by Ann Beattie
Carl pulls out a kitchen chair and sinks down, elbows on the tabletop, head in his hands.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “It…the thing looks like a mouse.”
“No Disney World for you,” Carl mutters. “Apparently you’re going to have to be a little more mature before we take you to Disney World.”
This makes me laugh. As I laugh, the ferret streaks into the living room. Would this happen in Japan, in a ryokan? If not, could I go there to live, with my one rock on a table?
“Things are out of control,” I say.
“It’s just a ferret,” Carl says.
“Jason ran out the back door in the freezing cold. Without a coat.”
“That means he’ll be back soon.”
“Are you having a day of being unflappable just to get my goat?”
“I’m going to be fired if I don’t get over to the Wrights’ house to install their cabinets,” he says. “I promised them I’d work tonight, to make up for lost time. The plumber’s fault, not mine,” he adds.
“So what am I supposed to do? Go around wringing my hands, waiting for Jason’s return?”
“You could probably use a soak in a hot bath,” Carl says. “Why don’t you take a bath?”
“I’d start screaming, like Frances Farmer.”
“Who’s Frances Farmer?” he says.
“Jessica Lange,” I say.
—
An hour or so after Jason’s departure, Mrs. Kniessel calls to say that Jason is at her house, watching Bram Stoker’s Dracula with Jake’s older brother. Jake’s surgery was successful. She thanks me for suggesting to Jason that he pay a courtesy call. He is a very nice boy who has gone to their house to console them while their son, the owner of the ferret that is now at large, is in the hospital. Am I aware, she asks, that Jason is without a coat? She says this with exaggerated tactfulness, as if she were asking if I am aware that Jason has wings. I mutter something about children refusing to acknowledge winter and say that Carl will pick Jason up when he returns from work. “Such long hours!” Mrs. Kniessel says. (“What wings!”) It is eight o’clock.
Then I do it: I screw up my courage and call the home of Moriko Watanabe. I’m not at all sure what tone to strike if she’s there. Should I be angry that she’s been absent? Chide her, tell her to return to class? A little pleading—how much her friends miss her? Should I simply sound as abject as I feel and apologize?
The lawyer answers the phone: “Good evening. Watanabe residence. This is their lawyer speaking. How may I help you?”
“Hello,” I bring myself to say, after a pause long enough to have offered him every opportunity to hang up. “This is Alison Woodruff, Moriko’s teacher.”
“Ms. Woodruff. Hello. You are calling Mr. Watanabe?”
“No, actually I’m calling for Moriko.”
This produces a long silence. In the background, I hear the television. “Thank you for calling,” the lawyer says. “I will get Mr. Watanabe.”
He comes to the phone. The lawyer explains that he will remain on the extension. In the background, Niles archly responds to something Frasier has said.
“Thank you very much for your concern for my niece’s academic excellence,” Mr. Watanabe says.
Why did I call? Why did I do this?
“I was hoping to speak to Moriko directly,” I say.
“Moriko is studying,” Mr. Watanabe says.
“But she hasn’t been in school. I don’t want you to think that there is any problem about her returning to school.”
He says nothing.
“In fact,” I say, “she has to come back to school.”
He says nothing.
“It’s the law,” I say.
“She must study very hard to catch up,” Mr. Watanabe says.
“Mr. Watanabe, do you understand what I’m saying? I’m not angry about the fire. Adolescents go through these periods. Moriko hasn’t stayed out of school because she’s embarrassed to come back, has she?”
Silence.
“The law requires that Moriko be in school. Is she going to be there tomorrow?”
“Snow tomorrow,” the lawyer says. It is the briefest mention of the weather I have heard in years.
“Is Mrs. Watanabe there?” I ask.
“Mrs. Watanabe does not speak English,” Mr. Watanabe says.
“Mr. Watanabe, you understand English very well, don’t you?”
“Mr. Watanabe has an excellent understanding,” the lawyer says.
“The reason for my call is to apologize”—now that I’ve said it, I realize the reason for my call—“and to say that I may have overstepped my bounds in relating so many personal things about my life to the students. To Moriko,” I add. It is slowly coming clearer to me: the distinct possibility that Moriko, who is apparently kept hostage by the men in the house, not even allowed to come to the telephone, might well have tried to be my knight in shining armor. Maybe she wasn’t only trying to get a glimpse of Jason; maybe she was trying to smoke him out.
“Mr. Watanabe, please let me speak to your niece,” I say, starting all over again.
“This would not happen in Japan,” Mr. Watanabe says. “There is no burning of trash outside a person’s home. There are vandals. There are some problems. But not this.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. I am getting totally worn down. “The only important thing is that Moriko knows I’m not angry with her, and that she return to school. She can pursue academic excellence at school,” I add, not caring if he hears the sarcasm in my voice.
“Thank you very much,” Mr. Watanabe says.
“Thank you for calling,” the lawyer says. Someone hangs up.
“Hello?” I say to the person remaining on the line.
“You say goodbye and I say goodbye and hang up next,” the lawyer says.
“Please put Moriko on. I’m worried about Moriko.”
“She has promised to work very hard,” the lawyer says. “Goodbye.”
“Goodbye,” I say.
He hangs up.
I turn on the TV. Frasier is in his recording studio, with his earphones on. “Good morning, Seattle,” he says. In the adjacent glass cubicle, Roz gestures wildly. I turn the TV off. I am afraid, irrationally, that the lawyer will reappear on Frasier, and that the show will quickly spin off into perplexing exchanges that go nowhere.
Carl does not return, and does not return. Neither does Jason. He’s probably watching Dracula a second time, absorbing new tricks. Even the ferret stays hidden. At ten o’clock, though—it is a school night, after all—I get in the car and drive to the Kniessels’ house to round up Jason. He is just a little boy, I remind myself. I am the mature, responsible adult. I should not have tried to kill the ferret. I will apologize for losing my temper. We may discuss why women are afraid of rodents. He is probably afraid to come home, but when he sees me, he will be relieved to know that all is forgiven. He treats me fine when Carl isn’t around to impress. We have a better relationship, he and I, when neither one of us is vying for Carl’s attention.
Mrs. Kniessel’s house is picture-perfect. There is even an orchid blooming. From upstairs, I hear chilling noises. Downstairs, Brahms is playing quietly. Mr. Kniessel stands when I come into the living room. He is wearing leather slippers and a white shirt and dark pants. He shakes my hand and asks whether we ever took the trip to the Grand Canyon we were considering. I tell him we didn’t. This disappoints all three of us, it seems.
“Jason, dear,” Mrs. Kniessel calls.
He comes to the top of the stairs. He looks down at me. I look up and smile. It is not an entirely sincere smile, but truly: I don’t mean to give him any more trouble. He studies my face. He smiles back, slightly. He has rolled up his pant legs, for some reason. He also has on red kneesocks. As he prepares to leave the den of Dracula, Mrs. Kniessel explains that he slipped on his way to their house. He refused to relinquish his pants so she could wash and dry them, but he accepted a pair of red kneesocks. She is
also giving him a dirty white jacket, what she calls “a spare parka—just an old thing” to wear home. Zipped into it, he looks like the Pillsbury Doughboy in lederhosen. Amid thanks and wishes for their son’s speedy recovery, we start down the walk.
“You find it?” he says, when we are both seated in the car.
“No, but it can’t go anywhere,” I say. “Listen: I want to apologize. Sometimes adults get upset about things they can’t articulate themselves, and tonight when—”
“What’s ‘articulate’?” he says.
“It just means to speak. But what I’m trying to say is that sometimes people don’t know themselves what’s bothering them, and they—”
“It’s okay,” he says. “We’ve got to find Freddie, though. I didn’t tell them he got out.”
“Well, that was good you didn’t upset them,” I say.
“I slid the door back and he jumped out.”
I nod. It doesn’t matter how the ferret got out.
“Where’s Dad?” he says.
“He’s installing kitchen cabinets for those people who had their house renovated. The English lady who leaves those long phone messages we always roll our eyes over.”
“Oh yeah,” he says. “The lady who says, ‘One feels.’ ” His English accent isn’t bad. “Hey, why don’t we go over there?” he says. “I want to see what it looks like.”
Without further discussion, we head for the big Tudor. It’s only five minutes away, but it’s up a private drive, not visible from the street. I remember where it is because there’s an organic nursery next to it, where I bought herbs in the spring.
“Hey, that movie was really cool,” he says.
“I wouldn’t tell your father that you were watching Dracula until ten-thirty,” I say.
“I wouldn’t either,” he says.
I look at him. He often responds to things instantly, with a very adult tone. But he’s eight years old. Still: it must have been traumatic to have his mother walk out on them. Even with Estelle to rely on, it must have been devastating.
“Listen,” I say, overcome with sympathy for him. “You like me, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” he says warily. “So what?”
“A couple of things. One is that I’m glad you like me, but I wish you wouldn’t play so many tricks on me. It makes me feel bad sometimes. Like in the Blue Ridge.”
He looks out the window.
“The other thing,” I say, trying to lighten my voice, “is that I have a student at school who’d like to meet you. To see how neat you really are, I mean. Because I do think you’re neat. You do things you want to do without asking permission all the time. That can cause problems, but I also have to admire the way you have an idea, and you act on it.”
“Freddie,” he says.
“Right. Like taking Freddie.”
We are almost to the top of the hill, and I have been so distracted talking to him that only now do I realize that the big house in front of us is dark. It’s a big shape against the sky. Unlit.
“He’s already left,” I say. “We must have crossed paths.”
“Damn,” Jason says.
“Jason—I know your father and I slip up, too, but you should really try to stop cursing.”
If Carl were present, I know my comment would elicit an outpouring of curses from Jason. Jason taps the toes of his shoes together. He says nothing.
I go around the circular driveway and start down the hill. “Anyway,” I say. “Moriko. You figure in this story, actually. It’s because I did something silly. I told her things about our family, and I made all of us funny. You know how that is, when you’re exaggerating so you tell a better story? I exaggerated, but I’m afraid she believed every word of it, and it…it sort of excited her. You know that book called Eloise?”
“She lives at the Plaza.”
“Right. Well—I was trying to explain American life to some of my students, because they’re from Japan, and Moriko got very interested in things I told her about you. Like the time you took the bike and raced it through the woods.”
“Is that an example of my thinking up something and just doing it?”
“It certainly is.”
“Are you gonna start in about the bike again?”
“No. No, I’m not. Actually, what I’m trying to say is that we all can be sort of cartoonish, at times, if we look at ourselves a particular way. But the truth of it is, I didn’t say enough about me and your father, and I said too much about you. She wanted to meet you. And that’s why she set that fire last weekend, I think. Because she was really intent on meeting you.”
“She wants to meet me that much?” he says. “Isn’t she old?”
“Old? What do you mean?”
“Don’t you teach big kids?”
“Oh, right. Yes, she’s thirteen, I think. It’s not like…she doesn’t want to meet you to get together with you, or anything.”
He looks at me. “Stupid girl,” he finally says.
“No, really, she isn’t. She’s quite nice, and it’s very difficult to be in a foreign country, and to tell you the truth, she has very strict parents. Her stepfather makes her study all the time. I think I made our family sound very interesting, and very exciting, compared to the way she has to live. She sort of overreacted to you…to the stories about you…it was more like responding to an idea than to a real person, if you see what I mean. I mean, it’s not like you think Batman is a real person, but you think he’s a neat character, right?”
“Where does Batman come in?”
“He doesn’t…he doesn’t actually have anything to do with what we’re talking about. He’s just an example. What I’m saying is that in her mind, you’re sort of like Eloise, or sort of like Batman.”
“I’ll be Batman,” he says instantly.
“But, you know,” I rush on, “when you’re a child, you don’t want to know that there’s some teenager inside the rabbit suit, or whatever. You believe the rabbit is real. But when you get older—as old as Moriko is—if you still think it’s a real rabbit, it’s better if someone—”
“Goodbye, Santa Claus,” he says, bringing his hand to his throat and pretending to cut it.
“Right,” I say hesitantly.
“Then what do you want me to do with this dumb girl?” he says.
“First of all, I wouldn’t want you to do anything to hurt her feelings. My idea is that if she could meet you, she’d see that you were a real boy, and that would burst the bubble. Do you know what I mean by that?”
“I’m supposed to just be there? Where? School?”
“No, not school. Some place—” How would I ever arrange it? “Some place where we could have a Coke, or maybe she could come over to our house to watch a TV show with all of us, or something.”
“Dracula,” he whispers, spreading his fingers and pointing them downward.
“Would you do that for me?” I say.
He shrugs. “Sure. No big deal.”
“Thank you,” I say. “That is really very, very nice of you.”
We turn onto our street. Our house, unlike the Tudor, is ablaze with light. I must have left most of the lights on in the rooms when I was cleaning. Carl’s car is not in the driveway. Where is he? Could he possibly have been so kind as to stop at the grocery store? Whatever he’s doing, he’s avoiding dealing with Jason. Carl is tired of disciplining him and then waiting for the other shoe to fall; he told me that the night before. He is tired of being the heavy; he is tired of never really making any progress with his willful son.
If my own life were a fairy tale, what happens next could have been anticipated from the first. We go down the side path from the driveway to the front door, and I see—I am frightened to see—that the door is ajar. I reach out and clamp a hand on Jason’s big, down-stuffed shoulder. He sees the open door, too, and stops. How could the door be open? If the door is open, the last thing we should do is walk in—walk into who knows what: a robbery in progress; punks vandalizing t
he house. An instant headache spreads behind my eyes. “Don’t go in there!” I whisper harshly. I lunge at him and we almost topple to the lawn: Jason, who has already fallen once tonight, and the big, brave adult who is supposedly in charge.
“Let go!” he says, struggling. “I’m coming with you!”
Then I see, as the door seems to open in slow motion, a small person standing in the doorway. I see—my brain swarming with fear and confusion—that it is Moriko. What can she possibly…how can she possibly have been in my house? Is she crazier than I thought?
“That’s her,” I manage to whisper.
“Who?” Jason says, frowning at me.
“Moriko. It’s the girl I was telling you about.”
“What’s she doing in our house?”
Moriko calls, “Mrs. Woodruff?” Her voice is quavery. I am glad Jason is here, or I would swear this could not really be happening. As we approach, Moriko retreats into the brightness. By now, Jason and I are relieved—relieved, and intensely curious.
“The door wasn’t locked,” she says. She looks at Jason. A long look. He drops his eyes. “I came to explain,” she says. It is Moriko, in a blue wool pleated skirt and a white turtleneck with a group of big-footed, embroidered forest animals cavorting on the front. She wears running shoes and navy-blue kneesocks. She stares at Jason’s kneesocks; he studies hers.
“Moriko, this is Jason. Jason, Moriko,” I say.
“How do you do?” he says.
“I left the door unlocked?” I say, dazed. “You mean you just happened to be coming here, and you found the door unlocked?”
“Mr. Hamachi brought me when my uncle went to sleep. My mother is waiting for word of our visit. We were worried that your house was open. Mr. Hamachi said you must have gone on an errand.”
Jason stands at my side. I am not sure if he is clinging, or if he is being proprietary.
“Mr. Hamachi pushed on it when he knocked, and your door opened. I begged him to let me stay. He’s driving around the block.”
“It’s cold in here,” Jason says. “Turn up the thermostat.”
“Won’t you…come into the living room, Moriko. Is everything all right?”
