“You looked good out there. I never really saw you perform before.”
“I was never out front like that. I was always tucked safely behind my kit.”
“Well, it suited you. You should think about a comeback.”
“Nah.”
“Why not?”
“It’s a young man’s game.”
“You’re not that old.”
“I’m not that young.”
“I heard all of those things you said to me—well, to everyone else, too—but anyway. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Are you really proud of me?”
“Are you kidding me? You’re the greatest proof that my life hasn’t been a complete waste of oxygen.”
“So, if your life isn’t a waste, why not have that operation?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“You keep saying that, but I’m calling bullshit. You either want to live or you want to die.”
“I want to be a better man.”
“Well, you’re not going to get any better once you’re dead.”
“You make a good point.”
“I’m going to make a better one now.”
“OK.”
“You left us, Dad. Mom and me. I know you only meant to divorce Mom, but you divorced me, too.”
“I know.”
“And I forgave you then. Just like I’m forgiving you now. Do you know why?”
“Why?”
“Lack of options. Mom found herself another husband. I don’t get another father. And I need one. I mean, look at me.”
“Well, thank you. I appreciate it.”
“But if you leave me again, I will not forgive you.”
“I understand.”
“I will hate you. I will get a big ‘Fuck-you-Daddy’ tattoo across my chest, and I will sleep with an army of losers to get back at you.”
“OK. I get it.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know you are.”
“So, you’ll do it?”
“I’ll consider it very seriously.”
“Jesus, Dad.”
“So, Mom and Rich?”
“Full-speed ahead. The nuptials are on.”
“That’s good.”
“Despite your best efforts.”
“And that’s my cue to change the subject. Can we stop talking about me for a moment?”
“Sure.”
“What are you going to do about your situation?”
“I’m glad you asked, because I’ve actually made a decision.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I’ve decided I’m going to do whatever you tell me to do.”
“That’s your decision?”
“It is.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“You know what? I’ve been functioning without you for eight years now. Eight years that you should have been there, taking the pressure off of me, guiding me, being there for me. The way I see it, you owe me eight years’ worth of parenting. So I’m just asking for it all at once.”
“That’s a good argument, but your logic is flawed.”
“How so?”
“You’re asking for guidance from someone who, when faced with major decisions, has consistently, almost prodigiously made the wrong choice.”
“Well, then it’s perfect, because you can’t lose here. I know I’m going to regret it either way.”
“I need you to know that no matter what you decide, I’m going to support it.”
“That’s big talk from someone who might be dead tomorrow.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t make this decision for you. Nobody can.”
“Mom can.”
“So ask your mom.”
“Then what good are you?”
“My point exactly.”
CHAPTER 46
This is Tuesday and, it being Tuesday, they are on their way to jerk off. When Silver considers everything that has happened since his last deposit, he is staggered by it. Seven days have passed, but the world has been turned upside down and inside out. Case in point, the backseat of Jack’s car now carries an additional passenger. Casey sits on one side, looking pensively out the window, her hair whipping around in the breeze. Silver has adjusted the small mirror on his sun visor in order to watch her. Ever since the bat mitzvah she has been steadfastly, almost insistently upbeat, and it saddens him to watch her straining to keep up the façade. Denise’s wedding will be this Saturday, and Casey is clearly worried about its effect on him. He wonders about that himself, but for the most part, he thinks he’s fine with it—sad, certainly, but there’s something about the finality of it that gives him a sense of peace. Maybe it will finally bring him the closure he needs. Or maybe he’ll get himself piss drunk and cry himself to sleep that night. Either way, he’s both relieved and insulted to not be invited. In the meantime, he’s been trying to figure out exactly what it is Casey needs him to say about her pregnancy, so that he can say it and help her figure things out.
Jack pulls into the Blecher-Royal parking lot. Casey looks around, confused. “This isn’t the mall.”
“We just have to run a quick errand first.”
“What kind of errand?”
“The kind we would prefer to be discreet about,” Jack says at exactly the same time that Silver says, “We have to deposit our sperm.”
“What?!”
“Jesus Christ, Silver! Is there anything you can keep quiet about these days?”
“Apparently not.”
“Wait, Dad. You’re serious?”
“It’s for medical science,” Silver says.
Casey shakes her head. “That’s not creepy at all.”
“Well, when he says it like that,” Jack says defensively.
“Did you really bring me along to wait in the car while my father jerks off?”
Jack flashes Silver an annoyed look as he opens the car door. “I liked you a lot better when you knew how to lie.”
“I’m probably disqualified anyway,” Silver says. “You have to report any adverse changes in your health.”
“Holy shit!” Jack says, stopping with one leg out of the car. “Do you think this stuff had anything to do with your heart thing?”
“I doubt it.”
Jack thinks about it for a few seconds, then drops back down into his seat and starts the car. “Fuck that.”
“So much for medical science,” Casey says from the backseat, and her laugh, gleeful, like a child’s, makes him smile and breaks his heart at the same time.
CHAPTER 47
Silver listens as Lily sings to the kids. “Oh, Mr. Sun,” “Michael Finnegan,” “Puff the Magic Dragon.” She’s wearing her hair down today, with no visible makeup, and she looks tired, he thinks.
“So, who is she?” Casey says, coming up behind him.
“Just a girl.” He had left her browsing over in the Fiction and Literature section, but she has tracked him down. It’s raining outside, a powerful summer rain that batters the bookstore window like applause. Hard rains like this make him miss his childhood, the smell of rubber slickers, the scrape of galoshes on pavement. It’s one in the afternoon but it looks like night outside. He is suddenly feeling depressed and irritable.
“She’s cute.”
“Yeah.”
“She’s why you come in here,” Casey says, getting it.
“Yeah.”
“So what’s your status?”
He shushes her, though she is speaking pretty softly. “No status,” he says.
Casey looks him over. “How long have you been coming here?”
“I don’t know.” He wishes he hadn’t br
ought her in here. He feels exposed.
“A few weeks?” Casey says. “A month?”
He looks at her.
“Oh shit,” she says.
“You swear a lot.”
“Broken home.”
“Fuck off.”
“Touché.”
“Come on,” he grumbles. “Let’s go.”
“Why don’t you ask her out?” Casey says, standing her ground.
“I’ve been waiting for the right time.”
“Come on, Dad. When’s the last time you asked someone out?”
He rubs the back of his head, still damp from the rain, while he considers. It has been so long since he was in any kind of relationship. He doesn’t know how to explain it, this paralysis that takes hold whenever he sees a woman he’d like to ask out. It infuriates him when he considers the years of solitude he has spent because of some latent shyness or fear of rejection he can’t seem to overcome when the moment demands it.
“It’s been a while,” he says. Years, he thinks, although he isn’t really sure. Chronology has always been somewhat elusive to him.
“She’s a musician, you’re a musician,” she says. “It’s cake. I mean, come on, Dad, you were a rock star!”
“I was the drummer.”
Casey shakes her head. “How do you not see the tragic irony here?”
He shrugs. He gave up on irony years ago. It was that or death by prescription pills.
“You were enough of a rock star to completely screw up your life,” she says. “And now, when you need to be one, when it will actually help you, suddenly you were just the drummer?”
He looks at his daughter, so pretty and wise beyond her years, and he wants to weep from the loss. Casey seems to sense his mood, and she steps forward and kisses his cheek. He cannot remember the last time she kissed him, and he is dangerously close to dissolving. She places one hand on each of his shoulders and looks him in the eye.
“Dad.”
“Yes.”
“You’re a good-looking guy. You’ve got that kind of cuddly bad-boy thing going on, like you’re dangerous, but only a little bit, you know? You have kind eyes and a killer smile, and life has beaten you up just enough to make women want to save you. Hell, even Mom slept with you again, and she hates you.” He gives her a look. “Sorry. You know what I mean. The point is, I always assumed you were swimming in women.”
He shakes his head. “Nope.”
She nods, understanding, from that one word, the immense loneliness he will never be able to articulate, and he is grateful to her for seeing him.
“OK,” she says. “Here’s the thing. We are not leaving this store until you ask that babe out.”
“Lily,” he says.
“What?”
“Her name is Lily.”
Casey smiles. “OK then. Go get her.”
* * *
At the moment he approaches her, she suddenly crouches down on one knee to fix the clasp of her guitar case, and so he is now standing over her. He feels too large and imposing, so he backs away, but now the distance is too great, an awkward distance for conversation, so he takes a step forward, but now he has advanced, retreated, and advanced again, which makes him feel like an idiot, and if she’s aware of him standing there, he’s sure he looks like an idiot, so he goes back to his original position and waits for her to stand up, feeling much too big and awkward standing here in the Children’s Books section, with its miniature tables and the little red chairs with white flowers carved into the seatbacks.
She stands back up and slings her guitar case over her shoulder, only then noticing him standing there. He has never been this close before. She has two faint craters in her forehead just above her left eye, and her eyes in general are bigger than he realized, and a deep green that he finds instantly appealing despite the appearance of dark, tired shadows beneath them. She looks a little sad to him, or maybe just hungover. He has no idea because, despite how long he has been coming here to see her, he doesn’t actually know the first thing about her.
“I don’t know anything about you,” he blurts out.
She nods, considering the information. “There are support groups,” she says.
Sarcasm. Or maybe repartee? It’s hard to say.
“I’m Silver,” he says, offering his hand. She takes it.
“I know who you are.”
“You do?”
“You’re the guy who comes every week and stands like a spy behind those shelves while I sing.”
He can feel himself blushing. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s OK.”
He feels the urgent need to say something clever. “I like the way you sing.”
Now it’s her turn to blush. “They’re just kids’ songs.”
“I know. Still.”
“Well, thank you.”
An empty silence descends upon them. How the hell is this supposed to work, anyway? People meet people every day. They talk, they go out, they kiss, they fuck, they fall in love, they make families, and all because they managed to push past any initial introversion and awkwardness to make contact. He wishes they were drunk.
“I’m not good at this.”
“At what?”
“At talking to you.”
“A lot of people aren’t good at talking to me. You should meet my parents.”
“I don’t think I’m ready for that kind of commitment.”
She smiles wryly, then looks up into his eyes, really looks at him, trying to figure him out. “This is a strange conversation.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No. It’s fine.”
She is still looking right into his eyes. It’s disconcerting, actually. He realizes how rare that is, how few people in his life actually look right at him like that. He suspects this is more his fault than theirs. These last years have buried an aspect of his confidence, and he doesn’t know how to access it. But now Lily is looking at him, and there’s something both wise and damaged in her eyes, something bold in her shyness, something that feels warm and draws him in the same way her singing does. He senses a profound kindness in her, a softness he wants very badly to know and to protect. Be a better man. He could be a better man for her.
Lily looks at him strangely. “You know you’re saying this out loud, right?” she says.
He hears his voice retroactively, after she points it out.
“I do now,” he says.
* * *
He and Casey walk home in the teeming rain, sharing a small drugstore umbrella. He throws his arm around her and her arm falls easily around his waist, and cars speed past them, kicking up hissing sprays of water from the flooding streets, and Casey is laughing as he replays the conversation for her, and she is beautiful and happy and his, and he wishes he could freeze this moment and live in it forever.
CHAPTER 48
Sad Todd wears black goggles, orange earplugs, a red bathing suit, and blue flippers as he swims his laps. He does this every morning, fifty laps across the Versailles pool, before it gets busy and laps become impossible. Despite his colorful getup, he swims with a power and grace that belies his wallflower demeanor.
Jack, Oliver, and Silver sit out by the pool wordlessly watching Sad Todd swim, the sun just emerging hot and bright from behind the building. They have the pool deck to themselves for the time being, and Sad Todd is like a pendulum, putting them into a trance.
“So, I have cancer,” Oliver announces.
Jack and Silver turn to face Oliver.
“Fuck,” Jack says.
“What kind?” Silver says.
“The colon kind.”
“They can cure that, can’t they?” Jack.
“They’re guardedly optimistic.”
“When di
d you find out?” Silver.
“About six weeks ago.”
“What?!” Jack.
Oliver looks over at Silver and smiles. “You kind of stole my thunder.”
“I’m sorry, man.”
“You’ve had cancer for two months and you’re only telling us now?” Jack says, irate.
“I’ve been having chemo treatments. I wanted to see how it played out.”
“And how has it played out?”
“The tumor has shrunk significantly. Now they want to operate.”
Jack sits back in his chair, disgusted. “Shit! You guys are going to die and leave me alone in this shithole, is that it? Is that the fucking plan?”
Oliver laughs. “That’s not the fucking plan.”
“So what is the plan?” Silver says.
They all watch as Sad Todd executes a shockingly flawless freestyle flip at the far wall of the pool, cutting smoothly through the water on his way back across. We were all other people before this, Silver thinks.
“I’d like to see my kids,” Oliver says. “Before the surgery.”
Silver and Jack trade a look. Oliver never discusses his children with them.
“Where are they?” Silver says.
“My daughters all live out west. But my son is in Jersey.”
Jack nods and gets to his feet. “OK. I’ll drive.”
Oliver looks up at him. “What, right now?”
Jack looks down at both of them as he pulls on his shirt. “Damn straight, right now. Between the two of you, someone could drop dead at any minute. I don’t even feel safe hanging out with you anymore. It’s like a fucking bad-luck convention.” He heads for the building. “Meet you in the lobby in twenty.”
Oliver and Silver watch him walk away. “Deep down,” Oliver says, “he means every word.”
Silver laughs. Oliver laughs along with him. In the pool, Sad Todd flips over and turns, just like the world.
* * *
Oliver’s son, Tobey, lives in Long Branch, on the Jersey Shore. It will take them around two and a half hours to get there. It’s a perfect day for a drive in Jack’s convertible—the sky is cloudless and the recent rain has drained the air of its leaden humidity—and despite the somber nature of their mission, they can’t help but treat this as a road trip. Casey comes along for the ride, sitting in the back with Silver, her face turned up to the sun, eyes closed, listening to music on her phone. Silver sits back, his knees braced against the back of Jack’s seat, enjoying the wind coming in waves over Jack’s windshield to lightly brush against his face.
One Last Thing Before I Go Page 20
