The Lesson (25 page)

Gina wanted to die. No, she wanted Kevin to die.

“Oh, I see.” Kevin seemed to chew on that a second. “Well, not to worry. It’s a family event, but I’m sure you’ll fit right in. Gina tells me there will be lots of her older relatives there.”

I’m going to kill you! With my bare hands!

Kevin turned back to Gina. “I just came by to see if you wanted to do anything after the New Year’s Eve party, maybe go out for coffee. I figured you’d get bored and want to go home early.” He jerked his head toward Burk as he said this.

“All my Sicilian relatives will be there. I’m sure there won’t be a dull moment,” said Gina. She had to fight a primitive urge not to reach out and shake Kevin by both shoulders.

“It looks like you two have a really big night planned,” Kevin said as his eyes took in Gina’s flirty evening attire. Then he shifted his eyes with unnecessary drama to Burk’s white cane.

Being blind, Burk may have missed Kevin’s subtle sarcasm but Gina did not. Good thing Burk couldn’t see her glaring at Kevin.

“Burk, you look so handsome in that suit and that classy boutonnière,” gushed Gina. “Thank you for going to so much trouble. You make me feel special.” Gina fairly cooed toward Burk while shooting daggers at Kevin.

Burk managed a weak smile and pushed the corsage toward her voice. “I hope it complements your dress.”

“I’ll tell you all about my outfit on the way to the party,” said Gina, her eyes still lasing Kevin. “Kevin, I have to ask you to excuse us or we’ll be late.”

“Yes. I should go,” said Kevin. He turned to Burk, “Happy New Year, and … break a leg, pal.”

Gina gave him an angry look that said, “That’s enough, Kevin!”

Kevin grinned at Gina, clearly enjoying his verbal victory. But Burk just stood there, silent. Gina was certain he was stung by every word; he was very smart—he had a doctorate. But to spare his feelings she didn’t say a thing. She just continued to glare at Kevin. Then Kevin turned and headed down the walkway to his dreadful little noisemaker, got in, and turned the key. But before he went smugly on his way, he leaned through the passenger window and waved at Gina and smiled—ridiculously.

She ignored him.

#

Gina saw the stares as soon as they entered the clubhouse. The shocked look on her mother’s face said it all. All five of her mother’s brothers and Gina’s Uncle Pietro were there: Uncle Giuseppe—Joe, and Aunt Peaches, who lived in the mobile home park; Uncle Cesare and Aunt June; Uncle Angelo and Aunt Beverly; Uncle Charlie and Aunt Shirley; Uncle Ralph, who had never married; and her mother’s one surviving sister, Aunt Ginny and her husband Eddie. Some of her older cousins had shown up too, though not as many as Gina had hoped. But every member of her family stopped what they were doing for several seconds to take in the picture of Gina and the middle-age blind man as they stepped into the recreation hall. Was it because he walked with a white cane or because he was twice her age? She wasn’t sure.

Nevertheless, she would not be deterred. She took Burk on a round of introductions. Her relatives were polite to a fault. It was their way. But she saw the discomfiture in their faces and hoped Burk could not sense their reserve. Thankfully Burk, experienced with all the awkward situations involved in being blind, extended his hand first so they wouldn’t be embarrassed by not knowing whether to extend a hand to a man who could not see it.

“It’s all decorated, Burk. There are crepe paper streamers with delicate metallic bursts like fireworks hanging from the ceiling. Nice.”

Burk nodded an acknowledgment. Actually Gina thought the room looked like a high school prom from the 1950s, but there was no need to share that with Burk. And there was lots of food: chips and dip, vegetable trays, roast beef and ham, macaroni and potato salads, two flavors of gelatin, rolls and butter, and an array of desserts. From another corner music blared, mostly 1970s crooners like Frank Sinatra and Perry Como. Gina was disappointed mostly with the music. But after all, it was her aunt and uncle’s party, and they lived in a mobile home park restricted to those over age fifty. What did she expect them to listen to? She saw a lot
of faces around the room she did not recognize, all older. Most of the women wore shapeless black gowns. They probably all lived in the mobile home park.

Gina was taking all this in when suddenly she wished the New Year’s Eve party had been held in her parents’ home in Santa Clara, like so many family holidays in the past when she and her cousins were little and they all danced in the living room to the Beatles or the Beach Boys or the Dave Clark Five on big black records from the Cadillac-size box stereo. Or they played hide and seek in the bedrooms while the aunts and uncles and her parents played poker in the kitchen till the wee hours. It would have been more intimate and there would have been a better mix of ages. She had known there would be a lot of older people, but she hadn’t foreseen that the age difference would be quite this lopsided. She kicked herself for not figuring this out ahead of time. As she looked around the room and noted the absence of so many of her cousins her age, it occurred to her that they had figured this out already.

“Would you like to sit down?” she asked Burk. Just standing there drew attention to the fact that they weren’t visiting with anyone. Gina got the feeling that her relatives were still staring. She was certain that they were talking about Gina and her date as though he were elderly and infirm.

“Sure. You lead,” he said.

She found them a table—deliberately out of earshot of her parents—with two empty chairs, and they sat down. Burk carefully laid his cane on the floor next to his feet. Gina was bothered that he seemed so quiet tonight. Normally he chatted with her at Big Bick’s with ease. Was he still bothered by Kevin’s rude comments? She wished she knew what he was thinking, but a blind man’s eyes are silent.

“Burk, there’s a champagne fountain. Would you like a glass? Or something from the bar? Or some dinner?” Well this was a first. She was offering to get food and drink for her date instead of the other way around.

“Champagne and dinner sound nice. Just bring me whatever looks good as long as it’s lean, nothing with any heavy sauces. And if there’s salad, please make sure you get me some. Dressing on the side. Bread, no butter.”

Gina left him and got into the buffet line. She prepared two plates of food, being careful to make Burk’s as he requested, and carried them to the table. Then she filled two glasses of champagne from the fountain and carried them to the table. They ate in silence a while, and as they did, Gina looked at Burk’s face from time to time. She could look at his eyes for as long as she wished; he wasn’t embarrassed. It had not occurred to her until now how critical eye contact is for deep communion with another person. Discussing light stuff and reading menus and exchanging casual pleasantries were one thing. Really getting to know someone and looking into their soul through the window of
their eyes was another. Gina was sad to realize that she would never be able to read Burk in this way.

Frank Sinatra began singing "Makin’ Whoopee" in the music corner. The words were as painful as the tune. She tried to shut them out as they ate, but unfortunately they were seated close to the record player, which ensured that she’d hear those stupid lyrics playing in her head for the next three days. It took little time for them to eat. Suddenly the food was gone and they were sitting there engulfed in awkward silence. Her eyes swept around the room, not really seeing anything. Her mind was on the three bouquets. Why had Michael not left a note? Why had he not followed up with a phone call? Perhaps he wanted to see what she would do? Perhaps he was hoping she’d take the next step? Should she call him?

“Gina, you’d like to dance, wouldn’t you?” asked Burk.

Gina stopped woolgathering and looked at him, incredulous. “To this?”

“Not this song in particular. Any song. You like to dance, don’t you?”

“I love to dance.”

“We could dance, but you’d have to lead because I can’t see to get us safely between other couples. I’m sure you understand.”

“Actually, Burk, we’d be safer if we just sat here, period. I wouldn’t know how to lead. I wouldn’t even know how to follow. I’ve never had slow-dance lessons, and this group doesn’t strike me as the type to put on any rock and roll soon.”

They suffered through a few more old hits during which they talked little because the music was so loud. Sinatra finally shut up, and then Bing Crosby’s voice broke across the sound system in “Cheek to Cheek,” in which he droned on about being in Heaven. The wicked irony of it struck Gina as terribly funny. She started to chuckle.

“What’s so funny?” asked Burk.

“He’s in Heaven and we’re in Hell.” Gina laughed out loud this time and as she did, she made a note not to have a second glass of champagne. She always got silly like this when she drank, but not usually with just one drink. Must have been because she had arrived at the party with an empty stomach. Or maybe the lyrics were making her loony.

“Yes, this does seem like some sort of Purgatory. Do you want to go now?”

“No, said Gina. “I wanted to go a few minutes after we arrived. Family parties were better—I mean more intimate—at my parents’ house. It’s a little stiff here. But of course, I must warn you, if we leave now we’ll miss the Conga line, and I know you’ve been waiting a whole year for that.”

Burk smiled and was about to respond when there was pop of a bottle cork followed by fizzing, and then a woman yelled as if in pain. All eyes turned toward the champagne fountain. Gina too turned her head in that direction and saw her Aunt Peaches doubled over at the waist, rubbing her eye and grimacing.

“The cork! It hit me in the eye!” wailed Aunt Peaches.

Mr. Jacobs was holding the champagne bottle, looking shocked.

“Burk, I think my dad must have been trying to refill the champagne fountain and the cork hit my aunt in the eye.” Gina felt compelled to explain for her blind date’s sake.

People were rushing toward the fountain to help Aunt Peaches, and Gina’s father was apologizing all over the place. It seemed an opportune time to slip out unnoticed.

“Let’s go, okay? My relatives are taking care of it,” said Gina.

Burk retrieved his cane from the floor and Gina threw on her wrap and grabbed her purse. It felt odd to help Burk out to the car, to lead a man around. She wondered if she would get used to it if she ever had to do it all the time. Helping Burk with the menu and assisting him to a table or the counter with her voice at the restaurant was, in her desire to be a good employee, conscientious and courteous customer service. But tonight Burk was her date, and she had to admit, she was finding the switch in traditional gender roles unsettling.

The evening had not gone well, Gina thought as they drove down dark Monterey Road. That Kevin! He had gone out of his way to draw attention to Burk’s age, which had set the evening on a downer from the start. But it was her fault for misjudging this social event: of course a family party at an age-restricted mobile home park wouldn’t feel like a family holiday at her parents’ house. She made a silent commitment not to be so dumb about these things in the future. Now she had to do what she could to salvage the evening, though she could feel herself falling into a slump. She hoped Burk didn’t feel it too. To camouflage the awkwardness she decided to make small talk.

“Burk, tell me about your work at the lab in Palo Alto.” Most people, she knew, loved to talk about their jobs. And if he did the talking tonight, it just made it easier for her not to.

“It’s very important research. I work with renowned chemist Doctor Jacques Chalmers—I’m sure you know that he conducted research at University Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, a most critical volume of research—funded by an international award. You see, when one has the long list of awards and citations that he does, it is not hard to get financial backing.”

“I see.”

“Our work with the thermodynamics of enzyme-catalyzed reactions is critical to every important field: technology, defense, food production, water sanitation. Enzyme-catalyzed reactions, and learning how to harness their power, gives us the potential to change the world. Doctor Chalmers is a true visionary. He has conducted verifiable and promising enzyme research that could make their reactions as important to future technological projects as DNA is to biological research …”

It wasn’t right to woolgather when others were talking, but Gina was too preoccupied at the moment to worry about good manners. Why was Kevin so presumptuous? It had started the night he followed her home from the Menzies and it had never stopped. She had thought after they had had their long discussion in the garage that they had an understanding. He would back off a little and let her breathe. Obviously his idea of backing off and hers were not the same. She had understood that they would remain friends, like brother and sister. But he had shown up at her apartment without calling and ruined her evening with Burk. Maybe guys like Kevin had to be hit over the head with a verbal bat.
Pow! Problem was, she had already been very plain speaking, and it had not deterred him.

“Doctor Chalmers says that …”

Burk droned on but Gina heard nothing but her own internal monologue. It wasn’t like she wanted Kevin to go away; she didn’t dislike him. She just wanted him to quit thinking of her as a prize to be won. But every attempt to convey this notion fell flat. If she opened the door just a tiny bit in the form of common courtesy or ordinary civility he pushed himself through it. If she answered the phone with the idea of just talking with him to get to know him better, he wanted a date. If she spent time with him doing the most platonic of activities, he wanted a commitment of marriage. If he wasn’t so likable and fun there would be no problem. She would simply tell him to get lost and then stick with that decision.