Double Happiness (6 page)

Yes.

Do you have another call?

After a pause he says, What is it, Lucy?

It's Edith.

Edith?

She has pinkeye.

Oh god.

And I think the discomfort has made her a little aggressive.

What are you talking about?

She knocked a first grader off the magic snail and then sat on his head.

She sat on his head?

Yes, he made fun of her.

Well then.

So, she's suspended now, and contagious.

What do you mean contagious?

What does contagious usually mean, Philip?

Lucy is freaking out. The school nurse was sick herself and the substitute is barely a student!

Take a breath, Lucy, Philip says, Okay?

The student nurse said it could be viral! And the headmaster said Edith is becoming antisocial!

Fuck him.

Philip, sweetheart, please.

Philip listens to Gunner growling somewhere. Did you try Benjami?

Benjami is the family doctor, also second cousin once removed of Philip's and of Fatty's. They all used to share the same surname before Philip shortened his to Ben. Philip Ben. Sounds like a very nice watch, Fatty said. Lucy and Edith are Twitchells. Edith was born in a brief moment when women like Lucy were thinking matrilinealy. Philip doesn't care. Though the Benjamis do. All of them never mention it. But they are vocal about Gunner's discipline problems, and now Edith's would be communal property, too. Mixed marriage. That's the trouble. Nothing could be plainer.

The central mouthpiece on this is Fatty's wife, leaky-lips Arden. Talk, talk, talk. But even after birthing four sons, she's as beautiful as ever, really causing problems for her husband—sweet
problems, problems of driving off the lust of his friends. No one troubles Philip on this front, and he feels a moment's irritation. Feels there was something his cousin Fatty should know: the delicate, gorgeous, subtle but flamboyant superiority Philip enjoys—but to explain would somehow compromise it. Look at this property, Fayad Benjami. In Quoin, Connecticut! As soon as the renovations are done: a family gathering, in the garden, in the orchard, with lobsters!

Philip? Honey? That phone is on the fritz.

The New London train station with its brick facade and water-side arcade is a tender meeting place, but Lucy has elected to take the bus. The one o'clock sun presses hard on Philip's head, two ferry rides have given him a pink spot where the hair is finest. He shields this with his hand and waits while Gunner pants, tongue lapping over the rim of the open back window of the Voyager.

Dick's Fish Fry doubles as a bus depot. It's so hot the outdoor lunch crowd appears to wobble in their seats. An oily smell that seems bad for everyone's arteries carries on the wind. He can taste the greasy cod at the back of his throat. He's not going to worry about this. He ignores it. He can just do that. Lucy likes to say that Philip's sensibilities are exquisite. She says this with a shrug to fend off the potential jealousy of her listener. Over many a boiled dinner with Lucy's family his bludgeoned senses were acknowledged with mostly
silent approval. He'd eat the carrots and push all that odd striated meat to the side.

That's what you get for marrying a black man, said Lucy's grandmother, A lot of nonsense and rigamarole.

Philip's not black, Nana.

My eye, he's not.

And there was that shrug.

There is so much he could be doing right now. So much it irritates even to think about it, so he counts the number of gray-blue Corollas in the parking lot and that satisfies something, some need to know things, but what or why he can't be certain.

The bus is later than usual. Gunner curls down for a nap.

At last, at last, here at last! Their very own jitney, Lucy likes to say. And now that it finally swivels into place Philip agrees, it
is
very shiny and tall. A pleasant pneumatic sound to the brakes, the doors sweep open, Philip grins, genuinely happy they've arrived. But as always his smile wilts by the time Lucy manages to gather the infinite number of parcels and objects she's brought along on the trip.

Part of the freedom of having a country house is that you can travel unencumbered. Just leave the city behind and turn the key in your own special paradise. No packing required. This had been less true with their Sag Harbor house perhaps, because they'd rented it out so often, so lucratively.

Still, now, something in Lucy rebels. She hovers in the bus's deep disembarkation cavity, marshaling her mother's vintage Louis Vuitton hat cases and some half-torn bags from Gristedes. Philip should rush forward to help. But he has the thought, like a déjà vu, that it's better if she struggles with the consequences. Though twelve years of such struggle has failed to correct the problem so far.

Gunner howls at the sight of her. Howls and cries at his saviour. Reenacting, as he always does during any reunion, his memory of despair in the sad, deserted, below-Canal-Street lot: Tossed from a luxury vehicle and abandoned! Until Lucy found him! And gave him her home!

And Lucy howls back, adjusts two slipping embossed circlets on her forearm and croons. Philip doesn't need to turn his head to gauge the rapt attention of the lunch crowd. He can feel it soak into his bandanna neckerchief along with the fish fry. He examines with care the way the salt air is drying up his cuticles, so quickly! while Lucy hefts her load onto the boiling pavement. Clearing the way for Edith. His little girl. Here she is. Dressed in a darling pink gingham dress and Philip's brand new three-hundred-dollar UVB-screening sunglasses. No wonder he couldn't find them. Edith presses into his arms for a hug, her cheek against his chest, and to his credit he never once thinks: Contagious.

Pure luck squeezes them onto the ferry at the last second before the chain gets dragged across the aft deck. The ferry
groans away from the dock while a string of black and silver and white German-made cars rev along the shoreline. Nothing for them but the stink of fuel in the breeze. Philip was right to buy American. When his partner found that old Porsche— so cheap, such low mileage, no rust!—his partner said, Let's make it the Official Vehicle. What better way to say form and function?

He pronounced it
foam auction
. Some lack of emphasis or articulation. This, like so much else, bugged Philip. But by the time Philip was through with him, he'd be
living
in the rust-free collectible. His artist wife will really get into
that
. Philip laughs out loud.

Lucy turns to see what the hell could be so funny. Edith is doubled over, head between her adorable sunburned knees. Sea-sick? Philip mouths. They've barely left the cove.

Lucy's eyes looks grave. Here's Philip enjoying a private joke, and now from the back of the Voyager, Gunner warms up for a croon.

Gunner, please, I'm begging you, whispers Lucy. And Gunner lifts his muzzle, laps back the yelp.

Good boy, Lucy sighs, leaning back. Good, good boy.

Edith folds into Lucy's lap, her delicate shoulder blades heave convincingly, authentically, under the pink and white checks of her sundress. Lucy strokes the pale tips of Edith's braids. Philip hopes she won't vomit on his sunglasses. And instantly hates himself: he's a horrible person, unworthy of all his good
fortune and talent. Just a total crap of a human being. Fatty always said so, but that was in jest, back when Fatty had a sense of humor. And only after Philip had plied him with too much food and drink. Like at the end of the nice farewell to Sag Harbor dinner.

You're a dick, Fatty raised a tumbler of vodka and lime. To the biggest dick of them all. Fatty had crab meat stuck in his teeth.

But who was Fatty to be casting any big stones? Hadn't it all been his idea?
Look at the lease
, said Fatty, like an oracle. Just look at the lease! And he had, they both had, and they thought hard about Edith's unexpected crawl. Straight over the “patio” and into the square of cement they euphemistically called the “lily-pond” but which could readily be reinterpreted as the “pool.”

What a scene! His darling, barely nine months old, tumbling forward into a miniature, but still
watery
expanse unprotected by a fence. That Lucy pounced on Edith in a heartbeat was beside the point. Fatty negotiated the settlement and the transfer of title. And Philip became a homeowner with his very first summer rental. A fabulous coup just when Philip was considering his options. It was a dry spell for architects; several colleagues were already waiting tables. The house was a bomb, but a lousy house on a desirable block. Where better to turn his talent and attention? Really an astonishing bit of luck.

But that was before Fatty became a purist. Philip hadn't been called a dick for a while now. He misses all that. He should call
Fatty, today, without delay. Because Fatty is depressed and losing focus. And if they're not careful the rewards of partnership dissolution may slip away. Yes, Fatty is preoccupied. But he does have Philip's sympathy in what sounds like a big mix-up.

Tunisian, they are Tunisian. Tunisian-American. Fatty and Philip both born in Jersey City. But when the second roundup happened, something abstract and surprising, something buried deep in the newspaper, Fatty's own son, Jamal, was stopped by a classmate, an ROTC recruit, and escorted to the Student Life Office. A small tired man asked to see Jamal's identification. Jamal, a spoiled boy, really a worry to his mother, chuckled. His birthday was soon. The man with the sad gray eyes had been hired by his friends to tease him.

The man asked again. Jamal offered a defunct Blockbuster Video card, playing along. Since that day the college has been very accommodating. There's even an offer on the table to overlook a poor showing in macroeconomics. A new beginning. His parents have been told that Jamal was very, very helpful the two weeks he was detained. Something that surprises them, that gives them a peculiar disembodied hope, like a dream under sedation. But nothing can shake the disturbance of the strange interlude— it's physical now, Fatty says, in the esophagus, he can't swallow— in which their deeply unfocused, undisciplined boy was held just in case he might participate in something intricately organized.

Can't swallow. That's what Fatty says every time Philip calls. He needs to call Fatty today. He will. And now it looks like
Edith has fallen asleep. And if he soaks the sunglasses in ammonia, it will clean them better than new. What was he worried about? He's sorry. And moves closer to his wife and child. Curls over them on the wooden bench. Should he fetch some water?

Lucy shakes her head. Right away Philip can tell Edith knows, subconsciously, that her father is on the job. All difficulties are behind them, left on shore. Her heaving shoulders— tiny fluttering tips of angel's wings—have slowed to a gentle rise and fall. A sleeping girl in her mother's lap. Lucy closes her eyes like she might doze now as well, her hand cups lightly over the lacy bow of Edith's dress. She tips her own face up into the breeze. Philip will find some water anyway, just in case.

Back at the house, Lucy gently pries Edith, fast asleep, from beneath the seat belt. She slings their daughter over one shoulder, smiles to Philip to communicate the delicious heaviness of their delicate child. But the heat pouring from Edith's skin worries her, cancels the smile. Lucy fans Edith with her free hand, elbows open the screen door, and makes it inside. Philip lets Gunner go. Gunner circles up to bump against the screen door then back down and around until his hind side disappears into the Hendersons's azalea. Philip decides to assess the newspaper after all, on the cool of the porch.

Minutes later, Lucy has changed her clothes. I have a present for
you
, she smiles. She rocks one hip against the screen door,
makes it squeak. Her linen pants, cropped to reveal thin ankles, are a spider web of wrinkles from being crammed into a hat case. But the color is as pale as the blue of her eyes and in this springtime afternoon light her skin looks soft and pretty. Pretty girl, Philip hums. Come 'ere pretty girl, and hollows out his lap, moves the paper to the floor.

Right here, you. He eases off his reading glasses and glances around for the case. Lucy stays where she is, both hands, he notices, tucked behind her back. Whatcha got there, vixen-bride?

A present.

A present, eh? Well, check out this present. In truth, there isn't much for her to check out, but he shifts around as if there is and she laughs and looks over her shoulder into the house, blushes, and shrugs. The shrug that says Edith will sleep fitfully and be upon them. By Philip's reckoning Edith has been sleeping fitfully for a decade now.

He nods, grins, Whatcha got? And crosses his legs slowly, tightly, sexily, he thinks, and Lucy teeters in the doorway, pink with pleasure. They can make each other happy this way, just making believe. Well?

This. Lucy tugs at something in a big Gristedes bag. Don't freak out, she says.

Who's freaking out? But then he spots what she has in her hand. It's the painting! That weird, sick painting he's forced to look at whenever he stops by the office. His partner hung it up right after Philip's “resignation.” (Don't ever, ever say that
word out loud, Fatty said.) And there it was—bugged maybe? —each time Philip went in to the office at night to check up. To read things, to watch for new invoices, new proposals, to make sure the equipment was still there, to download new designs onto his laptop. He couldn't, obviously, take sets of drawings, but who needed to? He'd found the original lease, and the corporation issuance. It was his right. He could take anything he wanted until the corporation was dissolved. With Fatty's checklist, he'd found it all, easily. His partner is an idiot who doesn't know what to hide. For a long time, the dope didn't even get his own lawyer. When Fatty said, don't worry, he'd act as “mediator” for the breakup, Philip's partner failed to understand that was just a colloquial expression.