The Most Dangerous Thing (21 page)

Chapter Twenty-seven

T
he problem with Florida, Sean thinks, is that the weather means more yard work. Sure, its partisans would reply, but there’s no snow to shovel. Ah, but snow shoveling ends, eventually. Yard work never does, especially here in St. Petersburg, even with Duncan’s reluctant help. Duncan despises working in the yard even more than Sean does, but Sean is adamant that Duncan must have some household responsibilities. He rejected Vivian’s suggestion that Duncan do laundry or help with meals, two things he genuinely enjoys and might execute without protracted nagging. “Life isn’t just about having fun, doing what one likes to do,” Sean told Vivian yesterday. Even as he said it, he heard his father’s voice in his head, but it was too late to back down. Plus, the old man had a point.

What would Tim Senior have done with a son like Duncan? Not that Tim Senior would have had a son named Duncan to begin with. Like so many things in Sean’s life, this was Vivian’s decision. “Duncan” was mapped out years ago, back in Vivian’s college dorm room, or possibly in doodled daydreams in high school or even junior high. It was a plan of such long standing that Sean couldn’t begin to counter it when she laid it out after they became engaged. They would wait exactly two years into their marriage to start trying to have a child. They would have only one child. Sean was OK with both those decisions. If the child was a girl, she would be named Madeline; if a boy, Duncan. Sean did not approve of Duncan, but Vivian claimed it was a family name. Later, her mother admitted it was merely a name she loved and wanted to use, only she never had a son. Sean should have started a betting pool on how old Duncan would be before some kid at school started calling him Donut. That clocked in on the first day of third grade here in St. Petersburg, when they were new to the town.

What was less predictable, at least to Sean, was Duncan’s ability to roll with such teasing, deflect and thereby neuter it. Even at eight, he was a confident kid. “Just like you,” his mother said, and Sean would have liked to claim Duncan’s poise as his own. But he knew, even then, that it was different, that his own so-called confidence is all bravado. Duncan is genuinely comfortable in his own skin, which may explain why Sean feels this need to make him uncomfortable from time to time. It’s not that he’s competitive with his son, not at all. The kid just takes so much for granted. He wins races, he’s first chair in all-county orchestra, he gets the lead in all the school plays. Not the musicals, because he can’t sing well enough, but the straight plays. Anything he wants to do well, he does.

So it’s infuriating to watch him half-ass it around the backyard, acting as if he can’t quite understand what is required to prepare the garden for the hot months ahead. Sean doesn’t understand, either, but at least he listened to Vivian when she gave them their marching orders after lunch. She was very clear. Vivian is always clear about all her expectations. For example, if Sean decides he doesn’t want to do yard work at all, that’s fine: Vivian will hire someone to do it. Not some guy with a lawn mower and a truck, though. Vivian will hire the full Magilla Gorilla, a landscaping service, guys in uniforms, with mulch that costs about the same per pound as caviar, not that Sean has eaten much caviar in his life. Vivian’s family isn’t
that
fancy.

The full Magilla Gorilla
. That was a Go-Go-ism, a mangling of the cartoon and the arch phrase, which he probably picked up from one of the gangster films shown on
Picture for a Sunday Afternoon.

Vivian’s family doesn’t describe themselves as rich, if only because it would be vulgar to do so. But they are undeniably well-off, and when Sean married her, her father let it be known that marrying his beloved daughter meant supporting her in the style to which she was accustomed. It was like buying a sports car.
Sure, you’ve got the cash now, but do you realize how much the maintenance will be?
Her parents are on the young side, and they plan to retire early and enjoy their money. These things are never put into words, yet there is no doubt about their expectations. Vivian is the same way. She somehow makes everything clear without being blunt or even raising her voice. After she presented Sean, for example, with her timeline for having their one (and only) child, she added: “And, of course, I will be staying home.”

“Of course,” he replied, although he had assumed she wanted to work. She had seemed so gung-ho ambitious when they met.

“I could go back to work, but almost all my income would go to child care, so what’s the point of that?”

“Of course,” he repeated.

“Which means you’ll probably want to leave the newspaper and go into a corporate position.”

“Of—what?”

They had been living in Charlotte then. It was a hot newspaper, coming off a Pulitzer win for its coverage of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, part of a much-respected chain. Sean, who used his aborted premed education to position himself as a medical reporter, had planned to go as far as he could there, then move on to one of the big dogs, the
Washington Post
or the
New
York Times.
It was not an unreasonable dream in 1989. It would not have been an unreasonable dream even ten years later. Twenty years later—the chain that owned the paper doesn’t even exist anymore. If he had followed his heart, he might have been one of the lucky ones, safe and sound at a big national newspaper when all the other papers started to shrink. But he was long gone from journalism by then, exiled to corporate communications, first in Charlotte’s banking industry, now for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida. He makes good money, and he earns that salary in income-tax-free Florida. It was enough—just—to buy Vivian the house she expected in a neighborhood she deemed worthy, Old Northeast, although without a water view. It’s a good life. Really.

Together more than twenty years, they never fight or raise their voices. They disagree. They often disagree. Then Sean explains his side and Vivian explains hers and they end up doing what Vivian wants. Or so it seems. Sean knows, realistically, that he can’t be losing every disagreement, but it sure feels that way. When he starts to feel sorry for himself, he thinks about his son, who really is a delight, and maybe that’s because of all the attention Vivian has lavished on him. Straight-A student, good enough at track to be certain of a scholarship, sweet, yet popular at school.

And almost certainly gay.

He and Vivian have not spoken about this yet. That’s Sean’s decision, for once. If they speak of it, then it will be true, and he’s not ready for it to be true. Let Duncan bring it up. Isn’t that how it works? It’s up to Duncan to come out to them. When he does, if he does, Sean will be OK with it, he really will. But he’s in no hurry to hear this particular revelation. He could be wrong. He’s known some effeminate guys who were amazing pussy hounds, although Duncan isn’t effeminate. At any rate, Sean doesn’t bring it up to Vivian, doesn’t ask Duncan awkward leading questions. (
I see Ricky Martin came out. Not that surprising, huh. What do you think about “don’t ask, don’t tell”? Gay marriage?
) Instead, he talks to Duncan about the Tampa teams, the Bucs and the Rays, or his inclinations about college, which are kept as close as his sexual preference. Duncan never admits to liking any college, turning all questions back on his parents. “What do
you
think about Bard?” “How bad do you think the winters in Ann Arbor are?” He is vague, too, about what he plans to study or whether he is committed to the idea of continuing to run cross-country, fearful that he may have peaked, that he’s fighting his body type. The other day, Sean caught him pinching a nonexistent slice of flab at his waist, making a face in the mirror. Would a straight kid do that?

Duncan also watches the strangest mix of television shows—
American Idol,
another singing show, some dancing shows, a lot of reality television—part of a standing date at a girl’s house. Not a date-date, and not a girlfriend, just a girl who’s a friend. This is how Duncan says it, word for word, in a high singsong voice, followed by a sigh.
Not a date-date, not a girlfriend, just a girl who’s a friend, DAD.

Really, it’s almost a relief to have him here in the yard, grumbling about a chore and doing it poorly. It seems more normal, more boylike.

“You have to be careful pruning,” Sean says, taking the massive trimmers from Duncan and demonstrating the technique, the proper place to cut. Duncan sighs and imitates Sean’s motions with arch lassitude.

“Mom says you want to go to Baltimore for spring break.” They usually shoot for a special trip for the spring break, something splashy, often underwritten by Vivian’s parents.

“I’m not sure about
want
. But I think we need to check in with your grandmother over Easter. It will be hard for her, being alone.”

“She’s not alone. Uncle Tim and his family live twenty minutes away.”

“Still, we should go.”

Duncan focuses on the branch in front of him. “Some kids from school are going to New Orleans to work with one of the house-building programs there.”

“That’s still going on?”

“Of course it is. You don’t rebuild a city overnight.”

Sean knows New Orleans wasn’t rebuilt overnight. His surprise is that school and church groups are still going, that the attention-deficit-disordered world hasn’t moved on to a new tragedy. Events move into the rearview mirror quickly these days. Earthquakes, tsunamis—it seems like every month, celebrities are back on television, running some phone bank.

“I thought I would go,” Duncan says. “It will look good on my college applications. I’m light on volunteering and community service.”

“Can’t you do something similar in the summer?”

“I’m going back to Stage Door, then doing an intensive cross-country camp, one that attracts scouts.”

Scouts mean scholarships, and Sean is no enemy of financial assistance for Sean’s college education, although he knows that’s the sort of bill that Vivian’s family will pick up if he really finds himself on the ropes. And if the school is impressive enough. Sean isn’t sure which schools will make the cut, but he knows his alma mater, Washington University, isn’t among them, although it’s no safety school. But no one in Vivian’s family is familiar with it, and what they don’t know can’t possibly be worth knowing. Vivian went to Duke, and Sean’s room has been filled with blue-and-white devils almost since the day he was born.

“You haven’t seen your grandmother in a while. You didn’t even make it to the funeral.”

“Dad, I had that competition in Orlando. If I hadn’t gone, the chamber quartet would have been penalized.”

“You’re the only grandson—and the only one who doesn’t live there.”

“That’s not my fault,” Duncan says in his factual, even-keeled way, so much like Vivian. “And being the only grandson shouldn’t matter. Are you saying boys are more important than girls to Grandma Dee?”

“It would make her really happy if you came with us. That’s all.”

“But we’ve already bought our plane tickets.”

“We?”

“Mom and me. She’s planning on being one of the chaperones on the New Orleans trip.”

Duncan’s face is turned away from Sean’s. Sean has never been sure how much Duncan picks up on his parents’ dynamic. Sean’s father, if he were still alive, would probably say Vivian wears the pants in the family, but that’s not exactly right. She’s not a ballbuster. Her manner is unfailingly polite, reasonable. She simply cannot see Sean’s side of things. When they clash, her attitude is almost pitying.
Poor silly Sean, thinking that’s a viable idea.
She humors him, hearing him out.

He thinks of another thing his father liked to say:
Don’t marry above yourself or you’ll never get out from under.
He chose Vivian because she was a prize, something bright and shiny on a shelf barely within reach. The problem is, she sees herself the same way.

He waits to talk to her until he has showered and dressed, picking a collared shirt, one he knows she likes on him. She is in the family room, sewing something. Vivian is seldom at rest and she expects Sean and Duncan to follow suit. To be productive, almost every waking hour, is her goal. But Sean has earned his beer, the right to have the television on mute, baseball scores scrolling by. He still thinks of the Orioles as his team. They still break his heart on a regular basis.

“Duncan says he’s planning to go to New Orleans over school break.”

“Yes,” she says, biting a piece of thread. “With a group from church. I think it’s a great idea.”

“The thing is, my mom is pretty fragile right now and I think it’s important for all of us to go see her.”

“Certainly you should go. I understand.”

This is how she does it,
he thinks. She doesn’t even acknowledge there’s another side to the issue. She’s seizing the high ground, being magnanimous for allowing him to go see his mother.

“She loves Duncan, dotes on him. It would be great if he were there, too.”

“I’m sure she’ll understand when you explain how important this is to his college applications.”

“But how do I explain you not being there?”

“Oh, honey—it’s New Orleans. I wouldn’t feel comfortable if I wasn’t one of the chaperones. It’s a very dangerous city. I’ll make you miserable, worrying about Duncan, so I might as well go.”

He wants to argue on principle, then thinks
Fuck it
. He’ll go back to Baltimore, stay with his mom, something Vivian abhors, although she never admits it. But when forced to spend even a night in his boyhood home, she goes through the day murmuring, murmuring, murmuring, keeping up a running litany of disapproval that pretends to be disinterested commentary, as she ticks off everything that bothers her about the house, about Dickeyville, about Baltimore. It’s been years since they’ve stayed under his mother’s roof as a family.

Sean will go home, spend the long Easter weekend, look up some old friends. Maybe even check in with McKey, if only to assure himself that what didn’t happen between them definitely didn’t happen between them. And if it did—if he’s already cheated—then doesn’t he deserve to remember it?