The Grievers (14 page)

I
sat at my desk with my head in my hands, the incriminating invitation to Billy Chin’s memorial service glowing on the computer screen in front of me. Neil was right, I thought. I couldn’t do anything without screwing it up. My job was a joke, my house was a mess, and the dissertation I’d begun the previous September was languishing in some dark, lifeless corner of my hard drive, as scraps of paper bearing the late night scrawl of half-hearted inspiration curled in on themselves, yellowing and dusty, among the long-overdue library books stacked at my elbows. On top of it all, there was Billy. Even his death couldn’t keep me from failing him on a regular basis.

“Are you okay?” Karen asked, poking her head into the spare bedroom we used as an office. “You look like you’re about to be sick.”

“I think I screwed up,” I said.

“What now?”

“Everything,” I said. “My whole life.”

“Is there any chance that you’re exaggerating?”

“No,” I said. “Everything I’ve ever done is a joke.”

“As the woman you married, you can see why I might take offense at that.”

“You know what I mean,” I said. “I never take anything seriously.”

“That’s not true,” Karen said. “What about Billy’s memorial service?”

I shook my head.

“Fucked it up,” I said. “The same way I fuck everything up. I turned it into a joke.”

I looked up at Karen. She was dirty and sweaty from scrubbing the fine, filmy layer of wallpaper paste from our dining room walls. In less than a week, her students would take their final exams, and she’d be up to her ankles in red ink and bluebooks. Sure, she’d complain about it. And, sure, she was frustrated that our renovations weren’t exactly going as well as she’d expected. But at least she was doing something—something positive, something constructive, something meaningful. Meanwhile, my biggest effort to date had been to avoid putting any effort into anything at all, and the consequences were starting to show.

“I need to act like an adult for a change,” I said. “I need to do something with my life.”

“Okay,” Karen said. “Let’s start with the dining room.”

“No,” I said. “I need to do something big.”

“There’s always the living room,” she said. “And the upstairs hallway.”

“Still too small,” I said. “I want to do something important. Something major. Something epic. Something big enough to make up for this slump I’m in.”

“You could always finish your dissertation,” Karen said.

“It’s a thought,” I said.

“But I still think you should start with the dining room.”

“You’re hinting at something,” I said.

“The boy catches on fast.”

“I haven’t been very helpful around here, have I?”

“Not exactly,” Karen said. “No. In fact,
helpful
doesn’t even begin to cover it. Even when you’re here, you’re not exactly here, if you know what I mean.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“I know you’ve had a rough couple of weeks, Charley, but—”

Before Karen could finish her thought, the telephone rang, and Greg Packer informed me that he had, in his words, the most auspicious of news. Evangeline, the woman he’d met online, had agreed to meet him for drinks. The only catch was that she still lived in Chicago and that Greg, caught up in the moment, had promised to meet her later that night.

“So what are you going to do?” I asked, mouthing to Karen that it was Greg on the phone.

“What else
can
I do? I’ve booked a flight to Chicago.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said as Karen rolled her eyes and left me alone to deal with my gentleman caller. “Where’d you get the money for that?”

“Mother has a vested interest in my love life.”

“That’s disturbing,” I said.

“More specifically, she wants grandchildren.”

“So she’s sending you to Chicago to meet a strange woman for drinks,” I said. “Makes perfect sense when you think about it.”

“Your sarcasm notwithstanding, I’ve called to ask a favor. To wit, can you give me a ride to the airport?”

“What about your mother?” I said. “Can’t she give you a ride?”

“We had a bit of a falling out after she bought the plane ticket,” Greg said. “Mother wants us to raise the children here in Philadelphia, but I told her that Evangeline might well have a life and career in Chicago to consider.”

“That was very big of you,” I said.

“Indeed. And before you ask, I made the same request of our mutual friend regarding a ride to the airport, but he was in a particularly foul mood when I called.”

“Neil?” I said.

“Yes,” Greg said. “I won’t repeat what he said to me, but it wasn’t pretty.”

This was perfect, I thought. If I got Greg out of his hair even for a day, Neil would have to forgive me. Or at least he’d have to admit that I wasn’t a
complete
screw-up. An incomplete screw-up, perhaps, but giving Greg a ride to the airport was an important first step in digging myself out of the hole I was in.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll give you a ride.”

“Capital,” Greg said. “Of course, we’ll need to make a few stops along the way.”

“Stops?” I said.

“For odds and ends. And, needless to say, I’ll need to swing by the hospital for an epidural.”

“I know your mom wants grandkids,” I said. “But isn’t that a little premature—not to mention the fact that you’re a guy?”

“Your attempt at humor is duly noted, but I must point out, if only for your own edification, the subtle distinction between the anesthetic and steroid varieties of epidural. One, as you have accurately guessed, is closely associated with women in labor, but the other has myriad applications beyond the delivery room. For example, in my current condition, the prospect of sitting on an airplane for several hours is completely unfathomable without the aid of modern science. While pain medication is certainly an option, the enormity of the undertaking demands that I feel nothing from the neck down. That’s a slight overstatement, of course, but for the purposes of alleviating the kind of agony I will undoubtedly confront as I embark upon my quest, nothing compares to an epidural.”

“I stand corrected,” I said.

“The flight leaves at three and I’ve scheduled the procedure for noon, so you can understand my desire for you to attend to my needs posthaste.”

“Right,” I said. “Posthaste.”

The hard part was explaining the situation to Karen. Though I hadn’t exactly promised to help her, she was well on her way to winning me over when Greg called. A few more seconds, and I would have been hers.

“What about our walls?” my wife asked as I stood in front of her, car keys in hand, my bungled attempt at explaining Greg’s need for an epidural still lingering between us. “What about doing something with your life?”

“Don’t you see?” I said. “This is even better.”

“How is unleashing Greg Packer on some unsuspecting girl in Chicago better than helping me with the house?”

“Neil’s been dealing with Greg’s shit forever,” I said. “If I step up and take Greg off his hands, that’s one less thing for him to worry about. From there, who knows? I’ll come home, I’ll help with the walls, and then I’ll iron things out with Ennis.”

“What happened with Ennis?”

“Don’t worry about Ennis,” I said. “The point is, I’m taking control, and everything’s going to work out fine.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE  

G
reg lived with his mother in a powder-blue mini-mansion on the wrong end of a partially gated community whose developers had made the profound miscalculation of building in the backyard of the area’s busiest municipal airfield. For the most part, the only planes that came and went from the field were single-engine Cessnas, but the occasional corporate jet taxiing down the runway a mere three hundred yards from Greg’s bedroom window had probably contributed to the delusion that meeting a woman for drinks in Chicago was a perfectly normal thing to do. At least that’s what I told myself as I rang his doorbell a second time and waited for someone to answer. Otherwise, the only explanation was that Greg had completely lost touch with reality.

When someone finally answered the door, it was Greg’s mother.

“Is this about the lawn?” she asked, peering at me from behind a brass door chain. “Because if it’s about the lawn, we’ve already hired someone to take care of it.”

Behind me, the overgrown lawn lapped at the sidewalk, and the shrubs in front of Greg’s house grew wild and unkempt beneath dark, sealed windows.

“No,” I shouted as what was either a tiny airplane or a very large mosquito buzzed angrily somewhere behind Greg’s house. “I’m here for Greg. He called about a ride to the airport.”

“You must be Karen’s boyfriend,” the woman said, undoing the chain and letting me into her dim, stuffy house. “Greg’s told me so much about her.”

“Husband,” I said. “I’m Karen’s husband.”

“Husband, boyfriend.” The woman was plump and pale with tiny eyes and bleached blonde hair. “It’s not like the glue’s settled yet. Am I right? Greg’s in the Christmas room.”

I’d heard rumors of the Christmas room, but I never believed in it until Greg’s mother said the words aloud. According to Neil, it was Mrs. Packer’s refuge, an alternate dimension where it was always the most wonderful time of the year. It also doubled as what Greg referred to as his war room, and when his mother opened the door, he looked up from his computer with a scowl and instructed her to show me in.

“He’s a little anxious,” Greg’s mother whispered aloud as she left me alone with her son. “First date and all.”

“Mother, please!” Greg sighed.

So this was what Neil had to deal with on a fairly regular basis, I thought as Nat King Cole sang of chestnuts roasting on an open fire and Jack Frost nipping at my nose. No wonder he wanted to move to Maryland.

Meticulously decorated with crystal ornaments and shimmering tinsel, a Christmas tree stood guard over a king’s ransom in empty gift-wrapped packages. Next to the tree stood a three-quarter-scale manger scene complete with donkeys, shepherds, and wise men all carved out of pine. An electric train ran circles around the feet of the magi, and when I looked up, I saw that the ceiling was painted with a heavenly host of angels.

“So,” I said. “Which are the cherubim and which are the seraphim?”

“Before you jump to any conclusions, I should point out that those aren’t paintings. They’re merely decals that mother purchased at a crafts fair. The woman isn’t completely insane.”

“Of course not,” I said, eyeing a bookshelf lined with Santa Claus figurines. “Are you ready to go?”

“My bags are upstairs, if you’d be so kind.”

“Bags?” I said. “You’re meeting this woman for drinks.”

“But there’s no telling where the evening will take us. I’m sure you’ll agree that a man needs to be prepared.”

“Prepared, sure. But it’s not like you’re moving in with the girl.”

“One never knows,” Greg said.

Arguing with the guy was like drowning in quicksand, so I gave up on talking any sense into him and went upstairs to grab his suitcases.

Standing impatiently at the door in his rumpled blue blazer, Greg checked his watch as I struggled with the bags and his mother pinned a lime-green carnation to his lapel.

“Isn’t my son handsome?” Mrs. Packer asked, beaming with pride as Gene Autry sang “Frosty the Snowman” in the adjoining room.

“Sure thing,” I said, setting the bags down to catch my breath at the bottom of the stairs. “A real lady killer.”

“I’m sorry, Mother, but we’re in a bit of a hurry,” Greg said, gesturing for me to keep moving. “So if you don’t mind, I’ll take my leave.”

“Of course, darling,” Greg’s mother said, following us only as far as the front door, as if stepping into the daylight might reduce her to a pile of ash. “Don’t forget to smile. And remember to mention that you’re a lawyer. Women love lawyers.”

“You’re a lawyer?” I said, hefting Greg’s luggage into my Saturn.

“Technically, yes,” Greg said. “But only in New Jersey.”