“Bunny, there’s nothing to get. The woman’s just fucking nuts.”
He was right, not that it made me any happier. “You want to stop for breakfast?”
“Let’s wait for the Commack exit,” he said. “These people would put escargot in oatmeal.”
It took us five hours to get home, all told, what with Sunday traffic and the vagaries of the Long Island Rail Road, but I’d rarely been so happy to be safely back in our tiny second-floor commune.
“Home, Sweet DayGlo Home.” I said and plopped down on the sofa, cheered by its very hideousness.
There was a note on the coffee table, pinned down under Sue’s bong and a lighter:
We’re out mocking the nouveau-riche at Barney’s. Sam Chinita’s for dinner?
—mwah mwah, S & P
Dean saw that the bong’s bowl was filled and flicked it alive with the lighter. After taking a long gurgling hit, he offered it to me.
“No thanks,” I said. “I’m happy enough just having escaped the social carnage.”
“I need a haircut,” he said, before exhaling. “Don’t want to scare any Texans tomorrow.”
I patted my duffel bag. “No problem. I’ll just curl up right here with my close personal friend Adolf.”
Dean leaned down to kiss me on the forehead. “ Auf wiedersehen, meine kleine Hasenpfeffer.”
* * *
I made myself an iced coffee, ditching Adolf for F. Scott. I’d just gotten to the part where Tom and Nick and the gang were driving through the Valley of Ashes, bound for Manhattan, when I started drifting off.
I wondered whether that had been part of Queens, between East Egg and the city, before succumbing to sleep entirely, duffel bag mashed under my head for a pillow.
I woke up to the racket of our front-door locks twisting over. My ashy dreams frittered away, leaving only the vague recollection of Astrid cast as Jordan Baker, languidly duplicitous about having improved her lie in a golf game.
Sue and Pagan swept down the hall in their Rollerblades, spinning to crash butt-first into the chairs beside me.
“Fun weekend?” asked Pague.
“Hideous,” I said. “They ditched us last night, and stole my Percodan.”
“Typical,” said Sue, reaching for the bong.
She reloaded the bowl and lit it, then pointed at my discarded book.
“The fuck is this?” she said, voice pinched as she held the smoke in her lungs.
“Present from Astrid,” I said. “You believe that shit?”
“Nazi fucking hosebeast,” she said, exhaling a rush of blue cloud all over it.
Pagan reached for the bong. “Why the hell would Astrid give you that as a present?”
“Search me,” I said. “Dean thinks it might have been a cry for help.”
“Help this,” said Sue, flipping Hitler the bird.
“No shit,” I said. “And don’t get me started on Christoph.”
“Dean really wants to work for the guy?” asked Pagan.
“Dean wants to work,” I said. “I don’t think he’s committed to anything beyond that.”
“Bummer for you,” said Sue. “Means you’re pretty much stuck kissing Astrid’s ass for as long as the checks clear.”
“Just close your eyes and think of England,” said Pagan.
“I can handle the ass-kissing,” I said, “as long as I don’t ever have to go back to those fucking Hamptons.”
“Ramen to that,” said Pagan, raising the bong in toast.
We heard the front door open again.
Sue leaned back in her chair to call, “Hi, honey, you’re home” down the hallway.
Dean strode in, sporting the shortest haircut I’d ever seen on him.
“Dude,” said Sue, “you look like a fucking marine.”
Pagan tossed off a salute, holding the bong out toward him. “Semper Fry.”
29
Sam Chinita’s was an old-school diner on Ninth Avenue, at least as far as the building itself went. Time-worn Moderne stainless and linoleum, a no-nonsense kind of place that probably once had Steaks and Chops blinking out front in neon script.
Now the menu was Chino-Latino: half Cantonese, half Cuban. You could get egg rolls or fried plantains, hot-and-sour soup or cafe con leche. I always wondered if the old waiters with their shiny black pompadours had successfully fled Mao only to find themselves desperate to escape Castro’s Havana.
“I’m not really looking forward to this lunch tomorrow,” I said over my plate of black beans and yellow rice.
“Because of Mom, or because of the new beau?” asked Pagan.
“Both, I guess.” I reached for the platter of fried platanos maduros. “This whole thing with Pierce—I want to bitch her out, but not in front of some random-preppy-stranger dude.”
“Maybe that’s why she’s bringing him,” said Sue. “Like, for a little social Kevlar.”
I shook my head. “She doesn’t know I know. Or she thinks I’ve known for a long time. Either way, she’d have no idea it’s this high on my agenda.”
“Are you sure she’s even going out with this guy?” asked Dean.
I rolled my eyes.
He turned to Pagan. “I mean, did she say ‘I want you to meet the new love of my life’ on the phone? Maybe he’s just some pal she’s splitting gas and tolls with on the trip down.”
“Dean, this is Constance,” said Pague. “It’s not what she says, it’s how giddily she says it.”
“But what did she say?” asked Dean. “About the guy, specifically?”
My sister shrugged. “He’s the one with the boat.”
“So?” said Dean. “Some guy with a boat’s giving your mother a ride to New York. You’d think it was Defcon Ninety-seven.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” I said. “He’s treating her kids to lunch at
‘Twenty-One.’”
“Not to mention the spouse and the roommate,” added Sue.
Pagan patted my husband on the hand.
“Poor guy’s in it for the nookie,” she said. “ Big time.”
After Dean went to sleep that night I cut the alligator off an old Lacoste shirt and stitched it onto the breast of his new coveralls. It looked good with the herringbone.
I went into our bedroom and kissed him on the forehead before folding them up and tucking them back into his duffel bag.
I called Skwarecki from the Catalog late the next morning as soon as the phones calmed down.
“Things are starting to get under way,” she said. “Bost wants to go over the process, let you know what to expect.”
“Just tell me where and when.”
“Can you make tomorrow, about eleven?”
“I don’t have to be at work until three in the afternoon. You think that’s enough time?”
Skwarecki said she figured it was, then gave me directions via
subway.
“You want to ride in the front car to Union Turnpike and come up the last set of stairs on the platform, onto Queens Boulevard,” she said. “There’s a big bronze statue right there, next to the sidewalk—guy with a sword standing on a pile of bodies. Keep Fat Boy on your left and about a block down you’ll come to these two big ugly gray buildings. You want the one closest to the boulevard. I’ll meet you in the lobby.”
I jotted all that down. “So how’s it going, otherwise?”
“I’ll be happy to see the last of nineteen ninety, let me tell you. Twenty-three hundred homicides already. My first year we didn’t quite break a thousand.”
“So, what, the population’s bigger?”
“Same number of people, double the murders. And the robberies? Maybe four times as many.”
“What the hell happened?”
“Jobs went away and the drugs got harder.”
“You think it’ll ever go back to how it was?”
“Dinkins’s balls ain’t big enough, for damn sure.”
I glanced at the clock on the office wall. “ Fuck.”
“What?”
she said.
“Gotta meet my mother for lunch,” I said. “New boyfriend.”
“I thought you were married.”
“Not mine, hers. Mom’s oh-for-three on the marital front.”
“Geez. Good luck with that.”
“Your lips to God’s ears,” I said, hanging up.
30
So what’s this new guy’s name?” asked Sue.
She was wedged between me and Pagan in the backseat of an old Checker cab on the way to ‘21.’
“Larry or something,” said Pague. “Tony. I don’t know.”
“I wonder if he’s married,” said Sue. “Like Bonwit.”
I looked out the window. “I wonder if he’ll make us order off the children’s menu, like Bonwit.”
Sue laughed. “He was a piece of work.”
“ Feh,” I said. “Scathing dickhead.”
“He had a few nice moments,” said Pagan.
“Bonwit, nice?” asked Sue.
“When he was dying,” said Pagan. “For a couple of days, right
before.”
I shook my head. “Doesn’t count.”
“He was scared,” said Pagan. “It actually made him kind of sweet.”
“I’m sorry he was scared,” I said. “But he was still an asshole.”
“Yeah,” said Pagan, “but it’s too bad you didn’t see him in the hospital. He was really happy you’d sent him that book about the Tall Ships taking wheat to Australia. I was even a little sad when he died, you know? Surprised the hell out of me.”
“I was sad for Mom,” I said. “She really loved the guy.”
“Maybe the new one will cheer her up,” said Sue. “Maybe he’ll turn out to be a decent human being.”
My sister and I groaned.
“What?” asked Sue.
Pagan said, “The nice ones never last—”
“Because Mom gets bored,” I said. “And we always end up feeling so damn sorry for them.”
“Thank God I’m not a fucking goy,” said Sue. “You people are crazy.”
“We’re here to meet our mother,” I said to the maître d’.
“Under which name was the reservation made?”
“Constance Jones?” I said, Mom having reverted to her maiden name in recent years.
He consulted the day’s page in a large leather book. “I’m sorry, I don’t see a Jones.”
“Um, maybe Constance Capwell?” I asked.
He looked up at me, shaking his head.
“Dare?” I said, not really believing she’d have supplied Dad’s
surname.
Another head shake.
“Dougherty?” asked Pagan, citing the last name of our first stepfather.
“Are you certain the luncheon was meant to be today?” asked the maître d’, not unkindly. “I’d be happy to check tomorrow’s reservations.”
Mom breezed in just then, thank God, on the arm of a rather large gray-haired man in glasses and full Brooks Brothers kit.
“Larry McCormack,” he said. “Table for five, downstairs.”
The maître d’ gave him a tiny bow, from the neck. “Very good, sir.”
The Larry-person turned toward me, Sue, and Pagan, of such good cheer that he was verging on downright goofy.
The man’s blue blazer was unbuttoned. It swung open to reveal a bit of a gut hanging over his Nantucket Reds, nearly obscuring the whales embroidered on his belt. His loafers were down at the heel and revealed a suitably Yankee disdain for polish.
Serious money.
Mom introduced us, and Pagan and I each looked him in the eye while shaking his hand and saying “How do you do?”
Sue went next, saying she was pleased to meet him, thanking him for allowing her to be included.
We were shown to a crisp white table in the downstairs bar, its ceiling hung, as ever, with toy planes and trucks and wagons, most bearing what I’d always presumed were the corporate logos of regular customers.
The maître d’ pulled out our chairs and dispensed menus, then disappeared with a virtual puff of well-oiled smoke.
Larry pulled out Mom’s chair, then claimed the seat next to her. He was still grinning at the three of us. It was rather unnerving.
“Who’ll join me in a shrimp cocktail?” he asked, rubbing his very large paws in glee.
I nudged Pagan’s ankle, muttering, “Six months. Tops.”
She raised her fist to her mouth and faux-coughed. “Hundred bucks he won’t see Thanksgiving.”
We dropped our napkins into our laps and shook on it, under the table.
“How was the drive?” asked Sue.
“Not bad,” answered Mom. “We came down the Taconic this morning.”
Larry pursed his lips. “It’s about time somebody managed that forest. I’ve never seen a stretch of trees more in need of a good paper company’s stewardship.”
“The Berkshires?” I said.
Mom giggled, and he swallowed her hand in his.
“What line of work are you in, Mr. McCormack?” asked Pagan.
“Energy,” he said. “I’m retired now, of course. But it was absolutely terrific—wonderful people, wonderful business.”
“And did you have any particular specialty within the field?”
“I gave my heart to the cleanest power in the world,” he said.
“Nuclear.”
Pagan choked on her ice water. Sue tried to give her a couple of strong claps to the back without making a huge deal out of it.
The waiter purred up to take our drink orders.
Presuming they didn’t stock methadone, I settled for gin.
“You drove down the Taconic, from Maine?” asked Pagan. “I would’ve thought Ninety-five was the most direct route to Manhattan. Weren’t you staying in Hartford?”
“We spent the weekend with Larry’s youngest son, out in Litchfield,” said Mom. “ Such fun!”
“I hope you girls won’t mind that we told my kids first,” said Larry.
Pagan tipped her head closer to mine, hissing “You have so got to be fucking kidding me” through clenched teeth.
Mom brushed the fingertips of her free hand lightly across the inside of Larry’s wrist, with a sidelong-glance bonus.
He cleared his throat, cheeks going pink.
Be still, gag reflex.
“We hope you girls don’t have any plans for Valentine’s Day,” said Mom.
“February?” I asked. “In Maine?”
She ignored that, showing us her gumball-machine engagement ring. “Larry had this made by the most charming little man in Bar Harbor. I’ve always adored dark sapphires.”
The waiter returned with our cocktails.
Should’ve held out for the methadone.
The only time I got Mom alone was when she tailed me to the ladies’ room, in the lull before dessert.
I didn’t have the balls to give her shit about Pierce in front of the aproned little-old-lady attendant, not least since I didn’t really have cash to spare for the tip saucer unless I planned to walk home.
“Well? What do you think?” asked Mom, eyes crinkling up adorably as she smiled at me via the mirror over the sinks.
I think this guy’s ball four, coming in high-and-outside and not worth a twitch of your shoulders. And we both know you’re gonna swing for it anyway.
The attendant turned on the taps in front of Mom, then unveiled a fresh bar of soap.
I twisted my own faucets quickly on. Feudalism creeps me out, no matter how vestigial.
“He seems like a very kind man,” I said. “And he obviously adores you.”
My mother lifted her dripping hands from the sink. The silent attendant draped them with a starched piqué towel, turning off the taps in lieu of a curtsy.
Mom was going to feel like shit when she bolted this time. Because he was nice enough, and she really never meant any harm.
“Larry sat me down to go over his portfolio last week,” she said, spritzing her wrist
s with the house bottle of Joy, “so I’d know you children would always be taken care of.”
“That’s touching, Mom.”
Too bad my mother was no gold digger.
Bet she even gives back the ring.
I dried my hands, watching her breeze out the ladies’-room door.
Smiling weakly at the aproned old lady, I dug out my last five bucks, trying to smooth out the bill’s wrinkles before I laid it gently across her little white plate.
We burst into our apartment an hour later, sans midlife lovebirds.
“Fucking Maine?” said Pagan. “In fucking February?”
“I don’t even want to think about it,” I said.
“What is she, nuts?” asked Pagan.
“Oh, right,” I said, “ news flash.”
She flopped onto the sofa. “Right out of her head.”
“Twisted,” I said. “Oobie-shoobie.”
Sue drew a pack of ‘21’ matches out of her pocket and held them up. “ Fuck shrimp cocktail. Who’ll join me in a bong hit?”
Dean called from Texas that night, around eleven.
“You got in okay?” I asked.
“Piece of cake, and all the guys at Chevron were impressed with my preppy coveralls.”
“Where’re you staying?”
“A Holiday Inn out by the refinery,” he said. “King Leisure Suite.”
“Ooooo… swanky.”
“Bed’s too big without you.”
“Same here,” I said, patting his empty pillow in the dark.
“How’d lunch go?”
“Mom’s getting married.”
“Again?”
“Who knows,” I said. “Maybe the fourth time will be the charm.”
31
Tuesday morning I came up the subway stairs into a biting rain. The sky was low and gray, and everyone around me kept their heads ducked against the sooty blast of wet.
Fall, already.
Skwarecki’s statue loomed beside me: a smugly chubby guy, knee-deep in naked dead chicks but draped in a Tarzan diaper to protect his own modesty.
Fat Boy’s right hand rested loose on the hilt of his sword, blade casually balanced across the top of his shoulder. Gripped in his left fist was a skein of hair, at the bottom of which a woman’s severed head dangled like a purse.
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