Talk to Me

by John Kenney

  One night, in the seemingly perfect home in the quaint town, the European cars safely in the driveway and the doors locked and the fireplace going and the house cleaned by immigrants and the good Bordeaux breathing and her iPod and MacBook Pro blinking and her squash outfit washed and folded and her backpack ready and her trip to France for the summer with friends planned, she screamed again and again and the house was a terror zone and Claire was trying to calm her but occasionally shouting herself and Ted trying but out of gas, out of patience, images of his own upbringing in Woonsocket, his own parents, how hard they worked and provided, never complaining, and here was his own daughter, his mother’s granddaughter . . . screaming I hate you I hate you I hate you . . .

  “Oh yeah?” Ted said, too loud. “Well, guess what, I hate you, too.”

  And the house went quiet. And Claire put her hands over her face. And Franny stared, mouth hanging open. Because the therapist was right. She hated herself and feared she wasn’t lovable. So she pushed and pushed and tried to make it come true. And she knew, in that moment—even if it was just a moment—that he meant it.

  * * *

  • • •

  Ted tried. Until he didn’t. He started working later, traveling more. Often, by the time the broadcast was over, after they’d prep for the next day, a dinner or drinks, he’d opt to stay in the city at an apartment the network rented for him.

  But there were many nights when he simply didn’t want to go home. When he didn’t want to deal with Franny, fight with Claire. Where he simply wanted to retreat to the apartment, change his clothes, wash his face, and open a cold bottle of beer. He’d watch a Rangers game. Make a bologna sandwich. He didn’t know what to do with her. So he did nothing. He thought that would be the least harmful thing.

  * * *

  • • •

  Ted missed all of the meetings with the therapist. That’s how Franny saw it. In truth, Claire and Ted had met with the therapist, who had suggested that it might be more productive if Ted not be in the family sessions. Franny’s anger was so complete that she would likely shut down if Ted were in the room.

  Her father’s lack of attention was a gift. It prepared her for her teenage years, the fumbling emotions of other kids. She may have been a mess inside, but she learned to maintain a steely face to teachers, bullies, opponents on the court.

  There was talk of Bedford High School but Claire had her sights set on New Canaan Country Day School or Greenwich Academy. Ted wondered aloud why they were paying $42,800 a year in property taxes for a school system they didn’t use. This struck Claire as insensitive and Franny as typical of her father.

  Franny’s friend Emma Beckett had started at Northfield Mount Hermon the year before and loved it. Claire was against it, felt she wanted to keep Franny close. It was Ted, to Franny’s surprise and then dismay, who thought it a good idea. Franny’s main goal in life was to get her father’s attention by doing things he didn’t want her to do. She questioned any idea he agreed with. But leaving was too strong a pull. She had to get out of the house, to get away from her parents, whose only desire was to help her.

  * * *

  • • •

  She hated it. Hated every minute of it. She was profoundly homesick but couldn’t bring herself to admit that. She discovered the great joys of smoking pot and music she’d never listened to before, the Grateful Dead and the Jam and the Smiths and Simon & Garfunkel and when it was very late and her roommate was asleep she would put her headphones on and listen to Vince Guaraldi’s version of “Moon River” and cry herself to sleep.

  * * *

  • • •

  Junior year. Scott Landau. His great-grandfather had started Stride Rite shoes. Scott played hockey and acted like a person who knew that money could buy you out of anything. He turned Franny on to cocaine. Just once in a while. Nothing serious. A few lines. Sometimes more. Also Ecstasy, which Franny thought was quite pleasant. Again, not all the time. Not, like, a problem or anything. Special occasions. All-night drives to New York City and a room at the Bowery Hotel or Soho House, where his father was a member. Friends of Duncan’s from Dalton and Horace Mann, rich kids, parties at absent parents’ apartments on Park Avenue, in the Hamptons. It felt like touring with the Rolling Stones. It felt too good to let it stop. The dopamine surge, warm and happy. The serotonin kick that eliminated the need for food or sleep, everything and everyone alive and sexual and there for the taking. The downside being the fall after it wore off. Nausea, chills, headache. The feelings of paranoia, distrust of people, and fear of your surroundings. Though at this particular time in her life, she felt that way most days stone sober.

  She woke up vomiting more. She missed Work-Job. Everyone at Northfield had a Work-Job and you couldn’t miss it. It was the one decent thing her roommate did for her. Lie and punch her in on those mornings she couldn’t get in, after a long night, those bitterly cold western Massachusetts winter mornings; when to have to make pan after pan of scrambled eggs, pancakes, bacon, was out of the question. Lauren someone. She was clingy and a little weird but she seemed to care about Franny. Franny had woken up one night to find Lauren staring at her.

  One night . . . no, more than one night . . . she passed out, waking in a half-conscious state, with Duncan on top of her, one of Duncan’s friends laughing.

  * * *

  • • •

  Would Franny Grayson come to the reunion?

  These thoughts crossed Lauren’s mind as she crafted a witty invite for the reunion for the class of 2006 from the Northfield Mount Hermon School. She knew from Facebook and Instagram that Franny worked at some kind of website.

  As for Lauren, she was a social worker who helped run a not-for-profit clinic in Greenfield, Massachusetts, for families in crisis. She also took an Armenian folk dancing class every other Tuesday evening in the basement of the Armenian church, though she herself was not Armenian but a New York Jew, a line that always got her a laugh at parties. She ran road races and 5Ks in the foothills of the Berkshires and once did a Tough Mudder with a group of friends to raise money for the clinic.

  She had loved NMH. Loved the clean life, the outdoors and the sports, the healthy people and open attitude, the acceptance. Sure, there were cliques but that was any school. After Harvard (Divinity, honors), she returned to Northfield to work as a residence counselor. The time there, both as a student and as a counselor, had formed her. She’d found a sense of place and belonging. Which was why she sat in front of her computer in her office at 7:30 on a Tuesday evening in March. It was cold out, the last hints of light in the western sky. Ahead of her an evening alone at home with Peepers, her cat, and American Idol and a book and possibly a burrito of her own making. On paper that might seem lonely to some. Not Lauren. Though with the cursor blinking at her, taunting her, it did, for a moment, seem a bit sad.

  No. No, it wasn’t sad. I’m doing fine, she thought. I have my books here and my motivational apps and my stuffed animals. Yes, some of my colleagues make sarcastic comments. Yes, I try too hard sometimes, come on too strong, get asked by people to give them space. If that’s the worst you can say about a person then I’d say that person is doing all right. And yes, maybe a person sits in their car at night and watches a colleague through their window. Just to see them, to feel connected to them, to know what their life is like. A few times. A half a dozen times. Maybe more. People do that. Don’t they?

  Lauren opened Franny’s Google image page. Photo after cool photo of Franny at parties and art openings and galas, speaking on new media at TED NYC. She hadn’t aged. She just looked prettier, had nicer clothes. She looked like someone in a movie. Her middle name was Ford. Frances Ford Grayson.

  Lauren hoped Franny would attend. They hadn’t been close but to Lauren’s mind they had been friends. They talked. Well, Franny talked, Lauren listened. So much drama. So much going on. It had been a hard time for Franny. So angry, all the boy
s, the drugs. She’d met her beautiful mother a few times and even her famous father. Just once, that terrible snowstorm. Maybe time had softened her. Maybe they could be friends. A kind word. Something small. Anything.

  * * *

  • • •

  She wanted to strike the right tone. She didn’t want to be made fun of. She didn’t want to be rejected. She just wanted people to come back in June, when the weather was so lovely in western Massachusetts, when the lawns would be lush green, freshly mown, when the campus would be quiet, the kids gone, the dorms used for alums. She attached a link to their class’s NMH Facebook page, where people could comment on whether they were coming, and hit send.

  Frances, we have an assignment for you.

  They sat in Henke’s office: Henke, Franny, and Toland. Glass walls on three sides, views to the open floor plan, employees plugged in, headphones on. Out the windows, views of the West Side Highway, the Hudson River, New Jersey in the distance.

  Franny didn’t know Toland would be there. Toland Figg, New Media Guru. That was her title. Toland was partial to formfitting skirts, tall leather boots that looked expensive, and snug agnès b. sweaters. A collection of noisy bracelets, all silver, on her left wrist, maybe fourteen of them. You heard Toland coming before you saw her. Very little makeup, her high coloring and unusually blue eyes enough of a palette. She did like shiny lips, though, Franny noticed. Long stunning blonde hair that she played with often. She’d previously worked at the William Morris Agency in Hollywood and seemed to know everyone. She had a law degree from Stanford, had briefly directed (rare for a woman) and been nominated for an Academy Award (though it was in documentary shorts, so no one really knew or cared). She was thirty-six or possibly fifty-four. It was impossible to tell without an MRI.

  Rumor was that Henke never made a major decision without Toland weighing in. Rumor also had it they slept together, though most found it idle gossip, as they felt Toland was simply out of his league. Henke was Germanic, blondish (though he frequently dyed his hair bright colors), squat, muscular, but it was gym-bought. He was not a natural athlete, moved with none of the grace of one. He had been a chubby boy, bullied at his private school in Berlin, someone who dreamed of reinvention, of high school reunions where the former bullies were now overweight tax attorneys or insurance salesmen or German railway officials, while he showed up driving a Tesla, a lingerie model on his arm, smiling at the strudel-eating wives of his former tormentors.

  “We have a story idea for you,” Henke said to his computer screen, after Franny had taken a seat.

  “Henke,” Toland said.

  Henke looked up, as if awakened, and stared at Franny, blinking, reorienting himself to the non-digital world.

  “What do you think?” Henke said.

  Franny looked to Toland, who rolled her eyes.

  “You haven’t told me anything yet,” Franny said.

  Toland said. “We’d like you to write a story about Ted Grayson.”

  The feeling was one from grade school. The fear that came during recess, when the mean girls had massed, after lunch, and stared at her, waited for her, taunted her. They’d picked her out, randomly at first, but then because they saw she was afraid. Until she hit one of them one day. The leader. Slapped her hard. They didn’t bother her after that. But the fear didn’t go away.

  Scheisse was running stories every day, reposting every few hours. Photos taken as he exited his apartment building, hailed a cab. The iPhone footage of him screaming. But they wanted more.

  Franny wanted to leave. She wanted to go outside and walk.

  “No,” she said, too forcefully, responding more to the voices in her head than to Henke and Toland.

  “I just . . . I’m not sure I’m the best person for this,” she continued.

  “Who better?” Toland asked sweetly.

  “I’m not exactly an impartial reporter.”

  “We don’t want impartial. We want passion. We want something no one else can get.”

  No, she thought again. And yet here was a mild excitement at the prospect, like the moment before jumping off a high diving board, before running into the ocean at Cape Cod, the water so cold.

  He’d never do it, Franny thought. “I can’t imagine he’d agree to it,” she said out loud.

  “I can,” Henke said. “The network will want it. They’ll need it, in fact. A story by his daughter. The real Ted Grayson.”

  “I don’t think you want that story,” Franny said too fast, looking at Toland. But Toland was already three moves ahead. So Toland said nothing and let Franny do the math.

  “Wait. You want me to write a bad story about my father?”

  “No one said that,” Toland said. “We want the real story.”

  Toland came closer, sat on the edge of Henke’s desk.

  “I think what we’re talking about here is shame,” Toland said, though for a moment Franny didn’t know if she was talking about her or her father.

  “In fact, that may also be the title. ‘Shame.’ Or ‘Shame on you.’ This is the irony of the world we live in. There is no shame. People will do anything, say anything, post anything. And yet when we see transgression of epic proportion, we must shame. We’re primitive. We must publicly stone. It’s the baseball player who bet on the games. The athlete who doped. The congressman who exposed himself to a Girl Scout. It’s the progeny of Chinese billionaires and Saudi kings. It’s the morally lost. It’s not new. It just seems new because we cannot help ourselves. That’s who we are. It’s Shakespeare. He did it all. He did it first. We’re simply in reruns with his work under different names. We love watching because it’s not us. Because we know how easily it could be.”

  And here she looked at Franny.

  “We know our own demons, don’t we? Deep down. We know we are capable of selfishness, meanness. But we haven’t been caught. And these poor suckers have. This is about the search for redemption in a world that won’t forgive unless you die. We take pity on Reagan now because he’s long dead. Nixon. People talk about China instead of Watergate. What would be interesting is redemption while you’re still alive. Isn’t that what so many people want? To be forgiven?”

  Franny had a tic. She ran her index finger across her thumb, picked at the skin. It had caused the nail of her thumb to grow in bumpy. A dermatologist had told her to stop picking at it. But she couldn’t. To the point where she would sometimes wear a Band-Aid because the skin would become raw and exposed. She did it now, felt the sting of it.

  She stood quickly and opened the door.

  “Okay,” she said.

  Ouagadougou.

  North Dakota, he’d say to her.

  Bismarck, she’d reply.

  Mogadishu, he’d say.

  Somalia.

  She was five, six, nine.

  On drives. On walks. On the couch on cold Sunday afternoons, when Ted watched a football game, watched golf. Franny would plop down next to him, just to be near him. Why are they doing that? she’d ask. Who’s that guy? Why does that man have a zebra shirt?

  Sri Lanka, she’d say to him.

  Please, he’d answer. Colombo.

  Both of them staring straight ahead, at the TV, trying not to smile. Claire would watch them. In their own world.

  Burkina Faso, he’d say.

  Easy peasy, she’d say. Ouagadougou.

  You just like saying Ouagadougou, he’d say. Ouagadougou, he’d say in a ridiculous voice, over and over, making her laugh.

  Ted showed her maps, showed her the places he’d been, explained countries and peoples and languages and history. If he’d been a bricklayer she would have memorized the composition of mortar and the differences between burnt clay bricks and sand lime bricks. She was a wonder to her third-grade classmates and teacher, who had no idea where Burkina Faso was. Franny showed the class on a map whenever she got the chance. “My
father’s been there. Ouagadougou is the capital,” she’d say.

  * * *

  • • •

  And then one day she let go of his hand.

  Ted had thought it a mistake and went to take it back, reaching for it blindly, looking ahead. And then, looking down for her hand, saw her pull it back, though she continued staring straight ahead. His mouth opened to say something but he stopped himself. They continued on, into the school, the rush of parents and students, the comforting chaos of the morning drop-off, the overheated school, the smells: paint on the radiators, pencils, construction paper, and glue. Past the collages outside each classroom, the kindergartners and first-graders on the first floor, the bizarre drawings and little worlds worked on and cared about by the Trevors and Juanitas and Charlottes and Josephs. And outside her classroom door, he knelt down and she kissed him quickly on the cheek. Not the bear hug around the neck that lasted ten seconds, followed by holding his face in her hands, talking about how she would see him after school, followed by the slow walk into the classroom, where she turned around and waved, smiled and waved, blew him a kiss. Now, a quick peck on the cheek and she was gone, into the room, talking to a boy who was coloring (Patrick?) and then a girl with glasses (Penelope?), slipping her backpack off, hanging up her coat. A person. He stood for a time, looking in, half hiding himself, when the 8:30 bell rang to signal the start of the school day. He had been waiting for Franny to turn back and look at him. The teacher came to the door, surprised Ted was still there. She smiled and closed the door, and Ted stood alone in the hall.

  He stopped outside the school’s entrance, stood on the old granite steps, worn smooth in the middle from years of small feet. She was a little girl. A tiny little thing and Ted would yell sometimes, lose his temper. The shame of it. The disgust. A wave of regret at lost moments when his impatience and smallness of character, his inability to rise above the parenting situation and minor stress—the “daddy-daddy-daddy” voices and lost shoe and late for school and phone ringing, work calling, rainy morning when he simply couldn’t attach the long lens to his mind’s eye. When he couldn’t laugh at it all. When he didn’t understand that it could end. That it would end. That it would be lost.