Nice to Come Home To
Page 16
“You are? Really?”
“Really,” Patsy said. “This living so far apart is just hard, that’s all. It’ll be so much better when we’re in Rehoboth.”
“He knows you’re moving all the way across the country just to be near him, right?”
“It’s not just to be near him,” Patsy said. Pru could tell she was offended. “I can’t live at home forever, you know. Don’t worry, we’re not going to cramp your style. I know you ‘own’ the mid-Atlantic.”
“I didn’t say I owned the mid-Atlantic,” Pru said. It was so typical that this was where they’d arrived.
So, fine, Pru thought, hanging up the phone. She’d done her part. Maybe she had totally misunderstood what Jacob had said. Or maybe Patsy was right, this was just par for the course with them. They were passionate about each other, probably they were passionate in their fights, too. They’d never really been attracted to the same things, Pru and Patsy. She realized that when Rudy had told her it was over, it really was over. She wouldn’t have been able to go back to him, after that. She couldn’t understand how you could hang on to someone who didn’t want you anymore. So her sister wanted a lover who changed on her from minute to minute—well, she seemed to have found him.
Anyway, it was Annali she should be concentrating on, Pru reminded herself. Patsy was determined to sink her own ship. Fine. She didn’t need Pru. But one day, maybe when she was a teenager, Annali would. She’d reach her limit with her flaky mother, and show up on Pru’s doorstep, gangly and gorgeous, carrying only what she’d stuffed into a backpack on her way out. Pru couldn’t do anything about Jacob. But she could make sure that Annali knew her circle of love extended beyond her mother and whoever happened to be on her mother’s arm at the moment. She’d see to it that Annali would never regard her aunt as a stranger, some distant relative who may or may not take her in in her time of need. She’d make sure Annali knew she could always show up on that doorstep, and she’d be as good as home.
THE NEXT DAY, WHEN SHE WALKED INTO THE KORNER for breakfast, John waved her over to one of the little tables near the large plate-glass window, where he sat with a couple she’d never seen before.
“This is Ralph and Rona Mortensen,” he said, adding, with unmistakable emphasis, “and this is Pru.”
Ralph and Rona shook her hand warmly. They were in their fifties, perhaps, and wore matching windbreakers. John explained that Ralph had been his dissertation adviser in graduate school.
“You have a Ph.D.?” she said, surprised.
“So they tell me,” John said.
“In what?”
“Philosophy.”
“Wow,” she said. “Where was that going?”
“Well, exactly,” he said.
“He’s a genius,” Ralph said. “I’ve never read a more cogent dissertation on the phenomenological aspects of Kant in all my years of teaching.”
“It’s just crap, really,” John said, in a low voice.
“I Kant believe that,” she replied.
When she went up to the counter for a coffee and scone, there was a pregnant silence behind her at the table. At least, it sounded to her like a pregnant silence. She felt that she could practically hear the exchange of meaningful glances, and felt a little light-headed, imagining they were about her.
Ralph and Rona Mortensen were what her mother would call academics. They lived in New York City and had come down for a conference at the Smithsonian that had to do with Rona’s work on Fanny Brice and vaudeville. Pru was fascinated. Who did work on vaudeville? What was work on vaudeville? And did it pay anything? She was dying to ask.
In the company of his friends, John was downright giddy. This must be how others felt with her and McKay, she decided. The three of them finished each other’s sentences and made quick references to things she didn’t understand. Ralph and Rona called him “Johnny.”
“Have you been to the Holocaust Museum, Pru?” Rona asked, turning to her.
“You know, I’m ashamed to say I haven’t,” she admitted. “I am just never in the mood for it. All those shoes.”
Rona said, “I hear it’s very depressing, but Ralph wants to go.”
“Sure it’s depressing,” said Ralph. “You want happy, go to Christmas at Macy’s.”
“Oh, let’s do something else, Ralph,” Rona says. “Pru’s right. I don’t want to see that today.”
“Do you want to visit the NPR studios?” Pru said. It was her ace in the hole, with visitors of a certain stripe. And Ralph and Rona were definitely of that stripe. Fiona’s husband, Noah, directed one of the news shows, and he was always happy to get Pru and her guests in to see one of the programs being taped.
“I love NPR!” Rona said, and beamed at her. “But you have to come with us.”
“Sure,” said Pru. “I just have to call my friend and see if he can get us in.”
At four o’clock on the nose, John and Ralph and Rona buzzed from downstairs. Pru buzzed back, to let them in. It was turning out to be a banner day. In addition to getting to see John again, she’d finally gotten a call about some work. It sounded like a grant she could write in her sleep, and the pay was rather unbelievable. She’d been amazed at how she’d managed to sound like an actual consultant on the phone. She’d even said, “Hold on, let me check my book,” when the director had asked if they could meet for lunch one day that week.
While she waited for John and the Mortensens, she smoothed back her hair in the hallway mirror. She’d changed out of her usual work jeans and into a sweater, skirt, and boots. Thank God her apartment no longer smelled of cat urine! She felt a twinge of nerves, as John poked his head into her apartment.
Whoop came to twine himself around her legs in an affectionate way. “So that’s the beast, huh?” John said, crouching to rub him between the ears. Rona and Ralph wandered over to the bay window, as everyone did, to look at her view of the city, but John walked straight to her desk. He noted the abundance of blue objects she had placed around her desk, because she found the color calming. He picked up the cup of carefully sharpened 2H pencils Pru favored, said, “Hmm . . .” rather pointedly, and replaced it on her desk. He looked at the pictures of Annali, Patsy, her parents, and Pru identified them for John.
“Is this your phone?” he said, picking up her phone.
“Yes.”
“And this is your computer?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm.” He leaned over to squint at her screen, and she wondered if she’d left up any offensive e-mail from her group of college friends, who tended to be extremely caustic, to say the least, in their online conversations. John sat down in her chair. “Do you sit here?”
“When I’m not standing.”
“So here I am, Pru Whistler, making my way in the world,” he said.
Just as she was leaning over to move the pencil cup back to where it belonged, John stood up. He almost stood up right into her. It would have been the perfect moment to kiss her. Ralph and Rona were busy at the window, trying to find the Capitol building. It wouldn’t have taken but the slightest, most undetectable movement. It wouldn’t have taken but a second.
He stepped back and looked at her like, Uh-oh. To hide her annoyance, she screwed up her face at him. He screwed his up back at her.
“You guys ready?” Pru said. Ralph and Rona had plastered themselves so discreetly to the window that they were practically on the other side of the glass.
PRU HAD BEEN RIGHT ABOUT BRINGING THEM TO NPR. Rona kept exclaiming over the photos of the on-air talent that lined the walls of the lobby: “That’s what she looks like?” and “I thought he’d be bigger!” Noah had gotten them in to see one of the live news programs, which was fun to watch because they were orchestrated from a central pit, around which the recording booths stood. In the pit there was a director, who motioned cues to the readers and the engineers while keeping a constant eye on an enormous digital clock in front of him. There were mad scrambles when a piece failed to play, or the sho
w had gotten off the clock somehow, and the director had to figure out what to cut or lengthen in order to make up the difference in time. This was something she’d be good at, Pru considered. She had an unwavering internal clock. However, she didn’t think she could handle the stress. Fiona said that Noah was constantly hanging up on her, because of the time. She’d never survive in such an impolite environment.
Ralph and Rona watched it all with fascination and eagerness, even when the action slowed down during lengthy, prerecorded field reports, when the on-air talent took off their headphones and drank coffee together in the hallway, complaining about the funding environment. Ralph and Rona went out of the observer’s booth after the show to meet them and shake their hands.
“I’d like to be called ‘the talent,’” Pru said to John.
“I’ll start calling you that,” he said. “More coffee, please, for ‘the talent.’”
They took a cab back to the café and John cooked eggs for everyone. Although she’d prepared herself for it, no one mentioned Gaia. Or Lila. Pru had to wonder if that had something to do with her being there.
When she left them at the front door of the café, Rona put an arm around Pru and squeezed her, whispering, “Now, you, we get.”
You, we get. You, we get, Pru thought, going up her front steps. Was she crazy, or had Rona just told her about a dozen things she’d been dying to know? She couldn’t wait to call Kate, to discuss.
She was just putting the key in the front door when a cheery voice behind her said, “Hi!”
She turned around and almost screamed. There, bouncing on his toes, hands shoved into the pockets of the trench coat that she’d helped him buy, was Rudy.
Rudy Fisch.
HE LOOKED THINNER AND PALER THAN SHE HAD REMEMBERED. “You don’t have a cold or anything, do you?” he said, putting his hands up in front of him. “I’m a walking Petri dish.”
“Rudy,” she gasped.
“Yes, it’s me. Can I come up? It’s not good for me to be outside for too long. Come on,” he added, seeing her hesitation. “I know I owe you an apology.”
She couldn’t think of an excuse, so she simply let him in. They got into the elevator and Rudy hit the button for her floor.
“What is going on with you, Rudy?” she said. Of all the times she’d been anxious about running into Rudy, this wasn’t one of them. In fact, she hadn’t thought of him in ages, she realized.
“I haven’t been working,” Rudy said. “They’ve put me on short-term disability. I’ve been poked by every specialist in D.C. and New York. No one knows what’s going on. Multiple environmental allergies, food sensitivities, sick-building syndrome— you name it, I may or may not have it. Oh, nothing transmittable, so you’re safe.”
“Thank God,” she said, feeling all the air leave her body. She was scrupulous about protecting herself from STDs, but that hadn’t stopped her from imagining a moment very much like this one a thousand times.
He stepped into her apartment familiarly, tossing his coat onto one of the chairs. “They checked me for AIDS, herpes, the works. Oh, yes, it’s been a fun couple of weeks. Personally, I think it’s my office—the place is a fucking allergen factory. I’m talking to the best mold guy in the city about an action. Did you know there’s scientific evidence linking fluorescent lights with Epstein-Barr? The fucking lights they use in every office in the city, and it’s killing everybody.”
“I don’t understand. Why can’t you work?”
“Because I basically have the vitality of an eighty-year-old emphysemic?” He moved to sit down on the couch, rubbing his hands together. “See? Just going up your front steps, and I’m about to pass out. Do you have any purified water?”
“I have a filter on the tap. It’s Brita,” she added.
“No, it has to be purified. Filtered isn’t good enough. Anything in a bottle?”
“I’ll see.”
She found some bottled mineral water in the back of the refrigerator, and brought it to him. He pulled a little plastic cup wrapped in cellophane from his pocket, and poured some of the water in it. “No offense,” he said. “It’s just a precaution.”
“I still don’t understand,” she said. “Do you have a diagnosis?”
Rudy waved a hand. “I’ve heard everything. Nobody knows, really. Fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, seronegative rheumatoid arthritis. None of this stuff is diagnosable, you know. Oh, we’re also talking about sprue. Did I leave some shirts here, by the way? Jesus,” he said, jumping a little, “you have a cat?”
He was looking at Big Whoop, who had wandered in from the bedroom to stare at them with open hostility.
“That’s your cat, Rudy.”
“Sylvester?” he said. “No, no, don’t let him near me. He gets within a foot of me, I’m a dead man. Can you put him in the back? Hi, Sylvie. Hi, baby. I can’t believe you found him. I can’t believe you have him.”
She tried to pick up Whoop, but he ran under the couch. She decided to wait for him to come out. She’d be damned if she’d go on her hands and knees in front of Rudy Fisch.
“Funny story,” she said, taking a chair across from him. “I found him at the Humane Society.”
He sighed and nodded his head. “I know, I shouldn’t have done that. Pru, it’s such a relief that you have him. Really. I mean that. Thank you.” He looked stricken, suddenly, and to her annoyance, Pru was moved.
She had imagined seeing him again many times, but never like this. The Rudy she’d imagined held some kind of trump card over her. He’d beaten her by being the first to leave, ending the game by taking all the pieces and going home. When she saw him again, she imagined, he’d be victorious and strong and have some good, hot babe on his arm. He’d somehow be the Rudy he always should have been.
Whoop came out from under the couch and readied himself to jump on Rudy. “No,” Rudy said, alarmed. “No, Sylvester, no.” He pulled up his knees as Whoop pounced.
Whoop hit Rudy’s knees and fell back. Pru leaned over, scooped him up, and settled him on her lap, where he glared at Rudy.
“Look at that,” Rudy said. “You guys are friends now?”
“We’re doing okay,” she said, smoothing the ruffled fur on Whoop’s back. “Do you want him back?”
“God, no. You might as well feed me poison.” Suddenly he looked at her. “You probably want to, huh? Feed me poison?” He scrunched up his face, suddenly, and raised his fist to his mouth, as if he was going to sneeze, or cough, or both. After it passed, he said, “I must say, I wasn’t expecting you to be so nice to me. Aren’t you going to yell at me, or something?”
“No.”
“Have you been upset?”
She shrugged. Whoop raised his head as she concentrated on moving her fingers under his chin.
“No,” Rudy said, leaning back again. “I didn’t think so.”
She stroked Whoop for a while. Then she said, “Okay. Yes. I was upset. You know, I can understand your leaving me. You were right, everything you said was true. Fine, you want to find someone else. Fair enough. But you know what really hurt? You never even called me to see how I was doing. I could have been dead.”
“You’re absolutely right.”
“You left me feeling—unlovable.”
He closed his eyes. “You’re not unlovable, Pru. God knows, it is not easy to love you, even when I’m in the best of health. But you’re not unlovable.”
“So, what the hell, Rudy?”
He sighed. “Look, it’s hard to explain. It’s just where I was with Andrea, and therapy, and all that. And then I got sick . . .”
“Who is Andrea?”
He opened his eyes, in surprise. “Andrea Schwaiger. Dr. Schwaiger.”
Suddenly, she understood. “You were sleeping with her? With your shrink?”
“It was kind of crazy,” he said. “I kept thinking you were going to get suspicious—you know, all those sessions. But I didn’t sleep with her until after you and I split.”
“Andrea said I was only cheating on you to get your attention, anyway. Not that I cheated on you, technically. I mean, we fooled around, but we never . . .”
She stopped him. “Rudy, I don’t care what you did with Andrea Schwaiger, or when you did it.”
“All right, I just want it on the record: I didn’t cheat on you.”
“Fine. You weren’t a cheater. Duly noted.”
She stroked Whoop’s fur and thought about all the times she might have picked up on the fact that Rudy and Andrea Schwaiger were involved. She wasn’t about to get into the fine points with Rudy about what constituted “cheating” and what didn’t. But it made her feel stupid. How could she have not known?
He fell asleep on her couch while she sat thinking about everything and stroking the cat. Something about the way he looked in sleep, vulnerable and slow, always made her a little resentful. She watched him sleeping, and remembered driving to his aunt’s summer home in Pennsylvania. Rudy had fallen asleep next to her while she drove. His mouth was open a little, and he looked like a little boy. They’d just survived a horrendous visit by his vicious parents, and Pru, who wasn’t used to such behavior, was still reeling. She’d felt very sorry for Rudy in that moment, and determined to show him something better.
After a while, Rudy stirred on the couch, then sat up. He drank a little more water from his special cup, then said he was ready to leave.
“Can we see each other sometime?” he said, putting on his coat.
“I don’t know,” Pru said. “Why?”
“You know, to be friends. I’d like to stay friends with at least one of my exes.”
“Sure,” she said. “We can do that.” She was pretty sure he’d never call.
“Great,” he said. He stopped, outside her door. “Hey, are you going to the Fresh Fields on P Street anytime soon?”