The Grievers (18 page)

Anyway, I think he’s losing it.

“See you then,” I said.

Maybe we should do something. What do you think?

“Okay,” I said in my friendliest voice.

Like I said, give me a call sometime.

“Right,” I said. “Bye.”

Bye,
Neil said, and the messages rolled along.

Charley, this is Paul Tower. I graduated a few years before you did and just got the news about Billy Ching. Was it a rock-climbing accident? All I heard was something about the Henry Avenue Bridge, and I know a lot of climbers hang out around there. On the down-low, of course. A lot of midnight rappelling and that sort of thing. In any case, I opened a sporting goods store a few years back, and I was thinking we should get together and brainstorm some ways I might be able to help out with this festival thing you’re having in his memory. Maybe a booth of some kind? I could probably throw together a quick demo of the latest equipment. If you want, I can even set up a rock-climbing wall in the gym so everyone can see how fun and safe the sport can be as long as they have the right equipment. Sound good?

Not especially, I thought, but I made a note to call him back anyway. A few hundred bucks for the booth. A couple of grand to set up a rock-climbing wall. It all added up in the Academy’s favor, and the guy could always write off the expense as a gift to a tax-deductible charity organization.

Charley? It’s Sue. We still need to schedule your performance review, but our mutual acquaintance told me to call about—what was it—the Billy Chun festival? He wants to know if you can distribute our usual PR stuff. Have you done that before? Or do you just work the lawn? I should know these things, shouldn’t I? In any case, give me a call or talk to me the next time you’re in. And don’t forget that performance review. It’s very important.

When Sue said “PR stuff,” my guess was that she was talking about printing a stack of counterfeit hundreddollar bills with Billy’s face on the front and information on opening an account at any of the bank’s fourteen convenient locations on the back. Not the most tasteful of ways to remember my friend, I thought, though I made a note to talk to her about it anyway—most likely during my performance review, and even then only to remind her that I was still working through the death of a close friend.

Hey, Charley, it’s Sean Sullivan. Listen, I can get us a good deal on a moon bounce from Mr. Monkeybounce. They rent inflatable gorillas to us here at the car lot, and they’re willing to let us have some kind of bouncy thing for next to nothing. Well, kind of. I mean, the guys at the lot said they’ll pay for it as long as we can do some promotional stuff. Nothing big, of course. Just some fliers. A sign. Maybe a few business cards. Anyway, give me a call if you think that would work for the festival. And think some more about trading in your Saturn, okay?

Charley. Joe Viola. Veggies or doughnuts? I need to know.

Charley! It’s Glenn Steiner. Long time, huh? Here’s what I’m thinking for this Billy Chin thing. Silk screen banners, full-color, twenty-by-thirty on either side of the chapel. Billy’s face, my logo, then something along the lines of Kibbleconnection.com is proud to join you in celebrating the life of our beloved friend Billy Chin. A real Chairman Mao look, if that helps you picture it. Give me a call and let me know what you think.

Hey, buddy, it’s Frank. Maya says bring dessert. Can you swing that?

“Buddy?” I muttered. “Where the hell did you get that idea?”

We were acquaintances at best—two grown men with nothing in common beyond the high school we attended and the classmate we were both compelled to remember.

“So we’re bringing wine?” Karen asked, lugging the bucket of dirty water down the stairs and across the floor on her way to the kitchen sink.

“No,” I said. “Dessert.”

“I thought you said wine.”

“I did?” I asked, recalling my fake conversation with Frank a split-second too late. “I mean, I did, but then Frank called back and said to bring dessert instead.”

“That’s weird,” Karen said. “I didn’t hear the phone ring.”

“I was on the other line,” I said. “Checking my messages.”

“Anything good?”

“Not really,” I said. “What do you think you’ll do for dessert?”

“Me?” Karen said. “Why am
I
making dessert?”

“You can’t expect me to do it,” I said. “I’m no good in the kitchen.”

“And that’s an excuse?”

“Not an excuse, exactly. An explanation. We each have our own talents. You’re good at cooking, I’m good at—”

I stopped to think as Karen dumped her bucket of gray water into the kitchen sink.

“I’m waiting,” Karen said. “What are you good at?”

“Give me a minute,” I said. “I’m sure I can think of something.”

“Don’t worry about it, Charley. I’ll take care of dessert.”

“No,” I said. “I mean, if it’s a big deal.”

“It’s not a big deal. I just wish you’d pick up a little more of the slack around here.”

“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry. It’s just—”

I could go on and on about the bullshit dissertation that wasn’t getting written, my long, boring days marching back and forth in front of the bank, my falling out with Neil, the burden of dealing with everyone who suddenly had a stake in Billy’s memorial service, my lingering guilt over Billy’s death, but, really, they were all just excuses. The truth was that I’d let myself drift for far too long. The truth was that I’d always taken the easy way out. The truth was that it was my own damn fault that I’d fallen into the steep and irredeemable slump that defined the last few months. What scared me, though, was the possibility that I’d never hit bottom—and the fact that I had no idea what to do in the unlikely event that I did.

“You’re right,” I said, catching myself before I could manufacture a new set of excuses. “I’ll work on it. I promise.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN  

F
rank lived less than two miles away from me, but where the world I lived in rang with the constant clatter of passing trains and tractor-trailers, Frank’s smelled of woodsmoke and the sweet autumn incense of fallen oak leaves—even in June, when the trees that lined his narrow street were full and round with thick, green foliage. His was a world of stone houses and slate roofs, a country of carports and closed-in porches, a land of multiple chimneys and three-car garages. There were no sidewalks in Frank’s neighborhood, just long macadam driveways lined with tall, narrow evergreens. A hammock swung idly in every backyard, and pitchers of lemonade sweated on kitchen windowsills as beagles romped over manicured lawns.

“How much do you want to bet he has a gardener?” I whispered as Karen and I walked the cobblestone path to Frank’s front door. “I’ll bet you anything that I could measure every blade of grass on this property and they’d all be the exact same length.”

“I’m sure you could,” Karen said, carrying the cherry pie she’d spent the afternoon baking. “But I was planning to enjoy a civilized dinner with rational human beings.”

Letting the comment go, I knocked on Frank’s door, and an African American woman invited us inside. Typical Frank, I thought as the woman took the pie from Karen and told us to make ourselves comfortable in what she called the sitting room. I didn’t doubt for a second that he considered himself one hell of a guy for hiring minorities to take care of his household. I could just picture him counting the silverware every weekend to make sure none of it had been stolen, or patting himself on the back as he opened his swimming pool to his servants’ families every year on the last day of summer, safe in the knowledge that he and his wife wouldn’t be setting foot in the water until the following Memorial Day—and even then only after shocking the pool with enough chlorine to kill a whale.

A pair of French windows in Frank’s sitting room looked out onto a flagstone patio, and a profusion of shrubs, cacti, ferns, and bonsai trees contributed to the illusion that there was no difference between inside and out. A baby grand piano sat in one corner of the room, artfully overrun with the vines of a philodendron, and a small fountain gurgled in the opposite corner.

“Sitting room,” I muttered. “There’s nowhere to sit. Unless, of course, you have a predilection for cactus needles.”

“Predilection,” Frank said, appearing in one of two doorways that opened onto the room. “There’s an SAT word if I ever heard one. Not that I’d know. Dad paid someone to take the test for me. That’s the rumor, anyway. Isn’t it, Schwartz?”

My jaw moved silently as Frank extended a hand to Karen. Soft jazz played on miniature speakers concealed in the flowerpots. A muted guitar. A violin and oboe. Was this klezmer music, I wondered? Was this a shot at my alleged heritage?

“You must be the better half,” Frank said to Karen. “Or in Charley’s case, the better three-quarters. I take it you’ve met Maya?”

“No,” I said. “Just the maid.”

“Maid?” Frank said.

A second too late, Karen nudged me with her elbow and nodded in the direction of a wedding photo hanging on the wall just past the piano—Frank and the woman who had taken our pie.

“Shit,” I whispered.

What more could I say? The most racist asshole I’d ever known had gone and married a black woman. Which didn’t make him any less of an asshole, I told myself. Just less of a racist. And even then, just marginally so. In fact, I wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised to learn that Frank had married Maya just to make me look bad.

“I’m Jewish,” I blurted when Maya appeared in the doorway behind Frank. She was carrying a tray of hors d’oeuvres, and I rushed forward to take it from her. “I mean, I’m not Jewish. Not exactly, anyway, but Frank always thought I was. And, of course, I’ve always admired the Jews. And African Americans, too. Asians. Native Americans. On the whole, I’m very sensitive to the wants and needs of minorities in general.”

Maya raised an eyebrow as I wrestled the tray from her hands.

“Please,” I said. “Let me help you with that.”

And then, in the ultimate act of betrayal, my cell phone went off, filling Frank and Maya’s sitting room with a tinny version of the theme from
The Jeffersons
. We were moving on up to the East Side, the choir sang, to a deluxe apartment in the sky—where fish didn’t fry in the kitchen and beans didn’t burn on the grill. Yes, it took a whole lot of trying just to get up that hill, but now we were playing in the big leagues and getting our turn at bat. In short, we were finally getting a piece of the pie.

“I’m not a racist,” I said as Karen shook her head in a vain attempt to shut me up. “If anyone’s a racist, it’s Frank. You should have heard the shit he used to say back at the Academy. Tell her, Frank. Tell her what you said the first time you saw Dwayne Coleman—about how you thought the school was segregated. Do you remember that, Frank? Do you remember saying that?”

“That’s nothing,” Maya said lightly. “You should have heard the line he used on me the night we met.”

I looked at Karen, and we both looked at Maya.

“That was a joke,” she said.

I let out a long sigh, and the knots in my back and shoulders started to relax.

“You okay, big guy?” Frank asked. “Can we get you anything? Water? Whiskey? A sedative?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“You were thinking I was still sixteen years old,” Frank said. “People do change, you know.”

There was a distinct note of condescension in his voice, as if it were better to have been a racist and given it up than never to have been one at all, but I let it slide. The last thing I wanted was a prolonged discussion about who had changed the most since high school.

Over dinner, we sat at one end of a long, oak table in Frank’s dining room. Candles were lit, and the lights were dimmed. A bittersweet combination of cinnamon and orange scents wafted through the air, and I could tell that Karen was being taken in by the rustic décor: handwoven rugs, hardwood floors, wicker baskets and wine-colored drapes. When she said the house was beautiful, I knew I’d lost her. Not for good, of course. But at least for the evening, and perhaps for the foreseeable future. Chances were pretty good that for the next few weeks Karen would be compelled to page through volumes and volumes of home furnishing catalogues to find every stick of furniture Frank and Maya owned.