The New Yorker Stories (78 page)

“We’ll need to go to the drugstore to get candles,” she said. “They burned out the night Drake and I had champagne and toasted our future.” She stood. She put on her hat. “I can drive,” she said.

I straggled behind her like a little kid in a cartoon. I could imagine myself kicking dirt. Some man she hardly knew. It was the last thing I’d expected. “So give me the scenario,” I said. “He wrote you a note and you wrote back, and then he came for champagne?”

“Oh, all right, so it hasn’t been a great romance,” my mother said. “But a person gets tired of all the highs and lows. You get to the point where you need things to be a little easier. In fact, I didn’t write him a note. I thought about it for three days, then I just knocked on his door.”

The candles were cinnamon-scented and made my throat feel constricted. She lit them at the beginning of the meal, and by the end she seemed to have forgotten about talking about my father. She mentioned a book she’d been reading about Arizona. She offered to show me some pictures, but they, too, were forgotten. We watched a movie on TV about a dying ballerina. As she died, she imagined herself doing a pas de deux with an obviously gay actor. We ate M&M’s, which my mother has always maintained are not really candy, and went to bed early. I slept on the foldout sofa. She made me wear one of her nightgowns, saying that Drake might knock on the door in the morning. I traveled light: toothbrush, but nothing to sleep in. Drake did not knock the next morning, but he did put a note under the door saying that he had car problems and would be at the repair shop. My mother seemed very sad. “Maybe you’d want to write him a teeny little note before you go?” she said.

“What could I possibly say?”

“Well, you think up dialogue for characters, don’t you? What would you imagine yourself saying?” She put her hands to her lips. “Never mind,” she said. “If you do write, I’d appreciate it if you’d at least give me a sense of what you said.”

“Mom,” I said, “please give him my best wishes. I don’t want to write him a note.”

She said, “He’s [email protected], if you want to e-mail.”

I nodded. Best just to nod. I thought that I might have reached the point she’d talked about, where you have an overwhelming desire for things to be simple.

We hugged, and I kissed her well-moisturized cheek. She came out to the front lawn to wave as I pulled away.

On the way back to the airport, there was a sudden, brief shower that forced me to the shoulder of the road, during which time I thought that there were obvious advantages in having a priest to call on. I felt that my mother needed someone halfway between a lawyer and a psychiatrist, and that a priest would be perfect. I conjured up a poker-faced Robert De Niro in clerical garb as Cyndi Lauper sang about girls who just wanted to have fun.

But I wasn’t getting away as fast as I hoped. Back at the car-rental lot, my credit card was declined. “It might be my handheld,” the young man said to me, to cover either my embarrassment or his. “Do you have another card, or would you please try inside?”

I didn’t know why there was trouble with the card. It was AmEx, which I always pay immediately, not wanting to forfeit Membership Rewards points by paying late. I was slightly worried. Only one woman was in front of me in line, and after two people behind the counter got out of their huddle, both turned to me. I chose the young man.

“There was some problem processing my credit card outside,” I said.

The man took the card and swiped it. “No problem now,” he said. “It is my pleasure to inform you that today we can offer you an upgrade to a Ford Mustang for only an additional seven dollars a day.”

“I’m returning a car,” I said. “The machine outside wouldn’t process my card.”

“Thank you for bringing that to my attention,” the young man said. He was wearing a badge that said “Trainee” above his name. His name, written smaller, was Jim Brown. He had a kind face and a bad haircut. “Your charges stay on American Express, then?”

An older man walked over to him. “What’s up?” he said.

“The lady’s card was declined, but I ran it through and it was fine,” he said.

The older man looked at me. It was cooler inside, but still, I felt as if I were melting. “She’s returning, not renting?” the man said, as if I weren’t there.

“Yes, sir,” Jim Brown said.

This was getting tedious. I reached for the receipt.

“What was that about the Mustang?” the man said.

“I mistakenly thought—”

“I mentioned to him how much I like Mustangs,” I said.

Jim Brown frowned.

“In fact, how tempted I am to rent one right now.”

Both the older man and Jim Brown looked at me suspiciously.

“Ma’am, you’re returning your Mazda, right?” Jim Brown said, examining the receipt.

“I am, but now I think I’d like to rent a Mustang.”

“Write up a Mustang, nine dollars extra,” the older man said.

“I quoted her seven,” Jim Brown said.

“Let me see.” The man punched a few keys on the keyboard. “Seven,” he said, and walked away.

Jim Brown and I both watched him go. Jim Brown leaned a little forward, and said in a low voice, “Were you trying to help me out?”

“No, not at all. Just thought having a Mustang for a day might be fun. Maybe a convertible.”

“The special only applies to the regular Mustang,” he said.

“It’s only money,” I said.

He hit a key, looked at the monitor.

“One day, returning tomorrow?” he said.

“Right,” I said. “Do I have a choice about the color?”

He had a crooked front tooth. That and the bad haircut were distracting. He had lovely eyes, and his hair was a nice color, like a fawn’s, but the tooth and the jagged bangs got your attention instead of his attributes.

“There’s a red and two white,” he said. “You don’t have a job you’ve got to get back to?”

I said, “I’ll take the red.”

He looked at me.

“I’m freelance,” I said.

He smiled. “Impulsive, too,” he said.

I nodded. “The perks of being self-employed.”

“At what?” he said. “Not that it’s any of my business.”

“Jim, any help needed?” the older man said, coming up behind him.

In response, Jim looked down and began to hit keys. It increased his school-boyish quality: he bit his bottom lip, concentrating. The printer began to print out.

“I used to get in trouble for being impulsive,” he said. “Then I got diagnosed with ADD. My grandmother said, ‘See, I told you he couldn’t help it.’ That was what she kept saying to my mom: ‘Couldn’t help it.’ ” He nodded vigorously. His bangs flopped on his forehead. Outside, they would have stuck to his skin, but inside it was air-conditioned.

His mentioning ADD reminded me of the ALS patient—the man I’d never met. I had a clearer image of a big-footed, bulbous-nosed clown. If I breathed deeply, I could still detect the taste of cinnamon in my throat. I declined every option of coverage, initialing beside every
X
. He looked at my scribbled initials. “What kind of writing?” he said. “Mysteries?”

“No. Stuff that really happens.”

“Don’t people get mad?” he said.

The older man was looming over the woman at the far end of the counter. They were trying not to be too obvious about watching us. Their heads were close together as they whispered.

“People don’t recognize themselves. And, in case they might, you just program the computer to replace one name with another. So, in the final version, every time the word
Mom
comes up it’s replaced with
Aunt Begonia
or something.”

He creased the papers, putting them in a folder. “A-eight,” he said. “Out the door, right, all the way down against the fence.”

“Thanks,” I said. “And thanks for the good suggestion.”

“No problem,” he said. He seemed to be waiting for something. At the exit, I looked over my shoulder; sure enough, he was looking at me. So was the older man, and so was the woman he’d been talking to. I ignored them. “You wouldn’t program your computer to replace
Mustang convertible
with one of those creepy Geo Metros, would you?”

“No, ma’am,” he said, smiling. “I don’t know how to do that.”

“Easy to learn,” I said. I gave him my best smile and walked out to the parking lot, where the heat rising from the asphalt made me feel like my feet were sliding over a well-oiled griddle. The key was in the car. It didn’t look like the old Mustang at all. The red was very bright and a little unpleasant, at least on such a hot day. The top was already down. I turned the key and saw that the car had less than five hundred miles on it. The seat was comfortable enough. I adjusted the mirror, pulled on my seat belt, and drove to the exit, with no desire to turn on the radio. “That’s a beauty,” the man in the kiosk said, inspecting the folder and handing it back.

“Just got it on impulse,” I said.

“That’s the best way,” he said. He gave a half salute as I drove off.

And then it hit me: the grim reality that I had to talk sense to her, I had to do whatever it took, including insulting her great good friend Drake, so he wouldn’t clean her out financially, devastate her emotionally, take advantage, dominate her—who knew what he had in mind? He’d avoided me on purpose—he didn’t want to hear what I’d say. What did he think? That her busy daughter would conveniently disappear on schedule, or that she might be such a liberal that their plans sounded intriguing? Or maybe he thought she was a pushover, like her mother. Who knew what men like that thought.

The cop who pulled me over for speeding turned on the siren when I didn’t come screeching to a halt. He was frowning deeply, I saw in the rearview mirror, as he approached the car.

“My mother’s dying,” I said.

“License and registration,” he said, looking at me with those reflective sunglasses cops love so much. I could see a little tiny me, like a smudge on the lens. I had been speeding, overcome with worry. After all, it was a terrible situation. The easiest way to express it had been to say that my mother was dying. Replace
lost her mind
with
dying.

“Mustang convertible,” the cop said. “Funny car to rent if your mother’s dying.”

“I used to have a Mustang,” I said, choking back tears. I was telling the truth, too. When I moved from Vermont, I’d left it behind in a friend’s barn, and over the winter the roof had fallen in. There was extensive damage, though the frame had rusted out anyway. “My father bought it for me in 1968, as a bribe to stay in college.”

The cop worked his lips until he came up with an entirely different expression. I saw myself reflected, wavering slightly. The cop touched his sunglasses. He snorted. “Okay,” he said, stepping back. “I’m going to give you a warning and let you go, urging you to respect your life and the life of others by
driving at the posted speed.
”

“Thank you,” I said sincerely.

He touched the sunglasses again. Handed me the warning. How lucky I was. How very, very lucky.

It was not until he returned to his car and sped away that I looked at the piece of paper. He had not checked any of the boxes. Instead, he had written his phone number. Well, I thought, if I kill Drake, the number might come in handy.

I also played a little game of my own: replace
Richard Klingham
with
Jim Brown.

He was probably twenty-five, maybe thirty years younger than me. Which would be as reprehensible, almost, as Richard’s picking up the teenager.

Back over the bridge, taking the first Venice exit, driving past the always closed House of Orchids, dismayed at the ever-lengthening strip mall.

My mother, again in the lawn chair, reading the newspaper, but now not bothering to look up as cars passed. I could remember her face vividly from years before, when my father and I had turned in to our driveway in Washington in an aqua Mustang convertible. She had been so shocked. Just shocked. She must have been thinking of the expense. Maybe also of the danger.

My mother seemed less timid now. Obviously, she, too, could be quite impulsive. I was just about to tap the horn when my mother stood and took a minute to steady herself before heading toward the house. Why was she bent over, walking so slowly? Had she been pretending to be spry earlier, or had I just not noticed? Then the door opened, and a man—it was Drake, that was who it was—stood on the threshold, extending a hand and waiting, not going down the steps, just waiting. He stood ramrod straight, but, even driving slowly, I got only a glimpse of him: this man who was not my father, with his big hand extended, and my mother lifting her hand like a lady ascending an elegant, carpeted staircase, instead of three concrete steps.

There was nothing I could say. It had all been decided. There was not a word I could say that would stop either one of them.

I turned left just before the street dead-ended, not wanting to risk passing by a second time. I realized that there was someone waiting to hear from me: possibly two people—the kid
and
the cop—if not three (my mother, who was probably hoping for an apology for my dire warnings about Drake). I could have made a phone call, had the evening go another way entirely, but everyone will understand why I decided otherwise.

You can’t help understanding. First, because it is the truth, and second, because everyone knows the way things change. They always do, even in a very short time. Back in Fort Myers, the transaction was all business: another shift was at work at the rental agency, and there was only the perfunctory question as I opened the door and got out about whether everything was all right with the car.

The Rabbit Hole
as Likely Explanation