by Anna Bruno
“You know,” she said, “I met your dad in a bar just like this one. It was the late seventies, right after the blackout. Hot as hell in July. The bars had opened their doors again, so I ventured out to meet some friends in the West Village. The place was a filthy dive but that night it felt like a sanctuary. Everyone just seemed so kind, willing to help out however they could.”
“Small-town kindness,” I said.
“Nico walked in off the street, glasses fogged up from the humidity. He was there to meet this gorgeous girl. She was so bohemian, so free. Just sexy. Nico was all over her. It was the girl who struck up a conversation with me first. She asked me what I did to maintain such beautiful skin.” Mom paused, searching my face. “What? You don’t believe me? I was young once too, Emma. You get your looks from me, not your dad.”
I believed her. She never talked about those days. New York in the gritty seventies. It was such a departure from the way I saw her: a stay-at-home mom in Wilton.
“Nico looked me up and down, head to toe, and gently pushed that beautiful girl off his lap. He told us he was going to call his brother. In those days, bars had pay phones in the back. Then he looked me in the eye and said, ‘I promise you’ll like him if you give him a chance.’ ”
Ridin’ gravel to the jobsite
Smokin’ cigarettes on the morning road
Everything’s gonna be alright
While my baby dreams at home
“Your father showed up thirty minutes later. He’d been at the public library, his office at the time. Apparently, when the librarian handed your dad the phone, she said, ‘I’m not your secretary.’ Nico thought that was hilarious. I’m quite certain he called him at the library all the time. Your dad introduced himself as a developer, even though he hadn’t developed anything yet. He said he had his eye on a six hundred thousand–square-foot office building on a side street in Midtown that was underpriced but no one wanted. There was so much trepidation back then. Unemployment was off the charts. Wall Street was taking a beating.”
Mom laughed to herself like she was in the middle of a daydream and forgot anyone was listening.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“Your dad was just so out of place in that bar. Everyone else, myself included, tried hard to be cool. He rambled on and on about buildings. I’d never met anyone so ambitious. The way he carried himself. He was bigger than himself.”
“Sounds like a real catch,” I said. She ignored my sarcasm.
“That blond beauty was back on Nico’s lap, kissing him. He pulled back, pointed at me, and said, ‘Brother, I knew she was your type.’ Nico was the handsome one, but I was enamored with your father. I knew he’d do everything he said he would and more. It took him ten years to buy his first building. You were in grade school by then. It seems like it happened overnight but it didn’t. Those were the hardest years but they were the best. That’s usually how it is. You think you’ll never get through them, and then you spend the rest of your life missing their intensity, those beautiful years.”
When she finished her martini, she licked her lips and said, “Perfect martini, but please tell me you have a decent restaurant in this town for dinner.”
* * *
THERE IS SOMETHING EXOTIC about small-town life. Though some people (people who say things like, This is a gorgeous wine) can’t see it, and even if they do, they are unwilling or unable to tap into it. I’m not sure exactly what to call it, but it has something to do with joy.
After the relationship grew serious, Lucas invited me to join his coed softball team, sponsored by The Final Final. After my first game (I caught a fly ball in right field and hit an RBI double), we stopped for a drink in a part of town infested by strip malls. The closest place to the field was a LongHorn Steakhouse on Route 1.
Lucas inspected the menu. From across the table, I could see him scan through little pictures of various cuts of meat, filet down to porterhouse. The graphics were not to scale because the porterhouse should have been like four times bigger. The guy sitting to our left was eating one that was the size of a large plate, leaving little room for the side of limp asparagus threatening to fall off onto the table. He didn’t give a rip; he wasn’t there for the asparagus. “I wonder where they get their beef,” Lucas said.
In lieu of becoming a vegan, Lucas had gone on a whole-animal buying spree. First he bought a cow, then later a pig. His freezer and a second freezer in his parents’ garage were stacked chockablock with butchered animal parts, including pork hocks, cow tongue, and a heart that may have belonged to the pig or the cow—he wasn’t sure which. In Lucas’s mind, the zealous consumption of whole animals was the moral equivalent of a juice cleanse. Animals were sacred.
“This is a LongHorn, Lucas. Where do you think they get their beef?”
“There are a lot of cows in Upstate New York. It could make sense to source locally.” A Canadian-at-heart with the soul of a dad. He was born to hold a clipboard and deliver a slow clap. He would definitely drive a minivan. His greatest, existential question would one day be, How do I get these squirts to stop clustering on one side of the field? Bring it in, kids! One, two, three, fun! Way back then, I could picture it.
“Are you kidding? The meat probably comes from China,” I said.
“I’m going to ask the waiter.”
I rolled my eyes. “Please don’t.”
“Why not?”
“Fremdscham.”
He laughed.
“Everyone will know you’re a thirtysomething white dude with disposable income,” I said.
He motioned with his hand at my entire body, head to toe: Look at yourself.
I wore Lululemon yoga pants, a loose racer-back tank with the insignia of the U. on the front, and a hot-pink sports bra. Two thin gold necklaces, different lengths, which I’d forgotten to remove, glimmered on my neck. I twisted and untwisted them half-consciously. So yeah: a sporty yuppie.
“What else would I wear to softball?” I snapped.
“Exactly,” he said. “Look at what you’ve become. One of those women.”
“Those women?”
“Oh, you know, one who talks about the dog all the time. Pretty soon, you’ll trade whiskey for chardonnay.”
“Whoa whoa whoa. It’s not like I have a pair of corgis named Princess and Muffin. Addie is a badass dog. She’s my best friend.”
He gave me that look: Case in point.
“I don’t post about her on the internet,” I said.
“You talk about her so much you don’t have time to post stuff on the internet,” he said.
“I do not.”
“You’re just like Sienna, going on and on about how her kid won a leadership award.”
Ugh, Sienna: Samantha’s friend and my nemesis. The leadership award Lucas referred to was handed out by her daughter’s new-age preschool. It was called the Hungry Spirit Award, and it was trending on Facebook. What constitutes leadership for a four-year-old? Not peeing on the carpet?
Sienna orders oatmeal at brunch. Sometimes she deviates and orders an egg-white, no-cheese omelet with a side of leafy greens. Her enthusiasm for charity bake sales is both gluten-free and social-media smart. She drinks herbal tea, never coffee. She uses a straw so the tea doesn’t stain her teeth. She carries compostable straws in her purse because her image would suffer if associated with plastic. The compostable straw is a natural talking point: a personal crusade to reduce her impact on fish and marine mammals. Meanwhile, her AC runs 24/7, her snow removal guy uses a blower, not a shovel, and a giant propane tank is refilled regularly to heat a massive backyard pool she had installed on the off chance her hungry-spirit kid is the next Katie Ledecky. I’ve never liked oatmeal. Or tea. Amelia knows I don’t take straws, but I don’t brag about it, because a bartender knowing my every whim is not exactly a point of pride. It’s certainly not Facebook material.
The waitress came by to refill our waters.
“Where do you get your beef?” Lucas a
sked. His tone was very serious, almost scholarly.
“I dunno,” she said, sweet as apple pie. “I can get a manager for you.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I said. “We’re just having a drink.”
“Really,” she said. “It’s no problem at all.” LongHorn trained servers to be very accommodating.
Porterhouse Guy pulled his face out of his steak and glanced over at us.
“People are going to think we’re from the city, Lucas.”
“You’re from Connecticut.”
The manager was maybe thirty or thirty-five—our age—with the hair and body of John Daly before his gastric-band surgery. Too much imported beef from China.
“We get most of our meat from the Panhandle.” As he spoke, I pictured him swinging a golf club, gut square with the ground, a cigarette hanging from his lips.
“Thank you very much,” Lucas said. “We don’t have time for food today. Maybe next time, though.”
“Sure thing,” he said.
As soon as he was out of earshot, we said in unison, “The Panhandle?”
“The Florida Panhandle?” I suggested. I went to grad school with a girl from Tallahassee so I had a vague sense that Florida had a panhandle, in addition to various oddities I associated with the region. “Holy shit, that guy looked a lot like John Daly. Do you think he took a job here at the LongHorn to pay off his gambling debts?”
“I’m pretty sure John Daly owns a steakhouse in Arkansas, so if he’s wandering around anywhere answering questions about where the beef comes from, it’s probably there,” Lucas said.
“That might be true, but you see the resemblance, right? He certainly looks familiar. Maybe I recognize him from your high school reunion. Any chance he went to Horace Mann?”
“Why do you think everyone in town went to high school with me?” He gave me a little shove. I tipped off my stool, catching myself with my foot.
“Where else would they have gone?” I smiled.
“I think he’s talking about Texas. The Texas/Oklahoma Panhandle,” Lucas said.
“I’m pretty sure there’s a panhandle in China,” I said, and we both had a good chuckle.
Of course, this is how I witnessed the LongHorn before. Light, humorous, exotic. Home of John Daly’s doppelgänger. Place where love existed. Now, after, I see it differently.
* * *
I TEXT SAMANTHA BACK. Who’s at your house tonight and why is Grace involved?
Party emoji, smiley tongue–face emoji, thumbs-up emoji, followed by the words GIRLS NIGHT in all caps. Samantha uses emojis gratuitously either to look cool or to inspire people to come over to her house, where she is a prisoner of circumstance (three kids).
Will Sienna be there? I ask.
No, not tonight.
When I don’t respond, she types that Grace’s friend Elisa Monfils is passing through town. She goes on to say that Grace asked her to host Elisa for the night because she has the space. Samantha lives in an unreasonably large house, a three-thousand-square-foot McMansion. So her claim is true on one level but it’s also a lie. No one passes through this town unless they have a reason. Samantha must realize this is suspicious because without prompting, she writes, I think she’s giving a talk at the U. tomorrow.
My whiskey is gone. I tilt back my head and use my tongue to separate a piece of ice, dropping it into my mouth. I suck on it, push the cube upward against my palate until the cold hurts, and then move the ice from one cheek to the other, crunching down to feel an uncomfortable but oddly pleasant sensation in my molar. The ice is part of the ritual—its melting away acting as a coded message to my brain: It’s time for another.
* * *
A GUY TAPS ME on the shoulder. “Did I sell you a house?”
“You must be thinking of someone else.” I recognize him right away: Aldrich Gilfillan, real estate agent. His signs say, CALL GIL. They do not say, CALL ALDRICH, because Aldrich is the kind of name that doesn’t go over well in a town like ours. Aldrich plays golf at the private club. Aldrich drinks top-shelf liquor. Aldrich takes his family on vacation to Kiawah. Gil enjoys fishing on the Finger Lakes. Gil buys thirty-packs of Bud Light for his annual backyard barbeque, and he invites the whole town.
Gil is on his second wife because, for one thing, he cheated on his first wife with some college girl, a friend of his son. His second wife, who’s with him now, stands patiently but doesn’t say a word.
“Where do I recognize you from?” Gil asks.
“Lucas,” I say. “Lucas Murphy.”
I doubt he picks up on the fact that he has just opened a wound. Real estate agents don’t know when to keep their mouths shut and pretend like they don’t know you. I live in a small town. I pretend like I don’t recognize people all the time—Lucas’s ex-girlfriend, for example. I just walk on by. I silently judge her because she has a tramp stamp and smokes cigarettes even though she has a toddler, et cetera, but I definitely don’t smile and ask where we’ve met. Aldrich Gilfillan: of all people, he should know a house is a sacred place.
He continues to talk. “That’s right! I never forget a house. That’s what I always say. I might forget a face but not a house. I sold him that little place on Catherine Street, a fine house. I knew Lucas was going to take it when we were halfway up the walk.”
“Uh-huh,” I say, and the name of my old street brings back another rush of memories. My eyes are looking at the glass in my hands but my mind is watching Lucas roll up on his bike, dismounting while still moving. I’m having a glass of wine on the porch, and Addie’s entire body is shaking with joy. She hangs back for a second until I say, “Go ahead,” and she bolts toward him.
* * *
A FEW WEEKS AFTER I moved in, Lucas said, “Come with me to the hardware store.” The small store was just a five-minute walk from the house, its proximity a pleasant legacy of the way people used to shop, before they started driving to megastores in the suburbs. We paid a premium for all sorts of things there—tools, coffee filters, even kitchen equipment. We wanted the place to stay in business.
“Okay,” I said, not bothering to ask what we needed. I grabbed Addie’s leash. The hardware store is one of her favorite places. The cashier always gives her a treat.
On our way out the door, Lucas pulled up a picture on his phone. “I made something for you,” he said. “I want you to pick the stain.”
The picture was of a traditional porch swing, propped up on sawhorses in his dad’s shop. I pinched out the screen to zoom in for a closer look, examining the grain of red cedar on evenly spaced slats.
“After we stain it, I’ll drill holes in each side and add the chain to hang it,” Lucas said.
“It’s perfect,” I said.
“I know how much you love the porch,” he said. “Just figured it needs a swing.”
Our house had a traditional porch with a haint-blue ceiling, a color chosen by the previous owner, a Southerner, who believed the pale blue would keep the spirits away. I’d never had a proper porch before. Where I came from, no one wanted to sit outside and look at their neighbors.
Lucas helped me pick a light stain that would show off the grain and knots of the cedar. I insisted we take our can of stain and walk straight to his dad’s shop because I couldn’t wait another day for something that until that moment I didn’t even know I wanted.
Lucas showed me how to stain wood, applying it with a brush and wiping it off with a rag. He told me not to leave it on too thick or the qualities of the wood wouldn’t show through. Then he just let me go, like he trusted me, or he didn’t care if my method deviated from his. The staining didn’t take long. That swing was a thing of beauty.
Before we took off, Lucas’s mother, Joan, invited us into the house for iced tea. She could see how happy we were. She said, “All I ever wanted for Lucas was for him to find somebody like you.”
Lucas and his dad loaded the swing in the truck and we drove it home to Catherine Street.
* * *
&
nbsp; ALL THE HOUSES ON our block were turn of the century, lovely houses in varying states of disrepair: peeling paint, wild ivy, broken fences. Ours was white with black shutters, classic and stately. Lucas put in a redbrick path with three steps leading to the front porch. The red brick was my suggestion. As an accent to our white house, it reminded me of New England. Lucas had more visual intelligence than I did. He was better at making these types of decisions. But he always listened to me anyway because he wanted his home to be my home. In the evenings, Addie sat on the brick dangling her feet off the top step while we rocked on the porch swing, talking about our days and the lives we dreamed up.
From the inside, the house felt like a bungalow but wasn’t really, because it had a weirdly tall body—tall for its girth. From the open kitchen, you could see the entire first floor, just a small living room and a dining room littered with toys—first the dog’s, then later, Lionel’s. No one was ever more than thirty feet away from anyone else on the first floor of that house, which satisfied Addie’s herding instinct, to have the entire family together at all times.
The view from the front window was framed by a big old tree, surrounded by hostas, which would bloom in the heat of July. Next to the window, there was a ratty, old leather chair that Addie had scratched up many times over as she clawed her way to the top. From that vantage, she could see all the neighborhood activity—the old lady who walked home with a book in her face, the guy who always wore jeans tucked into cowboy boots, a cigarette hanging from his lips, the girl next door with a boyfriend who climbed in through her window. Addie watched over the house, and if anyone walked up that redbrick path toward the front steps, she barked like crazy. The castle is under attack! It’s the mailman!
In my head, our house on Catherine Street was a palace fit for a princess, a delusion only apparent to me in the occasional glare or grimace of a visitor. When I gave Samantha the grand tour, her face read, Did I just walk into a South Bronx crack house? A family of bats had recently taken up residence in the north wall, and they squeaked mercilessly after dark. Lucas bought one of those ultrasonic devices but they took to it like a white noise machine and extended their stay. Samantha said only, “I can’t stay long. I have to pick up the kids.”
