Language Arts

by Stephanie Kallos

  Zach was saying something over the sound of running water.

  “What’s that?”

  “I said, do you like her?”

  “Who? Loony tunes?” Charles shrugged. “Sure, I guess, aside from the fact that she’s obviously insane.”

  “You said you kissed her.”

  A small warning light went off in Charles’s mind when Zach brought up this minor detail.

  “Yes, and … ?” Because Charles’s version of the story was carefully abbreviated, emphasizing Alison’s eccentricity and youth and his levelheaded maturity (and downplaying his devolution into a man with a terrifying case of kiss-induced tachycardia), the extended version of their make-out scene ended up on the cutting-room floor. “So?”

  “Come on, Charlie.” Zach raised his voice just enough to be heard over the clink and clatter of glasses and plates being returned to the cupboards. If Charles hadn’t been so stoned, he would have realized that there were complex maneuverings in play: tableware in the hands of a bartender as experienced as Zach did not clatter. “Just tell me,” he prompted. “What was it like?”

  Charles redirected his attention to the nachos and settled deeper into the sofa cushions. He was aware that he was acting like an adolescent but remained clueless as to what other behavioral choices were available.

  “Okay,” Zach said when Charles didn’t respond. “Here’s the thing: based on my experience and wisdom …” His old man voice sounded disturbingly authentic, and he abandoned the effort when he started to cough.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” Zach crossed the living room and stood at the picture window, looking out at the bay. It was getting dark. “I just wanna say: What the hell? What could it hurt to follow up?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Zach turned around and, with an uncharacteristic gravitas that Charles perceived even from the depths of his stoner haze, said, “Do it. Write her a letter. Even if she is crazy, she’s three thousand miles away. It’s not like you’re gonna need a restraining order. Hell, if you’re that worried, don’t give her your phone number. Come on. What can you lose?”

  Zach’s counsel was sound, reasonable, brotherly. And there had been that kiss.

  So Charles wrote to Alison in his best Palmer cursive, making use of her pen. She wrote back, making use of the typographically flawed napkins.

  He told her about his parents and their volatile marriage, the mixed blessings of being an only child, the small embattled country that was their three-person family, his love for books and movies, philosophy and language. Yes, for years he’d been aimless in his aspirations, superficial in his relationships. He blamed no one but himself.

  He did not write of his landmark fourth-grade year or Dana McGucken, although—in a lighter vein—he did share reflections related to the Palmer Method and suggested that Alison might benefit from daily loop practice if her work at the law firm became too stressful; to that end, he sent a vintage Palmer Method handwriting workbook he found at an antiques mall.

  She told him about her family, their legacy of wealth, privilege, and visibility within Seattle society, her conflicted feelings about a life for which she’d always been grateful but also felt guilty about, her desire to do something worthwhile, earn her way, and eventually practice the kind of law that would involve advocating for the powerless instead of protecting the privileged. She expressed theories about Charles’s lack of direction and drive, his fears of intimacy; she elaborated on what she saw as his gifts: patience, kindness, an ability to listen and mentor. She reiterated her belief that he had more, so much more, to give to the world than a superlative martini, and didn’t he owe that to himself as well? She had unbounded faith that anyone with self-awareness, discipline, courage, and intent could change for the better.

  It was an epistolary courtship that lasted until the fall, when the effects of chemo and radiation made it impossible for Zach to continue hiding his cancer diagnosis.

  “Marry me,” Charles said, arriving on the doorstep of Alison’s Morningside Heights apartment at six thirty one September morning after taking a Seattle-to-JFK redeye.

  He kissed her for the first time since the Stanford/Bettencourt reception, Love life us up where we belong, rewinding time to that moment, confirming what he’d known since then but had been too frightened to acknowledge, because it was impossible for this to be happening to him; surely there had been some sort of mistake, a major gaffe at the highest managerial levels.

  But no, apparently not, so Thank God, he thought—his first prayer since childhood—and he kept on kissing her; she did not pull away. They’d exchanged thousands of words over the past few months, So now let words go, he thought, feeling the emphatic yes of her body in reply and agreement.

  “Marry me,” he said again later. “Come back to Seattle and marry me.”

  “Today?”

  “Today. Tomorrow. Soon.”

  “What’s the rush?” she asked lightly, bemused—as if all of this were sweetly commonplace, nothing out of the ordinary, merely what was merited. It frightened him for a moment, for this was no small disparity: she was a person for whom happiness and good fortune was a given; he lived in constant expectance of sorrow. But maybe she could teach him; maybe he could learn.

  “My best man is dying,” he replied.

  She kissed his eyelids, pulled him close, and said, “It won’t take me long to pack. I travel light.”

  Where Are They Now?

  “All right, then, Mike,” Charles said, adding, “I look forward to meeting you,” before hanging up. He immediately retracted his hand from the receiver, as if he’d grasped the handle of a cast-iron skillet he’d forgotten was blistering hot.

  I look forward to meeting you?

  A polite end to the conversation, but a blatant lie.

  Charles stood next to his home-office desk, still wearing his coat and shouldering his satchel. After school, he’d rushed home to get ready for his date with Alison at Children’s Hospital; when the phone rang, he thought it might be her calling with a change in plan, so he picked up.

  “Mr. Marlow? Mike Bernauer here, from the Seattle Times …”

  “Oh, hello,” Charles said dully, fighting an impulse to disguise his voice, say, Sorry, wrong number, and hang up.

  After Charles confirmed that yes, he was the Charles Marlow who’d attended Nellie Goodhue during the 1962–63 school year; yes, he was the Charles Marlow quoted in the 1963 Seattle Times article; and yes, he was the Charles Marlow who’d written “Flipper Boy,” the reporter reprised the information he’d left on the answering machine: he was doing a follow-up piece about the fourth-graders who had been in Mrs. Braxton’s Language Arts class, where were they now, what were they doing, had their predictions of twenty-first-century life come true, that sort of thing.

  It sounded benign enough.

  The reporter mentioned the names of several others who’d consented to the interview. Charles recognized but one: Astrid Overmeyer. The surname was different, the first name devoid of that final schwa, but it had to be her.

  Probably he’d consented for no other reason than curiosity and to reconnect with one of the few other people who might be able to corroborate—or refute—his version of what had happened at the end of that school year.

  With his Montegrappa Italia, Charles made an entry on his desk calendar for three days hence: 10:30 Mike Bernauer Seattle Times interview @ Center House next to Monorail.

  •♦•

  It was Alison’s idea that they keep going to these things. Charles suspected that she had a hidden agenda, that she worried about his lack of a social life and these monthly PLAY gatherings were her way of getting him out now and then.

  Usually there were guest speakers—scientists addressing some aspect of the brain, therapists offering helpful tools in terms of communication, dietitians recommending some new nutritional theory, and so on—and Charles almost always took away something to contemplate.
/>   “Good evening, everyone!” announced a voice over the microphone.

  The PLAY director, Leslie Eisenberg-Zimet, an anesthesiologist and the mother of three autistic sons, began gesturing the crowd toward the front of the room, away from the potluck-dinner tables. “If you could, please start wrapping up your conversations, grab something to drink if you’d like, and take a seat. Tonight’s presentation is about to begin.”

  Charles poured himself another cup of coffee while Alison finished chatting. She’d developed close relationships with many of the people in this room, often seeing them in social settings, but Charles preferred to enforce certain boundaries in his personal life—such as it was. He kept a polite distance, not considering the shared experience of having a child on the spectrum a good foundation on which to build potential friendships.

  “Ready?” Alison said, taking his arm. “Let’s get seats.”

  There was a larger-than-usual turnout, as many as fifty people, Charles estimated. It was the time of year, Charles was sure of it. There was no more anxiety-provoking month than October, our bodies remembering the ancient cave days, anxious to secure sources of light and warmth and companionship before the arrival of winter.

  Once the room had quieted, Dr. Eisenberg-Zimet took up the microphone again and addressed the assembly.

  “This month, in the interest of doing something a little different and giving us all more of a typical parents’-night-out experience …”

  She paused for laughter, and it arrived, ranging from the timid-forced variety to the gregarious-forced variety.

  “… tonight’s presentation will be—surprise!—a movie screening of an award-winning independent Australian film called The Black Balloon.” Referring to a small piece of paper, she continued, “This is from a synopsis I found on the Internet: ‘When Thomas and his family move to a new home and he starts a new school, all he wants is to fit in. But that proves difficult with his autistic brother …’”

  Oh boy, Charles thought. Here we go.

  “‘… who likes to wear a monkey suit, play computer games, and find every opportunity to escape.’ It’s supposed to be a great film, full of heart and humor. I’m just sorry that I didn’t think to provide us with popcorn”—again, she paused for an anemic wave of laughter—“but nevertheless, I hope you’ll enjoy it. Okay, let’s hit the lights. The film isn’t terribly long, so if you’re able, please stay for a postscreening discussion.”

  •♦•

  “Oh, come on, Charles,” Alison said after the waiter deposited their drinks on the table: cabernet sauvignon for her, a nonalcoholic cocktail for Charles. They’d driven to a bar in University Village, not far from the hospital, and were sitting on a sofa in a large sunken area with a fire pit. “You had to at least have liked the acting. It was good, right?”

  “Yes, very good.”

  “And the writing?”

  “It was excellent, Alison. Really.”

  “Liar,” she said playfully. “You hated it, I can tell.” She hefted her briefcase into her lap and began looking for something. “The actress who played the mother, she looked familiar.”

  “Toni Collette.”

  “Have I seen her in anything else?”

  “She was the mom in Sixth Sense.”

  Alison looked up, frowned briefly. “Oh. Right.” It was a performance that had infuriated her: No mother of a special child would ever act like that, she’d said.

  “Okay …” She brought out two crisp sheets of white paper, placed one in front of each of them. “We should get started.”

  At the top of each page was a typed heading—POSSIBLE HOUSING CHOICES FOR CODY—followed by a long numbered list.

  Charles took up his copy, settled into the sofa, sipped his mocktail, and for the next half hour or so nodded and made appropriate interjections as Alison enumerated the pros and cons of each facility. He knew that his opinion wasn’t really required; she’d already made up her mind about which places they should visit.

  “So we’re in agreement about this? I do think these are our best bets for him,” she concluded, referring to the check marks she’d made beside the three acceptable choices.

  “Sounds good.”

  “Okay, I’ll make the phone calls and arrange the visits as soon as possible.”

  Charles looked at his watch. Ten thirty. He still had papers to grade.

  “There is one other thing I wanted to talk to you about,” Alison added as she made notations in her day planner, “another possible option, just in case we’re not happy with what we see at these facilities.”

  Her voice remained nonchalant; only because Charles knew her so well did he recognize that the content of this statement hinted at a deeper significance, a subtextual brewing of some radical idea.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Well, I’ve been talking with other families who are facing this same thing—you know, kids aging out—and a few of us got to brainstorming …”

  She went on to describe what was clearly much more than another possible option; it was a fully fleshed-out plan—although she would never allow herself to acknowledge that. It had always been important to Alison to feel that she was including Charles. Only once in the course of their conjoined lives had she made a major, irrevocable decision without consulting him.

  Occasionally Charles’s vision blurred, a compensatory reaction to his ex-wife’s crisply enunciated, impassioned voice, her laserlike focus. More than once, he found himself drifting off, staring into the fire.

  •♦•

  “I have a surprise for the two of you,” Eulalie announced. She and Alison were in the living room; Charles was in the kitchen, setting the kettle to boil and trying to figure out what was on hand that he could use to improvise dinner. In the pantry, rice, quinoa, potatoes; in the fridge, desiccated, whiskered carrots, boxed baby lettuce gone slimy, and a few end-of-season beets and beans from the garden; in the freezer, chicken thighs, ground turkey, a lactose-and-gluten-free entrée. There’d been no time to get to the grocery store this week.

  It was a Friday afternoon in October of 1994; the remodel was in full swing, the rains were upon them, the house was a disaster, and Cody had regressed substantially. Not a day went by that Charles didn’t fear the whole enterprise was going to ruin them.

  Atypically, and to Alison’s obvious displeasure, Eulalie had dropped by without any forewarning or prearrangement.

  “Your father and I are taking Cody for the next four days so the two of you can spend some time on your own.”

  “What? Mother,” Alison protested, “no! We can’t possibly leave with everything going on, the construction, Cody—”

  “I’ve reserved three nights at a B and B in La Conner, and—”

  “Three nights?”

  “Yes, I checked the school calendar and saw that Charles has a long weekend. Isn’t that right, Charles?” she called to him.

  “Indeed,” he called back.

  “There’s absolutely nothing to worry about. Go and pack. If you get on the road in the next ninety minutes or so you’ll arrive in time for dinner; I made a reservation at a phenomenal restaurant that your father and I discovered over the summer.”

  “Mother, this is insane.”

  “What’s insane about it? Wouldn’t you like to get away? Where’s Cody?”

  “Upstairs, with the therapist. They just got started.”

  “Fine, I’ll stay until his lesson is over; I can pack his things while I’m waiting. Your father and I have all sorts of fun activities planned. We’ll have a lovely time.”

  “Mother, I just don’t think you and Daddy understand how complicated our life is right now. I know you’re trying to be helpful, but—”

  “I understand perfectly, Alison.” Eulalie’s voice was stern. She exchanged a frustrated look with Charles as he came into the living room carrying a tray bearing a teapot, a French press, two cups, and a plate of Walkers shortbread, Eulalie’s favorite. “And that is
exactly why you and your husband need to get away. Thank you, Charles.”

  Charles sat on the arm of the sofa next to Alison; he tried to pull her close, but her body was resistant, taut. He knew that her protestations weren’t entirely related to Cody and the remodel; she was surely just as anxious as he was about the prospect of spending time alone together, attempting adult-to-adult conversation over a good meal and a bottle of wine, and, maybe, possibly, having undistracted, unrestricted sex.

  “Eulalie,” he said, “this is an amazing offer. Thank you. What do you think, Ali? It sounds like everything’s worked out.”

  Alison sipped her tea, frowned.

  “Come on,” he said, keeping his voice dispassionate, as if he really didn’t care one way or the other, when in fact he was so elated by the idea of having his wife to himself for a few days that it was all he could do to keep from pulling her into a Bogart-Bergman lip-lock. “Cody will be fine.”

  “Of course he will,” Eulalie chimed in. “You mothers today: so protective. My Lord, your father and I went out at least twice a week when you children were little. It’s so important for a marriage.”

  Eulalie and Victor Forché—like Rita and Garrett Marlow—came from a generation of couples who did not consider themselves subordinate to their children but rather stepped out, regularly and often, regardless of the state of their unions and for no other reason than to have fun, choosing to put their identities as husbands and wives in front of their identities as fathers and mothers. Alison, however, epitomized a more current trend: on the rare occasions she and Charles went out, their babysitters were vetted with a scrutiny typically reserved for Supreme Court nominees and paid three dollars in excess of the current minimum wage. Charles knew he needed to interrupt this line of persuasion as soon as possible.

  “It would be great for Cody too, don’t you think? Getting away from all this?”

  Alison considered. “Okay,” she said, getting up, her intonation conciliatory but skeptical. When Eulalie started to stand as well, Alison made a preemptive gesture. “You stay here, Mother. I’ll get Cody’s things together.”