Wedding in Great Neck (9781101607701) (16 page)

“But if it’s not your fault…” Caleb said.

“In a place like this, you’re guilty until proven innocent.”

“That’s ridiculous, Dad. We’ll just call the front desk and they’ll send someone to deal with it.”

“No!” Lincoln said. “Please don’t do that.” How to convey the sense of humiliation he was feeling? The panic? He didn’t want to call the front desk or to face the inevitable arguments about whether he had stuffed something in the toilet that had caused the overflow or should be held accountable for pulling the towel rack out of the wall. No, he just wanted to deal with it himself as expediently as possible. “I don’t want to call anyone, okay? I can handle it.” He looked at Caleb, with his custom-tailored shirt, his blindingly white Keds, and hated the words that were about to come out of his mouth. “If you’ll help me, that is.”

“All right,” said Caleb, surveying the damage. “We’d better turn this off—now.” And without showing any concern for his pants, he dropped to his knees, located the spigot, and gave it an authoritative twist. The water stopped flowing, though the bathroom and carpet were still a soaked, smelly mess. “Now wait here.”

“Where are you going?” Lincoln asked.

“I’ll be back in five,” Caleb said, ignoring the question.

So Lincoln sat on the bed, his legs pulled up and nowhere near the floor. He was ashamed of needing help from his son but grateful to have it nonetheless. When Caleb returned, he was lugging two bags; one bulged with towels. He was also dragging a vacuum cleaner.

“Where did you get all that stuff?” Lincoln asked.

“Some of it was in the trunk of my car,” Caleb said. “I like to be prepared.” He dropped the bag with a thud. “The vacuum and the towels came from the motel maid I ran into on the way to the parking lot. She was happy to make an extra twenty bucks.” Caleb began yanking towels out of the bag. “Let’s get to work.”

Together Caleb and Lincoln laid towels over the carpet and bathroom floor, and walked back and forth across them a few times. They each washed their hands in the hottest water they could stand, and while waiting for the towels to do their work of absorbing, they opened the window wide and sat across from each other on the bed.

“Thanks, Caleb,” said Lincoln. “I really appreciate your doing this.”

“It’s okay,” Caleb said. “I’ve got some baking soda in the bag. As soon as the rug is a little less wet, you can sprinkle that all over; it should help with the smell. Then you can vacuum it up later.”

“Good idea,” Lincoln said. He was resourceful, this son of his. No doubt about that.

“And I’ve got some tools in there too,” he said. “I can probably manage to get the towel rack up again.”

“You’re a boy wonder,” said Lincoln. “A regular boy wonder.”

“De nada,”
Caleb said, and his face twisted, a semaphore of pain.

Suddenly Lincoln remembered the urgency in Caleb’s earlier request to talk. “You said you needed to see me. What’s going on?”

Caleb stretched out on the bed and folded his hands very carefully behind his head, as if he didn’t want to muss his hair. “My life is ruined,” he said.

“Ruined how?” Lincoln asked. Caleb always had been dramatic.

“Remember you were asking me about work today? And I said everything was fine?” Lincoln nodded. “Well, that wasn’t true. Everything isn’t fine. And it hasn’t been fine for a while. I hate retail. I hate folding and refolding the same goddamned sweater all day long. Straightening the tie racks, buttoning suits, sucking up to customers who treat you like shit.”

“Sounds pretty mind-numbing,” said Lincoln.

“Soul numbing would be a better way to describe it. And then, as if that weren’t bad enough, I got passed up for a promotion. Twice. Both times I really thought I was going to get it, you know? All pumped up, strutting around the floor, waiting for the word from the man. Only when the word came, it was no. And I was back to stacking dress shirts and swiping gold cards.”

“You can get out,” Lincoln said. “Get out now while you still can. While you’re young.”

“That’s what I’m planning to do. I decided to go to cooking school. To become a pastry chef.” He rolled over onto his side. “The school’s in France. Mom said she would pay for it.” Caleb looked at his father as if expecting his disapproval or, worse, his scorn.

“That’s great. Just great. She’s got the money. Why not use it for a good cause? And you’re one of the best, okay? The very best. And don’t you forget it.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Caleb said wanly.

“So why is your life ruined? Sounds to me like you’ve got things pretty well figured out.”

“It’s Bobby.” Caleb dropped the name as if it were a brick.

“What about Bobby?”

“I thought he was the one, Dad. The one I’d been waiting for, the one I’d dreamed about. We were so good together. So damn good.”

“Were?” asked Lincoln, seizing on the past tense.

“We were having a great time. I introduced him to Mom and everyone; they all loved him, I could tell. He seemed to really fit in; he told me how much he was looking forward to the wedding. I even used my discount at the store to buy him a new suit, new tie, new shoes, new everything. But this morning after we went swimming, I found him making out with some half-naked guy on Mom’s payroll.” He took a deep, melancholy breath. “Gretchen was with me. She saw him too.”

“Son of a bitch,” Lincoln said, heart constricting like a fist when he thought of what it must have felt like to have seen that. “Son of a bitch.” To his surprise Caleb actually smiled.

“Yeah,” he echoed. “Son of a goddamned bitch.”

“Throws a monkey wrench in your plans, huh?”

“Totally. I wanted him to come to France with me.”

“Fuck him,” Lincoln snapped. He got off the bed and began padding around the towel-covered floor. “You go to France yourself. You go to France, and you become the best damn pastry chef in the country. Hell, on the planet, okay? You’ve got what it takes. Remember the scones? The
tarte tatin
?” He mangled the last name, the French one, but so what. Caleb knew what he meant.

Caleb swung his long legs off the bed and went into the bathroom with his tools. Lincoln followed, waiting for him to say something. But Caleb was silent, immersed in the job of screwing the shoddy thing back into the wall while Lincoln swept up the debris and deposited it in the trash.

“What am I going to do?” Caleb asked, finally breaking the silence. “I’ve got to face him tonight. We’re seated at the same table.”

“Let’s talk about that when we’re on our way to your mother’s,” Lincoln said. “I’ve had about enough of this motel from hell for right now.” He changed back into the pants he had worn on the plane, but he didn’t have another pair of shoes; he hoped the ones he was wearing didn’t smell too bad.

When they got into the car, Lincoln laid the rented tuxedo out across the backseat. When he turned around again, he saw Caleb sitting, not moving, with his hands clasped at the top of the steering wheel. Lincoln waited a beat; Caleb lowered his head until it touched the top of the wheel.

“I know your heart is breaking,” Lincoln began.

“Not breaking. Broken.” Caleb’s words, though slightly muffled, were still discernible.

“Broken, then. Broken.” Lincoln paused, not entirely sure how much of the past he wanted to dredge up. “And I know how you feel, buddy. Believe me, I know.”

“You mean—Mom?” Caleb turned his head slightly so that he was no longer speaking into his hands.

“Big-time,” Lincoln said.

“So how did you get over it?” Caleb asked.

“I didn’t,” Lincoln said, finding a strange relief in coming clean. He’d never talked to his kids about the residual mess of feelings he had for Betsy; there had never been a reason to before.

“You didn’t? Even after all these years?” Caleb sat up now; his hands, though still on the wheel, were no longer gripping it so tightly.

“Even after all these years.”

“I didn’t know,” Caleb said.

“Why would you? I never wanted to bring it up with you kids; it didn’t seem right.”

“You mean you still love her?”

“Still,” Lincoln said. “Still and always.”

“Jesus, Dad,” Caleb said. He looked at his hands like he expected to find some answer in them. “Is it going to be tough for you to see her today?”

“What do you think?” Lincoln countered. “It fairly kills me that she’s happier now. So much happier than when we were together. She really loves this guy. Even if the reason why beats the hell out of me.”

Caleb didn’t answer, but his fine, sensitive mouth twisted into a smirk.

“Oh, you think she loves his wallet, right? That it’s all about the money? I told myself that,” Lincoln said as much to himself as to Caleb. “I told myself that for a long time, because it was easier and because it let me off the hook. But you know what? I don’t think that anymore. And you kids shouldn’t either.”

“So why are you doing it?” Caleb asked. “Why are you here?”

“Why am I here?” Lincoln felt his agitation spreading like a rash. “Why am I here? Because Angelica is getting married, that’s why. And I wasn’t going to let anything—even my own goddamned broken heart—keep me from seeing it.” Sensing he might sound too rough, Lincoln began again. “It hurts like hell, but you can get through this, big guy,” he said softly. “I know you can.”

“Do you really think so?” Caleb put his head down again; his words were directed to the floor pad beneath his feet.

“I know so,” said Lincoln. “I’m positive, in fact.”

“I can’t face him. Not tonight, not with everyone there.”

“You bet you can.” When Caleb didn’t answer, he went on. “Look, what are your options? You want to kick him out now, fine. I get that. But if you do, most likely there will be a scene—a big one too. So you’ll be making a scene on the day of Angelica’s wedding. Which will hurt her, no matter how you slice it.”

“I have a reason. A good reason.”

“Sure you do. But will Angelica see it that way? And when you look back on this day, will you?”

Caleb remained silent. Lincoln looked past him, out of the window. Did the sky look a little less sunny, a shade more gray? He directed his gaze upwards. Definitely some cloud action going on up there. Was it going to rain? Jesus, he hoped not.

“Look, Dad, I appreciate what you’re trying to do here.” Caleb lifted his head from the steering wheel. “But it’s not going to work.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s different. You had time to process everything with Mom before tonight. Plenty of time. For me it’s all brand-new.”

“I know that, big guy, but—” said Lincoln.

“And could you please stop calling me
big guy?
” Caleb said. “It’s getting a little old.”

“Okay,” Lincoln said, more hurt than he would let on. “Okay.” There was a long, uncomfortable silence, in which Lincoln wished, in that idle way that recovered drunks could still wish, for a drink. He remembered achingly the way the late-afternoon light hit his whisky glass with its merry cargo of ice cubes as the sun turned the brownish liquid to shimmering gold; the anticipatory, almost tingling chill of the green beer bottle when first pulled from the fridge.
Just one
, he thought.
Just one
…

“Sorry.” Caleb interrupted his fantasy. “I didn’t mean it to come out like that. I’m just upset, that’s all. No, more than upset. I’m furious, heartbroken, and slightly out of my mind. There’s my mental state, twenty-five words or less.”

“Look, I
know
what you’re going through.” Lincoln stopped himself just in time from saying
big guy.
It was going to take him a little while to reprogram. “And I want to help.” He was almost afraid to ask the next question, but he asked it anyway. “So what
are
you going to do tonight?”

“I don’t know,” Caleb said, slipping the key into the ignition. “I can’t promise anything.”

“You’ll have to deal with Angelica,” Lincoln said. “And remember—crossing her is no picnic.”

“Angelica!” Caleb said. “What a prima donna! You’d think no one else in the world ever got married before.”

“That’s Angelica, all right,” Lincoln said.

“Dad, you sound like you
admire
her!”

“You’re damn straight I do,” Lincoln said. “In fact, more than admire her, I
love
her for being such a royal pain in the ass. That girl”—and here his heart swelled with a crazy, convoluted sort of pride—“knows how to get what she wants out of life.” Caleb laughed, even though it came out as more of a snort than anything. He started up the car, and off they went.

But wait—what had Caleb said earlier? That Lincoln favored Angelica? Christ. Lincoln wished fervently that he could take the words he’d just uttered and stuff them right back in his mouth. “Caleb, did you mean what you said to me before?” he asked. “About my loving Angelica more than the rest of you?”

“Of course,” said Caleb, eyes on the road. “Why would I have said it if I didn’t mean it?”

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Lincoln said. This, more than anything else, made him feel like a failure.

“Don’t worry about it, Dad,” said Caleb, still looking straight ahead. “I know you love me and the rest of us. We all know. But we also know how Angelica kind of casts a spell over everyone. Guys especially. Teddy calls her the sorceress. No one is immune—not even you.”

Not even me
, Lincoln thought sadly. This whole interlude had turned out to be a major bust: the toilet, the towel rack, being rescued by his son instead of the other way around. He hadn’t been able to help Caleb deal with Bobby, that cheating little turd, either. And to cap it off, hearing that his preference for Angelica was just common knowledge among his kids, one more annoying trait of his that they had to contend with. Lincoln let his eyes linger on the passing scenery. The spreading trees and verdant lawns of Great Neck sped by, taunting apparitions of wealth and privilege that he would never, ever come even close to having.

Well, he had tried, hadn’t he? Tried to be the caring, supportive dad that all his years on the sauce had kept him from being. But it looked like he was a bit late. He had no idea what would go down tonight; all Lincoln could do was stick close to Caleb and try to contain the damage. Right now there was the more immediate hurdle of facing Betsy and the Bozo. Once again the siren song of a drink,
just one, just one
, started to hum in his waiting ear.