  • Be silent whenever you like, for as long as you like.

  • Watch sports without the burden of covert disapproval or irritation (though baseball, his favorite sport by far, had yet to gear up and give him the kind of solace that nothing else could).

  • Take showers the length of TV sitcoms.

  • Leave bath mat on floor and shower curtain pushed back.

  • Order take-out sushi (his alternate dinner) without a warning on tapeworm as regular and redundant as those recordings in taxis that told you to “bat-buckle up.”

  • Read sections of the Sunday Times in whatever order he liked and throw out those he hated before he even brought the paper in the door.

  • Snore without being poked, awakened, and told to turn on his side as if he were a piece of rotisserie chicken.

  Cons:

  • No apricot scones or devil’s food cake on demand; no loaves of French bread in the freezer.

  • No one to do most of the shopping, all the laundry, and some of the cleaning up.

  • No one to sit close against while watching a movie.

  • No one to enfold in bed or, of course, make love to (even when it felt like a task—vacuuming, say, or pairing socks—giving satisfaction but leaving you unmoved).

  Alan stopped here, mainly because he had finished his food and it was time for the news. Normally, he wouldn’t watch the news because Greenie hated the intrusive angst at a time when you were supposed to be winding down toward sleep. “If something’s happened in the world that matters so much you can’t wait till the morning paper, it’s probably something you can’t do anything about,” she reasoned, though he thought her reasoning faulty.

  In truth, there was only one con to living without Greenie: the absence of Greenie. He did not miss having someone to talk with every day; he missed having Greenie to talk with every day. She had claimed, before leaving, that he did not talk to her anymore. Was this true? Or had he so internalized Greenie that he did all the talking in his head?

  And look at his pathetic list of pros. He did not agree with Greenie that the separation wasn’t a true break, but even so, he felt no urge toward courtship or even frenzied coupling with strangers—oh, of that he was cured! After all, shouldn’t the pros include the freedom to investigate, once and for all, the truth about Marion’s son? Or was he too cowardly to find out, and what would that mean about everything else he believed himself to be?

  The anchorwoman, who wore a red suit that would have made anybody look fat, started off with a rapid-fire list of later news items whose promise was intended to hold you through the meatier though ultimately less tantalizing stories. Something about Tom Cruise’s love life, something about a deadly bacteria carried by squirrels (Please, not in New Mexico, Alan prayed), something about a breakthrough in curing prostate cancer (which would be based on a retrospective study with maybe seven subjects, but the newscasters wouldn’t tell you this).

  Alan had just switched off the TV when the phone rang.

  “Okay, how many?” she said without a greeting.

  “How many what?”

  “Drinks. I am monitoring you. The tough-love thing.”

  “I had one beer with my Chinese food and one before. You can’t eat Chinese without beer. God, you’re obnoxious.”

  “That has always been part of what makes me so good at everything I do,” his sister said gaily.

  Back in his normal life, Joya had phoned Alan once every two weeks or so (she didn’t seem to mind that he was rarely the one to call), but since Greenie’s departure she “checked in” every three or four nights, and while this hovering annoyed Alan, it also touched him. He knew he should find a way to tell her so, but he couldn’t. Almost always, because of the time difference, Joya called too late for him to think in any clear, energetic way—and energy was necessary to keep pace with Joya.

  Tonight, without much prelude, she told him that he was making a mistake by not coming clean with Greenie. Too tired for debate, Alan told her she was probably right.

  “So will you call her? Write her a letter?” persisted Joya. “Of course, you should have done it before she left. Maybe you should just fly out over the weekend. Tell her in person. That’s what you should do.”

  “Joy, I don’t know if there’s anything to tell, do I? And it’s not like I have a Learjet at my disposal.”

  Joya made a noise of contempt. “God, even my brother’s a typical caveguy asshole. Aren’t you being a little dense for a shrink? What do you mean, nothing to tell? Hello?”

  “Your sympathy is much appreciated,” he said. “You’re not even married, may I point out. You don’t know what the stakes really are. Honesty can do more harm than good.”

  “Oh, ‘may you point out’ indeed. Thanks, yeah, that’s right, caveguy. Don’t think you can hide behind that Jeremy Irons diction. Though clearly, what right-thinking woman needs marriage if all she really wants is kids? Which, as time goes on and I get to know the ways of testosterone on a more intimate basis—and boy, do I ever—seems to be the most sane approach.”

  “Should we hang up? I think we’re both tired.”

  “Speak for yourself. I am about to go out on a date, speaking of my pathetic spinsterhood. A fourth date.”

  “That’s great,” said Alan. “Did you mention him before? Someone you met at work?”

  “No. I was fixed up. That’s why I didn’t say anything. Generally these things are doomed, but I am nothing if not desperate.”

  “So you like him.” Joya was hard to take when she was lonely, and it pained Alan, who had no remedy to offer. She was, in many ways, too smart for her own good—or for the good of finding a man who wouldn’t flee. Out in San Francisco, she was a mediator in union disputes, and though the art of compromise was supposedly her vocation, she hated being wrong more than just about anything else in the world.

  “Yeah, I like him. A lot…. A nice surprise,” she added. “And he’s cute—I mean, I don’t even have to convince myself—except for this grotty little mustache, which I’m sure I can get rid of, no problem. And he likes to dance, and his wife left him five years ago, and he’s had it with being skittish.”

  “A seasoned Prince Charming.”

  “And he’s Jewish.”

  Alan pa
used. “Which would mean…?”

  “Oh, don’t be so damned ecumenical, Alan. Jewish men like brainy women. It’s one of those true clichés. And anyway, I got all the Jewish genes in our family. You got all the white-churchy baggage from Mom.”

  “Thanks. Like you ever went to a seder.”

  “As a matter of fact, more than a few.” Joya sighed. “We are off the subject.”

  “Right. Your incredible catch.”

  “But that’s the thing. There is a catch,” she said, with a small, bitter laugh.

  “Let me guess. He’s…a cross-dresser? A drummer?…Oh no. He’s a union leader.”

  “He has two teenage daughters.”

  “You’ve met them already?”

  “No, but I can tell he’s worried about that. I know my vibes. Reading vibes is my forte. He thinks they’ll eat me alive. And if he thinks they can, they will. They’ll sense it, like blood in the water.”

  “Be a little open-minded, maybe? And Joya: teenage girls have got to think you’re cool because you’re sexy but you’ve got this macho job. The guy can’t see that angle. Besides, their mom’s the one who left.”

  “Oh Alan. Who better than you to know how many different versions there are of Rashomon. And I may not be married, but you are not the father of teenage daughters.”

  Alan loved her boomerang wit, but he worried about its effect on men who hadn’t had Joya as their protector when they were thirteen, awkward and gangly, red-faced with alternating bouts of shame, acne, and hopelessly immature longings. She had been so much more powerful than any pumped-up big brother, respected for the way she could throw around words, not threats or physical blows. You could borrow that aura, just enough of it, even when she wasn’t present.

  “Go easy,” he said. “Be a little dumb. What I mean is, let it unfold without all your brilliant second-guessing. That gets you in trouble.”

  She sighed. “I know. I will try to keep a tiny pipsqueak version of you perched on my shoulder for the rest of the evening—and maybe beyond. You know, like Rick Moranis in Honey, I Blew Up the Kid. Though shut your eyes later, would you, ’cause this could be the big night.” She sighed again. “Oh God, remember when it wasn’t so cautious, when you got this part over with practically first thing of all? Got to see where the other person was hairy and bald and scarred and tattooed?”

  “Yeah. Do I ever,” said Alan. “Thanks for reminding me.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “I know. But on that note, I’ve got to get to sleep. I have a seven-thirty tomorrow. Weird how all my remaining patients are at the beginning and end of the day.”

  “Means they’re productive citizens. Maybe you can even take credit.”

  “Joya, what don’t you have an explanation for?”

  “The fuck-up you got yourself in, my dear little brother.” She told him she loved him, loved him anyway, and then they did say good night.

  FIVE YEARS BEFORE, Alan had gone to his fifteenth high school reunion. He had never been to a reunion of any kind, never intended to do such a thing, but he’d needed whatever kind of jarring he could get, because he and Greenie had arrived at precisely that crisis on which he had so smugly advised perhaps two dozen couples by that time. They were at Baby Crossroads: Greenie so all-consumingly certain; Alan, if anything, more doubtful than ever. In a way, Greenie’s unclouded enthusiasm for parenthood made the prospect that much more worrisome. She seemed, suddenly, more naïve than confident.

  But something had to give, and the giving (or giving in) probably had to be his. So anything he could do that was to any degree out of the ordinary gave him hope. Small changes tend to precipitate the large, he told his clients. Of course, what he meant was relevant changes. He did not mean that changing the color of your eyeshadow might change your attitude toward joint finances (though, really, who knew?).

  It was Joya who suggested that he stop acting so superior and go to the reunion; since she was five years older, she would also be at hers. Would that give him enough courage? They could stay with their mother and get extra credit. “You’d never guess, but these things are a hoot,” said Joya. “And you’ve got Greenie—she’ll be like Debbie Reynolds, the perfect socializing spouse. You probably won’t have to say a word, just look at everybody’s name tag and go, ‘Oh wow! Do you look fantastic!’ and Greenie’ll do all the schmoozing. The food at my fifteenth was surprisingly good, and I won a weekend in the Poconos by remembering more teachers’ names than anyone else. Of course, I also remembered which ones had been sleeping around and with whom. Too bad I wasn’t so great at memorizing presidents or capitals.”

  In the end, Greenie did not come, because they’d had their worst fight yet two nights beforehand. She was barely speaking to him the Friday morning of the reunion, and he was still too raw to apologize. Screw her, he thought as he threw his clothes into a bag and called New Jersey Transit. This rage and his longing for Joya—who would give him a rough time but drink him under the table and make him laugh—carried him in full righteous dudgeon all the way to the rail station parking lot in Hazlet, where his mother picked him up. In the car, he discovered that a threatened strike having something to do with the BART had kept Joya back in San Francisco. “Darling, you’ll have a lovely time,” said his mother. And she proceeded to name various neighbors happily greeting their grown children for the very same occasion. She did not ask why Greenie wasn’t with him. This was the one advantage to having a mother who lived in constant fear of the unexpected.

  In his old bedroom—now a guest room with twin four-poster beds and a large pastel portrait of his mother as a teenage girl with cocker spaniel hair—he threw his bag down on one mattress and collapsed on the other. “Darling?” his mother called up the stairs after an hour had passed. “Darling, your party starts in half an hour, I think. You can keep the car as long as you like.” Her querulous voice irritated him, if only because his mother, poor woman, now carried all his projected fury at both his wife and his sister. Well, screw the lot of ’em, he just would have a good time. Without bothering to shower or change into the white shirt and festive red tie he’d packed at Joya’s urging, he went downstairs, kissed his mother and, as if he were seventeen all over again, took the keys to her car.

  Gyms. Jesus. Why did they hold these affairs in gyms? The associations—teams you didn’t make, games you lost, coaches who bullied you…girls who refused to dance when you finally got up the nerve to ask—were all horrendous. And the smells; you didn’t even have to conjure those up from the past, since a fresh crop of youthful armpits had seasoned the space that very afternoon.

  Alan made his way to a long table with jugs of budget booze. Because he had driven so fast, he was one of the first to arrive. He’d glanced at the waiting array of name tags and spotted several familiar last names, but often the first names attached were those of siblings to the people he’d known. The one high school friend with whom he stayed in occasional touch wouldn’t be here; he lived in Texas, and his wife (though Alan had not told Greenie) was eight months pregnant.

  As the men arrived, Alan saw with grim satisfaction that every one of them wore not just a tie but a jacket. Those jackets would be shed, but still, here was Alan in a denim shirt that seemed to shout, “Look how cool and rebellious I am!” A statement Alan the therapist would have deemed vaguely hostile in a context like this.

  Alan’s high school was the sort of place that sent just about everyone safely off to college—to colleges from which they would emerge, also safely, into lifelong servitude (sometimes happily) as lawyers, dentists, accountants, and sales reps. To wind up as a shrink; well, Alan might as well have become a dedicated surfer, traveling the world in search of the perfect monster wave. I should have worn a Hawaiian shirt, he reflected as he cruised the room with his second gin and tonic.

  He roamed from one end of the basketball court to the other, scanning chests more often than faces since he could not remember too well what some of th
ese faces might have looked like fifteen years before—forget how they might have evolved. As he did this, looking up now and then to exchange a quick rodent grin with yet another stranger, his roving glance was stalled when he ran into someone wearing what appeared to be the very same denim shirt that he wore. Before he could read the name tag on the shirt, he recognized the voice.

  “Little brother,” said the voice, and a long-forgotten chill shot through Alan, pleasure and sorrow all at once, from one end of his spine to the other.

  Alan, as Greenie had so accurately assessed him soon after they met, was a man of cool temper. (“Whatever’s the opposite of Latino—that’s you.”) But before Greenie knew him, Alan had been a boy, a teenage boy, with a body as tortured as any other boy’s, and it was his body that remembered the voice.

  “So, where is she? Did she wimp out? I bet she did.”

  “Marion,” said Alan, and suddenly he felt the cheap gin quite viscerally: in his bloodstream, in his brain cells, in his fingertips and pupils. “Marion!”

  She took hold of his right upper arm, just a shade too tightly, the way she had done when they were kids, a gesture of teasing domination. “How are you, Alan?”