True Enough

by Stephen McCauley

  “Me neither. I was guesstimating. Anything you need help with? Henry’s just getting ready to leave.”

  Henry was always getting ready to leave, even late last night when Desmond bumped into him on the staircase dressed in his bathrobe and slippers. He found the attempts to pass Henry off as the building’s superintendent insulting. Did they think he would care that he and Loretta were lovers? Desmond guessed Loretta was in her early sixties, a hollowed-out woman with starched too-red hair and the long thin face and spindly legs of a tough, ruined Irish beauty. He’d heard from one of the other boarders that in her youth she’d been the governess for an old Boston banking family and had become the grandfather’s mistress. According to the old man’s will, Loretta could live in the building until her death, provided she didn’t marry. She was given a small income for upkeep of the building, but couldn’t make any structural changes. Desmond wasn’t convinced there was much truth to the story, but he loved it anyway; it seemed so Bostonian, in a John P. Marquand sort of way.

  “Everything’s fine,” Desmond said.

  This comment provoked a disconcerting laugh from Henry. Henry chuckled at almost everything Desmond said, as if he didn’t believe a word out of his mouth, including banalities such as “hello.” He was a jowly black man, obviously a few years older than Loretta, who always wore a pair of thick black eyeglasses on top of his bald head. Desmond had seen Henry reading the newspaper, watching television, and rewiring an outlet in the hall, never once using the glasses to help him see. Gossip among the boarders claimed: Loretta and Henry had to keep their relationship secret for fear of losing possession of the house due to a race provision in the will; he had been her lawyer twenty years earlier; he had a family stashed away somewhere on the other side of the city.

  “Mr. Gutterson isn’t bothering you?” Loretta asked.

  “Not at all.”

  Mr. Gutterson was an ill-tempered Yorkshire terrier who lived with a retired schoolteacher at the end of the hall. No one ever mentioned the owner’s name, and the one time Desmond had tried to coax it out of the woman herself, she’d said, “I’m Mr. Gutterson’s mommy,” in such a disturbing tone of voice, he’d dropped the subject.

  “My music hasn’t been bothering you, has it?” Desmond asked.

  “We love music,” Loretta said. “As long as it isn’t opera.”

  “We hate opera,” Henry said. “Gets you all riled up for nothing.”

  “It isn’t opera.” Desmond began backing toward the door. “I should get going. I have to make a phone call.” Soon he’d be reporting his bathroom habits and estimated tax payments.

  “You can always use ours,” Loretta said.

  “Thank you,” Desmond said. “I need the air.” Despite two weeks of frantic calls, the phone company still hadn’t installed his line. As a result, all of his calls to Russell had been made from a bank of public phones on a noisy corner two blocks away or from his office at Deerforth with students and colleagues serving as background music.

  The night air was heavy with humidity and saturated with light. The smell of the river and the ocean, the rows of stately brick houses, and the reserved, conservatively dressed people who lived in his neighborhood had already become familiar to him. He couldn’t decide if it was a good thing or a tragedy that people were so instantly adaptable. There had been moments during the past two weeks when he’d tried to conjure up the New York block he’d lived on for more than a decade and had trouble remembering the exact arrangement of the buildings, as if that whole chunk of his life was fading from his memory. It was a good thing he’d brought along several snapshots of Russell.

  There was a row of ten pay phones on the corner of Newbury Street and tonight there were several free, possibly because a good half of the crowd of well-dressed shoppers and diners strolling the street were talking into cell phones. He supposed his life would be easier if he got one of those contraptions, but if he did, he’d have to stop resenting all the people who had one, and that seemed like too high a price to pay for mere convenience.

  When Russell picked up the phone after three rings, Desmond’s shoulders dropped with relief. Several nights in the past two weeks, Russell hadn’t been home when he’d called, and Desmond had stood at the phone booth listening to the traffic crawling past, feeling as if he’d lost control of his life.

  “Sweetheart,” Desmond said. “It’s so good to hear your voice. I was afraid I’d get the machine again.”

  “I don’t understand the phone company,” Russell said. “What is the problem?”

  “It’s ridiculous, really.” Desmond supposed that the delay had something to do with Loretta and the setup of the house, and possibly with the fact that he’d forgotten to arrange things before leaving New York; but it was wonderful to hoist up an easy target like the phone company at which Russell could direct some of the hostility and frustration he was obviously feeling toward Desmond. Desmond played up the staggering ineptitude of the people he’d been dealing with and invented a new series of fruitless calls and faxes. “That’s the third fax in two days,” Desmond said. He gave a detailed description of heading to the English Department office at Deerforth and his conversations with the secretary about similar problems she’d had.

  There was a loud silence on the other end of the line, and Desmond realized he’d added too many facts and figures to his scenario; you can usually get away with lying as long as you don’t try to make it sound too believable. “Anyway,” he said, “I’m pretty sure it’s getting hooked up tomorrow. How’s business?”

  “Too good. I’ve had to work late almost every night this week. I was there until close to midnight on Monday, sorting through a vanful of furniture we bought, sight unseen, from an estate sale out on the far western end of Staten Island. They were supposed to deliver it at noon and didn’t show up until eight o’clock.”

  Desmond leaned against the phone booth, impatiently listening to Russell’s tale of inept movers and broken lamp shades and the struggles of trying to fit three sofas into the basement of the store, wondering if the whole story wasn’t another case of too much itemized minutiae. When he finished, Desmond decided to give him a dose of his own doubting silence.

  “So . . . anyway,” Russell finally said, “how are classes?”

  “It’s a little soon to tell,” Desmond said, even though he’d been longing to discuss his teaching with Russell for days. Somehow, the whole experience didn’t feel real to him, and he knew that part of the problem was that he hadn’t yet gone over the specifics with Russell. Deerforth had told him he’d be teaching two sections of a course in journalism, but when he arrived, he discovered that one was something called Creative Nonfiction, which, based on the work he’d seen thus far, was basically Noncreative Fiction. The good part was that most of the students in that class were less interested in having their work critiqued than they were in being consoled for their real or imagined afflictions and abuse. He mentioned some of this to Russell and said, “At least it’s giving me more free time than I’d expected.”

  “And you’re getting work done on the book?”

  A tall blond boy on Roller Blades glided up to the next phone, spilled out a pocketful of change, punched in a phone number using four ringed fingers of one hand, and started up a noisy argument, all without removing a pair of yellow earphones. Desmond turned away and put his hand over one ear. Thus far, he’d unpacked his boxes of notes for the book and lined them up on the library table he was using as a desk. He’d driven out to Waugborn, the suburb where Pauline Anderton had spent her final days, but rather than being inspired by the place, he was depressed by the sight of the ugly decay of the downtown and the clusters of new houses flung into treeless lots. “I am,” Desmond lied. “I think I’m getting close to figuring out what’s missing. Then at least I’ll know what to look for.”

  “That sounds hopeful. By the way, I forwarded some mail to you today. You got a letter from your editor.”

  “Oh? How big was it
?”

  “How big? I don’t know. I’d guess it was a note, but I didn’t open it. I don’t think there was a check enclosed, if that’s what you mean.”

  “No, there wouldn’t be.” A note could mean anything or nothing at all. Although it didn’t make much sense to him that if she’d been too busy to return his calls she’d have time to write bread-and-butter notes. He tried to summon up a picture of her, but it had been over a year since they’d last met and what he remembered most vividly was that she dressed in conservative skirts and jackets and had muscular calves.

  “What’s all that racket in the background?” Russell asked. “Are you in a bus station?”

  Desmond tapped the blond boy on the shoulder. He turned around as if someone had assaulted him, although he didn’t pause a beat in his conversation or stop sliding his feet back and forth, obviously in rhythm to whatever music was coming in over the yellow headphones. This was what they called multitasking, something at which this generation was supposed to be gifted. But how much of a gift was it to be adept at doing three things simultaneously when each of them was pointless? He had on a ribbed sleeveless T-shirt stretched over his skinny body and a pair of baggy shorts. And now that Desmond looked, it wasn’t blond hair at all, but a bleached-out white mop that had been hacked off unevenly. “Would you mind holding it down?” Desmond asked. “I’m trying to talk on the phone, as you can see.”

  “Oh, well, gee, I am sorry,” he said. Instead of turning around, he stared at Desmond. “No,” he said into the receiver, “just some guy I was bothering. Yeah, not bad. How am I supposed to know? I can’t tell from what he’s wearing.”

  Desmond stared back. He was probably in his early twenties, attractive in an obvious sort of way. Desmond was galled and flattered that he was talking about him so blatantly, and then tried to imagine sneaking him up the mahogany staircase with the Roller Blades on his feet. What have you got there, Mr. Sullivan?

  “You still there?” Russell asked.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart, just some kid on skates.” He turned his back on temptation. “You know I’ve been missing Boris the past two weeks. What’s he been playing?”

  “Now that you mention it, I haven’t heard him at all,” Russell said. “Maybe he’s given up the piano.”

  Over the past two years, Boris had become such a steady and reliable barometer of Russell’s feelings about himself and the relationship, it unnerved Desmond to hear Russell make this announcement so calmly. “That seems unlikely. He’s finally making progress. He wouldn’t give it up now.”

  “Maybe he figured he isn’t a true pianist and never will be. Maybe he’s found a quieter creative outlet. Maybe he’s taken up painting.”

  That was an oddly specific suggestion, one which perhaps contained some clue as to what was going on in Russell’s sequestered emotional life. Desmond tried to remember who among their friends and acquaintances was a painter, but no one came to mind. “Listen,” he said, “I’ve been given the class schedule and it looks as if I have a long weekend on Columbus Day. I thought I’d come down then.”

  “That would be great,” Russell said, though not with anything you could optimistically call enthusiasm. “I’ve been so busy, it seems as if you’ve just left.”

  After he and Russell had signed off, Desmond held the receiver to his ear for a moment, looking at the blond boy, and weighing his options. Eventually, he hung up and walked away. Even if Loretta wasn’t fazed by a guest, Mr. Gutterson would, in all likelihood, bark up a storm at the sound of a strange voice.

  2.

  Deerforth College was located fifteen miles into the leafy suburbs, and the next morning, following what had become his new routine, Desmond drove out through a thin drizzle which, given the drought of the past several months, seemed like a nasty tease. The sun came out as he arrived at school, and steam rose up from the damp parking lot.

  Deerforth had given Desmond an office on one of the upper floors of the Gothic tower that housed the English Department. He had views from this room, too; the ivy-covered stone buildings, the rolling lawns, the sparkling man-made lake, and the careful crisscross of cobblestone paths, frequently covered with little groups of students, huddled and insignificantly small from his vantage point.

  His office, which usually housed someone named Professor Crandersall (currently on sabbatical in Florence) was across the hall from Thomas Miller, the professor Sybil Gale had mentioned at his going-away party. He was a tall, lumbering man who kept telling Desmond he had something important to ask him, but was always pulled away before forming the question. Miller’s field was nineteenth-century American literature and, at a depressing lunch with three sullen colleagues, Desmond had been told he’d written a lengthy critique of several of Melville’s more obscure works. No one had used the word dull to describe his book, but the implication was clear from the unenthusiastic way they mentioned it: “If you’re interested in glancing at it, there’s probably a copy floating around the library.” Desmond discovered that indeed there was a copy floating around the library, but whether it was dull or not he could only guess. It was one of those dense academic tomes with thousands of footnotes and several dozen appendices, all laid out in breathtakingly small print, the kind of book that Russell’s parents took with them for beach reading on their rare vacations to Hawaii or Mexico. Desmond promised himself he’d read it, just as soon as he finished The Making of Americans. Maybe he’d send a copy to Russell and have him skim it for him.

  Whatever the nature of his scholarly work, Thomas Miller was popular with students. Desmond heard from several that he was a lively, absorbing lecturer and—to cut to the chase—lenient when it came to grades. His height alone must have made them feel they were getting their money’s worth. Like politicians, teachers are most effective if they take up a lot of space, and Thomas, who had to be at least four inches over six feet, did.

  In addition to Desmond’s office and Thomas’s, there were two others on the floor. One belonged to a Renaissance scholar on sabbatical and the other was the domain of Celeste Gray. Celeste was a senior faculty member who’d gone to Deerforth as an undergraduate, returned post-doc as a professor, rode out a difficult transition from all-women to coeducational institution, and in general, remained faithful to the school long past the point at which it was considered a virtue to do so. Faithfulness to just about anything other than a pet stays fresh for only eight years before it takes on the rancid smell of indolence or desperation. She was a thin woman in her middle sixties with an acutely wrinkled face, long white hair she wore up in a loose bun, and an air of distracted beatnik brilliance. She taught one course only—Modern Poetry—but seemed to spend most of her time in her office with Helen keeping watch at her feet. Helen was an arthritic malamute, snow white but beginning to go yellow all over.

  That morning, the hallway outside his office was uncharacteristically empty and Helen was prostrate in front of Thomas’s open door, her blue eyes draped in misery. He went over to pet Helen and Thomas Miller appeared above him, filling up his doorway.

  “Poor old thing,” he said. “She’s stuck with me for the rest of the day.”

  Because Desmond was gazing up at him, Thomas Miller looked even larger than he did from a distance. His pale polished pate, surrounded by a ring of light brown hair, seemed to be brushing the top of the door jamb. A few days earlier, Desmond had come upon a stash of Professor Crandersall’s books and papers, carelessly tossed in a heap in one corner of the office. Stuck between the pages of a book on Verrocchio were handwritten notes Crandersall had made, apparently for a projected essay. They read, in part: “Greatest sculptor in Florentine tradition between Donatello and Michelangelo? . . . look up Ruskin on V’s equestrian statue of B. Colleone . . . oh christ, Miller just walked into his office, bet he’s got a cock on him like a mortadello . . . bust of Francesco Sassetti . . . Rossellino or Verrocchio? . . . I’d love to chew on his shin on the top step. As she was taken away on a stretcher, she’d barked out
orders on the care and feeding of Helen. “You don’t think they’ll keep her overnight, do you? Jane would kill me if I came home with a dog.” He laughed nervously at the thought, and then added, “Jane’s my wife. Jane Cody. Which reminds me, I have something I’ve been meaning to ask you. Come into my office for a minute, will you?”

  It was a surprisingly narrow room, considerably smaller than Professor Crandersall’s and, unlike virtually every other room Desmond had been in on campus, it had no view; the single tiny window looked out to a gabled, slate-covered rooftop. He liked it. Already Desmond had begun to weary of Deerforth’s rolling lawns and pampered hedges, all watered hourly despite water bans. The whole campus seemed to be basking in its own loveliness a bit too immodestly, with every manicured tree and artfully designed flower bed lolling and stretching and crying out, “Look at me, look at me!” Books were spilling off his shelves, and the desk was a compost heap of old exams and reams of photocopies. There was a poster of an especially dour and disappointed Melville over his desk. Desmond scanned the room for a photo of Jane, but there didn’t appear to be one, just a small photo on the desk of a plump, disgruntled child. A boy, Desmond guessed. Sybil, whom Thomas claimed to remember fondly but clearly didn’t remember at all, would want the details of the office, especially the unflattering ones.

  Thomas offered him the chair at his desk and carefully lowered himself into a stocky easy chair under the eaves, tugging up the legs of his pants as he descended. “It’s a mess, I know,” he said, “but in the soul of this man, there lies one insular Tahiti.” Desmond nodded and Thomas helped him out by adding, “To paraphrase Melville.” Then he quoted a lush, lengthy passage from Moby-Dick about appalling oceans and verdant land and inner peace and joy.

  Desmond shifted uncomfortably. He hated these academic conversations in which people traded quotations back and forth as if displaying their most valuable baseball cards. Dinner with Russell’s parents was a more overtly aggressive version of this —a food fight in which facts and figures, not pies, were flung across the table in the hopes of scoring a direct hit. At this moment the only literary quotation he could think of was from Lewis Westerly’s single letter to his eldest son: “Life isn’t worth the toilet paper it’s written on.”