“Like it?” Cal asked.
“How have I never heard of this place?”
Someone cleared his throat tactfully outside our green velvet curtain.
“Come in?” I said, trying not to laugh.
The waiter slid the curtain open, revealing a silver trolley of steaks. We chose our filets, ordered sides of creamed spinach and potatoes au gratin, then he slid the curtain shut and rolled the cart away on silent casters.
“What did he think we were doing?” I said.
He laughed. “I’m sure he’s seen it all.”
“What are we doing?”
He reached for my hand. “Getting to know each other.”
“I don’t know you. Who are your friends? Not the boat people.”
“No.”
“That guy Schwinn from the boondoggle?”
“That clown? The Footsy King of Silicon Valley?”
“The what?” I sputtered.
“It’s this stupid joke. First you have to know that there’s a famous guy in London called the Footsy King. Big analyst on the FTSE index.”
This was the Financial Times stock index. “Okay.”
“Well, a couple years ago at CommDex in Vegas, Schwinn became notorious for playing footsy with his female dinner companions. He slips his shoes off under the table and...explores the territory under the tablecloth. Sees if any feet want to reciprocate. He’s a weird guy, but basically harmless. A useful lightweight.”
“That is weird. And gross. Did he ever end up investing in CommPlanet?”
“Alas, I couldn’t get him to bite. It’s too bad, because I’d really like to sell him my stake.”
“But I thought CommPlanet was going to be huge.”
“I’m not so sure now. Anyway, it doesn’t matter because I’m stuck with it. I think I’m losing my touch.”
But I knew this wasn’t true. He took great pride in his ability to connect ideas with investors, though he downplayed it. He said he wasn’t a real VC, just a matchmaker who paired startups with investor friends for fun. That there wasn’t much skill in it these days, it was so easy. Millions of dollars being thrown around at the Woodside Deli over chicken sandwiches. Not so much rainmaking as turning on a tap, he’d said. I’m a glorified washroom attendant. Everything was diminutive. Like it was play money.
“Okay, so you’re not best friends with the Footsy King. Who do you hang out with?”
“I have some guys I play tennis with, do races with. My college roommate and I talk on the phone once a week.”
“That’s cute. I don’t know one thing about your childhood. Tell me where you grew up.” I withdrew my hand and settled back.
“Wisconsin.”
I couldn’t keep the surprise from my voice. “Really?”
“Why’s that so shocking?”
“Because you’re so...California. Wisconsin?”
“Tiny little Craftsman house in Deer Lick Valley. An hour outside Madison. Snow. Tuna casserole on Friday nights, basset hound, public school with twenty kids to a grade.” He shrugged. “My dad worked at the post office.”
I tried to picture this. A blond boy in a red hat and mittens making a snowman, getting called to dinner. But I couldn’t connect the innocent boy in my head with the man in the booth across from me drinking his scotch on the rocks. He’d landed in my life fully formed. The ultimate successful California male, amused and assured. Complete with boat and convertible.
I’d never even seen him in a sweater.
“Didn’t you go to USC?”
“For biz school and half of undergrad. I started at U of Wisconsin, in Madison, then transferred out here junior year.”
“Are your parents still alive?”
He nodded.
“Are they happy?”
“They think they are.”
“Do you visit them?”
“Twice a year. Any other questions from the press pool?”
“Sorry, I’m just trying to get my head around it.”
“It’s a sweet little town, but California always had a hold on me. From TV, I guess. Three’s Company and CHiPs.” He laughed. “Anyway. I wanted to move here and I did.”
He caressed my wrist with a hand still cool from his drink, his fingers brushing the tender spot perfume articles in magazines called a pulse point. “What? You’re thinking something serious, I can tell.”
“I was thinking that you didn’t just move to California. You became it. Your name.”
“Well...yeah.” He smiled at this, tilted his head as he considered. “Clever human. And now you. What do we know about you?”
“You tell me.”
“Rebecca is twenty going on thirty. Like me, she knows she’s bound for bigger places than her hometown—”
“You make me sound awful, that’s not—”
“Hey, my turn. She is bound for bigger places than her hometown. She loves roller coasters but not crowds. Books but not Beowulf. Sun but not heat. Rebecca is tenacious, especially when you tell her she can’t have something.”
“Like...?”
“Oh. Scotch.” He tossed back the rest of his. “Answers. Such as what is data scaffolding...”
“You explained it well.”
“...which promotion outfit is spray-painting cat graffiti around Berkeley.”
I laughed. This had become a running inside joke, one of a handful, and I enjoyed it when he teased me about my lingering obsession: my cats, as I called it. I was no closer to an answer than I’d been freshman year, despite a notebook scrawled with interviews of marketing firms, fraternities, security guards, paint stores. One night I’d even staked out a spot in East Campus, by the health center, where there’d been a cluster of recent appearances. All I got was a hand cramp from gripping my pepper spray too tight.
But I liked our moments of good-natured teasing because it proved that our hours together, though often short on conversation, were not as shallow as the outside world would think.
“Please stop with your boring theory about my cats,” I said. “I’ll be so disappointed if it’s all some lame commercial. How else am I stubborn when people say I can’t have things?”
“I said tenacious, not stubborn. You were tenacious about me.”
“Nobody told me I couldn’t have you.”
“No?” When I didn’t answer, he said, “Well. I did.”
“Briefly. I’m starving, aren’t you?”
“See. It’s hard to be in the hot seat. You prefer doing the reporting.”
* * *
We were heading for the stairs when I saw them. On the landing above us: blue espadrilles with ballet straps crisscrossed chicly around shapely calves.
I pushed him against the dark wall.
“Well, now.” He grinned, thinking I had other intentions.
I clapped my hand over his lips and pointed up at the staircase landing.
I held my breath, waiting. It would serve me right if the blue espadrilles were followed by my mom’s white Naturalizer flats, if the promised lunch had become dinner. I’d treated her shabbily all summer; the answering machine tape on the kitchen counter was full of my lies. The latest, left only a few hours ago: Hey, I’ll be home pretty late. I’m invited to the company box at the baseball game.
I have to make an appearance, I’d said.
If my mom found out about me and Cal, she’d be horrified and blame him, raise a fuss. Mrs. Haggermaker would yank my scholarship. And Eric would find out.
In that moment, holding my breath in the darkest corner of the cold basement restaurant, each of the three seemed inevitable and equally catastrophic.
But the shoes that appeared behind Donna’s were men’s leather loafers.
Cal and I watched the two of them descend the stairs.
Her smooth calve
s, white tennis skirt and tank, a red sweater knotted around her shoulders, her hair down. His sharp blue suit on this hot day. I knew from the fit of the jacket that it was the husky, attentive man from her pool party.
Please don’t come this way.
If she decided to visit the ladies’ room before being seated, there would be no place to hide. What would we say?
Hey, Donna! Great place. Try the flourless chocolate cake!
We froze, silent, until they were seated.
* * *
The next morning at the sunny white breakfast table, my mom turned the pages in her Gardening section without her usual cheerful commentary.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Of course! How was the game?”
“We won, 5–4.” I’d checked the score in the paper while she was getting juice. “We all went to sushi after. Did I wake you up, I...” I spotted the tickets propped against the pepper grinder.
The Pageant of the Masters. It was our annual tradition—a living-portrait art benefit in Laguna, in an outdoor theater. Actors dressed up like Girl with a Pearl Earring or The Last Supper, replicating the outfits and backgrounds, painting their faces. It was pretty cool. And it had been on my blotter calendar all summer.
“Mom. The pageant.”
“Oh, it’s all right.”
“I can’t believe I forgot.”
She took her Cheerios dish to the sink and rinsed it. “Would you like the last bit of OJ? There’s a splash left.”
“I’ll pay you back for the tickets.”
She spoke over her shoulder. “It’s okay, honey! I’m glad you could blow off steam with your coworkers. You’ve been working so hard.”
22
Reservations
2008
Friday, 9:00 a.m.
Big Sur
The Sandpiper Inn
“Would you like more coffee?” Eric asks.
“I’d love it. Thanks.”
We sit side by side at a windy courtyard table overlooking the ocean, taking in the tree-covered bluffs below us, the strip of dark blue morning sea, the wall of fog that’s receding by the minute.
Eric is on my right again, just like in the car. The host had asked if we wanted our chairs moved to face each other or left like this, So you can both enjoy the view?
We’d jumped at the side-by-side option. A duet: This is fine!
The view is unbelievable, just like Joy said.
The bluffs below us are not the brown, vertical cliffs we passed on the drive yesterday. The inn is perched over a section of coastline with gentler angles. A fluffy blanket of green stretching down to the water.
“The trees make it look so soft, like a bunny slope.” I sip my coffee, gazing out. “Like you could roll on your side all the way down and not hurt yourself.”
“It’s a beautiful spot. Thanks for picking it.” Eric butters his toast.
“Sure.”
I stir berries into my oatmeal. (No Dutch baby for two, though the honeymooners next to us are oohing and aahing over their shared, puffy pancake, feeding each other bites. Sorry to disappoint, Joy.)
“How’s your oatmeal?”
“Delicious. How about your eggs?”
“They’re perfect...”
We go on like this. Discussing the food, the view. The wedding, our gift. How we both worked in our rooms and crashed early.
I don’t tell him about the long walk I took last night, down a green-canopied, zigzagging trail to the beach.
How I sat on the sand alone and pictured him up in his room, his laptop and room-service tray in front of him on his hotel bed.
At least he’s been more helpful since we checked in, more of a participant in our quest. Yesterday he talked the inn’s owner into letting us park the convertible in her personal garage, to avoid the hassle of moving the gift into the hotel for the night.
I’m trying not to associate this gesture with how relieved he looked when the desk clerk handed us keys to two separate rooms.
I want to ask him, Were you seriously worried there’d be some kind of reservation snafu and we’d be stuck in one room?
But I bite the words back.
“So were the panels in the car really at a preschool?” Eric asks.
“Yeah, in Tarzana. I’m thinking we don’t tell her that part.”
“Agreed.” He nods.
Cute 3-D wildlife scene with fun detail, great condition!!! the listing said about the left and middle panels of Serra’s triptych. The seller didn’t know that she’d only had two-thirds of it. The minimum bid was $200 but the second I saw the photo I clicked Buy It Now! and offered $350. It will buy a lot of paste and construction paper for the kids.
“How long did it take to find the section we’re picking up tomorrow?” he asks.
“Weeks longer than the ones in the car. It’s in a real collector’s house.”
“Do you think we’ll need a dolly?”
“No, with two of us I think it’ll be fine. The panels aren’t super heavy, just big. I really appreciate you helping...”
This is how it started in June, with me politely asking for his help.
I’ve never seen him during one of his rare visits to the West Coast. Never reached out before, though I’d thought about it hundreds of times. But that night I emailed that I’d heard he’d be in San Diego for his mother’s fiftieth, six days before the wedding. That I’d tracked down two sections of Serra’s triptych, and could he possibly drive up to Oregon with me, help out?
I’m hoping to find the last third. We could make it a joint present. But I totally understand if you can’t do it...
I know it’s a lot to ask.
I sent the email late one night, giddy after finding the first two panels.
It had seemed like a perfectly logical plan at 1:00 a.m. He was still close to Serra, and the present would mean everything to her. What else was he going to do with those six days between celebrations?
Another minor factor—I didn’t want Serra to worry about me and Eric on her big day. But if she knew we were driving up together, if we could deal with the awkward reunion privately, it would make things easier on everybody.
I could see it. Eric flying out for his mom’s fiftieth. Us driving up the coast together, on speaking terms again. Bearing Serra’s piece north to Oregon. All three sections of it, beginning, middle, and end, as gleaming as on the day of her first exhibit. The perfect gift.
One that would make all of us remember how we were.
After I clicked Send I couldn’t sleep all night. I pictured a network of zapping internet cables delivering my email from California to New York, imagined locating the crucial wire, sawing it.
But I knew it was too late, that my message was already waiting for him in his New York office and I couldn’t pull it back.
What had I been thinking? I hadn’t been. I’d been buzzed and sentimental from my internet find—drunk dialing without the fallback excuse of alcohol.
He answered the next morning:
That’s really thoughtful & I’m sure she’d love it. I’d have to work on the road but I could probably swing it...
He pours more half-and-half into his coffee, stirs vigorously. The clinks ringing from the inside of the white ceramic cup sound so merry.
“You went all out,” he says yet again.
I try to accept you went all out at face value, as a compliment.
But it seems to be a euphemism for something unspoken, and I didn’t like it when he said it yesterday, either. He talks to Serra more than I do, and I can’t help but read a little dig in you went all out. As if he really means, you went too far, considering I’m better friends with her than you are.
I’m beginning to wonder if maybe I have gone too far. The gift might have survived shipping. I could have g
iven up on the hinges. We could have scheduled a one-on-one dinner up in Oregon before the wedding, to keep everyone from worrying.
We could have had a coffee.
“She’ll be so surprised,” he says.
There’s a softness in his voice now, and I glance at him; he’s staring out at the ocean.
We gaze out at the blue, shimmering water. Clinging to conversation about the gift.
It’s our life raft; it’s safe.
When Eric agreed to drive with me, I’d let myself hope.
I hadn’t realized how much, how carried away I’d gotten, until last night when I was sitting on wet sand in the dark, alone, listening to the waves crash on the shore.
Trying to remember why I’d thought this trip was a good idea.
23
Picnic
2008
Friday, 3:00 p.m.
Berkeley
Serra’s triptych placard is waiting for me at the front desk of the museum, right where the woman on the phone promised it would be. I buy a chocolate-chip scone at the museum café to celebrate—and get me through the last hour of driving today.
I’m tired, but soon we’ll be in San Francisco. And the placard in my hand has given me a lift; it’s going to make Serra smile. It still hurts a little that I’m not in her bridal party.
I hope you understand, she’d emailed.
I do. But weddings are brutal that way. They put the friendship caste system into perfect focus. You can’t avoid it: there are a hundred reminders of how you rank. Maid of honor down to an insignificant soul marooned at the table at the tip of the dining room archipelago, farthest from the head table. Where the guests merit only a distracted, “Hey, so glad you could come,” as the couple takes their courtesy lap around the room.
If you’re at one of those distant tables, you say something like, “I love your dress.” You weren’t there when she chose it. And she didn’t send a picture.
But if you know the right gift is waiting? The one that will obliterate all the others, and make the bride smile, remember the Three Mouseketeers? That might help you bear it.
I look down at the placard, intact after so long, a little two-by-three-inch miracle:
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