I Regret Everything (28 page)

Tomorrow night is final performance. U coming?

The summer was nearly over and recent events had conspired to make me completely flake on Marshall's play. My first thought was that Edward P had put him up to sending the text to trap me back in Connecticut but Marshall would never allow himself to be party to a plot like that and I was ashamed of myself for having even had the thought. It was misery to not see his performance. How was that supposed to reflect the new and improved me? Marshall probably wouldn't care that much but I felt like a big hypocrite. I told Jeremy about the play.

—Would you let me borrow the car and drive to Con­necticut?

—I'll take you there.

The next afternoon we drove to Port Jefferson on the north shore and boarded the ferry to Bridgeport. I asked Jeremy to stop at a store so I could buy a gift for Marshall and then we navigated to the local high school where the Southern Connecticut Community Players' production of the original show
Planet Fire
was being performed.

The school was a sprawling old two-story brick structure surrounded by acres of pristine athletic fields. Joggers loped around the running track, the tennis courts were busy, and a brook bubbled along in front of the campus. I asked him to let me out of the Volkswagen at a distant point in the crowded lot.

—Where are you going? I asked.

Jeremy had gotten out of the car and was walking beside me.

—I didn't come all this way not to see the show.

—What if we run into my father and his wife?

—What if we do?

Willing myself to be invisible, I tugged a sun hat low over my eyes. Jeremy was wearing a baseball cap and he did the same.

—We look like really bad spies, he said.

The lobby was packed, every mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, and uncle who hadn't made it during the run of the show there to see the massive cast on the closing night. We purchased tickets, were handed programs, and keeping our eyes straight ahead found seats in the back of the auditorium. There I slouched and waited for the show to start. Families filed past, friends greeted each other, teenaged couples held hands. While my eyes darted around the room looking for trouble, Jeremy was examining the program like it held the key to the universe.

—This was an excellent idea, he said. I could use a little entertainment.

Edward P and Katrina did not appear to be in the house. Soon the lights lowered, people powered down their smartphones, and the anticipatory hum faded. The stage was an old proscenium with a curtain of maroon velvet that parted to reveal at least fifty kids ranging in age from elementary school through college all in a series of bold creations. There were kids costumed as trees, oil derricks, and various animals; there was a coral reef comprised of three girls, schools of fish, and one little boy who I'm pretty sure was supposed to be a nuclear reactor. And Marshall, who looked like a shrub with his head sticking out of the plant life that wrapped his body, delicate branches shooting off his arms and a head-rig with greenery sprouting from it. He turned out to be one of the leads, which he had not bothered to tell me. The story involved a fish, a dog, a human, and a plant (Marshall) attempting to save the planet from environmental destruction. I pointed my brother out to Jeremy, who complimented his costume.

—If I didn't know he was a kid, I'd try to water him, he said.

There were lots of songs, some slapstick, a sad scene where rising ocean temperatures caused a family of dolphins to die, and several stretches where it was hard to tell what was going on other than Earth's fate hung in the balance, but it was all performed with tons of zippy carbonation and the audience, admittedly biased, laughed, sniffled, and clapped at the right moments.

Marshall had a big number called “Photosynthesis” where he was surrounded by all these forest trees and he sang and danced and clowned around like a pocket-sized Justin Timberlake. He looked incredibly at home up there and it made me so happy to see him and all of a sudden I was weepy, I'm not sure why, maybe because he so deserved to be happy, and I had to get a hold of myself before Jeremy noticed since it wasn't a depressing part of the show.

My brother was so excellent I almost forgot I was there incognito and when everyone jumped up at the end for the standing ovation I made sure to bend my knees a little so if I had somehow missed Edward P and Katrina my head wouldn't be high up enough for anyone to observe. Jeremy stood straight as a pine tree while he applauded, so I'm not sure why I bothered. I asked if he wouldn't mind waiting for me and to please keep a low profile when I snuck back to congratulate Marshall.

The backstage festivities were a mixture of cast, crew, and a few pushy family members who had bamboozled their way past the porous security. You were supposed to wait at the stage door for the actors to come out but I told the lady in charge I had to catch a train. I thought Marshall might have a seizure when he saw me. He was accepting congratulations on his performance from the nuclear reactor when his face froze. He ran toward me, nearly knocking over the coral reef.

—Why didn't you text me you were coming?

—You were so awesome, Marshall. Totally exclamation point amazing.

We hugged and then I reached into my purse for the present I had brought him.

—I can't stay long but I brought you these, I said, handing him a pair of ballet slippers.

Marshall looked around as if he was checking to see who was watching. But then he grabbed them, gave me another quick hug, and stuffed them in his leaves.

—Where are you going?

—I'm with a friend right now.

—Does he work for Dad?

—They told you?

—Take me with you.

—You know I can't do that. I don't have a long-term plan but I'm totally glad I came.

That feeling I had while watching Marshall dance around onstage came over me again but I was able to control it before he noticed. We yakked for another thirty seconds and then I told him I had to bounce. I congratulated him again, embraced him a third time, then zoomed toward the stage and escaped through the now-empty auditorium.

I burst through the heavy stained oak doors leading to the lobby and my eyes went right to Jeremy who was talking to Edward P and Katrina. Of course he was, because that is the thing I least wanted to happen. There were lots of people milling around so there was a slim chance nothing ridiculous would occur.

—Spaulding, Edward P said when I joined them. Nice to see you.

Let me unpack that. First, he only called me Spaulding when he was angry. Otherwise it was always “Spall” or some offhanded honey-like endearment. As for Nice to see you, here's the translation: If you think you're getting anything else after that performance in the office, forget it, you should be happy I'm saying hello.

—Nice to see you too, I said. Translation: Let's get through this without something horrible happening.

—We were just catching up with Jeremy.

—I saw your dad and stepmother and came over to say hello.

—That's great, I said, and greeted Katrina, whose smile was so brittle I thought it was going to snap and fall off her face.

—You see, Ed, we've been staying out in Montauk, where I spent summers when I was a kid, and Spaulding has been amazing. I keep asking if she wants to go back to the city, but . . .

—I'm not going back now.

—She wants to stay at the beach, Jeremy said.

—Your brothers have missed you, Edward P said, ignoring Jeremy.

—I missed them, too. I just saw Marshall backstage. How great was he?

When Jeremy put his arm around my waist I could see my father tense up. The feeling of his palm on my hip calmed me down.

—What about Barnard?

—I'm going to postpone school, I said.

—We've got to catch the last ferry, Jeremy said. Good to see you.

Jeremy offered his hand, but my father chose not to shake it.

—Spaulding, this is ludicrous, he said. Best is a criminal.

—Duly noted, I said.

—Not technically, Jeremy said.

—He knows he's not a saint, I said. Neither am I.

—Spaulding, you're a child. And whether or not Best is technically a criminal is irrelevant. He's morally reprehensible, my father hissed. Best, your nerve is astonishing.

This was not the kind of conversation that generally took place in the lobby of a summer theater production at a Con­necticut high school and several people, alerted by the intensity of the exchange, were looking our way.

—Katrina put her hand on my father's arm. Ed, relax, she said.

He was getting red in the face and appeared to be struggling to control himself. It was hard not to feel my father's pain. He wanted what was best for me, or at least his idea of what that was, but the last time we had been in the same room he had implied that I belonged in a mental hospital. And just like at the office, he grabbed my arm.

—Let go of her, Ed, Jeremy said.

—Oh, fuck off, Best. We still haven't decided whether to press charges.

—Ed, Katrina implored, please don't make a scene.

—Can we get ice cream before the cast party? Marshall timed his arrival like a trapeze artist. He had scrubbed the makeup off his beaming face. Jeremy shook my brother's hand and complimented him on his performance, and that further intensified his glow. Katrina hugged him and Edward P dispensed some awkward praise. Marshall asked if Jeremy and I could join them.

—They'd love to, Marsh, but they have a ferry to catch, Katrina said.

We offered our congratulations one last time, said stiff goodnights, and escaped. When I looked back at the sallow light of the lobby, it felt like we were astronauts drifting away from one planet and toward another, better one.

—Thanks for talking to my father, I said after we had been driving for a few minutes.

—There's no reason to hide anything. You're really not going to college?

—Not now.

—I think you should go. I can take care of myself. It's not fair to expect you to hang around, Spaulding. You should be with people your age, going to clubs and writing workshops and reading the classics and staying up experimenting with whatever non-addictive drugs they're doing these days.

—I'm not going to tell you this again. I want to be with you.

 

* * *

 

The end of August arrived and after Labor Day weekend the crowds blew away like dandelion spores dispersed in the autumn wind. Classes had started at Barnard a week earlier. It was easy to picture the girls in their fall clothes walking to class in twos and threes, riding the subway to downtown concerts, sitting on benches in Riverside Park, pens poised over fresh paperbacks. What was difficult to picture was being among them. There was the world out there that was not worth paying attention to right now and there was the space between us that was everything.

One afternoon in late September when I came back to the motel to meet Jeremy for lunch he asked me to drive him to the post office. The collection was finished and he was sending it to an editor at Faber in London.

—They published Eliot, he said.

—Eliot who?

—Seriously?

—Sorry, that was lame.

My comedy ineptitude made me laugh and he laughed, too. As we walked out of the post office I heard the tiniest
clink
on the sidewalk, the sound a pebble would make glancing off a rock. Then Jeremy kneeled down.

—What are you doing? I asked.

—My class ring slipped off.

He stood up and slid it back on his finger. He smiled at me with what looked like guilt as if he was sorry I was witnessing this. I wanted to complain about the unfairness, to rant and rail and spit fire at the sky.

—Let's eat steak tonight, I said. And baked potatoes with sour cream and chives. And a cake. A whole cake. Jeremy brushed a lock of hair that had fallen over my eye but didn't say anything. Don't you want to give the finger to God, or the universe, or whatever concept is in charge for fucking everything up so royally?

—And give them the satisfaction?

I think what he meant was that a person should only do what everyone expects if it suits him. Let others whine about how unfair life is like it's such a surprise.

At the Sandpiper Café Jeremy seemed free, like a weight had been lifted, although he wasn't talking much. It was easy to get a window table because there were only a few other people in the place. Sharon was cheery as ever. She was flying back to Dublin in a couple of days but wasn't it a fine summer and she couldn't wait to come back next year. She drew a smiley face on the check and invited us to look her up if we were ever in Ireland.

Jeremy barely touched his clam chowder. I asked what he was going to work on now that he had finished his collection.

—I'm done, he said. That's it. I'm not writing anymore.

—Why not?

—Look outside, he said. Those are cumulonimbus clouds in an azure autumn sky.

—That's poetic, I said. Azure autumn alliteration and all that. He didn't smile.

—I don't want to struggle to describe things anymore. I want to let experience happen without the filter of intellect.

His skin was pallid and the circles under his eyes were lakes. A pair of local businessmen sat drinking coffee with some papers between them on the table. A mother and her son who was a little older than me were having lunch. No one paid attention to the quiet couple in the front.

We lingered in the café for a long time. After Jeremy paid the check we stood on the sidewalk. On the highway cars cruised east and west. A man in a Hawaiian shirt emerged from a hardware store with a shovel. An athletic-looking woman walked a sheepdog. The dog sniffed Jeremy's hand and he scratched the animal's snout.

—He likes you, the woman said.

—I used to walk dogs at an animal shelter, Jeremy said.

The woman said she thought that was a cool thing and continued on her way.