Night Blindness

by Susan Strecker

  “Earth to Whobaby,” my dad said now.

  I squeezed his hand. “I’m here, Daddy.”

  We were stopped at a red light again near the Westbrook town line, his skin sun-kissed from the drive. “Thinking, thinking, my bright shining star, always thinking.” He beamed over at me as if that tumor weren’t ticking away like a clock. My dad still thought I was the straight-A student I’d been before Will died, when he used to pin my report cards on the refrigerator next to newspaper clippings about Will. “My Whobaby’s going to be somebody someday,” he used to say. “You watch.”

  I wondered what he thought when my Andover and UCB report cards arrived. In prep school and then in college, I sat for hours in a hidden carrel in the library, a little stoned, trying to read about the French Revolution or the astronomy of Copernicus. I usually found myself at Hanky’s bar, shooting pool, or, later, in Nic’s studio, listening to Van Morrison and trying to get that self-portrait to be somebody else. What Ryder and I had done, Will’s death, eclipsed every other thing that came after it.

  We’d driven all the back roads and were almost to the Baldwin Bridge when my dad asked if I was hungry. I felt flushed from wind and sun, and the constant drone of the road had made me sleepy. I didn’t care if we stopped for lunch or if I ever ate again. I wanted desperately to go back in time, to spend every weekend of my life riding around like this with him. I wanted to keep driving forever.

  6

  “I can’t believe you’re here.” Mandy looked even more beautiful than she had when we were teenagers, her blond hair swept up in a loose twist. I couldn’t believe I was there, either, sitting across from her at Liv’s, a lily of the valley bouquet between us, the diamond pendant around her neck throwing rainbows all over the restaurant. “How’s my second papa doing?” Mandy never held it against me that I rarely called or e-mailed and almost never came back to visit.

  “He’s okay.” I felt like crying. Liv’s was noisy for late afternoon in the middle of the week, and no one would have noticed if I had cried, but there was no reason to. “Overwhelmingly favorable odds,” Ryder had said. It was great news, my dad’s prognosis, but I knew no matter how many little red cars my father borrowed for us, I still couldn’t make myself believe it. “They think radiation will get it.” Mandy put her hand over mine. I studied her big hoop earrings, I remembered now she’d bought them at the plaza when she’d come to Santa Fe.

  Her eyes filled with tears. “Damn.” She picked up her napkin and dabbed at them. “Of course he’ll be fine, right?” The end of her nose was bright red, like it was when she cried. “It’s just he’s larger than life, you know?” She shook her head. “I’m such a cow. You’re supposed to be crying on my shoulder, not the other way around.” I loved her for crying. I loved that she could traipse through the rain forests of Ecuador with baby anacondas draped around her like scarves, photographing for National Geographic and having one-night stands with award-winning cameramen, and still come to lunch with me, hold my hand, and cry about my father.

  Just like Mandy, she kept right on talking, filling the space between us before it could turn to silence. “I already look fatally ugly, and now I have to cry on top of it.” She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “In the past thirty-six hours, I’ve been on a riverboat, a rickshaw thing pulled by some hairy animal with horns, two planes, and a town car from Bradley driven by a guy who farted the whole way, and well…” She put her fingers to her lips. “I need a mojito.” She whistled at a cute waiter across the room.

  “Mand, he’s not a dog,” I whispered.

  She gave him a flirty smile. “It’s so good to see you, J.J.”

  Everything Mandy had wanted to do, like cut class to get high or give blow jobs to the boys at the neighboring Catholic school, I’d been hesitant about, and she’d started every sentence with, “Jesus, Jenny, it’s only a joint.” Or “Jesus, Jenny, it’s just a cock in your mouth.” Eventually, she started calling me J.J., a constant reminder of how uncool I was compared to her. That all changed after Will died, and then I was the first one to drop acid, run off to boarding school in the middle of the academic year, and quit college to be with my art professor.

  “What can I get you lovely ladies today?” The waiter’s words came out lazily. I thought of Nic, except this guy probably wasn’t old enough to drink.

  Mandy touched his hand. “We’ll have a couple of mojitos, please, D.J.,” she said, reading his name tag. “And why don’t you order one for yourself.”

  His cheeks colored. “Ma’am, we’re not allowed to drink on the job.”

  She leaned forward. Her green silk shirt brought out the emerald color of her eyes. “How long are we going to have to sit here and drink until your shift ends?”

  He glanced at a silver clock above the bar. “Um, about two hours. Do you want anything to eat?”

  “We need a little time to decide,” I said.

  He walked away, swaggering, as if he knew we were watching. “Every time I come here, I want to snog that boy,” Mandy told me. She checked her reflection in her knife and then raised her eyes to me and whispered, “I need need need to hear about Ryder.” Her eyes were bright, like when we were teenagers and she suggested we play strip poker with the neighborhood boys. “And Nic.” She said his name like an afterthought. “But mostly Ryder. Is he still in love with you?”

  “Mand.” I sipped my water. “That was a long time ago.”

  “Oh, honey,” she said. “That doesn’t matter. I know you better than anyone, and I know you have something to tell me.”

  I took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m going to talk, but you can’t ask any questions.”

  She scrunched up her nose. “Why?”

  “Because I’m not ready to answer them.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I get it.”

  “Promise?”

  “Scout’s fucking honor.”

  “He’s Ryder, but he’s not. He’s all serious now, with a buzz cut and monogrammed oxford shirts. He hasn’t even shaken my hand since I’ve been back.”

  She let out the breath she’d been holding. “That’s what you had to tell me?”

  D.J. came back and put our drinks down. He hesitated before leaving, as though wanting Mandy’s attention, but she plucked a mint sprig out of her glass and waited for me to speak. I realized too late that I was going to have to drink a lot to handle the smell of mint. “And?” she said when he left.

  “I can’t stop thinking about him.” I spoke quickly so I wouldn’t quit talking. “I don’t know if he hates me or loves me or what, but I feel like I’m fifteen all over again.” Mandy was the only one who’d known how crazy in love Ryder and I had been, and now she looked like she was going to explode. She took a huge sip of her drink and started to speak, but I said, “You promised.”

  “Okay, fine. It’s just that—” She stirred her cocktail with her pointer finger.

  “What?” My stomach felt weak. I didn’t know if it was from the mint, hunger, or finally talking about Ryder.

  “I always knew he’d be the one to make you come home.” She whispered it, like she didn’t know if she really wanted to say it.

  “Mandy, my dad has a brain tumor.”

  “Oh, I know that. I just, well … he’ll make you stay.”

  “Subject change, subject change.” My hands were sweaty from what I’d told her. “I’m serious. I want to talk about something else. Tell me about the married filmmaker.”

  “Hmm, Philip Philip Philip. I finally met his wife. She found me in his address book. We met while I was in Paris on a layover.”

  D.J. appeared again. “How’s the first round, ladies?”

  “Almost as delicious as you,” Mandy told him.

  “We need menus,” I said.

  We watched him weave between the round tables. “That boy is edible,” she said.

  “Wifey?” I prompted.

  “We went back to their place to talk.” She ran her finger around the rim of h
er glass, then licked it. “Philip was home when we got there. So…”

  I stared at her. “You didn’t?”

  She emptied her drink. “I hadn’t had a threesome since you came to visit me at Columbia.” She flashed her pretty teeth at me.

  “What was that guy’s name?”

  “Timmy. Whenever I see him in the city, he tells me how sexy you were when you played the piano at that cigar bar. Remember we sang ‘Born to Run’?”

  “Oh God,” I groaned.

  D.J. came back with two menus. “Thank you.” I could hear the soft slur in my voice. “Maybe we should eat something.”

  “We’ll have the shrimp satay and caprese salad,” she told him. She shoved the menus across the table so he’d leave, then leaned in and whispered, “But that’s not what I wanted to tell you.” She took a sip of her drink. “I want to have a baby.”

  I spit out my mojito. “A human baby?”

  She nodded. “I was fucking Philip and wifey, and they had pictures of their kids everywhere and their finger-painted artwork, and I just, you know, I’m ready for it. The husband, the spit-up, a house with, you know, food in the fridge.” She ate the mint leaf off my plate and a tiny fleck of green stuck to her glossed lips. “And I’m not getting any younger.”

  “Mand, we’re not even thirty.”

  “I know, but don’t you remember our master plan?”

  We’d sat in her blue bedroom with those Jane Goodall prints on the wall and made a pact about being married with babies by the time we were thirty. “It was just a silly dream,” I told her. “We were fifteen.”

  “And now we’re not.”

  I sat there, stunned. Of all the people I knew, Mandy was the last girl I thought would want a baby. She was so … free. “But you’re allergic to serious.” She’d been the new girl at school our sophomore year. I existed mostly in the world of Will and Ryder, but she was so easy to chat with when we had study hall together or when I saw her at lunch. After Will died, she was the only person I talked to.

  I’d almost convinced myself that just because my wild single friend didn’t want a baby, neither did I. As if reading my thoughts, she eyed my belly, which felt concave. “I’m surprised Nic hasn’t knocked you up yet.”

  Nic’s lazy drawl echoed in my head: We can’t fuck on the counter with a kid staring at us. “You know he doesn’t want kids.”

  “That’s a red flag.”

  I groaned again. “Mand—”

  “No, I’m just saying.” She put up her hands in defense. She sort of hated Nic for taking me away to Greece and marrying me and then hiding me away in Santa Fe. “Don’t you ever think about it?” she asked. When I didn’t answer, she said, “J.J.?”

  “Actually, this thing with my dad has gotten me thinking.” Mandy’s green eyes went wide. “We don’t have all the time in the world.”

  “You know what I think—” She put her chin in her hands.

  “I know what you’re going to say, and it’s bullshit. ‘Everything happens for a reason’—that’s what the minister said at Will’s funeral, and it made me want to throw up.”

  “Suit yourself, J.J. But you’ll see.”

  My phone rang, and I dug in my handbag for it. “It’s Ryder,” I told her. “Let me make sure my dad’s all right.”

  “He’s fine,” Ryder immediately said when I answered.

  “Mandy’s back from Madagascar,” I told him. I twisted my wedding band. “We’re at Liv’s”—I smiled at her—“and we’re a little drunk.”

  “Same as it ever was.” I could hear the laugh in his voice. “I just got off. There’s a band playing at Bar tonight.”

  I covered the phone and whispered this to Mandy. She crossed her arms over her chest. “I just got you to myself, and now he’s going to steal you away?” And then louder: “No fucking way, Ryder.”

  “I think that’s a negative,” I told him.

  “Okay, Miss Jenny.” He sounded a little sad. I was, too.

  “Sorry,” I said, and before I could keep the words from falling out of my mouth, I added, “I’ll call you later.” I hung up and tossed the phone back in my bag.

  D.J. set our plates in front of us. “Anything else?”

  “We’re fine,” Mandy told him. When he was gone, she leaned across the table. “You’re going to call him later?”

  I closed my eyes. “Hang on, I’m still trying to picture you in sweatpants with baby poo on your sleeve.” I opened my eyes. “Mandy, I love Nic.” I picked up my fork.

  She twirled a few hairs around her finger and watched me. “The same way you loved Ryder?”

  Typical Mandy, just lay it right out. “Look how well that turned out.” I slid a shrimp off the skewer.

  “Oh, girl.” She picked up her own fork. “If you hadn’t run away to boarding school, he would have loved you until eternity ended. After you left, he used to follow me around Hamilton, asking if I’d heard from you. I almost couldn’t wait for him to graduate”—she winked at me—“except he was so cute.” I watched her drizzle olive oil on a tomato.

  After that day I’d tried to tell Jamie what we’d done, I swore I’d never tell anyone about Will. And then I’d taken off for Andover without explanation. But now, a little drunk, sitting across from Mandy in that old restaurant where we used to go on our birthdays and double dates, I watched her toss a shrimp tail on her bread plate and suddenly wondered why not. Why hadn’t I told her? Maybe Mandy, who slept with married men and their wives and hung out with crocodiles in the Amazon, would understand, and then she’d know why I could never be with Ryder again. Because if I was with him, every night I would lie awake thinking about what we’d done to Will, and every morning I would get up having to face it again.

  D.J. came toward us, holding a small round tray above his head. On it were two shots with gold flakes floating in them.

  “Goldschläger,” he said, his hair over his eyes like a teenager. “Good news,” he told Mandy. “I got off early. If you want me, I’m all yours.”

  Her mouth opened in an O. “Actually, you’ll get off later.” She said those things without even trying. Everything, even his ears, turned red. As he walked away, she said, “Oh shit, and I told you to blow off Ryder.” She put her napkin on the table and turned toward the wait station. “I’m going to tell him to forget it.”

  “God no.” I pulled at her arm so she’d sit. “Go forth and start a family.” I giggled. “He’s good mating material.”

  “Oh, bite me,” she said. “I know how to let a boy down.” She started to get up again. “I’ve been doing it since grade school.”

  “Please,” I said. “I’m too drunk to stay out anyway.”

  “You could come with us.”

  “No way.” I was done with threesomes the night we played with poor Timmy. “Take Boy Wonder home, have a ball.” I took a sip of the shot. Cinnamon. “Are you ovulating?”

  She rolled her eyes. “How will you get home?”

  “Cab,” I said. “I love cabs. There aren’t any in New Mexico. None that I’ll get in alone anyway.”

  She picked up her shot.

  “One, two, three,” I said, and we downed them.

  I was in a lovely drunken glow, as if I were watching myself from the ceiling. Ryder’s voice kept coming back to me as if no time had passed, as if I’d never married the art professor and was now in the business of modeling nude for whoever would have me.

  “I’m so glad you’re home,” Mandy said. “Even if it is for a shitty reason. We’re going to have so much fun.”

  D.J. came back wearing faded jeans and a tight black T-shirt. He gave Mandy a hunky smile.

  “Where’s the check?” I asked him. I couldn’t quite control my tongue.

  “On the house,” he told me.

  Outside, I stood on the sidewalk and took my phone out of my bag. “Hey,” I said when Ryder answered. “Will you come get me?”

  * * *

  The next thing I knew, I was sitting at East
Rock Park with my feet dangling over the stone wall. Far below, the lights of New Haven spread out like stars. Ryder had his arm around me, and I was leaning against him. The sky had gone an inky black, and clouds shifted across the moon, but it all looked unfocused, blurry. Not because I was drunk, but because of my night blindness.

  “Do you remember?” he was asking me. A hundred feet above us, the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument was a fuzzy outline. The year before Will died, Ryder and I had climbed the eighty-seven steps to the top. It was the first time he told me he loved me.

  “I remember this.” I made a peace sign and put my fingers over my heart. It’d been our secret code, our silent I love you. Whenever Will went to the bathroom while the three of us were watching a movie or when we were at his football games, Ryder and I would sign back and forth.

  He smiled and picked his hand up like he might do it back, then stopped. “I had a patient once who was a sign-language translator. I actually asked her if that’s how you say ‘I love you.’”

  I wanted to tell him that wasn’t the only thing I remembered. As if reading my mind he said, “I remember everything.” He was watching me.

  I put my hand back in his jacket pocket. I’d put on the coat when we parked, soft, camel hair, not something he would have ever worn when we were kids. It was about seven sizes too big, and while we’d walked, arm and arm, up the steep slope to the top, I’d felt around in the pockets. I didn’t know what I wanted to find, but all I got was a crumpled wrapper.

  “Jenny, look at me,” he said now.

  I glanced at him, but his eyes were too intense. I made myself look away, at the monument. I knew that below it, carved in stone, were the cardinal virtues. I’d learned about them in ethics class: prudence, justice, temperance, and courage. I was exercising none of them.

  “Tell me what you think about us,” he said.

  “There is no us.” There was something frightening about Ryder. He was still the same boy who had taught me how to skip stones at Breakneck Lake, but with his sport jacket and banker haircut, it was like he was trying to be someone else. Or maybe he was and I just wanted him to be like he was before. Even the way he walked was controlled; everything was safe. Ironic as it was, the fact that he was safe scared the shit out of me. I tried to find my way to standing but lost my balance.