Out of the Blue (11 page)

“That chicken’s dead already, Ma,” I observed. “He couldn’t call me directly?”

She flashed me her high beams. “The second you hear his voice on the other end, you say, ‘Oh-hi-Dad-Ma’s-right-here-bye.’ Then you bolt into your room and that’s that. He was hoping I would persuade you.”

“Will you?”

“Make your own decision.”

There she was again, the Subtext Queen. I could see the battle going on in her face; the troops were massed. But the prospect of actually meeting up with my father made me squirm as if the kitchen chair had suddenly developed an unpleasant electrical charge. I got up and started walking around, but the annoying little zaps came along, too. I preferred to keep my father flattened out in a magazine photograph. That way he couldn’t take on any unmanageable dimensions. “It’s not a good time,” I said. “I’m preparing for midterms, and there’s Joe.”

“Mm-hm,” Ma said.

“What night was this, did you say?”

“Two weeks from tonight.”

“Would you come, too?”

“Christ, no. Why are you twitching?”

I stopped pacing for a second. “I don’t know. How about I toss a coin?”

“If that’s how you want to handle it,” she said.

“Don’t call me an asshole.”

“I didn’t call you an asshole,” she said.

“Yes, you did.”

She closed the broiler on the paper-thin cutlets and sat down. Her eyes looked a little shiny. It suddenly occurred to me in one of those little epiphanies one has about one’s parents, that the divorce had happened to Ma in ways that had nothing to do with me. For months after my father left, she used to cry in the shower. She thought I couldn’t hear her.

“Make room,” I said. She shoved her chair back and I sat down. Her lap was soft and still. It muted the stinging electricity in my limbs. “Pluses and minuses?” I asked. Her curly hair tickled my cheek.

“Sure,” she said, “if you eat something. Your butt is getting bony again.” She spilled me off her lap and went to the stove.

“Pluses,” I said, then after a while, “I can’t think of any.”

“I’ll give you one,” she said, showing me a face like Margaret Thatcher in a mean mood. “You’re a grown woman. It’s time to quit being such a fucking wimp.”

I slept on it. The next afternoon, I phoned L.A. and spoke with my father’s secretary. He was male. I guess they all are out there.

“Mr. Bolles isn’t in right now.” If a voice can be perfectly coiffed, this one was. “May he return?”

I mulled this over. Return where? Then I realized that show-business people are presumably too busy to finish their sentences. “This is his daughter, Anna, in New York.”

“Ah, yes,” the voice purred. “Your father is traveling but he was expecting your call. You have a tentative reservation at Patrick’s on West Fifty-fifth Street for six-thirty on November twenty-fifth. If that’s acceptable to you, would you mind confirming?”

“Not at all.” Sure, I thought, I’ll return and confirm, I’ll show and confer.

There was a moment’s hesitation, then, “Mr. Bolles does have a meeting scheduled at eight
P.M.
that evening …”

I assured him that I’d not detain, then sat down with my quaking stomach and tried not to throw up

I retreated to my room after dinner and distracted myself by thinking up fiendish questions for a midterm quiz. When my brain approached burnout, I checked my e-mail. Sure enough, Joe had written to me from upstate:

Dear Anna,

I’ve rearranged my calendar and as of Thursday will be in the city for ten days in a row. Count ‘em: ten. I’m tempted to lure you into bed for the duration but figured we should partake of the cultural scene once in a while. I bought us some tickets. Are you game?

Your,

Joe.

In my experience, guys tend to regard women as books that sit on the library shelf waiting to be lent out to them at their convenience. Joe bought tickets. Did I not have a life, a career, obligations? The thing to do was to fire back a letter listing my many engagements and how I trusted he had given some thought to the possibility that I might not be available.

So this is what I said:
Dear Joe, Absolutely.
And then, because I figured he owed me something for being so agreeable, I dashed off a carefully casual inquiry just to see what would happen:
Look, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you. With all those healthy young females out there, why me? I’m not the obvious choice. Love, Anna.

His response:
A: Because I like the way you smell. J.

Maybe it’s because of the injured circuitry in my brain, but those ten days have always felt like a shiny round ball, an ornament hanging on the intricate branches of my memory tree. More often than I like to think, I have plucked it off and held it for a moment, just for the wonder and comfort.

That Thursday, Joe surprised me by showing up outside school. Since he was incongruous there, an interloper from another part of my life, I spotted him instantly. He leaned against the wrought-iron gate in an army-green jacket, chewing on a brownie and watching the kids who were crowded around the bake-sale table on the sidewalk. He wore the intense concentration of the photographer. I was loath to interrupt but he caught sight of me, grinned and reached out, clearly intending to sweep me into his arms. I stiffened, but it was too late. I got as far as “What a nice sur—” when Joe fastened his mouth on mine. After he released me, I saw that Eddie Zimmer was standing beside us with his sneakers mere inches from my shoes. He watched us with clinical interest.

“Er,” I said when I could catch my breath, and shot Eddie a get-lost look. But Eddie only stuck his hand out at Joe.

“I’m Eddie, Ms. Bolles’s favorite student,” he said.

Joe smiled and clasped Eddie’s hand. “Pleased to meet you, Eddie, but we’re out of here.” Then he bent to pick up what looked like two bowling balls at his feet. They turned out to be helmets. “Put this on,” he said, clipping his under his chin. Eddie hadn’t shifted a millimeter. I could even see the hole in his earlobe where he’d had a pierce back in eighth grade. Joe took me by the elbow and led me across the street to an enormous black motorcycle. Eddie came along, too.

“You expect me to get on that?” I said.

“I’ll go,” Eddie said.

“Another time,” Joe said, helping me settle on the curved leather seat. It was surprisingly comfortable. “Just hang on tight,” he said superfluously, as if I wouldn’t be clinging to him like lint on a lollipop.

Eddie had now been joined by what appeared to be most of the senior class and some faculty members, including Leonard Chubb. I noticed that the bake-sale table had been entirely deserted. Maybe it was the macho belch of the engine roaring into life, but I suddenly considered streaking downtown to get a Biker Chick tattoo. I waved at Eddie as we roared off.

It turned out that it wasn’t Joe’s bike. He had driven it down to Manhattan for his friend Steve, who was trying to sell it. We didn’t go very far, just across to the West Side and down Columbus to Joe’s building. But it was very sexy, having all that power vibrating between my legs. It made me think of D. H. Lawrence, and as soon as we got upstairs, we headed straight for the bedroom. It was bliss. Not big on the foreplay—we still had half our clothes on afterward—but bliss all the same.

“How come you know how to drive that thing?” I asked him. I kicked at the tangle of discarded clothing around my ankles.

“I had a Harley-Davidson in high school.”

“I’m glad I wasn’t your mother. I would have been freaked out all the time.”

“She didn’t like it much, but my grandmother did. We took a lot of trips together.”

I looked at him.

“She was my first passenger the day I bought it. She especially liked the roads up in the high peaks. All those curves.”

“Joe, I think you’d better tell me about this grandmother.”

But he got out of bed. “I’m thirsty. You want something?” I must have fallen asleep. When I woke up, I had the quilt over me. I called for Joe but there was no answer. I got up, wrapped myself in the quilt and padded into the living room. Joe was standing against the wall in his jockey shorts, but his feet were where his head should have been. His face was deep crimson and his eyes were closed. I thought of asking
Was it something I said?
but was afraid to speak for fear of toppling him. I just sat down on the couch and watched his chest slowly expand and contract. After ten minutes or so he curled his legs and dropped soundlessly to the floor. He looked at me and raised a finger to indicate
Almost done.
He arranged his body into the most unlikely contortion, balanced on his hands with both legs tucked up next to his torso. He maintained the pose for some minutes, then lowered his feet to the floor and stood up.

“Hi,” he said with a celestial smile.

“So that’s how come you’re so diesel,” I said. He gave me that
huh?
look. “You know, buff, built, fit,” I explained.

He toweled himself off. “Yoga’s a portable gym. For people who travel a lot.”

And for avoiding answering questions about your grandmother, I thought. “You have any other secret pastimes I should know about?” I asked.

“Mmm,” he said, gulping down half a liter of Evian in one gulp. I watch the boys do that in the cafeteria at school. Men must have throats like storm drains. I glanced at my watch, which I’d never bothered to remove. “Have you got time for a quick dinner?” I asked him.

“We have a seven-thirty reservation at Café des Artistes,” he said. He dropped down next to me on the couch. I stared at his bare feet propped up on the coffee table. There’s something so intimate and vulnerable about toes.

“I wish,” I said. “I’ve got midterms to correct.”

“You still have to eat.” He sounded amazed that I could possibly turn him down.

“Those exams are going to take me most of the night.”

“How about if I help?”

“Only if I get to negotiate your next deal.” I let him absorb that for a minute. “I’m not on vacation, Joe. I wasn’t included in the planning stages.”

“You can work over here,” he said. I didn’t even bother to answer that. Finally he smiled at me and scratched the soft patch of hair on his chest. “I guess I just assumed.” I could see him calculating. “Does this mean you can’t come to the party tomorrow night?”

I laughed.

“Michael from yoga class is having a pre-Thanksgiving blast. Oh, hell, it’s all right. I don’t want to share you anyway.”

Fortunately, I wasn’t completely wiped out when I got home. Other than the annoying sunburn sensation on my shoulders and upper arms, I felt pretty good. Ma was working late in the bakery so I was alone with my stack of exams and the persistent thoughts of Joe that at first kept intruding into the scribbled pages on my desk. Soon enough, however, I was lost in the tangle of illogic, temporizing, creative spelling, and sometimes brilliance of my students’ essays. The poetry of
Beowulf
was totally lost on Sukey, but Eddie surprised me with a sensitive analysis. He’d read the book, for a change, probably because it was short.

After a while my left leg started bobbing up and down, signaling the need for a break. I lurched around my room, then leaned over to snap on my computer. There was another e-mail message from Joe, written just after I left his apartment.

7:20
P.M.

Dear Anna,

There has been one other crucial woman in my life—Gran, my mother’s mother. When I was little and broke my ankle, Gran came by every day and took me for a ride in a wheelbarrow. It was so much fun that I kept up the wounded pretense long after I was mended. She knew, but never let on. By her seventy-fifth birthday, she was pretty infirm and we celebrated at her house with champagne and cake. The next morning I dropped in to check on her and found her eating breakfast from a tray in bed—Rice Krispies and a glass of champagne. She told me that if I thought she’d be drinking orange juice when there was bubbly going to waste, I was “splashing in the wrong puddle.” I had to fight my family to keep her out of the hospital at the end. She wanted to die listening to Scott Joplin. I don’t know if she could hear it, but I kept it playing nonstop for the last forty-eight hours.

Your, J.

I printed it out and slipped it in a drawer with my other Joe memorabilia. It was clear by now that Joe was most comfortable communicating his feelings electronically. I wondered about the implications. But he had made an effort, and at last I could identify one person from his history who had some substance. I was always yammering to Joe about my students, my parents, people in my apartment building, even the derelict on Eighty-fourth Street who wanted me to add
Down and Out in Paris and London
to my Twentieth Century Lit curriculum. But all inquiries to Joe about his family and friends had up to now been met with polite stonewalling. Finally, his letter gave him a new and poignant context. Joe’s Gran might be dead, but she was real, and so was the sense of loss she had left behind.

For somebody as reticent as Joe, he managed in those ten days to intrude into every nook and cranny of my life. I asked him not to pick me up at work again but the damage was done. When I walked into my homeroom on Tuesday morning, there was a poster taped to the wall: Marlon Brando in
The Wild One,
straddling his motorcycle. I gazed around at the fourteen pairs of eyes. If I could only elicit this level of attentiveness in my Classics and Comp class. I removed the poster, taking care not to tear the edges.

“Thank you all so much. I’ll hang it over my desk at home. Sukey, did you bring me your community service form?”

Sukey blinked sleepily. “I forgot. I didn’t have coffee yet.”

“Haven’t had,” I corrected her, and twisted a rubber band around Marlon Brando.

If it were only as easy to roll Joe up and put him away. I was always looking for an excuse to talk about him. I ran into Grant while I was reading a physical fitness notice in the teachers’ lounge. That was my opening to tell him that we should all embark on a yoga program so we could be in shape just like Joe. Grant gave me that beady-eyed stare. “You’re beginning to be tiresome, Anna-belle,” he said.

“Am I obsessed?” I asked him.

“We can test it out.” He thought for a moment. “Fencing,” he said finally.

“Good neighbors, Robert Frost, the woods, the Adirondacks, Joe Malone,” I said.

“Not that kind of fencing.” He struck a pose.
“En garde!”

“Zorro, movies, photography, Joe Malone.”

“Turnips!” he shouted in disgust.

“I’m always hoping he’ll turn up? Ohmigod. This is really scary.”

Grant put an index finger to each of my temples. Steve Rosenberg, one of the Latin teachers, stopped in the doorway.

“Happening?” he asked.

“I’m giving her a lobotomy,” Grant said.

“When you’re finished with her, you can do me.”

But the pressure of Grant’s fingers made me think of the straps of my swimming goggles, which reminded me that Joe was joining me for my swim at the “Y.” All rivers ran into the same ocean, it seemed, and I had no control over the floodwaters.

We sat once again with our feet dangling in the water at the pool’s edge, but this time daylight streaked through the skylight as a dozen swimmers did laps, their styles varying from sea otter to water mill.

“So you’ll be seeing your father in a few days,” Joe said.

“You’ll be gone. I don’t like to think about it.”

“That’s the only reason?”

I kicked at the water. One ankle didn’t want to bend, the other had melted and disappeared along with my foot. “I’ve been a little distracted,” I said, giving him a nudge.

“Are you looking forward to it?”

“Yes,” I said, surprising myself.

He waited. I loved that about Joe. His timing was exquisite.

“I’ve been unfair to hold a grudge,” I said. “After all, he’s been very good to me financially and I’ve hardly encouraged him. I think it’s sweet that he wants to see me. You know, I think I dreamt about him last night.”

Joe pulled a big towel around our shoulders. I imagined how we must have looked, one big lumpy body with two heads.

“I don’t remember the details,” I said. “He was performing some kind of mission to aid humanity. But very humbly. There was this sense of decency about him. Actually, he looked a bit like Harrison Ford. I’ll bet he’s a lot like Harrison Ford.”

Joe leaned over and kissed me. I imagined Joe and my father meeting, having a good old macho gab, jostling each other a bit, possessive about me but respectful and liking one another. Harrison Ford was a bit young, but give him ten years, more gray in the hair. That’s the guy.

My work had backed up, so we took a break while I graded papers. One night. It felt like a week. The next day we’d made plans to meet for dinner, but when I stopped by the bakery on my way home after work, Joe was leaning against the counter chatting with Father Dewbright. Ma was busy waiting on a trio of women with strollers.

“I prefer to use a mayfly myself,” Father Dewbright was saying. He was an avid fisherman.

“You tie your own?” Joe asked.

“I used to, until my hands…” He held out his arthritic fingers, then glanced at Ma and hid them self-consciously. When Joe saw me, his face did this amazing trick, that I-just-won-the-lottery look. He stretched out an arm and drew me next to him.