How to Love an American Man (12 page)

“Grandma, did it bother you that Grandpa only wanted you helping him with the business when it was convenient for him, on his terms?”

“Noooo,” she says. “I knew he was doing all that for the family, for our future. Besides, good grief, when you love somebody you just jump in. You give what they need you to. It's easy to put yourself aside.”

She's sighing less and talking a lot more than when I first arrived. I'm realizing that these chats aren't only helpful for me to understand the recipe behind a happy relationship—they're also helpful for her. In this forum, at her table or on her sunny back porch, I suppose I give her an excuse to talk about the person whose absence so desperately pains her. Here, she gets to remember the happy parts of their marriage and to reaffirm in her own mind that when it came to loving the man in her life, she did a pretty solid job.

Then there's the man in my life . . . not my boyfriend, but my boss. He's become much more than someone I'm happy to part from at the end of every workday. I want to see him well, I want his surgical center to take off, I want to keep doing everything I can to help make that happen. This endeavor is one of the most important things I've ever been part of. Every cell in my body feels invested.

Dusk closes in around Grandma's house, and just as I go to leave, my phone rings with a number I don't recognize. “You know what, Grandma, let me grab this in case it's something for Chris. It might be his life insurance company.”

“Oh yes, get it.”

“Hello?”

“Kris?”

I gasp—it's him. “
Hi!
You made it?”

“I made it, I'm here. I just had to call and tell you something.”

I move in toward Grandma's kitchen in search of something to take notes with. “Go ahead.”

“So you know how I was riding first class on the plane?”

How could I forget, he'd only mentioned it forty-six times. “Yes?”

“Well, there was this woman sitting next to me, and she saw me pull out my cards, and she looked over my shoulder and said they were the classiest business cards she'd ever seen. I just wanted to call and tell you thanks.”

“Oh wow, what a compliment! They did turn out beautifully, if I do say so. I figured it was worth trying them with your picture on there.”

“Yeah. Really, thanks.”

“You're welcome.”

We hang up and I turn to Grandma, laughing. “He likes his business cards, he's getting compliments from strangers.”

She smiles. “You see, you do good work. Oh, before you go, follow me. There was one shirt I saved, I wanted to give it to your dad.” We walk into her bedroom and she opens Grandpa's closet. It's completely empty except for one golf shirt dangling. “This.” She takes it out and hands it to me; it's the shirt from John Carroll University that I gave to Grandpa for Father's Day my freshman year. The navy blue has faded and the shoulders hang down and it's worn from being on the hanger. “Your grandpa loved that shirt.”

“I know, he wore it all the time.”

“I didn't want to give it away to strangers.”

We kiss goodbye, and when I climb in the car I breathe in what's left of Grandpa's scent—a combination of pipe, machines, and aloe—till it draws tears. Then I hang the hanger in the backseat, and the polo sways over Chris's sweater.
Oh, the hearts that occupied these shirts . . .

I start up the engine, collecting myself and noting the energy that dances in my rearview. He's gone, and now there are places I need to be.

Chapter 6
Don't Lose Yourself

I
N LATE
O
CTOBER
, for Tucker's fall semester break, we plan a long weekend at the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon. Until now I had never even heard of it, but according to outdoorsy Tucker, it's a spot in the middle of the state with a wooded terrain that runs two miles deep and is sliced down the middle by a giant waterfall. The purpose for this miniholiday, in my mind, is to show Tucker that I'm committed to our growing together. Dr. Chris has been out of the country for two weeks, and apart from the occasional e-mail with a marketing question or to update me on how incredible Southeast Asia is (“You would melt into this place,” he wrote in the most recent one), he's nearly out of my consciousness. Away from work and school and our parents, Tucker and I will finally have our own space this weekend to spread out together and just . . .
relax
.

However, the purpose of the trip in Tucker's mind is to go fishing and watch football at bars and do all the things guys do that I admit I sort of . . . don't get. But I've convinced myself that it's worth a try. I was away from Pennsylvania for a long time, and it's possible that with open-mindedness I could really hit it off with the huntin'-fishin' crowd. I may begin to envision myself setting up house in a secluded log cabin, or heck, I don't know, start understanding what a wide receiver does. Grandma, however, is not as optimistic as I am that the weekend is going to be so transformative. When I tell her I've gotten my fishing license, I hear her guffaw through the phone. “Fishing license! Why, when was the last time you went fishing?”

“With Grandpa,” I figure. “I must've been eight, max. But I caught a little rainbow trout, and Grandpa got a real kick out of it.” See, I'd forgotten about that: maybe I have an inherent knack for the outdoors after all. I ask Grandma if she ever used to go fishing alongside Grandpa, and she says heavens, no, fishing was never her cup of tea and in fact Grandpa only ever did it socially. She explains he wanted to make memories on their annual camping trips in Missouri when their kids were little, and then did it just enough to teach us grandkids how to cast a line off the pontoon.

When I was probably about four, Grandpa bought this blue baseball cap with a big stuffed frog sitting on top of it because I got into this huge frogging kick for a while. When dusk fell on the lake, the crickets and toads would all rise to start their all-night a cappella of croaks and creaks that echoed off the quiet lap of the water. My brother and my two cousins had all just turned a year old, and after they were tucked in bed, Grandpa and I would head out to the bank of rocks at the shore with a bucket and a flashlight for hunting pet frogs.

“Grandma, did I actually ever catch any?” I ask her.

“Oh sure, sometimes. But by the next morning they would always escape,” she starts giggling, “and you would be so confused about why they would want to leave the perfect little life you'd set up for them.”

“What, a bucket and some grass?”

“That and a drink of water.”

When I was seventeen and going to the prom, Grandma slipped me a tiny box with a stone frog inside. I hugged her, and she told me, “I don't know why, but you always loved these things.” I think I must have loved them because it's my first memory of my grandpa and me sharing an interest together. Experiencing the things Grandpa liked gave me a better understanding of who he was . . . and, of course, it fused us together. When I turned twelve I stood elbow-to-elbow with him behind the bar, and he gave me my first taste of a martini. When I graduated from college, he bought me my first stocks and taught me about the market, and in the couple of years before he died he answered my questions about our family tree with off-the-cuff expertise. It didn't matter if nobody else besides us opened the spiral-bound genealogy book together—I felt it was mine and Grandpa's to share. I adored him with such abandon that anything I saw him take an interest in intrigued me too.

As we load up Tucker's uncle's truck with our gear, I tell him, “Wait till you see how I've pulled out all the stops for our first big camping weekend together.” I bought a fancy plastic holder to display my fishing license on my person at all times (“on my person”—I'm even picking up the lingo of the Pennsylvania Fishing and Game Commission!), booked a rustic-looking, charming little bed and breakfast, and even ordered my very first pair of hiking boots. (As a demonstration of my enthusiasm to try life his way, I excitedly e-mailed the photo of my new hikers to him, saying,
They're cute, right?
He replied saying how cute they would look after they're caked in mud, and the reality of our adventure sank in for me:
Oh yeah,
I wrote back.
They're gonna get dirty, aren't they
?)

Our polar different attitudes toward preserving the glamour of new hiking boots foreshadows the weekend completely. A beast of a thunderstorm stampedes us just as we pull into the bed and breakfast. I insist on how fun it will be to spend the weekend in the woods during a storm . . . but Tucker says this is going to ruin our fishing. The woman in her mid-sixties who owns the wooded property has decorated the inside of our private cabin with a gaudiness and frill that may have been attractive decor for a séance leader in the 1950s, decked out with shelves of blinking china dolls and an eerily realistic two-foot statue of a little boy peering around a tree.

“This is . . . interesting?” I say.

“We're not doing it with him watching,” Tucker replies.

I promptly carry the miniature peeping Tom into the bathroom and set him next to the toilet.

Did he just say “doing it”?

In our raincoats we pile back in the truck to explore the area's antique downtown. It's a singular strip of cars moving at a worm's pace, with a grassy divider separating the two-way lanes. On the right side I spot an art gallery that actually appears to be very modern and cool; on the left Tucker sees a tavern that's known for its burgers and looks like it'll have a game on television.
Try it his way
, I remind myself, watching a man in the gallery draw the shade in the front window.

Tucker's stuffed up, starting with a head cold. I suggest we head straight to eat, thinking maybe getting something in his stomach will do him good. The place is in a happy-hour buzz and my beer is going down easy, but he moans about the noisy crowd and says his sinuses are about to explode. When the waitress comes with our dinner, we immediately ask her for boxes, and Tucker holds his head and his hands as I drive us fast to find a pharmacy. “There, honey, wash it down with water. You'll sleep well tonight.”

“I hope,” he answers.

I steer us back to the B&B, flicking my high beams to ward off the giant horned elk that are known to wander these roads like pedestrians. Even if he's woozy from the cold medicine, at least we can snuggle, I reason in my head, balancing him up the cabin's stairs and latching the heavy wood door behind us. Tucker goes headfirst for the bed and asks me to scratch his back because it relaxes him. When he's passed out with a NyQuil mustache and snoring on my arm, I pull on flannel pajamas (sexy, I know, but it's grown pretty obvious there's no point in chilly lingerie) and take my time washing my face and brushing my teeth, warming up a cup of tea before I climb in bed.

I wish I'd packed a book.

I move in next to Tucker's ear and whisper, “Honey, I'm making some tea. You want some?”

He slurps up his drool and shakes his head no. I scoot in next to him with an equestrian magazine, remembering how I was so hoping to ride horses this weekend. To entertain myself, I slip into romance-heroine mode, imagining being mounted on a strong dark-haired mare, my curls and pale breasts bouncing with the horse's gallop (it
is
a fantasy, so I
do
have ample breasts for bouncing). I'm wearing a white bare-shouldered top over jeans that are tucked tight into red cowboy boots. The sun lights my hair, and my lips are painted crimson, and who rides up next to me but—

Chris?

No.

You're in Asia,
I tell him.
And I'm with my boyfriend, see? You weren't supposed to follow me here.

I spur my horse to move along, but Chris throws his leg over his saddle and dismounts, blocking my path. He approaches me and encourages me down from the horse, catching me under my arms and lifting me down carefully, so my torso slides slowly against his. We stand staring at each other. He brushes my hair behind my ear and tells me that my face is as beautiful as my mind. He wants us to share our taste in art and music forever and build a life together touring the world—New York, Milan, Paris, the Pacific, anywhere we've ever dreamed. Does that sound like something I could manage? He wants to come home after a long day and drink a glass of cabernet with me at the kitchen table, he wants to try my Tuscan recipes for dinner, he wants his hand to hover over my heart when he makes love to me. He wants to give our children formal names and do yoga with me on Saturdays, and when we have grandchildren, he wants to sell all our properties and buy a house on Treasure Lake.

His stallion nudges at my mare and leads her into the field.
It's just us two
, he says.
How did God create two people with such perfectly similar interests?
Before I can answer, his hands run up to cradle the back of my head and he kisses me gently, the motion of our heads like a first-time slow dance between a couple with natural rhythm.

“What the heck are you reading?” Tucker says. I jump out of my skin, remembering where I am. He throws the sheets off and says, “I gotta take a leak.”

I
N THE MORNING
we brave the wilderness despite the relentless downpour and Tucker's amplifying cold. “This is our only chance to get outside,” he says, and it sounds like a threat. “We're leaving first thing tomorrow morning because I don't want to miss the Steelers on TV.” I pin my fishing license proudly on my jacket and kick on my hikers like I was born doing this. When we arrive at the canyon, we start down immediately, and by the time we reach the first layer of trees, we're drenched straight through to our underwear.

My mascara is running down my face and I shout to Tucker over the rush of the waterfall. “We're going the whole way, no matter what!”

I expect he'll turn to me and smile at my determination, but he's trucking down the hill so fast that I wonder if he'd rather be doing this alone. About a quarter of the way down the gorge we come to a railed platform and Tucker stops and points. “See all the trout flying down the falls there?” Ah, I do notice the swarms of fish flopping helplessly against the merciless rush. “If this rain stops tomorrow it'd be the perfect time to grab our poles,” he says. “Fish are most plentiful after a good rain.”

“Oh good, so you're thinking about staying later tomorrow and skipping the game?”

“No.”

It's so late in the month that the trees are now barren and our hike is challenged by impossibly wet leaves. Tucker forges ahead as I navigate the trail with the same caution as when the boys in my neighborhood would go swinging on grapevines in the woods. This is wild, and it's beautiful, but it doesn't come naturally to me. My steps are clumsy and subpar. I don't find myself longing for a camera to capture the scenery the way I used to capture the sailboat pond in Central Park on Sundays. I don't think to take note of the mist rising here from Pine Creek like I paused to memorize the Dolomiti Mountains one afternoon in the Alps. And it's not the exotic factor that's leaving me unwowed—I just don't connect with this rugged sportsman approach.

Tucker, on the other hand, is perfectly at home on these trails, and seeing him here in his natural habitat makes me wonder if I should want to give my feelings for him a last-ditch effort. I could drop to my knees and beg him please, let's try to have more in common with each other; please, let's like the same things . . . but he barely seems to remember I'm here. When we reach the bottom of the gorge, he points out the foot-high stone pyramids that couples sometimes build together on the river's shore as a sign of their commitment to travel together and withstand life's elements. “Huh,” I say, and we both stand there with our arms crossed, genuinely intrigued. After a minute he turns slowly to lead back uphill. Something about this hike has cemented for me the understanding that this is the end of the trail for us.
Dead end
, I can almost see in front of us in bold letters.
Steep ascent ahead.

Suffice it for me to say that the rest of the weekend sees this same aware disconnect between us. For dinner we find an impressively metro-looking Italian restaurant. (They even have a Peroni beer sign in the window! You rarely find that outside New York.) Tucker bellies up to the sleek marble bar so he can watch college football on the wall. I glance at the bistro tables behind us, watching other couples and groups of friends whispering and laughing and passing bottles of wine. “Tucker,” I say, “do you want to try the Sicilian pizza with me?” No, he says, he wants chicken wings, and quite frankly there's not enough surface space under our elbows for us to order both.

The bartender asks us, “Are you sure you don't prefer a table? I'll be happy to transfer your tab over.”

I look to Tucker. “Sweetie, a table just opened up right behind us, you'd still see the TV perfectly.”

“Nah, I'm good here,” he says, his eyes fixed on the flat screen over the bartender's head.

When we compromise for our appetizer, it almost appears as though dinner could turn into an engaging experience after all. Tucker's so impressed at his first bite of calamari that he actually unglues his eyes from the TV to look at me. “Wow!” he says. “You were right, this is good!” For dinner he gets a pizza burger, and I order a white pasta bejeweled with tiny clams and mussels that sounded on the menu like a dish I had in Portofino last year. In one of Chris's e-mails last week he went on about the abundance of seafood he ate in Thailand, and while I too had hoped to savor a fresh catch this weekend, the lack of grilled trout will not keep me from enjoying fish altogether. When the dish arrives it resembles Grandpa's famous white spaghetti with anchovies recipe. I twirl into the first bite, and the white wine butter sauce drips down my chin. “Oh my God, Tucker,” I say, “you have to try this.”