These days Robert concentrated his efforts on the library, the last place anyone seemed to be looking for women; every guy he knew spent weekends rushing to frat and sorority parties, or driving to neighboring colleges. But in the university library, Robert could drop his pencil, pick it up, and ask a pretty girl if it belonged to her. Or sit across from her at a study table and place his hand by hers, hoping she wouldn’t pull away. Perhaps it was the romantic lighting that gave him courage, but his risks were often rewarded. He’d made out behind the stacks with several girls. One had asked him to take a walk with her and they’d gotten carried away behind a tree and, had it not been for the cold, he might have had quite an evening. But Robert did not discuss these encounters with Zinnelli or anyone else.
“A car would be a big advantage,” Zinnelli continued, placing a stack of dry dishes on the shelf. “Speaking of which, I saw you the other day, driving down College Avenue. It had to be his car, right? The green MG?”
“He lets me borrow it sometimes,” Robert said. Though Robert rarely spent time outside the room with Tracey, his roommate was generous with his things.
“My roommate won’t lend me so much as a goddamned T token,” Zinnelli spat. “Tell me, how does the military-industrial complex manage to have a car on campus freshman year?”
“Parks it in a garage in Davis Square.”
“Must be nice,” Zinnelli said. “Anyway, you looked good in that car.”
“That’s a laugh,” Robert said, though he knew it was true. In Tracey’s car, like in Tracey’s shirts, he felt like a better version of himself. Once he’d heard Tracey on the hall phone with Mark Pascal: “You never met anyone who loves to run errands as much as my roommate. The guy comes back from buying typing paper, or mittens, and he’s whistling.”
Still, being Tracey’s roommate cost money. He refilled the gas tank if he drove the car for too long, and with wearing Tracey’s fancy shirts, he’d found it necessary to buy a few pairs of pants. Then sometimes he’d eat out with his roommate, insisting that they split it because Robert did not feel right letting Tracey always pick up the tab. Books were more expensive than he’d expected, too, and on and on it went.
“Almost four weeks off,” Zinnelli said, whistling, as they walked outside into the cold.
“Not at my house,” Robert replied, watching his breath freeze and then disappear.
“Mine neither,” Zinnelli said. “No such thing as a holiday if you own a bar. My old man works me like a slave.”
Robert nodded. Zinnelli took off his mitten and shook Robert’s hand formally. “Let’s hope for a good 1966,” he said. “Let’s hope the war ends.”
* * *
HOME WAS SOMETHING VERY different to him now, even as everything and everyone seemed exactly the same. The smells were the same, the family party to celebrate his arrival, the food, cooked for days in the narrow house, his grandmother coming toward him, her hands outstretched. For the first day all was joy and congratulations, but he’d hardly unpacked his fancy shirts when his mother was back to her usual song.
He’d stayed at school until as late as possible, making good money shoveling snow and working for the maintenance staff. “They paid you so well,” Stacia said, “you couldn’t stay longer?”
“The buildings close,” he said. “Even janitors get to take a fucking Christmas holiday.”
“Is that how they teach you to talk at college?”
For the next three weeks, every time he made the smallest mistake she would go back to the same refrain: “For a boy who’s in college, you act like an idiot.” Or “Smart college brain, do it again!” He felt as if she was somehow proud of him for forgetting where she kept things, or how she liked him to do certain chores, as if his confusion was a sign of his superiority, his education—and at the same time she was punishing him for leaving. On New Year’s Day, before the family dinner, she gave him a list of things to do. He complained that he deserved a few days to sleep in, that Barry hardly did anything around the house and, anyway, she had no idea how hard college was. In response, she simply pointed to the living room recliner where Vishniak had passed out snoring because he was so done in that anywhere he parked himself, for even a minute, resulted in his nodding off.
Evenings Robert worked bagging groceries, but during the day he worked at his uncle Frank’s appliance repair shop, clearly doomed as all his family’s endeavors seemed to be. There were few customers, and Frank made him do so little that Robert felt guilty taking the money. He tried to clean and organize the dusty back room, coughing and suffering with his breathing, convinced he was at least helping his uncle, but he soon saw that he had made things worse—for weeks afterward Frank couldn’t find half his supplies, and he even lost customers, thinking he had finished and returned a toaster or a Mixmaster that had been there all along.
But life was most uncomfortable with his brother, who had leapt into puberty with nary a clue. One afternoon, with an hour off between jobs, Robert came home to find Barry sitting in the kitchen with a girl named Mary Ryan, the two of them eating cookies and drinking milk. Barry was trying to take advantage of the forty-five-minute gap before their mother came home, but he was not doing it as successfully as Robert had, and Mary Ryan was a tough case. Robert had gone to Central with her brother, Owen, who was now at Villanova; Mary was at Girls’ High. The Ryans, who came from the other side of the Boulevard, were smart and sarcastic, and if Mary was anything like her brother, Barry would never get her to bend to his will. Robert sat down with them for a minute, surprised to see that Barry could barely make eye contact or conversation with the girl. He talked his brother up, trying to make Barry’s job easier. Mary turned her chair toward him and listened, hardly saying a word. When he asked about her brother, she said that Robert should come over and visit while he and Owen were both at home. Robert said he would, knowing he wouldn’t, and got up to leave, thinking nothing of it. But according to Barry, from then on Mary went home each day after school, hoping upon hope that Robert would stop by. She blamed Barry because Robert never showed, and Barry blamed Robert when Mary said she only wanted to be friends.
“What would I want with some pimply-faced fourteen-year-old?” Robert asked, annoyed that his good deed went unnoticed. In response, Barry gave him the finger and ran up the steps, humiliated. When had his brother ever acted humiliated? Where was his spirit? Knocking on Barry’s door, Robert was told to go fuck himself.
“I’m sorry,” he said to the door. “She’s a very attractive girl.”
Had he returned home solely to be the family scapegoat?
Even his old bed felt too small for him. His feet hung out, and there was no way that his mother would ever buy a larger one —he did not even ask. Each morning of his vacation he woke up with a stiff neck, and when the day came for him to go back to Boston he felt as if he’d been rescued all over again.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Mrs. Trace
Toward the end of freshman year, Tracey announced that his mother was coming to Boston. “My father’s sent her,” he said, “probably to get me to study harder. Her errand is futile, Vishniak.” But futile or not, she wanted to take Tracey and his roommate to lunch.
Tufts and Harvard had their official visitation weekends back in October, but plenty of parents came on other weekends as well. Just after Christmas break, Robert had met Mark Pascal’s father, and Van Dorn’s mother arrived in March. Both had taken out large parties of their sons’ friends, including Robert and Tracey and five or six others. The group was big enough that Robert could blend in, required to say no more than “Pleased to meet you” and “Thank you for inviting me” to the adults at the table. Both times they went to a popular steak restaurant in Cambridge that required he wear a jacket and tie, and both times, to Robert’s astonishment, the parent involved picked up the check for eight or ten hungry boys as if it were nothing at all.
They were to meet Mrs. Trace at a Chinese restaurant about halfway between Chinatown and the red-
light district. Robert was surprised but also intrigued—it was not exactly an upscale part of town. He had never been to a Chinese restaurant before, did not know what to expect; it was hard enough eating American food in front of Tracey, and the best he could hope for was to get through the afternoon without making a fool of himself.
“Mother’s on an Oriental kick,” Tracey explained, as he parked the MG off a fishy-smelling alley. “When I was six, it was astronomy; she had to have a telescope. Two years later, she enrolled in cooking school. I could go on and on. She has a lot of energy.”
Robert didn’t know how to reply, but then they were at their destination, a nondescript red door. Inside, the tables were set with white tablecloths, their plates and delicate teacups decorated with intricate patterns. At each setting was a pair of red ceramic chopsticks. On the walls hung framed pieces of parchment, each with one Chinese character drawn in the center. Waiters in red jackets glided along polished dark wood. When she spotted the two boys, Mrs. Trace stood up to greet them. She was tall and thin, with a strong jaw and long neck accentuated by straight, pure-white hair that came just to her chin. She took Robert’s hand in both of hers, and her palms were warm. The waiter arrived, and she ordered food for the table in halting Chinese—she had a tutor for the language, she told Robert, was leaving for Hong Kong in just a few weeks. There wasn’t much authentic Chinese food here in the States, she complained, and this place, recommended by a Chinese friend, was the closest she could come in Boston.
Robert liked the freckles across her narrow nose, and how she bounced up and down in her seat when she said something emphatic, which was often. She made “You must try the duck feet!” sound as if world peace depended on it. Tracey was silent, which gave Robert permission to do the same, and they became her attentive audience.
The waiters filled their glasses with white wine—had there even been wine on the menu? Then they brought bowls of clear soup with vegetables and chunks of fish. Tracey took up his chopsticks and Robert did the same, struggling the first few times, dropping a stick in his lap, and finally managing to imitate how Tracey picked out pieces of food from the broth. After a few minutes Mrs. Trace picked up her bowl, blew on the contents, and drank from the rim. Robert looked to Tracey for direction as Cates came through the entrance. As he got closer, Mrs. Trace patted the empty chair on her left. Tracey had not mentioned that Cates was invited.
Cates settled himself, declining soup as two waiters arrived now with an endless stream of dishes covered with domed lids that were pulled back one by one to reveal: a whole fish; thick violet slices of eggplant dotted with scallions; piles of curling squid sautéed in spicy brown sauce; a bowl of vegetables that looked like tossed blades of grass, and pieces of chicken on a nest of transparent noodles that were thin as human hair. Robert watched Mrs. Trace fill a small bowl by her plate with rice and spoon delicate portions of food into the bowl. As she ate, she talked about Claudia Cates’s wedding, which had taken place the week before at a country club in Baltimore. She was enraptured, motioning her chopstick in the air like a conductor. The bride looked gorgeous! The groom grinned endlessly! Young love, so refreshing! In between such exclamations, Robert also learned that Cates’s parents were divorced and didn’t even sit at the same table at the reception. “You’d think, for Claudia’s sake,” she said, as Cates stared into his plate, and Tracey told her to change the subject.
“You’re right, dear,” Mrs. Trace said, then went on as before. “Claudia and Charlie! So happy! So chic! None of the usual ‘going to the gallows’ expressions on either of them. Tracey, you should have seen your father at our wedding. Sweating, checking the fire exits like he was about to run for it.” She looked at Robert. “I converted for him, you know. I was raised in the Russian Orthodox Church, but that wouldn’t do. Too much smoke and mirrors! Too much Byzantium! Plus it was his second marriage, and my church didn’t approve of divorce —”
“Mother,” Tracey interrupted, finishing off his wine and refilling his glass.
“So Mr. Trace had plenty of reason to fear it wouldn’t work. And I had reason to fear eternal purgatory.” She laughed loudly. Was she drunk? Or was this her natural state? “And then men so hate to fail and, well, here we are, twenty years later.” She paused for a moment. “So Robert, let’s hear about you.” Then, not allowing him time to reply, she added, “Where are you from? What’s your major? I bet you have a girlfriend, more than one perhaps?” She scooped up some rice and a piece of eggplant from the small round bowl by her plate, and Robert thought he’d been forgotten, but then she added, “And your family? What does your father do?”
Robert looked at the fish in the center of the table, the body stripped of its meat so that nothing but a long spine of bone and a few strips of shiny gold skin were left to connect the head, with its watery black eye, to the tail. A waiter refilled their tea and brought more wine. Cates and Tracey looked at him intently. Mrs. Trace waited, for once, silent. No one changed the subject.
“My parents work for the government,” Robert finally replied.
“Oh?! We have a history of public service on my side of the family, too,” Mrs. Trace said. “I tell Tracey all the time—a diplomatic career is a wonderful way to see the world.”
“I’ve already seen the world,” Tracey mumbled.
Was she just being polite? She seemed to genuinely believe he could be the child of diplomats. He looked across to a mirrored wall and, seeing his face, had an urge, almost, to wink at his own reflection.
“You boys have to get back to your studies,” she said, ceasing, all at once, to be interested in them. Robert had no idea why. Cates excused himself to use the men’s room. Mrs. Trace got up, smoothed out her clothes and walked toward the door. Robert grabbed Tracey’s arm. “Don’t we have to pay?”
“She arranges it beforehand,” he whispered. “Hates seeing bills. You worry too much.”
Cates joined them out on the sidewalk. It was a cloudless early-spring day, and Mrs. Trace was now emphatic about going to the Commons to see the swan boats. She apologized that there wasn’t more room in Tracey’s car to give them both a ride, but Cates reminded her that he had a car. She kissed each boy on the cheek as they thanked her for lunch. Robert watched the pair drive away, wondering what it was like having such a sophisticated, attractive mother, even if she did seem easily distracted.
He and Cates walked in silence. They passed a strip club. The neon signs promising Sexy Girls and Live Nude had been turned off so that the words appeared as nothing but empty glass tubing. “You must be hungry, Vishniak,” Cates said. “You dropped half your lunch on the floor.”
Robert, still feeling relieved and elated after his performance at lunch, laughed. “I am hungry, come to think of it.”
Cates, getting so little reaction, did not give up. “Nice how you get these free meals.”
“I notice how you’re always in the john when the check comes,” Robert replied.
They had arrived at Cates’s car, and he took out his keys. Robert offered him his hand to shake—he was in too good a mood to let Cates ruin his day—but Cates stared off toward the distant skyline, not seeming to notice Robert’s offering, or purposefully ignoring it.
“Hey, Vishniak,” Cates said a moment later, as if suddenly remembering Robert was standing there. “Don’t spread it around. You know, about my parents?”
Before Robert could answer, Cates got in his car, slammed the door, and started the motor, about to drive off. Robert walked quickly to the driver’s side and knocked hard and repeatedly on the window until Cates rolled it down.
“What now?”
“You want a favor? How about waiting for my answer?” Robert asked. “Or offering me a ride?”
“I’m not going your direction,” Cates replied with a slight smile. “Now get the hell out of my way before I run you over.” Then he sped off, leaving Robert on the sidewalk, puzzled and annoyed. Cates and his sister were some pair—they wanted him to keep their sec
rets yet offered him nothing but contempt in return.
HOURS LATER, ROBERT CAME back from the library to find Tracey lying on his bed, the reading lamp on, though he did not appear to be reading. On his chest he balanced a shot glass with a thin line of gold-colored liquid. “What time do you get up in the morning these days, Vishniak? Seven?”
Robert nodded, and to his surprise Tracey told him to wake him at the same time. He was going to the library. “Don’t let me wave you away,” he added, “no matter what I say.”
Tracey didn’t look so well. His expression was uncharacteristically serious, as if he’d been chastened by his mother’s visit, which clearly wasn’t so futile after all. Robert flopped down on his bed and the springs made an awful sound under his weight. “How long you been here by yourself?”
“Hours.”
“Doing what?”
“Thinking”
“What about?”
Tracey sat up and finished off his drink. “That story Mother told at lunch? About her converting? It’s true, you know. She was a believer but she gave it up for Father. And she’s been grabbing at distractions ever since, so as not to notice how miserable she is.” He stood up and poured Robert a drink, though Robert had not asked. Then he walked over to Robert’s bed and held out the glass, which Robert was forced to take though he did not want it. Tracey pulled up a chair and sat down. He put his feet up on the edge of Robert’s bed and then leaned forward, assessing him. Had Tracey noticed all the food he’d left on the floor at the restaurant? Should he not have asked about the check? Maybe Cates had said something to him. Robert’s behavior might have passed muster with the mother, but clearly not with the son. So why tell him all this?
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