April & Oliver (12 page)

The doorbell rings and the dog springs up. Bernadette is early. “Shit,” Oliver says, and the dog sits.

He goes to the door, tying his robe, and Cricket follows. April’s cowboy boots are in the foyer, black imitation snakeskin,
not meant for snow. Her silver barrette is on the side table, and he remembers that when he saw her during the night, her
hair had been loose. He imagines Al waking her, entering her room without knocking. The dog paws at the door.

“Shit,” Oliver commands, and the dog sits. He grins and opens the door.

“Oh, no,” Bernadette says, seeing him. “Am I that early?”

“I’m late.” He kisses her. “Don’t worry.”

“Bernadette,” his father says, a spatula in his hand. “Merry Christmas, sweetheart.”

Oliver takes her coat. She is wearing pearls and a green silk dress that the dog eagerly sniffs.

“Cricket,” Hal admonishes.

The retriever flattens her ears.

Al comes bounding down the stairs. “Bernadette.” Seeing her outfit, he whistles—not genuinely, Oliver thinks, but gratuitously,
as one might for a child playing dress-up. Bernadette blushes.

“Tell the truth,” Al says, kissing her cheek. “What’s a classy woman like you doing with a slob like my brother?”

“He cleans up nice,” she says, patting Oliver’s cheek.

“He’s got you fooled,” Al says.

The dog runs to April, who is coming downstairs, wearing Al’s sweatpants and a flannel shirt that looks slept in. Al whistles
again, facetiously this time, though it sounds more like he means it. April is without makeup, in formless clothes, her hair
disheveled from sleep; Oliver prefers her this way. Cricket rises on her haunches and places her big paws on April’s shoulders.
“Oh, God, Cricket.” She laughs, pushing the dog away. “Your breath could sink a battleship.” The dog wags her tail, flattered.

The telephone rings again and Hal reaches for it. “Eat,” he tells everyone, pointing at the table.

Cricket rolls onto her back, limbs akimbo, and April rubs her stomach. Odd, Oliver thinks. Pets were always Buddy’s department.

“Listen you—” Hal says sternly into the telephone, then looks at the receiver and hangs up. “Kids playing pranks,” he says
shaking his head, though Oliver is sure his father thinks otherwise.

April looks at the telephone and folds her arms. She appears fatigued and wary. Her hair is pulled back in a lopsided ponytail.
Sheet marks crease her cheek. “Morning,” she says to no one in particular. “Nice to see you, Bernadette,” she says, kissing
her cheek. She pats Nana’s shoulder and sits down.

“That’s it?” Al asks. “No kisses for the rest of us?”

April blows him a tired kiss. “This looks great, Uncle Hal. I’m starved.”

A lie,
Oliver thinks.

During the meal, she eats sparingly, like someone rationing food during war. Beside her, Nana talks nonstop. Occasionally
April nods, but her eyes keep drifting to the window, snow shielding the pane.

The phone rings and she stands.

“Let me,” Hal says, but she waves him away. She says hello and turns her back to the dining room. The table is noisy with
conversation. Oliver leans back in his chair to see her in the kitchen. She looks out the window again, her eyes cast to the
sky. She does not say anything, but stays on the line for a long moment, listening.

Oliver casts Bernadette a glance, but she only looks at him quizzically.

“Who’s she talking to?” Nana asks.

Hal shrugs. “Have another waffle, Mom.”

April turns her back again before bowing her head and hanging up. Hal catches Oliver’s eye from across the table; they have
the same thought.

“Was it Buddy?” Nana asks when April returns.

“Yes,” April answers. “He said he wished he could be here.”

The phone does not ring again.

When people finish eating, Hal comes around with more coffee and Bernadette carries leftovers to the kitchen. Oliver stands,
collecting dishes.

“Oliver,” Nana says. “Play us that new piece of yours.”

April looks up from her plate. The room goes silent.

“Nana.” He laughs. “There hasn’t been a new piece in ten years.” He gathers dirty forks in his fist.

“You know the one I mean,” she persists. “Tra la la, ta dee te da.”

April hums along. Nana stops, and April continues. The song comes back to Oliver in a whoosh, closing over him like an ocean
wave. How is it possible they remembered?

“What song?” Bernadette asks.

He looks at her in a panic.

“Something Oliver composed,” Hal says. “I remember it, too, now that I hear it. It was one of the last ones, wasn’t it?”

Oliver doesn’t answer. April stops humming and looks at him.

“
You
composed things?” Bernadette laughs. “On what, a harmonica?”

April’s lips part with astonishment. It is nearly impossible to surprise her, but now Oliver feels the bewilderment of the
entire family.

His father laughs uncomfortably. “You mean Oliver hasn’t told you? He could have been a concert—”

“It’s not a big deal,” Oliver says abruptly. “For God’s sake, you’d think it was a previous marriage.” As he gets up, he bangs
his knee on his chair, which hits the table, causing several cups of coffee to spill into their saucers. So what if he hadn’t
told Bernadette? Wasn’t it a relief to know that she loved him for who he was, not for some talent he may or may not have
possessed? He flexes his fingers. The chords are lost. His body holds no memory. “I’d better get ready for your parents,”
he says, handing his plate to Bernadette, who looks at him with her jaw open.

“Whoa,” Al says as Oliver climbs the stairs. “Someone’s touchy.”

In the shower, Oliver feels the burn in his face. Bernadette once asked him about the piano in his apartment, dusty and out
of tune, and he explained that it had been his mother’s, and he kept it for sentimental reasons though he didn’t play. It
wasn’t, strictly speaking, a lie. Still, Bernadette will take this to heart. She will want to know why Oliver did not tell
her, and she will want a suitably complex answer.

He dresses in Al’s room, and hears April go in to the shower. He buttons his shirt, white and starchy, abrasive against his
skin, and knots the tie, bold stripes to match the suit. He pats his pocket and realizes he left his comb in the bathroom.
The shower is off. She ought to be done by now. He knocks.

After a moment, April opens the door. Her hair is wet. She is wearing his robe, which he left on the door. “I need something,”
he says.

She nods in agreement and lets him in. He is irritated by her calm. Who is she to accuse him, with all she’s given up? Compared
with her decisions, his are at least sane. He dries an oval in the mirror and combs back his hair. April leans against the
tile and folds her arms in front of her. She probably dislikes the way he looks, his hair too neat, his clothes, standard.
She prefers gold teeth and mother tattoos, not men who mousse their hair. He looks at her in the misty reflection. “I would
have told her eventually,” he says. “It’s ancient history. It’s not relevant.”

April says nothing, which fuels him further. He closes the door and holds it shut. “What about those phone calls? You expect
us to believe you’re not seeing him again?”

“No one’s judging you, Oliver. We all have choices. Einstein could have been a carpenter.”

“Oh, sure. And that’s not a judgment?” He slaps the door. The sound is louder than he expects. April takes a step back. For
an instant he understands how men can do her harm. April barely breathes; she has come upon a snake in the woods and is determined
to stay perfectly still. She knows how to handle herself, he thinks. She has been in this spot before. This is her specialty.
Wouldn’t she love it if he struck her? Wouldn’t it confirm everything she believes?

“Oliver,” she says evenly. “It wouldn’t matter what profession you went into if you would just live the way you play.”

“Played.” He feels his body clench up, hands balled. “And how is that, April? What is it you think you understand about me?
No, don’t answer. Why should I ask
you
?”

She blinks but keeps her eyes on his. She doesn’t move.

“I’m leaving,” he says. “You’re wearing my robe.”

She stares. “You want it now?”

He glances at his watch. “Bernadette’s family is waiting.”

“Turn around,” she says.

He hesitates and then obeys, though it must be obvious he can see her in the mirror. She takes off the robe. Underneath, she
is wearing a black slip with spaghetti-strap shoulders and a short, scalloped hem, which ends where her stockings begin. She
takes a midnight-blue dress from the towel rack and pulls it over her head.

“Make yourself useful if you’re going to stare,” she says, lifting her hair. He turns slowly and touches the velvety fabric
at her waist. He centers the dress on her hips then moves the zipper up her back. She lets her hair fall but keeps her back
to him. He shoves his hands quickly in his pockets.

“Look,” he says quietly. “What’s wrong with moving on with my life?”

She looks at him in the mirror. “I had a dream about a man who shut up all the doors and windows of his house, not realizing
that the tiger he was trying to keep out was in his own basement.”

“I don’t understand dreams.”

“It was getting hungry down there.”

“They frustrate me. That’s why I don’t remember them.”

“If you don’t remember them, how do you know they frustrate you?”

“I have to go.”

She nods.

He picks up his robe and opens the door to leave. He turns back to look at her. “So what happens in the dream?” he demands.

“Oliver,” Bernadette calls from the bottom of the stairs. “It’s time, honey.”

“Either the tiger starves,” Oliver says. “Or the man gets eaten. It can’t end well for both of them.”

“Maybe the man made the mistake on purpose,” April says. “Maybe he wants to be consumed.”

Oliver pauses, trying to take this in.

“Oliver?” Bernadette calls again, her voice worried.

He doesn’t understand, but it feels harder to leave now. He hears Bernadette’s steps on the stairs, and though he is sure
he has nothing to hide, he closes the door on April.

When he sees Bernadette halfway up the steps, with her trim, silken hair framing her anxious face, he thinks of Daisy, a girl
he dated in high school. The memory is enormous and startling, like a whale surfacing beneath a skiff.

The summer was one of the driest on record. In the west, thick smog smudged the Manhattan skyline. Out east, trees burned
in the Hamptons. In between, lawns across the island turned brown. The roses Oliver had planted in his father’s new yard suffered.
Although he had read the gardening books, he lacked his mother’s intuitive sense of how to keep the flowers alive.

Late in August, shortly before Oliver was to leave for college, he lay on Daisy’s sofa with his shirt off, a revolving fan
propped on a chair across from him. Her parents had rented the small apartment for her near the train station because it was
cheaper than campus housing, and because they didn’t want her living in Manhattan anyway. The condition was that she share
the rent with a roommate, preferably a girl from her high school class. A known entity. She found April, who had never been
more eager to move out of her father’s house.

It was hard to say if Oliver would have asked Daisy out had she not been April’s roommate. In any event, he had no regrets.
She was a flutist, preppie and trim, with carrot-red hair. She drank five glasses of milk a day and had a passion for ice-skating.
She was, in every way, an unlikely friend for April.

Oliver had determined he would not go to college a virgin, and once he gave himself over to it, he could not get enough of
Daisy. Having recently given up piano, he had plenty of time on his hands. They spent night after night in the apartment while
April worked at the bar. Most nights she wasn’t home by the time Oliver left at one or two in the morning. He would see traces
of her, an ashtray out on the fire escape or coffee grounds in the sink, and he knew she saw evidence of him, a forgotten
jacket on the back of a chair, a box of condoms brazenly left in the vanity.

On one occasion Daisy had caught Oliver snooping through April’s closet, and he had to confess that he was looking for his
mother’s jewelry box, the one she had given to April on her deathbed, but he was also just looking.

A few weeks after his mother’s funeral, he had found April in his parents’ room, helping to sort clothes for the Salvation
Army. April was standing in front of his mother’s antique dressing mirror, holding a hanger to her chin. It was a dress his
mother had worn to one of his recitals, high-collared and elegant, with a dozen lace-covered buttons down the back, unlike
anything April would wear. In the failing light, it looked to Oliver like a wedding gown.

April was still, one hand at her throat and the other on her waist. The dress had suited his mother, streamlined and subtle.
She had disliked primary colors, dressed only in pastels, whites, and the occasional gray. April, on the other hand, tended
toward electric pinks and neon yellows.

She smoothed her hand down along the fabric. Oliver went in and sat on the bed. She looked at him in the mirror, her eyes
shiny in the dusky light. “Try it on,” he said.

“It wouldn’t fit,” she answered.

Everything about the room bore his mother’s imprint, the pale pink walls and lace curtains, cherrywood furniture with curvaceous
legs, and the lavender fragrance lingering in her clothes. It was the inner sanctum of the house, a room free of televisions
and radios, a place meant for reading, undressing, slipping into cool, clean sheets. The place where his mother had died.

During the last weeks, April had visited the house regularly to bathe his mother and change her bedpan while his father was
at work. She assumed the role of daughter.

Early one morning, on his way to the shower, Oliver paused outside the door to listen to the quiet exchange of female voices
he had never heard growing up. He could not make out what they were saying, only the tone, so different from the way his parents
spoke to each other. His father’s voice was gentle but baritone. Even his questions sounded resolute. April and his mother,
on the other hand, spoke in a soft, meandering cadence, searching for something.