My Favorite Midlife Crisis (13 page)

Kat was at the sink, scrubbing away at the couscous pot as if she could Brillo off the cruddy part of her life. Her face looked collapsed and pale. “Should we go in to her?” Fleur asked, and I was considering our options when we saw Lee slip behind her and wind his arms around her waist. He nuzzled her neck and whispered into her ear, and it wasn’t long before her face took on structure and a healthy color.

“She’ll be okay,” I said. “For now, anyway. Long term, I wouldn’t make book on it.”

Chapter 13

I let myself into my father’s house a little before noon. The first thing I noticed was no TV blare. A bad sign. If depriving him of his television was Sylvie’s idea of punishing an old man, she’d have to deal with me.

Then I heard the music, a gentle reggae beat, set low, and I remembered it was Monday, Sylvie’s day off, Blossom’s day on.

A sloe-eyed, dimpled beauty of nineteen, Sylvie’s cousin Blossom might have been my dad’s favorite hon. All day long, she played her Jamaican CDs. Sometimes she danced while doing her chores. Sometimes she pulled my father to his feet and tugged him around with her, which made him chuckle.

Today, the scene in the living room was peaceful. My father, freshly shaved and combed, snored in the La-Z-Boy, an empty Friendly’s ice cream cup his lap. As I smoothed out his Orioles afghan, he twitched something resembling a smile. Chocolate mint dreams? Dreams are nonsensical to start with. What happens when waking sense dies?

Blossom stopped waggling her head to the tropical beat long enough to acknowledge me with a wave. She licked chocolate from her lips and continued spooning up her hot fudge sundae.

As I tried to decode the tableau, Stan emerged from the kitchen with a cup of tea, which he placed in front of Blossom who awarded him a gold-toothed smile. “Everything’s under control,” he whispered and reached behind Blossom to plump her pillow. He was sporting a row of six silver bracelets on his forearm to match the huge Mexican silver and turquoise belt that held up his low-rise jeans and as he plumped, he tinkled.

“You can talk in normal voices,” she said, hitching her head at my father. “When he’s out, he’s out.”

“You’re not working today?” I was unaccountably irritated with my ex. It wasn’t even noon and I had already been usurped.

“I just stopped by to check up on him. Brought some ice cream.”

Why did this scene grate me so? Stan caring for my dad. Maybe because ultimately he hadn’t cared for me. Which was probably not entirely true; my pain was talking.

“He is also Mr. Fix-It, Mr. Stan is. See what he did with the kitchen door?” Blossom said.

“It’s no big deal. While I’m here, if there’s something that needs fixing, I fix it. This wasn’t a major problem. Not like the stuffed toilet last time.” I hadn’t known about last time.

Stan walked me over to the swinging kitchen door that would swing no longer. He’d installed a hook and eye on the outside, high enough for the tall Jamaican women to lock, but beyond my father’s reach. Simple, but I hadn’t thought of it.

“He can’t get in when I’m not watching or if Sylvie turns her head. He can’t set fire to the house.” Blossom seemed satisfied.

“I had the tools,” Stan shrugged. “It took me three minutes, tops.”

“It should do the trick, thanks,” I managed to say, but the words were stones in my mouth. I thought,
If you’re Mr. Fix-It, how come you were so talented at taking my life apart?

“My pleasure.”

Stan had become unfailingly gracious to me as soon as he knew he was out of the marriage. Of course, with Brad in the wings, he wanted the fastest settlement money could buy and we’d come to a quick agreement about the condo and the rest of the stuff of twenty-odd years. The beach house was the only booty we’d squabbled over and I don’t think he would have fought for it by himself. That war flew Brad’s flag. He’d egged Stan on, he and the lawyers who had to earn their fee. And that’s why I’d battled for it. In the end, I think as much as Stan loved the Rehoboth house, he gave it up with saintly relief, to expiate his guilt.

But that was just a down payment. He knew he still owed me.

My father woke up drooling. He rubbed his sleeve over his mouth and said, “Hiya, Doc.” I was Doc again, thank God. It was almost too good to be true, so Doc examined him.

I squatted down to his level and motioned to Stan. “Do you know who this is?”

My father squinted. Then his colorless eyes filled. “That’s the Captain. That’s my Stan the Man, the best damn son-in-law on God’s green earth.”

Stan teared up. Me too.

“Well, this is a gift from God. Let’s pray that it lasts,” Blossom murmured, breaking the spell.

“Be grateful for the moment,” Stan said, and I wondered at this recently revealed tenderness. It had not been a hallmark of his personality during our marriage. Maybe it came out of the closet when he did.

I didn’t love him anymore, but his presence always reminded me that I once did. So when he said, “If you haven’t had lunch yet, I’ll treat. There’s a place in Canton with great burgers,” I backed off.

“I thought you only do chicken and fish.”

“I can slip in a burger. Brad’s out of town. At a spatula show or something.” He smiled sheepishly. Brad ate no meat. Please, did I really want to go there?

“I’m overbooked at the office. Sorry.” I was aiming for pleasant.

“Some other time.” He reached out, then thought better of it. He didn’t dare touch me. “Enjoy London,” he said. “Sylvie told me you’ll be gone nearly a week.”

And didn’t Sylvie have a big mouth. I must have winced because he added, “No really, have a good time. I told her if they need anything I’m a phone call away.”

“Mr. Stan’s number is on the refrigerator,” Blossom said.

“Well, thanks,” I surrendered. I could be gracious too.

***

That night, arriving home late from the office, I found a message on my answering machine: “Gwyn, this is Harry Galligan. From FRESH. What happened to you yesterday? You missed the FRESH picnic.” Hadn’t known there was one. “And we missed you. Hope you’re doing okay and we’ll see you again soon. Take care.”

Before I could plan the repartee or lose my courage, I pressed redial. It was only nine thirty but Harry must have gone to bed early because his voice sounded just roused. He seemed pleased to hear from me and we caught up on the picnic. He told me he’d been traveling a lot, though not to glamorous places. I told him I was leaving for London in the morning for a week. And he said, “Ah, well that’s a shame. For me, not you,” he immediately corrected himself. “Because I was thinking you might want to do dinner this Saturday night.”

My rotten luck.

“I would have liked that.” And decided, why not? “How about
next
Saturday?”

Harry’s voice inched up a happy notch. “That works for me. I’ll phone you the day before. I’m looking forward to seeing you. Outside of FRESH, I mean.”

After I hung up, I crashed. That call to Harry topped twelve hellish hours at the office. I’d gulped down Dannon’s on the run between examining rooms and my father. Now I discovered in addition to being exhausted, I was starved. The hell with it, I called Domino’s. If indigestion kept me up all night, I could sleep on the plane.

When my house phone beeped, I switched on the closed circuit Waterview TV channel. It was a condo rule to visually confirm the identity of visitors before buzzing them in. “Yo, Domino’s,” the delivery man shouted into the wall mike. He had a thermal pizza box balanced on one hand. Legit. And behind him hovered an apparition that looked sickeningly familiar. Fuzzy in black and white, but unmistakable. The new patent-leather hair, the three-piece suit with the remnants of a gut hanging over the belt, the jacket slung over one arm, and the vest unbuttoned—no one else on the planet made that particular fashion statement. Jack Bloomberg. Visiting Fleur, of course.

He slipped in behind the Domino’s guy, so it was too late to call her. And what would I have said, anyway? And who’d crowned me queen of advice for the lovelorn? It wasn’t as if my romantic life was going to win the Dr. Phil Award for Fully Functional.

Still, for the first time in a long time, it had promise.

Funny though, tonight I’d gotten no thrill from Harry’s voice. No kick. What I did get was a nice gentle feeling from a nice gentle man. Why did that disappoint me? Wasn’t that just what I needed? Nice?

Chapter 14

The first time I flew to Europe, I was twenty-four years old. I had a few weeks off between medical school graduation and the July kickoff of my Hopkins internship and Stan charged my tickets to his parents’ credit card so I could join him in London. They never squawked about that. He was an indulged only son and there was no denying him anything, including a trip around the world when he finished grad school, and me, of whom his family didn’t entirely approve given my shady background.

I flew a Pan Am red-eye, leaving at six from Baltimore and arriving in London around nine the next morning. People used to dress for flying before air transportation became so proletarian that today it’s like hopping a winged Trailways.

For this exalted occasion, I wore linen pants with a Villager madras shirt and Bass Weejuns, the preppy traveling costume Debutante Barbie would have worn for a transatlantic flight. While the rest of America’s twenty-four-year-olds dressed in torn jeans and scruffy sandals in honor of the Third World, I was doing a hand-over-hand up the ladder and yearned with all my being to pass as top rung.

At sunrise, the captain roused us to announce we were approaching the coast of Ireland. I craned to see that it really was emerald green in the first light and wept at the thought of how far I’d run from Streeper Street and at the miraculous turn my life had taken. Back then, I believed in miracles more than I believed in myself. Hammering my way through a miserable childhood, holding on through a worse adolescence, and all the while getting the grades so I could get out, I didn’t catch on to the cause and effect. All I knew was that somehow I had Stan, I was going to be a doctor, and all my options were open and all of them were good.

As we made our initial approach, I looked down and realized my linen slacks were a wrinkled mess. There was no way I was going to let Stan Berke see me less than perfect. I managed to haul down my carry-on from the overhead rack and quickly change in the tiny bathroom. When I presented myself to an open-armed Stan at Heathrow, it was in a fresh wraparound chino skirt. So many years ago. So many attitudes ago.

***

This trip I traveled business class on British Air, the ticket paid for by the practice, and slept through the flight. Heathrow Airport was a madhouse, as usual. The lines at passport control for British citizens were worse than those for non-Brits. A group returning from Disneyland was noisily cranky and a crowd of pensioners back from holiday in Ibiza made for mass confusion.

So when my line moved faster than expected, I was caught off guard and had to rummage for my passport which turned my handbag into a volcano spewing pens, Tums, business cards, Lifesavers, a comb, and my passport case onto the floor.

“You’ve done it now,” the voice behind me murmured. “Made a dreadful mess, haven’t you? Allow me.”

What I felt next is what the French call a
coup de foudre.
A lightning strike to the heart. An immediate cardiac shock that doesn’t involve the brain at all. In fact, standing there in the few seconds it took for the yet unseen person behind me to scoop up my scattered stuff, I felt lightheaded, as if my brain had drained from my cranium. We’re not necessarily talking love here. Nothing that arduous. In my case, it was more like walking smack into a force field. Or maybe mainlining high-grade heroin.

It’s not a rare syndrome, this
coup de
foudre.
Dear Abby gets letters about it all the time. “It was World War II, I was a soldier on leave at a USO dance, and this beautiful girl was standing at the edge of the floor...” Songwriters put it to music: “I took one look at you, that’s all I meant to do, and then my heart stood still.”

Mind you, this reaction was produced by hearing the gentleman say all of twelve words in what I would have wagered a week’s salary was a London—probably Mayfair or at least Knightsbridge—accent. I know my accents and this one was top of the line.

Had I ever been hit with anything like this before? Not with Stan, the only man I ever thought I loved. The fact is I hadn’t even liked Stan when I first met him. I went out with him to fill in on a double date. Not my type at all. Too pleasant. Too accommodating. It was only after I finally saw him through my mother’s eyes and knew she would have despised him and all he stood for—the background, the promise, especially his desire for me—that I could love him.

Now I turned to smile my thank you and faced a perfect match to the voice. The man was elegantly handsome with steel-gray hair and a Cary Grant chin cleft deep enough to sink a putt into. He had very even, very white teeth and a smile so jolly it deserved a laugh behind it. Straight nose. Intelligent eyes the gray of Beluga caviar. Tall and solid looking. Neatly packaged in a blue and white striped shirt and khaki trousers. At his feet lay his suitcase. Over one shoulder was slung a black leather laptop case. Over the other, a carryall imprinted with the letters IAGSO followed by Vienna and the dates of the previous year’s meeting. UK and U.S. passports tucked into its outer pocket proclaimed his dual citizenship. When he saw my glance rest on them, he said, “Today, Uncle Sam’s line was shorter. Wasn’t that a stroke of luck? Well, now I think we have all your treasures.”