Bill Warrington's Last Chance

by James King

  “Shall I make coffee? Or has the health department cordoned off the kitchen?”

  “Have you decided to forgive me about April?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that answers that, I guess. So to what do I owe the pleasure?”

  Marcy pushed aside her coat and an armful of newspapers to make room on the couch. She rubbed her hands together, not quite sure why her pulse was racing, why she was finding it so difficult to begin.

  “Spill it,” her father said, smiling.

  “Huh?”

  “You’ve never had trouble speaking your mind before,” he said.

  True enough. But this was different.

  “Have you tried Mike and Nick again like I asked you to?”

  The “like I asked you to” was enough. She almost thanked him for it.

  “Two things,” she said. “First, if you want to get together with me and Nick and Mike, you’re going to have to call them yourself. I already tried Nick, like I told you months ago. At least three times I’ve told you this.”

  “I know that. I thought you were going to ask him again.”

  “I did. He wants to know why you want a family reunion. I don’t know why, so I can’t tell him. Only you know why.”

  Bill nodded. Marcy wasn’t sure how to interpret it. Was he being condescending or coy?

  “So you want to tell me why?” she asked, almost surprised she wasn’t yelling. Yet.

  “What’s the second thing?”

  “It’s time to think about moving out of this dump.”

  Her father’s eyes flickered, as if he finally recognized the tactic she had always taken with him: talk about something else, something completely unrelated to the request she was about to make, and then suddenly let it fly, as if simply underscoring the need to correct a glaring and prolonged injustice. It’s time to let me sleep over at . . . It’s time to let me start dating . . . It’s time to extend my curfew . . .

  She imagined the technique was cute when she was a little girl. Less cute when she was a teenager. Maybe not at all cute now.

  “That how you sell houses?” he asked. “Time to sell this dump? This dump, by the way, used to be your home.”

  “Ah. So you remember what I do for a living.”

  Her father looked startled, as if he had been caught in a lie—or, at the very least, was trying to figure out the connection between what he’d said about selling houses and his daughter’s vocation. He looked like he was trying to figure something out. Almost as if he’d said the thing about selling houses without realizing what he was saying.

  “Of course I remember,” he said, putting his pipe in the ashtray with a ping. “Getting tired of you asking me that.”

  “It was a statement, not a question,” Marcy said. Why was it that every time she came into this house she immediately turned twelve again?

  “I’m talking about respect,” her father said, his eyes boring into her. “I built this house, you know—”

  “Boy, oh boy, do I,” Marcy said, feeling herself losing her grip. “ ‘I’m your father! Respect me!’ ” she mimicked. “Well, you know something, Billy Boy, being able to produce kids doesn’t automatically earn you—”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about this house! I built this home for your mother, and even though I couldn’t know it back then, I built it for you kids. I don’t remember it being such a hellhole. I don’t recall a time you didn’t have this roof over your head. The heat never got cut off. There was always food in the fridge. Your mother loved this house. Show it some fucking respect!”

  Marcy sat up straight. Her father had always been strictly a hell-and-damn kind of cusser. She didn’t recall him ever dropping the f-bomb. And she couldn’t recall ever seeing him look hurt.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Truly.”

  When she looked up, she saw that her father was watching her carefully.

  “Now,” he said, his eyes narrow, as if trying to decide if she was putting him on. “What about that granddaughter of mine?”

  She held his eyes for only a moment before looking away.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Nick sat at the Gallaghers’ country-style kitchen table and marveled at how so many fathers managed to raise sons without strangling them.

  Across from him, arms folded against his chest, hands clenched into fists beneath his biceps, lips set to sneer, sat Bobby Gallagher. Next to a plate with a half-eaten pizza slice was a marked-up copy of the latest version of his college application essay. He’d barely glanced at it.

  “Your mother said tomorrow’s the deadline, right?” Nick asked. Bobby gave a half nod.

  “Well, then. Are you interested in reviewing the suggestions?”

  Bobby had never been what anyone would describe as polite in the three months since they’d met, but he’d never before been so openly hostile as his glare made him out to be now.

  Maybe he was just angry that he couldn’t procrastinate any longer. Maybe he was upset that Nick had the nerve to make even more suggestions after two previous drafts. Maybe Bobby thought—as Nick had to admit was often his own attitude when he submitted his articles to the magazine—that the essay was perfect as is and resented any feedback that questioned its brilliance.

  Not that previous occasions had given Nick reason to expect any sign of gratitude. Whenever Peggy wasn’t involved in some charitable event or dealing with a family issue and agreed to “get together”—a strange way to describe a date—Bobby preferred to ignore Nick rather than subject himself to his mother’s orders while she “made some final adjustments” in getting ready for the night out. Without exception, those orders were to review progress on the essay with “Mr. Warrington,” and almost without exception, Bobby had barely changed a word of it since the previous visit. But since it was obvious the two of them weren’t going to discuss batting averages or the NFL draft, Nick usually just edited the thing while Bobby scowled.

  Nick actually liked the piece more than Bobby seemed to. Instead of waxing grand on why he wanted to expand his horizons during his forthcoming university years, Bobby had written about a homeless woman he saw frequently on the streets of Woodlake. He described her vividly, if ungrammatically, along with his “feelings of uneasiness” at driving by her in an expensive automobile. And rather than rant against the injustices of today’s society and how an education at the University of X would prepare him to someday address these important issues, which have always been of burning importance for him blah blah blah, Bobby took a different tack. He “confessed” that the old lady living in her cardboard box did not change his desire to earn money—lots of it. But what the old lady did do, he wrote, was make him realize that he was one of the lucky ones. And even if he worked for a huge company and made a lot of money and even if he in some direct or indirect way helped widen the gulf between the rich and poor in this country, he would always remember that, compared to that lady and thousands and thousands like her, he was lucky. And with luck came responsibility to not screw it up.

  “Losers,” Bobby wrote in his final sentence, “blow it.”

  While Nick appreciated the essay’s youthful candor, he wasn’t convinced that an admissions officer was going to chase after a candidate whose primary motivation was to avoid making a mistake. Recognizing the irony of his own eagerness not to “blow it” with Bobby, Nick had originally decided on a tops-of-the-trees revision strategy. He’d gently suggest rephrasing some of the sentences to put a more positive spin on the piece without sacrificing its voice or its vibrancy. He’d demonstrate the proper use of the semicolon, the correct placement of a comma or period when used with quotation marks, and the logical structure of a powerful, persuasive argument.

  Bobby, of course, couldn’t have cared less. He treated Nick with the disdain of a jock listening to the class nerd explain the dangers of dangling participles.

  Even now, feeling the seventeen-year-old bore holes in his face with his glare, Nick chalked
it up to the understandable suspicion that any teenager might have about a man dating his mother. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t like it if his own widowed father started dating a woman tomorrow, and he hadn’t so much as spoken to the man in a year. Of course, Bobby’s dad wasn’t dead, which probably made seeing his mother with another man all the more upsetting. He once asked Peggy if this might be the reason Bobby seemed at times—Nick chose his words carefully here—offended at something about him or perhaps at something he had said.

  “I doubt his father has anything to do with this,” she said, waving her hand in dismissal. “It’s probably oedipal.”

  “Oedipal?”

  “Yeah, you know—the guy who had sex with his mother.”

  “Yes, yes, I know what it means.” But his unasked question was this: Did all mothers consider the possibility that their sons wanted to sleep with them, or did Peggy have some deeply subconscious and creepily incestuous but unrealized belief that all men found her attractive, even her son?

  Whatever the reason for Bobby’s insolence, Nick couldn’t help growing increasingly irritated every time his attempts at small talk were met with a grunt, shrug, or eye roll.

  But then, three nights ago, he received an e-mail from Peggy with her son’s essay attached. Finally got him 2 get off his a** and input your suggestions. Wld u mind taking one FINAL (promise) peek? Dedline in 3 days. Any suggestions will b appreciated!!! Me

  It was the promising “Me” that spurred Nick to open the document, print it, and get to work immediately. Bobby had indeed made a few changes, but missed quite a few others, which Nick reiterated in the margins and then wrote what he thought was a congratulatory note at the end, telling Bobby it was a fine essay and wishing him all the best with his application. But judging from the way Bobby was ignoring the paper now, it would be a while before he read that hopefully rapport-building message.

  “Something wrong?” Nick asked, finally.

  “Just wondering,” Bobby said.

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. I’m wondering,” Bobby said, slowly, “what kind of loser agrees to correct some kid’s spelling . . . just so he can have sex with that kid’s mother.”

  Nick sat back. Clearly, it had been a long time since he’d been a teenager. But didn’t a few generations have to pass before things came to this, when even the kids from “good” homes so easily and profanely expressed their disrespect and disdain?

  He heard noises overhead. Peggy, getting ready for their night out. The sounds of her footsteps, of a door or a drawer opening and closing, somehow spoke to the accusation. Why else had he, Nick, called Peggy last night to say that he’d read the essay and caught a few typos and was ready to review it with Bobby—and, oh, by the way, did she like jazz? Nick blushed, which only stoked his anger. What did this kid, this spoiled near-illiterate, know about his intentions? While the idea of having sex crossed Nick’s mind more and more frequently as he continued seeing Peggy, the act itself was far less alluring to him than being with Peggy. Releasing sexual tension, he’d shamefully rediscovered after Marilyn’s death, wasn’t all that difficult. What was difficult was being alone. The more he saw Peggy, the more he realized how much he missed just being with someone, spending time with a friend. Well, not just a friend: a woman. Just to feel, if only for a few hours, like part of a couple, to smell perfume, to marvel at smooth skin and delicate lines and softness.

  “Look, Bobby,” Nick said, quietly, looking directly into Bobby’s sullen eyes. “I’ve been doing this as a favor to your mom. She apparently believes you’re much smarter than this essay would lead someone else—such as a university or college admissions officer—to believe. If you don’t want my help, fine. But if you intend to sit there with your hands in your armpits and insult me and, by inference, your mother, then screw you.”

  Bobby’s eyes widened, but only for a moment.

  “I’m not changing this into some phony, kiss-ass essay.” He sounded to Nick just a little less sure of himself.

  “Have I ever suggested that?” Nick asked. He pointed at the paper. “What you’ve got there is good. But it won’t work with too many typos and too many disjointed thoughts. If you want me to help you fix those, fine. If not, that’s fine, too. Enjoy minimum wage.”

  That finally elicited the reaction Nick had all but given up hoping for. Bobby actually laughed.

  Nick moved to the chair next to Bobby’s and began walking through the paragraphs. He explained how to correct a few run-on sentences that had been pointed out before, the proper use of “it’s” instead of “its,” and—here he started losing Bobby again—how to correct several confusing disagreements between pronouns and antecedents. He resisted, as he had during previous reviews, the frequent temptation to ask Bobby, “Didn’t they teach you this stuff in grade school?” When they finished reviewing the paper, Bobby didn’t exactly rush off to revise his work and get it ready for submission the next day, but he did grumble a “thanks” before calling out to his mother that he was going out.

  Now the kitchen was empty. Nick hoped Peggy would be ready soon. They were running late as it was, and he’d paid a lot for the tickets. He was especially eager to hear Sonny “Bones” Markham, billed as a top up-and-coming jazz pianist. Marilyn had always loved jazz; it was after a jazz concert, in fact, that she snuck Nick up into her dorm room to spend the night with her. It was most excellent foreplay, she had said of the jazz. From that point on, Nick got serious about his collection.

  “Nick?”

  The voice startled him.

  “Next to the fridge, on the wall. The intercom.”

  Nick chuckled as he found it. He wasn’t sure he’d ever before been in a house big enough to need an intercom. He pressed the talk button. “Kitchen to Base. Do you read me? Over.”

  “Nick, I’m so sorry.”

  What was she was apologizing for? Her lack of appreciation for his corny intercom talk? Her tardiness? He reflexively checked his pocket for the tickets, and then pressed the talk button again. “Everything all right, Peg?”

  “It’s just that I can feel another of these damned migraines coming on.”

  Migraines had been among the worst aspects of Marilyn’s ordeal. She started getting them when she began chemotherapy. When one set in, she needed to stop moving immediately. It freaked Nick out, the way she’d lie there, so still, barely breathing on the bed, or on the kitchen floor, or in the upstairs hallway, wherever she happened to be when the attack began. He wanted to lift her up and cradle her head, or just settle next to her and hold her hand, the way they often did at night as they fell asleep. But Marilyn would plead with Nick to just block out the light. All light. He would do his best, stepping around her as quietly possible. He always felt he was getting an unwelcome preview of what was ahead: Marilyn on her back, eyes closed; Nick looking down at her, helpless and hopeless. And then she would ask Nick to leave.

  So much for seeing Bones Markham tonight.

  He pressed the button. “How can I help?” he asked.

  “It’s not bad yet, but I know from experience that it’s going to get worse.” Her voice sounded staticky, but strong. “I’m so sorry, Nick, but I just don’t think I can go out tonight.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Just feel better. Marilyn used to get these and she—”

  He let go of the button. When was he going to stop making this mistake? It was pitiful, really, this constant referencing.

  He pressed the talk button. “Can I bring you a glass of water or something?”

  “It’s okay, Nick. Really. I’ve found that these things just take time. I’m glad you understand. And I’m sorry, but can you show yourself out?”

  “Of course. Feel better. I’ll call you.”

  He waited for her reply, but it didn’t come. She must have collapsed back on her bed, awaiting the agony. He wondered if he should take a glass of water up to her, but decided against it. She needed complete quiet. He picked up his keys from the kitchen table and to
ok Bobby’s dish with the pizza scraps to the sink. Since he knew firsthand that the last thing Peggy would want to see if she came downstairs to get aspirin or something stronger was a pile of dirty dishes, he found a dish towel, threw it over his shoulder, and got to work.

  It was nice, actually, standing at the kitchen sink, in front of a window that looked out onto a nicely maintained backyard. The hot water was calming, the task of drying somehow important, and the feeling of someone else in the house was incredibly comforting. He took his time.

  Since jazz wasn’t on the agenda, he needed a new plan for the evening. There was the article that Ginny had just assigned him, but why ruin the evening completely by even thinking about Ginny Eastland?

  A perfectly nice young woman, Ginny. Early thirties. Good figure. Probably married to some yuppie broker or software genius, judging from the clothes she paraded about in, clothes that most people on the editorial end of publishing can’t afford. It wasn’t her fault that the industry was changing. She wasn’t to blame for last month’s reorganization. She might even be excused for the condescending way she’d described to him the “new direction” of the company by explaining her suggestion that Nick give the “telecommute thing” a try. The message was clear enough: telecommute or terminate. “We want fresh,” she’d said. She also encouraged him to freelance on the side, which only a complete buffoon would confuse with anything other than an undisguised hint that the squeeze-out was on. But she kept sending him assignments, and he had to be grateful for that. Hadn’t he?

  Focus on the positive, he told himself as he dried his hands on the dish towel and draped it along the rim of the sink. He let himself out of the house, careful to close the door quietly. Even the slightest sounds were murder on migraines.