The New Yorker Stories (74 page)

“And the next night you could be your usual frugal self and eat the leftover packaging,” she said.

“Horses don’t eat cardboard. You’re thinking of mice,” he said.

“I stand corrected,” she said, echoing the sentence he often said to her. “But let me ask you another thing. Addison’s sister lives in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and she issued a personal invitation for you to join us at her house for dinner. Would you like to have Thanksgiving there?”

“How could she issue a personal invitation if she’s never met me?” he said.

“Stop it,” his daughter said. “Just answer.”

He thought about it. Not about whether he would go but about the holiday itself. The revisionist thinking on Thanksgiving was that it commemorated the subjugation of the Native Americans (formerly the Indians). Not as bad a holiday as Columbus Day, but still.

“I take it your silence means that you prefer to be far from the maddening crowd,” she said.

“That title is much misquoted,” he said. “Hardy’s novel is
Far from the Madding Crowd
, which has an entirely different connotation,
madding
meaning ‘frenzied.’ There’s quite a difference between
frenzied
and
annoying
. Consider, for instance, your mother’s personality versus mine.”

“You are
incredibly
annoying,” Lynn said. “If I didn’t know that you cared for me, I couldn’t bring myself to pick up the phone and let myself in for your mockery, over and over.”

“I thought it was because you pitied me.”

He heard the click, and there was silence. He replaced the phone in its cradle, which made him think of another cradle—Lynn’s—with the decal of the cow jumping over the moon on the headboard and blue and pink beads (the cradle manufacturer having hedged his bets) on the rails. He could remember spinning the beads and watching Lynn sleep. The cradle was now in the downstairs hallway, used to store papers and magazines for recycling. Over the years, some of the decal had peeled away, so that on last inspection only a torso with two legs was successfully making the jump over the brightly smiling moon.

He bought a frozen turkey potpie and, as a treat to himself (it was not true that he constantly denied himself happiness, as Lynn said—one could not deny what was rarely to be found), a new radio whose FM quality was excellent—though what did he know, with his imperfect hearing? As he ate Thanksgiving dinner (two nights before Thanksgiving, but why stand on formality?—a choice of Dinty Moore beef stew or Lean Cuisine vegetable lasagna remained for the day of thanks itself), he listened with pleasure to Respighi’s
Pini di Roma.
He and Sue Anne had almost gone to Rome on their honeymoon, but instead they had gone to Paris. His wife had just finished her second semester of college, in which she had declared herself an art history major. They had gone to the Louvre and to the Jeu de Paume and on the last day of the trip he had bought her a little watercolor of Venice she kept admiring, in a rather elaborate frame that probably accounted for the gouache’s high price—it was a gouache, not a watercolor, as she always corrected him. They both wanted three children, preferably a son followed by either another son or a daughter, though if their second child was a son, then of course they would devoutly wish their last to be a daughter. He remembered with bemusement the way they had prattled on, strolling by the Seine, earnestly discussing those things that were most out of their control: Life’s Important Matters.

Sue Anne conceived only once, and although they (she, to be honest) had vaguely considered adoption, Lynn remained their only child. Lacking brothers and sisters, she had been fortunate to grow up among relatives, because Keller’s sister had given birth to twins a year or so after Lynn was born, and in those days the two families lived only half an hour apart and saw each other almost every weekend. Now Sue Anne and his sister Carolynne (now merely Carol), who lived in Arlington with her doctor husband (or who lived apart from him—he was forbidden to inquire about the status of their union), had not spoken for months, and the twins, Richard and Rita, who worked as stockbrokers and had never married—smart!—and shared a house in the Hollywood Hills, were more at ease with him than his own daughter was. For years Keller had promised to visit the twins, and the previous summer, Richard had called his bluff and sent him a ticket to Los Angeles. Richard and Rita had picked Keller up at LAX in a BMW convertible and taken him to a sushi restaurant where at periodic intervals laser images on the wall blinked on and off like sexually animated hieroglyphics dry-humping to a recording of “Walk Like an Egyptian.” The next morning, the twins had taken him to a museum that had been created as a satire of museums, with descriptions of the bizarre exhibits that were so tongue-in-cheek he was sure the majority of people there thought that they were touring an actual museum. That night, they turned on the lights in their pool and provided him with bathing trunks (how would he have thought to pack such a thing?—he never thought of a visit to sprawling Los Angeles as a visit to a
beach
), and on Sunday they had eaten their lunch of fresh pineapple and prosciutto poolside, drinking prosecco instead of mineral water (the only beverages in the house, except for extraordinarily good red wine, as far as he could tell), and in the late afternoon they had been joined by a beautiful blonde woman who had apparently been, or might still be, Jack Nicholson’s lover. Then he went with Rita and Richard to a screening (a shoot-’em-up none of them wanted to see, though the twins felt they must, because the cinematographer was their longtime client), and on Monday they had sent a car to the house so Keller wouldn’t get lost trying to find his way around the freeways. It transported him to a lunch with the twins at a restaurant built around a beautiful terraced garden, after which he’d been dropped off to take the MGM tour and then picked up by the same driver—a dropout from Hollywood High who was working on a screenplay.

It was good they had bought him a ticket for only a brief visit, because if he’d stayed longer he might never have gone home. Though who would have cared if he hadn’t? His wife didn’t care where he lived, as long as she lived in the opposite direction. His daughter might be relieved that he had moved away. He lived where he lived for no apparent reason—at least, no reason apparent to him. He had no friends, unless you called Don Kim a friend—Don, with whom he played handball on Mondays and Thursdays. And his accountant, Ralph Bazzorocco. He supposed Bazzorocco was his friend, though with the exception of a couple of golf games each spring and the annual buffet dinner he and Bazzorocco’s other clients were invited to every April 16—and except for Bazzorocco’s calling to wish him a happy birthday, and “Famiglia Bazzorocco” (as the gift card always read) sending him an enormous box of biscotti and Baci at Christmas . . . oh, he didn’t know. Probably that was what friendship was, he thought, a little ashamed of himself. He had gone to the hospital to visit Bazzorocco’s son after the boy injured his pelvis and lost his spleen playing football. He’d driven Bazzorocco’s weeping wife home in the rain so she could shower and change her clothes, then driven her, still weeping, back to the hospital. Okay: he had friends. But would any of them care if he lived in Los Angeles? Don Kim could easily find another partner (perhaps a younger man more worthy as a competitor); Bazzorocco could remain his accountant via the miracle of modern technology. In any case, Keller had returned to the North Shore.

Though not before that last odd day in L.A. He had said, though he hadn’t planned to say it (Lynn was not correct in believing that everything that escaped his lips was premeditated), that he’d like to spend his last day lounging around the house. So they wouldn’t feel too sorry for him, he even asked if he could open a bottle of Merlot—whatever they recommended, of course—and raid their refrigerator for lunch. After all, the refrigerator contained a tub of mascarpone instead of cottage cheese, and the fruit drawer was stocked with organic plums rather than puckered supermarket grapes. Richard wasn’t so keen on the idea, but Rita said that of course that was fine. It was
Keller’s
vacation, she stressed. They’d make a reservation at a restaurant out at the beach that night, and if he felt rested enough to eat out, fine; if not, they’d cancel the reservation and Richard would cook his famous chicken breasts marinated in Vidalia-onion sauce.

When Keller woke up, the house was empty. He made coffee (at home, he drank instant) and wandered out through the open doors to the patio as it brewed. He surveyed the hillside, admired the lantana growing from Mexican pottery urns flanking one side of the pool. Some magazine had been rained on—it must have rained during the night; he hadn’t heard it, but then, he’d fallen asleep with earphones on, listening to Brahms. He walked toward the magazine—as offensive as litter along the highway, this copy of
Vogue
deteriorating on the green tiles—then drew back, startled. There was a small possum: a baby possum, all snout and pale narrow body, clawing the water, trying futilely to scramble up the edge of the pool. He looked around quickly for the pool net. The night before, it had been leaning against the sliding glass door, but it was no longer there. He went quickly to the side of the house, then ran to the opposite side, all the while acutely aware that the drowning possum was in desperate need of rescue. No pool net. He went into the kitchen, which was now suffused with the odor of coffee, and threw open door after door looking for a pot. He finally found a bucket containing cleaning supplies, quickly removed them, then ran back to the pool, where he dipped the bucket in, missing, frightening the poor creature and adding to its problems by making it go under. He recoiled in fear, then realized that the emotion he felt was not fear but self-loathing. Introspection was not his favorite mode, but no matter: he dipped again, leaning farther over this time, accepting the ludicrous prospect of his falling in, though the second time he managed to scoop up the possum—it was only a tiny thing—and lift it out of the water. The bucket was full, because he had dipped deep, and much to his dismay, when he saw the possum curled up at the bottom, he knew immediately that it was already dead. The possum had drowned. He set the bucket down and crouched on the tile beside it before he had a second, most welcome epiphany and realized almost with a laugh that it wasn’t dead: it was playing possum. Though if he didn’t get it out of the bucket, it really would drown. He jumped up, turned the bucket on its side, and stood back as water and possum flowed out. The water dispersed. The possum lay still. That must be because he was watching it, he decided, although he once more considered the grim possibility that it was dead.

He stood still. Then he thought to walk back into the house, far away from it. It was dead; it wasn’t. Time passed. Then, finally, as he stood unmoving, the possum twitched and waddled off—the flicker of life in its body resonated in Keller’s own heart—and then the event was over. He continued to stand there, cognizant of how much he had loathed himself just moments before. Then he went out to retrieve the bucket. As he grasped the handle, tears welled up in his eyes. What the hell! He cried at the sink as he rinsed the bucket.

He dried his eyes on the crook of his arm and washed the bucket thoroughly, much longer than necessary, then dried it with a towel. He put the Comet, the Windex, and the rag and the brush back inside and returned the bucket to its place under the sink and tried to remember what he had planned to do that day, and again he was overwhelmed. The image that popped into his mind was of Jack Nicholson’s girlfriend, the blonde in the bikini with the denim shirt thrown over it. He thought . . . what? That he was going to get together with Jack Nicholson’s girlfriend? Whose last name he didn’t even know?

But that
had
been what he was thinking. No way to act on it, but yes—that was what he had been thinking, all along.

The water had run off, though the tiles still glistened. No sign, of course, of the possum. It was doubtless off assimilating its important life lesson. On a little redwood table was a waterproof radio that he turned on, finding the classical station, adjusting the volume. Then he unbuckled his belt and unzipped his fly, stepped out of his pants and underpants, and took off his shirt. Carrying the radio, he walked to the deep end of the pool, placed the radio on the rim, and dove in. He swam underwater for a while, and then, as his head broke the surface, he had the distinct feeling that he was being watched. He looked back at the house, then looked slowly around the pool area. The fence that walled it off from the neighbors was at least ten feet high. Behind the pool, the terrace was filled with bushes and fruit trees and pink and white irises—Keller was crazy: he was alone in a private compound; no one was there. He went under the water again, refreshed by its silky coolness, and breaststroked to the far end, where he came up for air, then used his feet to push off the side of the pool so he could float on his back. When he reached the end, he pulled himself out, then saw, in the corner of his eye, who was watching him. High up on the terrace, a deer was looking down. The second their eyes met, the deer was gone, but in that second it had come clear to him—on this day of endless revelations—that the deer had been casting a beneficent look, as if in thanks. He had felt that: that a deer was acknowledging and thanking him. He was flabbergasted at the odd workings of his brain. How could a grown man—a grown man without any religious beliefs, a father who, in what now seemed like a different lifetime, had accompanied his little daughter to
Bambi
and whispered, as every parent does, “It’s only a movie,” when Bambi’s mother was killed . . . how could a man with such knowledge of the world, whose most meaningful accomplishment in as long as he could remember had been to fish an animal out of a swimming pool—how could such a man feel unequivocally that a deer had appeared to bless him?

But he knew it had.

As it turned out, the blessing hadn’t exactly changed his life, though why should one expect so much of blessings, just because they were blessings?