“Me, too. For your peace of mind, if nothing else. But if you have to, I don't want to hold you back.”
He felt a huge weight lifting off his shoulders. “Thanks, Callie. I really appreciate your doing this for me.”
“I'm doing it for us. We're partners, for better or worse, isn't that what we said? It's my family, too.”
“Yes. We're partners.”
But until he and his brothers decided what they were going to do he wasn't going to involve her. He couldn't. She was family, but this was blood.
“I'm curious about her,” Callie said, digging into her meal. “I'd like to see her with my own eyes.”
“Who?”
“The girlfriend. She must be pretty special, to have snagged your dad.”
“Oh.” She'd caught him off-guard. “Sooner or later, you will, if they're still together.”
She chewed slowly. “I miss your mother. She was such an old soul. I hope your dad's happy with this new woman, I really do, but your mom is irreplaceable.”
By a lucky coincidence, Callie let Clancy off the hook from having to lie to her about the reason for getting together again with his brothers. She was overdue for paying her parents a visit. She would stay a week, long enough to give her parents a good dose of her, but not so long as to get antsy.
Clancy drove her to O'Hare. Her plane was leaving at one. He was taking the rest of the day off—the other therapists would cover for him. He'd also alerted Pete that he might come in late to the bar, or not come in at all. Pete had taken the news with his usual grumbly equanimity. The bar ran itself as long as there were enough hands to fill the glasses.
They said their good-byes at the security gate. “I'll call you later, at the bar,” she told him.
“Don't call there,” he said. If she did and he wasn't there, she might be uneasy. “It's too noisy. Call me at home later, or tomorrow. It isn't urgent.” She had given him freedom to pursue his inquiry into his father's erratic and disturbing behavior, but he didn't want her to know he was doing so; not yet. If anything came of it, then he would. Until then, why stir up a hornet's nest? “Don't worry,” he said, smiling at her, “it's only a week.”
“I miss you already.” She squeezed his hand.
“Me, too. You'll be fine. Give my love to your parents.”
“Be a good boy. Don't get into trouble.”
“Trouble is my middle name,” he quipped lamely.
“I know. That's why I'm warning you not to.”
“I'm the last thing on earth you have to worry about,” he assured her.
“I do, anyway.”
He had an hour to kill. As before, his brothers had scheduled their planes to arrive close to the same time. The three of them would spend the afternoon, evening, and the next morning hashing over what they knew, what they thought, and then decide what further action, if any, they were going to take. They had less than twenty-four hours—Will had to be back in Minneapolis the following night for a company dinner, and Tom was going backpacking in northern Michigan with a friend, leaving early Sunday morning.
Tom was arriving first. Clancy looked at his watch. Checking the ARRIVALS screen, he headed down the concourse.
Pretty soon, by Thanksgiving at the latest, the weather would turn and there wouldn't be nice days like this until April. They drove into the city and walked through Lincoln Park, stopping at an outside café where they could get a beer, sit under a shady umbrella, and talk.
Nearby, three pretty young college girls, their bicycles propped up against a bench, were lying on the grass in workout shorts and bikini tops, intent on getting one final tan of the summer. Occasionally one would glance over at the brothers, then turn back to her friends and say something. They'd all have a quick look, tarn away, and pretend they hadn't.
“I ought to move here,” Tom said, as he checked out the girls. “I'm getting bored with Ann Arbor. The women there know all my lines. I need to go where they don't know my stale jokes.” He looked at the girls again. “You think they'd like to hear a good joke?”
“Everyone likes a good joke,” Clancy said. The girls didn't register on his radar screen—he saw dozens exactly like them every Friday night at the bar.
“What about your thesis?” Will asked. The women didn't interest him, either, except as physical specimens. He had all the action he could handle back in Minneapolis.
“I don't have to live there to write it, I can write anywhere,” Tom answered. “If I ever do.”
“Jesus, not that old song again. You're going to finish,” Clancy said in exasperation.
“Sometimes I think I ought to chuck the whole deal and get a real job. Something tangible.”
“You want to tend bar, I can give you a shift.”
“I might take you up on that one of these days.”
“We only hire Ph.D.’s.”
“And 36Cs,” Will kicked in.
“For that you only need an equivalency diploma,” Clancy said, laughing.
They had gone around on this for a long time, almost from when Tom started his graduate studies. By now, Clancy didn't put any stock in his brother's bellyaching. It was Tom's way of getting attention. His mother had always fallen into that trap, flattering and encouraging Tom, but his father had gotten wise to it years ago and would call Tom on it, daring him to quit, to get off the dole and go out into the cold, cruel world; the implication, of course, being that he couldn't make it in the so-called real world, which Tom had always thought was duplicitous, coming from a man who'd spent his life in the sheltered halls of academe. Of course, he never took his father up on the dare. In his heart he was afraid Walt was right, that he couldn't cut it. It was a stupid, unfounded, self-pitying fear, but there were times—the present was one—when the feeling hung heavy on him.
Tom looked over at the three pretty sunbathers. Two were lying on their stomachs with their eyes closed. The third was giving herself a pedicure, carefully applying blood-red nail polish. The girl felt his stare and looked back at him, almost challengingly, over her shoulder. He turned away, chagrined at being caught.
“I've been wondering …” he began. He stopped.
“What?” Will asked.
“What if he's really sick?”
“Like what, cancer or some incurable disease?” Will shook his head.
“I don't know. It's possible, isn't it? It would explain why he's acting so out of character. If he does have an illness that could be terminal, why not chuck all the old baggage overboard and spend what time you have left living your life to the hilt?”
“It sounds like a TV movie,” Will said dubiously.
“This is speculation,” Clancy said. This was so like Tom, going off on a crazy tangent. “But sure, let's check it out. I'll call his doctor in Madison. Maybe he'll talk to me.”
“Let's go on the assumption that he isn't sick,” Will said. “I don't agree with you, Clancy, I think that's the one thing he would tell us about. If he was really dying he'd want his family to know. Go ahead and check it out, I think we should, but I don't think that's what's going on.
Clancy nodded. “You're right. Let me throw something else out that's more feasible. What do you think about the stock market? Refinancing the house to play the market.”
“Where did you come up with that?” Will asked, clearly dubious of the notion.
“His real estate broker in Madison mentioned it. Apparently, a lot of people like mom and dad were doing that in the mid-to-late 1990s, to get in on the action. If they made out in the market, that would explain where he'd gotten the money to pay for his new house.”
“Then why wouldn't he say so?” Tom asked. “Why lie about where he'd gotten the money? That's what's bugging me about all this, the lies. How much he cleared on the old house, his story about taking over an existing mortgage when he didn't. You don't lie if you're not hiding something. What's he hiding?”
“That's the million-dollar question,” Will agreed. “Multimillion, in dad's case.” In response to Cl
ancy's question, he said, “I can't buy this stock market idea. That's my business, they would've consulted with me if they were going to invest.”
“Unless they were into investments they knew you'd disapprove of,” Clancy responded.
“Like what?” Will shook his head. “People like mom and dad, with good jobs, great pension plans, owning their home, they don't take on financial burdens they don't have to. What would be the point?”
“I don't know. That's why we're here, to brainstorm this. Okay, here's another idea: insurance. Dad could've used mom's life insurance money to pay for the house.”
Again, a negative shake of the head from Will. “People like mom and dad don't carry life insurance. Or if they do have policies, they're small.”
“Why don't they?” Tom asked.
“Because it's a waste of money. Their pensions are their life insurance,” Will explained. “A man in dad's position, factoring in the amount of money he made and the number of years he had tenure as a full professor, gets almost his entire yearly salary when he retires. Mom's would've kicked out plenty, too.”
“Another reason for you to finish your doctorate,” Clancy chided Tom.
“Except there's no jobs for math professors,” Tom answered, pissed off at his older brother's pushiness. “We're a glut on the market. Leave me out of this, okay? We're here to pick on dad, not me.”
“Sorry, you're right,” Clancy said, properly chastened. “I was joking. Lighten up.”
“Nobody's picking on anybody,” Will said. As the youngest brother, he had grown up playing the mediator between his two older siblings.
“What else?” Clancy asked. “How far do we go with this?”
They stared at each other.
“You mean, how much prying into dad's life do we want to do?” Tom asked, laying it on the table. “And how involved do we want to get in this?”
“Yes,” Clancy answered. Will nodded yes also.
“What if we find out stuff we don't like?” Tom pressed. “I mean more than we already have. What then?”
Clancy shook his head. “I don't know.”
“None of us do,” Tom said, driving home his point. “That's the bitch of it. What if we uncover some really ugly shit?”
“I hope to God we don't,” Will said.
“But what if we do?”
The prospect was sobering to them; frightening.
“Here's what I think,” Clancy said. “We'll check up on what we've been talking about today. Hopefully, nothing terrible will pop up. In which case, we let go of it.”
“That sounds good,” Will said quickly.
“But what if something does?” Tom persisted.
“Like what?” Clancy countered. “Some hypothetical smoking gun?”
“There isn't one,” Will said doggedly.
“Of course not.”
“But what if there is?” Tom was playing the devil's advocate—someone had to.
“There isn't,” Clancy said with finality.
“But if there was,” Tom persisted, “then we'd pursue it.”
“Yes,” Clancy sighed. “If there is, then we will. But there isn't,” he added firmly.
Tom stood up. “I'm going out there.”
His brothers looked at him with startled expressions on their faces.
“You guys're doing all the checking up,” Tom said. “You've got it all covered. There's nothing for me to do.”
“That's not true,” Will answered reflexively.
“It is. I'm the fifth wheel. You two have the expertise, I'm just the asshole who can't finish his dissertation and grow up.”
“Tom, give it a break, okay?” Clancy came back at him.
“You give it a break. You two have it made. You've got your great career, great wife, you own two businesses. Will here's the hot young financial whiz on the fast track to a million-dollar-a-year salary. I have nothing to do until school starts back at the end of the month.”
Like many doctoral candidates, Tom was an undergraduate leaching assistant. It covered part of his fellowship stipend. To make extra money, he also tutored privately. Neither her job paid very much, but he lived in student housing and was tight with his expenses. He was used to it, he had been living that way for years, but more and more, his spartan existence was getting him down. His car was an old Saab he'd bought secondhand, he never ate out at an expensive restaurant unless someone was treating him, never took a regular vacation. He envied his brothers their extravagant (from his perspective) life-styles, but he felt trapped, no way out.
“I want to see the situation for myself. I want to see dad's new house, I want to see his new lady friend. With my own eyes, not through anyone else's filter.” He stared at Clancy. “Maybe I'll find something out you didn't. Is that a problem?”
Clancy swallowed his ire. This had been Tom's MO since he was a little kid—to feel sorry for himself, and then to lash out. He was too old to play this game with Tom anymore. “Not at all,” he said conciliatorily.
“Look, I didn't mean to get testy with you, Clance, I just—”
“It's okay,” Clancy said, stopping this before it got heavier than it already was. “I think you should go see dad.” He turned to Will. “I think you should, too, when you can.”
They finished their beers and got up to leave. They'd go to Clancy's bar, watch the games, Clancy would act like a civilian and let the help wait on them, then they'd go out for a good steak (Clancy's treat, they'd paid to come here). They'd had enough of gnawing the bone about this for one day.
As they were walking away, Tom looked across the expanse of lawn, to where the girls were sunbathing. While he had been haranguing his brothers the girls, unnoticed by him, had been joined by a couple of young guys. The girl who had eye-flirted with Tom smiled coquettishly at him, as if to say, “You had your chance. Too late now.”
He stared at her for a moment longer, then took off after his brothers.
LOS ANGELES
Walt, citing a heavy schedule, tried to talk Tom out of coming to see him, but in the end, he reluctantly relented. He had opened his door to Clancy; he couldn't deny the same invitation to another son. He didn't know how much time he'd be able to spend with Tom, he cautioned, but he'd try to rearrange his affairs as best he could He also advised Tom to rent a car, reminding him that without one you're hopeless in Los Angeles, it's not like a Midwestern city where everything is bunched up and there's decent public transportation.
Yet another change, Tom reflected, after he hung up the phone. When he used to visit his parents in Madison (if he hadn't driven there himself), his mother would lend him her car. It was also a not-so-subtle dig on his father's part that he wasn't going to be responsible for his underachieving son's expenses.
Browsing the Internet, Tom booked the cheapest flight he could find, and reserved a subcompact car through the same site. The fees went on his current credit card—he could dodge the charges for a couple of months, until his teaching pittance started trickling in again, and then pay them off in drawn-out installments. He had gotten into the clever habit of taking out a new credit card every six months. He would use it as long as the low introductory interest rate was in effect, then he'd drop it and switch to another. That way he could afford the monthly payments and not get overwhelmed financially. It was either that or live even shittier than he was doing.
Thus far, he had resisted the temptation to go into the lines of credit that the cards offered—that was a sure path to perdition. He had friends in similar circumstances to his who were into their credit card companies for tens of thousands of dollars, and had no intention of paying off their debts. Their rationale was that the companies ripped off their customers with high usury rates, and it was not only legal but ethical to turn the tables on them. If they got in too far over their heads they could declare bankruptcy, walk away from their unpaid bills, and start over.
Tom had never gone that far. If he declared bankruptcy due to credit card abuse the univer
sity would kick him out, and all those years of work would go to waste, Although he was fed up and tired of what he was doing, he had no other financial options on the table.
This was going to be the make-or-break year. By the end of this year he would either finish writing his thesis, defend it, get his coveted doctorate and find a real job, or he'd chuck the whole mess and do something completely different. A friend of his, in similar circumstances, had quit on his thesis when he had almost reached the finish line and had gone to work as a journalist. That was two years ago, and the man was already assistant city editor for the Dayton Daily News. Tom could see himself as a I modern-day Woodward or Bernstein, rubbing elbows with the rich and famous and covering cool stories around the globe. It would be a great way to meet interesting women, too.
Maybe next year. He wasn't ready to take that radical a step yet.
Clearing security, he walked out of the terminal at the Los Angeles airport and boarded the bus to the rental car lot. He noticed, immediately, the lack of moisture in the air. It had been hot in Detroit when he'd gotten on the plane at six in the morning (it was now mid-afternoon, L.A. time; he'd been on airplanes and in terminals—Chicago, then Denver—for almost twelve hours), but more than the heat, the humidity all throughout the Midwest was brutal, in the nineties. Here, even though it was hot, it didn't feel hot, because of the dryness. No snow in the winter, either—as kids they would watch the Rose Parade on television and beg their parents to move to Los Angeles.
Now his father had. Maybe he and his brothers had overlooked the simplest of reasons: Walt Gaines had gotten tired of shoveling snow. Wouldn't that be a kick in the ass, after all the angst they'd been putting themselves trough.
But that was wishful thinking. Not with the lies about the houses.
Tom drove into Westwood, following the directions his father had given him over the phone. Clancy was right, he thought as he watched the scenery go by—this is the high-tent district. Nothing in his hometown compared to these houses. This was as upscale, in a California way, as Grosse Point, Michigan, the town near Ann Arbor where the GM and Ford millionaires and billionaires lived.
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