Ask Again Later (15 page)

“A few? It's been fifteen years,” I say. “She told me today.”

“Has it really been that long?” Dad says.

“Time flies,” I say.

“Yes, it does, doesn't it?” Dad says. He takes a sip of his beer.

Herman from billing wants to know how much people will pay him to drink six beers in under ten minutes. People start throwing money on the table. I think Herman might do this at home, for free, so I don't put any money on the table. It's a diversion. Herman is looking for free beer, fast. Not money. People are always more strategic than you expect them to be.

I sit down in a swivel chair. I peel the label off the
beer bottle. It's an undocumented symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder. I think about crafting a letter to a psychological journal and letting them know about the label-peeling thing. I decide I'll write it first thing tomorrow. I'll put it on the firm's letterhead so it might be received with more excitement and regard.

“Is this seat taken?” Will asks.

“No,” I say.

“A label peeler, huh?” Will asks.

I nod.

“In college that meant a girl was easy,” Will says.

Mental note to self: Skip writing letter to psychological journal.

Just then another employee stands on the table and says she wants to know how much people will pay for Herman to drink two beers at once. Herman takes his newly earned cash, sticks it in his pocket, and climbs on to the table.

“Two beers at once? I'll do it for free,” Herman says.

Of course he will! These people have it right, I suppose. They are at least inventing ways to collide into each other, get closer.

Labor

GROWING UP, OUR KITCHEN
had ecru-colored walls, eggshell finish, with some mica powder rubbed into it. It looked like fairy dust. We weren't allowed to touch the walls.

Marjorie used to walk into our kitchen and touch the walls, while asking my mother a seemingly innocent question. It drove my mother crazy. That's the difference between Marjorie and me. She'd touch the walls to make my mother angry. I went out of my way to do things perfectly, because my mother was already angry with me for being too much like my father.

“Please don't do that, Marjorie!” Mom would say.

“Sorry,” Marjorie would say, smiling. She'd touch the wall again.

“Damnit, Marjorie!” my mother would say. “Stop touching the walls with those filthy hands!”

It's three-thirty in the morning. My mother knocks on my door. She hands me the phone. When she calls in the middle of the night—in labor—Marjorie is still touching the walls. At least that's how my mother sees it.

“This has got to stop. Please tell your sister not to call after nine
P.M
.,” Mom says.

“Why don't you tell her!” I ask.

“You better get dressed. She's in labor,” Mom says.

“Maybe that's why she's calling in the middle of the night, Mom! Marjorie?” I say, taking the phone from Mom's outstretched hand. “What do you want me to do?”

“Malcolm's in the air. Literally. He's coming home from London. I'll take a cab to Mom's place; I'll be there in a few minutes. Can you wait out front and come with me? Malcom's—ohhhhh…”

On
The Passionate & the Youthful,
they deliver babies
everywhere except in a delivery room. So I know babies can be born in cabs, in elevators, in locker rooms, in restaurants, and at major sporting events. In each case, someone “coaches” the mother-to-be. Coaching mainly involves reminding the person to breathe. Then offering lots of congratulations when the mother-to-be does breathe.

“Marjorie, you can do this. Breathe,” I say.

I hear her breathing on the other end. I immediately like coaching and find it very rewarding, even though you say very obvious things that the other person would be doing anyway. Somehow, I still feel like I'm doing a good job and that I am, at the moment, irreplaceable. I feel needed. I like that.

“You're doing great,” I say. “I'll be downstairs in five minutes; remember your suitcase. I know you bought new luggage for this, so be sure to bring it with you!”

“Ohhh…”

“Bring a camera, too,” I say.

“Oh, right, I have to find the camera,” Marjorie says. “See you in a few minutes.”

I brush my teeth and throw on jeans and a sweater. I grab my purse.

“Take a book,” Mom yells from her bedroom. “It's a lot of hurry up and wait at that hospital.”

“Thanks,” I say. “Do you want to come along?”

“No, but if you get tired, I can take over,” Mom says. “Call me.”

Baby

LITTLE MALCOLM HAS
the most perfect little round head and big blue eyes. The tiniest feet and fingers. They seem too tiny to function. His lips and skin are red, and his hair is jet black. He looks like a skinny wet kitten. I can't help but stare in amazement at the only seven pounds that could ever truly change Marjorie's world.

They weigh him and measure him, and roll his feet on an ink pad. What a clumsy introduction to the world. I get to hold him while Marjorie is being taken care of. He looks at me. He's studying me. Staring at my enlarged pores. I turn my head. He keeps looking, the unrelenting observer.

I whisper in his ear, confiding: “I've tried facials, I've tried minimizers. Nothing works!” He smiles. He knows stuff. He burps, and in that burp, I'm convinced, was a message: Try alpha hydroxy.

“He's so sweet. I'll baby-sit sometime if you're in a pinch,” I say.

“Okay,” Marjorie says. Then, to the doctor, “It feels like World War II down there…is that the way it's supposed to feel?”

“Well, yes, but you shouldn't be feeling it,” the doctor says. She opens the floodgates on Marjorie's IV. Less than a minute later Marjorie gives a thumbs-up sign, and falls asleep.

Big Malcolm arrives, jet-lagged, just in time to accompany Little Malcolm to his first bath. Once the baby has been whisked away, Marjorie is moved to a new room.

She insists on changing into some expensive Egyptian cotton pajamas. So Joanie! I brush her hair.

“I want to kiss that epidural guy,” Marjorie says.

“You always did go for Mr. Popular,” I say.

“Only because I'm not thoughtful enough to find a diamond in the rough,” Marjorie says. “What can I say? I'm not a worker bee.”

“You just spent fifteen hours in labor,” I say. “And you have the energy to imagine hypothetically kissing the anesthesiologist. You work much harder than you give yourself credit for.”

“Then why can't I be bothered to pick out my own clothing?” Marjorie asks.

“I don't know. Because stores are too big now. It takes forever to shop,” I say. “Tell me you're not hiring a personal shopper for the baby's clothing, though.”

“No,” Marjorie says. “I'll enjoy doing that.”

I am no longer needed here. But being needed felt great while it lasted.

Light on Affection

I TAKE INVENTORY
of my current situation and place in the world. I have a mind-numbing job—luckily temporary. I have a law degree, coupled with a fading interest in the law. My mother is doing pretty well. I can move back into my own home…. No word from Sam. No acknowledgment of the postcard I sent him. Will walks by.

He says what he always says.

“Emily, want some coffee?”

“No, but thanks for asking,” I say.

Which is what I always say. But this time, I want a different outcome, some hope. “But I'd love a Perrier,” I say.

I believe this is just the sort of optimistic yes-you-can-do-something-for-me response Will has been waiting for. He brings me the Perrier.

“Thanks,” I say.

“Sure,” Will says. “Hey, I want to show you something in my office.”

His shirtless torso? His chiseled scales-of-justice-lifting biceps? No, instead we look at some photos he's taken. Exhibit A: his sensitive side.

We sit on his couch. Our knees touch. We both react as if we've just touched a hot teakettle with bare flesh—and move away from each other in a panic. He opens an art portfolio. They are nice lawyer-turned-weekend-photographer-type
photos. He developed them himself. There are shots taken in Central Park. Street musicians. Trees. The Great Lawn. Several photos fall out of a pocket of the book. I pick them up, and he reaches over to take them from me.

“Oh, come on, let me see them,” I say. “I'm sure this is what you really wanted to show me anyway.”

There are six photographs of a brown-haired woman with large eyes and a healthy amount of cleavage. In one shot she's lying in bed, covered by a sheet but not wearing clothing.

“Your sister?” I ask.

“Funny woman!” Will says. “Former girlfriend.”

“She's very pretty,” I say.

“It's all makeup and trick photography. She's hideous in real life,” Will says.

“When did she dump you?” I ask.

“A few weeks ago,” Will says.

When we finish looking at the photos, he closes the black folder and ties the string that closes it.

There is a knock at the door. It opens, and Wendy is standing there with a manila envelope and a staff list. Still seated on the couch, Will's knees fall into mine again. I don't move this time. Neither does he. Our knees rest against each other, under his portfolio.

“I knew there was something going on in here. Don't worry, I'll never tell,” Wendy cackles. “I'm collecting money for cake and Chinese food. I need seven dollars from each of you.”

“Whose birthday is it?” I ask. “Must be someone important if you're springing for Chinese food.”

“Mine,” Wendy says.

“Couldn't someone else plan your party?” I ask. “I can collect money if you want.”

“Control freaks don't let other people plan their parties,” Wendy says. “That's not the way it works.”

I give Wendy a ten-dollar bill and tell her to keep the change. Will walks over to his desk. The top left drawer is filled with coins.

“Did you ever figure out how many scoops equal five dollars?” Will asks.

“You were going to do that calculation,” Wendy says.

“Let's call it two,” Will says.

“I told you I'm not taking coins anymore,” Wendy says.

“Suit yourself,” Will says, closing the drawer.

Wendy leaves.

“I should go back to my desk,” I say. “Thanks for showing me the photographs of the park and the nearly nude shots of your ex-girlfriend.”

“Can we have—do you want to go out sometime?” Will says.

“Sure,” I say. “Sometime.” Sometime? Vague and open-ended—just the way I like it.

“Tomorrow night?” Will asks. He can't be more than twenty-five, and he's acting even younger.

“Tomorrow?” I say. It's a surprise. I don't like surprises.

But I have no readily available excuse, and I have nowhere else to go. “Sure.”

I walk down the hall toward the bathroom, to see what I look like. What did I look like when Will was just looking at me?

I pass the kitchen. I watch from the doorway as my father fixes his stare on the microwave oven. Wendy scolds him about spoiling his lunch. Why eat popcorn when Chinese is on the way? He laughs.

An office wife is really the answer. She is the perfect mate for him. She can look up to him. He's a good boss. He's even a thoughtful boss. He can empathize with his bored and unhappy employees because he's bored and unhappy on the job, too. A person living with him might never see how empathetic he can be. He's a better person at work than he is at home. He's figured this out. That's what impresses me most. He's figured it out.

Father's Keeper

I LOOK NICE TODAY.
My father wonders why, but he can't bring himself to ask. He either doesn't want to know about any potential sex life I might have, or he thinks saying I look nice will point out that most of the time I'm lucky if my shoes match.

He likes it that we share a cab to work. He and his girl going off to fight crime in the big city. We can pretend he
wasn't AWOL for the last twenty years. The cab ride is one of the few uncomplicated things we share. So we both try to enjoy it. This is the level to which things have come. We don't want to talk about the past, or my mother, or my career, or his depression. Instead, let's become absorbed in this fabulous cab ride. You don't realize how much of the world is cordoned off by glass until you are seeking protection. Running for cover. There is a thick sheet of plastic separating us from the driver, and then there is all of the invisible stuff that separates my father and me. I like the straightforwardness of the plastic divider. This is my side, that's yours. No ambiguity. No guessing.

“They call that a safety precaution?” I say mockingly to Dad, motioning toward the divider.

“Doesn't hold a candle to the Plexiglas shield you enjoy each and every day,” Dad says. “Do you want to have dinner tonight? Your mother could join us.”

“Thanks. I wish I could, but I have plans tonight,” I say. And if I didn't, I might just pretend I did to avoid such a weird interaction.

“What kind of plans?” Dad says, in a tone that could possibly be indicating he's up for whatever kind of sassy arrangements are on deck.

“Dinner plans,” I say.

“Do I know him?” Dad asks.

“Yeah, he works four offices down the hall from you,” I say. “You hired him.”

“Bob? He's a married man. I didn't know he was having trouble at home. I don't think that's the sort of thing a bright young woman should be getting involved with,” he says, as if he were talking about someone other than me. “I always thought he was a stand-up guy. A model of good behavior.”