Love in the Present Tense (11 page)

“I have a great deal of respect for the woman, sir.”

“That's good,” he said. “You know. Love me, love my wife. That sort of thing.”

“I do, sir.” Then I quickly added, “Both.” It dawned on me gradually that I had just told Harry I loved him.

“Don't call me sir.” A wave of his hand sent a plume of exhaled smoke rolling over the table. It wrapped around the hanging Tiffany lamp and clung there, only slightly swaying. “Makes me feel like a dinosaur. You know you can call me Harry.”

“Right. Of course. Harry. I'll need to make a fairly early night of this.”

“Of course you have good people already,” he said. I'm not sure he'd even heard me. “You have that good assistant. That sharp young man. What's his name?”

“John Cahill.”

“Right, right. And look. If I get elected, there's a bonus in it for you. Substantial. You know what I mean when I say substantial?”

“I don't think I do, sir. Harry.”

“I mean walk into a Mercedes dealership, pick one out, pay cash. That kind of substantial. A man on the rise needs a good car. Show the world who he is. Where he's going.”

“Don't think I don't appreciate it,” I said. “But I'm thinking I need to make an early night of this.”

A movement in the hall outside the parlor caught my eye, and I looked up. Barb was crossing the doorway, hesitating just long enough and just wickedly enough to really take me in, and I returned the favor. She smiled, and then the vision was gone again, leaving me tingling, hollow, disoriented. Half erect and completely stupid.

“My daughter seems quite taken with you,” Harry said. He clapped me on the shoulder, startling me. I tried to line up a shot. “You have no idea how much it would please me to welcome you into this family in a more literal sense.”

I watched miserably as I scratched the cue ball into the side pocket. “Your shot, sir. She's a lovely young woman, but that might be a bit premature.”

He fished out the cue ball and placed it rather drunkenly on the green felt. Once again I had no idea if my words were even getting through.

“I never had a son,” he said. “Wanted one, though. Oh, I know. I'm being mushy. Forgive me. I just want you to know that Barbara and I care a great deal about you.” For one awful minute I thought he might be about to cry. How many drinks has he actually had? I wondered.

“I'm honored,” I said. “Really. But I should be going.”

He clapped me on the shoulder again and racked up a new game. We hadn't yet finished the old game, but I didn't correct him.

She walked me out to my car. The valet had apparently gone home for the night.

I buckled Leonard into the passenger seat and slammed the door as quietly as possible. Then I turned to face her and leaned on my car. We just stood for one long, quiet moment in the dark. Alone and free for one wonderful split second of time.

“What are you going to do about him?” she said.

“Who?” I thought she meant Harry.

“Leonard.”

“Oh. Well. I don't know. What
can
I do?”

“I mean, if she doesn't come back.”

“Oh, God,” I said. “I can't think about that now. Please don't make me think about that now.”

“Okay. Sorry.” She reached out and touched my face for just a fraction of a second. We both looked up at the house. Every window seemed to face out onto the spot where we stood. She let her hand fall again.

I said, “That was really, really, really, really awkward.”

“You were fine, though,” she said. “You did fine.”

“He stopped just short of telling me I was the son he never had. I had no idea he felt that way. I mean…does he? Does he really like me that much, or did he just have a little too much to drink?”

A barely perceptible shrug. “A little of both, I think.”

“If he wins are you moving?”

“No. He'll just be away a lot.”

Wouldn't that be a shame? I wanted to say. But I couldn't bring myself to. I couldn't shift gears that fast. I was still too unbalanced. It would have felt too callous.

“Maybe Tuesday,” she said. “He'll be out of town. I might be able to stay the night. I'd have to put my private phone on call forwarding. You'll have to let me answer your phone if it rings.”

“Does he know?”

I'm not even sure what possessed me to ask. But it had flitted through my mind at several points in the evening. I'd felt almost like he was driving at it.

Love me, love my wife. You'll have to work closely with Barbara. There'll be some late nights involved. I know you two can work together.

It felt like a system of hints. It felt calculated.

“Dear God, no,” she said. “If he ever knows, you'll hear about it. Believe me.”

LEONARD,
age
5:
i knew that

Hannah bumped me off my regular computer, the one I played games on while the rest of the guys worked. As Mitch liked to say, I'd graduated quickly from the first-grader games and moved on to using a joystick to save the universe by repelling alien invasions.

“I gotta have the seventeen-inch monitor this morning,” she said. “Here. You can use the old laptop.”

She set it on my little desk. The guys actually gave me my own desk. How cool is that?

“But it doesn't have my games installed.”

She held up a disk. “I put 'em on floppy for you. I got you all set up.”

Then she started working. But she was talking to me at the same time, trying to explain how to find my games on the A drive. I knew I wasn't going to be able to do this, but I couldn't quite figure out how to tell her. The screen was just too little.

“Double-click ‘my computer,'” she said.

“I don't know what that is.”

“The icon that looks like a little computer.”

“I can't find it,” I said.

“Upper left of your desktop.”

“Oh. Okay.” I could see icons, just not well enough to know if they looked like little computers. I double-clicked the one in the upper left corner. I was just trusting Hannah. “Now what?”

“Now hit ‘three-and-a-half-inch floppy A.'”

“I don't know where that is.”

“Leonard,” she said. “You know an A when you see one.”

“Yuh,” I said. “But I don't see one.”

She stopped what she was doing. Saved and closed the file I think. Then she came and looked over my shoulder. “You don't see an A anywhere on that screen?”

“Not really.”

“Okay, come with me a second. Let's try this on the seventeen-inch.”

She popped out the disk and put it into my regular computer. “Try it now,” she said.

I double-clicked the little icon that looked like it was a computer. Then I said, “Oh. There it is. A.” I had to lean in a little, but I could see it.

“Is that why you lean in so close?” Hannah asked. “To see the screen better?”

“Yuh. Why'd you think?”

“Gee, I don't know. I thought you were just being intense. Well, never mind,” she said. “You can have the big computer. I'll work on the laptop for now.”

A minute later, when Mitch got off the phone, I heard her say, “Doc? Can I talk to you privately for a minute?”

MITCH,
age
25:
the pledge

The optometrist said, “Amblyopia in the left eye. I can't help noticing that.”

I said, “In English, please?”

And Leonard said, “It means my eye wanders around. Looks at my nose a little too much.”

The doctor laughed. “Why do I think this is not your first eye appointment?”

“Because it's not,” Leonard said.

“His prescription has changed a lot. Too much, really. His myopia is progressing pretty rapidly. That's why I strongly suggest a dilated exam with an ophthalmologist. Too bad we don't have more information about his background. He wasn't by any chance a premature baby, was he?”

“What in God's name would that have to do with anything?”

“There's an eye disease related to prematurity—”

“Yuh,” Leonard said. “ROP. I got that. From being borned too soon.”

I just kind of stared at him. Wondering why he'd never told me. Then again, I suppose I'd never asked.

“Well, that fills in a good amount of background, right there,” the doctor said. “He should be screened every six months or so to prevent later complications.”

“Yuh,” Leonard said. “I know.”

“What kind of complications?” I wanted to know.

“Well,” the doctor said. “In ninety percent of retinopathy of prematurity patients, the symptoms seem to reverse themselves without intervention. But in the other ten percent there can be serious complications. The scar tissue can cause retinal dragging, which I suspect may already be coming into play. Sometimes growth in the eye through adolescence causes retinal tearing. Or actual detachment. What we call late-onset retinal detachment. That would be the worst case. That's what we're screening to prevent.”

“And the upshot of that would be…”

“If left untreated? Blindness. But there are excellent treatment options. I'm sure a good ophthalmologist will discuss them with you. Of course, you not being the actual parent, I'm not sure how much of this you want to know. But if you're legally fostering him, the state of California might be some help to you. If you're willing to brave the red tape.”

“So, we're talking expensive.”

“At this point,” the doctor said, “I'm not sure you even want to know.”

We were driving home in the car, and he had on his new glasses. He just couldn't get over how cool they were.

“They're so light,” he said. He was shaking his head back and forth, then up and down. No elastic strap, either. The light lenses helped keep the glasses from falling off. Also the doctor had fitted the earpieces so they wrapped around his ears from behind and held on. He could hold his face down with the glasses pointing at the floor, and they weren't heavy, and they didn't fall. I knew this was the pair of glasses Pearl had always wanted him to have. Thing is, they were expensive. Really expensive.

“Now I can play games on the laptop,” he said. “Now I can play with Zonker and not get Pebbles by mistake. Are you sure you could afford them, though?”

But I was somewhere else completely. “What?”

“Are you sure they didn't cost too much?”

“Don't even worry about that. Just enjoy them.”

“Yuh,” he said. “I do. Already. Mitch? Does Bar like me?”

“Well, of course she does. Everybody likes you. You're Leonard. How could anybody not like Leonard? I mean, what's not to like?”

“Know what the best thing about these glasses is? I can see Pearl in a lot more places.”

I opened my mouth like I was about to say something. I think I was about to ask what the hell he was talking about. Then I closed my mouth again and didn't even bother.

She had me flat on my back, half draped across me. I was trying to get my breathing back. Maybe Cahill was right. Someday when she was done with me I'd end up six feet under. I still figured I was getting a good deal.

When I could breathe enough to say it, I said, “When I dreamed about the time you would actually sleep with me…”

“Yes?”

“I thought there'd be some sleeping involved.”

“You can sleep tomorrow night.” I got the impression that she thought we weren't done yet. I tried to think of a polite way to correct her. “I need a drink of water,” she said.

“Don't go yet,” I said. “Don't go for a minute.”

“Why not?”

“I don't know. Just don't.”

I rolled on top of her and held her for a minute, up on my elbows to spare her the bulk of my weight, the full length of our bodies pressed together.

Somehow I never seemed to end up on top. Well, not never. But not often. Only in the most intense states of abandon. And she always had to go when it was over. If only to get a glass of water. Somehow I thought it could be different just this one time. Somehow I thought we were breaking new ground, or that we could, if I just pushed a little harder. But I doubt I had admitted all that to myself at the time.

She ran her hands through the back of my hair for a moment. Kissed me on the forehead.

“Minute's up,” she said. “I'm thirsty.”

She rolled me off her, threw back the covers, and stood. I lay with my hands clasped behind my head, taking her in. Thinking this night would last weeks if it had to. I hoped it wouldn't have to.

The moon was strong that night, one or two days before or after full. I was amazed she would stand there in front of me naked in so strong a light. She had ways of avoiding these things.

Then she grabbed my red corduroy shirt off the chair back and put it on. Maybe she heard me thinking. Maybe she saw me taking her in, memorizing her to hold in store for the lean times, like those survivalists with six months' worth of dried food secreted away in the garage. Maybe she just liked to wear my shirts. I had this theory that it was her way of getting closer, getting into my skin, but safely. Of course that theory supposed that she wanted more of me, so perhaps it was too optimistic. But somehow I don't think so. There was another level to her. Just because she didn't give it away for free didn't mean it wasn't under there somewhere.

“Don't kill yourself walking around down there,” I said.

“I nearly did, on the way up here. What is all that stuff?”

“We're cleaning out that extra room. That storage room. It's all going into a rented storage space, and then we're going to fix that room up for Leonard.”

She was buttoning the shirt as I explained this, but she stopped. Just stopped with a button in one hand and a buttonhole in the other, freeze-frame. Then the film began to roll again, but I knew I'd seen what I'd seen. I wanted it to go away; I wanted to think it meant nothing, to forget it. But it didn't feel like something destined to go away on its own.

She walked over to the window, opened one slat of the blinds, and peered out, kind of aimlessly, not like she really expected to see anything. A band of light from the street-lamp fell across her face; her hair was beautifully disheveled, that just-ravished hairstyle.

“Why?” she said.

“Boy should have a room of his own. Besides, it makes his social worker happy.”

“Why should he have it here, though? He's not your boy.”

I didn't answer right off. I fought a coldness inside, almost a mild shock. I remembered Leonard's voice when he asked me if “Bar” liked him. I think that was the first moment I realized Leonard knew more than I did. The first of many, believe me.

“Why
not
here?” I said.

“Why not? Think, Mitchell. Think where you are in your career. Think of all the responsibility that's just been laid on your shoulders. Who do you think told him you could handle it? This is a hell of a time to suddenly decide to become a single father.”

“I can handle it,” I said. “You told him that because you knew it was true.”

“I don't think you know what's involved in parenting.”

“I'm sure I don't,” I said. “But I can handle it.”

She just stood there, staring through the blinds at nothing. The tension in the room felt palpable, as if it might materialize into some recognizable form at any moment. In a calm, dispassionate sense, this was a fight. We'd never had one, and I hadn't seen this one coming. Leonard had.

“I'm not sure if
I
can,” she said.

“What?”

“I think you heard me.”

“What are you saying?”

“I'm saying I raised two of my own, it was damn hard work, and I feel I've earned the right not to hassle with kids anymore.”

I swung my legs over the side of the bed. I was headed up and across the room in her direction, but I realized I was angry, and I didn't want to come off as aggressive as I felt. I didn't want to come at her that way. So I just sat there on the edge of the bed, naked, trying to fathom what had shifted between us.

“You act like you fucking live here,” I said. “What could you possibly have to hassle with? You come in the middle of the night, you stay an hour or two, and you slip away. He's asleep when you come and when you go. I should be so lucky that you're here enough to be burdened by my actual life.”

“I'm sorry you feel that way,” she said. She took off my shirt and dropped it on the floor, then gathered her own clothes and began to dress. I knew she was leaving, and I felt deeply cheated, because just this once she was supposed to have stayed the night. “If this is falling so short of your expectations, you should have told me.”

“Oh, Christ, Barb, don't. Don't do this. I can't believe you're leaving.”

“Well, I am,” she said. “Believe it or not.”

I had the awful feeling that she was leaving in a more permanent sense. That she was telling me this was it. It was over. I sat there watching her dress, thinking of a dozen different ways to ask, but none of them panned out right. No matter what the phrasing of the question, I sensed the danger that she might answer.

“Give me some time to think about this,” she said and headed down my ladder-stairs for the door.

I just sat frozen for a moment. Then it struck me that she was leaving, really leaving, and I had so much more fight in me. So much to ask, so much to say.

“Barbara!”

I yelled it out, risking waking Leonard. Then I hopped around trying to get both legs into my jeans at once. No answer. I suddenly felt as if my sanity depended on not letting her get out that door. Then I heard the door snap shut. I took the ladder two steps at a time, a kind of Russian roulette for a broken leg, but it worked. I ran to the door, threw it open again.

“Barbara!” I shouted again. Then silence.

I stood staring out into the moonlight. I couldn't even see which way she had gone.

“Damn it!”

I slammed the door hard, then kicked it even harder. Not toes first, I'm not that stupid. Kicked it with the flat of my foot, leading with my heel. But I didn't feel any better, so I threw my body against it, yelling “Shit” at the same time, then slid down into a sit with my back against the door. Everything had drained out of me, there was nothing left to kick, and I didn't feel one bit better.

I looked up to see Leonard sitting up on the couch, with his new glasses on, watching me.

“Mitch?” he said. “What happened, Mitch?”

“Nothing. Nothing happened.”

“Yuh, it did.”

I promised myself I would never thoughtlessly, automatically lie to him again.

“You don't have to put anything in the cuss jar for that,” he said. “I understand.”