I still remember, all too well, the night during my junior year in high school that federal agents came for my father. It was during a blizzard, school had been canceled, and every radio and TV station was warning people not to go outside, let alone drive, if they could avoid it. I was doing my homework in the living room as my mother sat across from me, working on a quilt. My father was playing solitaire at the dining room table, which I had just helped my mother clear after supper. In our old house on Humboldt Street, there had never been enough space for us to be very far away from one another. Manning Boulevard was a different story. Even though my mother and I were in the same room, it felt as if I watched from a distance when she jumped at the sound of the doorbell and murmured, “Aj!” as the quilting needle in her hand slipped and her finger began to bleed.
Sucking on the finger, she went to the door. There were two of them on the stoop, but only one spoke. He called my mother “ma’am” and asked if Carl Elkind was at home. I watched my mother freeze as she took her finger away from her mouth, and I could tell that for a moment she thought about lying, but then she called my father to come to the door, and he did. When he saw the uniformed officers, he let out a big sigh that still, even in my memory today, sounds more like relief than anxiety, as he understood why his name had been called.
“You couldn’t wait until this was over?” he asked the men, nodding toward outside, where the wind whipped the snow in icy gusts. My mother was gripping the back of her chair, making a whimpering sound I had never heard before, which almost made my dinner come back up and spill from my throat. “Hanna, I will explain things,” my father said to me as they led him out the door and down the slippery steps into the idling black car. My mother and I watched the headlights leave, and, too late, she thought to run to the closet to pull down my father’s coat. She let out the whimper again, and it took me all night to calm her down.
Eight months after they took him away, my father was convicted of securities fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering, and filing false statements about the investment accounts he handled, mainly for friends we knew from Trinity Lutheran. The newspapers made a big deal of the fact that he was accused of committing “affinity fraud” against so many people who had considered him a close friend. My mother insisted to anyone who would listen—though there weren’t many by then—that they had the wrong man. I thought maybe she was just saying that in public in an effort to save face, but even when it was just the two of us, she told me the same thing. My father was “a victim of circumstance,” she said, and though I wasn’t quite sure what she meant by that, I didn’t ask her to explain.
He had a good lawyer (and it wasn’t until Joe’s gentle suggestion, years later, that I realized there must have been a secret account somewhere, from which my father paid the guy) who, along with coming up with phrases such as “legal infelicities,” managed to convince the court that my father’s sentence should be on the minimal side. As it turned out, it didn’t matter that he got only five years instead of fifteen, because he died of a stroke in prison before he was halfway through.
The judge had frozen all his assets; the only thing he allowed us to retain was the house on Manning Boulevard, where my mother and I continued to live. Even before my father was officially declared guilty, I knew my own plans would have to change. I’d always wanted to go to college and become a nurse, but after my father’s conviction we didn’t have the money. On top of that, my mother got diagnosed with uterine cancer two weeks after I graduated. I stayed home taking care of her until she went into the hospital. About an hour before she died, she made a sign for me to move closer, so I could hear her whisper. She was moving her hands, and I didn’t know what she was doing, until she tried to pull off the ring her own mother had given to her when she died. But she was too weak. “You do it,” she said, and I shook my head. “Yes,” she told me, more strongly, using all her energy, and afraid to send her into a tailspin, I did as she instructed and slid the ring off her finger. She wouldn’t stop agitating in the bed until I put it on, and I felt that sting in my chest that goes deeper than crying.
I’d thought that was the worst of it, but no; the worst was reading her obituary in the Albany newspaper two days later. I didn’t know why, but whoever handled it hadn’t contacted me for details about my mother’s life; instead, the brief “appreciation” was written with information provided by a neighbor, Estelle Graber, who was in my mother’s monthly bridge group but otherwise didn’t know her very well. Either Estelle wasn’t aware of or she didn’t tell the writer about my father’s imprisonment, or (more likely) she did, and the newspaper decided, out of respect for the deceased or because of a space shortage, not to include it. In any case, I was grateful for my mother’s sake that the notice said only that she was survived by her husband and daughter.
But the item was short, and the last sentence pierced me to the core: “She enjoyed playing bridge and was renowned for her oatmeal crinkles.” Both were true (although “renowned” might have been a stretch), but reading those words evoked more grief in me than I’d felt in the moment my mother died as I held her hand. The fact that I knew it wouldn’t have bothered her to have her legacy reduced to these two dubious notes made me all the sadder.
I began working for Kip Gunther, who hired me on the spot to be his receptionist and secretary when I answered his ad in the Schenectady Gazette. A lawyer specializing in divorces and contract disputes, Kip—who instructed me to call him that, never Mr. Gunther—wore his hair long, tucked behind his ears, and his glasses dark, even inside the office. He had a way of talking out of the edge of his mouth as if he didn’t really want you to understand what he was saying. I suspected even during our interview that there was something shady about him, but I didn’t listen to myself until it was too late.
I tried not to pay attention to the questionable work tasks Kip had me do, because I didn’t want to know that I was working for an unscrupulous person—after all, what would that say about me?—but I was pretty sure he was padding his billable hours, and more than once he had me type up double invoices, to two different clients for expenses on the same business trip. I told myself that I just didn’t understand the law, and who was I to say anything? The man paid me well. Of course, he also said more than once that he gave me such a good salary because he could tell I was the type of girl who’d always be loyal. I wished he hadn’t said that, because how else could I take it other than that he expected me to keep my mouth shut if anyone came around asking?
I’d be doing my work, typing up some document—he mostly handled little things, like people suing their contractors—and he’d come over and stand next to me, too close, waiting for me to take my fingers off the keyboard. Then he would ask me his raunchy riddles. “What do a Christmas tree and a priest have in common? Their balls are just for decoration.” I always made a noise that I knew he took to be appreciation of his humor, because he got a satisfied look on his face and went back to his desk, whistling off-key.
I worked there for two years, during which time my father died in the New Jersey prison they’d sent him to. I sold the house on Manning Boulevard to pay off my mother’s medical bills and rented a crappy apartment across the river. I could have gone to college then, but instead I kept spending my days doing what Kip told me to do, and my nights watching television and drinking cheap wine. I had thought I would start making a quilt, the way my mother taught me before she died, but all the squares came out uneven because I was drunk while making them, and eventually I put the fabric and needles away. I knew this wasn’t how I should be living. A combination of grief and panic thrummed through me every waking moment, and years later, when I heard Opal Bremer say she had “the wim-wams,” I understood she was describing what I had felt back then.
That was when I was in danger, I should have told Gail Nazarian when she tried to warn me about Rud Petty being in touch with Dawn. I fought the wim-wams every night by getting wasted—even then I knew that that word, was
ted, was the most apt one I could have used—and felt sick every morning before I stumbled my way, usually late, to the law office.
Looking back, I realized I was waiting for something, though I had no idea what it might be.
What pushed things over the edge was the day I returned to the office after lunch and found Kip sitting behind his desk, smiling stupidly, looking more boldly at my breasts than he usually did. It took me a few minutes to realize he was drunk and he told me he’d had a fight with his wife that morning. I said I was sorry to hear that and sat down at my desk, hoping to ignore him, but he wouldn’t leave me alone. He came over and began massaging my neck, even after I lied and told him that it tickled. He bent closer to my ear and whispered in it. “What do you call a virgin on a waterbed?” Usually he just delivered the punch line immediately, but this time he waited for me to guess.
“I don’t know. What?” I said. I had never been so close to a man before, aside from my father. The idea of sex scared me.
“A cherry float,” Kip said, and made a gurgling, giggling sound deep in his throat as he pulled me up out of my chair, turned me around to face him, and kissed me firmly as he slipped his hands under my blouse and up to my bra. I felt immobilized, not knowing what to do. (Years later, when I heard Iris use the word clueless for the first time, my mind flew me back to that moment, and my daughter had to ask me what was wrong.)
Even as naïve as I was, I knew I was supposed to slap his hands away and get out of there as fast as I could. But I didn’t. I let his hands linger, and without wanting or intending to, I felt the quick shiver of a sexual itch rise up between my legs. He unbuckled his pants. I did say, “Stop,” but at the same time, I didn’t move away when he slid his hand down to my crotch.
Finally, my senses returned to me when he suggested we move out to his car, which, he told me with a wink, had fold-down seats. He tried to lead me to the door by the hand, and when he separated his body from mine, I got hold of myself, straightened my clothing, collected my purse from the bottom drawer of my desk, and walked out on my own, somewhere finding the courage to shake his hand off when he reached out to touch me again. I drove off trembling, the tires sputtering on gravel, leaving Kip literally standing in the dust.
The next day I went to the bank to take out a loan, and enrolled for the spring semester at the state university.
I’d never been a great student in high school, but I loved college right away—the classes themselves and feeling as if I were forging my own path in life, even if I couldn’t envision where it might end. In April, a few thousand students gathered for Fountain Day, when the huge spray fountain in the center of the quad was finally turned on after the long winter. You could feel the excitement in the air as noon approached and people began to collect around the long rectangular pool, putting their books and backpacks aside, turning their faces up to the weak but oh-so-welcome spring sun.
I sat at the pool’s edge, preparing with everyone else to make a big fuss when the fountain spouted for the first time. Most of the people around me on the quad that noontime wore casual clothes—tee-shirts and shorts, even though it wasn’t nearly warm enough for bare legs. They were trying to fool spring into acting like summer. I had on jeans and a pink long-sleeve jersey I’d picked up at Goodwill, with FREE SPIRIT spelled out in sequins across the front. I’d bought it as a kind of joke with myself, because I was not a sequins kind of girl. But I grew to like wearing the shirt. Being able to glance down and see those words on my chest made me feel as if they might, someday, be true. Who wouldn’t, after all, want to be a free spirit?
Well, Joe Schutt, as it turned out. When the fountain came on and I stood up with everyone else to cheer, I saw that the short, already balding guy standing a few feet away from me, who was wearing a tie with a blue Oxford and khaki slacks, had caught sight of my shirt’s message, and he was smiling. I didn’t know whether to feel complimented that he had noticed me, or annoyed that he appeared to be amused by what I was wearing. Out of the corner of my eye I watched him maneuver along the pool until we were standing next to each other. Then he turned and gave me a full-on grin.
I had never seen him before, but I felt a charge of something like recognition as I returned the smile. Otherwise I might have moved away from him, thinking that he could be a stalker (though in those days the word would have been weirdo). This is how I know what Dawn felt, so many years later, when Rud Petty turned his charms on her; I felt the same breathless rush at realizing a man had taken an interest in me.
“Why are you wearing that?” he asked, pointing at the glittery silver letters spelling out free spirit.
“What do you mean? Because I like it.”
He shook his head. “No, you don’t. You think you should, but you don’t. It isn’t you. Glitter? I don’t think so.” From someone else, the words would have come across as smug or arrogant. But I could tell that this man was neither of those things.
“You’re right,” I told him, and the relief I felt in admitting this to him astonished and energized me. I felt the surge of pleasure that comes from being recognized in return, when you are not expecting it.
Around us at the pool, people were jostling one another, throwing Frisbees, reaching into coolers for cans. Somebody had set up a boom box in front of the campus center, amplifying the sounds of The Who and Journey and Queen. “Are you available?” he asked, and I said, “What?” in order to figure out what he really wanted to know. I decided he must be inquiring whether I was seeing anybody, and since I wasn’t, I told him, “I guess so.”
“Want to go grab some coffee, then?” I liked this, too—that he suggested coffee instead of a beer at the Rat, which was where (despite the fact that it was only lunchtime) most of our classmates seemed to be headed, now that the show was over.
“I can’t. I have Logic in ten minutes.”
“But you just said you were available.”
“Oh. I thought—sorry. Anyway, no. I have class.” I could feel my face flushing.
“Well, what’s after Logic?”
“Reason,” I said, without knowing I was going to. My spontaneous answer surprised and delighted me, as it obviously did him.
“I’ll be back here at four o’clock, right in this spot,” he told me. “We can find a table somewhere and come up with some conclusions.” It took me a moment to realize that he was following the thread of my joke, but when I got it, I smiled back at him and agreed.
I only half-expected him to be there when I showed up again after my class, and when I didn’t see him at first, I was surprised by the plunge of disappointment I felt, as well as angry that I’d let myself become so hopeful. But then there he was, walking out of the student center, and although I wanted to chide myself for allowing the thrill I felt at the sight of him, I couldn’t manage it.
“You don’t know how completely unlike me it is to ask out someone I don’t even know,” he told me.
“And you don’t know how completely unlike me it is to accept.” I wasn’t even sure this was true, because I hadn’t dated very much up to that point, but it felt like the right thing to say.
He had in mind the Daily Grind, across the street, but he understood when I hesitated because I spent four afternoons a week there bussing tables. I lowered my eyes when I said it, feeling embarrassed, but when I raised them again, it seemed that he looked at me with even more respect than I had seen in his eyes before. “A working girl,” he said, making it sound like something a person should aspire to. Then he added, “A girl after my own heart,” and I felt blood rise to my face again.
Instead, we walked five blocks to the newer, fancier coffeehouse I had never been to. Seated across from him, I felt both excited and anxious, not sure how I should act. I knew that people always advised, “Be yourself,” but I wasn’t at all sure of what myself actually was.
Because of this, it was much easier to ask Joe questions than to answer any. I learned that he was in the university’s graduate accounting progr
am, and worked twenty-five hours a week keeping the books for a local car dealership (“So, a working boy,” I said, feeding his own line back to him but stopping short of adding that he was a man after my own heart); that he liked things in his life—from the balance sheets on his desk to the cabinets in his kitchen to the tools in his garage—to be in order, with everything in its place; and that eventually he wanted to become something called a certified fraud examiner.
Then, though I didn’t ask, he told me about his family. How his father had been fired from the steel company, when Joe was in junior high, for showing up drunk for his shift one too many times. How his mother tried to support the family by working as a home health aide, but was forced to apply for government assistance because her salary wasn’t enough. How his father had always made fun of Joe for being “more serious than a heart attack,” even now, as he accepted the checks Joe sent home and spent them on cases of Genny Cream.
I appreciated his confiding in me. It should have made it easy for me to reciprocate and talk about the things that made me sad, the things I was ashamed of. Yet I held back because that’s what we did in my family; it was the Swedish way.
Joe didn’t press me. When we’d each drunk two cups of coffee and it was time for dinner, he suggested we walk even farther up the street, to Neillio’s, so he could treat me to their veal parm. Though I warned myself against it, I knew I was falling for him.
“Enough about me,” he said when we’d been seated in a cozy corner booth I assumed he’d requested in the murmur he exchanged with the hostess after she greeted us. I knew from TV that some men slip bills into the hands of hosts and hostesses and maître d’s, as a way of getting what they want, so the fact that Joe accomplished the same thing with just his manner, his smile, and his words, attracted me to him all the more. “Tell me the Hanna Elkind Story.”
He sat back in the booth and made a beckoning motion with both hands. I loved the sound of my name in his voice, and it seemed he could tell this. It made me unreasonably happy to see he was an ice chewer, like me.
Lacy Eye Page 22
