This Is Between Us (20 page)

My estranged wife would be like an angel, her young, smooth hand inside his old, hairy hand, walking him into the fluorescent light of some sacred kind of kingdom.

…

I decided to take Vince somewhere with a lot of kids. I thought maybe it would be the easiest place to forget about a serious talk. But first we had to have the serious talk.

We sat in the car, in the parking lot, the sounds of the carnival rides drifting over to us. The amusement park was right in front of us, waiting. We could see the roller coaster and the Tilt-a-Whirl shining in the sun.

I knew it was probably best just to start talking instead of easing into it or prefacing it. It would be better if I didn’t give Vince time to put a wall between us.

“Who’s this Roberto character?” I asked him.

I could see him tense up. “What do you mean?” he said.

“I asked your school counselor and she said there wasn’t anyone in your school with that name,” I said. I tried not to sound like I was accusing him of anything.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” he said.

“We’ll go inside in a minute. You’re not in trouble, but I just want to figure this out. It’s no big deal,” I said.

“I have to go,” Vince said a little louder.

“Don’t yell,” I said. “We’ll go in a second. Did you make him up?”

“I don’t know,” said Vince. “I’m not sure why.”

“You have friends, though,” I said. “You don’t have to make up any.”

“But I don’t like my friends most of the time,” he answered. There was a little pout in his voice. He started telling me about how some of his friends had girlfriends now, how some of his friends were going to a new school next year, how some of his friends said they didn’t like him as much as they used to. He said his friends were turning into other things: jocks, stoners, popular kids who belonged to every school club, emo kids with angry divorced parents. I wondered if Vince would ever consider himself a product of “angry divorced parents.”

He wanted to have a friend he could control, so he invented Roberto. I asked him if it was more for our sake or for his own.

“Both,” he said, and then started crying. Maybe it was because of me, I thought. Or because of the way my life’s confusion made us feel unsettled. He just wanted something in his life that
he
could control.

“We can work on it together,” I said, trying to be reassuring.

“How are we going to do that?” he said with a little frustration in his voice.

“I know it’s hard right now,” I told him. “But it gets easier soon. You’ll have this friend stuff figured out in the next couple of years.” I realized that a “couple of years” probably sounded like forever to a fifteen-year-old.

When we got out of the car, I felt like things were more open between us. I put my hand on his shoulder and he let it stay there for a few moments. When we entered the park, a swirl of kids and teens around us, he subtly shrugged me off.

An hour later, we were in the bumper cars, crashing into each other a few times before deciding to gang up on the other kids.

…

Vince and I were out for a hike around Forest Park. We liked walking on this specific trail during the summer because all the trees made it feel cooler than it was. When we first started coming out here, it would take a long time to complete the route because Vince would walk so slow and want to gather every big stick and read every sign. I would have a dozen sticks under my arms by the time we got back to the car. Then I’d have to put the sticks in the trunk, and we’d take them home and add them to the bucket by the back door. Sometimes we would find a rock that looked like an arrowhead and we’d tie it to the end of a stick and pretend it was a spear. We had an old bow from an archery set and we would launch these homemade arrows, wobbly, across the yard. His mom would watch us and smile. We weren’t a broken family just yet.

But Vince got older and didn’t collect sticks anymore. We walked in silence then, rarely stopping. I couldn’t think of anything to say. I’d ask a question and the answer would be short and final. Not like he was mad, but like he wanted to be independent. Maybe solitary. Still, we kept going out on the trails because I hoped the time added up to something. I kind of wished he would still jump on my back for a piggyback ride, but he was too big for that. The only time I’d get to pick him up then was when we fake wrestled. So I fake wrestled with him sometimes, full of exaggerated aggression. I picked him up like I was going to body slam him, but I was just doing it to press him against me, to feel his weight again.

…

I couldn’t imagine Vince’s first kiss. But for some reason, I could see Maxine kissing someone. Not that I liked to imagine that. But she’s your daughter and she seemed to exhibit an early grace, a mature demeanor. Vince was merely a teenage boy who would wear too much cologne if he wasn’t monitored. Plus, he still needed to be reminded to cut his toenails. At least he had less acne than I did at that age. That was one small victory in his adolescence.

I remember my first kiss. It feels so long ago. I didn’t want to open my mouth because the girl had braces. I had braces too. We were both fifteen. I wanted to suck all the lipstick off Jennifer Malloy’s lips. I thought the lipstick was what tasted so good.

Vince had a mannequin head in his room for a while. Something he’d needed to get for a school project. One time I saw it sticking out of his backpack, the hard, smooth forehead and reddish-blonde hairdresser hair. It actually looked a little like Jennifer Malloy. I wondered if he practiced on it.

…

Whenever you and I were alone in an elevator, we would crash together and make out, like it was some kind of ritual or elevator tradition. It was something wired in us.

Maybe it stemmed from one of our first dates, when we had nowhere to be alone, and so we found the tallest building downtown and rode the elevator up and down for several minutes. Whenever the door started to open, we would separate and pretend to talk about a business meeting we had just gotten out of. Then when the people got off on their floor, we would start kissing and fondling again. It was like a game. Red light. Green light.

…

It was the first warm day of the year, but you said you’d never wear shorts again. Your legs were shot, you told me.

“Skirts are okay,” you said. “But nothing that will show my knees.”

“I don’t think I’ve even bought shorts for five years. What kind of shorts do people wear anymore?” I asked.

“You can’t wear saggy, baggy shorts. Only kids wear those. And you can’t wear hemmed jean shorts or Hawaiian shorts. Only old folks wear those,” you explained.

“Like they issue those shorts to you when you check into the nursing home,” I said.

“Your legs are cute,” you said sweetly.

“No one wants to see forty-year-old legs. Maybe I’ll just be one of those guys who wear jeans all the time, like James Dean did. Do you think he had several pairs of the same Levi’s? Did James Dean ever wear shorts?”

“You’re not forty,” you said.

“Close enough,” I said.

We were taking the kids to the park to play basketball, so I kept looking for something besides pants. I found one pair of shorts with the top button missing, another pair that was too small, and a pair that I’d worn several years ago and felt self-conscious in and never wore again. I found a pair of old plaid pants that I’d bought for a costume party and I pulled them out. You grabbed the scissors and cut off the legs, just above the knees. “Not too high,” I said. I felt the steel of one of the scissor blades moving through my leg hair.

“We’re ready!” we heard Maxine yell from the other room.

You stood back and admired your handiwork.

“If I’m wearing these, you have to wear shorts too,” I said. It felt like a dare. You rummaged through the back of your closet and pulled out a ratty pair of jeans. They had holes in the knees and you tore them more and snipped them apart there.

“I can see your knees,” I said when you slid them on.

“If the kids say anything, I’m coming right back and putting on a long skirt,” you said.

We went to the park and played two on two and P-I-G, and the warm air and bright sun made us feel like we’d been set free after being trapped inside all winter and spring. My legs felt new and light.

“We’re both wearing shorts!” I whispered excitedly to you. “How does it feel?”

“Shut up,” you said.

I made a half-court shot that would have given you and the kids P-I-G, but you made the shot too, and then Maxine and then Vince. It felt like some kind of family accomplishment or miracle, like we should have been awarded a trophy, or at least a certificate from whatever god was watching us.

…

There is nothing I can do about these varicose veins. There is nothing you can do about your slightly crooked teeth. There is nothing I can do about my eyebrows. There is nothing you can do about that sick feeling you get when you’re going to get a pedicure. These are things that will last forever. We must learn to love them. Somehow, some way.

…

“Did anything ever happen with you and Daniel?” you asked me one night after we watched a movie. We were on the couch, sharing a pint of ice cream and drinking whiskey. The movie we’d just seen had a gay character who seduces a straight man.

“He’s not really my type,” I said, in a way that was meant to sound casual.

“What would be your type?” you asked me.

I could tell you were getting serious and I tried to diffuse the moment. “I’m just kidding, baby. What would make you think about that?”

“Sometimes you guys would act funny around me. Especially after you drank a little. I don’t like to mix him with my boyfriends, you know?”

I was so glad your brother had moved away then. I was so glad that I’d pushed him away that last weekend he’d lived in Portland, when he’d come on to me not once, not twice, but three times. I was so glad that he was in Denver and that you didn’t like Denver.

…

I was still having a hard time speaking with Vince when I was alone with him. He was becoming a moody teenager and didn’t speak much. We sometimes took the
MAX
train at the same time in the morning. Him to school and me to work. Usually we’d stand apart from each other because there were other kids from his school around and he was trying to act cool around them. I wondered if he would be embarrassed if I tried to talk to him. He would get off the train a couple of stops before me and I’d give him a subtle nod from across the aisle, as if to say, “Have a good day.”

One day, I separated myself a little farther from him and got on a totally different part of the train. When it came to his stop, I couldn’t see him getting off. I couldn’t give him the nod. I felt guilty the rest of the day.

A few days later, we were alone in our car. I picked him up from the mall after I’d attended a parent-teacher conference at his school. He was getting good grades and all his teachers liked him. I wanted to tell him that I loved him. It seemed like I hadn’t said it in a while. But we drove in silence and I couldn’t speak. I told myself I better say it. I thought if I didn’t utter those words, they would become harder to say as he got older, quieter, maybe less needing of me.

I felt myself getting choked up, so I just put my hand on his knee and said, “I’m proud of you.”

…

“I can’t find any music videos by Beethoven,” Maxine said, looking around YouTube on her computer. For some reason, she was on the brink of tears.

“They didn’t make videos for music like that. It was too long ago,” I said, with a small attempt at a laugh.

“Don’t laugh at me,” she said. She made two sniffling sounds and then I saw a tear drop from her eye.

“There are movies about Beethoven that we can watch together if you want,” I said. This almost made Maxine smile. I had no idea she was such a Beethoven fan.

“Did you know that he was mostly deaf for half of his life?” she said. She clicked a link and Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” started playing. “He still wrote music, still played and conducted, but could only hear the notes muffled, like they were underwater.”

“Sometimes people are really driven to do something, even if they can’t fully experience it.” I wasn’t sure how I came up with this explanation. It was probably one of the most profound things I ever said to her. Most of the time, I felt uncertain talking to her, like someone miscast in a school play. Suddenly, I felt myself getting choked up.

“I think you’re starting to understand me,” she said.

I wiped the unexpected tears from my eyes and she leaned in to look at me closer. She was smiling widely, open-mouthed, like her mom. I could tell she was going to laugh. “Don’t laugh at me,” I said.

She laughed and I laughed and we wrestled around, trying to make the other stop laughing. The computer started playing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. We crouched like fighters, facing each other, our eyes electric, new, and shiny. It was so serious and dramatic.

…

You said your body felt like it had been tapped out and drained—a pipe winding through you, a faucet turned on. “A gushing of blood and fluid like an elephant birth,” you actually said.