He went back upstairs. He ate a bowl of granola with milk. He put the bowl in the sink. He went into stealth mode and crossed the foyer, hoping to pass his father undetected. He looked into the living room and saw the Magritte on the wall and shadows across the hardwood floor and the coffee table and the couch and the credenza and beyond that the study and there the old man stood at the window, his back to the house. Looking at what? Armie wasn’t sure. His father appeared statue-like, draped in his heavy cabled cardigan with the professorial elbow patches, frozen in time.
Armie slipped into the pair of rain boots that were always in the closet, the only weather-appropriate footwear he saw, grabbed the spare slicker from the hook, and went out the front door. He pulled it closed slowly.
Out on the street the rain felt wonderful on his face and in his hair. He didn’t care how wet he got. It was a good idea to get wet, he thought. The wind had gotten strong and he had unexpected fun exerting significant energy with each step forward. You should be inside, he thought.
Fuck the old man. Well, that wasn’t true. He loved his father. He wanted him around. It was just that his father didn’t understand, well, basically anything about him. He didn’t understand why his mother went to church and why he went with her. Armie didn’t have the mental energy to get into the complicated reasoning behind why he went with her. If he told George it was just to be close to Audrey, the ridiculing would increase. “Grow some balls!” his father would say. Going to church did produce some strange feelings, though, he had to admit. He didn’t believe in God. His mother definitely did. Or at least she believed in something. What he liked, though, and he was reticent to admit this because he feared it might mean he did believe, was the structure of it. The shape it lent the days he attended Mass. It was an hour of the day he didn’t have to account for. Didn’t have to fill in. And so what if there were buried thoughts that maybe, even if he didn’t believe, his presence there might in some small way help his father get better, help his own life get better? What did it hurt to pray? To light a candle? To get on your knees and ask for something? Maybe he would just go to all the churches, all the temples, all the mosques. Ask every single deity out there to do something. Intervene. Help his father get better. Sure, the old man hated him. He was clearly the least favorite child. He knew this. This was known by all of them, but it didn’t mean he wanted his father to die. In his happier moments, when the future didn’t seem all dark and he imagined a way out of the basement, he liked to think, Maybe there’s something out there, something larger than us all. Maybe there has to be. Call it what you want.
His father scoffed and berated him and his mother when they left for Mass. By this point they preferred slinking out when he wasn’t looking. He insulted them, called them idiots.
Armie’s own notions of karmic debt also factored into things. He felt he owed a servitude to the universe. He had trouble separating himself from the many illegal things the Plaxo-Mineral Consortium Inc., and more specifically its subsidiary PG-Micnic Inc., had done. He felt complicit because he’d worked for them. He had taken their money, hadn’t he? And hadn’t that money come from, once the dust settled, let’s be honest, other people’s suffering?
Josef had gotten him the job, so naturally he blamed Josef. He remembered Josef selling the gig as “a golden opportunity!” Ha! “This is your chance to get in on the ground level of something major.” Already two years post-college and with no prospects, Armie had thought the decision seemed prudent. Josef called his pal Stephen Jansom over at PG-Micnic and within a week Armie had an interview and then the job. They’d given him stock options right off the bat, and the vesting period seemed ludicrously short. His title had been operations facilitator. He didn’t even know what it meant, really, or what his responsibilities actually were, other than getting the director coffee every morning and taking notes at important meetings. Nor did he have much time to find out.
A man had fallen out of a PG helicopter and been mauled by a lion. A fucking lion. This was in Africa, where the mines were. This was before the scandal broke about the falsified reports; the soil analyses claiming large quantities of gold deposits found in the mineral composition. Before all the legal action. Before all the mineral company’s capital went bye-bye. When the initial findings were charting into the stratosphere. PG’s stock soared and Armie soared with it. And so had his bank account. All that time without realizing he’d been weaving the ultimate worst karma. It came full circle fast.
It didn’t matter what lies PG-Micnic and Plaxo-Mineral told the world. It didn’t matter what scientist falsified what report or how much precious metal had been found in the dirt out at Western Deep No. 6 Shaft. None of that mattered. Half of PG-Micnic had been indicted. Two FBI agents came busting through the front door to haul his ass in for questioning. He’d lost the job, of course, the stock money, all of it, and it blew away the last of his self-confidence, which he’d been sorely wanting for in the first place.
* * *
Josef walked through the park. The howling, creeping gloom cast the landscape in shades of gray. The trees creaked as old stairs creak. He passed revelers in colored ponchos, hoods drawn, hooting and waving their hands at each other. He flashed them the thumbs-up. A branch cracked and crashed to the ground. He kicked the branch. He ran through puddles. He stopped and pried bark from a tree.
When he got to West Seventy-fourth he was soaked. He buzzed, expecting no answer. Who would be working today? He hadn’t even called to check. The door clicked. He went in.
Rain pelted the windows of the waiting room. Dr. Hammerstein leaned out her office door, peering at him over the top of her glasses. “Josef! Did you not get a message from my service?”
“I wasn’t even sure you’d be here.”
“Well, I live in the building.”
“I need to see you, Doctor.”
“You’re soaking wet. Do you want a few minutes?”
“Yeah, I need to make a call.”
“I do believe my schedule is clear.”
Linda Hammerstein: mid-fifties, in great shape and possessing (in Josef’s opinion) the most fantastic ass he’d ever seen on a woman (over age forty-five). He imagined it frequently, minus the shimmering black pants she favored. He imagined himself removing those pants. He imagined his mouth exploring the delicious dark places hidden beneath. He was aware that in the interest of “addressing his issues in an honest and productive way” (one of Hammerstein’s mantras), she as his therapist needed to reside firmly outside the realms of his sexual fantasies. No one was actually expecting him to draw that line, right? He recognized his obsessions taking over. He wasn’t oblivious. He spent so much time on the Internet—hunting porn, perusing craigslist casual encounters—it was beginning to worry him.
He hung his coat and went to the bathroom. He snatched paper towels from the stack on the sink and mopped his face and neck. He straightened his collar and adjusted his tie. He smoothed out his hair and pushed it back in place. His facial scruff was at the perfect level of five o’clock shadow.
* * *
He didn’t listen to anyone. He never had. He wouldn’t go to the hospital. He wouldn’t leave the study. She gave up. When she got back, she didn’t even check on him but went straight to the kitchen. Shadow followed her, his head down. She peeled off her jacket as she went, revealing the flowing white-and-gold kanga beneath it, which she wore in a styling all her own, both embracing the traditional African garment and casting it in a new light: held together at one shoulder by a simple gold clasp and cut to her knees to show off her legs. They looked pretty damn good, thank you very much. Her body felt lithe beneath the airy robe, her muscles taut. At sixty-five, she remained all sharp, elegant angles.
She’d bought the kanga in a Lalibela bazaar. She’d always been the eyes of the business. George had been the financial planner. He knew furniture. He knew enough, but his tastes never ran as deep as Ana’s and, more importantly, he was stubborn. His aesthetic was narrow. It wa
s Ana who had the eclectic style, the passion for exploration. Who’d kept the stock relevant and moving. She went to Africa. To India. To the UK. She frequented the West Coast. She brought back fabrics. She acquired the pieces. George ran the numbers. She dreaded the void his passing would leave. Not just in her life but in the business. How would she make it all work on her own? She was angry with him for not trying harder, for not getting up and out of that study. She was angry he would go first. It was supposed to be the other way around.
The last big trip she made had been to Ethiopia, right after George had recovered from the colectomy. At first she refused to make the journey. Dr. Karnam declared the surgery a major success, and he was the one more than anyone else who’d urged her to get away. “His scans are clear,” he told her. “His numbers are great. I think we got it. You deserve a rest. He’ll be here when you get back.”
She balked. She feared she’d go and then as soon as she got there she’d get the call. But George said he felt better. The kids coaxed her. Go, they said. Enjoy yourself. Bring back good stuff! Make sure it will sell, George added.
And she did feel like she needed a break. Caring for him through the early stages had been so taxing. She was, without question, wiped out. A breath of air would be nice, she thought. So she went. And with Armie back at the house, George convalesced and she traveled (for the most part) anxiety-free.
While standing among the echoing, majestic ruins of Lalibelan churches, she achieved a state of cathartic hopefulness not just about George and his chances of survival but about the course of her life as a whole. It had been good. It cleared her mind when she hadn’t even realized her mind needed clearing.
It had been a fleeting epiphany.
* * *
He meant to drop the curtain and was surprised to find that some neural signaling tangled itself between his brain and his hand and instead he dropped the phone. He patted his sweater and found the last pink pill. He’d been standing there much too long. He knew it was odd to stare out the window for hours, and in truth what he saw out there didn’t calm him anyway: the vast churning world that he would soon not be a part of.
He sat in his chair. He put his hands on the black leather of the writing desk—a Wylie & Lochhead from the 1880s. He’d found it at an estate sale, what, forty years ago? He’d disassembled it down to its twin plinth-based pedestals and hidden casters, hand-dipped the oak panels and relacquered them, coaxing out the original late-honey glow. He swapped out the blotter leather and added his own gilt tooling to the borders. He lined each of the side drawers with fresh ash and removed the reading slope from the center drawer on the right side, which he now opened to find the letter. He’d sealed it some months ago and written Ana’s name across the envelope, but it was addressed to the four of them. His hands shook. He put the letter down. He fumbled at his sweater pockets. How many Ativans had he already taken? How many was too many? He forgot. He was not feeling well. But when was he feeling well? Was a morphine patch in order?
“Ana!” he cawed.
She came to the doorway.
“George. What.”
“I . . .”
“What is it? Is it your heart? Did you take an Ativan?”
“Several!”
“Let’s go to the hospital now. Please? While we can. Karnam thinks it’s a good idea.”
“I talked to Josef. He’s coming to see me.”
“You did not talk to Josef. You’re having morphine hallucinations.”
“I don’t have a patch on.”
“Do you want to go to the hospital or not?”
“No,” he said, “I don’t!”
* * *
Charlie drove Melody into the valley along the Ventura Freeway to Sherman Oaks and through Sherman Oaks and on down past the gates and into the studio, where she was in the final weeks of filming installment three of the Thornglow saga: Thornglow: Serena’s Promise. In this ultimate showdown between Good versus Evil, Serena the vampire princess was poised to become a full-blown vampire queen and must sacrifice herself to save the life of her mortal paramour, Stuart. The second film, Thornglow: Night Unbound, had predictably ended in limbo, with Serena seemingly giving herself over to the ruler of the Underworld—the dark, sinister, and handsome Tibalt, whose plan was to steer his legions of demonic minions to world domination while taking Serena as his bride.
Charlie never read the books and hadn’t bothered to finish any of the scripts, but it wasn’t hard to guess that Serena didn’t come to a violent end, nor did she join up with Tibalt. The first two films each grossed just under a billion dollars worldwide, and predictions for the final film, which brilliant film executives had decided to split into two parts, were downright ludicrous. Melody’s face was on lunch boxes. A TV spinoff for one of the comic-relief characters was in the pipeline. The franchise had hit full ramming speed.
They parked and Charlie escorted Melody to the back lot, where the Nylon shoot was setting up. Melody wore black jeans, a black tank top, a large black belt, flats, enormous red sunglasses, and a serious amount of red lipstick. She cradled her head while she walked and moaned about how hungover she was and how unfair it was that she had to be up “so early” and what a “prick” Patrick Kuggle was. Charlie stuck a plate of catering-service fruit salad and a black coffee in her hands, then hightailed it back to the Volvo and zipped off toward Echo Park. Before she pulled off the lot, she fired out two texts, one to her mother and one to Rey.
To her mother: Sorry for delay. Everything okay with Dad?
To Rey: On my way from studio. Are you there yet?
By the time she got to the school it was 11:25. She sat in the car and tried to calm down until she saw Rey’s red Saab turn the corner. He coasted into the spot next to her. He pointed at an imaginary watch on his wrist. Unsure what this gesture meant, she got out, shouldered her bag, retied her hair, and closed the door with a whack of her ass.
“Where have you been?” Rey wanted to know.
“You just got here!”
“That’s what you’re wearing? Why are you crying?”
Melinda McCarthy’s office was small and white and anchored with diplomas. An undergraduate degree of some kind from USC, an MA in Learning Technologies, and an EdD in Educational Leadership, Administration, and Policy, both from Pepperdine. All three were lacquered and hung in a line behind her desk. Charlie kept looking at them instead of making eye contact. A large portion of another wall was covered in framed children’s artwork. The window looked out on the playground, and coincidentally Abbott’s class was out there. Laughter and shrieks made it hard to hear Melinda as she spoke about how Abbott “just wasn’t acclimating like the other children.”
Charlie tried to focus but kept looking sideways for a glimpse of her son. She saw him standing at the top of the slide. She loved him so fucking much. How could she not? Just the sight of the little bundle of frenetic energy made her smile. Abbott had one ensemble he allowed to touch his skin: blue pants and a My Little Pony T-shirt that Rey despised. And let’s face it, the boy got dirty, so she bought multiples. As an accessory he liked her to tie a handkerchief around his neck, bandit-style, and he often donned a miniature cowboy hat. He had a thing for cowboys and horses. Charlie had no clue when he’d acquired the obsession. It was just there one day, the word pony slipped out of his mouth, and now she heard it so many times it had begun to infiltrate her dreams. Rey hated it. He didn’t think she should indulge Abbott’s interest in “Westerns,” “ponies,” or “horses,” but it was one of the few ways to get the kid to do anything. She’d lost track of how many tantrums she’d quelled by putting on one of the Lone Ranger DVDs. They owned the entire series starring Clayton Moore, two hundred twenty-one episodes on nineteen discs purchased at a COSTCO in Glendale for forty-nine dollars after Abbott lay on the floor screaming until she agreed to buy it.
“Yeah, but surely kids are allowed to make a few mistakes?” Rey said. “They’re kids. They hit, they bite, they throw tantrums, righ
t?”
“It’s more than just a ‘few mistakes’ at this point,” Melinda said. “Connie needed two stitches on her neck.”
“Yes, yes,” Rey said. “Everyone keeps talking about the poor woman’s neck and I get it, it wasn’t cool what Abbott did, but my son isn’t a vampire, for God’s sake! The kid isn’t a Thornglow!”
Charlie knew that was for her benefit. Rey looked at her after he said it, throwing up his hands as if there wasn’t anything more to it. Charlie turned her attention away from the window.
“Hello!” Rey waved at her as if she’d just arrived. “I’m saying kids are kids. Right, honey?”
“What?”
Rey’s defense of Abbott was always tripartite. 1. Abbott was five. 2. Abbott was normal. 3. Abbott was experiencing a “phase” like any normal five-year-old. Rey had maintained these arguments since the beginning. Since the first time Abbott displayed inklings of any developmental abnormalities. Since the first speech evaluation, the first OT recommendation. The first time the word special entered their world. “He’ll grow out of it.” Rey’s catchall dismissal.
“The Horizon School isn’t a good fit for Abbott,” Melinda said.
Charlie took a breath and slid back in her chair. The kids in the yard screamed and frolicked. Rey raised one hand to his forehead.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “There must be other kids with ‘issues’ ”—he air-quoted here to indicate he did not necessarily think Abbott had any—“there must be steps we can take?” He snapped his fingers. “One of those extra teachers who follows Abbott around?”
“Abbott has one.” Charlie, speaking for the first time.
“What?”
“Abbott has one. Stacy. You met her at his last conference. She’s been working with him since last year.”
The Antiques Page 4
