The Grand Tour (27 page)

“So what, you came all this way from Washington just to drop in?”

“I've been driving this guy around on a book tour. New York's the last stop.”

“A book tour.” His father processed this unlikely information with obvious displeasure at the number of questions and amount of conversation it prompted, then his face cleared as he settled on the superior option of ignoring it altogether. “Well, how are things?”

“Good. Can we go inside?”

“Look, Vance, you've kind of caught me off guard here.”

“Well, I would've emailed or called, if I could have.”

“Right. I know.”

“And I was hoping I could stay here tonight.” He realized, saying this, that the duffel bag he'd carried for hours had cut a deep welt into his shoulder, and he put the bag at his feet. His father looked down at it.

“What about the guy? The writer? Don't you have a hotel?”

“Not really.”

“This just isn't a great time.”

“One night.” He heard his voice ascend into a higher, childish register, as though attempting with a half-octave leap to deny five long years of puberty and his recent deflowering.

His father sighed. “The thing is, I've got a pretty good deal going. I'm engaged to this woman, Liselle. She's got a daughter. I kind of decided to start over when I moved here, make a clean break. I care about you and your brother, and Patsy, but that was a whole 'nother life for me. One I'm not superproud of, you know? I mean, the way I used to be.”

“You don't seem that different to me.”

“I am.” And now Steve's voice had an almost-pleading note in it. “I've got a good job, restoring old cars. That's mine over there.” He pointed across the street, at some car from the fifties or sixties that looked like it had done time ferrying cuff-jeaned, brush-cut boys and poodle-skirted girls to sock hops and soda fountains. It sat there, contented and fat, new cream-and-white paint job gleaming under sodium-vapor lights that had clicked on in the twilight. “I've settled down. I go to PTA meetings, for Christ's sake.”

“So what you're saying is they don't know about us.”

“Well, no, not exactly. It was just so much easier to start over, you know? Start fresh.”

“So I can't stay here.”

“Well. No.” A woman wearing large headphones walked by with her dog, a swaybacked German shepherd, which turned to look at Vance and Steve, as though detecting the curious tension between them, then snapped its head forward again, embarrassed and pretending not to have seen anything.

Vance said, “I need to use the bathroom.”

“What?”

“I've got to use the bathroom before I leave.”

“Oh.” Steve awkwardly opened the door and said, “Look, I'm really sorry about this, but would you mind if I said you were from work? From the garage?”

“Sure.” Vance followed him up the long, rackety stairway to an apartment on the fourth floor down a short hall. He knew, in a sense, what he was doing was juvenile. He didn't need to use the bathroom—in fact, all of the fluid felt as though it had been drained from his body, and he was made of sawdust, filings, cigarette butts. But he did want to see the apartment, and, more important, he wanted to make Steve Allerby squirm. He dropped his duffel bag outside, by a small pile of wooden molding next to the door, and they entered.

“This is Vance,” announced Steve, too loud. “He works with me at Paulson's.”

A large dark woman with long hair in tiny multicolored braids looked over at them from the open kitchen, where she stirred something on the stovetop. The apartment was small and completely suffused by the cooking odor—something rich and spicy that Vance felt sure he'd never smelled or eaten before. She said, “You hungry, Lance?”

He had eaten a limp hot dog hours ago, and at this point his stomach had cramped up like a poisoned spider, clutching itself. Nonetheless, the look on Steve's face was enough to formulate his response for him. “No,” he said, “I just need to use the bathroom, if that's okay?”

“Oh, sure. Right down the hall there.”

He walked a few paces across the room to the first door in the hall, and as he did, he was passed by his half stepsister, or whatever she was. He guessed it didn't matter, since they would never know each other. She was around twelve, with pretty dark eyes staring confused at his mumbled apology and abashed profile slipping into the bathroom. He heard her ask who that was and receive some kind of response from his father, her father. He sat on the toilet with his pants on, head in hands, but the sawdust man couldn't cry. A circular piece of embroidery on the wall next to the cramped shower read
BLESS THIS HOME AND ALL THOSE WHO ENTER IT.
He knew it came from a kit—some little prefab thing you buy at Michaels or Walmart—because his mother had made a similar one that still hung in the upstairs hall. He tried to remember what it was, word for word:
THIS IS THE DAY THAT THE LORD HAS MADE; LET US REJOICE AND BE GLAD IN IT
! It was easy to remember the quote because of the horrible comic dissonance that always occurred seeing her withered form in bed seconds later.

Rejoice and be glad, he thought. He got up, flushed the empty toilet, and splashed water on his face. Back in the living room he took in the tableau for posterity: the living and dining room all one space, demarcated by a worn green runner that extended from the door to the middle of the room; Liselle in the kitchen to his right, humming to herself; the nameless girl splayed on a floral-print sofa reading a Harry Potter hardback, studiously ignoring his presence; Steve Allerby seated in a wooden dining room chair, his legs crossed and hands knitted in a worried arabesque on the table. Vance considered announcing to Liselle and the girl who he was, but the urge passed as soon as it arrived. Why upset them, why introduce doubt into their lives? He didn't know what they thought Steve had been in his younger years—a trucker or deep-sea fisherman, a rodeo clown or astronaut—but why disabuse them? To get at his father, of course, but that wasn't good enough, and it wouldn't satisfy him anyway, he knew. “Thanks,” he said. “See you tomorrow.”

“What?” said Steve.

“At work. Nice to meet you all.” Then he was grabbing his bag, moving down the stairs and back out onto the street. He hailed a cab, told the driver where to, and rested his head on the greasy black vinyl. He was more tired than he could remember ever being, far too tired to walk back. And where the city's life before had felt transformative, it was now merely assaultive. Here, a gaggle of teenage girls in sequined jeans; there, a man with a blaring boom box taped to the handlebars of his Schwinn—everywhere, the incessant noise and color and motion of the city blurred past his window. There was too much desire elbowing for space in the narrow storefronts, too many stories in the anorexic apartments stacked higher and higher. His stomach spasmed, queasy with its own hunger, and he closed his eyes for the rest of the journey in a half-sleep, listening to the tinny chitter of the driver's Bluetooth, the insectile ticking of the meter.

Earlier that afternoon, Richard sat at a bar table in the Four Seasons lounge, waiting for his wife to arrive. His ex-wife. For the first time in his adult life, he'd ordered “Just a water.” An unrestrained ripple of loathing lapped across the broad lake of the bartender's face, and Richard didn't blame him. He hated people who drank water. But he hadn't seen Eileen in nearly a decade and didn't intend to confirm all of her correct assumptions about him.

He wasn't sure why she'd chosen the Four Seasons. Perhaps it was close to where she lived now, though he'd thought she was living in Brooklyn. Maybe she liked the view—through the tall rectangular windows, a tiny jade slice of Central Park's southeastern edge was visible. It couldn't have been that she liked the bar, a cavernous space decorated in an anonymous pseudo-deco style more Sheraton lounge than Algonquin Hotel. Tall puce vases against the far wall contained enormous plastic palm fronds, an unnatural green that nonetheless provided a visual break from the rectilinear earth tones. Two or three of the other tables were occupied, by businessmen and businesswomen with a distinct conventioneer air about them, all false bonhomie and strained laughter. The room's corporate blandness might have prevented him from having thoughts of romance, if he'd had thoughts like that, which he didn't. He wasn't sure what he really thought, or even how he felt, about the meeting, but the hot sweat luxuriously bathing his armpits provided a clue.

He looked down at the menu, and then someone was standing next to him—a woman. Her. “Hi, Richard,” Eileen said, draping her coat over the back of the chair.

“Hey. It's good to see you.”

“It's good to see you, too.”

Her face didn't convey the sense that it was good to see him, exactly. Interesting to see him, possibly, or amusing or strange. Good, no. She half smiled as he awkwardly rose and embraced her across the back of his chair. She went to the bar and returned with a sweating glass of white wine. He now wished that, instead of just a water, he'd ordered a real drink—say, an octuple Manhattan served in an ale tankard. She nodded at the menu in front of him. “Anything look good?”

He read from the menu in the most facetious voice he could muster. “Oh, everything. I'm trying to
choose from an assortment of delectable light fare such as Kobe beef sliders and tuna sashimi.
”

“How are you,” she said.

“I don't know,” he said, putting down the menu. “Terrible, I guess. How are you?”

“Good,” she said, and this time the word seemed sincere. She wore a gray pencil skirt and a thin, black cashmere sweater with a small string of pearls strung across the open V of her expressive throat. It was tanned and freckled and taut, and if there had been work done to it, it had been good work. Her lipstick matched the vases behind her. Again, he found himself thinking how radically differently time had treated them. Time was like a whimsically cruel father that had lavished gifts upon his daughter and taken his despised son behind the woodshed for daily beatings.

“I know,” he said. “I'm fat now.”

“You were always fat.”

“Not like this. I don't know what happened. Well, besides sitting on my ass and eating garbage for a decade. Anyway, you look beautiful. How are things?”

“Good. Things are good. I mean, there's the usual departmental squabbles and politicking, but work's good. I'm publishing a new book next year.” She sipped her wine. “And Molly and I are engaged.”

The expectant air was unmistakable, and he obliged. “Excuse me?”

“Molly, my partner.”

“Your partner? Are you ranch hands?” Eileen stared at him. “She's a woman?”

“Last I checked, yes.”

“What. When did this happen?”

“When did what happen? When did I become a lesbian? I'm not.”

“You're getting married to a woman, but you're not a lesbian.”

“It's not an unusual position these days, Richard. A lot of people find those cultural boxes stifling.”

“It sounds like you don't find her cultural box too stifling.”

She began to push up from the table, but he put his hand on her hand and she sat, warily. “Sorry, I'm sorry. This is just surprising. Cut me a break.” The table of business folk were looking over and talking under their collective breath. “How long have you been with her?”

“Eight years.”

“Wow. I didn't know.”

“Why would you know? It's none of your business.”

“You're right,” he said, and slowly withdrew his hand from hers; swollen by food and booze and age, it looked like a catcher's mitt next to the thin lines of her fingers, the fine, dignified ridges of her knuckles. Eight years. They had been together for ten—at the time of their divorce, it had been almost a full third of his life, the main portion of his adulthood. At this point, he'd already lived in the desert for eight. It was funny—though not at all humorous—how as you had increasingly less time remaining, your sense of time expanded; it seemed like it should be the other way, that increasing proximity to death should heighten your sense of urgency, but it didn't work like that. You became lulled by the unscrolling of your own life. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks. Why am I here?” she said. She twisted the stem of her wineglass between her fingers and seemed poised to spring from her chair at any moment.

“I'm sorry,” he said, with more conviction this time, simultaneously realizing it was really true and feeling surprised by that fact. The feeling of not meaning the words as he said them was much more familiar. “Have you heard from Cindy?”

“She called me yesterday.”

“Really?”

“Yes, from Denver. She sounded happier than she has in years. I don't know exactly what you said to her, or what happened, but whatever it was really seems to have helped. She said she's making a fresh start.”

“Yeah, I guess she is.” He pulled Cindy's goodbye letter out of his jacket pocket and smoothed the Hampton Inn stationery on the table. Eileen leaned forward and read it and looked up.

“Wow.”

He'd decided beforehand against telling her about the money. It would only worry her, and he'd done enough of that over the years. He said, “I wasn't sure why I wanted to meet, when I called you months ago. But I guess this is why, basically. I know we're twenty years past that, and it's completely meaningless at this point, but I am sorry. I'm sorry for how things went with us, and I'm sorry I didn't do better.”

She looked at him, clearly unsure of what she was meant to say. He knew she wanted to say it was okay, but he also knew it wasn't and she couldn't say so. She looked past his shoulder, and he looked where she was looking, at the thin green wedge of Central Park. A blindered horse cantered around in a circle, the cop on its back talking to another mountie. “Well,” she said, “it was a long time ago, and we both made mistakes.”