Real Life & Liars (4 page)

IVAN SITS IN HIS VW, LISTENING TO THE ENGINE TICK AND HISS,
two blocks from his parents’ home, where his older sister has no doubt already arrived and taken over everything. Ivan turns his cell phone over in his hand. His gaze rests on a group of children playing jump rope in a yard. But he’s thinking about Barbara.

He could call her. Maybe she’s had a change of heart.

And what to tell the family? It was ill-advised, but he’d bragged ahead of time about her beauty. He shouldn’t say anything at all, let them think what they will. But what to say when they asked about his life?

The job? He’ll say, “Great, terrific.” One of his students obviously forged his parents’ signature on his practice record sheet, and Ivan graded him a “zero” for that week, thereafter getting called on the carpet because his parents swore up and down that they’d signed it, and Jason had indeed practiced his sax the re
quired thirty minutes a day. Sure, and his father just happens to have identical handwriting, right down to the flattened top of the cursive “J” with which Jason signs his own name. And with all this alleged practice, how is it possible not to show even one speck of improvement? If anything, he’s gotten worse as one of the busty flute girls has been flirting with him during her sixteen-measure rest, squelching what little musicality he ever had.

Ivan smelled defeat on the wind and gave in.

The songwriting? He could talk about the close personal relationship he has with several rock acts in town, if by “close” he means “running from me like a crazed stalker with a machete” and “personal” means “using my demos as coasters for their drinks.”

He notices that the children have stopped jumping rope and are staring at him like rabbits before bolting into the underbrush. He starts the car, leaving the cell phone in the cup holder.

Van knows he can’t dodge the Barbara question. Someone will mention it. Someone always does.

The house peeks out from behind the big maple tree, redolent in all its showy Victorian embellishment. Van’s eyes go first to his dad’s office in the second-floor spire. He pictures Max at his computer, writing his latest novel, with a complicated mix of pride and envy that sits like a stone on his heart. Next, as always, he looks up at his own bedroom window: upper story, far right, above his mother’s den. Ivan feels like he’s never left that room, and that his apartment near the high school is merely a satellite of his boyhood home, not having the benefit of gravitational pull of his own family to anchor him somewhere else.

Ivan pulls the VW next to Katya’s huge yuppiemobile and thinks of writing a song called “Gravitational Pull.”

Seeing the house reminds him he hasn’t written the toast yet. How is the dull middle child of a hippie and a famous writer supposed to toast his parents’ anniversary? “Congratulations, and I
apologize for squandering your genetic bounty by teaching freshmen how to bleat scales on the trumpet.”

The sun is settling toward Round Lake, which he glimpses between the garage and the house, before opening the door into the screened-in porch. Van wonders if the sax player’s parents have a yacht docked out there. It’s not unlikely.

His phone buzzes in his pocket, and without thinking he snatches it up and looks at the screen. Before his brain could even form the word “Barbara” in his thoughts, the Caller ID says
JENNY
and he lets it go to voice mail.

He stumbles up the porch step as he puts the phone away, following sounds of cutlery on plates and the booming baritone of Katya’s husband toward the dining room.

“You made it!” exclaims his mother, as she pushes back from the table and rushes to greet him, her long dress rippling behind her. Ivan tries not to pull her hair as he hugs her, having to bend down a significant distance, wishing he wasn’t so tall because then he wouldn’t have to feel like a grown-up. His entrance and Mira’s exclamation have interrupted some story Charles was telling. Ivan slaps his dad on the shoulder, and Max gives him a wink, crinkling up his face like Santa Claus. He always used to wink at Ivan, his only son. To Van it meant, “Just you and me kid, bobbing in a sea of estrogen.”

“We’ve got a plate for you right here,” says his mother, leading him to her right. There’s an empty chair for Irina, but no food yet at her place, as no one ever knows when she’ll pop through the door.

“Where are the kids?” Van sees no sign of his nephews and niece.

“Upstairs.” Katya waves her hand toward the stairwell, then adjusts her napkin on her lap. Ivan understands they bolted down their food as fast as they could and scurried away to the television and their cell phones.

Katya changes the subject from his parents’ inquiries about the drive up north, cutting right to the chase. She would have made a terrific prosecuting attorney.

“So, Van, I was so sorry to hear Barbara couldn’t make it.”

“Yes, that was too bad,” Mirabelle interjects, and starts a monologue on the virtues of wheat-flour pasta as she loads Van’s plate with more than he would possibly eat.

But Katya will not be distracted. Ivan meets her gaze with the same weighty defeat as when he faced the angry sax player’s parents and Barbara’s indifference.

“We had a falling-out, and that’s all anyone needs to know.” He attacks his spaghetti, and Katya gives up the chase for the moment, turning instead to wondering aloud where Irina could possibly be.

Ivan realizes as he watches his older sister talk, that Barbara looks a great deal like Katya. They both have this thick hair that falls wavy, just like Mirabelle’s, though Barbara’s hair is that reddish color and Katya’s is sandy brown, like their father’s. And the shape of their eyes is somewhat narrowed, with eyebrows like slashes, which can glare with devastating effect.

Just as well Barbara didn’t come then.

“Dad, how’s the new book coming along?”

“Hmm?”

Max always seems to be writing his novels on the opposite wall of whatever room he’s in, staring into that space with penetrating intensity. Seeing his father in this state of suspended animation makes Ivan think that he himself lacks that level of concentration, and maybe if he could only shut out the rest of the world, he could write a song worth listening to.

“The new book.”

“Oh, that. Yes, fine. I’m probably halfway through. Thinking of killing off the confidante.”

“Oh, not Augustus Cheever!” Ivan always liked that character, a fussy old Brit.

“Killed him off three books ago,” Max says through a mouthful of salad. “New sidekick now, Nicky Pauls. From Brooklyn.”

Ivan snags his wineglass, which Mirabelle filled when he wasn’t looking. He’s embarrassed to be caught not reading his own dad’s books, but frankly he can’t get excited about the exploits of Dash Hammond, international spy. When he was younger, he liked the car chases and explosions, and there was something so decadent and yet unnerving about reading sex scenes penned by one’s own father, even the mild, PG-rated versions in his dad’s books, with lots of vague references to “warm places” and “dampness.”

But as Ivan’s own tastes grew toward the literary and high-flown modern fiction, his dad’s potboiling page-turners just didn’t boil his pot anymore.

“What’s the fate of unfortunate Nicky?” asks Ivan.

“I dunno. Cement boots are a bit cliché. Maybe I’ll dangle him over a vat of acid.” Max winks, and Ivan smiles. It was their old joke about the ever-more-ridiculous hero-in-peril situations that a long-running series tended to create.

Max asks, “How about you? Any news on your songs?”

“Oh, you know.” Van tugs on his ear, thinking his dad probably doesn’t know, having had his books in print for so long he hadn’t been rejected since Van was in diapers. “It’s all subjective, you know. One of the bands said to bring them something else sometime.”

“Oh, well that’s good. I remember when Jane told me…” And Max launches into a “struggling writer” story, which Van tunes out immediately. He’s heard most of his dad’s repertoire, anyway.

It is not strictly true about the band, and Van feels both guilty and foolish for exaggerating—lying—to his father. His fondest wish—aside from becoming the next Bob Dylan—would be to
turn back time and never, ever mention his songwriting ambition. To anyone. If no one knows you’re trying, no one can ever know you’ve failed.

Max’s story is winding down, and Van feels his family’s eyes on him, waiting for him to respond.

He pushes his face into a smile. “Anyway, you all just wait. I’ll win a Grammy yet. You’ll see.”

Max looks up from his dish into his wife’s eyes, with a squinting, earnest gaze. The silence falls heavily.

“
SO, YOU WANT ME TO WAIT IN THE CAR? OR WHAT
?”

“Why would I want that?” Irina twirls her wedding ring, still unable to believe she had a wedding. She’s stalling, openly stalling, and Darius is smart enough to know that. On the flight back from Vegas, she imagined just walking in and introducing Darius as “my new husband, and the father of my baby” but her plan fell apart when they pulled up the drive behind Katya’s Escalade and her brother’s rusty VW. To her right, the enormous spire on the front of the house looms above her, and Irina feels twelve years old again, when she used to scare herself witless imagining ghosts and ghouls up there.

“If I wait in the car, you can shock them first with just our wedding, then I can walk in and shock them again by being black.”

“I told you about that; it won’t bother them.”

“And I told you, I’ve dated white girls before. I don’t care how
liberal your parents are, no one expects it. This one dude was president of the ACLU in his county, and his jaw still fell open. I thought his wife would pass out.”

Irina shakes off an unexpected pang of jealousy at the mention of other white girls. “I don’t care. I need you with me.”

Darius nods and straightens up tall. Irina knows he’s glad to be called on for strength and support. He was always courteous before, but the pregnancy brought out a whole new level of deference. She starts to open the car door, but Darius puts a hand on her arm, gives it a gentle squeeze, then hops out to open it for her.

Irina steps out slowly, not from any physical need but to stall again, just a little longer, before getting into that old soup of family issues. She stands at last, fluffing out her loose, flowing blouse.

She bites back the urge to shake off Darius’s hand on her elbow as she steps up the porch stairs and ambushes her family, who are sitting on the wicker furniture just inside the porch door, having an after-dinner cocktail.

She spots Mira first, who gets to her feet quicker than reasonable for a sixtyish woman. Mira lights up, and her wrinkles only make her look happier. For a moment, Irina wonders if her own face will radiate like that, at the sight of the baby she carries. But she has no time to linger on that thought because voices are all going at once.

“Irina!” This from her mother and father, not quite in unison.

“Glad you made it! Who’s this?” From Katya, getting the well-wishing out of the way quick and getting down to business.

“Hi, Reenie,” from her brother, using the nickname she’s hated for the last fifteen of her twenty-one years of life. Ivan remains slouched in the chair, while the others close in on her like something from
Night of the Living Family.

Darius remains quiet, though he’s smiling and nodding to each one in turn. His hands are clasped loosely behind his back, and
Irina tries to imagine how they see him, if they think he’s handsome, if they have any inkling about what she’s going to say.

She clears her throat, and Darius puts one arm around her waist. What waist she has left, that is. This action changes the air in the room, and even Ivan sits up out of his dolorous slouch.

“Sorry to be springing this on you all,” Irina begins, and already she sees Katya fold her arms and her back go even more rigid. “But it was sprung on me, too, in a way. I’ve been seeing Darius for a couple of months”—and in this instant Irina decides to parcel out her shocking news one bit at a time, and she has to concentrate on not touching her belly—“and we really fell in love”—and there might have been a gasp at this, but she leaves no time, rushing on to say—“and Darius swept me off to Vegas and married me three days ago.”

The most unexpected thing happens. Mira runs from the room, and in that fraction of a second as she turns, Irina could swear she sees her eyes shining with tears. Max just gapes, slumped like a marionette limp on its strings.

“Congratulations,” mumbles Ivan, as he hauls himself out of the chair with a great show of effort.

Katya beams at Darius, and it makes Irina want to retch, and not for fake morning sickness, but actually she wants to vomit watching her sister pretend not to be upset in all her soccer-mom sensibilities by Darius. She shakes his hand and offers congratulations in that same syrupy voice she probably uses at PTA meetings or whatever the hell she does with her time.

Katya then hugs Irina, and whispers in her ear, “Come to the kitchen with me.”

Irina ignores her and goes to her father, the only member of her family not yet to react. “Dad?” Irina considers waving a hand in front of his nose. It’s like he has gone into what she calls “zombie face” where he’s writing in his head.

“Sweetheart,” he says, coming around at last, and folding her into a hug. His hair gets in her nose and makes her want to sneeze. “Oh, honey, congratulations. I love you so much.”

He holds on too long, and for some reason Irina can’t articulate, she feels a cold rock sink into her stomach.

She pulls back and meets his eyes—his, too, are watering—just before Katya takes her wrist and pulls her into the adjacent kitchen.

WITH KATYA AND IRINA IN THE KITCHEN, AND THEIR MOTHER
dashed off crying to somewhere in the house, probably her office, the men fidget in silence.

Darius remains where he started, hands clasped loosely, gaze somewhere in the far corner of the room. Max’s hands hang down at his sides like a couple of dead fish on a line, as he remains nailed to the spot where Irina hugged him before getting dragged off by her older sister.

The quiet gets to be too much for Van, who blurts out something with all the best intentions.

“Please don’t think we’re bigots.”

Darius turns to him quizzically. His voice has a studied calm to it as he replies, “Now, why would I think that?”

The speaking seems to have snapped Max out of his stunned trance, and he says, “I’m going to check on my wife. Excuse
me.” Halfway to the door, he stops, turns around, and goes back to Darius, shaking his hand quickly but not looking directly at him. “Congratulations. Welcome to the family. Excuse me.” And he heads for the door again.

Now Van and his new brother-in-law are alone, and Van starts to sweat like a pro wrestler, which he worries will be further evidence to Darius of their racist tendencies, seeing as how he can’t get comfortable with a minority in the room.

A minority, thinks Van, what a rotten way to refer to a human being.

“I just mean,” he stammers, “just because they’re a little shocked, I don’t want you to think we’re some kind of racists. We just, I mean, we didn’t expect…We didn’t even know Irina was dating a black guy. Any guy! I mean, she’d never even said…”

Darius stares back at him, and Van thinks he might pass out. He lets his gibbering trail off, and that’s when he sees one side of the man’s mouth twitch up slightly. Van sinks back into his chair. “I need a drink. Can I get you a drink?”

“No, thanks. I’ll wait until the ladies get back. I’m sorry I upset your mother.”

“Yeah,” Van muses, half to himself. “That was strange. My mom is a total hippie, it can’t be because you’re black.”

On this, the screen door bangs into the wall as Katya barges through with Irina in tow. Irina tries to turn right back around but Katya takes her wrist and pulls her back in.

Irina lets herself be pulled in, and puts her other hand to her forehead. “Oh God, Ivan, what have you been saying?”

“My usual drivel,” Ivan replies, staring gloomily at the floor.

Darius joins her, and gives her a squeeze and a peck on her forehead. Ivan notes they make an attractive pair. Irina is so fair, with her dark black hair cut short she looks elfin. Darius is tall, broad-shouldered, and not all that dark, really, but the contrast with Irina is striking, even so. Ivan muses that they will make
exotic-looking babies, and feels immediately ashamed of himself for thinking so.

As the formal introductions begin, Ivan wipes his sweaty hand on his pants and prepares to formally meet his new brother-in-law. Ivan realizes he might suffer permanent damage from the exertion of not sounding like a bigot—or a self-conscious asshole—for the rest of his life. Or rather, the duration of Irina’s marriage. Given the brief history of this blessed event, reflects Ivan, that might not be long at all.