by Judith Guest
He gets to his feet and finishes the last of his coffee. “This stuff’s rotten, you know that?”
“Damn right. Otherwise, I’d be up to my ass in patients. Listen, be aware, kiddo. People don’t change on command from other people. You oughta know that, having already given her the ultimate command a year ago.”
A hair trigger of release, waiting to be sprung. No more, no more, he is too tired. “That isn’t why I did it,” he says.
“No? Why, then?”
Nearly time. Nearly five o’clock, and he is exhausted. Even his bones ache. “I don’t know,” he says.
“The body doesn’t lie,” Berger says. “You remember that. So all you gotta do is keep in touch.”
15
“Now, this is what I call a real Christmas,” says Howard. “Snowing to beat the band, a turkey in the oven, a real live tree—a lot better than having dinner in some hotel in Florida, right?”
Beth smiles at him.
“Anyone care for a drink?” Cal asks.
“I would,” says Ellen. “A small glass of wine, if you have it, Cal.” She is sitting next to Beth on the couch. They look more like sisters than mother and daughter. Ellen’s hair is thick and silvery, cut short, and waved expertly to flatter the thin, aging face. Her body is slim and firm. It is easy to see where Beth gets her looks. “Where’s Connie?”
“Upstairs. He’s coming. Howard, scotch?”
“Fine.”
“Beth?”
“No, thanks. Not right now.”
“Beth’s got a dinner to put on,” Howard booms. “We can’t have the hostess dipping into the sauce too early, can we?”
No comparing this with Florida. Last Christmas there had been the arranging of hotel reservations and flight schedules and tickets for the Orange Bowl. Last Christmas they had played golf and gone deep-sea fishing and tanned themselves beside the aquamarine blue of the swimming pool at the Sonesta Beach, looking at other people from the distance of delirium. They were going through the motions of a family on vacation. And each day opened to a scene more beautiful than the last: palm fronds, like upside-down green bowls under an upside-down blue bowl of sky. Lagoons full of lazy jumping fish. White sand that clung to their bodies like confectioner’s sugar. Australian pine trees and sea grape. Lord, how he had hated it. Like medicine you took, knowing that it had no power to heal. A relief to come back to the cold and gray reality of a Chicago winter.
“Hi. Merry Christmas.”
“Same to you, dear!” Ellen holds out her arms and Conrad goes to her; he bends his head obediently for a kiss. He is dressed up today—tan slacks and a tan, bulky-knit pullover, his boots polished—a concession to his mother? He looks healthy. His cheeks are flushed. The ugly rash is nearly gone.
“You did a great job on this tree,” Howard says. “I hear it was all your idea. How long did it take you?”
Conrad grins. “About a month of Sundays.” Something is different about him lately. The smile is a good kid-grin, with his eyes into it. He looks handsome, that’s it, with those long, thick eyelashes, like a girl’s. The build is all boy, though—all angles, elbows, and knees.
Howard rubs his palms together briskly. “Let’s get this show on the road, folks!”
They exchange glances, he and Conrad; then they look away. Cal is reminded of the game they used to play: Grandfather Trivia. “What does he say after a horseshoe ringer?” “That’s one for the good guys!” “What time does he get up in the morning?” “At the crack o’dawn!” “When will he eat liver?” “When hell freezes over!” Jordan had invented it, with his eye for detail, his unmerciful memory. And another game. Nicknames. He had nicknames for everyone; new ones each week. His grandfather, the Kid, his grandmother, the Girl Friend. “Here comes the Kid in the Mercedes, he’s got the Girl Friend with him!”
A blessing. That you do not know at the moment of impact how far-reaching the shock waves will be. He is at once achingly aware of the force of Jordan’s absence. Only a year and a half. Still, it is a long time to discover that you are still in shock, still in the infant stages of recovery.
Surrounded by gifts, Conrad, anxious giver, seeks reassurance.
“You really like it, Grandmother?”
She holds up the candle, apple-shaped and scented with apple, for all to admire. “Like it? I love it, it smells delicious.”
“And the gloves fit okay?”
“Perfect,” says Howard.
“Like a glove,” Cal says. His mood is buoyant, expectant. Patiently he listens, hanging on to his own excitement, as Conrad explains about the golf book he has bought for him; it is guaranteed to cut six strokes from his game. “Then, I’d better not catch you reading it before me!” he warns him happily.
For his mother, Conrad has picked out a bracelet of silver; fragile, delicate links that loop over and under each other, like figure-eights on a glassy pond.
“I hope you like it,” he says.
“It’s beautiful,” she says. “It’s lovely. Thank you.”
They are polite and careful with each other these days. The mood of the house is subdued and calm. A truce of some kind has been effected. Cal, the fumbling, uncertain negotiator, has stayed out of it. A cooling-off period must be observed. It is not his way at all; he is all for plunging in, taking people by the shoulders, shaking them into submission, into daylight. But he cannot bully either of them, he has discovered. They are alike in this way. All healing is done from the outside in.
“Hey, isn’t there another present down there?” Howard asks.
Conrad leans over, searching among shirts and sweaters, a navy ski-vest, a pen-and-pencil set; he comes up with a small package, wrapped in silver paper.
“No card. Who’s it from?”
Cal says, “It’s from your mother and me.”
He opens it. Glittering on the nest of white cotton, is a key ring, with two keys on it.
Howard nudges Cal in the ribs. He has been like a kid with this, calling Cal on the telephone, checking on the details—How would they present it? Where will they keep it over the long Christmas weekend? He drove to the dealership with Cal to pick it up; has kept it in his garage for nearly a week. Now he cannot hide the smile on his face. “Well? Why don’t you go look in the driveway?”
They all go to the door. The green LeMans with its white vinyl top is parked at a jaunty angle in the drive. Howard has wired a huge red bow to the door handle.
“Sneaky, huh?” he crows. “Dad, I think we fooled him good this time. He looks like we could knock him over with a feather about now!”
True. He stands next to Cal on the porch, as they all admire the car, glittering under a light coat of fresh snow. His expression is totally blank and unreadable, but Cal reads anyway: I don’t think he likes it.
“How about the color?” Howard asks. “You like it?”
“They had it in a pale gold,” Cal says. “You might have liked that better.”
“No. This is great.” He looks at Cal, then, a smile pasted on his face. He seems dazed. “I like it a lot. Thanks. It’s—I just didn’t expect it, that’s all.”
“Got your license on you?” Howard asks. “Take it for a spin.”
“No,” he says. Then, “Yeah, okay. I think I will. Thanks. Thank you both, it’s beautiful, really. It’s terrific.”
And he gets in; it starts up smoothly. It glides smoothly out of the driveway, and Cal, resisting the urge to call, “Take it easy!” or any other of those good-luck charms, thinks, He will be careful. He will take it easy, even though he has not driven in nearly a year, because he is a good driver. He will take care because of that, and not because of anything that I yell at him.
“Well,” says Howard. “What a surprise, huh? I don’t think he quite knew what to make of it.”
Beth and Ellen have already gone inside. The wind has lifted suddenly. It pierces Cal’s shirt; makes him feel shrunken, and old.
“I think he liked it, though,” Howard says. “A k
id’s first car. Always a big deal, right?”
“Right,” Cal says.
“Yeah, I remember when you gave him that two-wheeler. God, he loved that thing, didn’t he? Rode it around the block all day. When was that?” He holds the door for Cal. “Kids. They sure do grow up in a hurry, don’t they?”
And so it had gone wrong. The neat, even pieces of the day have somehow slipped awry. Disengaged. He sits alone on the couch, his head back, his feet on the coffee table. He has driven Howard and Ellen home, and Conrad is upstairs in bed, asleep. Beth has cleared the dessert plates from the table and is busy with them in the kitchen. He stares out of the window at the snow, at the fuzzy jewels of reflection from the Christmas-tree lights. Colored stars in a white sky.
Something was missing something terribly wrong, but it was not just the car. It was the whole day. Well, what do you expect? We are a family, aren’t we? And a family turns inward toward itself in grief, it does not go in separate directions, pulling itself apart. Like hell it doesn’t. Grief is ugly. It is isolating. It is not something to be shared with others, it is something to be afraid of, to get rid of, and fast. Get those months, days, hours, minutes out of the way, it can’t be quick enough.
He gets up to make himself a drink at the bar, and Beth comes in from the kitchen. She looks tired; her face set, her mind occupied elsewhere. We should have gone to London, he thinks. Aloud, he asks, “Would you like anything?”
“No. I’m tired. I think I’ll just go to bed.”
And, knowing that he shouldn’t, knowing somehow that it will only disarrange the contours of the day more thoroughly, still he says it: “I guess he didn’t like the car.”
She is silent.
“Did he?”
“I think,” she says, “you worry too much about him.”
“Yeah.” And I think that you don’t worry enough, but let it go, call it a very merry rugged Christmas Day, and let it go.
“And you expect too much. From all of us.”
He takes a healthy swallow of his drink. “Uh huh. That sounds like the beginning of a lecture. What’s it for? I thought I behaved myself pretty well today.”
“You want us all to perform for you,” she says. “Make the day go right for you—”
“Well, I’m willing to do my share. I’ll sing and dance and tell crooked-lawyer jokes—it won’t be my fault if it falls apart.”
“Or mine, either! Or Dad’s or Mother’s! You didn’t have to close up on them that way, just because your surprise didn’t work out the way you planned it.”
“I didn’t close up. What’re you talking about?”
“Yes, you did. You moped and pouted around here, as if your whole day was spoiled over that one thing.”
Okay, I moped, I pouted. All right. I give up. Uncle. He leans his elbows on the bar, his back to her.
“I’m tired of you getting your feelings hurt, Cal, because you refuse to see things as they really are.”
“And how are things?” he asks, turning around. “How are they really?”
She is so lovely, so lovely. That white skin and the pale, lavender silk of the dress, the honeyed hair, loose about her face. What are we fighting about?
“He’s not your little boy,” she says. “He’ll be eighteen years old next month. For some reason, you want to think he needs your constant concern and protection. You worry over his every reaction. He smiles and you smile. He frowns and you baby him—”
“Okay, I’m concerned! Sometimes I worry! I’m interested, damn it! Are you interested?”
“Oh, I hate you,” she says. “Sometimes I really hate you when you get that look on your face. Why couldn’t you see this was the way it would work out if we stayed here this year?”
“At last!” he says. “Down to basics! Listen, if my day was spoiled, it was because I had that hanging over my head, so I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I didn’t take you to London!”
“Are you sorry about giving him a car he didn’t want, and doesn’t need? Sorry about spending thousands of dollars, just to make something happen that I could have told you would never happen?”
They look at each other, and he wants to say, But that’s not it, don’t you see? At least, not all of it. And he knows as she turns away from him, going back to the kitchen, and moments later, there is the familiar and purposeful hum of the dishwasher, that the day has not gone the way she planned it, either. They are both disappointed. They are both grieving. And he thinks about going upstairs; thinks about passing Conrad’s door, going down the hall to their bedroom, where they will silently undress, and separately grieve. And what about tomorrow then? And all the tomorrows to come? Why can’t we talk about it? Why can’t we ever talk about it?
16
He has concluded, on this crisp and sunny day in January, that what his life lacks is Organization. Goals. Standing at his desk, his foot on the chair, he gazes put of his bedroom window, pondering, making rapid notes.
1. Finals
Essential that he pass. Above all else. Only two weeks left in the semester. One last push and study like hell.
2. Exercise
Not enough in the last months. In fact, nothing, except for gym. His skis, lying dusty and neglected at the back of his closet, reproach him each morning. Someday after school he will drive to Wilmot, take a lesson, maybe. Grab a sandwich, ski some more. Be home by eleven. No. Not something to do alone pointless unless you have somebody to do it with. In the warming room afterward scanning the crowd for a familiar face. No.
3. Friends
He is definitely in need. The worst thing about the hospital. An absolute lack of privacy. People crowding you, pressuring you, examining and reassuring. Never alone. Now. Excess turns virtue into vice. He finds each day as he looks around him that he is achingly lonely. Goes over the list again: Lazenby.Truan.Van Buren. Genthe. No. He is not ready for them and anyway they are all seniors now, thinking about graduation and not interested in their old buddy, Jarrett. Besides, their old buddy, Jarrett, no longer exists. He is extinct. Someone else, now. Needing new friends. But how?
4. Job (?)
Doing what? Yard work? (It is January, kiddo.) Volunteer work? Not too likely, somebody needing him. Oh, yeah? Why the hell not? There are plenty of things he could do for other people. Maybe the placement office could give him some suggestions, or he could call organizations, the Red Cross, the Foundation for the Blind, put some thought into it, some imagination.
He sits down, suddenly, looking out of his window again at the tall cedars, the bare gray limbs of maples and olive trees, at Heather, the Cahills’ big, black Lab, nosing under bushes, scratching herself a spot in the snow to crouch. Everything as usual; fuzzy and slightly out of focus, no, wait a minute, wait a minute, it is not out of focus. It is clear and sharp, distinct, in place. His whole life is in place and it spreads out around him, steady and full of purpose. A mystic source of energy, flooding his body, his mind, all at once. Joy. He wants to go off in every direction at the same time. Swiftly he notes:
5. Guitar
6. Books
7. Girls
A million years ago, when they were both sixteen, he and Lazenby discussed the topic daily; compared notes on their Experience. They concluded that they had none. For him, nothing has changed. He remembers Bernard Renaldi, a kid in his freshman comp class, relating his triumph: he had kissed a hundred girls on New Year’s Eve. The sheer volume of it had staggered their minds. So, how many girls has C. Jarrett kissed? How many girls has he even spoken to in the past year and a half? Karen. Suzanne Mosely. A girl who occasionally sits at his table in A lunch. He doesn’t even know her name. And Jeannine. Eighteen years old in two weeks. Two weeks, ye gods, and what does he know?
Never mind. Worry about it later. For now, he is too filled with this good feeling, too filled with himself, to care, and he jumps up, goes to the closet, looking for his guitar—it’s back there somewhere—but can he still play it? Sure, it’s like riding a bicycle, you do
n’t forget. And tomorrow he will go to the library for books on what? Anything. Everything. He wants to learn everything, know everything.
Lists. Buck used to find the scraps of notes on his desk; those stern, written commands to himself to shape up. He would cop them and they would show up, folded inside his napkin at dinner, or taped to the mirror in the bathroom. “The Great Listmaker is at it again, folks!” he would tease him. Reverting to old ways —does that signify a moving backward, or forward? The natural, sane ticking inside him eliminates all need of an answer.
Standing in an aisle in the library, he can feel the eyes on him. He turns his head to look. A pretty, dark-haired woman. Staring at him. Guiltily, he looks away. Should he know her? Someone’s mother, maybe? One of his friends? No, too young. Well dressed, nice figure, nice legs. He takes another look, and she is still watching him, her head tilted in an attitude of appraisal.
He moves to the next aisle, as embarrassment and anger work within him, giving way then, to the familiar cloak of shame that settles about his shoulders. A freak. A one-man side show, carrying the mysterious label; off-brand. What is this about him?
Still. People shouldn’t do that. Stick somebody like a bug on the head of a pin and stare like that. And he shouldn’t do it to himself, either. It is disgusting. Also, boring.
He takes down a book and blindly reads until the words begin grouping together, forming small patterns of reason, of sense. The feeling of joy exists, he knows it now. It must exist outside the sterile medium of his bedroom, too. It has to be wider than the dimensions of his window, and never mind all the people who pigeonhole other people with their cracks, their amused, superior smiles.
He checks out his books. The librarian slips his plastic credit card into the machine. Even the library is run like a department store now. The whole world is one, big Department Store, one big Computer, but never mind. They still might need some people. So ask! The librarian is small and wispy. Her washed-out blue eyes will not pierce or injure him. Yet he stumbles over the speech he has been preparing all week. “... interested in working here ... wondered about ... possibilities of employment ...?” She smiles. Oh, yes, they do take on part-time help occasionally. However, they are fully staffed right now, but if he would like to fill out an application? Yes, he would like to. She gets him a form, and he begins to fill it out at the counter, but she waves him away. That’s all right, just bring it with you sometime when you come.
