Among Other Things, I've Taken Up Smoking

by Aoibheann Sweeney

  “We can get rid of these,” Walter said, walking over to pick up the vase. A few of the dried leaves fell to the floor, making a scratchy sound. “And I’ll get you some fresh sheets. You make yourself comfortable.”

  “Thank you,” I said from the bed.

  “We’ll be waiting downstairs,” he said. His eyes searched my face again, and he smiled. “It has been a long time, hasn’t it?” he said.

  I heard him going down the hall and then his footsteps back down the stairs. In the quiet I could feel the lurch of my lost momentum. I sat there for a minute, staring at the window, until I heard the rain, pattering against it. I had to bang on the window sash a few times with the base of my palm before it would open. The wet drops glittered in the dark. The brick wall of another building was a few feet away; a stream of water ran down from the gutter beside the window, offering a thick, silvery escape route. I reached out to touch it and it broke apart, shattering noisily in the alley below before I took my hand away and it went smooth again.

  Robert and Walter were waiting for me in the cluttered kitchen, sipping from teacups without saucers. Walter had put on a blazer; Robert had changed into white trousers and a sand-colored jacket and tie. Most of the clutter, I realized, looking around, was newspapers in haphazard piles, tilting off the refrigerator, piled on the chairs and counters. Buried behind them was an antique stove upon which someone had put a coffee machine and a toaster, the only evidence that the kitchen was in use at all.

  “Scotch?” said Walter, lifting his teacup inquisitively.

  I shook my head and then instantly changed my mind.

  “Shall we go then?” said Robert, standing up. They both deposited their cups onto a pile of twenty or so in the sink. They seemed used to the dim light in the lobby, and they both found their umbrellas in the shadows. I thought of my jacket and was hesitating, ready to run upstairs, when Walter popped his umbrella open on the steps and held an arm out for me.

  I had to stoop to get under it, but I was glad to hold his arm once we were outside. People rushed by hurriedly; once we turned onto the bigger avenue, cars passed continually, their tires making a sticking sound in the rain. Lights were on everywhere and all the surfaces of all the windows and sidewalks were flashing with headlights. It seemed as if no one had gone inside since I had arrived, they’d just kept hurrying in the streets, clustering in doorways.

  We turned onto another, quieter street, like the one the institute was on, where the buildings huddled close again, and Walter steered me toward a soggy flag with a peacock on it. I could feel the side of my dress getting damp. We went up the steps and they folded their umbrellas discreetly. “Your father will be very jealous,” Walter said happily as we went inside. “You have to tell him we took you here.”

  Inside it was more like a hotel than a restaurant, and it seemed empty at first, but out of nowhere a man in a dark green jacket came and took the umbrellas, and they all nodded as if they knew each other, or didn’t—I couldn’t tell. Robert led us down a small set of stairs whose walls were crowded with little ink sketches of men in top hats with captions like “Spring in Washington Square.” At the bottom was the dining room, filled with candlelit tables, red curtains across the windows. A large stuffed peacock, with a long blue-and-gold feather tail, tilting to one side on its wire feet, was mounted on a pedestal at the entrance.

  “Gentlemen!” Another man in a green jacket came gliding toward us. “It’s been far too long.” He kissed Robert and Walter on their cheeks, and then tilted his head as if he was imitating the bird. “And who is this beautiful young lady?”

  Walter smiled. “Peter Donnal’s daughter,” he said gently, putting a hand on my shoulder. The man looked from me to Walter and Robert and then did a little pantomime of amazement, his hands on either side of his face. “Isn’t it amazing?” Walter said, proudly. “Gerry was a great fan of Arthur’s,” he said to me.

  “And your father’s,” Gerry corrected him.

  “Do you think we can have their table?”

  “Absolutely,” Gerry said, looking toward the back of the room. He plucked three menus from the shelf beside him and gestured for us to follow. Bursts of quick and chattery talk erupted out of the murmur and clink of silverware as we passed each table. It was mostly men, I noticed, with a few women, thin and lustrous, like photographs from a magazine.

  Gerry pulled a chair out for me. “Do you want to try the merlot?” he asked Walter, as I made discreet little hops to try to bring my chair in closer. Before I knew it a waiter was behind me pushing me in tight. There were waiters everywhere, wearing white coats, moving in and out of the candlelight like moths.

  Walter and Robert were unfolding their napkins, looking around with evident satisfaction. “We used to come here with Arthur all the time,” Walter said, watching Gerry come back toward us.

  Gerry showed him the label on the bottle, then poured a splash into Robert’s wineglass, so tall and light that it seemed the weight of the red wine would break it.

  “Your father must have taught you all about wine,” Walter said, looking at me, as Robert took a sip and nodded at Gerry, who obediently filled all our glasses.

  As far as I knew my father had never drunk anything but whiskey. I gave a modest shrug, keeping the contradiction to myself.

  “To our beautiful guest,” Walter said, raising his glass.

  Gerry raised the bottle he was holding and winked at me. I caught a glimpse of my freckly forearm as I raised my glass too, and for a moment, I felt almost pretty. Behind Robert a woman threw back her head and laughed. I felt a glimmer of excitement breaking open in me.

  “I’ve always wondered what Peter found for himself to eat up there,” Walter said as he picked up his menu. “It’s hard to imagine him surviving without his fois gras.”

  “We mostly cook ourselves,” I said, not sure what he meant.

  “Don’t tell me Peter cooks,” said Robert.

  Walter gave him a look. “I should hope he does, dear. Miranda’s mother passed away just after they got there and the two of them were on that island alone. Isn’t that right?”

  I nodded. Mr. Blackwell appeared before me at the stove, stirring the navy bean soup, holding up the spoon for my father to taste.

  “What does he cook?” Robert asked, giving Walter a glance to get credit for the more polite tone.

  More Mr. Blackwell, absently using a long knife to flip over a grilled cheese sandwich for me when we got back from school, a dish towel thrown over his shoulder. “A lot of things,” I said, reaching for my wine. I couldn’t remember the last time my father had cooked a meal himself.

  “Like what?”

  “Well—oatmeal,” I said.

  Robert raised his eyebrows and took a sip of his own wine.

  “I suppose he must have had some help when you were young,” Walter said with a reassuring smile.

  “Not really,” I said, feeling myself beginning to blush. I didn’t know why I was lying. It would have been impossible, of course, for us to have done anything without Mr. Blackwell. “Sometimes a woman came over from town,” I said, suddenly making things up. “But he learned pretty fast. We eat a lot of fish.”

  “He couldn’t put caviar on a cracker when we knew him,” Robert said lightly, picking up his menu as if he didn’t want to hear any more about it.

  “We don’t do a lot of cooking either,” Walter pressed on. “Unless you count toasting bagels. But maybe you’ll change our ways.”

  “Do you both live at the institute?”

  “Well, yes,” said Walter, startled. “We live in Arthur’s apartment. It’s just down the hall from your room.”

  I could feel Robert watching me, and I picked up my menu and pretended to concentrate on it. So they lived together. It wasn’t my fault that I didn’t know anything about their life. They knew nothing about my life either. I could see that Robert was miffed, but he had been unpleasant with me from the start. It would have been obvious, if I had thought a
bout it. They were lovers. My menu seemed to be written in a foreign language, and it added to my panic. I sensed, with a horrible vertiginous feeling, how many things I didn’t understand—everything, it seemed. Suddenly I was clumsy. I was Miranda, wearing Julie’s dress. A man appeared beside me and with long metal tongs lifted a small bread roll as if it was a lobster and placed it on the plate beside me. I reached for my wine and nearly knocked it over.

  Walter recommended the steak and I ordered it even though I wasn’t hungry, along with a salad, which they insisted on. Was it possible that my father had hated all my meals? He couldn’t put caviar on a cracker when we knew him. Walter ordered another bottle of wine to go with the entrees, and I tried to tell myself to drink more slowly, but I kept gulping it down. It was only making me more nervous.

  “So did your father ever have any visitors on that island of yours?” Robert asked, zeroing in again. “Or was it always just the two of you out there, forsaking the world?”

  “He’s working on a translation,” I said. The wine was making my face hot and I could no longer tell if I was blushing. In Yvesport when I told people my father was working on a translation they always nodded gravely, as if I’d told them he was ill, and didn’t ask any more questions. But Robert and Walter didn’t bat an eye. “He’s almost finished,” I added.

  “We heard you were doing his typing for him,” Robert said, with another polite look, leaning back as the waiter put his salad in front of him. The plate was huge, with a little tuft of greens at the center. “He’s going to miss you, isn’t he?” he said as he picked up his little fork. “That’s very luxurious, having your daughter do all the typing and cooking. I suppose you were doing his laundry too?”

  I jabbed at my salad. Who else would have done the laundry?

  “Robert’s a writer too,” Walter said, as if that explained things.

  “Well, not really,” said Robert. “I write reviews. But it’s not full time.”

  I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I tried to give him the same polite look he kept offering me. The dining room was moving faster, or I was going slower. I had used the wrong fork for my salad, of course. I straightened my back, which was the only thing I could remember my father teaching me about good manners.

  When the steaks came they had a little row of asparagus next to them, and I found myself telling Walter and Robert about how I’d tried to grow asparagus on the island, which wasn’t really true. I’d ordered the seeds because my father had said it was the only vegetable he missed, but it had turned out that asparagus took five years to cultivate, and in the end I hadn’t even tried planting them. I had always felt guilty about not having the patience to grow the only vegetable he ever said he wanted. At the time he hardly ever talked about New York, so it had made an impression on me, the fact that he missed the asparagus. And here I was, lying again.

  “I told Miranda’s father we could use some help putting the library card catalog on a database,” Walter said to Robert. “Wouldn’t that be great?”

  “Mmm. Too bad nobody goes in there unless they’re sleeping, or stealing something.”

  “Well, that’s the point, dear. If we could make it available electronically then we could loan things to other libraries.”

  “I told you I was going to write one of those Landmark grants for that. We hardly need to lock the girl in the library.”

  “We’re not locking her anywhere. It was her father’s idea.” He smiled at me. “He told me you can type faster than he can think.”

  I smiled back, though it was impossible to imagine my father saying something like that. My steak had begun to look like the walls of a big red cliff.

  “Wasn’t your mother a secretary?” said Robert. “I thought that was how they met.”

  “Was she?” Walter looked at him with interest.

  “I think so,” said Robert. He looked at me. “She was a great mystery, your mother. Depressed, I hear.”

  Walter was moving his leg under the table, trying to get Robert’s attention. “Maybe we should get dessert,” he said, looking around. “What was it that Arthur always got? That pastry?”

  “The napoleon,” Robert said.

  Depressed? I looked at him, alert with anger, certain now that he was being mean on purpose. “Did you ever meet her?” I asked, as if I didn’t care.

  “I’m afraid I didn’t,” said Robert, looking back at me with his polite face. “We frankly didn’t know she existed until your father moved to Maine with his wife and child.”

  “Well, we knew, of course, once he told us he was going,” Walter broke in nervously. “You were, what—two or three years old? It’s amazing to imagine how you’ve grown into such a—person since then, isn’t it?”

  I blinked. A person? I had no idea what it meant that Robert didn’t know my mother existed, or why it mattered so much. It had been a long time since my mother existed for me too—in fact I’d hardly ever imagined her at all. And now she was a secretary. I looked with sudden confusion at my hand on the stem of my empty glass, strangely outsized. A waiter came and took the order for dessert and coffee and both Walter and Robert watched him walk away. I closed my eyes for a minute, wishing I wasn’t so confused, and when I opened them again another waiter was there, putting a tiny cup down in front of me.

  It was doll-sized, filled with what looked like a few tablespoons of dark coffee. I looked over at Walter, who calmly picked up his tiny spoon and measured a tiny amount of sugar into his tiny cup. Robert did the same. I looked into the little cup and started to giggle.

  Walter and Robert looked up in surprise, and the minute I tried to stop giggling I could feel it changing to tears. “I’m sorry,” I said, trying to smile, my eyes filling. “These cups are so small!”

  “They are sort of ridiculous, aren’t they?” Walter said, smiling, picking up his own cup and looking at it askance. He took a sip with exaggerated daintiness, pursing his lips and batting his eyelashes.

  I kept giggling, even though I was also crying; tears rolled down my cheeks. Robert looked at us innocently and then picked up his tiny spoon and stirred it in his tiny cup, miming a little tea party, before he quietly put the spoon inside his nose.

  Walter and I burst into laughter, and finally I was really laughing, tears still running down my face but my throat opening at last. Walter took a few deep breaths and I did too, wiping my eyes. The dessert came and Robert pushed it over to me.

  It was a rectangular pastry, with a diamond pattern of chocolate traced in the white icing on the top. It sat like a small house in the middle of the plate, which was streaked with chocolate and dusted with sugar. I pushed the side of my fork into it and we all watched it capsize, the layers of custard and fine French pastry sliding out from one another, making a mess of the carefully decorated plate.

  12

  It was still raining when I woke up the next morning, and a damp, warm breeze was coming in from my open window. I lay there like a shipwrecked sailor for what seemed like hours, unable to open my eyes, until finally I heard gulls. I turned to see the ocean out the window, and found myself staring at the little desk where the dead flowers had been, my father’s duffel bag propped against it, open from when I’d dug for my toothbrush the night before. The screech of brakes, eerie and far-off down the avenues, came through the window.

  I put my face into my pillow, and the sheets smelled soapy but stale. At home my father would have been awake for hours, the whole house would smell of coffee, and the oatmeal would have grown cold. I got up and tried to get my clothes out of the duffel bag but they were packed in too tight, and the whole thing was damp. I turned it over to shake it out on the bed and everything came loose: the clothes, my sketch pads, the sneakers I had carefully scrubbed free of mud. I had packed a box of drawing tools, and it fell open, the contents rolling out onto the blanket: pieces of charcoal, drawing pencils scattering on the floor, the fountain pens my father had given me for each of my birthdays clacking heavily against
each other. I picked them all up and put them back in the box, glad to have them. It took only minutes to put my clothes into the bureau drawers, which were lined with fragile old paper. I hung Julie’s dresses in the closet and put on a pair of jeans.

  Walter cleared some newspaper from the chair next to him when he saw me come through the door. “You’re allowed to sleep in, you know,” he said.

  “Is it early?” I said nervously, glancing at the coffee machine plugged in on top of the old stove.

  “Some people think it’s early, don’t they, Robert?” he said. “But I’ve had to be at the university by eight for the past five years, so I don’t actually notice.”

  “Some people make it unpleasant to be awake,” Robert answered, plucking a bagel from the toaster and wincing at the heat, dropping it onto his plate with an annoyed expression, as if it was the bagel’s fault it was hot.

  Walter sighed. “You’ll be nice to our guest, right, and show her the library?”

  I saw Robert’s gaze snag for a moment on the spot of ink at the bottom of Walter’s shirt pocket. “Are you coming to that dinner tonight?” he said.

  Walter was buckling up his briefcase. He had a tie tucked into his pocket. “I was the one who invited you, remember? Is that boy of yours coming over today?”

  “I should hope so,” said Robert. “He’s teaching a class.”

  Walter gave me a little wave before he left. “Good luck with school,” he said to Robert as he turned away.

  Robert poured me a cup of coffee and pushed it over. “I can’t offer you oatmeal,” he said, “but I can offer you your choice of a sesame or poppy seed.”

  “Thanks,” I said, smiling. The coffee was watery and strange, but I was happy to have it anyway. Robert had on another pair of light cotton trousers, a yellow shirt. No matter what he was wearing, I thought, he seemed to feel he looked very well in it. My blue jeans were relatively new, and so was my blouse, but I had a feeling that no matter what I had put on that morning I would have felt out of place.