“Hello, Mama.”
“How could you have not made a phone call? For Pete’s sake, you’re one of those with the phone implanted surgically to your ear. Most of the time you’re so busy making calls that you don’t even talk to the people in the room.”
“Nice to see you, Mama—”
“Mitchell came romping in here, and I didn’t have a stitch of clothes on other than these bedclothes. And you know we watch the nine o’clock news. If you had called, we would have told you not to make us miss the news. Why didn’t we get a phone call?”
“You watch the nine o’clock news? I forgot about the nine o’clock news.”
“And did you forget my workday begins at Lathrop before seven o’clock in the morning?”
My workday begins early as well, Sarah wanted to say.
“There wasn’t time to call,” Sarah explained instead. “We were on the expressway. We were only five blocks away.”
“I thought you had better manners than to just show up without calling.”
Sarah heard Mitchell’s shouts from outside. Every so often, a flashlight beam would slash across the curtains. Mitchell and Harold must be rifling through leaves, searching for the remaining McIntosh apples. As she listened to her son’s happy chatter, Harold’s low-pitched, patient suggestions, it occurred to Sarah that, of all the things she’d tried, she’d finally found the one pursuit to win herself back into Mitchell’s good graces.
“Did you forget the importance of my job, Sarah? I don’t even have a high school diploma and look what I’ve done after forty-one years. No degree and I’m making more money than Harold.”
Sarah felt even more drained than when she first walked in. I should have known better than this, she thought.
Trying to remember something positive, she thought about how many times she had hugged Harold good night when she was little. How many times he had asked her to tell him about the things that made her afraid. Often when she’d been scared, he’d tucked her in with that flashlight. Oh, how she enjoyed seeing that flashlight of his!
“Would you just listen to those two out there?” Jane had given up on her sodden robe and was now using her hands to scoop ice from the carpet. Sarah bent to help. Each cube ringed the glass with a condemning clink. “Just look what you’re asking of Harold. He’s not even the child’s grandfather, and you’ve got him out there climbing trees.”
Sarah’s hand froze. Yes, she’d expected her mother’s bitterness. But she was surprised by its force. “What did you say?”
“In the middle of the night. Taking care of your child. Don’t you think that’s asking a great deal of him, Sarah?”
“I know, Mama.” Oh, don’t say it. Don’t let her bait you into this. But she couldn’t stop herself. “Wasn’t it asking Harold a whole lot to ask him to raise me too?”
Jane’s face shot up. The censuring twist of her mouth couldn’t have cut Sarah any deeper if it had been administered with a scalpel. Clink went the ice in the glass. Clink. Clink.
In her mother’s embittered eyes, Sarah read the accusation again, the same resentful indictment that had been pouring into Sarah’s heart as long as she could remember. Well, you’d sure better amount to something in your life because you certainly made a mess out of mine.
The door slammed open and the two boys, one big and one small, tottered inside with their arms laden with apples. “Well now.” Harold helped Mitchell balance his stash as they headed toward the kitchen. “I guess we found a few more out there.”
Sarah shot up off the floor. “I guess you did.” The items swam atop the piano as she tried to focus.
The FDR campaign button on its wire stand, passed down since 1944.
The glass jar that made Sarah cringe because Harold once used it to store her tonsils for the neighbors to see. Stored in alcohol, mind you! As if having her tonsils out had been the proudest thing she’d ever accomplished.
The three-generation portrait of the Cattalo women with its black-and-white likeness of Annie, Jane, and Sarah: grandmother, mother and child, the same as always, even then.
Annie smiling.
Sarah hiding behind her mother’s skirt.
Jane madder than a hornet at the world, not caring one whit if the cameraman knew.
Sarah went in search of the boys. “Mitchell. I’m sorry, honey. We have to go.”
“But we just got here.”
“I know. But it’s late.”
Harold took several apples and, with great care, placed them inside a bag so the skins wouldn’t bruise. “Get these wrapped up so you can take them to your dad. Show him how good you did.”
Above Mitchell’s head, Harold mouthed to Sarah, Don’t get upset. You know how she is.
It about broke Sarah’s heart to see Mitchell start to lift his arms to his grandma, but then step back because he was afraid.
“Good night, Mother,” Sarah said carefully. “We’ll see you again.”
“Why don’t you call before you come next time? You shouldn’t visit anyone this late,” Jane said with the same enthusiasm as a porcelain bedpan.
Chapter Nine
The crème brûlée Lincoln MKX tore into its space at the Smart Park Tower a full fifteen minutes earlier than usual. Once again, Sarah had left Joe to get Mitchell on the school bus and Kate settled with the nanny. “Here so early?” asked the doorman as he turned the key in the lock at the Roscoe offices and let Sarah inside the lobby.
The janitor dipped his mop into the suds, trailed it in paisley patterns across the marble floor, and remarked, “You’re here at the crack of dawn.”
The uniformed postman wheeled his cart into the elevator and pressed the button to go to the basement. “Mrs. Harper,” he said, “when do you sleep?”
Sarah ignored each comment, footnote, and wry observation. She wasn’t in any mood to respond. Instead she trotted the width of the lobby at a fine clip, her personal-data-assistant alarm sounding to remind her of three different meetings, her cell phone erupting, her footsteps snapping everyone to attention as her shoes clicked the length of the hall.
If Sarah had never worked hard before, she worked like a mad-woman today. She sent Leo for office supplies and to research the daily commodity analysis and to the Cornishes’ international headquarters to snag second-quarter earnings numbers. She sent him for coffee, she sent him to pick up legal documents at Daley Plaza, she had him join her to take notes during three client meetings, and when he ran out of other things to do, she sat him down with stacks of file folders to transpose onto the computer.
That done, she asked him to spend several hours cutting down her e-mail list.
Sarah read her news feeds while she was in a meeting with Roscoe. She checked the www.nannyrating.com Web site three times to spy on Mrs. Pavik, and if people wanted to criticize her about it, well, let someone just try! She typed a blog entry while she was embroiled in a conference call. She made snide comments via text to Leo across the boardroom table (DO YOU BELIEVE THIS? Do you think this guy believes a word he’s saying?), her thumbs flying across the words.
She’d shouldered her way into the trading pit, attached herself to the tangled mass of cables and headphones and screens, only to find that Leo’s market-analysis notes had been way off the mark. Where Sarah looked to sell, a string of red told her to hang on. Where she intended to buy, the numbers had already soared. She found no bargain pricing. She found no solid profit taking. She stalked the entire length of LaSalle Street after the market closed, and when she returned she stood in the middle of Roscoe’s offices and took her frustration out on everyone within earshot.
“What happened out there?” she stood in the middle of the hallway and yelled. “Didn’t anyone have any idea? Didn’t anyone have anything to tell me?”
People hid from Sarah in the break room. The lobby receptionist collapsed in her chair, rested a wrist against her forehead, and said, “If this gets any worse, I’m giving my notice.” The Andretti guy from ninth said, “
Don’t let her on the streets; she’ll kill somebody.” A friend from human resources asked, “Is this worse than any other day?” One of the senior partners asked, “Does she think we control the commodities trading market?”
Just after five that afternoon, with timid hesitation, Leo cracked open Sarah’s door. “There’s someone to see you,” he announced, expecting to get his head bitten off. “It’s Joe.”
“Joe?”
In a careful undertone, Leo said, “He’s got Mitchell. And tickets.”
Her face went white. “Tickets?”
There couldn’t have been a worse night for Joe to finally catch up to her with Cubs tickets. All she wanted to do was prove that she held mastery of her job so she didn’t feel this awful shame. All she wanted was to do more, to be more, than she’d been before visiting her mother’s house yesterday. She didn’t know why it was so important to her, but she was determined to prove to her mother that she was worth something.
Leo shot her an apologetic glance, then scampered away before she could do him bodily harm. That’s all the notice she had before Mitchell bounded in wearing a big foam Cub claw and his best shirt with buttons and a collar, his face taut and new-nickel shiny from soap.
“Joe,” she said. “You should have warned me.”
“You’ve had plenty of warning before, and it never worked.” He sat in her chair, which made her livid, and braced his fist under his chin. “I thought this time I’d surprise you.”
I’m not always up for surprises, she wanted to say. Her mouth opened, but she forced it shut again. It opened again and, this time, she clamped it tight. She didn’t want to act the same way her mother had acted the night before, when she had been surprised.
“I got Kate to the sitter myself,” Joe said with pride. “I’ve been working on this plan.” And for the next five minutes, as he recounted the list of the baby’s belongings (diaper bag, stuffed elephant, pink blanket already starting to unravel), they both knew he’d gathered up Kate’s things before. He was really only hedging for time so Sarah could get used to the idea.
“Reserved seats?” he said, looking a little pale, holding the tickets out so she could inspect them.
“Not the bleachers?”
“Dugout. Right beside home plate.”
The last thing Sarah wanted to do was go to a baseball game with her husband. She wanted to go home, put her feet up on the couch, and try to forget about her horrible day. Her mouth looked like it had been pulled tight with a drawstring. She shot Joe a look strong enough to sour milk.
Joe stood waiting for her, holding the tickets fanned in his hand.
Sarah had no other choice. Everyone in the office was watching. Leo looked about ready to jump out of his skin, he wanted to go to a game so bad.
She lifted her purse and flung it over her shoulder. We might as well get this over with, her sullen expression said.
Sarah and Joe drove the few miles to Wrigley Field in stony silence. Only Mitchell chattered, carrying on a one-sided conversation about the batting lineup and wondering if Zambrano could throw the sinker. No matter how many questions he asked, no one answered him. By the time they turned into a lot a good five blocks from the corner of Clark and Addison, by the time Joe paid an exorbitant fee so they could park the car, Mitchell wasn’t talking anymore. With a worried frown, he climbed from the car. He walked between his mom and his dad, glancing from one of them to the other, all the way to the ballpark.
For all the gaiety an outing like this one should have entailed, it held all the rowdy joy of a property-tax meeting. To be sure, Mitchell watched self-absorbed as the players took their warm-up swings right in front of him. With one of his Cubs pencils, he jotted down the game stats, biting his tongue in concentration. He pointed and waved when Theriot glanced his direction. He stared and shouted when Soto ripped one down the third baseline.
But somewhere during the fifth inning, the novelty of the fancy seats began to wear off and Mitchell began to gaze with longing toward the bleacher section.
“What is it, son?” Joe asked. “What’s wrong?”
Mitchell screwed up his mouth and scratched his elbow. He rubbed his cheek. He studied the peanut hulls that he’d crunched flat with his left sneaker. “Dad, I like these fancy seats, I really do. But I wish we could be in the bleachers where my friend looks down on us from the scoreboard.”
“What? Are you kidding? We’re right here with the players. If Lou Piniella blows a gasket, we’ll be right here with the dirt flying. You want to miss that?”
And while Mitchell and Joe jabbered on about full counts and windups and checked swings, Sarah sat in the seat beside them with her mouth pursed and her cheeks burning, trying not to overhear. She was livid. Joe had ambushed her, plain and simple. She’d looked forward to coming to Wrigley, and she’d exhausted every effort to join them that night—she hadn’t taken it lightly—and now Joe was getting her back by putting her in a position where she had no choice. Sarah did not like being backed into a corner. She did not like being tricked and manipulated as if that was the only way she would spend time with her family.
While Mitchell tried to carry on a lively discussion with Sarah about the swing-away sign versus the bunt signal from the opposing third-base coach, Joe whistled a tune with false bravado and peered off toward the rooftop party seats on Waveland Avenue. He jiggled his knee, feeling nervous. If Sarah was mad, well, he guessed he’d let her vent her anger and just take it, but Joe couldn’t help himself—he felt strangely gratified getting any response from her whatsoever.
Sarah sat in the very expensive dugout seat with her hands crossed over her Game Day program, peering through the net that kept foul balls from smashing into the crowd, with her gaze trained toward the red brick and green paint and woven ivy.
Joe sprang from his seat in a frenzy every time bat connected with ball. “If you’re going to jump up and down like that, mister,” complained the man behind him, “next time why don’t you sit in the bleachers?”
Other than smiling at Mitchell occasionally, Sarah didn’t glance to her right.
Other than talking to Mitchell, Joe wouldn’t look to his left.
After a five-game losing streak, a surprising thing happened and the Cubs won. And although the game went into extra innings, neither husband nor wife spoke to the other for the entire length of the game.
The drive home was punctuated by distant bursts of lightning over the water. A storm gathered to the north and lit the clouds intermittently with flashes of electric discharge. They came closer, and a jagged fork of light scissored toward the ground.
Their trek had been excruciating ever since they’d left Wrigley Field. The animosity they’d managed to conceal in a ballpark filled with thousands of spectators now hung in the car like a glacial rock ready to drop.
“That was sure some run by Lee! Did you see Mike Fontenot’s throw? The way he backhanded it?” Mitchell chattered, still overcome with enthusiasm. When no one answered, his little words faded into empty silence.
A strong wind blew by the time they neared the sitter’s. It almost ripped the car door from Joe’s hands as he stepped out. The leaves around the porch rattled and shuttered and hissed as he knocked.
Kate was already asleep when the sitter went to fetch her. Kate’s little rump was warm and smelling of Johnson & Johnson’s as Joe bundled the baby beneath his chin. “You two should forget about that fancy nanny you hired,” the babysitter said just before Joe departed. “You know I’m perfectly willing and able to take care of this baby.” The sitter had asked for the job, but Sarah wanted someone more professional. She enjoyed the control the nanny Web site offered her. Anytime she felt guilty about working so much, she comforted herself with the thought that at least she knew what was going on at all times.
Thankfully the drive home was short because the silence seemed to be getting louder.
It took forever to get Mitchell calmed down and ready for bed. Joe watched, feeling powerless,
as Sarah situated Kate in the crib and checked on Mitchell in the tub, picking up the clothes their little boy had jettisoned.
Mitchell could scarcely brush his teeth for talking about Aramis Ramirez’s game-winning hit. Joe glimpsed Sarah and Mitchell with their heads together, Mitchell talking a mile a minute and Sarah pretending to be interested while she towel dried his hair. Joe watched Sarah steer their son to bed with her hand on his head.
And then, finally, the moment he’d dreaded. From Mitchell’s room, the bedtime story ended and he heard Sarah say, “Good night. Sleep tight.”
“What is it?” She stood in front of him with her hands extended from her sides, her entire body pleading the question. “What is it you want from me?”
There had been a point tonight when Joe would have said simply, “I thought it was a good idea.” But the words gummed up his throat like sludge gums up a carburetor.
“You show up at my office and put me in a position where I have no choice but to do what you want! I don’t like it, Joe. I don’t like it one bit.”
“Was it so bad? Was it so horrible that I came up with good tickets and brought your son to the office and made a show of kidnapping you?” Then he risked it. “I thought it was kind of cute myself.”
He waited for her comment.
She gave him a disgusted look.
“Sarah,” he said, too astonished and hurt to cover his reaction. What happened to her? When did she become so brittle and hard?
“You trapped me. You made it so I couldn’t say no or I’d look bad to Mitchell. You’re always trying to make me look bad in front of him.”
“Would you have said no? If I wasn’t standing there in front of you with tickets?”
“Yes.”
“No?”
“Tonight I would have said no.”
His arms stayed riveted at his sides. “That beats all.”
Any Minute: A Novel Page 9
