The Practical Navigator (4 page)

“So what's this about Alzheimer's?”

Penelope glances up at him. “I mentioned that, did I?”

“Yeah, you did. You left a message.
Twice
.”

The word sits a moment. Penelope touches her napkin to her mouth, returns it to her lap. “Yes, well, I was feeling just a little forgetful and so I went to see Dr. Haggarty. He said not to worry, that the human mind is like a computer and as we get older the hard drive gets filled up. Consequently, every time we learn something new, we forget something old to make space for it.”

“I didn't know you were so computer literate,” says Michael, beginning to eat.

“Mmm.” Penelope carefully swallows. “That's the problem, isn't it. I learn about things I have no interest in and to make room for them I forget where I put my keys, this lamb's delicious.”

“You're changing the subject.”

“It's boring. Let's talk about you. How's work?”

“It's all right.” The lamb
is
good.

“Liar,” says Penelope. “But at least we're working.”

“We?”

“Did I say we? I meant you.”

“Mom, do you have Alzheimer's?”

“We'll see, won't we. I did remember your birthday cake.”

The cake proves to be a chocolate scone complete with lit candle, and because Jamie for some unknown reason can't bear “Happy Birthday,” they sing “Feliz Navidad” to it. Michael makes a wish, the same wish he's made for the last several years, and blows it out.

*   *   *

It takes forever to get Jamie dressed and out the door. It has to be addressed in the right order and there are traps and snares to overcome. Underwear that has been misplaced must be found. A foot must go in and out of a pant leg a certain number of times. Heads do
not
fit through sleeves. Socks go on the right foot and then the left and it can only be determined if it is the
correct
sock assigned to the correct foot once it is
on
the foot. After innumerable stops and starts and sputters and squawks, they stand in the light on the front stoop beginning what Michael thinks of as the curtain scene.

“Thanks, Mom. Good night.”

“Thank
you,
darling. Shall we do it again tomorrow?”

“Well, not
tomorrow
.”

“I want to,” says Jamie.

“Later this week then, darling.”

“I want to,” says Jamie.

“We'll figure it out,” says Michael with just a touch of exasperation. “Oh, and don't worry about picking him up at school Thursday.”

“Don't be silly,” Penelope says, frowning. “I enjoy picking him up.”

“Tisha called yesterday,” says Michael. “She wants to.” Tisha. Short for Patricia. The
other
grandmother.

“I want Nana to pick me up,” says Jamie, suddenly staring straight ahead.

“Thursday it's Tisha's turn. She's family too.”

“I hate Tisha.”

“No you don't,” says Michael.

“I do!” Jamie turns and runs for the front gate.

“Jamie!”

Too late. Jamie pushes open the gate, gets in the pickup, and slams the door behind him. Michael can hear the door locks click into place.

“I don't blame him,” says Penelope. “If it wasn't against the law, that woman would have devoured her own children at birth.”

“She thinks a lot of you too.”

Penelope's tone is dismissive. “I could care less what she thinks. As long as you do. Think of me, that is.”

Michael smiles. “I do.” Kissing his mother's cheek, he turns and moves down the brick walk toward the gate. As he comes out to the truck, Jamie unlocks the door and rolls down the window. He leans out. “I love you, Nana!” he calls.

Penelope has been waiting for it. “And I, you, Jamie, my dove! Sleep well, my sweet! And may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!”

Michael remembering that she used to say the same thing to him at bedtime when he was a boy, and until he was forced to study Shakespeare in high school, he assumed, because it wasn't at all beyond her, that Penelope had made it up herself.

 

6

“‘Then something began to hurt Mowgli inside him”—Michael reads out loud—“as he had never been hurt before and he caught his breath and sobbed and the tears ran down his face.'”

It's not Shakespeare. It's
The Jungle Book
by Rudyard Kipling. It's Jamie's favorite and though Michael constantly suggests other books—
Tom Sawyer, Twenty Thousand Leagues, Lemony Snicket
—Jamie insists it be read every night.

“‘What is it? What is it?” he said. “I do not wish to leave the jungle and I do not know what this is? Am I dying, Baghera?'”

“‘No, Little Brother. Those are only tears such as men use.'”

Lately Michael wonders if Jamie isn't too old to be read to, too old for Michael to be curled up next to him on the narrow bed.

“‘So Mowgli sat and cried as though his heart would break and he had never cried in all his life before.'”

Jamie hasn't cried since he was a baby. The falls and bruises that would bring any other child to tears have always left him seemingly puzzled, as if they were something unfathomable that needed to be figured out.

“‘Now,” he said, “I will go to men. But first I must say farewell to my mother.'”

Both of them know that as Mowgli says good-bye, he will cry on her coat. “I loved thee more than ever I loved my cubs,” she will say.

“‘The dawn was beginning to break when Mowgli went down the hillside alone, to meet those mysterious things called men.'” Michael closes the book. “Bedtime, bub.” He quickly rises.

“Where's my mom?” Jamie is looking straight ahead.

Michael is aware of the sudden tension in his stomach. A tug. A flutter.

“You know the answer to that, Jamie.”

“She's working.”

“Yes.”

“She's traveling.”

“Yes.”

“She's out in the world of men,” says Jamie, “and she is busy but she loves me.”

Thank you, Mr. Kipling.

“You got it.”

“I want to sleep.”

He quickly rolls away. Michael turns off the light. He bends to kiss Jamie.

“'Night, little man.”

Jamie doesn't answer. The light in the bathroom is on and Michael moves around the bed and goes in to turn it off. There are clippings taped on the tile above the counter. Michael doesn't have to look at them to know they're there. One is an old cover from
Surfing
magazine. A younger Michael cuts across the face of a wave.
Michael Hodge at Pipeline.
On it, Jamie has scrawled a word in clumsy Magic Marker.

DAD.

Next to the cover is an old print ad from a magazine. The woman in the photo, a blond young mother holding a baby, is beautiful, confident, and serene in the way that mothers can only be in the minds of advertisers.

MOM.

Out in the world of men.

 

Navigation is the blending of both science and art. The science of navigation can be taught, but the art of navigation must be developed from experience.

 

7

Making an abrupt left turn from the right lane, Anita Beacham cuts off a Mercedes SUV and pulls her Toyota Prius into the parking place, nose in to the curb. The woman in the Mercedes, children in the backseat behind her, gives an angry bleat on the horn. Another. Anita ignores her and the woman finally drives on. Every man and woman for him or herself. Anita's been cruising up and down this goddamn, silly street for the last twenty minutes, waiting to park somewhere, anywhere, close but not too close, to the entrance of the elementary school.

It might already be too late.

And now, sitting here, her heart beating
far
too fast, she realizes this isn't going to work at all. The Prius might be good on gas but it is lousy with blind spots. With the rearview mirror showing her nothing and the cars tight on either side of her, she can't see the school or the children being dropped off. She could get out of the car and stand but she's not willing to expose herself. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.

She turns in her seat. Craning her neck, she looks out the rear window. Between the slowly passing cars, she can see the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. Maybe she'll see them pass. Even a glimpse would do for the time being. Maybe that's all she wants or needs. Maybe.

Ten minutes later, the sidewalks having cleared and the street traffic settled, and having seen nothing and no one she remotely cares about, Anita starts the car up, backs out of the stolen parking place, and leaves.

The old coffee shop with its wooden porch and tile-topped tables, its chess sets and young, tattooed waitstaff, is thankfully still there on Girard, and Anita orders a Keith Richards. It is three shots of strong espresso mixed with white hot chocolate and Anita's been contemplating one for over a month now. She sits at a small corner table outside. The resident sparrows, all half tame, flap and swoop, stopping fearlessly for muffin crumbs. Across the porch several men check her out. They're professional coffee drinkers pretending to be intellectuals and they'll spend half the day here going for cheap refills. Anita is used to men's glances but these both annoy and depress her. It took her forever to decide what to wear this morning. She wanted to be casual but presentable. Attractive but asexual. Flowing skirt or tailored slacks? Sneakers and jeans? It probably doesn't matter. Attractive is easy, asexual is hard no matter what she wears.

There is a newspaper on the adjacent table, and rising, Anita reaches for it. Her bag falls from the table and she fumbles, trying to catch it. She succeeds only in opening it. Coins and pills scatter and fall through the cracks of the porch as the bag hits the floor.

“Shit,” Anita murmurs.

She bends to pick things up. Some of the pills are small white pentagons, slow-release Alprazolam for anxiety, and Anita, who's had two already this morning, wonders if she should go for a third. No, discipline is important in this, her new life. She pushes them down into the crack between the two boards and picks up the change.

As Anita rises and sits back she sees that a woman carrying coffee-to-go is approaching at what can only be called a fast flutter. The woman wears designer sunglasses, a low-cut sleeveless top, and the skintight yoga pants that even women who don't do yoga seem to wear everywhere these days.

“Anita? Anita, is it you?”

The woman's thrilled, breathless trill carries out over the entire porch, drawing stares, and Anita tries not to cringe.

“Oh, my gosh, it is! An
ee
-ta! Well, it's
me
! Bitsy! Bitsy Grant!” The woman seems dumbfounded that Anita doesn't recognize her. Anita rises slightly, trying to force a smile. The woman might as well be from another galaxy. With a name like Bitsy, maybe she is.

“Oh, my goodness—yeah, right—hi!”

The woman's head jerks forward like one of the circling birds and her lips brush Anita's cheek. Anita has no choice but to respond in kind. Kiss-kiss.

Who the fuck is Bitsy Grant?

“Oh, look at
youuu
!” the woman warbles. “You look so
greeaatttt
!” The stranger who calls herself Bitsy Grant places a large Louis Vuitton purse on the tabletop. A thousand bucks for a leather bag festooned with ugly letters. She sits down across the table from Anita and settles back, making herself comfortable as if she and her container of coffee have nothing better to do now than stay awhile. She pushes her sunglasses to the top of her head, exposing perfectly made-up eyes. “Now, let's see,” she says, as if beginning a list. “Are you still doing your little acting thing? Oh, but then you were always so talented. That senior musical? What was that again?” The woman's voice is like a flute running scales.

“I … don't remember.” Oh, my God, where is this coming from? It was
Little Mary Sunshine
and it was an embarrassing disaster. Canadian Mounties and damsels in distress. Insufferable lyrics filled with double entendres. The highlight of her theater career.

Bitsy Grant squeezes her shoulders forward like an excited cheerleader. There is a little gold cross dangling in the middle of her exposed cleavage. The cross disappears. Bitsy Grant's smile turns her eyes to slits and wrinkles her already perky nose. “Oh, isn't it horrible how everything's changed around here? Jimmy says it's nothing but horrible retirees from the Midwest and Phoenix.”

Bitsy Grant might as well be a bumblebee flying from flower to flower speaking gibberish.

“Jimmy?” asks Anita.

“Jimmy. Little Jimmy Damon? His father owned all those car dealerships?”

Oh, God. It's starting to come back.

Bitsy fucking Grant.

“Oh. Right, yeah. Jimmy. You were … going out with him.”

“Honey, I
married
him.” Like it was a steep hill to climb. Bitsy Grant holds out a manicured hand. A diamond the size of a bird's egg and a jewel-encrusted wedding band are on her ring finger. She takes a sip of her coffee. She squeezes her boobs together again and beams. “Oh, but we are all just going to have to get together. They still do the nicest seafood buffet at the country club.”

Anita would rather go to hell than to the country club. “Yeah. We'll do that. Well, listen, it's been really nice seeing you, Bits.”

It's an invitation to leave but Bitsy Grant is going nowhere. Her face grows solemn. There is serious business to discuss, only females of the species and old friends invited. “
So.
Does Michael know you're back?”

“No,” says Anita, suddenly dreading what's to come.