Out of the Blue (12 page)

“Hello, Anna,” Father Dewbright said. “Joseph and I are confessing our favorite trout-fishing spots. A fisherman doesn’t ever reveal them unless he gets an equal number in return.”

“I used to go for trout on the Upper Eagle with my Dad,” Joe said, “but I think acid rain pretty much wiped them out.”

“You went fishing with your father?” I asked Joe. Suddenly this conversation had become interesting.

The tone shifted subtly. “Yeah, when I was a kid.” And he turned his attention to Ma, who had finished her sale. “Norma, can you sell me a couple of these cheese things?” he asked her. I wanted to shake him and say,
“Tell me.”

Joe took to dropping by Norma’s Crust every afternoon. If the store was busy, I’d find him helping out behind the counter. Otherwise, he and Ma always seemed deep in conversation. One day I lurked on the sidewalk outside where they couldn’t see me and tried to read what they were saying. I felt a little stab of jealousy as I watched Joe wind up a monologue that I swore was longer than any speech he’d ever made to me. There were gestures, too, indicating profound emotional content.

“What do you and Joe talk about?” I asked Ma as I was dressing for a chamber-music concert.

“I don’t know, this and that,” Ma said. My zipper had stuck and there was no way I could get my clumsy fingers to release it.

“Don’t be so clubby, will you?”

She raised her eyebrows at me.

“Well, I don’t like it,” I said.

“Is anybody bothering you?” Ma asked.

“What if it doesn’t work out? It’s only going to be harder on everybody if you two are such devoted pals.”

“Are you thinking that it won’t?”

“For about a thousand reasons,” I said. It slipped out more as a testy zinger than an expression of fact. I certainly hadn’t visited the matter consciously.

“If you’re dumping him, do it in a hurry.” She gave the zipper a violent tug. I could hear fabric tear. “Fuck,” she muttered. “Guess you’d better choose another dress.”

Whose side are you on, anyway?
I wanted to ask, but I just slipped into another outfit and left to meet Joe.

On our last evening, a Saturday night, we went to see an off-Broadway play named
Mud Tracks,
produced by an experimental theater group Joe admired. It was playing down on Wooster Street in a loft space furnished with uncomfortable folding chairs. We sat with about fifty other people, mainly downtown types in black clothes and turbulent hair. Heretofore, Harold Pinter was about as radical as I could manage, so once the play started, I waited in pained tolerance for it to be over. In Act One the characters—presumably a family at the dinner table—recited gibberish at one another. I half listened, shifting in my seat and hoping the sensation would eventually return to my rear end. But gradually, fragments of actual words and then bits of sentences began to rise out of the flood of syllables. I glanced at Joe. He was totally engrossed. Before long, coherent phrases stabbed like cruel beams of light, illuminating painful truths. I found myself wincing with each revelation. By the end, the dialogue had become entirely straightforward and almost unbearable to hear. The audience left looking shell-shocked.

We were mostly silent walking to the restaurant around the corner. There was a clammy breeze and I wished I’d worn an extra layer. Over sushi I asked Joe what he thought. As usual, he took his time answering. Finally he said, “Sometimes I don’t understand what my photographs are about until they take form in the chemical bath. Once they’re not contained in the parameter of the lens, they get away from me.” He paused again, drank some sake and went on. “Sometimes they’re not easy to look at. I’m being informed about myself whether I like it or not.”

I was moved by his poetic and intensely personal association to the drama. “Is that why you like plays?” I asked him. He looked baffled. “To inform yourself about yourself.” I thought that was pretty clear, but his confusion began to look more like discomfort. I could feel him retreat. It was almost a physical sensation, as if he’d backed a few inches away from his side of the table.

“You sound like Steve,” he said. “Don’t you want a
toro
hand-roll? They’re amazing here.”

“What does Steve say?”

“That I’m a chronic spectator. He calls me ‘the drama critic.’”

“When do I meet him?” I asked.

That brought a laugh. But I was thinking, Okay, you’ll open up on e-mail when we’re safely encapsulated from one another, you’ll give me cryptic hints into your psychology if there’s a metaphor to hide behind. But those photographs are emotionally loaded.
You
are emotionally loaded.

“Where’s the guy who photographed that bridge in the fog?” I asked. “I get glimpses and then you hide under a rock.”

Joe had stopped eating and was making circles in the soy sauce with a chopstick. Then he looked up at me. His voice was quiet but his face wasn’t. “I’m trying, okay, Anna? You scare the shit out of me.” He gestured with the chopstick, moving it back and forth between us.
“This
scares the shit out of me.”

Why are you torturing the man, Bolles?
I asked myself. If it turned out the only way he could reveal himself was by bouncing electronic signals off a satellite, that should be okay with me. Shut
up.

I got out of my chair and went around to his side of the table. “Give me room,” I said. He slid his chair back and I sat down in his lap. I wrapped my arms around his neck and gave him a big kiss, one of those long juicy ones that make you think you’ll suffocate to death before it’s over. Then I got up and went back where I belonged. The chefs behind the sushi bar looked a bit startled. I guess people don’t do that sort of thing in Japan. But this was downtown and I figured what the hell.

That night, I slept in Joe’s arms and dreamed once more about my father. He rode a horse and wore a battered felt hat—Harrison Ford again—and somehow before the end of the dream, a small child appeared behind him in the saddle. I woke up with the feeling that nothing bad could ever happen to me. It lasted until I sat up and saw Joe’s open suitcase at the end of the bed.

I battled nausea all day Tuesday, telling myself I was merely somewhat nervous due to my dinner date that night. Furthermore, the numbness in my hands had flared up again. So far today, I’d dropped my toothbrush, a bus token, a file folder, two pens, and a Life Saver. Once I got home from work, the notion of changing clothes for the restaurant overwhelmed me—a daunting prospect of zippers, laces, panty hose, and buttons. Also, I needed a shower. I swallowed hard against the half-digested lunch in my throat and started painstakingly unbuttoning my blouse. Since I couldn’t feel anything, I used my eyes to guide my fingers.

I heard the front door slam, Ma’s quick steps, and she was framed in my doorway. She made the instant Anna-status assessment that reminded me of my software’s virus check when I booted up my computer. Only Ma was a lot more thorough.

“Hands?” she said.

I nodded.

“Shoulder, too.”

“Oh,” I said, and tried to stretch the muscle there. I hadn’t noticed that it had locked tight.

“We’ll work on it when you get back,” she said, and had me out of my clothes in seconds. “You could wear your one-zip special. You want something for the nausea?”

“I’m okay, thanks. But just out of curiosity, how can you tell?”

“Color around your mouth.” She laid my A-line black wool with the single zipper up the front beside me on the bed. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

“I think I can manage. Thanks, Ma.”

“Okey-dokey.” She started out.

But I caught her hand. “No, I mean,
thanks.”

She turned around and I knew she understood the volumes I was trying to say. She smiled. “No fucking problayma, dahlink.”

I got to Patrick’s ten minutes early, stood outside and debated with myself whether to waste some time before going in. I wasn’t feeling exactly rock solid in the balance department, and a trip around the block without my cane could easily wind up in a pratfall on the sidewalk. On the other hand, I disliked the prospect of my father finding me lying in wait like some eager groupie. But the numbness was creeping up my foot. I went inside.

They seated me at a table with a view of the entrance. People with theater reservations were trooping in, and I studied each lone male who seemed even faintly similar to the last photo I’d seen, reminding myself that the dashing figure of my dreams was hardly likely. Here was a candidate: balding, a bit paunchy, but a certain gravity of expression, a certain dignity—not so bad. But he strode past me. Next a retro-bopper, slicked-back hair with ponytail, deep tan, heavy gold necklace—please God, not him. It wasn’t, though he shot me one of those I-might-have-time-for-you-later-doll smiles. But then I knew. He was coming straight at me. The irony of it—after all these years, I was going to be re-introduced to my father by a waiter.

“Your usual table, Mr. Bolles,” the waiter said, and pulled out the chair opposite me. So he was a regular.

But my father came to give me a kiss on the cheek. He was nice-looking and appeared at least ten years younger than Ma. He wore a dark gray silk shirt without a jacket. When he sat down we stared at each other intently, then started to laugh. It seemed auspicious enough. It suddenly flashed through my mind:
Maybe he’ll join us for Thanksgiving. We’ll be a family.

“You look so much like my mother,” he said. “Only prettier. God, you’re gorgeous. Those eyes could get you a film contract.”

That felt good. But now that I had a closer look at him, I could see that he was no stranger to the hair dye, and the skin around his eyes was suspiciously wrinkle-free.

“What happened there?” He pointed to the scar along my jawline.

“A little hiking accident.”

“You can get that fixed,” he said. “I’ll give you the name of a good man on Seventy-first. So how long’s it been? Nine, ten years?”

“Twelve.”

“That long,” he said absently, and hailed our waiter. “We should order. I have to be crosstown by seven-fifty. The halibut’s excellent. Also the risotto.”

There was pleasure in allowing him to order for me and hearing him say, “My daughter will have …” I looked around at the other patrons, savoring the unfamiliar sensation:
I’m with my dad,
I told them all silently.
This here’s my dad. We’re doing a father-daughter thing.

When he folded his hands on the table, I noticed that his nails glistened with polish. I’m not crazy about that, so I did an instant rationalization. In his business, one had to follow the protocol. Surely, if given his druthers, he would never
opt
for a manicure.

“So how’s your mother?” he asked.

“The bakery’s busy. She needs to hire another assistant.”

I was surprised that this didn’t go over well. “The whole thing’s ridiculous. What does she need the aggravation for?”

“She likes it,” I said.

“The trouble with your mother is, she can’t accept help. She knows I’d send her anything she needs. Stubborn woman.”

I felt this guilty urge to fall in with him in a little minor dishing of Ma, so I probably overcompensated in my tone. “Maybe she just likes being independent.” I could feel my chin thrust out the way it does when I get annoyed.

He didn’t react, just slid into another subject. “I was so glad you decided to come, Anna.” He reached across the table to take my hand in his soft palm. I’d imagined just such a moment a few thousand times over the years. My eyes began to sting. I commanded myself, oh
no,
under no circumstances.

“So tell me all about yourself, Anna. You teach up at the Dalton School?”

“Cameron,” I said. “But same idea.”

“History, right?”

“Well, no, English.”

“Must be rewarding.” He had spotted someone he knew and hailed him over. This fellow, a sturdy rooster in jeans and a polo shirt, smelled of expensive aftershave. I assumed he was important if he felt comfortable in that getup. “Ron, this is my daughter, Anna Bolles, teaches history to rich brats.”

Ron bent over my hand and kissed it. “You’re wasting your time. We need a face like that in the business.”

I shifted my head a little farther aside to conceal my scarred jawline, although I was thinking that I should be shot as a traitor to my gender. I was so busy preening under all the male attention it momentarily escaped me that my father had gotten my job description wrong.

He and Ron traded show business news for a moment while I tried to look calm and self-assured. In fact, I could smell wet wool from where I was sweating under the arms of my dress, and the numbness had now achieved the unprecedented heights of my left hip. I felt precarious, as if I were perched on the edge of the chair. I reached down with my hands to make sure I was centered and wondered if half of my brain would soon turn numb as well. If I had only half a brain, which functions would still remain operative? Perhaps I would lose my sense of color to a black-and-white world. The restaurant would assume the romantic atmosphere of Rick’s in
Casablanca.
And what about my auditory sense, if perhaps only articles and prepositions would register, reducing conversations to
in the an a out?

But soon Ron, with another gallant kiss, disappeared into the power room at the rear of the restaurant. You could see through the glass doors that there wasn’t even a token woman back there.

“Is Ron someone you work with often?” I asked. In fact, if my father was in total ignorance about my career; I was quite the clandestine expert on his. He and two other entrepreneurial types had recognized fifteen years ago that the cultural appetite of the American public was becoming ever more banal. They joined forces in founding something called Straight to the Slot, a video production company of films marketed strictly for VCRs across America. I had watched dozens of them, hoping to detect a hint of originality, of challenge to my intellect, some spark of creativity. Ma finally explained that I was missing the point, that the productions were created specifically to avoid such tiresome qualities. Viewers found it comforting to pop one of those stories into their TV, then sit back and predict every line of dialogue. The end result was that my father could divorce and remarry a dozen more times without worrying about coughing up the alimony.

“I think you’ve got my nose,” my father was saying. “Ginnie’s got it. My youngest. She’s a dynamo. What an athlete. She already serves tennis balls at sixty miles an hour and she’s only eight.”

Where were you when I won the Best Athlete Award my junior year of high school, the first female in twenty-two years to do it?
But he was off on another tack altogether.

“So is there a man in your life? A beautiful girl like you … Oh.” He caught himself. “I guess … I guess maybe that’s. …” I gathered he’d remembered the MS.

“Actually, there is,” I said, trying not to sound defiant.

“That’s great! Is he … ? I mean, does he also … ?”

I shook my head. “No, he’s perfectly normal.”

“What’s he do, a teacher at your school?”

“No, he’s a businessman. He was in
Crain’s.” He’s beautiful and honest and talented, Daddy,
I wanted to say. But I had the feeling I could have explained that Joe trains boa constrictors to squeeze film executives to death and my father would have responded,
Great, that’s great.

“Think you’ll marry him?”

“No.” It slipped right out with such confidence it was almost as if someone else had uttered the word.
What?
I wanted to ask myself.
What did you say?!

“Too bad,” he muttered. He suddenly shoved his plate aside. The mood shifted so fast I felt as if the overhead lightbulbs had blown out, and it wasn’t because my father was concerned about my future with Joe.

“You know, Anna,” he said, “there was a particular reason I wanted to get together with you. Well, of course, I wanted very much to see you. Didn’t want to force you, of course.”

I had very quickly dismissed from my mind the prognosis regarding my future with Joe. It was far too complex and disturbing to contemplate here. So I just sat and waited for my father to spit it out. There didn’t seem much point in my mentioning that a little tenacity on his part would surely have convinced me to see him long ago. I began to suspect that I could get through the rest of the evening uttering ten words or less. I resolved to count. Maybe six.

“I’ve had some bad news.” And he did, in fact, look shaken all of a sudden. “It’s my prostate. Cancer. They’re treating it with a combination of chemo and radiation. I’ve never been sick a day in my life. I’m a mess, can’t go to the gym, haven’t got energy for anything, sex life’s blown to hell. Oh, sorry, but we may as well be frank with one another.”

Speak for yourself, I thought, but he just kept on. “Anna, you’ve had your illness for so long you don’t think about it anymore. It’s better when you get hit young because you can adjust so much more easily. But a guy like me, I don’t have to tell you, it’s been hell. With a gorgeous young wife and all … Obviously, you’ve already come to terms with the fact that you’re not going to have a full life span. God, honey, I’ve tried Prozac and every other damn thing, but I’m still scared shitless. Can you give your old dad a hand?”

I stared at my father across the snowfield of white linen. The man was clearly in terrible distress. His forehead was pebbled with sweat, he had turned an unsavory taupe that clashed with the expensive shirt. His eyes were watering with self-pity. I thanked my lucky stars that I was half numb. If one hundred percent of me had to take this all in, I don’t think I could have borne up. I said to myself:
Forget that this is your father. It’s just some pathetic person who has nothing to do with you.

“You’ve raised a number of issues here,” I began, amazing myself at my measured, unemotional tone. Maybe Joe was rubbing off on me. “For one thing, you seem to be laboring under the misapprehension that multiple sclerosis is a fatal disease.” Actually, I sounded like a prig, but I was so outraged, so wounded, that inflated language seemed preferable to the only alternative, which was flipping the table onto his lap.

“It isn’t?” He was truly surprised.

I shook my head.

“But a colleague of mine, his wife had it and she just died, fifty-three years old.”

“MS can cause life-threatening complications on occasion,” I lectured, “but with competent medical care, there’s every reason to expect a normal life span.”

“Oh.” He was deflated for a moment, then made the giant mental leap and managed a half-hearted smile. “Well, that’s great news. I wish I’d known that earlier.”

I was Ma’s child, too, so I figured what the hell, go for it. “So you would have done what?” I asked him.

He looked at me as if I wasn’t all that bright. “Well, it’s pretty self-defeating to invest your emotions in someone who’s terminal, wouldn’t you say?”

“You mean you stayed away all this time because you thought I was dying?”

“That was part of it, sure. Who wouldn’t? Plus you weren’t much interested in getting together.”

“It wasn’t up to me. I was a
child.”
People at the nearby tables turned to stare at us.

After a moment of chilly silence, I could see that my father had come to a decision: I would be of little use to him in his health crisis. He raised a hand to call for the check. “Sorry we don’t have time for dessert or coffee.” He must have been a good tipper because the waiter appeared before he got to the last syllable. He signed the bill as I struggled to control myself. In addition, I was worried about logistics. If my legs wouldn’t hold me up, I might have to ask for help from my father. At the moment, that notion made me feel like gagging.

Thankfully, I was only numb, not weak. As we walked to the door, my father put his hand on my elbow. “It’s nice that you keep slim,” he said. “Is your mother still so heavy?”

“Ma looks just fine.” He was oblivious to the ominous quaver in my voice.

“Norma had some figure,” he went on. “Especially her legs. Outstanding. The last time I saw her, she must have hit a size twelve, maybe even fourteen. No self-discipline, to let herself go like that.” We were out on the pavement. He waved for a cab as I extracted my elbow from his grip.