I wanted to spare her that. Mostly, I wanted to spare me that.
So I turned tail. I skirted the fringes of the slowly moving crowd and tried to keep my face forward to avoid any accidental eye contact.
I made it through the crowd, a piece of flotsam moving with the tide. All the way over to the stairway leading to Eighth Avenue. Home free.
Only, I’d peeked. I couldn’t help it. I’d peeked over at Lucinda and her business associate to see if I’d remained unnoticed.
And noticed something.
I mulled it over on the cab ride to the National Museum of the American Indian and decided I didn’t know what. Whatever it was had been picked up in one quick, furtive glance. And there’d been all these people between us, too. Foreground crosses, we call it in shoot-speak. Where you walk the extra back and forth between camera and actors to ensure it looks real, that it doesn’t look like some sound stage in Universal Studios.
Only sometimes you put too many extras into the mix, and they obliterate the actors entirely. It becomes impossible to see them, and they themselves become extras in the shot. Then you have to thin out the extras and rework the blocking so the actors can be seen again.
That’s sort of what I was doing in the cab.
I was trying to push the faceless crowd of commuters off to the side so I could see Lucinda clearly. Lucinda and that business associate of hers, or neighborhood friend. Or . . .
Her brother. Yes, maybe it was her brother, only I couldn’t remember if she had a brother or not. It seemed to me we’d spent a lot more time talking about my family than hers. I’d poured my heart out to her, hadn’t I? About Anna and Deanna? I didn’t remember whether she had brothers or not.
But it seemed to me now that it must have been her brother. Or perhaps her cousin. Yes, it could have been her cousin.
It had to do with what I’d noticed.
I was trying to push those other people out of the way to get a clear look, but they were getting annoyed and pushing back. They were telling me to get lost or busy looking for a cop.
Their hands.
I thought I saw their hands touching. Not interlocked, not intertwined, but touching.
Something you might do with a brother, wasn’t it?
And even if it wasn’t her brother, even if it was a friend of hers, anew friend of hers, could you blame her? I’d never asked her if I was the first. Why should I assume I’d be the last?
She was still stuck in the same awful marriage. She was desperately in need of someone to talk to. Now especially. Maybe she’d gone and found someone.
And for the briefest moment, I felt something suspiciously like jealousy. Just a quick pang, a phantom ache from a long healed wound.
Then I forgot about it.
THIRTY-TWO
It was Anna’s birthday.
I’d never missed one. I couldn’t imagine missing one now. She might give a sullen shrug of her shoulders when I brought up things like birthdays — Birthday, what’s that? — but I genuinely believed she’d never forgive me if I didn’t actually show up for one. And then I’d have two Schines in a unforgiving mode, and I was having a hard enough time with one.
So when I phoned home and Deanna picked up, I said: “Please don’t call Anna yet. I need to talk to you.”
She sighed. “Yes, Charles?” she said.
Well, she’d used my name, at least.
“Anna’s birthday is coming up,” I said.
“I know when Anna’s birthday is.”
“Well. Don’t you think I should be home for it? She’d hate me if she thought I’d stayed in California on her birthday.”
“I’m not ready for you to come home, Charles.”
Yes, that was a problem — Deanna not being ready. As for me, of course, I was more than ready.
“Well, couldn’t we . . . what if I say I came back just for her birthday and then I have to leave again?”
“I don’t know . . .”
“Deanna, it’s Anna's birthday . . .”
“Look . . . you can stay the night, okay? But in the morning, Charles, I want you to leave.”
“I understand. That’s fine. Thank you.”
It felt a little odd thanking my wife for letting me stay overnight in my own home. Not unjust, just odd. The important thing, though, was that she’d said yes.
When I arrived at the kitchen door, present in hand — I’d bought her three CDs based on the recommendations of a clerk at Virgin Records — Anna was sitting at the counter munching cereal and staring zombie-eyed at MTV.
“Daddy!” Anna, who normally liked to keep her childish enthusiasm under control, seemed unabashedly glad to see me. Only not as glad as I was to see her. She popped up off her stool in a flash and straight into my arms, where I clung to her as if my very life depended on it. And maybe it did.
I was about to ask her where her mother was, but just then she walked into the kitchen. I had no idea what to do — I felt as awkward as someone on a blind date. I wasn’t sure how to greet her, what to say to her, and it occurred to me that she was probably a little confused on the issue as well. We both hesitated, then settled on a perfunctory embrace with all the warmth of a postgame hockey handshake.
“How was California?” she asked me, evidently determined to see the charade through.
“Fine. Not done yet, either. I have to go back in the morning.”
This was evidently news to Anna. She immediately pouted and said: "Daddy . . .”
“Sorry, honey. There’s nothing I can do about it.” And here, at least, I was telling the truth.
“I wanted you to see me sing at the spring concert. I have a solo.”
“Well, don’t turn professional till after high school.”
The attempt at levity failed; Anna turned back to MTV, looking hurt and upset with me.
“Can somebody get me some juice?” she said. Her hands were suddenly shaking; she was holding the TV remote, and it was jiggling up and down.
“Are you low, honey?” Deanna said, quickly opening the refrigerator.
“No. I’m shaking because I like to.”
Deanna shot me a look: See what I’ve been going through, this look said. She's getting worse.
Deanna pulled out some orange juice and poured Anna half a glass. “There you go. . . .”
Anna took it and swallowed a little.
“I think you should drink a little more,” Deanna said.
“Oh, is that what you think?” Anna, ever vigilant against any suggestions concerning what she should or shouldn’t put into her own body. She was still shaking.
“Come on, sweetie,” I said.
“I’m fine,” Anna said.
“You’re not — ”
“All right!" Anna said, grabbing the glass and striding out of the room. “I wish both of you would get off of my back already.”
After she left the room, Deanna said: “She’s scared. She’s been going up and down like a roller coaster. When she gets scared she gets angry.”
“Yes,” I said. “I know.”
Why did you call me Anna? our daughter Anna used to ask when she was very small.
Because you’re part of me, Deanna would answer: De-Anna, see?
“I have to get back to the bills,” Deanna said. Which suddenly reminded me that we might soon be having a problem paying those bills. Deanna left the kitchen.
I still needed a birthday card. Since my daughter and wife were both mad at me, I decided it was a good time to go to the stationery store on Merrick Road and buy one.
When I walked into the store, an older woman was buying Lotto tickets at the counter.