“Okay,” I said. I had to admit that he looked absurdly attractive with his unshaven face, his eyes alight.
“So he makes podcasts, YouTube videos, the whole nine yards. He talks about wine. And now he’s rich! And you know how I always wanted to be a stand-up comedian?”
“I thought you wanted to perfect neural networks,” I said.
“Before that, before that,” said Gerry. “When I was in high school, I wanted to be a stand-up comedian. I won talent shows, the whole nine yards.”
“You don’t really tell jokes or anything,” I ventured.
“ANYWAY,” Gerry snapped, “my point is that I have personality.”
“I’ll give you that,” I said. I put the kettle on to boil.
“So, and I’m cheap,” said Gerry. He was cheap, of this there was no doubt. Gerry refused to order coffee when we went to a coffee shop, insisting he could sip from my cup. He fished newspapers out of the trash and exited airplanes scanning the seat backs carefully, hoping for free magazines. He had a plastic accordion folder for coupons, he knew every two-for-one night in Austin, and he was happy to buy three cans of a Campbell’s soup flavor he didn’t especially like (broccoli cheese, for example) because the fourth can came for free. Tea bags in his wallet, a favorite free parking place downtown that required me to walk twenty minutes every time we went to hear a band, a house filled with crap from Freecycle. Yes, my beloved was cheap.
“I am going to be Mr. Cheapskate,” said Gerry. “I’ve already bought the domain name.”
“So you’re going to write about … about saving money?”
“Oh, hon,” said Gerry, “that’s just the beginning.” As I drank coffee and nibbled a stale scone, Gerry talked about blog ad revenue, webcasts, social networks, and later, T-shirt sales and personal appearances. He outlined his plans for the dilapidated shed, which was to become the center of the cheapskate empire. He was never going to work for “the man” again. In fact, he was working against the man!
I nodded and smiled, hoping against hope for an upturn in the real estate market, acknowledging with more than a little fear that my boyfriend might be turning into my deadbeat father.
Still, I felt a measure of pride as Alex and I pulled into the driveway and could see Gerry through the grimy shed window, his face illuminated by the halogen bulb he’d installed. “Still at it, eh?” said Alex.
I sighed. “He’s working really hard.”
Leaning against the car with our arms full of groceries, we watched Gerry gesticulate. His voice rose in the balmy night. “And they’ll tell you you have to get two of the same burgers to get the Hut’s two-for-one deal. But I’m here to give you the inside scoop, people. Your wife likes a cheeseburger, and you’re a plain-beef guy? Bring a slice of cheese in your pocket! And that’s the Mr. Cheapskate Secret Scam of the Day. So do good work, people, play hard, and BE CHEAP!”
“Whoa,” said Alex.
“He actually has a medium-sized audience,” I said.
“That’s great,” said Alex, starting to walk toward the house with his bag.
“It’s wonderful,” I said insistently. My dog, Handsome, came bounding out of the house to greet us, and I knelt down to scratch behind his ears.
Alex gave Gerry the big news as he made himself at home, opening the wine, pouring himself a glass. Then he said, “Before I go, I’m dragging Lauren on a road trip.” Gerry, unpacking the groceries, turned around to meet my gaze questioningly.
“It’s my final wish,” said Alex, taking the box of cookies out of Gerry’s hand and helping himself. “She can’t refuse me. Besides, we haven’t seen Gramma since after the Astros game last spring.”
“Please don’t be morbid,” I said. I sank into the couch, suddenly both ravenous and exhausted. “Or is it moribund?”
“Alex,” said Gerry, “I want you to know I really admire what you’re doing.”
“Jeez, Gerry,” said Alex, “thanks.”
“I think it’s ridiculous,” I said. “Doctors Without Borders? What’s wrong with borders? That’s what I’d like to know. I like borders. They make sense to me.”
Both Alex and Gerry ignored my commentary. As they ate the dinner I had so carefully prepared, they talked about how Alex would get to Iraq (Austin to JFK, then through Jordan, which had been our mother’s name and so seemed portentous, foreboding), what he was bringing (clothes, medicine, and lots of music), if perhaps the love of his life was also packing her stethoscope to join Médecins Sans Frontières (not likely but not impossible). I ate silently, then said I was headed to bed. No one seemed to mind.
I took two Tylenol PMs and lay on the memory-foam mattress I’d bought after I sold my first house. I listened to my brother and my boyfriend talk: a sweet lullaby.
“You’re still in your clothes,” said Gerry, unbuttoning my blouse.
“Is he going to die?” I said. “Do you think he wants to?”
“He didn’t pick Iraq,” said Gerry. “Doctors Without Borders could have sent him to Mexico or Thailand.” He put his warm hand on my stomach.
“But they didn’t,” I said.
Gerry kissed me. “I think a road trip is a great idea.”
“You do?”
“He’s really jazzed about it.”
“I know,” I said.
“Besides,” said Gerry, “I just checked: they’re having a special at Beachview Cabins in Galveston. You can write about it for Cheapskate on the Road.”
“I don’t even want to know.”
“Cheapskate on Holiday?”
I touched my boyfriend’s cheek. “You really love this, don’t you?” I said.
“Yes,” said Gerry.
“I’m glad.”
“So you’ll attach a tripod and camera to the Dodge?”
While trying to think of a witty protestation, I fell deeply asleep.
2
As a medical student working through his residency, Alex had very little time for messing around on the computer. Nevertheless, he arrived at my house with hours of downloaded music and This American Life episodes and the adaptor cords and hookups that would enable his iPod to connect to my car’s meager sound system.
“I wish I could come with you guys,” said Gerry, pressing firmly on the six-inch suction cups that he believed would hold a large video camera to the car. “But you know, being a webpersonality is a round-the-clock job.”
Luckily, being a real estate agent in a terrible economy was not. The Gelthorps had decided to hold off on buying, and a prospective client from Los Angeles had canceled. “Maybe it’s time for a career reevaluation,” I’d said to Gerry that morning.
“What about massage-therapy school?” he said.
“Honey, somebody’s got to have an income.”
Gerry rubbed his left shoulder. “I’ll go back to programming,” he said. “I know I’ll have to eventually.”
“No, no,” I said when what I meant was I’m so glad you know.
“A man’s got to support his …” said Gerry.
“His lady?” I said brightly.
“His family,” said Gerry. “I was going to say his family.”
I looked at the floor and bit my bottom lip. I couldn’t meet Gerry’s eyes, couldn’t bear to see the frustrated hope in them.
Gerry watched as Alex and I pulled out of the driveway for the three-hour drive to Houston, and then he went back into the shed to begin the day’s programming. (He had made us a list of the least expensive gas stations en route, adding a star next to the Austin Valero Mart, where we could get jumbo coffees for the price of small.)
Alex, in the passenger seat, looked jaunty and cheerful, fresh-shaven for the first time in a while. His hair, like our father’s, was dark and curly. It was endlessly frustrating to me that while my swarthy coloring and thick locks were the bane of my existence, on Alex they were alluring to women, sexy, irresistible.
It hadn’t been easy to grow up as a half-Egyptian girl in Texas. Really dumb classmates
thought I had something to do with the Iran hostage crisis—on the day Ronald Reagan was sworn in and the hostages were released, Austin Phillips wrote SAD DAY FOR MUSLIM GIRLS in Magic Marker on my locker—but many more just thought I was unappealing, an outsider. They called me names, asked if my parents worked at the 7-Eleven or were terrorists. All I wanted was to fit in, or at least to be ignored.
Even teachers paused sometimes when discussing the Middle East and turned to me as if expecting I had words of wisdom to share, a Muslim point of view. My grandparents are Houston Jews! I wanted to shout, but I stayed quiet and fiddled with my pencil.
It wasn’t until I moved into Jester dormitory on the University of Texas campus—a dorm giant enough to have its own zip code—that I could be anonymous, invisible, and free.
“So what have we got?” I said, reaching for Alex’s iPod.
“I’ll put on ‘Road Trip,’ ” said Alex. “I’ve got U2, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Ozzy …” He started the playlist and leaned back in his seat.
“McDonald’s!” I said, pointing. “They have two-for-one McSkillets.”
“My my,” said Alex as I pulled in.
“Don’t make fun of me,” I said, smiling.
As I drove out of the city, I began to feel my spirits lift. I had always loved the quiet stretch of road that emerged when you left Austin behind. It would be over an hour before the sprawl of Houston began. As we passed a farm, a cow lifted its head to watch us. Alex sang along with the music, his eyes closed.
We entered Brenham, where the Blue Bell creamery was located. “Ice cream before noon?” I said.
Alex considered but shook his head. “On the way home, how about?” he said.
“Sure.”
We kept driving, and then Alex spoke. “I think we should talk about Dad,” he said. “Just in case … in case something happens to me while I’m abroad.”
I gripped the steering wheel tightly. “Stop talking,” I said.
“What?”
I began to feel light-headed, my heart beating too fast in my chest. “I don’t want to hear you saying things like that! What’s going to happen to you?”
“Lauren—”
“Stop talking, please.”
Alex looked out the window. The blazing summer temperatures had drained most of the color from the landscape; the passing shrubbery was wilting in shades of yellow and brown. In midmorning, the sun was piercingly bright and oppressive, the heat shimmering above the road in waves. Despite the car’s desperate hiss of air-conditioning, my thighs stuck to the vinyl seat, hot and damp.
We listened to U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” Finally, Alex said, “I just need … I need to … there are some things you should know.”
“Not listening,” I said.
“Lauren, please.”
“What does a panic attack feel like, by the way?” I said. Alex described the symptoms, and I nodded. “That’s what’s going on,” I said. “I’m definitely having a panic attack.”
“Pull over,” said Alex.
I took the next turnoff, stopping the car a few yards down a dirt road. “I’m having a heart attack,” I said. “And a panic attack. At the same time.”
“Jesus,” said Alex, getting out of the car and coming around to my side. “Put your head down. Has this happened to you before?”
I moved into the passenger seat and put my head between my knees. “Once, in college,” I said. “Before the a cappella singing-group audition. Which I bombed. I shouldn’t have tried to sing Billie Holiday. That was the end of my singing career.”
“Shhh,” said Alex, settling into the driver’s seat.
“I’m dying,” I said. “Honestly, I feel like I’m going to pass out.”
“You need a therapist. Or Valium. Maybe both.”
“Don’t leave me,” I said.
“Jesus Christ!” said Alex. He put the car into gear roughly, pulled a tight U-turn, and hit the gas. As we barreled onto the road, we listened to the sad strains of Joshua Redman’s saxophone. “I love you,” said Alex. “I’m always here for you, Lauren, but I have to live my own life, too, you know?”
I laid my head back and remembered hiding in the tree house after the police had taken our father away. After what seemed like hours, an officer had climbed the ladder to tell us we were going to the Feldmans’ for a while.
Kevin and Jayna Feldman were still in their pajamas, eating Pop-Tarts and watching Saved by the Bell. Their living room was enormous, carpeted wall-to-wall with blue shag. Ronnie Feldman had hooked the television up to speakers, and I remember the loud sitcom and a strawberry Pop-Tart, a cozy place on the leather sectional, laughing at nerdy Screech. I was a nerd myself at Holt Elementary. My looks differentiated me from the cool fifth-grade girls, who all had hair as straight and thin as silk—hair like my mother’s.
The night before she died, my mother had promised to take me to the Stamford mall. She couldn’t stand the mall, preferring to order from catalogs, but I had been anticipating the shopping trip all week. My mother’s salary had to support our whole family, but she indulged me. She must have known that expensive clothes and lip gloss helped me feel confident. After a bit of shopping, we usually ate cheeseburgers at Friendly’s, my mother happily ordering the fried mozzarella sticks, never flinching when I ate heartily, joining right in with me, saying, “Come on, lovebug, just a little sweet something,” when the waitress brought the dessert menu.
I was eight—too old to hold my mother’s hand, to love her so much, but I did it anyway. By the time I was an angry teenager, there were only my grandparents, Merilee and Morton, to rebel against, and instead of fighting back, they sent me to boarding school in Austin with a trunk full of nylon sweaters and name tags that read LAUREN M, as if I could hide my last name, and my history, so easily.
I loved my grandparents, and I was thankful for them. But I never felt as if they wanted me around, not really. My grandparents were worn out and sad. They took care of me perfunctorily, as if I were an endless to-do list. I had clothes, check. I had food. I even had a psychiatrist for a year, but I refused to talk about my mother, and eventually, Alex and I convinced our grandparents that we were fine.
Maybe we were fine. Alex had believed from the start that my father was innocent. As appealing as this idea was, my logical mind couldn’t quite believe it. I didn’t remember what I had seen in my parents’ bedroom, but a terror stayed with me—it had been something horrific. They fought often and wildly; it was not impossible that my father had simply gone too far. My grandparents told us with drawn faces and in sober tones that our father was not a bad man, but he had done a very bad thing and would spend the rest of his life in jail. There was no evidence of a break-in. My father had no alibi. The facts just added up, for me.
Alex and I talked about that night once in a while, but I grew impatient with his exceedingly elaborate fantasies, his plans to prove our father’s innocence. I hated Alex’s weak spot—his belief in our father. I needed for Alex to be the strong one, the one who took care of me. He was the only other person in the world who understood my strange orphanhood. Only Alex and I knew how fragile the world really was.
Over the years, I refined my fake story to effectively erase my father from the picture. My parents were killed in a plane crash, I told friends. Throughout boarding school and into my freshman year of college, I checked my mail infrequently and tossed any letters from my father into the trash.
Alex, who wrote to Izaan regularly, even visiting once when Morton agreed to accompany him to New York, told me he had asked our father to keep copies of all the letters he sent to me. “Mark my words,” he said (Alex was prone to such professorial statements; he had a doctor’s authority before he even graduated from high school), “you’re going to want to read them someday.”
It was during my senior year at UT when I finally reached the end of my rope with Alex. He had arrived with some Harvard buddies during a Tri Delt mixer, charming all my frie
nds with his blather and homegrown weed. After spending the night with the daughter of a Dallas judge, Alex took me out for pancakes and suggested we spend spring break in New York. We could go to some awesome parties, he argued, and then “hoof it upstate.”
Something broke in me. “He killed her,” I said, startling the waitress, who slid our plates to the table quickly and did not return even after we emptied our coffee mugs. “He’s not … a good person.”
“He didn’t do it,” said Alex.
Sadness curdled into fury, and I put down my fork and knife. They were coated with syrup from cutting my pancakes into shreds. “I can’t even look at you,” I said. “You’re so stupid. You know as well as I do what happened, you stupid fuck.”
“I was there,” said Alex.
“But you didn’t see anything!”
“No, I didn’t. Did you?”
I bit my lip. “I don’t remember …” I said. I had not even told Alex about my dream, about swimming into my parents’ bedroom in the middle of the night.
“Lauren, I know him. I’m telling you, he didn’t do it. He couldn’t have done it,” said Alex.
“Oh, really?” I said, sounding a bit unhinged even to myself. “You know what an asshole he could be! He was angry about those fucking shoes from Dr. Schwickrath, I bet.” I held my breath, having finally voiced my theory, which I had never mentioned to anyone before.
“He isn’t capable of it,” said Alex, sounding rehearsed. He seemed not to have heard my idea, or perhaps he had chosen to ignore it. “I know it, Lauren. I know him.”
“Then who killed her?” I asked.
Alex didn’t answer, just looked at me pleadingly. “Who the hell did it?” I said, too loud. A football player was sitting at the next table with his parents, all of them staring, and I was both enraged and humiliated. I bent close to my brother and whispered, “I never want to see you again.” Then I left the International House of Pancakes, crying all the way back to my room at the sorority, telling my roommate I was hungover to explain why I spent the rest of the day in bed.
Alex graduated from Harvard and sent blank postcards as he traveled from Europe to India to Africa. We did not speak for three months.
Close Your Eyes Page 2
