The Sixteenth of June (17 page)

“I didn't really mind” was what she had meant to say to Stephen, seeing his failed attempt at reconciliation with Leo. Watching as he'd bravely offered that plate of food and been spurned.

The bartender passes her the two glasses of bubbly. “I didn't mind hearing you say what you did,” she wanted to say. “Because it was a relief, in a certain way, to hear it.”

But instead of relaying any of this to him, she had ended up talking about the ridiculous incident with June—as though Stephen didn't have more important things on his mind. She has yet to even talk with him about his grandmother. What kind of a friend is she?

A clinking of glass alerts her to the front of the room. The annual toast, she remembers, seeing Michael stand before them. Stephen is several yards away and makes eye contact with her, but there are too many people for him to squeeze through. He looks at her apologetically. Nora glances down at her two glasses, wondering what to do with the extra, then turns to the guest next to her. “Would you mind passing this down?” she asks. She points to Stephen. Somehow, the drink makes its way into Stephen's hand, and accepting it, he looks delightedly at her, as though receiving a surprise award. “Cheers,” she mouths.

Michael, at the front of the room, clears his throat. “Thank you very much for coming.” His voice is pleasant, an alto-baritone of amiability, its warmth carrying across the room.

“As you know, June and I always look forward to this day. Today marks an especially memorable Bloomsday because it is, of course, the centennial.” Here he nods up toward the banner above him, and a ripple of appreciation passes through the room.

“If you'll forgive the shameless plug, I should also mention that there's a wonderful biography of Joyce coming out in honor of the occasion, published by a charming local press.” A chuckle from the crowd, and Nora remembers the postcards downstairs on the entry table advertising the book.

“Today is also a memorable day for very different reasons.” He pauses, shifting his weight. “For those of you who don't know, this morning we buried my mother.”

Nora's breath catches. She looks around the room. June has the smile from the book plug still frozen on her face. People glance her way, surprised.

Michael clears his throat. “How strange it must seem, to hold a party the same day as her funeral. To drink champagne and chat in lieu of traditional mourning rites.” Nora's heart gallops. What was Michael doing? She tries to catch Stephen's eye, but he is watching with a detached expression. Leo doesn't look concerned, but then again, he isn't entirely sober. The silence in the room is absolute.

“It might strike some as inappropriate. The rabbi who performed the services this morning would certainly frown on all this.” Michael attempts a half smile, but the room gives him nothing in return.

“Many people would wonder why a book, of all things, deserves attention on a day like today. Or why we should have a party, for that matter. But to me”—he hesitates, perhaps sensing the vulnerable mood of the room—“to me, never before has this book or this party mattered more.

“Part of me thinks my mother would have wanted us to mourn in the traditional Jewish way.” His eyes don't meet Stephen's, but Nora can feel these words directed at him. “Tradition meant something to her. Religion meant a great deal to her. But another part of me thinks—knows—that she would have wanted death to steal off with as little as possible. She always wanted what was best for me and my sister, and I think that was her real gift. She wanted what we wanted.”

Nora hears the strain of his voice. From the belly, she thinks, imaging the air burdening his windpipe. It is what she always tells her students.

“As you know,
Ulysses
opens with a young Stephen Dedalus reflecting on his mother's death. He, too, wonders about the mourning he has denied her. ‘You could have knelt down, damn it, Kinch, when your dying mother asked you,' Buck Mulligan tells him.” This Michael reads from an index card that has materialized in his palm.

“Mulligan has little regard for his friend. His rebuke is meant to goad him, to get a rise out of him. He later offers a gruff apology, saying that he meant no offense to the memory of his mother. ‘I am not thinking of the offense to my mother,' Stephen replies. ‘I am thinking of the offense to
me
.'

“And this”—Michael tucks the card into his jacket pocket—“this is what struck me today when I went looking for answers. When I wondered why I was choosing to go forward with this party—when I was up in my office, feeling the weight of the day. Part of me was unsure. Part of me wondered if we shouldn't just cancel. If that would be the more appropriate thing.” Here, his eyes finally do meet Stephen's, and Nora understands that children can challenge their fathers as much as fathers can destroy their kids.

“I don't know that I would've noticed these lines a year ago. Certainly, I wouldn't have looked at that passage the same way. At different times I've been struck by different things. By Stephen's intellect. By Bloom's humanity. By that scene where he shits in the outhouse, the shock of that, and how it is rendered into something beautiful.

“But today I saw those lines and they were a reminder. More, an invitation. That I think not of the offense to her. That I think instead of me.

“And so I find myself thinking two things on this day, the sixteenth of June, which, like the one before it a hundred years ago, begins with a funeral but ends with something all too lovely. I find myself thinking that with death, we must remember who is left behind. We think automatically of the departed, but we must also think of who is left standing.”

Nora feels the wisp of a breeze touch her shoulder. Even at a party, she thinks. Even at a party about a goddamn book.

“Second, I am reminded that literature provides a comfort. We find solace in its pages. No one can say the right thing to me today; it is a day where words feel insufficient. But this book still speaks to me, after all this time. It always manages to reach me. And that is something worthy of being honored.” Michael pauses and picks up his champagne flute from the windowsill. The room is still silent, but in a different way.

“And so today we celebrate Bloomsday. We celebrate a book's ability to move us. We celebrate all that makes life worthy, all that makes us rise out of bed when rain and a funeral await. We affirm Molly's glorious ‘Yes I said yes I will Yes.' We celebrate this together, and in that I take great comfort. Because when all else has passed, this book will remain.”

He holds his glass aloft. “On behalf of June and my sons, Stephen and Leopold, thank you for coming. Cheers.”

And the crowd murmurs a quiet “Cheers” that is respectful but also a little uncertain, still heavy with the sobriety of the moment. June is gazing at Michael with a glow about her face, a well of feeling for her husband. Leo and Stephen are also looking at their father, Leo's expression sympathetic, nearly teary. The three of them as they look at Michael are like magnets, the ties drawing each one to him nearly visible.

That is what family means, Nora thinks. Around her, the crowd is milling, whispering. “A funeral?” she hears. “His mother?”

It is true they hadn't included her. Would it have been so hard for Michael to mention her name? Did June know that she'd been cruel? They could be aloof, selfish, without realizing it. But at times Nora catches a glimpse of beauty there. Not just beauty. Love.

Theirs was their own love. It wasn't like her mother's, protective and obvious. Maybe it was a selfish kind of love because it had trouble letting go of its own desires, but it was there. Sometimes you saw it when you least expected—not in an embrace, but in a speech. It came out before a crowd because that was their only way of expressing it. They couldn't access their sense of family at the kitchen table or in a hug before going to bed. They didn't go to the mall or to matinees. Theirs is not an everyday family. But it is a family nonetheless.

Nora's father had stood like a buffoon in the corner after the funeral. He smiled in his awkward way, nodding at guests, receiving their sympathy as if he had earned it. There was no speech.

He had started a fight with her that very afternoon. She wanted to kick herself for not having seen it coming. The dishes. She'd let the dishes go. “Your mother's funeral, and you can't even do this much?” His voice was thick with disgust. There was no thought as to what she might be going through. Was it so much to ask? To have a dad who cared?

Leo thought she was embarrassed by her parents' lack of money. He didn't see that his family's wealth is in its flaws.
That
is their luxury. Oh, they have their issues, issues that could be stretched into years of therapy should any of them seek it. But the absence of yelling, the absence of fear. To not know what it's like to have your father scream. To not tiptoe around that sleeping giant of anger, fearful of what might rouse it. To have this family's set of problems would be a laugh.

A hand snakes around her waist. “Hi,” Leo breathes into her neck. She smells the alcohol on his breath. His arm around her is heavy. “So beautiful,” he mumbles, though she isn't sure if he means the toast or her.

“I'll let you two have some time together,” Leo had said that day. Thinking she and her dad would want time alone, the way a normal father and daughter would. “Okay,” she replied, smiling weakly. “Sure.” She watched him walk down the block to the park.

Some part of her hoped her dad might be a little different when she came back inside. That he might, in his awkward way, make an effort. “So it's just us now, huh?” Or “I know this has been hard for you, Nora.” And it is this part of herself that she hates the most, the part that had hoped despite knowing better.

“You left dishes,” he said in the kitchen. “You knew everyone was coming today.”

“Here,” she whispers to Leo, slipping her arm around him. “Lean on me.”

“What kind of daughter are you?” The plate he was gesturing with fractured as he brought it down. Maybe he didn't mean to do it so forcefully. An edge sliced his finger and he looked at her accusingly, the red gash echoing his angry face. Tears sprang in her eyes.

Some air, Nora thinks, shuffling to the door. But when they reach the cool air of the hall, it is Nora who feels dizzy.

“I'll be right back,” Leo says, lumbering to the bathroom.

When she called her dad a few days later to check on him, he was irate that she hadn't called sooner. “The food's running out!” he complained, and for the first time since her mom died, Nora wanted to laugh. He wasn't trying to be intimidating or frightening. In a strange way, he was a child. Of course he didn't know how to be father. “There's this place,” Nora told him calmly, “called a
store
.” She felt strangely peaceful hanging up, as if she had dodged a bullet.

Nora knows exactly what Michael meant about those left behind, the choices you make. Her father didn't make it hard. Michael opted for a party over grief. Why couldn't she do the same?

People always have choices. It is just a matter of seeing them. She doesn't have to be her father's keeper or come running when he calls. It occurs to her that maybe this is the one perk of her mother's absence. Maybe Nora no longer has to put up with him.

The Portmans had suggested what she might have instead. Not in terms of possessions or money. But their vision of what they might be, what they might still become, had perhaps shifted some part of her to feel she had a right to expect more. To love and be loved, to not know fear. To feel her choices and be brave enough to declare them to the world.

The hall around her is filled with chatter. Above the voices, she hears June's tinkling laugh. Enough with envy, she thinks. She stands up straighter. The wall, at her back, is solid, cool. The wall at her back tells her she is enough.

Seventeen

L
eo stares at the toilet, the open bowl grinning, a white jack-o'-lantern taunting him. C'mon! it says. Leo, by the locked door, hesitates. To puke or not to puke?

That is the question.

He slides down to the cold slate floor. His dad had pulled a number on his mom with these tiles, switching the French slate she ordered for a cheaper option.

To Leo, it had seemed like a reasonable plan. When his dad held up the samples, they were indistinguishable: volcanic, rough to the touch. Leo shrugged. “Looks the same to me.” “Good man,” his dad said, cuffing him on the shoulder. When his mom spotted the cardboard box with the Oregon stamp down in the basement, she was livid. “But you didn't know when you saw the
floor
,” his dad protested. “Only when you saw the box!”

Leo closes his eyes. His mom never took stuff like that lightly. On
The Cosby Show
, Clair Huxtable would have hollered,
“Cliff!”
And Cliff, in one of his geometric sweaters, would have pointed at her. “Gotcha!” he would have said, eyes bright. By the show's end, Clair would have decided to buy a new dress with the money saved from the tile—a perfect compromise, bringing the show full circle. Cliff would protest the cost of the dress (“You spent
how
much?” he'd say, holding the receipt), but then she would step out wearing it, pausing in the doorway, and he'd make his
Oh oh oh
face, his eyes rolling back while he did a little dance with his fists. Then he'd chase her around the bedroom.
The Cosby Show
almost always ended with the Huxtables about to have sex. It was no wonder they had five kids.

Leo loved that show growing up, watching it faithfully every Thursday. How they came together, those Huxtables! They had money but weren't obscene about it. And no matter what an episode started with—a joint found in Theo's textbook; Rudy stealing money off the counter—it always ended on the right note, balance restored.

There was probably a formula for it. Some sort of way to calibrate problems and bring everyone into harmony. “Fight with judgmental brother” could go into the Cosby calculator and it would spit out a script. “Bridal wedding jitters” could be handled, no problem.

At work, Leo makes his team put together a sheet of FAQs to go with every client proposal.
This sounds great. How much is it going to cost?
and
Why the on-site visits?
They customize it for each project, a chance to show that they've been listening. It works as a cheat sheet, too, a way for the client to get quick answers after zoning out in meetings. Look! Leo always wants to say when he passes it out. Look at us already anticipating your needs!

The thing has been a hit, and Sanjay had personally complimented Leo on the idea. FAQs have their own sort of golden ratio, information and brevity and tone all in balance, with little quips to keep everything peppy. Just like on a sitcom.

You could say things in FAQs that you couldn't say in meetings. The stuff you would never say aloud was suddenly right there on paper, complete with exclamation points.
Whoa! That price sounds steep. Where's the money going?
In the polite, formal world of conference rooms, the chatty FAQs cut to the chase.

If only they could exist in real life, floating down from the ceiling when you were faced with a dilemma.

Q. If hammered, or well on your way, is it a good idea to make yourself puke? Like if you think there's a fair chance you're going to anyway? Or is that just kind of wrong?

A. Good question! We've definitely all been there. While not a great strategy to turn to frequently, it is okay on occasion to bow to the porcelain god. Chances are, if the idea occurs to you, there's probably a reason why. Just remember to hit the mouthwash!

Leo has no desire to puke, feels none of that tickle of bile in his throat. He isn't there yet. But he knows that if that last green martini is permitted to reach his liver, he will be back here out of necessity. And it won't be pretty.

Over to the bowl he goes. He gets down on his knees and thinks of nasty things: the time in third grade Marty Goldman had chased him around the room, snot running out of both nostrils, past his chin, the horror of it stretched over his lips; that time Dedalus rolled in shit, actual shit, and Leo had to bathe him in the maid's bathroom because Mom didn't want the groomer to quit. Fecal clouds had risen into the air—

Leo retches. He grips the sides of the toilet. The toilet is his friend, sympathetic, waiting with open arms.

He doesn't mind being so close to it. It is impeccably clean, except for a single pubic hair caught on the rim, pitched like a flag. It ushers in the second wave, his stomach emptying, and Leo thinks he is in the home stretch.

He sits back on his heels. He feels a debt to the toilet. How serenely it accepted what it was given. We should all be so stoic. No one ever sat there and felt grateful for the thing. No one ever thought, Well, damn, toilet, thank you.

One more. Leo feels the last of it come out. He reaches for toilet paper, wipes his mouth, then flushes.

In the mirror, his face is splotchy. He splashes it with cold water, rinses his mouth. Opens the medicine cabinet. No mouthwash, but he spots a toothbrush, his dad's, probably, and quickly brushes his teeth, the toothpaste bracing. The mint cuts into his gums and he wonders if they really put fiberglass in there or if that's a myth. Patting his face dry, he attempts to take stock of himself.

Q. Did that actually help?

A. Not really, no. Stephen was right, you haven't eaten enough. It's always a tough combo: drinks, empty stomach. Go get some food!

A tall order in view of his most recent activity. Just the thought of those oysters, that sweating mound of liver—

Leo feels the bile rise and grips the sink's edge. Steady, steady. The doorknob rattles as someone tests it. He remembers Nora waiting for him and does a last check of his reflection in the mirror. His face is flushed, but otherwise he looks good. He is wearing that shirt she likes, bright blue with thin stripes, the stripes perhaps making him look taller.

He feels grateful to Nora. She has gone easy on him today. He'd probably done fifty trips up and down the stairs that afternoon, fetching things for everyone else. But Nora mysteriously stayed off his list. She hadn't given him the wide eyes and said, “Oh,
shoot
. I totally forgot my coat back at the loft. And, well, I'd go get it, but . . .”

No one filled in that blank anymore for Leo. They didn't even let the sentence trail off convincingly. They sent him to do their bidding, not even trying to come up with a reason half the time.

Q. And why? Why do they think they act that way?

A. Because I let them.

It's true. Leo prides himself on being there for his family. He isn't especially good-looking or smart, but he's helpful. That's his role. He's so predictable in wanting to help that they no longer wait for him to offer.

Q. Does this mean that I'm a pushover?

A. Pretty sure you've answered that one for yourself, bud.

“Hey,” Nora calls out. “You okay?”

Leopold crosses the bathroom, opens the door. “Me? I'm great.” He turns to her. “Why wouldn't I be?”

She smiles. “Let's go get a drink.”

“Um. Okay.”

Leo does not bother with the Q and A's on this one.

“That toast was amazing,” Nora enthuses. She is caught up in the party, animated, and she leads him through the crowd. He estimates forty or fifty people, a good number this year. “I mean, when he started out—I didn't know where he was going with it, you know? Did you expect him to say that?”

“Hmn? Which part, love?”

Nora throws Leo a look, not fooled by his trick. “The part about the
funeral
. That part. You seemed pretty moved yourself, there. Ooh, let's just grab these.” She spots glasses of champagne ready for the taking.

“Did you eat?” he asks her casually. “Dinner, I mean?”

“I had a bite back at the loft.”

“That's good,” he says vaguely, steering her toward the food. He scans the table for something easy. Crackers, he sees happily, grabbing a handful.

“Anyway, I was so nervous for him. And you could tell no one had a clue—about, you know, today. It has to be strange, to hear it like that. To come to a party and then hear about a funeral.”

You're so pretty in your dress, he stupidly wants to tell her. It has a V-neck. Deep enough that he can see where her freckles end and the creamy milk of her skin begins. He wonders what she has on underneath. Usually it was just boring beige, but sometimes for parties she puts on something special, black and lacy.

The crackers are crumbly, dry. He washes them down with some champagne. It's okay, he tells himself. You've eaten now.

“And then, the way he brought it all together at the end—it was so sincere. It was brave of him to go there.”

Like the show, he wants to tell her. Just like
The Cosby Show
. “That's what a good speech does. A good anything. It goes somewhere weird but makes you feel like it turns out okay in the end.”

She looks at him and laughs. “My, my.”

“You look so good,” he says, lowering his voice. “So beautiful.”

“I do, huh?”

“I mean it. I couldn't stop talking to you when you were looking at—I mean, looking at you. When you were talking. To the old guy?”

Nora giggles. “Stuart? He was sweet.”

“Who is he?”

“That's Stephen's adviser. Chair of the department.” But she sees the look on Leo's face. “You're not still mad at him, are you?”

Leo looks away and drains his glass.

“You know he means well,” she says softly.

Q. Am I the toilet of this family, accepting its shit?

He thinks of the white bowl with its leering grin. “Means well. Everyone means well.”

“Come over here.” Nora draws him to the alcove so that they can have some privacy. She stops in front of the desk where Leo found Stephen earlier—a lifetime ago, it seems. She puts her hands on his shoulders and pushes him into the chair. He goes down easily.

“You never stay mad at people.”

“Maybe.” He feels strangely light in the chair, as if he might be floating.

“But you're mad at him. Over what?”

“He needs to mind his own business. He always has these opinions, like he's so high-and-mighty. He was talking about Grandma Portman one minute, and then suddenly he wasn't. He ambushed me!”

“Listen. I kept thinking about your dad today, that this was going to be an awful day for him. But I think the person hit the hardest by this was Stephen. It sounds like he was really close to her.”

“‘Sounds like' is right! None of us knew.”

“But that's his business. He doesn't owe us any explanations.”

Leo looks up at her and folds his arms across his chest.

“What?” she asks.

Q. What do family members owe one another?

A. The truth. Always, and nothing less.

“We don't know Stephen. We think we do, but he has these secrets. It's like he's a spy!”

“That's preposterous.” Nora laughs. “Stephen's not like that at all.”

“So you knew about his trips to the nursing home? And how much he loved it there?”

Leo watches her face falter. “We all have our secrets,” she replies defiantly.

“Look, my dad—you liked that toast, and I know you like him, and there's a reason. It's because he's
open
. That toast—” Leo squints. He had seen a connection ahead of him like a mirage. It fades with his approach. “You liked that toast because . . .”

“Because he was open?” Nora tries.

“Yes!
Exactly
. Because he was open! Because he came out and said what he thinks! My dad doesn't
hide
anything. He doesn't suddenly tell you, ‘Oh, P.S., I've actually been leading a double life this whole time.' ”

“ ‘Double life' is kind of strong.”

But something bothers Leo, some pesky thing. “Like before, he was talking about life insurance,” Leo says instead, ignoring the pesky thing. He pauses, slightly taken aback by his own words.

“Life insurance?” Nora repeats, puzzled.

“Yeah, with those guys. Paul. The other guy.” Leo frowns, trying to remember the name. “Gary? Greg? Anyway, he was saying he thinks it's this new thing, financially.” Leo can't make the words come out right. His dad had started in on his theory in his assured way. “Something I've been playing around with,” he said casually, and the guys leaned in to listen.

“He talked about life insurance getting traded. People could sell their policies for money.” Like if you knew you were going to die, Leo almost says, but he stops himself. Even when drunk, the traffic guard is on duty, red sign in hand.
No go.

“Life is ours to gamble with,” his dad had said. Leo had immediately seen the beauty of it. If you knew you were dying, why not cash out? You could pay the hospital bills or go on some grand adventure. Who knows? Maybe it even helped to have people bet against you. You could prove them wrong. Or you could go to the grave knowing you had paid your debt, brought a positive gain to others.

“God, that's awful. Is that really what we've come to?”

Nora doesn't get it. Insurance is like any other commodity. Why shouldn't you be able to sell it? His dad had phrased it so sensibly that you could tell his friends were impressed. Maybe even Helen, too. His dad had found the silver lining to the darkest cloud.

The minor is proved by the major, Leo wants to tell Nora. It was a small example, but it drove home a larger point. “He doesn't shy away from stuff,” Leo says. “He's never reluctant to go there, to talk about things that other people won't.”