The Future for Curious People: A Novel (21 page)

I step into my apartment, talking to Dot on my phone. I pull off my coat, gloves, hat.

“Maybe you should call him,” Dot says.

“I’ve already texted.” I unwind the scarf around my neck and stare at the sofa. Godfrey and I kissed on that sofa.

“It doesn’t mean you can’t call.”

“It does, actually.” I walk to the kitchen, grab a bottled water, and start drinking.

“Maybe his phone doesn’t get texts,” Dot says.

“I’m now pretending that you’re talking about Ryan Gosling, even with the full beard, because I can no longer think about why Godfrey’s not texting.” In the sink, there are two coffee mugs that previously held hot cocoa—and empty wine bottles.

“I mean, maybe his phone doesn’t get texts?”

“Maybe,” I say. But that’s dumb. “What phone doesn’t get text messages?” I imagine my grandmother’s rotary phone, next to the cuckoo clock.

“Maybe he lost his phone?” Dot says.

“Maybe.” I walk slowly to the bedroom.

“Maybe after he left your apartment that morning, he got mugged, and now he’s floating down the Potomac.”

“Dot!”

“Maybe he fell down a flight of stairs or out of a second- or third-story window and hit his head. Days from now, he will wake up in a hospital room, not knowing who he is. So it’s not his fault, you know? He’d love you if he could only
remember
you. He sees you sometimes in his dreams. Amnesia is a bitch.”

I appreciate Dot for trying, but it’s not helping. “I’d rather pretend to hate him than be worried that he’s hurt.” His clothes are gone, of course. He’s gone. Did I half expect him to still be here? I stare at his cell phone number written sloppily in lipstick on my mirror.

I pace back to the kitchen. “I’m sorry,” she says. “He might just be a prick.” I lean against the doorjamb all etched with measurements.

And then I see a new scribble on the doorjamb.

I nudge Dot out of the way. “Wait,” I say, and there’s his height, his name written next to the mark. It seems like such a thoughtful, sweet thing. And yet I’m not sure what I should be feeling. It’s still completely possible that Godfrey Burkes has one-night-standed me?

And then I see his incoming text.

I see my parents as soon as I walk into the restaurant. Their steaming entrees—both of which look like dollops from large vague casseroles—sit on their plates. And my parents look freshly steamed, too. Both are red-cheeked and dewy. Why has my mother been crying? Has she gotten bad news—the first signs of the disease that will kill her? My throat cinches up. My God, is this the beginning of the end?

The hostess wants to seat me, but I wave her off. “I see my people,” I tell her, and it hits me that these two people are my people. Thigpen doesn’t matter. I’m Godfrey Burkes and this is my sweet, ailing mother and my sober, loyal father.

As I walk up and take a seat across from them—the hostess handing me my laminated menu—I realize what I must look like. Mussy, bloodshot, bleary-eyed, euphoric, but also spent. I’m unshaven and stinky, and I might start crying.

“Godfrey,” my father says, glancing around the restaurant. “You okay?”

“I’m better than I’ve ever been in my life, to be honest. I mean, I’ve got some things to attend to . . .” Madge. Lordy, Madge . . . “But I’m really, really good. How are you?” I look at my mother. “Are you feeling all right?”

“We’re feeling fine,” my father says. “The point is . . .” He looks at my mother who clasps her hands and lowers them to her lap. She looks down at her brick of casserole. “Your mother wanted to talk to you.”

“About what?” I say. “Have you been to the doctor? You should go to the doctor—EKG, complete blood work, cancer screening. Are you on top of all this? You know that Guy Lombardi died because he refused to get a colonoscopy? This is no time for rash pride.”

“
Vince
Lombardi,” my father says. “Godfrey! He’s the patron saint of the Green Bay Packers!”

“Sorry,” I say. “You know I’m no good at sports trivia.”

“There’s nothing trivial about Vince Lombardi!” my father says sternly.

“And it’s Guy
Lombardo
anyway,” my mother says.

“I think we’ve gotten off topic,” I say.

“We’re fine, Godfrey,” my mother says. “Medically. If that’s what you’re talking about.”

“For how long?” I say. “You’ve moved into a new demographic. Your risk factors are higher.”

My mother rummages through her pocketbook and whips out an envelope.

“Test results,” I whisper, and I push back in my chair.

“Test results?” my father says. “What the hell are you talking about, Godfrey? It’s a letter. It’s a goddamn letter—”

“From your father,” my mother says. She shoves the envelope at me. “Mart Thigpen.”

“Thigpen?” I take the letter. The envelope has my name on it: Godfrey. Nothing else. No Burkes. No address. No stamp. This thing was hand-delivered—from Mart Thigpen to my mother?

The handwriting on the envelope is large and has a little fanfare to it—small flourishes. It’s almost girly. I think,
Th
is is a forgery.

The envelope is old, faded. I flip it over and nudge the seal. It’s brittle and pops open easily.
Old spit kept it together all these years,
I think to myself. How old? “What’s it say?” I ask.

“You’ll have to read it yourself,” my mother says.

“Have you read it?” I ask both of my parents.

My father looks at my mother. She says, “Mart read it to me once and then gave it to me to give to you, sealed.”

“He read it to you
in person
?” This seems completely absurd—the idea of Mart and my mother sitting on a sofa somewhere while he reads a letter he wrote himself, and she sits there—pregnant? Am I already born? Am I in a crib nearby? “How?” I ask.

“What do you mean
how
? He
read
it!” my father says, and then he looks at my mother. “
How?
What’s he saying
how
for? Does he think Thigpen read it in an accent or something?”

Thigpen can’t read or write. He’s an animalistic womanizer. He’s a heathen lover. He’s a biological necessity, but a social accident.

My mother leans forward. She touches my hand. “The other night on the phone, you said you wanted us to know each other better as adults. I’ve been waiting for you to say—in some way—that you were ready for this, that you are now
finally
an adult.”

Her stress on “finally” is a little insulting, but I let it go. On some level, I am the little shit who wears mittens. I’ve been slow to mature. Granted. And right now, I have the deep desire to backpedal, to reframe my comments. I start to say, “I kind of meant that maybe we would . . .” What? Debate politics together? Did I just want my parents to trust me to be able to follow a discussion of interest rates?

I’m still holding the unsealed envelope. I can see a triangle of the stationery, which is as yellowed as the envelope.

“Read it, Godfrey,” my mother says. “It’s time.”

I gently pull out the letter. I unfold it. My hands are shaking so badly that the paper trembles, so I lower it to the table.

The letter—in more of that flourishy handwriting—goes like this:

Dear Godfrey,

One day you’ll be old enough for your mother to read this to you.

This means that my mother is way overdue. This was supposed to be read to me before I was able to read myself.

I want you to know that despite the fact that your mother and I can never be together as a couple, I love you.

Mart Thigpen loves me? By those words
as a couple,
does he mean that he could be with my mother as a lover, sure, but as a couple meant something publicly acknowledged. So this was a reminder pointed at Gloria: Mart was a married man.

Th
eir will always be times when you need a father figure. I don’t know if I’ll be able to be there for you. I hope I’m allowed. But, if I’m not, I want you to know that I want to be there and it’s killing me that I’m not.

Well, now I know that Mart Thigpen does not have mastery of the correct usages of
there,
their,
and probably
they’re,
too; I hate him for this. Really, I feel actual grammatical rage, something I’ve never felt before. But I know that my emotions might be misdirected. He sounds sincere—not being there for me is “killing him.” For whatever reasons, I believe this. Maybe because I imagine having my own kid one day. I want to be there. Did my mother not allow Mart Thigpen to see me?

If you ever want to come to me for anything, I’m here. Count me in!

Love,

And then there’s a large space. Maybe it is there to suggest the passage of time—the time that Mart is trying to decide how to sign the letter. Can he write
Dad
in all fairness when he’s just confessed he probably won’t be much of a father?

No.

He opts for
Mart
Th
igpen
because, I guess, if this is one day read aloud to me, at least I’ll have a full name to go with when I decide to come to him for anything.

I look up at my parents.

Their eyes stare back at me—expectant and glassy.

“And?” my father says.

My mother remains speechless.

“He misused
their.
”

My mother nods, waiting for me.

My father says, “Is there a little more you want to share with us?”

I look back at the letter and then up at them. This is a moment that I will never forget as long as I live. This restaurant will be the restaurant where I read the letter from my biological father. These clothes will be the clothes I was wearing when I read the letter from my biological father. This feeling in my chest—hot and fiery—is the feeling I’ll always associate with reading the letter from my biological father. Maybe I should be mad at my mother for not allowing Mart to be there for me, but that feels like ancient history. There’s a more pressing realization.

I say, “He’s not an animal.”

“Who said he was an animal?” my father says.

I look at my mother. She shakes her head. She means
Let’s not go back over it. Ancient history.

“I have to go,” I say, standing up. “I love you and now I have to get up and breathe air.”

“Okay,” my father says. “Okay there. Steady!”

My mother says, “This will take processing time. I know, I know. It’s going to be okay . . .”

I start to walk out of the restaurant like I’m not so much walking as much as I am gliding leglessly.
Th
igpen,
Th
igpen,
Th
igpen,
my heart beats in my head. And just as I’m moving toward the front door, I pass the ladies’ room. The door opens and I nearly run into Dr. A. Plotnik. “Dr. A. Plotnik!” I say, startled.

She looks awful. Her nose is red, her eyes puffed. She’s gripping her pocketbook and a bag from Bed Bath & Beyond with such desperation that I’m afraid of what might be in them.

“Who are you?” she says. “What do you want?”

“I’m Godfrey Burkes. You said Madge and I had great potential. You said you rarely see couples with as much potential as we had. But guess what? We did one of your exercises and it all exploded!”

“Burkes,” she says, narrowing her eyes, “you, with that crack about the dead moles. Were you one of the ones to turn us in?”

I feel dizzy, flush with adrenaline. Am I hearing Dr. A. Plotnik right? “Turn you in? No, I’m thankful we exploded, Dr. A. Plotnik. What do you mean—turn you in?”

She looks around, as if afraid someone’s following her, and then she whispers, “Madge put in more effort than you, coming in on her own, you know, seeking extra counsel. In fact, I saw that she called earlier today, probably about this explosion. I just haven’t had time . . .” Again, she peers around, eyes the hostess, and glares through the glass door to the street.

“Are you okay?” I ask her. I don’t feel so good myself. Am I just projecting, or is Dr. A. Plotnik shaken by something big that’s just happened to her?

“Of course I’m not okay!” She sighs with exhaustion. “In retrospect, we all realize that a lasting relationship is work, Godfrey, no matter which one you choose! Work, work, work!”

“You’re wrong,” I tell her. I’m not an animal. I’m a man who uses words. I might even come from sensitive stock. “A lasting relationship isn’t work, Dr. A. Plotnik. It’s home.”

Evelyn Shriner is home. I just have to find my way back.

Text 1: Squeee. How great are you? I love your boobs.

Text 2: I’m in the mall with my mother buying bath salts. I don’t know if we’ll bathe in them or smoke ’em! Wish you were here!

Text 3: I really really really love my mother. You will too.

Text 4: I’m not gay. I swear. Pinky swear!!!!

Text 5: Did I mention I’m still on parole? BTW: Do you have any clean pee?

Text 6: Never mind re: pee issue. I found an 8-year-old. All’s cool.

Text 7: Oh, and it’s okay. I didn’t kill that guy. It was accidental.

Conversation in my head:

He’s joking. Right?

Of course!

He’s spoofing weird post-first-date texts.

It’s funny. It’s funny!

He’s being funny.

He’s just
really
funny.

I excuse myself from the Youth Services desk. “I’ll just be a second,” I say to Jill, who’s an overly earnest intern. “Family emergency.” I point to the phone.

As I head back behind circulation to find a private spot, there’s Fadra walking in through the main doors. Her hair is a little less red than when I saw it last. She’s limping.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“I’m going home!” she says, pure joy in her voice.

“You have a home?” I know I shouldn’t have said it, but it’s already out.

“I’m from Ohio.”

I feel completely turned around. I hear myself saying in my head,
Right, of course! Ohio! Where else?

“Where you were a taxidermist?”

“My whole family’s made of taxidermists.”

She’s walking toward the elevators and I find myself following her. “Can I ask why you left in the first place?”

“I don’t remember,” she says, her eyebrows lifting.

“And why are you going back now?”

“Because I finally forgot why I left.”

We step into the elevator together. She presses the third-floor button, where she’ll presumably collect her things.

We ascend in silence. She steps out and says, “Thanks for everything!”

“You’re welcome.”

The doors start to close but I shove my arm in and stop them. I reach out and hug her. I don’t know why, except I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again—or maybe I’ll see her tomorrow, but still. I say, “Keep in touch! Send postcards!”

She hugs me and says, “There are only two choices in life: to open up or shut down.”

I step back. “And you’ve chosen . . .”

“I keep opening up. It’s kept me alive so far.” She turns then and walks off past the rows of shelves.

I step back into the elevator, ride it back down, and quickly slip into an empty office—one that’s small and filled with boxes—and I stare out of the window out at the street. Fadra’s going home. Just like that. Anything can happen. Open up or shut down. Isn’t there one other option? Just one?

My phone buzzes like a convulsing hive in my hand—texts 8, 9, 10. I try to take deep breaths. I fog the glass and close my eyes.

Don’t be a murderer,
Godfrey Burkes,
I whisper to myself.
Don’t be a creepy freaking murderer. Please.

I open my eyes, and as if walking out of the fog on the window, there’s a human-sized duck. A person in a white duck costume, holding an American flag in one duck mitt and a pocketbook in the other duck mitt. The duck looks up at the library, as if unsure of its decision to borrow books today or not.

And then a teenager glides by on a skateboard—one of those emo kids, looking really skinny and emotive—in from the other direction and snatches the duck’s purse. Dot was right about those skateboarders!

The duck spikes the flag and starts running after the kid, but there are giant webbed feet strapped onto the duck’s shoes and she can’t really run.

The duck pulls the duck head off, drops it, and screams obscenities at the kid on the skateboard. Then, in an act of pure rage and desperation, the duck grips handfuls of feathers from her own costume and rips them out, shaking them in her fists over her head, and screams, falling dramatically to her knees.

Under my breath, I say, “We’ve got a duck down. A good duck down.”

I turn and start running. “Chuck!” I shout, running to the entrance. “Chuck!” When I get to the bright airy entranceway, he’s already through the doors and darting through traffic running down the marble steps toward the distraught duck.

A few customers are staring at me. I raise my hands. “No need for alarm! Go about your business!” And I turn on my heel and half jog, half fast walk to Gupta’s office.

I knock on his door. “Mr. Gupta! A duck just got robbed! In broad daylight!”

What’s the world coming to?