A Changed Man (10 page)

Next set of snapshots, same configuration: Mama Bear, Daddy Bear, Baby Bear clumped together, Sourpuss Bear on the side, all squinting into the camera, trying to look relaxed as they pose on a wharf surrounded by nautical tourist crap. The sticklike limbs of the kids angle out of their shorts and T-shirts. Here’s Bonnie in a swimsuit. She’s got a cute little body. The poor thing’s lost a ton of weight since the old man left. On her face is a fake-exasperated smile with an edge of panic. Apparently she didn’t want Dr. Shutterbug taking her picture.

With waning interest, Nolan flips through the packs of prints, watching everyone get progressively younger in a predictable series of Kodak moments: school plays, birthday parties, Thanksgivings, trips. Nolan can hardly stand this jolly time travel through the
Leave It to Beaver
life of the Kalen family. The part that really annoys him is: They take it all for granted. They think they don’t have
enough!

The Warrior gathers knowledge concerning his surroundings. At the very bottom of the box is Bonnie’s wedding portrait. In her lacy white dress and veil, Bonnie just reaches Joel’s shoulder. The darkly handsome Jewish prince stares out of the photo, while Bonnie is staring up at him. Worshipful and adoring. Nolan could have told them the marriage wouldn’t last.

There seem to be no pictures beyond the kid’s bar mitzvah, so that must have been when the show got canceled. Nolan loads the envelopes back into the box. He feels like he does after he’s come and the porn tape is still running. He can’t remember the last time he watched porn, certainly not on Raymond’s couch with the kids running in and out. Just before he and Margaret split, she wouldn’t let him turn off the TV while they were having sex. Mostly it was the nightly news. That should have sent him a message. Obviously, they had turned a corner in a road that led a long way back to those nights when Margaret would get home from work and she’d be halfway out of her uniform by the time she walked in the door.

Enough housework for one night! Nolan thinks he could sleep. His mind is still jacked up from the day, but his body is cashing it in. But wait a second. What’s that sound? His chest tightens until he convinces himself: Raymond couldn’t possibly know where he is.

The comfort is so shocking—total darkness, a bed to himself, clean sheets against his bare skin—that for some reason it takes him a while to decide if it feels good. Well, it does and it doesn’t as he lies there, tense, determined to resist the seductive, treacherous noises of the house, the comfy nighttime creaks and sighs trying to sell him on that sweetness that the housefly thinks he’s found, one second before his legs give way and he drowns in the jar of honey.

O
N A NORMAL MORNING,
Bonnie would tap on the boys’
doors and begin the delicate task of prying them loose from their dreams. She starts with Max, who’s easier. Her voice and a sliver of light are usually all it takes to persuade him to stretch out his arms. The hug is a promise that Max will be getting out of bed even as she moves on to Danny’s room, where the sound of her voice will have the opposite effect. Danny will roll away from her, a mummy wedged in the corner. Bonnie hadn’t liked it when he’d put his mattress on the floor. But at sixteen you’re old enough to decide how you want to sleep, old enough so that a mother (these days!) knows how little can be asked, knows to be grateful (he’s not mainlining heroin or shooting up his high school cafeteria!) when, every morning, her darling says, Would you shut
up?
Would you go a-
way?

Bonnie feels her shoulders stiffen before she gets to Danny’s door. At least there’s no one else around—like Joel, for example—to accuse her of spoiling the boys and letting them bully her. What if Joel had wanted custody? What will happen when Joel finds out about their skinhead houseguest? These mornings, hard as they are, could have been—could still be—stolen from her. Bonnie knows how soon it will end. A few brief years, and the boys will be gone.

On a normal morning, she would yell from the kitchen, hurling empty threats at Danny until she’s almost hoarse. No wonder the kid hates the sound of her voice. Anyway, it’s all theater. Danny and Bonnie both know he will sleep until exactly ten minutes before the school bus comes, ten minutes of frantic racing around, looking for the homework that he will accuse her of throwing out. Until he grabs his coat in a rage and leaves just as the bus driver honks a final warning.

That’s what Bonnie has to look forward to as she grimly soldiers on with her own morning, showers, dresses, brews coffee, finds
Max’s
lost homework, the papers
she
needs to take to the office, whirling through her house in a dervishlike frenzy spiked by jolts of adrenaline whenever she wonders how long it’s been since she tried to wake up Danny. Until at last she loses it and begins to scream.

But this isn’t a normal morning. Bonnie will not yell at her children with a stranger in the house. How depressing that the presence of a neo-Nazi could make a person behave more like a civilized adult. But if that’s how it is, so be it. It’s one more benefit of Vincent’s presence, of her having done what Meyer suggested. Now if only Vincent stays in his room until the boys leave for school. Bonnie puts on a longer skirt than she had planned on wearing.

She was proud of her kids last night. They handled the situation like grown-ups. But how will their maturity stand the test of seeing him this morning? Shielding them from the awkwardness of meeting a strange man at breakfast is one of the things that’s kept her from dating since Joel left. Not that anyone’s asked her, so it’s theoretical. She did endure a few sad dinners with the lonely-guy friends of friends, plus one blind date with an entertainment lawyer who spent dinner describing, in detail, what twenty years of bulimia had done to his ex-wife’s dental health.

Bonnie’s been awake since five, fully present and alert for a three-hour dark night of the soul that began with a dream so disgusting that she can hardly stand to recall it. She dreamed she was having a party and went into the bathroom and saw that the guests had been urinating in the tub, leaving those little puddles that dogs (you hope it’s dogs) leave on city streets. Stuck in one of the puddles was a pubic hair that, on closer inspection, turned out to be a micro Loch Ness monster with melancholy eyes and a tiny triangular head.

No need to wake up Dr. Freud. Bonnie knows what the dream means—her unconscious has found a way to punish her for being squeamish about Vincent sharing her children’s bathroom—without the years of expensive psychotherapy that, at the end, Joel offered to pay for. Joel always claimed she was paranoid, but as it turned out, she wasn’t.

In any case, they’ve made it through the night. Bonnie checks on the boys and is overjoyed to find them in their beds. It delights her when Danny says, “Get lost.” Look for the hidden blessing: Vincent’s presence has made her treasure the most difficult part of her day.

For once, Danny doesn’t stay in bed until the very last minute but rather comes down early and stands in the kitchen doorway, glowering at her coffee cup and at Max’s half-eaten corn muffin.

“Please tell me the Nazi’s not still here,” he says.

“As far as I know he is,” says Bonnie. “Let’s hope. That is, if you have any interest in your mom keeping her job.”

“Are you insane?” says Danny. “Bring that creep home? Was this that sick bastard Meyer’s idea?”

“Language,” says Bonnie.

“
Was
it?” says Danny.

This might not be the most opportune moment to discuss the power balance between herself and Meyer. In the past, she’s lectured the kids, perhaps unwisely, on the life of Meyer Maslow, on what a hero he is, and how lucky she is to be working for him. Meanwhile she knows that they think she’s a spineless wimp who would jump off the Tappan Zee if Meyer told her to. Well, they’re wrong. She stands her ground when it matters. Her first week at the foundation, Meyer asked if she would mind picking up his dry cleaning on her way back from lunch. It took all her courage to tell him that it wasn’t her job. That same afternoon, she returned from lunch to find that he’d sent her flowers.

So it’s not only Meyer teaching her things. It’s a two-way street. Anyway, it’s not about Meyer. How often do you get a chance to test yourself, to open your heart, to really put yourself out, by rescuing someone who needs your help?

Bonnie says, “It was also
my
idea. Sweetheart, the poor guy’s homeless.”

“That’s what
I
said,” Max pipes up.

“Fucking kiss-up!” Danny spits at his brother, making obscene kissing motions as he grabs his backpack and heads for the door.

“Bye. Love you,” says Bonnie, forlornly.

Max watches his brother go, then says, “You know, Mom, there’s lots of other homeless people we could take in. It doesn’t have to be
this
guy…”

“Honey,” says Bonnie. “You don’t get to choose. It’s not like adopting a puppy from the pound.”

“I figured that, too.” How could Max be four years younger and forty years more mature than his brother? Or his father, for that matter? Bonnie feels disloyal for comparing her kids. So what if one tries to make her life simple and the other one lives to make her suffer? Bonnie loves them both. It’s just that Max is easy. Danny’s more of a challenge, because he’s so much more like her and consequently hates her for the qualities they share.

Max shrugs and squeezes Bonnie’s shoulder. He’s already running after his brother, thinking of some smart remark (doubtless at Bonnie’s expense) that will make them friends again before Danny’s bus comes, closely followed by Max’s bus to the middle school that’s only a two-minute walk from Danny’s high school.

Vincent comes downstairs a few minutes after the boys leave. Was he awake and listening?

“Coffee?” says Bonnie. “How did you sleep?”

“Like a baby,” Vincent says. The shy half smile, the slow appreciative way he sips his coffee, the friendly silence into which he lapses reassure Bonnie that this is not the homicidal maniac she pictured at five
A
.
M
. At the same time, she has the feeling that all his expressions and gestures are calculated to reassure her.

“I slept like a baby,” Vincent says. “I woke up screaming every two hours.”

The minute Bonnie relaxes, Vincent reminds her not to.

“Joke,” Vincent says. “That’s supposed to be funny. I slept great. I feel terrific.”

“So I guess we should get ready to go.”

“Say the word,” says Vincent.

Outside, the street has been newly washed, and so, it appears, has the bright spring morning. Vincent and Bonnie get into the van.

“The dashboard light’s still blinking,” says Bonnie.

“Jap corporate greed,” Vincent says. “They have it all worked out. It’s their way of making sure you get it serviced more than you need to, and then they skim some cash off the top from the chain garages.”

“Are American cars different?” Bonnie wishes he hadn’t said
Jap.
“Different from Jap
anese?
”

“Don’t kid yourself,” says Vincent. “It’s all Jap-owned.”

Bonnie pulls out on the highway. Vaguely companionable and sleepy, like the rest of the zoned-out carpoolers around them, they ride in silence until the traffic slows and they pull up alongside a vintage Saab station wagon with Vermont plates and three rugrats swarming all over their parents.

“Child neglect,” says Bonnie. “How could they not make their kids wear seat belts?”

Vincent says, “I’ve seen statistics proving that seat belts double your chance of dying in a wreck.”

“Fasten yours, please,” Bonnie says.

“I already did,” says Vincent. “So did your kids get off to school okay?”

How nice of him to ask. “I guess so,” Bonnie says. “After the daily psychodrama.”

“Your kids think you’re great,” says Vincent.

“They do?” says Bonnie. So this is what Bonnie’s come to. She’s overjoyed because some Nazi burnout tells her that her kids like her. Of course they like her. They love her. But she can’t help wanting to know how it looks from the outside. That’s one of the many drawbacks of being a single parent. There’s no one to consult. Not that she could have asked Joel, who always found a way to point out what a fabulous parent he was and how miserably Bonnie was failing. She let the kids walk all over her. She was not allowing them to turn into
men.

“They admire you,” Vincent says.

“Really?”

“Trust me on this.” Could Vincent be conning her? Pushing her buttons? It takes a certain sensitivity to know where someone’s buttons are.

“Where did you grow up?” Bonnie asks.

“The Catskills. Liberty, Swan Lake, around there.”

“The Borscht Belt?” says Bonnie.

“The Bean Sprout Belt,” Vincent says. “My mom was a sort of New Ager.”

Bonnie hadn’t expected that, but fine, she can factor it in.

“What did your father do?”

“Died,” says Vincent.

“What?” says Bonnie.

“He was an electrician. And then he died.”

“And your mom?”

“After he passed, she cooked for all these weird hippie religious joints, ashrams and temples and shit, in return for free board and meditation lessons.”

“That’s a lot of cooking,” says Bonnie.

“Brown rice and stir-fry.” Vincent shrugs. “Not as much as you’d think. I never went for the spiritual jive. I walked in the woods. I read comics.”

“Your mom was ahead of her time.”

“Actually, she was a couple of decades behind it. I guess you could say I was sort of preprogrammed to join ARM. I mean, I got used to hanging around with nut jobs.”

“You were born to work for Brotherhood Watch.” Bonnie laughs, too loudly. She doesn’t think the foundation is full of nut jobs, though she can see how someone might.

Vincent smiles. “I guess you could say that, too.”

Vincent’s relaxed—for Vincent—as long as they’re on the thruway, but as soon as they turn off the West Side Highway, Bonnie can feel the tension growing until, by the time they’re walking from the parking lot to the office, his shoulders are raised like a prizefighter’s, ready to fend off whoever comes out swinging.

“Don’t be nervous,” says Bonnie. “No one at the foundation bites.”

“Life bites,” Vincent says.

At reception, Anita Shu’s good morning could hardly be frostier.

“Have we found Vincent office space?” Bonnie says.

“One-sixteen-B,” says Anita.

Bonnie ushers Vincent to the cheerless empty workstation they keep for temps and volunteers. The gunmetal desk is bare except for a crumpled candy bar wrapper that adds to the desolation the way a tangle of tumbleweed makes the desert seem more desolate.

“Lovely.” Bonnie grabs the candy wrapper.

“Don’t worry about it,” says Vincent.

“Will you be okay here?” The guy spent years in a hate group, and Bonnie’s asking if he can survive half an hour at an empty desk? But when Vincent throws himself into the chair with a little boy’s stagy bravado and grins and says, “Sure,” she knows why she asked. She feels like she’s dropping him off at day care. She should have told him to bring a book.

“Look, I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t you wait in my office?” An invitation she regrets at once. There’s nothing for him to do there, either, except look out the window—or go through her desk and files. Why does she keep suspecting him of wanting to rifle through her stuff?

So far everything—well, most things—indicate that Vincent Nolan is what he appears to be, that he means what he says. And yet she’s chilled by the prospect of leaving him alone with the financial records of Brotherhood Watch. Suppose he’s looking for evidence to bring his Nazi pals to prove that Jews
are
richer than the most delusional skinhead’s dreams. Or at least that’s how it might look on paper, to outsiders unaware of the foundation’s staggering expenses, of how hard it has become to raise the capital, and of how much depends on the benefit dinner.

“Don’t touch anything,” Bonnie can’t help saying. It’s what she would tell her kids, and Vincent’s grin conveys the fact that he knows that.

Leaving her door open, she heads for Meyer’s office, where, just as she feared, Meyer and Roberta Dwyer have begun without her.

It shames Bonnie that her happiness depends on the speed with which Meyer detaches from Roberta and how glad he looks to see her. She’s seen him look glad to see thousands of people he wasn’t glad to see. She’s proud that she is one of the few who evoke a genuine smile.

As always, it seems to take Roberta a moment to remember who Bonnie is, though they work together constantly and depend on one another. Bonnie needs Roberta to get publicity for the foundation, and though Roberta would rather have her expensively manicured fingernails pulled out, one by one, than admit it, without Bonnie there would be no money to pay the maintenance on her West Village co-op.