Perfect Life

by Jessica Shattuck

  From Jenny herself, Colin would inherit all the sharpness and pragmatism he would need. It was the marketable half of the hand she had been dealt, and came exclusively from her mother. Judy Callahan was the kind of woman people referred to as a “force of nature.” She had run a day care out of her home while raising her own four children and served as an amateur livestock judge every time the state agricultural fair came to DeSoto. She put together three hot meals a day and did not own a dryer or dishwasher. Even now, at age sixty, she was training for the Boston Marathon—as if she couldn’t come to visit her new grandson without achieving some unrelated, fantastical personal objective! She drove Jenny crazy. But Jenny was not blind; she knew where she came from.

  Which did not seem to be from her father. What had she inherited from this big, quiet canning plant foreman with hands like slabs of meat and a face as flat, ruddy, and impassive as a statue’s? It was as if she had sprung solely from her mother. Her father was handsome in an impressive, oversized way and was well liked by the community, which he soldiered uncomplainingly to aid at his wife’s behest, showing up to help bolster the sinking WWII memorial or sand down the decrepit, splintering jungle gym at the park. He was a chain smoker, he played poker. Every Friday night. With a group of loyal and devoted friends who called him “Motor”—in reference to what, Jenny could not imagine. At home and with his children, he was all but mute.

  Safe, comfortable, smelling of smoke and machine oil and shaving cream, he had been a wide lap to climb in, a strong set of arms for boosting. Jenny had lived in a state of constant embarrassment about her loud, demanding mother, but for some reason—his sheer bulk? or the dignity that comes with silence?—she was proud of Frank Callahan. And even now, in her adult life, she had some deep-seated respect for this unknowable man who remained entirely fixed in his own world. He was afraid of flying and had never come to visit her in any of her East Coast habitations. Which was maybe for the best: her pride in him had never had to accommodate the vision of his bulk perched on one of the spindly chairs at Clio or sleeping in her sleek, Zen-inspired guest room.

  It was only fleetingly and occasionally (maybe once or twice) that Jenny had allowed herself to stumble on the idea that this man she admired and loved possibly more than any other on earth would exist in an entirely different world from the man she was raising her son to be. They would not speak the same language. Even the simplest nouns would be attached to such different things in their minds: kitchen, school, transportation, meat. Forget adjectives, which were subjective even within a given socioeconomic bracket. They would be left with nothing but the hugest and most basic precepts: ocean, light, sickness, death. Would this be enough?

  3

  NEIL WAS HOPING it wouldn’t be there. That he would reach into his pocket and find it empty, or filled with the usual detritus of matches and change, maybe a scrap of paper or two. That the murky memory of last night’s escapades would prove to be a dream. But his fingers brushed immediately against the chunky plastic and the sticky rubber nipple at the end. Shit.

  He shoved it deeper down, hoping there was no weird bulky outline of it visible through the leather of his jacket. He thought, for a moment, about pulling it out and tossing it into the corner garbage can—blood off the hands, evidence destroyed, etc. But this seemed creepy. Creepier even than having taken it in the first place. After all, it belonged to the baby. To his baby. It had the boy’s saliva on it—minuscule traces of his own DNA.

  So he shoved it down, patted his jacket, and tried to shake the thought of it. He was meeting Laura here at a bar she had suggested, a new place with an anonymous, modern look—booths with black leather benches and low light, a shiny, stainless steel bar. At least it wasn’t some “old haunt” from their college years—the fetid, beer-smelling Bow and Arrow, or the dirt-cheap, carpeted second floor of the Hong Kong. He would have been unable to take that. How did Laura stand it, living here? Everywhere he turned in Harvard Square there was some ghost memory that made him cringe. For himself at the time? Or for himself now? Both, probably. No deconstructing. Deconstructing got him nowhere.

  Laura was late. That hadn’t changed, apparently. Neil sipped his beer and winced slightly. He was still hung over from last night. Johnson’s fault. All of it. Including the pacifier. (What would he do when Johnson wasn’t around to blame?)

  To celebrate Johnson and Kirstin’s last night in Boston, they had gone out in the Back Bay. An unlikely place for them, sworn hipsters that they were, but they had a friend who was the bartender at this “swanky” place who could hook them all up with free drinks and a good table. Kirstin and Johnson were giddy with excitement at their imminent departure—ZGames had made them rich enough to follow their dreams: his to try his luck “acting” in a reality TV show (Isn’t that an oxymoron? Neil had asked. All the world’s a stage, Johnson had drawled in his new game-company-personage voice), and hers to make a name for herself in soft porn. So they had set off, the three of them, Johnson and Kirstin making out like teenagers on the subway ride there, Neil glum with the knowledge that he would have to get absolutely wasted to tolerate the night.

  And once there, the champagne had flowed to their table as if they were Puff Daddy and his entourage, and at some point lychee-nut martinis and a bottle of Glenlivet entered the equation, and a too-tall, birdy girl named Saryn, whose small breasts pressed erectly against Neil’s arm with the same insistence as her monologue about being a postfeminist feminist, until finally Neil had gathered the force to break away, bid goodbye to Kirstin and Johnson, who were somehow leaving for the airport at six a.m., separate himself from Saryn, and stagger out into the damp calm of Boylston Street after hours.

  It was just unfortunate that he had walked past Clarendon Street on his way to the train. Otherwise Neil would not have thought of it. But in the fog of drink the address had stood out in his mind with clarity: 43b Clarendon Street. He had studied it on the back of that birth announcement, unpacked the implications of it many times. There was a lot you could tell about a person—about a life, about what kind of life—from an address. This wasn’t just a Victorian conceit.

  But five minutes later, standing in front of it, he did not find it that revealing, actually. It was a brownstone. Expensive, no doubt, and well kept. Drapes in the upstairs windows and shutters below, all dark. A wrought-iron railing, alarm system, an ugly, too-shiny brass knocker and doorknob combo indicating bad taste. It had probably been recently renovated: granite countertops, open layout, whirlpool tub, etc. Nothing he would not have already guessed. Until he caught sight of the stroller tucked away under the front steps. Which seemed unlike Jenny. On closer, albeit drunken, inspection it turned out to be locked, bicycle-style, to the railing. That was more like her. Although it hinted at cramped quarters. Clearly they were not long for this space.

  The stroller itself looked expensive—sleek and well designed, it rode high on a set of thick mountain-bike-like tires, and was covered by a neatly fitting clear plastic rain shield. Inside it was lined with fleece. And there was the pacifier, attached to its brightly colored string of plastic beads and ducks. The one truly personal thing he had come across. And looking at it from what seemed like a great height in his spinning, drunken state, Neil was overcome by how little it was, and how silly, and how totally, blissfully primitive the creature who used it must be. How undifferentiated by taste and preference and preconception. Here was this bright, chewable thing—why not suck on it? He didn’t care if it was decorated with ducks or pigs, if it was pink or blue, if it was cheap or expensive. He had no prejudices or social expectations. Tabula rasa and all that.

  And suddenly Neil wanted to have some influence on this little malleable being who would grow up to be a person with opinions and attitudes and a distinct point of view. What had he been thinking, letting Jenny have his child with no strings attached? With no place for himself in the drama of its unfolding life? And it stung suddenly, bitterly, that she had wanted it this way—that she had wante
d not only total control but secrecy—as if his genes were good enough to pass on but his person, the man he had become, was too shameful to acknowledge. He had been so busy imagining himself some sort of eugenic infiltrator, seeding her obliviously privileged American life with his own self-conscious complexities and doubt, that he had overlooked the insult inherent in her plan. She had come to him for his promise and potential, but he himself was no fitter or more appealing in her eyes than he had been when they’d broken up.

  From Beacon Street there was the thundering of a truck lurching along, and beyond this, on Storrow, the thin rush of traffic. The streetlight shone a pale, dappled light onto the sidewalk through the tender new spring leaves.

  Neil climbed down the two steps to the shadowy nook the stroller was parked in, and before he knew it, he had unzipped the clear plastic cover and opened it up, let the cool night air into the cozy bubble—boy in the bubble, he thought, and felt as though the baby were actually in there and he, Neil, the baby’s father, was helping him out. But of course the stroller was empty. Except for the pacifier and its colorful clip. Lurching slightly, unsteady and suffused with bitterness, Neil had yanked it off.

  Now, sitting here, gingerly sipping his beer in this sleek pizza bar Laura had chosen, he could see this was completely crazy. What was he, a college prankster? Living in this town was a bad influence.

  Laura appeared at the same time as the basil and prosciutto pizzette (couldn’t they just call it pizza?) he had ordered. She launched into a wave of apology, gesturing animatedly, undeterred by the hovering server who danced around her in an effort to keep the pizzette out of harm’s way.

  “But it’s so nice to see you!” Laura finished, beaming genuinely and kissing Neil on the cheek. Even after all these years, her smile, her protests, the way she shrugged off her jacket were familiar. It was reassuring. So much had changed, but his old pal Laura Trillian (or had she taken Mac’s name?) had not.

  “So where’re the kids?” Neil said. “Help yourself.” He gestured to the pie.

  “Oh, no, I’m fine. A glass of chardonnay?” she directed this last at the server as if it were a question. “With the sitter. Thank God. Tuesday nights. Usually I take a yoga class.”

  “And you blew that off for me?”

  “Of course!” Laura grinned.

  She was still so pretty. A little rounder and fuller, a few lines around the eyes, but she didn’t have that severe, timeworn look that so many women her age were beginning to.

  “So how old are they?” he asked.

  “Six and two.”

  Outside the window on the sidewalk a wild-haired man pushing a cart full of bottles clattered past.

  “That must keep you busy.”

  Laura rolled her eyes. “I can’t complain.” She leaned forward a little. “But what about you, Neil—where have you been all these years? What have you been up to? I can’t even believe how long it’s been!”

  “Nothing,” he said, keeping his eyes fixed on the homeless man’s slow progress. “Honest to God. Nothing.”

  “You were in that PhD program,” Laura said helpfully.

  Neil groaned. “Let’s talk about your kids.”

  Laura groaned in imitation.

  “Okay, we’re even.”

  They both looked out the window for a moment. A pair of bespectacled men, locked in earnest conversation, followed the homeless man. Scientists, or academics—Neil felt the usual twinge of regret.

  “So how is it, living here?”

  Laura looked startled. “You mean Cambridge? Why—because of school?”

  Neil nodded.

  “It’s all right. I mean, I do like it, as a city, and I’m used to it now—I didn’t want to move back, but then…you have these preconceptions about everywhere else in the Boston area you know, after having lived here. And Mac wanted to live out in Lexington or Dedham or somewhere suburban…”

  Neil watched her hands move. Slender, delicate fingers and rings—interesting rings, a silver frog on one, two flat green stones on another. There was nothing processed about Laura. Nothing polished or filtered. She had always been that way. It was part of why it had seemed so unlikely that she would have married Mac. The guy was so stylized—so aware of his presentation. All that Tommy Hilfiger-type preppy crap he wore, for example. Mac Elias. Why affect the posture of some superannuated breed of New England aristocrat when you had a much more impressive credential? Mac was a real all-American success story—a Greek immigrant’s son turned business success. Neil had met him only once or twice ages ago, when Mac had first started dating Laura, and Neil remembered him as a handsome guy, arrogant and broad-shouldered, the kind of man who looked likely, behind closed doors, to have a bad temper. Laura would have liked him for his difference from the whole insular New England WASP culture she had grown up in, not his (at best) tenuous status in it.

  She brushed her hair behind her ear as she talked. Neil had been wrong, he could suddenly see—she had changed a little, or maybe just sharpened, become more of who she was when he had known her. The sadness that had always shadowed her resting face was more pronounced, even under the smile. Her mother’s early death? The relative isolation of her childhood? He did not know what its roots were, but it dogged her now, even as she waved her hands animatedly.

  What about him? Did he like LA? Did he just hate being back? Wasn’t he just a little bit curious about any gossip? What Elise was up to, for instance, or Abe Sorenson—and how, by the way, had he seen Nelly McCormack? Were they in touch?

  Neil answered her questions—omitting the fact that he had not just run into Nelly McCormack, but had slept with her—and finished his beer. Laura was on to her second glass of wine.

  “And Mac?” Neil asked. “He’s good? Enjoying life these days?”

  A more closed look came over Laura’s face. She shrugged. “He loves his work.”

  “Which is what again?”

  “Commercial real estate. Development.”

  “The glory of strip malls.”

  Laura frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing. Honestly. I love ’em. America’s least-celebrated innovation.”

  Laura gave him a skeptical look and sipped her drink.

  They were silent for a moment. Next to them at the bar a ponytailed blonde with too much makeup on flirted with two entranced college boys.

  “So is it weird for you, Neil?” Laura ventured suddenly. “Having this baby out there—I mean, are you okay with it—having no connection? I was thinking about that after I saw you, and just thinking…” She trailed off hesitantly.

  “It was weird?”

  “No.” Laura looked alarmed. “No, not at all—just that…you seemed a little sad at the christening.”

  Neil felt his back grow rigid, an on-demand exoskeleton. “I don’t think about it much.”

  Laura nodded, looking unconvinced.

  “I mean, now that I’m here, though, it’s true, it’s kind of in my mug. More…I don’t know—” He broke off.

  “More what?”

  Neil shifted his gaze up to the corner of the ceiling. “I don’t really know what I was thinking.”

  “Well, it was a wonderful thing you did for Jenny,” she said hesitantly. “And for Jeremy, of course. I mean, you gave them this…amazing baby.”

  Neil took a swig of his beer—his second, which was not giving him a buzz, just adding to the toxic feeling he had left over from last night. “No,” he said, putting the glass back down. “That’s the thing. I didn’t. I gave them some sperm.”

  Laura looked…was it reproving somehow?

  He hid his face in his last sip and slid the empty glass over the table. “Want to see something?” he said impulsively.

  Almost as soon as they stepped outside, though, Neil regretted the impulse. What the hell was he doing? Trying to guarantee some new spot for himself in Laura’s mind as a weirdo? As poor-Neil-he-really-kind-of-lost-it? He tried to think if there was somethin
g else he could, plausibly, have led her out to take a look at. He could think of nothing. Certainly nothing that would seem even marginally apropos. They picked their way along the bustling sidewalk of Church Street and onto quiet, shadowy Brattle with its Old World air of refinement, history, and money.

  “God, it’s great to have spring here,” Laura said, throwing her head back. The breeze stirred her hair. “Did you miss it? Out in California? That particular relief, you know, that comes with New England spring?”

  “I don’t think so.” Neil shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I’m not a weather person.”

  “A weather person,’” Laura scoffed. “Unlike me.”

  “No, I mean, I just don’t notice it much. It’s a bad thing. It probably indicates some kind of psychological handicap. Or self-absorption. Probably that.”

  They had reached Neil’s ancient, pre-autolock VW. It was a shocker that it had made it all three thousand miles east. Neil leaned against the door, hoping, maybe, she had forgotten they had come out to see something.

  He was parked in front of one of the street’s huge historic mansions, the doors of which never seemed to open and close. But at this moment a light came on in an upstairs window, sending a splash of yellow over the immaculate lawn.

  “So what is it?” Laura asked. “What are you showing me?”

  “Oh, it’s stupid.”

  “What? No way. We came all the way out here.”

  Neil sighed and turned the key in the door. The glove compartment fell open with a thud, spilling papers and manuals, bottles of Advil and crumpled foil packages of cigarettes and beef jerky. Neil rummaged through this, aware of Laura outside, leaning against the car. And there it was. He backed out and handed it to her, his heart pounding unexpectedly in his chest.

  Laura took it gingerly, squinting to make out the white letters on the faded carbon copy. “Your birth certificate?”