I Regret Everything (16 page)

“Reetika,” I said, “Nothing would please me more than you booking this job. Life is desperately short. Savor every ice cream cone.”

“Do I look fat?”

“No, why?”

“Ice cream cones?”

“Take your pleasures. That's all I meant.”

Claude Vendler lived in Arizona. In a brief phone conversation I reminded him the wheels of probate court grind at a leisurely pace. With considerable force he let it be known close attention would be paid to the distribution of assets. To announce he is no patsy, a certain kind of rube unaccustomed to dealing with lawyers often exhibits aggression. This hostile bumpkin was like a kidney stone. Politely, I told him I would be in touch.

A few minutes later I was on the phone with Dirk Trevelyan reporting the purloined Kandinsky had been tracked down and he only needed to write a check covering his wife's debts to recover it. He was thrilled and reiterated his gratitude. Was there anything he could do for me? Briefly, I thought about mentioning my fantasy of the Best Foundation—Benefactors welcome!—but was too distracted by everything else going on. We were saying our goodbyes when a spent-looking Spaulding shuffled into my office with several cut flowers in a ceramic coffee cup. She told me they were blue phlox from her brother's garden and apologized for the previous night. It was immediately clear that the email I sent, the sad story of my mother's self-destruction, guaranteed to push anyone away, had had the opposite effect.

“Why were you texting me from a police car?”

“I was totally out of control,” Spaulding said.

Then she asked what had happened to my face. Automati­cally, I touched the bandage with my fingertips. I was going to repeat the lie about the cat scratch. Why let Spaulding know I had pursued her out of the cab like some misbegotten knight-errant, that my heroics had gotten me beaten and nearly trampled. Chemotherapy isn't exactly truth serum but the pounding the system takes can have other consequences. The flowers weakened my resolve.

“I ran after you and someone attacked me with a brick.”

“Oh, no. I am so, so sorry.”

“You didn't get hurt?”

“No, I'm fine. You really ran . . . I'm sorry to hear about your mother. You know, I was in Payne-Whitney, too.” Not only had my gambit failed to push her away, it had released waves of empathy that now threatened to engulf me. “Does that sound like I read about her in the alumni magazine?”

“I hope the email didn't upset you.” Upsetting her was the whole idea, that she would see me as too damaged to pursue and find someone more appropriate. But the sense of humor she displayed and her openness were bracing and volatile and entirely too attractive. Something burbled in my stomach. I willed the anti-nausea drug to work.

“No, it didn't upset me but I was upset for you. Did you write that whole thing last night?”

“It's from an aborted memoir. One more thing I couldn't finish.”

The sweet perfume of the flowers was narcotic. I raised the coffee cup and pressed my nose to them, then placed it back on the desk. In the aridity of my office they were a mountain meadow.

“My father was super annoyed with me when I got home.”

“You didn't tell him I was with you I hope.”

Spaulding began to relate what had happened to her since we had last seen each other, the mob, the police, the hobo chasing her, and Ed's reaction to these adventures.

“That's awful,” I commiserated.

“It was like a bad dream come to life.”

I got up and walked around my desk. While I wrestled with a desire to hold her in a full embrace, I laid my hands gently on her shoulders. We stared intently into each other's eyes separated by the length of my forearms.

“Spaulding, I don't even know what to say. Are you safe up there?”

This was the moment Reetika chose to announce the arrival of the Farood sisters, who were ready to thrash out a disagreement over their mother's estate. I quickly released Spaulding and told my secretary, who stood in the doorway regarding me quizzically, to send the Faroods in. When Reetika retreated Spaulding apologized once again for last night and I said forget it, we all do silly things. The disappointment etched on her face when I ended our exchange cut deeper than my assailant's brick but it was nothing compared to my own. Her scent commingled with that of the blue phlox and lingered in the silken air.

T
he flowers were a miscalculation considering Mr. Best had barely looked at me since my drunken lunge in the taxi. It seemed like an excellent idea to back off. When some office errand brought me past his open door it was eyes straight ahead. At night I rode the train to Connecticut and tried to not think of ways to complicate my life. My encounter with the hobo had freaked me out so it wasn't like I could go for walks. Instead, I wrote or baked or helped Marshall in his garden. I still wasn't sure if Edward P was convinced that psycho steeplechase had happened but I knew Marshall believed me. He didn't want to go out either so we spent a lot of time together watching movies or writing in our journals. When Katrina wasn't around I let him try on my clothes.

The summer workshop at Barnard was a solid anchor and forced me to get some work done. I even managed to write a few poems that weren't awful. I brought a tray of homemade cookies to the class to help further erase any memories of my appalling debut. That was the positive. The negative was that in late July I was eating dinner with my mother and her boyfriend. Dodd was fervently vegan and had persuaded Harlee to embrace veganism so we were dining at Zen Yeah! (Yes, there was an exclamation point in the name of the restaurant) on Amsterdam Avenue. In the wake of my move to Connecticut I had suggested that the two of us have dinner one night a week. This was the second time Dodd had joined us. He was around my mother's age and had thinning gray hair he liked to run his fingers through. There was a little soul patch under his lower lip and he wore gold wire-rimmed glasses. He had the baggy look of someone who used to weigh a lot more. Going from the world of finance to the world of massage was more than just a career change. He altered his diet, started exercising, shed the pounds, began meditating, and in every way became a role model for my mother. Dodd was her guru. At our previous dinner he had delivered an entire speech about colon health. I'm still not sure what a colon does but my mother listened rapturously. When I had asked why we couldn't make these meals a mother/daughter experience, she said,

—Dodd's in my life now, Spaulding, so he's in yours, too.

How do you respond to that? Why was I meant to have a relationship with whomever it was she happened to be having sex with? Seriously. It's hard to say whether it was guilt, or habit, or residual affection for my mother that put me at the table for three in the corner of Zen Yeah! but there I was picking at something orange made from tempeh. To steel myself for the dinner I'd had several drinks. It was the first time I had touched alcohol since that night with Mr. Best but this time I calibrated it perfectly. Dodd had been telling us about a client he had worked on at the spa today who insisted on keeping all of his clothes on. It was hard to pay attention.

The frigid air raised goose bumps. Laughter from a nearby table scraped the inside of my skull. When Dodd excused himself to go to the bathroom my mother put her hand on mine. The flesh on her face was pallid. There was a piece of bulgur wheat between her front tooth and incisor. Who would take care of her?

—Spaulding, do you think you might need some rest?

—What, like sleep?

That look she gets when concern and understanding are on the menu. Like she's making her eyes get all damp on purpose.

—How's it going at your father's?

—It's going fine.

—He told me about an incident. You were chased.

—By some weird-ass hobo.

My mother breathed through her nose, pursed her lips, and straightened her back, staring at me the whole time like I was a particularly complicated stitch.

—Are you taking your meds?

—I'm winding down. And I'm talking to Dr. Margaret twice a week.

—You felt pretty rested when you left the clinic, didn't you?

—It's hard to tell the difference between rested and whacked out on pills, but, okay, where are you going with this?

—Your father and I were talking and we agree that maybe . . .

—You want me to go back there?

—No. We don't. Meema and Poppy are going on a two-week cruise in the Galapagos Islands and they've invited you to go with them.

Meema and Poppy were my mother's parents. They lived in Florida and I saw them every couple of years. My grandfather had been a top guy at a corporation and liked to golf and grumble about how Obama had destroyed America. My grandmother played solitaire and smoked a lot. There was no way I was going on a cruise with them.

—For, like, vacation?

—Exactly. And then you'd stay with them down in Tampa.

When she said this she clapped her hands together in delight, hoping I was with the program.

—No effing way.

—Honey, please.

Dodd returned from the bathroom and he likely wished there had been some kind of stomach situation that would have kept him away longer when I turned in his direction and said,

—So, Dodd, do you think I need to go on a cruise with my grandparents?

—It'll be so fun! Harlee chimed. All those giant turtles!

Dodd turned to my mother in mute surprise, his face asking, Do I answer this question? She had put him in a difficult situation. He laughed the way someone laughs when there is absolutely nothing funny.

—She could rest up before school.

—You seem okay to me, Spaulding, he said.

—Dodd, your degree is in massage, Harlee reminded him.

—Body workers aren't allowed to have opinions? I said.

—Your father told me what you did to your room, all those faces.

—What does that have to do with a South American cruise I'm not going on? And they're poets, Harlee. I showed the pictures to a lawyer at Dad's firm who's a published poet and he thought the whole thing belonged in the Whitney Biennial.

—Maybe the Payne-Whitney Biennial, my mother said.

It was as if a large Pyrex cube dropped from the ceiling and sealed us in. Diners' faces moved in animated conversation, but within our enclosure was only silence.

—Did those words really just come out of your mouth?

Dodd put his hand on my mother's forearm as if to quietly say shut the fuck up right now.

—Oh, Spaulding, you have to be able to laugh at yourself.

—You're one to talk about problems, Drunky.

The slap caught me by surprise. Harlee's aim was not good and she got me with more fingers than palm but it was humiliating. Instead of hitting her back I was standing on my chair holding a glass of water. I don't remember sliding back and stepping onto the chair but there I was. Everyone should stand on a chair in a crowded restaurant at least once. It's a view most people never get. Dodd's mortified face looked up at a tightrope artist slipping. Harlee hissed words obscured by the cinders flowing out of her mouth.

—May I have everyone's attention?

They gave it. A waiter with a tattoo sleeve stared open-mouthed. A pair of lesbian moms and their twin sons gaped. A guy around my age eating dinner with his girlfriend took out his phone and snapped my picture. Forty pairs of eyes were glued to the person playing the character named Spaulding. Did they think this was some kind of performance art? Was it? What was I doing? Besides incorrectly calibrating the vodka.

—I am battling mental illness, I announced. There were some expressions of shock, a few nods, and the lesbian couple applauded. And my mother—this is her right here—just smacked me in the face because I made fun of her drinking after she joked about my issues. Several people shot disapproving looks at Harlee. Well, I forgive. So let's drink to my mom.

I lifted the glass and sipped. A handful of the diners followed my lead.

—Thanks for your attention, everyone. By the way, she's in recovery now. I'm still dealing with mental health stuff but it's getting better.

The high / view is / I hope / a one / time thing.

The chair wobbled and I felt myself losing my center of gravity. For a moment it looked like I'd be splayed in the remains of Dodd's Tofurky but I regained my balance and lowered into the seat. Dodd had his hand on my mother's back. This is usually the point where a tear runs down someone's cheek but Harlee was displaying the emotion of an Easter Island statue. The audience went back to their dinners. They probably thought we were a family of actors cutting loose. A few of them stole glances at us but the show was over.

—You're the worst, Harlee said.

Never mind her betrayal, lack of understanding, or soul-crushing cluelessness. I was horrible. Duly noted. But I swallowed this because I had made a ridiculous scene, didn't feel good about letting her provoke me, and was not going to give her more ammunition. I apologized for calling her Drunky and she apologized, too, although she wouldn't look at me.

There was a really awkward lull, what would be called a caesura if this were a poem instead of a horrible family incident. Then my mother said,

—Your father told me you were cited for disturbing the peace in the city. Seems like it's getting to be a habit.

—I don't want to talk about it.

—That's not acceptable.

—Neither is slapping me in the middle of Zen Yeah! But I'll tell you anyway. I helped someone who was about to get beat up by the police.

—You? Helped someone? She was incredulous.

—And you think that's something else I made up.

—Spall, I'm just saying. Don't be offended. We're all broken. Dodd, me, you. There's no shame in it. I really am sorry I slapped you.