City Boy (21 page)

Good old drunk sex. Say what you would, it had its charms. And now there would be no more of it. Jack imagined Chloe was thinking of that time also, but she only raised her glass and drank and said, “This is good. I was really thirsty.”

Jack drank also. “Yeah, it is good.” He supposed it was, for iced tea. He told himself, severely, not to sulk. “So what did you think of her?”

“Oh, she’s okay. I guess I’m a little disappointed she didn’t have us do anything less, you know, obvious.”

“Obvious?” Jack repeated, stalling. Nothing that happened had seemed obvious to him.

“You know, saying everything was about drinking. I really think that’s a cop-out.”

“Well …” He wanted to sound judicious, neither argumentative nor overly quick to agree. “I don’t think it was just that. Anyway, it was only a first appointment. Getting our feet wet.”

Chloe shrugged, seemed to lose interest. “At least something’s getting wet. God, relax. I’m not going to drink but I have to be able to talk about it without you jumping out of your skin.”

“Sorry.”

“You’re always sorry. It gets annoying.”

“Double double sorry sorry.” He raised his glass, saluted her.

“What are you—”

The waiter came by, set down a new basket of chips, and she was obliged to stop talking. “What?” Jack asked, when she didn’t resume.

“Skip it.”

“Come on, Chloe.”

“What are you so afraid of? It drives me crazy when you do that, look at me like a damned whipped dog, you don’t even realize it, do you? Just tell me what I’m doing that makes you like that.”

“You didn’t do anything. Or I mean we’ve both done things wrong over time, that’s not the point. I guess I’m afraid …” The glass in front of him showed the imprint of his hand on its moist surface. Molecules, temperature, humidity: once you understood such things, the world might explain itself to you. But what if the glass were to turn green, its contents bubble and fizz and explode in your face? “I’m afraid you’ll realize
it’s all been some kind of fluke or mistake, you ending up with me. That you made a bad decision.”

The waiter returned, set their plates down with a flourish just as Chloe was saying,
Honestly
. Again she had to pause. Jack thought he understood why people had such conversations in public places. You needed interruptions and distractions so you could hear yourself both before and after you spoke. Chloe said, “That is so ridiculous.”

Jack murmured that he was glad to hear it. Chloe said, “Honey. Look at me, please. Are you crying? Jack?”

He shook his head. His eyes and nose were thick with tears. He saw everything through their prism. It mortified him, he concentrated on keeping his face rigid so the tears would not spill over. Chloe reached across the table but he waved her hand away. “Just give me a minute.”

“Honey, don’t—”

He motioned for her to stop. If he just sat there, moment by moment, he thought he could get through it. And he did. He was spared having to mop his eyes or excuse himself to the rest room. It wasn’t crying, it was simply condensation. But he could not have been more wretched, even as he went through the motions of recovering himself, shrugging and saying, I don’t know what got into me there.

They settled down to their dinner. The food, as always, was excellent. Jack made a point of eating with good appetite. Chloe began a conversation about something that had happened at work, some minor event, minor complaint that was easy for Jack to sympathize with, impersonate disapproval or understanding, as called for, and then Chloe stopped speaking and he said, “I want to tell you …”

Chloe leaned forward encouragingly, although he could also read dread in her face, wondering what was to come next. For all her bright talk and the seeming confidence of her beauty, there had always been something skittish and frightened about her that might do damage without meaning to, and there was a limit to what he might expect of her, and he had known that from the first. He said, “Nobody is ever going to love you like I do. Whatever happens.”

“I know that.”

Then it was as if nothing else remained to be said, and they finished
their meal without distress, and drove home. Jack was thinking that it was possible they could be happy, this new, sadder happiness that would be based on knowledge rather than hopeful ignorance. It was coming to terms, it was life catching up with you. People lived like that. Got on with it. As he should and would. But he was trying to remember if Pat Rubin had said “drink” or “drank.”

I
n fact they ended up canceling their appointment with Pat. They had forgotten about Chloe’s parents. The parents regularly issued invitations to their St. Louis home, and whenever possible Jack or sometimes Chloe or sometimes both cited work, the necessity of work, and stayed away. Now they were coming to Chicago. Oh boy, said Jack, Oh boy, said Chloe. Mr. and Mrs. Chase’s marriage could best be described as loud. “They’re too much,” Chloe said. “Too much emotion and mess and melodrama. And they get the biggest kick out of themselves, that’s almost the worst part. They think they’re a stitch.”

Jack was glad that Chloe complained about them. It meant he didn’t have to. At their wedding reception, his new father-in-law danced with all the pretty girls. He announced that he’d paid for everything and was entitled to have some fun. In retaliation, Jack’s new mother-in-law locked herself in the bridal limousine. Chloe and her sister and aunts trooped back and forth between the banquet hall and the parking lot, trying to placate and intercede. Finally Mr. Chase himself went outside to shout his bullying apologies through the closed windows. “Let me in, Allison, what, you think I’m going to run off with some nymph in her teens? You should be so lucky.” Eventually he was granted entrance. The two of them emerged sometime later to dance a truly alarming tango of reconciliation. The wedding pictures showed the still-handsome Mr. and Mrs. Chase smiling, glazed with post-argument, married lust.

Now they were going to be in town for an extended weekend. They were staying at the Omni, where they could shop expensively on Michigan Avenue. Jack and Chloe had arranged a lot of exhausting sight-seeing. They would visit Navy Pier and the Shedd Aquarium and a Cubs game. They would lunch and dine and brunch. They’d take a
tour of Chloe’s office and gaze at the edifices of power and commerce. Mr. Chase had made his money in high-end real estate. He would have opinions about downtown’s vacancy rates, about development and overbuilding and square footage. Mrs. Chase would have opinions about Mr. Chase. No one would be left guessing as to what they were. There were times when they were fine, amusing even, with their banter and sniping and theatrics. And they seemed to like Jack, in the middling, resigned way you could like a son-in-law. Mrs. Chase had Chloe’s blue blue eyes, or rather, Chloe had hers. It was disconcerting to see them in that older, carefully maintained face. Mr. Chase had a full head of silver hair and the good looks of the fraternity president he had once been. He was gradually losing his hearing, but since he seldom listened to other people anyway, he remained cheerful about it. Jack found it easier to imagine them as Chloe’s older, disreputable cousins than as her parents.

Jack and Chloe cleaned their apartment like fury. They bought flowers and throw cushions and new towels. “It really looks good,” said Jack, surveying the finished result.

“It better.” Chloe had been scrubbing out the kitchen cupboards, wearing shorts and an old Northwestern T-shirt. She looked grimy but fetching, like some warped
Playboy
feature, Girls of the Big Ten Get Dirty. Chloe’s mother was not the sort who inspected kitchen cupboards, but Chloe knocking herself out was always part of the drill.

“No, I meant, this has turned into a nice place. You’ve made it something nice. Like Mrs. Palermo said. It’s always the woman who makes the house a home.”

“Mrs. who?”

“The old lady’s daughter. I told you, she complimented the place up and down.”

“I don’t remember.” Chloe brushed her hands on her shirt and took a swipe at the windowsill with a sponge. Jack bent and kissed the back of her neck, but Chloe wasn’t having any of it. Waiting for her parents’ arrival always made her irritable, although once they were actually on the premises, she’d relax and enjoy them, in a fond, exasperated fashion. But the parents weren’t due for another twenty-four hours, and she
was still distracted. Jack wanted her to see, in the splendid cleanliness and order of the apartment, in its pretty furnishings and well-loved objects, that they had accomplished something fine. He wanted her to take pride in it, take heart from it. Not that nice furniture or any of the rest of it was enough to validate a marriage, but it counted for something. He wanted Chloe to understand that. He wanted the rooms to be more eloquent than he was.

Mr. and Mrs. Chase were Ed and Allison. It had never occurred to Jack to call them anything else. “Ed, Allison,” Jack said, pumping Ed’s hand, presenting his jaw for Allison’s kiss. They were meeting in the Omni’s bar before they went out to dinner. Mr. and Mrs. Chase were established at a table by the window. From there you could look down to Michigan Avenue, which had been outfitted with a great deal of wrought-iron fencing and sidewalk flower planters. It was possible to imagine you were in Paris, that is, if you had never actually been to Paris. A waiter hovered. Mrs. Chase was drinking white wine, Mr. Chase gin and tonic. Mr. Chase announced that he was buying them a drink. Jack and Chloe ordered good old iced tea.

“Iced tea?” Mr. Chase looked as if this was a joke that needed to be explained to him.

“I’m not drinking,” said Chloe. “It’s a health thing. So how was your drive, any stinky construction?”

“Sweetheart, don’t tell me,” said Chloe’s mother.

“Don’t tell you what?”

“You’re pregnant.”

“I think I asked, how was your drive.”

“Let me look at you.” Her mother swiped at the tablecloth, peered underneath it. “Honey Bear, you’re simply skin and bones!”

“I’m not pregnant, Mom. I just want some iced tea.”

“Actually, I’m the one who’s pregnant,” said Jack. They all looked at him. “Skip it.”

“Classy place,” said Mr. Chase, looking up at the lounge’s ceiling, which was high and painted like a sky, tender blue, with a lacework of golden clouds. “You’re not pregnant. No grandpa. Boo hoo.”

“Oh stop your stupid noise, there’s plenty of time for that,” said
Chloe’s mother. “Thank God for modern birth control. Did you know the pill was first made widely available the year I was seventeen? I was fortunate in that respect. The drive up was fine, Honey Bear.”

“I don’t suppose you’re ever going to stop calling me that.”

“So, Jack.” Mr. Chase, Ed, leaned toward him over the table, and Jack leaned gamely in turn. “Don’t tell me you’re still holding out hope for those Cubbies.”

“They’ll get it together by September,” Jack said. “Wait and see. Sammy’s just getting started.”

“You’re dreaming. You know the old joke? Cubs’ schedule. Fold here.”

Jack shook his head in rueful pretend agreement. He’d been to only one Cubs game in his life. He supposed it was too late to admit any such thing. It would have been akin to admitting he’d married Chloe under false pretenses. Ed went on to talk about the Cardinals, their superior lead-off hitter, their power pitching, their advantageous lineup. As with most hard-of-hearing people, it was easiest to just let him talk. All of Ed’s enthusiasms were competitive. He was a middle-aged boy.

It was still alarming to Jack to realize that he had in-laws, and that he was now connected to these semi-strangers in certain inevitable ways. The future loomed. Jack would be the one who would convey Chloe to the emergency room when Ed had his heart attack or stroke. He’d fetch coffee and Kleenex, he’d be the one they’d count on to stay strong, that is, emotionally uninvolved. He’d help Allison sort through the insurance. He’d handle all the messier business of their declining lives. He’d confer with doctors, help select nursing homes, and when the time came, he would get them both properly underground. He’d take care of all the arrangements that Chloe and her younger sister would be too grief stricken to handle. No wonder parents looked askance at the men their daughters married. No wonder Ed made a point of bonding with him. There was a lot at stake.

Chloe and her mother were talking about Chloe’s hair, and whether she should cut it. Hair was what they talked about instead of baseball. Allison Chase said, “I don’t mean short short. More like, layers. Then
you could do more with it.” She reached out and pushed a piece of Chloe’s hair behind her ear. “You’re getting just a wee bit scraggly.”

“Jack likes it long,” said Chloe, and Jack tried to assume a manly, proprietary look. He did like Chloe’s hair long, but he knew very well that she liked it long herself.

“Oh what does he know about professional women and making an impression in the workplace. Too much hair is tarty. You don’t want to look like some stripper act, do you? You know, the ones where the girl comes out in a business suit and starts peeling down?”

“Mom, that is so weird.”

Ed said, “Now, Allison, no need to tell the kids about our little games.”

“Don’t you just wish,” said Allison, signaling the waiter for another drink. Her own hair was cut chin length. Over time, Jack guessed to cope with the graying, it had achieved a burnished, mid-blond tone with metallic highlights. It now resembled something other than hair, a space-age miracle fabric, perhaps.

“Ha ha,” said Ed. “Let’s have another here too. Mr. and Mrs. Lipton, you good? What your mother isn’t telling you, Chloe, is her enthusiasm for certain erotic—”

“Chloe,” Allison announced. “Your real father was a war hero whose life was tragically cut short at a young age. I’ve been waiting for the right time to tell you.”

Jack said, “We should probably think about dinner. It’ll take us about twenty minutes to get there, traffic and all.”

“He’s such a grown-up,” her mother said to Chloe. “Really, he’s so responsible. That must be why you married him.”

“Partly,” said Chloe, giving him a weary, comradely look. He knew she appreciated his willingness to be the straight man and allow her parents to carry on this way. He had to wonder how they behaved when there was no one around to serve as an audience. They drank too much, he believed that Chloe had either learned or inherited her drinking problems from them. They had been loving but incomplete parents, too childish and self-involved to be entirely attentive. Jack
supposed that Chloe’s own scenes and dramatics were another habit, a way of competing with them for attention. They were careless about their words and behavior in ways that made Jack wince. But damned if they didn’t seem happy together. They were a cartoon, a situation comedy, but they were happy.