Good Riddance

by Elinor Lipman

  Oh, wait. Locks of hair? When did DNA tests start confirming parenthood? I Googled “DNA testing began when?” and learned that it was possible, that tests were around to tell the tale by the time I was born.

  Thanks a lot, Peter Armstrong, candidate for most likely to upend someone’s life in an instant.

  Your alleged love child never wants to see you again.

  11

  Whatever Works

  Was it right and natural or unfair to assign blame for my agitated state to Geneva? She’d dragged me to the reunion—more or less—resulting in my feeling sorry for myself and the man who would always be my real dad, biologically or not. Dodging her, I checked the corridor like a sleuth or a cat burglar, nursing my grudge in private.

  Well, maybe not strictly speaking in private, because I confided in Jeremy. The ostensible reason for my ringing his doorbell was homework in the form of a batch of truffles. It was the Monday after both Thanksgiving and the reunion. He answered the bell wearing jeans and a T-shirt that said HATERS GONNA HATE underneath the silhouettes of the elderly hecklers from The Muppet Show. Tray in hand, I told him, “I need a taster with a clean palate.”

  “My pleasure. Come in.” I did, trying not to be too obviously taking in the surroundings, the handsome deep taupe of his foyer walls, the watercolors and woodcuts. He selected a truffle, wiggling his fingers first, pretending there was a variety to choose from, chewed it appraisingly, swallowed, coughed. After slapping his chest, he said, “I’m a lucky guy, living across the hall from someone who bakes. Is this baking?”

  “No, they’re truffles, which aren’t baked. They’re just . . . made. I’m still learning.”

  “Interesting, though,” he managed.

  “You can be honest; it won’t hurt my feelings. Maybe if a person liked wasabi and raspberry together, they’d be okay?”

  He put a hand on my shoulder. “Daphne . . . I love wasabi. I’m kinda famous for my wasabi tolerance . . .”

  “But no?”

  “Let me put it this way: Your garbage pail or mine?”

  Then, without segue or preamble, I announced, “I went to the Pickering High reunion. Geneva made me.”

  “And?”

  “Traumatic! I’m trying to put it behind me!”

  “I can see that. How about a drink and you tell me what happened?”

  I said, “One sec,” because the living room was beckoning, revealing a startlingly gorgeous view of the Hudson River. The room was large, book-shelved, grown-up. I asked if he’d done it himself.

  “Done what?”

  “Picked things out.” I pointed upward to a red, black, and yellow mobile, a Calder clone, then downward to the wall behind the couch where three drawings of women’s fancy pumps were hung side by side. “Shoes,” I said.

  “Warhol. From his days as an illustrator for I. Miller.”

  Warhol. I sighed. I wanted artwork. I wanted walls to hang it on and a view. My ex–marital apartment had some favorite paintings I considered walking off with, maybe just one or two for all my troubles, but my ex-mother-in-law had my departure supervised by a man with a walkie-talkie.

  “Martini?” Jeremy asked.

  “Gin,” I said. “With extra olives. A little dirty.”

  “You can sit and wait, or you can come and watch.”

  “Wait? Are you kidding? When I haven’t seen your kitchen yet?”

  He took the plate of truffles from my hand. “My trash compactor is begging for these,” he said.

  Why should I have been surprised by an Architectural Digest–worthy kitchen? State-of-the-art appliances! A dishwasher and—what was that?—a coffeemaker built into a wall! Not just the counters but the floor tiles were marble, or was it something else black and polished? Before I’d said more than wow a few times, Jeremy volunteered, “Thank the previous owner. I got this far on the tour, and I said, ‘I’ll take it.’”

  No counteroffer? No mortgage calculation? Who walks into an apartment like this, and says, “I’ll take it”?

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Jeremy said, bringing forth bottles and ice from the freezer, a jar of olives from the refrigerator, then tools from a narrow drawer that appeared to house only martiniware.

  “What was I thinking?”

  “That I’m too young to have a place like this.”

  “More like you must make a nice living playing Timmy on TV.”

  “My parents helped. A lot. Like they own it. They’ll sell it when I move to California to become a movie star.”

  “Is that your plan—California?”

  “I was joking. Now watch. I’ll show you how to make a dry martini.”

  “I’ve made plenty of martinis in my day. Even chocolate ones.”

  Faking a truffle-induced cough, he murmured, “Delicious, I’m sure.”

  Next came the mixing, the icing, the agitating, the garnishing, the presentation in beautiful glasses. I followed him back to the living room to the tufted gray flannel couch where I asked again, “So California’s not in the ten-year plan?”

  Frowning, Jeremy pointed. “Is this the face of a movie star?”

  “Could be. You won’t always have braces. Do they hurt? Mine did.”

  “They’re fake. I was wired up just for the show. The metal doesn’t do anything.”

  I asked—innocently, not flirtatiously, but in friendly, big-sister fashion, exhibiting interest in a possibly inexperienced young man’s social life—“Do they get in the way when you kiss?”

  I expected a wry answer. Or, perhaps, for the first time since we’d met, an uncharming, self-conscious one. Or maybe I’d get a casual confirmation of what his Warhol shoe art suggested, that he was gay. I certainly didn’t expect nor was I inviting that which followed: He put his martini glass down on the coffee table, relieved me of mine, and kissed me on the lips.

  In the past, in this same situation, I’d said things like “I think we got our signals crossed.” Or “I’m flattered, but . . .”

  I said none of those things. It wasn’t complicated. He’d kissed me and I liked it.

  He served cheese and crackers when we resumed drinking. “You’re fine with this?” I asked.

  “With what?”

  “Kissing your across-the-hall neighbor. It won’t get messy?”

  “Not with me it won’t.”

  “How old are you again?”

  “Almost twenty-six.”

  “A baby.”

  Of course, that made him kiss me again to show exactly what kind of baby I was dealing with. Shouldn’t I be saying something mature like “We shouldn’t. Bad idea.” I didn’t.

  After a few more minutes—it could’ve been longer—I stood up, and I said I’d get the plate I brought the truffles on. Then, really . . . I should go.

  “Why?”

  Trying not to sound like a bumpkin who thought kissing meant anything more than a pleasant way to pass the time, I said, “More homework.”

  “More truffles?”

  “Bark. Or turtles. I forget.”

  “You’re a terrible liar,” he said.

  “Okay, here’s what I’m thinking: Did you ever make out with someone who lived on your floor in college or was in your eight o’clock class, and you had to avoid each other afterward because, by the light of day, you realized it was a mistake?”

  “A. I never took an eight o’clock class. And B. I’m not expecting regrets.”

  He’d taken my hand by now. “I didn’t get the impression that you’d be sorry in the morning, either,” he said.

  That was true. If any signal was conveyed by me, it was Yes means yes.

  “How about this as a guideline?” Jeremy continued. “Whatever works. No drama. No avoiding each other in the hall. No buyer’s regret. Just enjoying the moment. And the next one.”

  “Friends with benefits,” I said.

  Since my unfortunate whirlwind marriage and divorce, I’d considered finding that kind of friend but hadn’t acted on it—had not ev
en come close to broaching the subject, let alone kissing anyone. As I was thinking all of this over and considering how Jeremy might fit the bill, he asked, “Weren’t you going to tell me what big thing happened at the reunion?”

  He patted the couch cushion next to him. I sat down again, closer than the space I’d previously occupied. “I wasn’t exaggerating when I said it was life changing.”

  “Not in a good way, I take it.”

  “Would you believe that a man asked me to dance, then took me into the bathroom and claimed to be my real father?”

  “Wait. You went into the bathroom with a man? Did you know him?”

  “No! A total stranger. He’d asked to sit at my table where the ladies were all aquiver because he’d been voted most likely to succeed.”

  Was that funny? Apparently so, because Jeremy was smiling.

  “I’m dead serious. This is horrible! I have a father, and I didn’t want some random biological one showing up.”

  “What proof did he have?”

  “A long fling with my mother, which makes sense when I look back—”

  “I didn’t mean that. I meant scientific proof.”

  “I didn’t stick around to ask for proof. Besides, anybody can say, ‘I’m your real father and there’s a DNA test to prove it.’”

  “And who’s this guy again?”

  “A New Hampshire state senator.”

  That rendered Jeremy silent. When I asked, “What?” he said, “A politician wouldn’t go out of his way to expose himself as a guy who fooled around with a married colleague and had an out-of-wedlock child.”

  “Colleague? He was one of her students!”

  “In high school? Your mother was having sex with a student?”

  “It started after he graduated, or at least that’s the story.”

  “Still . . . gross. His teacher?”

  “She was the youngest teacher in the school. And very pretty. There was only five years’ difference in their ages.”

  “Phhhf. Five years? Nothing!” He lifted his glass, but I didn’t meet the toast.

  He asked, “You know what I’d do?”

  “Get my own DNA test?”

  “No. I’d blow it off, pretend it never happened. Didn’t meet him, nothing registered. Sayonara.”

  “That would be a guy thing—walk away. Ghost him.”

  “What’s the girl thing then?”

  “This girl? Obsess.”

  “I don’t mind,” he said. “Can we obsess some more?”

  I didn’t leave because we were back to kissing. I said, “I don’t really feel the braces. But what’s happening down there?”

  “Sorry . . .”

  “Now what?” I asked.

  “Your choice.”

  “Did you plan this?”

  “Like I knew you were going to ring my doorbell?”

  “I mean, had you thought about me in this way before tonight?”

  “Of course. I’m a guy.”

  He asked if I could put off the homework for another half hour or so.

  “Maybe a refill? That way I can blame it on being drunk.”

  “I’m in no condition to make you another martini,” he said.

  The bold new me asked if he had condoms or should I get my own.

  “I believe I do. Want to . . .”

  “See your bedroom? Sure.”

  That was that. Easier than I expected. This was the big city. As a single woman suffering a dry spell, I seem to have decided in the course of one hour that an across-the-hall lover, with no strings, no rules, and an east-facing bedroom that caught the lights of the Freedom Tower, might be just the ticket.

  12

  Correct Me If I’m Wrong

  Did he have to send me flowers? No, not Jeremy, but my putative biological father, Peter Armstrong. The kind gesture of sending beautiful, fragrant pink and white lilies might have been more discomforting if his note had been needy and annoying. Instead: “Daphne, please know that I would never intrude. I cannot say how important it was for me to meet you, but what happens now is up to you.” With unfortunate timing, my father was visiting when the doorman called upstairs to say, “Flowers for you.”

  I lied to my dad. I said that the bouquet was from someone I’d met on a blind date.

  “He must’ve had a really nice time. I’d say he’s smitten.”

  I offered some modest, ambivalent syllables, which made him ask if I’d accept a second date.

  “Doubtful.”

  “You should thank him for the flowers. That’s only polite.”

  I said I would. Then, because the very reason I’d invited him over for takeout was conjugal detective work, I began, as planned, with “The reunion was Saturday. Pickering High’s.”

  “You actually went?”

  “With Geneva, up and back, a car service.”

  He said nothing, asked nothing. I volunteered that the theme drink was a Tickled Pink and that the undertakers who did Mom’s funeral were at my table.

  “The Perrys.”

  “Right. And there was a Donna, a Barbara, a Roseanne or Rosemary, who didn’t make cheerleader.”

  “All women?”

  “No, a couple of husbands.” I searched for a vase and settled on a pitcher before adding, “And a man named Peter Armstrong, who announced that he’s establishing a June Maritch memorial scholarship.”

  The dad I’d always known—high school principal, gentleman, and diplomat—would’ve said, “Isn’t that the most decent thing!” But today all my announcement evoked was a grunt.

  “I mean, why didn’t we think of honoring her for all those years of devotion?”

  “Is this already in the works?”

  “I think he said he’d be putting his contact information on the class’s website.”

  Had Armstrong mentioned the class website? Was there one? I forgot. “Do you know he’s a state senator now? Lots of handshaking and congratulations from the time he arrived.”

  “Scholarship or no scholarship, I don’t want to talk about Peter Armstrong.”

  This was highly uncharacteristic of Tom Maritch and not a promising lead-up to paternal fact-finding. Searching for a question in a range between neutral and pleasant, I tried, “Have you had your museum date with Paula yet?”

  “You overheard that?”

  I reminded him that it had been a marathon Thanksgiving dinner and she’d been seated on my left.

  “As a matter of fact, we went to the Met on Saturday.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “And what?”

  “Did you have a good time? Was it mobbed?”

  “A line out the door! But she was determined to see some costume exhibit that was ending. Very interesting, not something I’d have gravitated to on my own. And then it was my turn to pick, so we went to the Cubism exhibit.”

  “Did you have lunch or drinks?”

  “We had coffee.”

  “Do you like her?”

  “Sure.”

  “You don’t sound gung ho.”

  “I enjoyed her company. Did I feel a spark? I’d have to say no.”

  I hadn’t meant to delve into his newborn love life, but might that vein get us back on track? I said, “This is nice—that you and I can talk about personal things. And it goes without saying that you have my blessing in terms of dating.”

  “I haven’t heard about any of your dates.” He pointed to the flowers. “Care to elaborate?”

  I said, “Dad. Stop me if this is none of my business. But were you and Mom happy?”

  “Why that question all of a sudden?”

  We were still standing in my kitchen, leafing through my take-out menus. “Okay. Remember when we were painting your bathroom and I mentioned throwing away her Monadnockian? It seemed to touch a nerve—that and when I asked you about the reunions she never missed.”

  “And that made you jump to the conclusion that we weren’t happy?”

  “I’m asking for a reason.”
>
  “I know what that reason is.”

  I waited.

  “Peter Armstrong,” he said. “Peter goddamn Armstrong, golden boy!”

  “Wow. Let me go first, then.” I fished the accompanying card from the trash. “Here. I lied to you. The flowers weren’t from a blind date. They’re from him.”

  After reading its two sentences aloud, he asked, “So? You’re your mother’s daughter. He met you and he’s thanking you for coming to the reunion.”

  “How about if you sit down in the living room? I’ll bring you a Scotch.”

  He nodded. I told him I’d join him in a sec—just had to excavate some ice.

  Alone in the kitchen, or so I thought, I practiced, barely aloud, what should follow the Peter Armstrong paternity confession I had to address. “We’re not only father and daughter, but . . . partners. Singles in the city. Luckily, neighbors. Buddies.”

  Had I not realized he’d never left?

  “Totally agree,” I heard. “And this new life and new city has been the silver lining to losing your mother.”

  Losing my mother, that woman of easy virtue? How did that square with what I’d learned in Pickering?

  I poured his drink and led him back to the living room. “Can you expand on why you inserted the ‘goddamn’ between Peter and Armstrong?”

  He asked what I knew, what Armstrong had told me.

  I said, “If I’m being completely honest, my takeaway was that Mom was not entirely faithful.”

  “He told you that?”

  How to elaborate when nothing in life until the past weekend had suggested anything but a happy, faithful marriage between pillars of the education community? I tried a very watered-down version of my mother’s betrayal: “Maybe he had . . . a thing for her?”

  He shot me a most uncharacteristic look that said, We’re both adults. I’m widowed, you’re divorced, must I manufacture retroactive fidelity? So he said, “At one point, early in our marriage, she confessed to having a crush on him.”

  Was it up to me to fill him in? “Just a crush?”

  “As you must know with two parents in the field, crushes are an occupational hazard.”