I Thought You Were Dead (28 page)

They picked up speed at the crest of the hill, moving downhill toward the green, where the pin had been set in the grass just in front of the apron. They turned right at the green for the par-5 ninth hole, heading toward the tee box 518 yards away. Eventually they came back to the shore of Mirror Lake. They saw a man in a wooden canoe, whipping a fly rod back and forth in the air. He looked like a walking Orvis catalog.

“Maybe we should go fly-fishing sometime,” Paul said.

“You fly-fish?”

“I tried it a couple times. I didn't catch anything,” Paul admitted.

“Me neither,” Carl said. “I think it's a crock of shit. I think all those guys who say it's the best way to fish are lying, but they can't admit it because they've already spent so much money. Show me the fish.”

“You could be right,” Paul said.

“Paul,” Carl said, “I never said I didn't think you're smart. You're probably the smartest kid in the family, in a multiple-intelligence way. All I meant, when I compared you to a sea urchin, was that it didn't make sense that you weren't equally smart at everything. Everybody has things they're good at and
things they're not. I think I was jealous because you were so much better than me at so many things.”

“That's ridiculous,” Paul said. “I'm not better than you at anything.”

“No,” Carl said, “
that's
ridiculous. I couldn't write a book if my life depended on it. And don't argue with me — that is one thing I'm better than you at.”

“Are not.”

“Am too.”

“Are not.”

“Am too.”

Paul paused.

“Fuck you.”

“Touché. You mind if I sprint the last half mile?” Carl said. “I always try to finish with a kick.”

“So do I,” Paul said.

When Carl picked up the pace, Paul stayed next to him, though conversation was no longer possible. Paul felt good, strong, exhilarated. When Carl increased the pace again, Paul kept up, then surged ahead a few paces as the pavement flew beneath his feet. He felt weightless, the way he'd felt as a kid, streaking across the playground.

He slowed himself when he got too far ahead, realizing that although a kind of final victory was within his grasp, a chance to at last beat Carl in a footrace, it wasn't the time or place to make Carl feel any worse than he already did. When Carl caught up to him, Paul tried to stay close, only to feel his brother slow again. Then it occurred to him:
Carl
was letting
him
win.

Paul slowed. Half a block from Carl's house, both men were walking, out of breath, hands on hips, hearts racing.

Carl turned to face Paul. Paul looked his brother in the eye. Carl waggled his eyebrows.

“Dink,” Paul said, sprinting for the house as fast as he could, Carl beside him, both men racing at top speed, laughing in clouds of steam, more full of joy with each other than they'd ever felt before in their lives.

T
he Wickenden Street Café was crowded with young, happy people sipping Grey Goose martinis and manhattans and Long Island iced teas. Paul found a seat toward the back of the bar, in a dark corner where no one would see him, and told the waitress all he wanted was a cup of decaf. She grunted her disapproval.

It had precipitated all the way from Northampton, freezing rain and sleet farther north turning to rain the closer he got to Providence. It had been something of a last-minute decision to come, and against his better judgment, in terms of highway safety, but his mission was critical. The stage in the far corner of the room was lit by colored spots, illuminating a drummer and a bass player, both about twenty-five, and a piano player old enough to be their father, as perhaps he was, for Paul noticed a strong resemblance. The stage was strung with miniature white Christmas lights. At the microphone, Tamsen wore a black dress with a black sequined top, baring her shoulders, and larger earrings than she ordinarily wore, but then she had to sparkle enough for the people at the back of the room to see.

Paul knew he was biased, but he thought she sounded great, with good pitch and phrasings that were unique. Moreover, she seemed utterly confident and unafraid, though he could guess what was going on inside her.

He applauded when she finished. People were for the most part actually listening and not trying to talk over the entertainment. Tamsen looked slightly embarrassed by the applause, but pleased too. She stared at a piece of paper at her feet, then picked it up and showed the audience.

“You guys want to know why I've been squinting at this piece of paper all night?” she asked. “This is how new I am at this — look at this. It looks blank to you, right? It does to me too. I wrote my set list in a red pen. The spots are red too — my set list is invisible.”

The crowd laughed. Her stage patter seemed natural and relaxed. He knew all she had to do was be herself onstage and she'd win over any crowd. He felt proud of her. Sheila Clark had taught her well. She seemed happy, which was one of the reasons he'd come, to make sure of that. He saw a man seated at a front table with an extra chair next to him and guessed that he was probably Stephen, a nice-looking guy in a dark turtleneck. Paul would have gone to shake Stephen's hand and congratulate him, but he didn't want Tamsen to know he was there. She sang “Don't Get Around Much Anymore” and “Old Folks” and “This Will Make You Laugh.” Finally, after conferring with the bass player, she introduced the last song.

“Thank you so much for coming. You have no idea how much it's meant to me to have you here. We weren't going to do any holiday songs, because I know you've probably been hearing them in every elevator and supermarket, but we'll do this one,” she explained. “Written by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane. As sung originally by Judy Garland in
Meet Me in St. Louis
.”

“Have yourself a merry little Christmas,” she began. Paul had never listened so closely to the words of the song before. They were really quite sad, if you paid attention to them. It was vain of
him, he knew, to imagine that she was singing the song directly to him, but he indulged the notion.

He cut out quickly before the lights came up. Crumpled in his pocket was the note he'd scribbled on a napkin, to give to the waitress, to give to the singer, which read:

W
hen a fare war between airlines, and gasoline prices that were the lowest they'd been since 1949, brought the cost of a roundtrip ticket to Minneapolis below three hundred dollars, Paul bought one with the intention of going home for Christmas and surprising his parents. Only his sister Bits knew of his plan. He needed to shop for presents and headed downtown. It was just after noon and snowing lightly.

Christmas in Northampton meant crowded sidewalks and distant parking spaces, but he couldn't complain. Main Street shopkeepers walked with the extra bounce in their step that only nervous greed could put there and temporarily suspended their petty feuds, with the exception of Stanley Prochaska, the ostracized jeweler and town cheapskate who refused to pitch in to help pay for the strands of small white lights that transformed Main Street into a magical fairyland each year from approximately Thanksgiving to Valentine's Day.

Paul strolled, shopping with nothing particular in mind. He found himself in front of the window of the WindSpirit Gallery, a store featuring western art and Native American crafts. Paul looked at rings, bracelets, pins, picture stone and silver, and earrings made from porcupine quills and feathers, thinking he might find something for his sister, but it was not her style. He could imagine her replying, “What am I — Pocahontas?”

He kept moving. He bought a scarf at Betsy's Threads, and an assortment of Kiehl's lotions and potions for his mother, who liked fine soaps and skin-care products but never bought them for herself, thinking them too extravagant. He found a Gore-Tex running suit for his brother at the Runner's Shop.

UPS had delivered a package from Carl that morning, in which Paul found a Plexiglas cube containing a baseball autographed by Harmon Killebrew, with a note that read, “This is not from Santa — this is just to say thank you for all you've done, for Dad and for the rest of us. Carl.”

He bought a whoopee cushion and a fake rubber rat for his nephew Howard, then ran out of steam and went to his office, where he picked up the phone and called his brother. He asked him, just to make chitchat, if he'd finished his shopping, to which Carl replied that he'd been finished since midsummer. Of course.

“I just wanted to thank you for the baseball,” Paul said. “Did you know Harmon Killebrew had over eight thousand career at bats and not a single bunt?”

“His arms were bigger than my legs,” Carl said.

“Anyway, thanks,” Paul said.

“Well, you did a great job with Dad,” Carl said. “I don't think I could have done it.”

“What do you mean?” Paul said. He was fishing for a compliment, he knew.

“Just that your fucked-up marriage paid off,” Carl said. “All that stuff you wrote about Karen and your new girlfriend. I think it went straight to a part of Dad's brain that he didn't ordinarily use. I think that really challenged him.”

Paul had to pause. Carl had read the instant-message dialogues? How was that different from Carl reading Paul's mail? Paul had no idea that the dialogues had been saved. He reminded himself that he'd read Carl's computer files and printed out a
copy of his PINs, and was hardly in any position to condemn Carl for invasion of privacy. He had no secrets from his brother. Not anymore, apparently. Carl wasn't going to turn into somebody other than Carl, not overnight anyway. Be careful what you fish for.

“Glad I could help,” he said.

After hanging up the phone, Paul picked up the binoculars he kept by the window and looked across the street, where a couple of off-duty cops were ringing handbells next to a Salvation Army collection bucket, which seemed like a violation of the separation of church and state, but all for a good cause. He got to work. The good part about being self-employed was setting your own hours. The bad part was you never got a vacation or a day off. Today he felt focused and industrious.

He stopped writing when the phone rang, but he screened his call. The call was from a telemarketer at AT&T, his former carrier, trying to get him to switch back. He was tempted to pick up and tell the guy, “Hey — take it like a man. If I buy a Chevy, I don't get a call from Ford, whining about why I bought a Chevy.”

He picked up the binoculars again. Down the street from the cops shaking their handbells, a street musician was playing folk songs and strumming his Ovation guitar, his face tilted up toward the sky. Perhaps because of the Christmas spirit, passersby were being generous.

His phone rang again. He screened.

“Hi, Paul. It's your mother. I was just calling to check in. Right now I've got a fire going in the woodstove and I have the Christmas lights on. Carl came over and helped me put up the tree. Your sister is having Christmas dinner at her house this year, so that's where we'll be if you want to call. Wish you could be here. Harrold and I had macaroni and cheese because it was all we really felt like. Anyway, I just wanted you to know we were thinking of you and wishing
you were just a little bit closer so we could visit more often. We love you. Bye-bye.”

He was looking forward to surprising them and to eating all the traditional foods and performing all the traditional rituals. He wasn't feeling quite as bah-humbug as he had in the past. Home seemed like a more welcoming place, now that the secrets were out and the beans were all spilled.

He addressed his computer screen once more.