by Anna Bruno
We stopped going to the bar when I started traveling to promote my book.
* * *
AFTER THE FIRST FEW months of touring, exhaustion set in. I’d been doing it so long that the excitement had waned but not long enough to fully acclimate. I can’t remember what city I was in at the time. Tolstoy said, Happy families are all alike, but what he really should have said was, Hilton Garden Inns are all alike. That was the reality of my life: hotel art, patterned carpets, forced air.
FaceTime had a special ring, not even a ring, really—more like a digital beep, quick and repetitive. The sound of joy—it always preceded a glimpse into Lucas and Lionel’s world: our home on Catherine Street.
I sat cross-legged in bed, holding my iPad up high, level with my face so my chin looked good. Lucas appeared, only half on-screen. He moved from the kitchen to the living room. I caught a glimpse of his left hand, holding a cup of tea.
“Since when do you drink tea?” I asked.
“Oh, this,” he said, angling the camera toward his mug. “It’s a hot toddy.”
“I want one,” I said.
“Check this out!” Lionel’s little back appeared on the screen. He sat on the floor, facing the wall. The plastic baby tool set that Lucas’s parents had given him was next to him on the hardwood. From it, he’d taken what looked like a drywall trowel, a flat rectangle with a handle protruding from the middle of the backside. Lucas had apparently also given him some joint compound, which was all over his hands and arms. “He’s my little apprentice,” Lucas said.
Lionel stuck a glob of compound on the wall with his left hand and then attempted to rub it in with the trowel. Lucas panned back to his own face, again only half on-screen. He put his drink down on the coffee table. “Hang on, he needs help,” he said.
He sat down behind Lionel with his legs bent around him. Lionel handed him the trowel and, for the first time, saw my face on the screen. His eyes lit up. He raised his arms to the air. He squealed.
Lucas ran the tool across the small section of wall near the floor in a fluid motion, smoothing out the mud. “Like this,” he said. Lionel’s attention shifted from my face to the wall. He grabbed the tool from his father’s hand.
Lucas repeated, “It’s fun. It’s fun. Isn’t this fun?” as if he were trying to talk himself into it. He reached back toward the coffee table for his drink, and on-screen I could see the face I loved so much, half covered by the mug.
“Maybe he’ll take up the trade someday,” I said.
“Oh, the kid will know how to drywall,” Lucas said. “But he won’t go into the business.”
“No?”
“He’s independent, like his mom.” Lucas pushed his body back so he could lean against the edge of the couch. Lionel maintained focus on the wall.
“He does seem to like it,” I said.
“How’d the talk go today?” Lucas asked. “Did you give someone hope?”
“Doing my part,” I said.
“Restoring faith in capitalism by charging thirty bucks for a hardcover?”
“Teaching people they are special,” I said. “I’m like Rachael Ray for wannabe bankers and consultants.”
“Capitalism at work!” he said. “You should launch a product line focused on longevity.”
“Goop already exists.”
“Immortality, then?”
“ ‘Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal,’ ” I said. “Lemme see Lionel again.”
Lucas turned the camera back to Lionel. He had a clump of compound in his hand and it was smeared on his face, across his cheeks, on his lips, and into his mouth. He flashed a devilish smile. “Shit,” Lucas said. “Put that down, child.”
“That stuff’s probably toxic!” I yelled.
“It’s not toxic,” he said. “I mean, maybe just a little.”
“How much did he eat?”
“I dunno. I was talking to you.”
“You’re supposed to be watching him. Who gives their baby toxic joint compound to play with?” Lucas put down the phone. I could only see the ceiling fan. “What are you doing now?”
“I’m wiping him off.”
Lionel started crying.
“You need to call poison control,” I said.
“You call poison control,” he said. “I’m busy. You’re just sitting in a hotel room.”
“I’m a thousand miles away, and I’m not the one who let him play with a toxic substance.”
“I told you I don’t think it’s toxic, at least not until you eat a lot of it.”
“You just said you have no idea how much he ate.”
“I know it wasn’t a lot. He probably just put a little in his mouth and swished it around. He’s fine.”
I opened my laptop and googled baby ate drywall compound. I clicked on hospital-data.com, which had a page about accidents related to children ages zero to five ingesting caulking or spackling compounds. The site estimated 1,029 accidents over a ten-year period, which didn’t seem like a lot. I scanned several instances. They all said, “Examined and released without treatment.”
I googled how to make edible playdough and read the recipe aloud for Lucas.
“Em,” he said. “I don’t need you to google for me.”
“Well, you clearly need help,” I said.
“So come home and help me.”
* * *
THERE’S A VOICEMAIL ON my phone from Grace, time-stamped fifteen minutes ago. I figure I should check it. She’s usually more of a texter.
Emma, I need you to take an Uber to Samantha’s house. Please. We’ve incurred considerable expense, both in time and money, to arrange for Elisa to meet with you. This is important. If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for me and Samantha.
She tells me to take an Uber because she suspects I’m already drunk.
A New York Times profile on Elisa Monfils reveals that she’s something of a therapist for Wall Street junkies and Silicon Valley nerds and D.C. attorneys. She talks them off the ledges of their high rises.
Oh my God—I get it now. Grace planned an intervention. I text her immediately: What the hell, Grace? Are you worried I’ll appear on MSNBC with a bottle of whiskey and a doobie, and all our investors will back out?
It’s not about the fund, Emma. It’s a birthday gift. Elisa works with the best of the best. Steve Jobs was her client. She doesn’t mention Elon Musk or his doobie.
Today is my thirty-fifth birthday. I’m not advertising this fact at the bar, because people over twenty-one who still celebrate their birthdays are either narcissistic or simpleminded or both.
STEVE JOBS WAS OFF HIS ROCKER!!! I write.
Steve Jobs sat atop an empire, she retorts.
Well, he’s dead so if he’s sitting atop anything, it’s a money bag in the fourth circle of hell. I shake my head and add an eye-roll emoji even though emojis are beneath me.
Everyone uses consultants from time to time, Emma.
Call it what it is, Grace. It’s not a consultation. It’s an intervention.
She doesn’t deny it. She texts, Pick up the phone, Emma. It vibrates in front of me on the bar.
Even if she believed my lie about driving up from the city, she would assume I made it home by now. I slip out back. Standing under the overhang next to a can full of cigarette butts, I take her call.
“Where are you?” Grace asks.
“I stopped at the bar for a drink.” I picture her pinching the cartilage between her nostrils. “I have no interest in your little intervention.”
“You’re stuck, Emma, in a terrible and understandable loop. We think Elisa can help you out of it.”
“You and Samantha have no idea—”
“I know,” she says. “I can’t even imagine—”
“That’s just it,” I say. “You don’t have to imagine. What happened to me would never happen to someone like you. Your life is perfect.”
“We’ve known each other too long for you to believe that, Emma.
”
This is true, of course. Less than a year after her son was born, Grace was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was with her when she tried on bras and contemplated whether anyone would notice that her fake breast sat higher than her real one. Her daughter, the oldest, repeated kindergarten after falling behind and was later diagnosed with multiple learning disorders by a throng of specialists. Her mother died last year in Taiwan, where she’d moved when she divorced Grace’s father late in life after many unhappy years in Ohio. These are just a few examples from the last five years, the ones I know about. So yes, even Grace is like drywall, all those layers of mud plus a skim coat. But her eyes are so clear and bright, always looking toward the future. Sometimes I forget she has a past.
* * *
I’M TIRED. I MISS our old bed, the one I left behind when I moved out. The guy at the mattress store told us we should buy the biggest bed that fit in our bedroom, so Lucas and I picked a king. It occupied most of the room, with just barely enough floor space for a dresser against the opposite wall and narrow passageways on either side. When we told Lucas’s dad about the purchase, he said, “That’s so bourgeois.”
It was a great decision. That bed was a home within a home. It was where Lionel said his first word.
He cried out from his crib around six a.m. I remember it was a Saturday, because on weekdays, Lucas was always up by six, getting ready to head out to a jobsite.
Addie jumped up and sat, ears perked, at the foot of the bed. She was the most awake of all of us, anxious to rush downstairs and wait for Lucas to fill her bowl. Together, they plodded down to the kitchen. A bit later, they scurried back upstairs.
Lucas carried Lion into our room so I could feed him. I propped myself up in bed with pillows, gave him the bottle, and watched while he filled his tiny belly. We’d switched to formula pretty quickly, much to Samantha’s chagrin. She’d sent a series of articles espousing the benefits of breastfeeding. I deleted her emails before clicking on the links. Lion was a hearty little thing, strong and growing. We could tell how smart he was by the way he explored the world. If Samantha wanted to judge us for giving him formula, that was her prerogative. I didn’t give a rip.
When Lionel finished, he fell asleep on my chest. I scooted down, a little closer to Lucas, and let myself drift away. Addie knew well enough to give us a little more time, but our half rising had riled her. She wanted to be a good dog, her deep desire was to please, but she couldn’t help herself. She jumped off the bed, ran downstairs, her nails clicking on the wood, and back up again. She returned with her ball, which looked like a tennis ball but it squeaked when she closed her jaw around it. As soon as I heard the squeak, I fake-scolded her. “Addie, shhh! No playing on the bed!”
This was an invitation to play, of course. Lionel was awake again now, sleepy but gleeful. He turned from me and toward Addie, opening his arms. She dropped her ball on our clean French linens and licked his face. He smiled with his perfect cherub mouth, showing his tongue and little teeth that had just come in.
“No playing on the bed!” I repeated.
Lucas grabbed Addie by the neck and began to wrestle with her. He put his hand in her mouth, gripping her fangs, shaking her head back and forth.
I picked up the gross, slobbery ball from our duvet and threw it on the floor. Addie mistook my gesture for a game of fetch. She jumped down off the bed, picked up the ball, and jumped back up. She dropped it from her mouth and it rolled toward Lionel. He said, “Ball!” and clapped his hands together.
Lucas picked up the ball and shook it in front of Lion’s face. “Yeah, it’s a ball. It’s a ball!”
Lion repeated, “Ball.”
Lucas repeated, “Ball.”
Lion repeated, “Ball.”
Lucas said, “That’s right! It’s a ball.” He threw it off the bed. Addie fetched it. She stood over us, holding the ball in her mouth, waiting. Addie was never a good listener. Perhaps we gave her mixed signals.
“No playing on the bed,” I said. Lucas and Lionel laughed. Addie wagged her tail.
After I moved out, the post office forwarded mail from Catherine Street for a full year, and every time I saw my old address with that yellow forward sticker, I thought about this morning, together on the bed with my family. Each time, it was hard to catch my breath again.
10PM
TIME IS SPEEDING UP now. A full hour nearly escapes my notice. There’s an old-school wall clock in the corner of the bar. Its face is a beer advertisement, noteworthy for its orange-beaked toucan and the words Always time for a GUINNESS. Bar time is warped. It starts out real slow, the minute hand creeping along, and then, wham! Quarters slip away. The minute hand becomes irrelevant; the hour hand accelerates toward last call.
My body is tethered to the bar. The lights have begun to blur over, like a photograph with a single object in the foreground and everything else rendered in the abstract, colors and shapes. The bar is more an extension of self than a place. The room and the objects—the chairs, the wood, the glass in my hand—are me, and I am them. I could not walk the line, but I can still sit on my stool and order another drink.
Summer’s wish to stay longer has been granted. She hasn’t taken off her poncho but she’s back at the front table with another Cherry Coke. Cal is drinking a fresh Bud Light with the same gangly kid he was talking shop with earlier. I take a closer look. He’s baby-faced, barely old enough to drink. He’s wearing cargo shorts and a white undershirt, and he has a tattoo on his right side, which extends from the middle of his forearm, across his elbow, to the bottom third of his bicep, just below the line of his T-shirt sleeve.
“Snow season is just around the corner, if you can hold out a few months,” Cal says. It seems odd to be planning for snow in this late-summer heat, as hurricanes ravage the southern coast and wildfires tear through California. Every time the door swings open and a regular steps outside for a smoke, I am reminded of the deluge of rain that fills our gorges and turns our sleepy creeks into gushing streams. I think about Lucas’s rain barrel and the soaker hose he hooked up around the backyard perimeter, where I said I would plant flowers but never did.
Cal and the kid agree on details in the corner. The kid adjusts his black flat-billed cap. The logo on it is old-school Adidas, the trefoil. It’s not a new hat made to look old—it is vintage, circa ’91 or ’92 maybe, before the kid was even born, and well-worn.
Cal owns a plow that hooks onto his pickup truck. Various businesses around town contract him to clear their parking lots. This is not particularly lucrative. When business slows in the winter months and school lets out for break, he and Summer would just as soon take his fifth wheel down to Florida and hang out in RV parks with retirees. Nevertheless, he always seems to stick around so he can manage those relationships and make sure his truck is available for plowing.
On a regular basis, Cal tells me how much he grossed in the preceding year. He has upgraded his fifth wheel three times. His current model is more than forty feet long with more than sixty gallons of fresh water capacity. It has a queen bed and a fifty-inch flat screen, which is, incidentally, bigger than my TV at home. I know all of this because Cal talks about it, each feature and gadget, a point of pride. He talks about the bad stuff too—when he’s had a down month, or issues he’s had with credit card debt. When I was growing up in Wilton, people never talked about money, or rather, they never spoke about it directly. They talked about the market sometimes, about having a good year, or about tax reform or interest rates, but never dollars and cents.
The kid says, “Yes, sir. I can be available first thing in the morning.”
Cal shakes his hand.
The reason Cal hooks the snowplow on to his truck every winter isn’t to make a few extra bucks. It’s because some skinny kid with an arm covered in tats needs the work, and Cal is in a position to provide it.
Eventually, he’ll pass his business on to someone. He’ll probably meet him here, at The Final Final. He’ll take him under his wi
ng. He’ll sell him everything, all the equipment and his client list, for a fraction of what it’s worth. Summer will be long gone by then. She’ll have a big job in a big city.
Cal takes the open seat next to me. The gesture suggests he’s forgiven me for the wallet drama, though he doesn’t say anything about it. I don’t want his pity if that’s what he’s offering. He checks his phone. I can’t tell if he’s happy or disappointed that there’s no text asking him to come home.
His ex-wife, Evie, is an ultraliberal animal lover. Mostly I encounter her through Sarah McLachlan–style posts on social media. I rarely see her around town, although I know she still lives here and remains part of Cal and Summer’s life. When she stopped chasing bands around the country, she stayed put long enough to get a master’s degree in plant sciences from the U. Cal barely graduated from high school. Evie told me once that she asked him to make her a cup of tea and he called in from the kitchen, “Ya want shamoolie?” After realizing he was reading the chamomile box, she said, “Yes, please, make me some shamoolie.” He was present when she told me that story. He laughed about it. Nothing embarrasses Cal, not since he started pulling in more money than he can spend.
Every morning, Cal wakes up at five a.m., three hours before Summer stirs. In the kitchen, he turns on Fox News and makes a pot of coffee. He says this is his favorite time of the day, a time when he can be alone with his thoughts. By thoughts, I assume he means ideals: Second Amendment rights, and First Amendment rights, and pulling himself up by his bootstraps, and low taxes, and minimal regulations, except when his neighbor violates the zoning laws by building too close to the property line (then regulate the shit out of that!). Cal wants to think things without being told he’s wrong or stupid. And I totally get that. Everyone wants that.
