Unraveling

by Owen Thomas

  She wants a rescue. She wants me to come charging in to back her up. Of course he said it. I hate Eric Fingerhut. Or words to that effect. I was there. I heard it. But so what? What is the meaning of any one battle in an interminable war? And what’s in it for me to intervene? Further alienation from my father? Disdain for abdicating my independence and allowing myself to be taken in and co-opted by her petty agenda? The next time I will be compelled by my own enslaving sense of fairness to speak up for him against her – he’s right Mom, you were closer to twenty minutes late. And what will that get me? A cold shoulder for providing aid and comfort to the enemy?

  “Leave me out of this, Mom,” I say, aware everyone is listening.

  Ben’s shadow is motionless on the lawn; a dark, black granite stanchion stretching out toward the cotoneasters. Which I know only means that the song has ended. I know that the only time my brother is connected to the world that I, even superficially, inhabit tonight is in those three second intervals between one tune and the next; between Hakuna Matada and The Lion Sleeps Tonight. I wonder what he thinks of the noise from down the hall that seeps beneath his door and rises up from the silence between the songs in his ears. I wonder if he is heartbroken. I wonder if he cares.

  My father is introducing his Japanese friend with all of her great breeding and education and bankable success.

  Sure, but let’s see her teeth, Dad. How hard does she run on the inside, crowded against the rail?

  She is insufferably sweet and pleasant and gracious and I want to empty my wine glass over her blonde hair and yellow dress and this is when I realize for the first time just what a shitty mood I am in because there is really nothing at all offensive or objectionable about this person. Quite the contrary, under different circumstances …Christ…what? I’d ask her out? Great, Dave. Well what is it? Do you hate her guts or want to have sex with her?

  It is my sister’s voice that leavens my mood a little. It has been at least two years since I have seen her – well, less than forty feet tall anyway – and we are only infrequently in telephone contact. I do not have the money and I suspect she does not have the inclination. But I hear her voice and I miss her deeply. My little sister. The one with all the piss and vinegar and rage. The one who has always had my father’s number and who always, always had the courage to show it to him. The one who piled up all the strength, smarts, ambition, against-the-odds perseverance, and the in-your-face-this-is-my-only-life-and-I’m-gonna-make-the-most-of-it perspicacity allocated to the Johns children, and took it all for herself because she knew that she was the only one who would ever do anything with it; stuffed it all into a ratty denim purse, slung it over her shoulder and walked out of the house in the middle of the night and never looked back.

  I hear her voice rising out of the little white speaker on the floor as she speaks to the shoes of people she cannot see, receiving their congratulations and I miss her and I am in awe all over again.

  “And, your brother David is here.”

  “Hey Sis.”

  “Hey, big bro. You doin’ okay? Whipped the ninth grade into shape yet?”

  “Well, not exactly. Congratulations, Tilly. I’m real proud.”

  “Thanks Dave. I miss you. Come see me when you can.”

  “Do you have room for about 150 high school freshmen?”

  “Tilly, this is Mom. David was hoping Mae would be able to join us, but she is very, very sick, or at least she was and might still be very, very sick, but I know she really wanted to be here and so far she’s not, so…”

  “Oh. Well. That’s a … uh… that’s a big shame, Mom.”

  That my sister is less than fond of Mae is no big secret. The reasons are mysterious. She has never told me and I have never asked. It is an intuitive vibe or a competitive instinct. I am relieved suddenly that Mae is not here.

  I feel a little bad for her, my sister, having to endure this obligatory telephonic adulation. I suppose she is coming to terms with stardom. I suppose she has to. But still.

  Japanese Barbie makes the mistake of telling my sister that my father has been invoking The Buddha to sing her praises.

  “Oh?”

  I can tell from her voice that this is the first time Tilly has taken a genuine interest in the conversation. I can almost hear her rolling up her sleeves.

  “Yes, dear,” says Mom with an unnatural cheer in her voice. She is anticipating the pile on. “Your father is quoting the Buddha again.”

  “Well then, let’s hear it.”

  “Tilly, I know you are busy so let’s raise our glasses…” My father has his glass raised as though he is in an opera, waiving a pewter goblet at the back seats.

  “No, seriously,” insists Tilly. “Just what does the Buddha have to say about me? I’d really like to know. I bet Bethany remembers.”

  Bethany looks uncertainly at my father, who has crossed his arms and is staring fixedly at the carpet.

  “Oh, umm, it was something like It is a wise father that knows his own child. And he said that he felt wise because he always knew…”

  “I hate to break it to you, but that’s Shakespeare, not Buddha. And, worse yet, it’s a perversion of the original line from Homer.”

  I almost choke on my last swallow of wine and get looks of concern from Mikki Dobbs and Rhonda, each of whom cranes her neck around to find the source of the gasp.

  “Really, dear?” Mom asks innocently, deeply interested for the very first time in Homerian pearls. “What’s the original line?”

  It is like watching tag-team wrestling gone horribly wrong and I want to close my eyes. Tilly pauses before answering.

  “It is a wise child that knows her own father.” Slam!

  “Oh my,” Mom exclaims, looking around from face to face, “you’re so smart sometimes I can’t even stand it.” Pow!

  “Okay, Tilly, I know you’re busy,” Dad raises the pewter goblet again, yet higher, “so we are going to raise our glasses to you in recognition of this great honor.”

  “I prefer Oscar Wilde, myself.” Smack!

  “You’re always so good with writers, dear. What did he say?”

  “Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.” Oooohhhh! That’s gotta hurt.

  “Okay, let raise our glasses…”

  But Mom still will not cede control of the evening to my father. For that is what the toast is all about; who controls the show. My father is better at it and they both know it. He has something to say and it will be funny and wise and endearing and perfectly extemporaneous and they will love him for it. Ah, Hollis…how lovely. Bravo! Here, here! But it’s not his party – not really anyway – and they both know that too. My mother knows she has leaned on Tilly’s smarts and conspired to have her fun with the Buddha and Homer. She knows that paybacks are hell and that they have reached the part where she loses ownership of her own party and so she is struggling to stay on top.

  “Wait, wait, Hollis. We still have to do the reviews.” The glass comes down and Mom stoops toward the phone on the floor. “Sweetie, we had everyone here do reviews of your performance in Peppermint Grove, and we’re going to read…”

  Not that my mother could never deliver a good speech, or make a good toast, or work the crowd to great effect. She can and she has. Just ask Gayle. But she knows that it – whatever that may be – is not really in her. She knows her successes in this regard to have been flukes of fortune; wrinkles in the fabric of her own identity. My mother knows herself to be an inferior. That’s the only way to say it. Not in everything. Not in raising children. Not in taking care of the home front. Not in looking good or in understanding the social rules by which we must live or in seeing the surface of life. It’s mostly just in speaking – the conveyance of true meaning with words – and in thinking and in understanding how it all comes together beneath the surface that she is lacking. She knows she is lacking depth. Whatever her successes, what she knows is that they are all succes
ses delivered in the shallow end of the pool and, unlike my father, she knows she is not a good swimmer and that, after all, the pool is only but so big. Admitted or not, true or not, that is what she knows of herself and that knowledge, maybe more than anything else, has been the glue that has seeped into every nook and cranny of the marriage where long ago it has hardened and binds together this thing, this holiest of unions, that no man shall tear asunder.

  “Oh, God. Mom…”

  There is genuine anguish in my sister’s voice and I smother the instinct to help her by ripping the phone cord out of the wall.

  With the exception of Peaches Pinkle and Rhonda Davenport most of the reviews are breathless and awful and, therefore, surprisingly authentic sounding.

  I am watching my father urge Bethany forward with reassuring nods. She cringes, he nods. She winces, he nods. She smiles, biting her lip uncertainly. He nods. Christ.

  “Who’s next?”

  Bethany straightens herself and steps up to the phone. Now I am cringing and biting my lip.

  “I’ll go, Mrs. Johns. I’ll go next.”

  “It’s Susan. Susan. Please,” says my mother smiling through irritation only my father and I are capable of detecting. “Go ahead, Bethany.”

  “Okay. Thanks. Hi again, Tilly. This is me, Bethany Koan. Hi. Okay, here is my review. Okay. Gosh. I’m nervous. This is so exciting. Okay. Here I go.”

  She reads from her slip of paper. People are exclaiming. Applauding. Even Tilly sounds impressed. My father is beaming and he squeezes her on the shoulder and she smiles and shrugs and beams back at him, showing her teeth.

  I do not dwell on the fact that Bethany’s review is ten times better than anything I could have come up with in two minutes at a table of appetizers surrounded by strangers. Nor that she so easily commands my father’s admiration. I content myself with the acknowledgement that it was better than I had expected and I remind myself that she admires Mike O’Donnell and I move on.

  “Well. Okay. Who’s next?” My mother perches her eyebrows and opens her palms in my direction. “David. It’s your turn.”

  Crap. I step away from the window and move an inch closer to the group.

  “Tilly?” I intone.

  “Yes, Dave.”

  “You will be delighted to know that, because I love you, I have conscientiously objected to this whole idea. I am not blurbing your work.”

  “You are a kind and loving brother.”

  “But if I did blurb your movie, it would probably have something to do with paying almost ten bucks to see more of your ass than your face.”

  It is a childish taunt but she expects nothing less and I will not disappoint her by being appropriate or sycophantic. We respect one another in the codes of our upbringing.

  “Ha…ha…ha.”

  “If you could teach that thing to emote then maybe you’d have something.”

  “David!” Mom is genuinely appalled.

  “Gee, thanks, Dave.”

  “By the way, my students want me to tell you that you are a goddess. I get much more attention and respect as your publicity agent than as a history teacher.”

  “That’s enough of that,” says Mom. “Shame on you for not doing a review, David. Luckily, I anticipated that you would be a party pooper, so I wrote one for you and Mae. So don’t think that you can just… Oh! Oh! Look who’s here!”

  I do not know how to react or what to think or how to feel, so I just stand there. Mae is in the foyer, suddenly, soundlessly, like she has grown out of the floor. She’s here. Mae is here. She has come. What does this mean?

  It means I’m back is what it fucking means. It means I have reached for her and she has reached back. She waves delicately with two of her fingers and I am so stunned that all I can do is drink from an empty glass.

  My mother exclaims the introductions as Mae descends into the living room. I am suddenly over-animated with enthusiasm, just looking for an opportunity to wave, as though I have been programmed for a twenty second delay. But she is busy exchanging greetings, not looking at me. I manage to get a grip and force myself back into my coolly detached vibe. Mae and Tilly exchange icicles.

  She is exquisite, of course; her hair flowing seamlessly into a black silk camisole and slacks. She glitters at the lobes of her ears. I catch Jude Dobbs elbowing my father with approval. My father elbows him back, scrunching up his lips to return the sentiment.

  Her eyes find me again and this time I am able to acknowledge her presence. She smiles in that soft, perfectly Asian-Afro-Latino, heavily creamed-coffee, feminine way of hers that makes me wild. I have made the concession to come here, Dave, the smile tells me. I am here only for one reason. You, Dave. I have come here for you.

  I motion her in my direction, but Mom is already on her, touching her bare shoulder in what, as the fog clears, I too slowly realize is the first metal-to-metal point of contact in a train wreck that I should have seen coming.

  “Now, Mae, David is being a spoil sport, but I wrote this little review out for you to read to Tilly.”

  “Mom…oh, God, Mom… let’s not…”

  “Shush, David. Go ahead Mae.”

  Mae looks at me uncomprehendingly as she takes the slip of paper. I want to help. I want to reach out but she is too far away already and getting smaller in the distance.

  “Uh… you want me to read … this?”

  “Yes, dear.”

  She scans the paper and I can only imagine what it must say.

  “Nooo,” she says shaking her head and laughing to hide her incredulity. “I … I really couldn’t.”

  “Sure you can!” Mom chirps. “Go ahead.”

  Mae looks at me again. Smiling. Smiling hard.

  “Ooookay. Where? Right here?” She points to the top of the notepaper.

  “And on the back there,” says my mother, tapping the backside.

  “Uh… Tilly Johns is the most wonderful actress …”

  “Slower, dear. Slooower.” My mother pulls an imaginary string between her fingers. Mae smiles and takes a long breath and silence pours down into the speakerphone where my sister waits, loving every second of it.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Mae says without conviction. “Nothing.”

  Another hard look blasts me out of my spellbound stupor.

  “Mom… Mae, don’t … Look, I didn’t have any idea…” But it is hopeless and Mae knows it is hopeless and she soldiers on. Slowly.

  “Tilly Johns is the most wonderful actress in Hollywood…”

  She reads, her tone giving voice to a growing sickness in my stomach. When she is done there is micro-silence that lasts an eternity.

  “Oh. Well. Gee. Thanks, Mae,” says Tilly with extra syrup. “That was really sweet of you.”

  The rest is all a blur. Events moving simultaneously so fast and so slow that they are out of focus. Mae reacting. Mae turning. Mae leaving. Mae tackle-dancing with my brother who explodes out of the hallway into the foyer. The guests alarmed and amused and agitated. Tilly, imprisoned in her plastic speaker, pleading for information – what’s happening? What’s happening! Mae, beautiful, lithe, elegant Mae, her naked arms pinned to her sides, twisting the silk camisole up her perfect abdomen, as she is heaved in violent circles around my childhood home, threatening me with unspecified harm if I do not stop laughing. Me, laughing; my first inkling I have been laughing – not laughing at Mae as much as I am laughing with Ben who carries such an expression of pure bliss on his features that it is impossible not to laugh and to feel exultant, and for a brief moment to be a shadow in Ben’s pool of light spilling into the back yard, laughing and dancing in his secret wind. My mother shouting instructions to both Ben – Oh, not too tight, handsome. Not too tight. Are you giving Mae a big hug? – and to Mae – Just kind of go with it. Try not to fight it, dear. No…no, if you struggle, he’ll just hug you tighter. My father growing alarmed about the telephone on the floor. The splintering of my sister’s disembodied voice an
d the hollow knock of Mae’s beautiful skull against the coffee table.

  It is all over in an instant and it lasts a million, billion lifetimes.

  Mae does not speak six words to me for the rest of the evening and my fawning concern over the ever-purpling contusion on her forehead does nothing to soften her disposition. Bethany produces a bottle of aspirin and Dr. Swensen gives Mae a thorough once-over, concluding that her ricochet off the sofa has spared her a concussion.

  “Mae, I’m sorry,” I tell her in a whisper when the others have left us alone. “I’m really sorry. He didn’t want you to leave.”

  “I was headed for the bathroom,” she said in an angry whisper.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I need to go home.” She touched the air above the swelling knot.

  “Don’t you want something to eat?” I ask because I’m an idiot. “They’re putting dinner on the table.”

  “I’m going home.”

  “You’re an hour away. I’m closer. You can sleep at my place.”

  But she’s not having any of that. She wants to go home to her own bed.

  “I’ll take the couch. You can have the bed. You’re in no condition to drive.”

  She closes her eyes for a long second.

  “Fine. Whatever. Just get me out of here.”

  My mother does not take our decision to skip out on dinner in stride. It does not help matters that only twenty minutes earlier my father announced that he and Bethany were due at some bank retirement function, leaving my mother to handle dinner for ten all by herself. Were I a better son, I would have felt guilty leaving her; and perhaps I do. Okay, I do feel guilty, but not nearly enough to stay and suffer through and to send Mae home and further complicate my own life. Thanks, but no.

  “Fine, David,” she snips, angrily slinging asparagus spears onto plates like kindling into a fireplace. “Just go. I tell ya, sometimes the men in this family…”

  But she doesn’t finish. Gayle bursts into the kitchen rolling up her sleeves. Another six inches of tattoo is revealed, but I am no closer to knowing what the hell it is.