“I’m not sure I qualify to work at the UN.”
“Television, movies, theater?”
Patrick remembered his protest the first time Cassie came to see him in this very kitchen. He was an unbroken stallion then, a tamed pony now. “Are you going to make me say it? I’m flexible.”
“Okay. So I’m going to look into work opportunities in New York without saying I’m looking into it.”
“Exactly. You’re gauging interest.”
“Any suggestions on how I do that?”
Patrick sighed. “‘I hear Patrick O’Hara’s looking to return to work and might make a run of it in New York.’ That sort of thing. Start with gossip.”
“And if there is interest?”
Patrick was hopeful there would be. “Quietly make note and move on.”
“I can’t do more than make note?”
For Patrick, returning to work was not merely a financial necessity, it was to be the final step of his own recovery. He had to remember how to feel things. And if he had to accomplish that in part by becoming someone else, some new role, then so be it. It was probably safer that way. But that didn’t erase his hesitancy entirely. “Not yet, no.”
“And why is that?”
“Because I’m still gauging mine.”
TWENTY-THREE
The fight had been brewing for days. It seemed the closer they were to Greg’s release the more they all succumbed to their frazzled ideas about what the future might hold. Maisie in particular was sullen, withdrawn—immune, suddenly, to her uncle’s innumerable charms. On Tuesday she refused to do the dishes and told Patrick it was his job to do them as the grown-up. On Wednesday she said she didn’t want to eat lupper, even though Rosa had cooked all day. It wasn’t the menu she objected to, rather she wanted to eat dinner like a normal family.
“Normal is a terrible thing to aspire to,” Patrick had said. “Aim higher.”
“What do you even mean?” Maisie was exasperated.
“Want more for yourself.”
“Talk like a regular person!”
Patrick sighed. “Normal families are boring.” It was a slip on Patrick’s part, a terrible thing to say to a girl who had lost her mother; her moodiness had brought out his own. He opened his mouth to apologize, but Maisie scuttled his launch before it got off the ground.
“You’re boring!”
“You take that back.”
“I will not!”
“I am a lot of things, many of them unflattering, but boring is not one.”
Grant put up a withering defense of his uncle before Patrick put his hand on his arm, letting the boy know he could fight his own battle. Maisie glared at her uncle before storming off and slamming the door to her room.
“Why is she so pissy?”
Grant shrugged.
On Thursday they went for brunch at Cheeky’s. Maisie didn’t say a word to their Lyft driver, a woman named Mona who had her hair tied up in a scarf like she’d answered their call from a salon halfway through her appointment. Maisie didn’t even offer a response when Mona asked her a direct question about Maisie’s level of excitement about going back to school—something Patrick knew she was looking forward to, if only as a metric to measure a return to some sort of stability.
“Our driver asked you a question, Maisie.”
Maisie just stared out the window.
“Aren’t you excited to see your friends? What about Amy Beckwith?”
“AUDRA BRACKETT!”
“She’s excited,” Patrick translated to Mona.
“I’m going to be in firtht grade,” Grant offered, cheerfully. Patrick nudged him in the shoulder, grateful for his willing cooperation.
“So grown up,” Mona said, flashing them a smile in the rearview mirror.
At the restaurant the kids had their usual, fresh-corn pancakes with a side of hot tots, which is what Cheeky’s called their potatoes. Patrick ordered the Paleo granola and a mimosa. The place was unusually hopping for the ungodly hour—it was one of the problems with Palm Springs. The blazing sun was a virus that turned everyone into morning people. Patrick thought he should break the mood with a joke. “Guncle Rule eleventy-five, special brunch edition: Bottomless mimosas are not the same thing as pantsless mimosas. Very different, in fact. Learned that the hard way.”
“You didn’t wear panth?” Grant asked.
“Grantelope, you have no idea how many restaurants I’ve been kicked out of for not wearing pants.” Patrick bopped Grant on the head with a menu.
Grant mumbled some loophole about his shorts not being pants, when Maisie interjected.
“There are too many rules!” The word rules dripped with so much disgust, Patrick was taken aback.
“I’m sorry. Do you want to try that again and watch your tone?” Patrick traced his fingers on the hair over his upper lip; he’d shaved that morning, displeased with the gray on his chin, but left behind a pleasantly dark mustache.
“I’m tired of living here! It’s a million degrees and your rules aren’t funny and I want to go home!”
“Talk about hot tots,” Patrick said under his breath, perhaps to Grant, who had become somewhat of a confidant over the last few days of his sister’s souring mood. Grant, however, was trying to untangle silverware from his napkin and didn’t pick up on the comment.
“What did you say?” Maisie narrowed her eyes; her anger was almost comical, but Patrick didn’t laugh—it was coming from someplace very real.
“I said, talk about a HOT TOT. Satisfied?”
“I’m not a tot!” This was abundantly clear; it was like she’d morphed into a teenager overnight.
“Yes, I know. You’re sixteen and you don’t need a governess.”
Grant gave his napkin a yank like a magician pulling a tablecloth. His silverware careened across the table, rescued from sailing off the edge at the last possible second by the jam caddy.
“Okay, can we all just take it down a notch? You’re both at like an eight, and I need you at a four.”
“What do those numbers even mean? A four of what?”
“Use the context, Maisie. I’m not that difficult to understand.” Patrick placed his napkin in his lap before sliding Grant’s fork back across the table in front of him. A waiter appeared over his shoulder with Patrick’s mimosa balanced on a tray with a rich-looking Bloody Mary. “I’m sorry, I hate to be a pest,” Patrick started.
“Don’t listen to him,” Maisie interjected. “He loves to be a pest.”
Patrick kicked Maisie under the table, but he also couldn’t help but be impressed. If he sent these kids back to Connecticut with enough snappy comebacks to populate a screwball comedy, the summer would not be a waste. “Ignore her. She went to bed a sweet girl and work up a surly teenager. I’ve changed my mind. Could I actually have one of those?” He pointed to the Bloody Mary on the waiter’s tray. He back-pocketed his line about waving a tomato over the glass and having it be too much tomato juice, as he actually liked tomato juice.
“No problem. In fact, you can have this one.” And then in a hushed tone he added, “Looks like you need it.” The waiter placed the drink in front of Patrick and whisked the mimosa away.
“What is that?” Grant asked.
Patrick removed the olive and used the leafy celery stalk to muddle some horseradish at the bottom of his glass. “It’s a salad. Want one?”
“Gross.”
“That’s not a salad.”
“Sure it is. Celery. Olives. The tomatoes are a little runny.”
“Then let’s see you eat it with a fork.” Maisie crossed her arms defiantly while Grant helpfully offered his.
Patrick took a long sip of his drink and inventoried each ingredient as it slid down his throat—pepper, Tabasco, lemon juice, Worcestershire—easing into the burn. “You think this summe
r has been a nonstop thrill ride for me? That there haven’t been days when I had to sit on my hands so I wouldn’t grab your suitcases, stuff you in them, and put you on the next flight east? Well, guess again.”
“Then send us to live with Grandma and Grandpa!”
“I’ll send you to your room without any lupper.”
“I’m serious!”
“You don’t want to live with Grandma and Grandpa.”
“Why not?”
“Because they think Fox is news and raisins are food.” Patrick looked down at Grant, who was rearranging the sugar packets. “Do you want to live with Grandma and Grandpa?”
“Do they have a pool?”
“No. But they’re talking about getting one of those tubs for old people with a door you can walk through so you don’t slip and fall getting out.”
“Are they putting it outside?”
“No. In their bathroom.”
“Oh.” Grant was more than ready to move on. “Can I have a thinnamon roll?”
“They don’t have those here, you’re thinking of Koffi.”
“A donut, then.”
“No.”
“Can we thee the big dinosaurs?”
“We’ve seen them three times this summer.”
“I want to know if they’re okay.”
“They’re not okay, they’re extinct!” Patrick threw his arms up, exasperated. “You guys exhaust me, you know that? Can I have this. Can we do that. It’s not good for my skin.”
Maisie picked up a promotional card for a new breakfast sandwich with a braised short rib, while Grant put the finishing touches on the sugars. Patrick picked at the mesquite salt on the rim of his glass, wishing already that the sun was down so he could tick off one more day until Greg was free.
And then Maisie’s reedy voice broke the silence. “I hate you.”
Patrick froze. Maisie’s words were stark and unsettling, meek but with startling conviction; they sucked the air out of the restaurant. Patrick glanced around, wondering how others could breathe. He slid his feet back and forth under the table, trying desperately to get his footing, but the floors were a highly polished concrete and his feet comically flailed beneath him in Keatonesque fashion. Maisie’s outburst was the aftershock he’d been afraid of. He reached up and touched his head, seeing the sudden wisdom in wearing a bicycle helmet for protection. He silently counted to ten to avoid saying something he would later regret; now more than ever, he had to be the adult. “No one hates me. Except the New York Times, but they hate everyone from LA.” Back during the run of the show, they did five hundred eviscerating words on him that, to this day, still stung.
“I hate you.” Maisie repeated the charge.
“I’m not so fond of you right now, if we’re being honest.”
“I want to go home.”
“All right.” Patrick pushed his drink away from him and started to rise. As much as he wanted that Bloody Mary, there was no way he was going to enjoy it under duress.
“To Connecticut.”
He sat back down. “Just for that, we’re going to sit here and take our time.”
“No.”
“And I’m going to tell them that it’s your birthday so they’ll come bang on some pots and pans.”
“You can’t make me stay here!”
“Oh, do you have any ride-share apps on your phone?” Patrick waved his phone at her tauntingly. Maisie lunged for it, but he pulled back just in time. She folded her arms in a pout.
“I’ll walk.”
“You can’t walk, you’ll get heatstroke and collapse from thirst.”
Maisie picked up her glass of water and defiantly headed for the door.
“All right. That’s it. NO MORE MR. NICE GAY!” Patrick threw his napkin on the table in disgust. “Sit. Down.”
“Or what?”
The truth was, there weren’t a lot of threats he could make and follow through on. But that didn’t mean he was willing to be pushed around. “You can’t spell nemesis without me, sis. And you do not want to make me your enemy.” He stood up, placed his hands on her shoulders, and guided her back to the table; surprisingly, she didn’t fight him. “Let’s all just take a breath and wait for our food.”
“Did you know a flamingo’s knees are actually it’th ankles?”
“Is that true?” Patrick turned to Grant.
“Yeah,” he said with a surprising authority.
Patrick thought for a moment. “Did you know a duel between three people is called a truel?” It was something he’d learned in a Shakespeare class in college, or thought he had. Memory was a tricky thing. He hoped it was true, as it was surprisingly relevant now. “You kids have it made. You know that? I have all the spoils of success and no natural heirs. All you have to do is be a little bit nice to me and I’ll make sure you’re set for life. That’s all you have to do. And change my diapers when I’m old.”
Grant laughed. “Gross!”
Patrick kissed Grant on top of the head and squeezed him into his side like an emotional support animal. He wasn’t going to tell either one of them, but he had no plans to stick around that long. He never wanted to be the first to leave a party, but, unlike his friend Emory, he didn’t want to be the last to hang around, either. He certainly wouldn’t endure the indignity of diapers. “Yeah, you’re right. We’ll hire someone to do that.”
The waiter arrived with precision timing. He placed the corn pancakes in front of the kids before handing Patrick his granola. “Everyone happy?”
“Happiness is overrated; we’re all just fine enough. Thank you. Cheers.” He lifted his Bloody Mary in a celebratory gesture to thank the waiter again for giving it to him.
“Can I have thyrup, GUP?”
Patrick pushed the syrup toward Grant. He poured the granola over his yogurt and topped it with fresh berries, remembering all the times he’d tortured his mother with smart-ass remarks. To this day he wasn’t clear why. He grew four inches overnight and his bones hurt. Testosterone coursed wildly through his body, wreaking havoc on his skin, which was maddeningly both oily and dry. The acne medication he begged to be on required regular blood tests at the doctor’s office he abhorred and made his lips chap. He loved a boy and didn’t understand yet why, and the boy caught him staring and told the whole school, causing Patrick to feel more isolated than he already had and so desperately, totally alone. He told his mother she was a bad mother. He told her she had no life. When she asked him to clean his room one time he muttered, “Menopause must be hell.” He thought he had whispered under his breath, but it was loud enough for her to hear. He cursed her silently at the dinner table, angry that she could not understand things that he would never allow her to see. But the whole time, he had a mother to curse, to hate, to forgive. He had a mother to stand there and listen, to take these tirades and to forgive him right back.
“I’m sorry, Maisie.” Patrick reached out and put his hand on hers, which was gripping her fork in a tight fist. “For anything I said that upset you. I’m the grown-up and I should know better.”
Maisie didn’t say anything, or even really look up. But he thought he saw her head bob, and you could feel the slightest bit of air escape from this overinflated balloon.
Patrick continued. “Did you notice our waiter’s name? Gale. It was on his name tag. Now, that’s something I like. Men who can pull off women’s names. Give me a male Hillary, or a Bertie. Sandy, even. Give me an Evelyn Waugh. I met an Ashley once on a plane and I almost married him. It might have been a latent Gone with the Wind thing.”
“Boyth can have girl’th names?”
“Why not? Girls can have boy’s names. Plenty of girls are named Alex or Frankie or Sam. A girl named Charlie?” Patrick put his fingers to his lips and gestured a chef’s kiss. “It’s the Wild West we’re living in.”
Patrick di
screetly glanced at Maisie, careful not to make a production out of it. She wasn’t amused, but she also didn’t seem angry anymore. And she was eating. He had been worried a hunger strike might be coming next, so that in itself was a small triumph.
“Is that why you like Emily?”
“I don’t like Emily.” Patrick reached for his phone in his pocket. “Who’s Emily?”
“Emily. From the party. You made us watch him on YouTube.”
“EMORY?!” Patrick was appalled.
“Oh,” Grant said. “I thought his name was Emily.”
Patrick checked his phone for the time. And there it was. Right on his lock screen like an emotional hate crime. An annual calendar reminder from another life.
Everything was suddenly clear.
Patrick dismissed the reminder before tucking his phone in his pocket; one thing at a time. For now, he wanted to put this tension behind them once and for all. “Maisie? You look like your mom this morning.”
She froze midbite and looked up from her plate.
“You do. You really do. I think it’s the way the sun hits you just right.” Patrick smiled and brushed the hair from her face, the way he used to with Sara. “More and more every day.”
The table next to him, a couple in their sixties who reminded him of his parents, got up to leave. The woman, wearing those three-quarter-length pants that flatter exactly no one, handed him a folded napkin with a smile. Her husband, silk golf shirt, palm frond pattern, waved politely. Grant waved back.
Patrick held the napkin, unsure what to do with it. He was terrified it was another stark notification like the one on the phone. Something that should be clear, if he weren’t so distracted and self-absorbed. He held the napkin below the table, away from Grant, and slowly opened it. Inside was a note.
Every parent has these days. You’re very good with them. Your breakfast is on us.
“What does it say?” Maisie asked. She never missed a trick.
Patrick folded the napkin and slipped it in his pocket. You’re very good with them. It was all he could do not to cry. He looked over his shoulder to thank the couple, but they were already passing the windows outside. He watched, hoping to catch their attention, until they were out of sight. Alas, they never turned back.
The Guncle Page 26
