The Practical Navigator (21 page)

Despite her parents' protests, three days later, just before she is to depart, she refuses to go back to school. Eight months later, despite apocalyptic opposition, she and Michael leave for Australia. She doesn't experience a panic attack again until the day she leaves him eight years later, and when she does, she feels she deserves it.

 

35

As he drives up the hill to the country club, Michael finds himself thinking of his father. Thomas Hodge considered the occasional father-son round of golf together quality time and they were, at the very least, always memorable. Familiar with them now, Michael wonders if his father didn't have autistic tendencies because when not compulsively searching bushes and hazards for lost balls, Thomas, oblivious to situation, yardage, playing partners, and score, would hit his favored TopFlite in all directions with one of the six ancient clubs he carried, no rhyme or reason to the club selection, then obsessively hole out every putt, collect every broken tee, and fill every divot, while Michael, as calculated as his father was unconscious, would work the ball down the fairway and onto the green, often scoring bogey or better, delighting Thomas Hodge to no end.

“That is called talent, Ensign. You cannot teach that. A little practice, you'll be out on tour and I'll be caddying for you, happy to do it.”

“Sounds like a plan, Pops.”

Only it wasn't. Thomas Hodge, as confident and energized on an aircraft carrier as an astronaut on a space station, would often come down with a case of what Penelope Hodge called the melancholies when home.

“Where's Dad?”

“Swimming, darling. He's gone swimming.”

Like the father in the play Michael's class had been forced to go see in the sixth grade, Thomas Hodge was most comfortable with family at a distance. And then, Michael discovered surfing.

“Ten o'clock tee time at Sea and Air, Ensign. Ready to take the old man down?”

“Rain check, Pops. Four-foot break at Blacks.”

“Roger that.” Pushing glasses up his nose. Frowning slightly. “Another time then.”

Only there wasn't another time. Michael kept surfing and Thomas Hodge kept swimming.

As Michael pulls into the club parking lot, his truck, like his father, a fish out of water, he wishes yet again that life, like golf, gave you mulligans.

“Ten o'clock tee time at Sea and Air, Ensign. Ready to take the old man down?”

“You're on. But it'll never happen, Pops.”

And it didn't.

*   *   *

Neal Beacham looks up from his
Wall Street Journal
as Michael is led to the table in the men's grill by a Mexican waiter.

“You're supposed to wear a shirt with a collar here.”

Michael, wearing a button-down band-collared cotton shirt with his khakis, stops, staring a moment.

“Well, I guess I can leave or you can buy me one in the pro shop, Neal.”

Neal glances at the dispassionate waiter, wondering if there is such a thing as a Caucasian standoff. He puts aside his paper. “Hell with it. Sit down.” Neal gestures at the empty glass in front of him. “Another one of these, Ramon. Michael?”

“Iced tea.”

“And bring him a menu. I've already ordered.”

Nodding politely, the waiter moves away. Michael glances around. The men's grill might as well be an old folks' home for moldering, dissipated white males. One hopes the Mexican waitstaff is trained in CPR. Everywhere Michael looks he sees gray hair, rheumy eyes, and pink-flushed faces. All that's missing are metal walkers and, hell, maybe there's a check room for them somewhere. The view out the picture windows, though, is remarkable. One hundred and eighty degrees of blue Pacific Ocean racing toward the distant horizon, the village with its thoroughfares and squares of buildings and neighborhoods, all spread out like an expensive board game. It could be the South of France, where Michael once competed in a crazy barrel surf contest, only the short, vicious tube rides counting. Neal Beacham, of course, has his back to it. So do most of these satisfied old farts.

“How you been, Michael?” says Neal, reaching into a bowl for a package of saltines. “We don't see you much. Not that we should.”

“I'm getting by.”

“Need to do better than that. Too many people in this world just get by.”

“Maybe not all of us have your advantages, Neal.”

The package of crackers freezes in midair. Neal Beacham stares. “Sarcasm, Michael?”

“Not capable of it, Neal. Not smart enough.”

“Hmm.”

Michael watches as Neal Beacham opens the saltines and begins aggressively munching. “You know, Michael,” says Neal Beacham, spitting crumbs, “I always thought Anita was a fool to bail on you the way she did. You deserved better than that.”

“She had her reasons.”

“Did she? Explain them to me.”

The waiter puts down their drinks. The tea is dark and cold looking, in a tall, frosted glass. Neal Beacham's drink is clear, comes with olives, and is on ice. Looking at it, Michael realizes he's never had a noontime martini, and certainly not a second one, in his entire life. Just another reason to avoid country clubs.

“Is that why you asked me to come by, Neal? To explain your daughter to you?”

Neal Beacham sips his drink, surprised that he doesn't want to throw it across the table. He remembers now that he likes Michael. Not smart but levelheaded. Ingenuous in his lack of respect. The kind to do a lot with nothing. His own son, Neal Jr., could learn a thing or two from him.

“A one-hundred-fifty-unit housing project was recently cleared for one of the last large tracts of land in North County. The developers are trying to get their financing through the bank. We think it's feasible. They haven't chosen the contractor yet.”

“A hundred and fifty houses?”

“Roads, sewers, community center—all high-end construction. Think you could handle it?”

Michael hesitates, then nods. “Yes.”

“No, you couldn't, not in a million years. But if you took a position with the company the developers
do
choose, in a couple of years, you
would
be able to oversee a job like that yourself.”

“You could set this up?”

“I wouldn't be talking about it, if I couldn't.”

“What's the catch, Neal? Why me?”

Neal Beacham fortifies himself with another sip of cold gin. “Do you love Jamie, Michael? Of course you do. A man loves his children. Well, guess what? I don't. Each and every one of them has disappointed me. And now my daughter, who I'd like to point out is still legally your wife, has moved back home and seemingly has no intention of leaving. I want her out of my house and I want to stop worrying about her.”

“I take care of her, you take care of me? Is that it?”

“Something like that.” A different waiter—
what's his damn Mexican name?
They all look alike to him—puts lunch down in front of Neal Beacham. He's ordered the veal chop today. It comes with potatoes, and mixed vegetables. He picks up a shaker and salts the meat heavily. He looks up to see Michael staring at him.

“Aren't you going to order?”

“What if she doesn't want to come back,” says Michael, ignoring the question. “You ever thought of that?”

“Oh, come on. I'm not looking for guarantees. I just want to know you're open to the idea. And because you are, when the time comes, you'll act accordingly.”

“Do I get a bonus if I propose again?”

“Don't get snippy with me. I'm not asking for much and you know it.”

Michael stares at the old man—the old man who calmly cuts his meat, sticks a piece in his mouth, and chews, as if all they were discussing is tiddledywinks, the old man who grunts and reaches again for the salt, the shaker trembling slightly in his hand.

“What about my people?” says Michael. “I have a foreman, workers. They depend on me.”

The saltshaker stops and hovers, vibrating above the plate. “You're the one who needs a job like this, Michael. I wouldn't worry about people.” The veal is tough. The vegetables are tasteless. It's
people,
thinks Neal Beacham, who can't get anything right. “Well, what do you say?”

“I'll think about it,” says Michael.

Neal Beacham smiles tightly. “Fine. You do that.”

Pushing the menu aside, Michael rises.

“No lunch?” Neal Beacham seems surprised.

“Not hungry.” Something is gnawing at Michael and he realizes what it is now. “You know one of the reasons she left, Neal? She's never believed anyone could really love her. She has this feeling she's not worthy of love. Where do you think that came from, the feeling she isn't worth giving a shit about?”

“Is this your idea of a lecture?”

“You asked. Thanks for the iced tea.”

Neal Beacham watches as Michael turns away and crosses the dining room without looking back. Not liking him nearly so much now. Maybe it would be easier to buy his daughter a condo.

A small one.

 

36

Michael comes home to find his mother systematically rooting through garbage.

He has left the country club and Neal Beacham so unsettled, he goes to Trader Joe's to do some grocery shopping. Michael has always found the act of buying food, not so much hunting but gathering, a pleasant passage of time, and it doesn't hurt that the local Trader Joe's is next to a 24-Hour Fitness and the store is most often teeming with attractive young women in workout clothes buying premade salads and two-dollar wine. Always invigorating. Michael also likes the prepackaged meals. It's nice to have a place to go to that more than once has put exotic items like tikka masala and chicken pasta Alfredo on the kitchen table for Jamie to refuse, then reluctantly taste, and then say, finally, “I like it.” The alternative would be burgers with fries and ketchup seven nights a week.

He is checking out the ingredients in a frozen lasagna—should the beef be organic? Or is it just the kale?—when a voice assails him.

“Michael, Michael. Oh my God, Michaelllll…!”

Shit.

It is Beth Beacham. Michael can never remember her married name. She is making her way toward him, grocery cart in tow, skinny jeans turning her into a plump sausage stuffed into a too-tight casing.

Here a Beacham, there a Beacham, everywhere a Beacham-Beacham.

“Beth,” he says, forcing a smile. “Hey, good to see you.”

The wrong thing to say, far too intimate, because Beth throws her arms around him and in the middle of the frozen food aisle, in a voice husky with emotion, tells all within yodeling distance, customers, fitness trainers, and employees, “Oh, Michael. She's back, Michael. She's back, she's back.”

Beth. Sweet and somewhat goofy when sober. A drama queen with even one glass of wine inside her. And obviously it's already been cocktail hour somewhere in the world today.

“Oh, Michael, Michael, Michael…”

“Yeah, I know, I know,” Michael murmurs, not knowing anything, but nudging her back a bit, trying to establish a bubble of space.

“She's home,” says Beth fervently. “She is home for good this time. You know that, don't you?” Still nose to nose with him, bubbles be damned.

“Yeah, maybe so,” Michael replies.

“She is doing so much better.”

“You'd know that better than I would.”

“No, Michael. No.” As if horrified at the thought. “No one knows her like you. No one.”

“Yeah, well…”

Why isn't he wearing a watch when he needs one? You glance at it—oops, running late, you say. Hard to do when you've put your father's Rolex in a bureau drawer for safekeeping and these days you tell time with a cell phone. Has Neal put her up to this? He suspects a setup.

“We have just got to get together, Michael. We need to put our heads together. We need to put together a game plan, the two of us.”

“You're right, we should do that.”

Michael remembering the first time he was ever alone with Beth. It would have been the kitchen at her parents' home, with Anita in the adjacent family room watching television. Beth had pushed him up against the refrigerator, pushed a clumsy leg into his crotch, and proclaimed her availability whenever Michael wanted because “no one has to know.”

“Your sister's a little aggressive,” he'd said later to Anita.

“She always wants what I have,” Anita had said, unconcerned. “If she comes on to you, hit her on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper.”

“I am killing myself, Michael, I am killing myself.”

Michael is pulled back from his reverie by the thought of Beth's imminent suicide.

“Sorry?”

“That little boy of yours? Jamie? Oh, so sweet. We have just
got
to have him over to play with Bebe and Everett. We have just got to. And you too. Because you know how Bob feels about you. He admires you so much.”

This is news to Michael. He and Bruin Bob have said less than one hundred words to each other in their entire lives, most of them consisting of “hi,” “how ya doing,” and “bye.”

“I know! We'll have a barbecue. And we'll invite Anita. And Mom and Daddy too. It'll be family again, Michael.”

Michael, reminded of Anita's joke that if you ever find yourself thinking your family is crazy go to a state fair. And if that doesn't work go to the Beacham house.

“We'll see how it goes, Beth.”

“You're right. First things first. You have my number?”

“I'm sure I do.”

“We'll put our heads together. We'll solve this.”

“I'm sure we will. I gotta get moving, Beth.”

“I do too. Oh, Michael. So good to see you.”

“You too.”

As Michael finishes the rest of his shopping, he is aware that she is never too far away, in fact, seems to be tagging along. They hit checkout at the same time, he at one register, she at another. “We've got to stop meeting like this,” she says, making it sound like it's his idea. They walk to the parking lot. At her request, he helps her load her groceries into the trunk of her car, and when Beth abruptly hugs him and kisses him on the cheek to say good-bye, she somehow misses and tries to stick her tongue in his mouth.