The Rules of Inheritance (12 page)

 

I insist on spending every Sunday with him. We go for long drives through the San Bernardino Mountains or the hills of Pasadena. My dad points out places where he worked in the 1950s and homes he lived in with his other family decades ago.

 

I find myself holding my breath on these drives, knowing that the time I have left with this man, with my only parent, is running out. He spins the wheel lazily with one hand as we snake down hairpin mountain curves, unspooling story after story about his life. I have begun to carry a tape recorder whenever I am with him, recording hours' worth of his voice.

 

Sometimes my father wants to go over technical things with me on our visits together. He wants to add my name to his bank account, help me understand how a living will works, double-check that I have the extra key to his safe-deposit box.

 

Dad, I moan, you're being so morbid.

 

Not morbid, sweetie. I'm just trying to prepare you.

 

But you're not going to die yet, I say.

 

Hopefully not anytime soon, he says. But when I do you're going to have to be on top of this stuff.

 

The radiation has been wearing him down. His taste buds have stopped working, and my heart sinks each time I watch him push a plate away, complaining that everything tastes like cardboard. For his birthday in October, I make him a little coupon book of all his favorite meals, something he can redeem when his taste buds return. Neither of us realizes that this is never going to happen.

 

I think about him late at night, as I try to fall asleep. About how I'm going to be completely alone when my father is gone. There is a screaming, gaping chasm that opens up inside me when I try to imagine it.

 

I still miss my mother, but it is my father whom I have come to depend on now. My deep, dark secret is that I am glad that she died first. Had she not, I may have never known him.

 

My father has mellowed and sweetened in his old age. He moves slowly, like a turtle, carefully planning each move in order to make the most of it. He cooks recipes from the
New York Times
and he cans peaches like his mother used to when he was growing up in Michigan.

 

He is friendly with all the young neighbors in his condominium complex, and he enlists my help in planting flowers around the perimeter of his front stoop. He inherited this condominium after his sister died, and he has since done away with her seventies avocado-green furniture and heavy draperies. He has outfitted the living room with black leather couches and black-lacquered credenzas. He acquired an absurd collection of lava lamps that he proudly displays on a shelf in the living room, and he hangs photos of my mother in every single room.

 

Most weekends we just watch movies together. Whatever is on HBO:
The Thomas Crown Affair
,
The Bourne Identity
,
Tin Cup
. I know that after four years of living alone he is unspeakably grateful for companionship.

 

I get that breathlessness again when I think about it though. The feeling of time spilling across the floor. Of my father ebbing away from me. Of not being able to do anything about it.

 

Now and then I offer to quit my job. I could move in with you, I say. But even as I offer I am torn. It's not Colin I'm afraid of leaving; it's my twenties. I'm afraid of giving up who I am.

 

Each radiation treatment depletes him a little more. He has lost weight and his skin has turned an unappealing shade of gray. The doctors want to start radiating his hips too, suspecting that the cancer may have spread there as well. My father sets his jaw and raises his eyebrows at me.

 

What other options do we have, kiddo?

 

On Sunday nights, when I drive the hour back to Hollywood, it is with a sinking feeling, a dreadful confusion that does not abate. I listen to Radio-head and I blow my cigarette smoke up through the moonroof into the balmy Southern California night air.

WEST COAST EDITOR RETURNS from New York in a flurry of activity, with multiple orders to be carried out immediately. She even ships a giant box of her dirty laundry to the office a few days before her return, and Sophie and I stand in the center of the room, surveying the contents.

 

I cannot believe she mailed this stuff to us, I say.

 

I can, Sophie replies.

 

I tell Colin about it that night when I get home. I even try to explain to him that apparently this is standard Hollywood behavior. It seems no one would get their jobs done if they didn't have assistants to do this stuff for them, I tell him.

 

Fuck her, he replies, without looking up from the TV.

 

I can't even bring myself to respond to him. Our relationship has been deteriorating by the day. We are hardly speaking to each other. I can tell that we both want out but that neither of us knows how to make the first move.

 

The next day, when I go into the office, West Coast Editor is in a huff. She's only been back for two days but I'm already not sure I can do this.

 

West Coast Editor has been assigned a cover story on Sultry Movie Star and she is completely stressed. I have no sympathy for her. On top of the thousands of dollars she'll likely receive in addition to her salary for the piece, she actually gets to write, something I've been dying to do since I started the job.

 

But I don't have time to muse on all of this. West Coast Editor is in rare form. She walks in and out of her office, slamming the door, barking out orders at me and Sophie.

 

On top of the interview with Sultry Movie Star, West Coast Editor is scheduled to fly home this weekend, and we need to help her pack. While Sophie stays in the office manning the phones, I am sent out to Blockbuster to rent as many of Sultry Movie Star's movies as I can get my hands on.

 

I bring a stack of seven back to the office. One of the most popular ones was checked out already, and West Coast Editor seems pissed. I place the stack of DVDs on her desk.

 

What are you giving these to me for? You think I'm going to pack them in my suitcase? She briskly recites her father's address. FedEx them. I want them there by tomorrow morning.

 

I get back to my desk and glance at the clock as I pack the DVDs. My father should be finishing up his radiation for the morning, heading home to his condo. I wish I were with him.

 

Suddenly West Coast Editor is looming over my desk. She's got her message book in her hands. Her finger is digging a hole into a name written out in my handwriting under yesterday's date, the date when she should have returned the call.

 

Do you see this name? I hear her voice as loud, screeching.

 

I risk a quick glance around at the other cubicles, all full of advertising execs. They stare at their computer screens, act as though nothing is happening.

 

Do you
know
who this is?

 

I sigh, shake my head.

 

I don't know who it is. All the names have started to blur together. Actors, agents, producers. I need an encyclopedia to keep everything straight.

 

Do you
understand
your job, Claire?

 

I keep my eyes down. I am afraid to look at her. I hate the way she says my name. When someone only uses your name when they're mad at you, you wish they wouldn't use it at all.

 

I'm not going to cry, I tell myself. I'm not going to cry.

 

How
stupid
can you be?

 

With this question she throws the message book at the floor behind my desk.

 

This is
fucking
ridiculous, she says, and walks into her office, slamming the door behind her.

 

Tears smart in my eyes, and I keep my gaze trained on my keyboard so that no one around me can see that I'm crying.

 

I wait until West Coast Editor storms out of her office again, and I cower as she heads for the elevator. She has a lunch date and is heading home after that. I won't see her again until tomorrow. The moment the elevator doors close I let out a long-held breath of air. I motion to Sophie that I'm going outside for a cigarette and she nods.

 

Outside I lean against the building and watch the cars going by. Mercedes-Benzes, BMWs, Audis. Their shiny paint jobs flash in the morning sun as they whiz down the palm-tree-lined street. I think about how it would feel to push away from the wall, to just walk away from this job, to never see West Coast Editor again. I take a long drag on my cigarette and think about what I want for my life.

 

It's not this.

 

I call my Dad. His voice is barely audible. Dad, what's wrong?

 

Oh, I'm just wiped out, honey. This stuff really gets you.

 

My heart is bursting. I picture him alone in his condo, heating up some soup, watching television with the doors open to let the warm air in.

 

I suddenly make up my mind.

 

Back upstairs I phone HR from my desk. The woman who hired me is really nice and I ask her if she has a minute to talk.

 

Five minutes later I'm sitting across from her on a little couch. She has welcomed me in, smiling warmly.

 

My hands are shaking. My voice trembles.

 

Um, I begin. I'm not really sure this job is for me.

 

Oh?

 

You know, when I got hired I thought I would be more involved with . . . with the editorial side of things, but that isn't really what I've been doing.

 

Tell me more, she says.

 

With this prompt, I just pour it all out.

 

I tell her how West Coast Editor yells at me, how I'm made to spend my days doing her personal errands. I describe the giant box of dirty laundry. I tell her about having to walk West Coast Editor's dog and about how mad she seems if I get her the wrong breakfast.

 

When I finally stop, I sink backward against the sofa cushions, the air deflated out of me.

 

The HR lady crosses her legs, leans forward, and pauses.

 

I am expecting her to be shocked. I imagine that no one has had the bravado yet to rat on West Coast Editor like this. Maybe they'll fire West Coast Editor and give me her job. Sophie can be my assistant, and I'll never make her drop off my dry cleaning or stock my freezer with vodka.

 

She looks at me, her gaze steady, her tone decidedly changed from the friendly one I know. She says the next sentence slowly.

 

Do you know how many girls would want your position?

 

It feels like a scene in a movie. It feels like being underwater. My limbs get heavy, my responses slow.

 

The rest of the conversation deteriorates from there. She gives me the standard excuse about how my doing West Coast Editor's personal errands frees her up to do her job here. I can't even bring myself to respond.

 

By the time I'm back at my desk, after another tensely smoked cigarette outside, West Coast Editor has already been alerted of my betrayal. I'm forced to speak to her on the phone. Since she's out, I sit in her office, at her desk, and close the door for privacy.

 

I didn't realize you were so very unhappy. I picture a sneer on her face as she says this.

 

I stammer and am unable to respond.

 

I've made HR aware of your transgressions, she tells me.

 

My
transgressions
? What is she talking about?

 

West Coast Editor proceeds to run through a list of petty grievances, including not coming in early enough and failing to keep her phone messages in order.

 

I don't know how on earth you expect me to do my job, she says. But I've kindly asked HR to give you thirty days. You have until the end of the month to prove that you can shape up.

 

I'm shaking when I finally hang up the phone. Sophie comes into the office and together we stand at the windows, staring out at the city before us.

 

Fuck the thirty days, I say. I'm just going to quit.