Saving St. Germ (28 page)

I looked at my hands. “Do you think it is?”

“Do I think it’s irresponsible?” She sat down again, sighing.

“I don’t know. On the face of it, it does seem ... stubborn and unrealistic to me. But irresponsible—I don’t know. I just know what
they’ll
say.”

We talked some more. I told her about my problems at work, my theory, Ollie’s spatial abilities. She kept nodding her head, but her eyes changed. I could see that she was making up her mind about me, my story.

Finally, we stood up. It was late and I had to get back home. Her phone kept ringing; it seemed harder for her to ignore it.

She held out her hand, with a touch more personal feeling this time.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“We’re going to fight like hell,” she said. “But it seems to me that they have powerful ammunition on their side. It may be best for us to emphasize that you are going through a difficult emotional period, what with lab and classroom burdens as well as your high-pressure theory work. That you’ve not been yourself lately. Otherwise you would have done more to help Ollie.”

“Jesus Christ, that’s a
lie.
You think that I’m fucked up, too!”

“No, Esme, I don’t. But you want to keep Ollie, right?”

“Are you kidding?”

“Well then? Think about it. To them you’re a nut case. A woman who is advised by family members and professionals to seek help for her child, and refuses. An unstable teacher who fights with students, misses lectures, and is suspended from her job at a major university for an indefinite period. A researcher who refuses to go to her lab. A person who believes that she has a Theory of Everything in the universe, but hasn’t proven it yet, to anyone, anywhere. A woman who justifies her little girl’s odd behavior by talking about cosmic events. How does that sound to you? Because that’s how you’re going to sound to the judge.”

I sat back down and put my hand over my eyes.

“Esme. Go home now. Let me think about this. We’ll find a way for you to keep Ollie.”

I remained frozen for a minute. Then I got up. I looked at her.

“Thanks for the coffee,” I said.

She waved good-bye backwards, Italian-style, and I noticed, belatedly, that she was left-handed.

T
HE BEEP SOUNDED
and I said, quickly, “Hi, Rocky. Call me, OK? Just wondering how you are.”

Then I tried L.R. again and the same old message tape rewound. She was gone, she’d be back.

I put the phone down. It was nearing two in the morning. I’d been drinking tea and eating Bath biscuits and reworking parts of the theory. I’d seen the court psychiatrist earlier in the day and now, exhausted and unable to come up with any more distractions, I began to play back our conversation in my head.

The shrink was a small heavyset man, who looked disconcertingly like Richard Nixon, jowly and furtive-eyed. (Faber looked like Lincoln; was there a connection? Maybe presidential DNA
was
being exhumed and recycled?) When he talked, however, that impression fled. He had a relaxing yoke that rose at the end of every sentence; he
intoned
his thoughts. He wore a sort of Navajo-pattern shirt that made him look like a Native American Nixon. I found this image of Nixon—in braids, buckskin, and headband, with a peace pipe—mildly distracting.

Freud’s consultation room in Vienna, which I’d visited on my student travels, rose in my mind: the intense deep intimate reds of the couch and the wall hangings, the overstuffed parlorish feel of the room. He’d recreated the ghastly tedium of the middle-class drawing room to reassure his patients. This office, Dr. Lamb’s, was overly lit and olive drab, with a military feel to it. I sat in a vinyl chair and picked at imaginary lint on my skirt.

At first he was very noncommittal, our talk almost desultory. I sensed him judging me just under the surface of his intonation, and I knew that the importance of this interview could not be overestimated in determining Ollie’s future, but I felt no uneasiness—and after all, his questions seemed fairly innocuous: How long had Jay and I been married? How did Ollie like school?

Then he moved in, tightening the focus. Could I explain my TOE to him, why did I think that it was so cosmological in implication, who else knew about it? Did I connect this theory to Ollie? He adjusted himself in his chair: Did I think that other people were trying to steal my theory?

He
had
to ask these questions, and I tried my best to answer them, but I knew we were having a different kind of interview now. He asked about my childhood and again I tried to weigh my responses. Yes, my father was French Canadian, an electrical engineer employed by a hydraulics company, my mother a housewife. I said I regretted not being closer to my mother. Had I shown early high intelligence? Did I think of myself as a genius? I was an average person with science aptitude, I said.

Then he swiveled in his chair again and leaned toward me. His singsong style vanished. He spoke quickly, almost harshly. I’d been suspended from my position at UGC. I’d taken Ollie out of school for two weeks for no urgent reason—what was it like when Ollie and I were alone together during those two weeks?

“We relaxed,” I said, staring back at his fixed expression. “We slept late and made big breakfasts and drew crayon pictures. We sang. We built fires in the fireplace and toasted marshmallows. It was like camping out.”

“Esme. Do you believe that your life is getting better—or does everything seem on a downhill course?”

I sighed. “Well, you know, Dr. Lamb, the world—any closed system—is entropic. I believe things inevitably break—”

“Please. I’m not asking for a physics theory. I’m asking your opinion of your own life.”

“I think my life is getting better.”

“And can you tell me why?”

“Because my daughter seems more connected to the world than ever before. Because I’ve discovered, with another scientist, a breakthrough theory. Because Jay is gone and ...”

I stopped and he was silent for a second.

“Jay hurts me.”

“Not physically.”

“No,” I said, “emotionally.”

“Tell me, Esme, have you ever been violent with Jay—or Ollie? Have you ever threatened either of them physically?”

I was so shocked that I couldn’t answer immediately.

“Violent? Of course not. I’m not a violent person.” I looked down at my trembling hands. “I’m an impulsive person, I’m extremely opinionated, I sometimes put people off with my sense of humor—but I’ve never been violent, Doctor.”

Now as I stood up, stiff and chilled, picking up my papers, I saw his face again as he questioned me. I felt that he’d decided that I had done something monstrous.

I went to bed, preoccupied, and almost immediately, it seemed, the alarm went off. I fished it up from the floor and stared at it: seven-fifteen
A.M.
I curled back up under the covers. Ollie didn’t have to be at school till eight-forty-five. I slept another half hour or so and then the phone rang.

It was Terry McMahon.

“Esme. I didn’t wake you, did I?”

I sat up in bed and pushed my hair out of my eyes.

“No, no. Of course not.”

“Good. Because we have to talk, Esme. I want to ask you how you think that I can represent you here if you don’t level with me about everything?”

I sat up straighter, terrified. “What?”

“You must know what I mean. We’re talking about physical threats here, we’re talking about attempted assault—”

“What?”

Ollie wandered in, sleepy-eyed, her wispy pink hair standing straight up on her head, looking personally affronted by my loud shocked voice. She sat on the rug by the bed, staring at me.

“Come on, Esme. Don’t act so surprised.
Surely
you remember appearing uninvited at Jay’s workplace, threatening his friend Paloma Jenz with physical violence if she had anything to do with Ollie, then throwing or—
kicking,
I guess it was—an unidentified object at them both?”

“Moo goo gai pan.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Moo goo gai pan!
That’s
what I kicked in their direction. A carton of moo goo gai pan.”

“I’m sorry. Are you saying that you threatened them with
Chinese food
?”

“Well, if
that
was an assault, then the weapon was a carton of Chinese. Yes.”

There was a long silence.

“I don’t get it.”

“Well, Jesus, Terry, neither do I. I mean, Paloma had already spilled the food on the ground. I kicked at one of the cartons and it moved roughly in their direction. But I don’t think you can inflict major wounds with moo goo gai pan. If you know what I mean.”

She cleared her throat. “Maybe, then, you should explain to me what you were doing on the Paramount lot in the first place. And while you’re at it, clarify for me your presence onstage at the ... let’s see,
Club Sez Who
on a recent evening—when Jay charges that you forced your way onstage, seized the microphone from him, and proceeded to babble incoherently at the crowd ... destroying his act and frightening the clientele.”

I started to laugh. I don’t know why, but I felt vindicated, amused, by Jay’s desperation—that he had to resort to this shit.

“Esme?”

“Yeah.” I told her that I had gone out to Paramount to talk to Jay, since I knew he’d be there. I told her about our conversation, about Paloma and the bags of food.

“Well, then, please tell me about the Club Sez Who.”

Ollie stood up and went into the bathroom. I could see her reflected in the full-length mirror, hoisting herself up on the toilet.

“I was a little drunk. Make that
very
drunk. I’d gone to see Jay’s act. He was
dying
onstage. I don’t know. I admit it, I lost control. I went up on the stage to help him. I wanted to tell off the hecklers in the audience, but instead I ended up explaining the Second Law of Thermodynamics to them.”

“Oh.”

“Jay was furious. After we left the club and I sobered up a little, I saw his face and understood the enormity of my mistake. But, God, you know: I had good intentions. I wanted to ease his suffering in some way. I’ve gone through
years
of his terrible routines.”

Ollie flushed the toilet and returned to sit on the rug, minus her underpants. She grinned at me and began picking her nose.

“Terry? I’ve got to get going. I’ve got to take Ollie to school.”

“Wait, wait. Wait. Jay has requested a visit with Ollie this afternoon. After school. Can you arrange this? He also requested that you not be present at the house when he picks her up. He wants to visit with her for two or three hours. Take her to dinner.”

A lightninglike cold passed, glittered through me. “Do I have to agree to this?”

I looked up and saw Ollie, who’d wandered off, reflected in the bathroom mirror: half naked, spinning. I watched her twirl too close to the sink. “Ollie,” I called out. “Be careful!”

“If you want to appear reasonable to the court and you don’t want to generate sympathy for him, yes, I would say, yes, you have to agree. Do you have any reason to deny him a visit?”

“Hey, of course not. Can
you
think of one? I mean, what a good sport, huh?”

She said nothing.

“Fine,” I said. “I can get Mrs. K. to be here when he comes, and he can leave her on the porch when he brings her back home and I won’t come out till he’s in his car.” I held the receiver away from my mouth. “Ollie—watch
out
!”

“Esme?”

“Yes.”

“Is there anything else I should know? I mean, so that I’m not taken up short like this again. You swear you didn’t hurl sushi or something at somebody else, right?”

“Nah. Just some bagels and lox.”

“Esme?”

“Yeah?”

“You know, this really
isn’t
funny.”

“I know. I know that, Terry.”

Driving Ollie to school, I remembered the shrink. No wonder he’d grilled me about violence. I should have pelted him with bok choy, I thought. But somehow, this time, I couldn’t work up a laugh. And Ollie sat, one hand held dramatically against her forehead, which she
had
bumped. There was a tiny swelling—we’d put a boo-boo strip on it. I eased up on the accelerator, but somehow the car seemed to go faster and faster.

Mrs. K. arrived and I left the house before four, kissing Ollie goodbye and holding her close for a long moment. I sang her a song about a flying cat and then she drew her finger down the middle of my face “bisecting” me. I did the same to her. “Good-bye, Mother,” she said clearly. “I’ll miss you!” I hugged her again. “I’ll miss you!” she called after me. “I’ll miss you, Mommy!” Then I drove to the lab.

I nearly reeled when I opened the door. Faber had obviously organized regular staffing and maintenance. Everything was clean and kept up—but the power of my memories, pure
lab
memories, almost overcame me. A laboratory is so physical: Everything is touch and observation, measurement and pouring and enzyme-snipping. Your skin remembers tactilely—goose bumps rise, the ends of your fingers tingle, old acid burns shift under the old proud flesh. I couldn’t believe the feelings that swelled in me, standing in that doorway. And the smells and sound, acetone, sulfur, and dripping faucets, spinner hum—all jostled for the attention of my senses, pulling me in back into the flicker and swim.

Then I turned and spotted Rocky’s key with its red diamond charm attached, hanging on its hook by the door. On a hook next to that was her ratty stained lab coat—and, taped on the wall nearby, a scrawled note in her big loopy hand:
LATER, PROF.
I pulled the note down and stuffed it in my pocket.

All the ghosts, all the gathering sorrows in the lab began to circle me. Rocky’s sorrows and mine, the osmotic presences of all the Organic students I couldn’t teach anymore, even poor Donald Brandeman. The accusing faces of the victims of Alpha
₁
Antitrypsin Deficiency. What am I hiding from? I asked myself. The lab? The students? I don’t need to hide anymore. I felt ready to return.

I checked out the freezers, the bases, the spinners, and the Drosophila communities and then I sat down and wrote out an apology to Rocky. Then one to my Organic students: