Aftertaste (8 page)
Authors: Meredith Mileti
“Nice watch,” I tell him.
“Thanks, it was a gift,” he says, smiling at my raised eyebrows. “No, it's not what you think. I agreed to do the apartment of a little old matron who's been coming into the shop for years. She bought one of those hideous-looking condos on Mount Washington. I did a fabulous job. She was just trying to show her appreciation. Anyway, it's probably a fake, but it's a good one, so what do I care?”
We sit down at the kitchen table and sip our espresso. It is good, strong and hot. Neither of us says anything for a minute or so.
“Chloe's beautiful,” Richard says finally. “Your father must be over the moon.”
“He thinks she's great. Not that we've seen much of him. He came out when she was first born, and I was hoping that he'd be here for Thanksgiving, but . . .” I let this last bit hang in the air, trying to keep the resentment out of my voice.
“What about Jake? Does he see her?”
This is a dangerous question, one most people I know avoid. Probably the reason most people don't ask is they assume that when a marriage breaks up so soon after the birth of a child, that somehow the child is at the heart of it. But Richard isn't most people. And, because it's Richard, I tell him everythingâabout Jake's doomed visit, how he had to feign food poisoning the next day, how Nicola showed up sniffing around for clues, and how Jake has been avoiding me ever since.
One of the great things about Richard is that you could tell him you just ax murdered your best friend, chopped her up, and fed her to the dog, and he would flick a piece of lint from his lapel and raise an eyebrow as if to say, “And then?” This is why I know I can tell him the truth. What actually happened matters less than what I know lurked menacingly beneath the surface. Seduction was in my heart, and I know that had Jake shown even the slightest interest, I would have taken him back. Not just back into my bed, but back into my life, and for that I hate myself. For being weak and needy and for being ready to resign Chloe to a father who doesn't want her.
Up until now I haven't verbalized any of this. I've told no one about Jake's visit. I can feel the tightness behind my eyes, and I know that I'm going to cry. Richard knows it, too, because he leans across the table and covers my folded hands with both of his and squeezes, hard.
“Come on now. Enough about Jake.” Kind of him to say so when we really hadn't been talking about Jake. “It's definitely over and better for Chloe, if you ask me, that she doesn't see him.” He leans in conspiratorially. “Now, what I really want are the gory details. Spare nothing!” he whispers, his voice husky with anticipation. “Did you really claw her eyes out?” This is Richard's modus operandi. When the going gets tough, distract them. Make 'em laugh. It's a pretty good strategy.
“No, of course not,” I say, my sniffling turning quickly into a giggle. “It was her hair. I pulled some out.” It is still a satisfying memory. Richard lifts the corner of his mouth in a half smile, but doesn't say anything.
“I know, I know,” I tell him. “I went nuts.”
“No, you didn't,” he finally says, waving his hand dismissively and walking back over to the stove for more coffee. “You did what any sane jilted wife with an infant daughter would have done.
He's
the nut. An asshole, really. Never liked him. And
her,
the worst kind of slut.”
He's
the nut. An asshole, really. Never liked him. And
her,
the worst kind of slut.”
I know Richard is not just saying this to make me feel good. He'd never liked Jake, and the feeling had been quite mutual. In the early days of our marriage, Richard had come to New York fairly frequently to visit us, me really. Although Richard was always perfectly pleasant, he'd made Jake uncomfortable. After the first couple of visits, Jake usually found some excuse to make himself scarce when Richard was here.
By the time the last of the biscotti are out of the oven, we have established that just about every single base impulse I've acted upon over the last several months has been completely justified, including the debacle at the anger-management class, that particular anecdote nearly causing Richard to choke on his espresso.
Richard is still asleep on the pullout couch in the living room when the doorbell rings early the next morning. It's Hope, bearing a large Tupperware container and a plastic plate covered with a paper napkin decorated with a cartoon turkey.
“Good morning!” she chirps. She's wearing a festive green velvet robe with puffed sleeves and, for once, isn't sporting large Velcro rollers in her hair.
“Now, Mira, I thought I'd bring over the ambrosia. Oh, and I went ahead and baked up a tin of those nice crescent rolls. I thought that your friendâRichard, is it?âmight enjoy some for breakfast. And I know how busy you are this morning.” She smiles in the direction of the sleeping Richard, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I hope I haven't woken him.” Of course, what she has really come to do is spy on Richard, who I suspect is awake, because his snoring has suddenly stopped.
My suspicions are confirmed when Richard gets up mere seconds after Hope's departure. “Did I hear someone say there are warm crescent rolls?” he says, rolling over and clicking on the TV. I pour us steaming bowls of caffè latte, load up a tray with the rolls and some biscotti, and bring it into the living room, where Richard is watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade from the sofa bed. Now that he's awake, I give Chloe her busy box to play with. I climb across Richard and sit on the foot of the bed where I can keep an eye on Chloe who, intermittently, is distracted by the large floats on TV, as is Richard. Nonetheless, I decide the time is right for me to begin my interrogation. Besides, I might even get more information from Richard this way.
“So what is up with my dad?'
“What do you mean?”
“Is he okay? He seems just, I don't know, a little distant and distracted lately, and I was wondering if everything is all right.”
Richard doesn't say anything. He and Chloe are mesmerized by a giant SpongeBob SquarePants balloon floating down Thirty-fourth Street.
“I'm worried. Do you think he is all right physically? Do you think he could be sick?”
“What makes you think he's sick?”
“I don't know, nothing really,” I tell him, remembering my father's deliberate speech and his forgetfulness. “It's just that I get the feeling that he is keeping something from me, that's all. And it would be just like him to not want to share bad news like that.”
Again, nothing from Richard. He helps himself to another roll, his third.
“Has he said anything to you? Because if he has, I think you should tell me. As his only child, I think I have a right to know. He is not a young man anymore, and any time now I might have to start, you know, making arrangements for his care.”
“No, he hasn't said anything, and he doesn't look sick. Not that I have seen too much of him lately, but when I have, he seems the picture of health.”
I slump against the pillows, unsatisfied. I suspect he's lying.
Rather improbably, Richard and my father had become friends over the years. Even though I'd done my best to keep him a secret, a few weeks after we met, Richard, tired of my begging to be left off at the top of my street when he dropped me off after the Al-Anon meeting, insisted on taking me home and meeting my parents. (He's a bit of a prude and wanted to dispel any notion of impropriety should I be seen getting out of his sports car late at night by one of our well-meaning but meddlesome neighbors.) And there was a time when my mother had tried to quit drinking in earnest and Richard had actually moved in with us briefly, acting in equal parts as an older brother, AA sponsor, and friend. Richard and my dad still occasionally meet for dinner, or take in a movie, or get together on a Sunday afternoon to watch the Steelers.
Richard takes a long draft of his coffee and helps himself to another biscotti. He knows me well enough to know that I haven't given up; I'm merely considering my next line of questioning.
Richard puts his coffee mug down on the breakfast tray, folds his hands across his stomach, and gives me his full attention. “Well, have you asked him if anything is wrong?”
“Of course I have.”
“Well?”
“He said everything is fine, he's just been busy.”
He pauses a minute, then continues, “Well, then, I think he's just been busy.” There is something about the way he says
busy.
I look up sharply, and Richard quickly looks away.
busy.
I look up sharply, and Richard quickly looks away.
“Really, Mira, if your father chooses not to tell you something, if, in fact, there is a glimmer of truth to your paranoid delusions, then he must have his reasons. It certainly isn't my place to . . .”
Sensing an opportunity, I move quickly to seize the advantage. “You obviously know something, Richard.”
“The thing is, I really don'tânot for sure anyway. He hasn't told me anything, either. Your father, in case it has escaped your notice, Mira, is an extremely private person. He tells nobody anything if he can help it. I've long since stopped taking it personally, and I suggest you do the same. Do you know,” he says, looking over his half-moon glasses at me, “I've known him for almost twenty years, and I couldn't tell you his political party, his favorite restaurant, or his views on capital punishment, although I could probably guess. It also appears that I may have been wrong.”
Bingo. “What do you mean, you may have been wrong?”
“Nothing, really. Just a conversation I had with your dad a while back.”
“What kind of conversation?”
“Really, Mira, your father is a big boy. But, if you must know, it was a conversation about women.”
“Women? Why would my father, who talks to no one, talk to you, of all people, about women? Do you think he's dating someone? Why wouldn't he want to tell me that?”
“I don't know. Maybe he feels disloyal. Guilty. I don't know.”
“Guilty? Why should he feel guilty? My mother has been dead eighteen years, for goodness' sake!”
Richard ignores me. “I think I've met her,” he says, sitting up in bed. “About a month ago a woman came into the shop, said she was a friend of your father's. Browsed around, inquired about a little religious figurine, a nothing item. A little della Robbia knockoff that's been hanging around the shop forever. When I told her the price, she smiled very politely and said she'd think about it. About a week later your father came into the shop and bought it. When I told him about the woman who had been in, saying that she was a friend of his, he got funny, embarrassed, I don't know. I offered just to give it to him, but he insisted on paying. Got all stiff and formal about it.”
“Well, what was she like?”
“That's the thing. She looked young, much younger than your father, that's for sure. My age, or even younger, maybe. Very tan, lots of makeup, blond, tightly permed hair. Enormous breasts, probably fake. And she was wearing leopard pants. Can you believe it, leopard pants? Not exactly the kind of woman I'd picture your father with, which is why I didn't make anything of it. I figured maybe it was his secretary, and he wanted to buy her a gift or something.”
My father has had the same secretary for the last twenty-five years, and she is neither young nor blond. Her name is Mrs. Hudson, and although she does have enormous breasts, she also has enormous everything elseâhips, thighs, stomach, not to mention chins.
“I'm sure it's not his secretary. You've met Mrs. Hudson.”
“Don't remember.”
I'm instantly bombarded by obscene thoughts of my father and this woman Richard has described, and I give my head a violent shake. This amuses Richard, who knows exactly what I'm thinking.
“What do you say,” he says, clapping his hands and putting himself in Chloe's line of vision, “that we get dressed and hustle over to Herald Square and catch part of the parade? I've never actually been to the Macy's Parade, and what better time to go than Chloe's first Thanksgiving?”
Later, on the subway home, Richard says, “I hope we're right about your dad. It is about time he had some fun. No one should be alone.” I put my head on his shoulder and sigh. Richard and I are both alone. No partners. No prospects. “Don't worry,” he whispers. “You won't be alone for long. You are much too beautiful and much too good a cook not to get married again, if that is what you decide you want. If I have to, I'll marry you myselfâwe could be the ultimate marriage of convenience. All you need to do is get ahold of that recipe for crescent rolls from your friend Hope, and I'll be a happy man.”
As soon as we open the apartment door, we can smell the turkey roasting. I've cooked it in a paper bag (a neat trick that ensures an incredibly moist bird without basting). The smell is a heady combination of roasting turkey, and apple brandy, butter, and wild mushrooms that I've combined and rubbed on the inside of the bird and under the skin of the breast and legs. It will be delicious.
I refuse to think about what Jake is doing this year and wonder instead about my father, who is presumably eating his turkey with a woman I have never met, a woman with enormous fake breasts who owns a pair of leopard pants and who might not be much older than me. I'm suddenly sure it's a serious relationship, because you don't just have Thanksgiving with anybody. It implies a certain level of commitment.
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