Frank watched them — Andy taking maybe two eggs, Loretta patting her belly and shaking her head, Richie topping Ivy, and Michael topping Richie. But there was plenty. One letter Jesse had sent him in the summer mentioned that a guy from over in Muscatine gave him some catfish roe. Lois fried it up. Jesse, he thought, should be here, should be having this once-in-a-lifetime experience. Frank let Ivy make him a serving with everything on it while he pulled himself together — the chair was gone, but there was still a space where it had been — and said, “You know, six months before the Iranian Revolution — when was that, spring of ’78—we got invited to the Iranian Consulate; remember that, Andy? That was the only time I’ve ever seen beluga in bowls like salad.”
“I do remember that,” said Andy, as if doing so surprised even her. Frank ate his serving. What he remembered about that party, more than the caviar, was standing near one of the windows and being revisited by a feeling from that trip he took for Arthur to Iran; at the sight of buzzards feasting in the moonlight on some carcass, say a goat, he had known all of a sudden how little intervened between the hot breeze on that runway and death itself. Death had shimmered in the air — as close as his next breath — and in that satin-draped consulate, looking out on Sixty-ninth Street, he had felt that once again. Now, he thought, right now, at the Russian Tea Room, it was even closer, if still beyond the boundary. The thought made his hand resting on the table look vivid, still, pale like marble.
Dinner was uneventful, except that, after Richie ate his lobster salad with evident enjoyment, Michael said, “Did you see him lick the plate?” and laughed, joined by Loretta. Ivy said, “Since you picked up your plate and licked the whole surface the last time we were at your place, it must be in the genes.”
Richie laughed.
Andy looked at Frank. Frank knew she was thinking that the two girls caused bad blood, or worse blood, between Richie and Michael. Frank did not agree: he thought the boys could not resist egging each other on, and would do it with or without Ivy and Loretta. But look at them, they were doing well. Michael and Loretta had bought a co-op on Seventy-eighth Street, between Madison and Fifth. Rubino said Richie was good at real estate, but he had a plan for something bigger and “more helpful.” Income-wise, they were about neck and neck — Michael stopped having Social Security taken out of his paycheck sometime in August, and Richie sometime in September. Loretta, of course, contributed more from her trust fund than Ivy did from her job, but that didn’t mean much, given Ivy’s dedication.
Jesse. Jesse. Well, he wasn’t worth what he had been two years before, but he was worth more than either of the twins — Frank did not look forward to the time when Michael, anyway, and maybe Richie, found that out. But because of that vibrating current that stretched between him, here, and Jesse, there, all of this was fine with him. He was alive and not divorced. Michael was not dead or in prison; Richie had come to terms with Michael by letting Loretta and Ivy take over. Janet had escaped that Peoples Temple psycho apparently unscathed. If someone had told him forty years ago that he could feel relief in all the imperfections of his life, that he could derive some sense of pleasure from a bad marriage, disappointing children, a faltering career, an array of physical aches and pains, and an intermittent correspondence with his brother’s son, he would have punched that person in the nose. But here it was again: once he identified a single thing in this world that he actually wanted — Lydia, Jesse — that very thing slipped away. He suspected that Andy would say he had no capacity for love. Only Frank knew that this wasn’t true. He swallowed, then said, “Normally, I wouldn’t suggest this, but how about some tea? It’s worth it here, just to see them make it.”
“Mint would be good,” said Loretta, patting her belly.
1982
HALF ASLEEP, Janet saw that face again — a black man in a doctor’s scrubs, striding down the hospital corridor, tossing off some medical terms as if he knew what they meant. She sat up with a cry that made Jared turn over and ask her what was going on: was Emily okay?
Janet said, “I’ll see,” and snaked out of bed, wide awake. Emily, of course, was fine. Janet stood in the darkness outside of Emily’s room and tried to stop shaking. That it was Lucas was impossible. Lucas was dead; even Marla agreed that he was dead. The worst part was that she could not remember which show it was. She had been clicking through to MTV, hoping for a Pat Benatar or a Blondie video — Emily loved to dance around the living room to “Heart of Glass.”
Two days of exploring, and she saw him again — he had a pretty good part on the soap, but not a lead. There was also a black nurse, who would probably end up his girlfriend but wasn’t paying much attention to him yet. She gathered that “Dr. Thompson” was a new character.
She wrote to Marla, but Marla knew nothing. In Paris, Marla had thought Janet and Lucas had both gone to Guyana. When she heard from Janet the first time (gosh, two years ago now), she was so happy to hear from her — and that she was alive — but she wrote that she hadn’t dared ask about Lucas, because Janet hadn’t mentioned him. Now that she was in New York, they wrote from time to time, but never about Lucas.
What with Emily and day care and her own classes and Jared’s schedule, she put it out of her mind, because, thank God, he was alive, and once she got used to his being alive, well, why stir up old business — curiosity killed the cat. That worked for exactly one month.
Right before moving day (Solon to Iowa City), she was packing books to give away, and out of one of them (the Bible, in fact, which was why she had never opened it after leaving San Francisco) fell a note. It read, “Too much is going on. I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got a possible gig at a recording studio in L.A. I’m hitchhiking, and will call you when I can. Lucas.” She turned the note over and turned it back. She smoothed it out. Why he had tucked it into the Bible, she had no idea. But she had given in to panic and let Aunt Eloise take her off to Iowa City. She knelt there for a moment, looking at the note, and imagined the phone ringing in her old room after her departure. Or of Lucas getting that message, “The number you are trying to reach is not in service at this time.” Not only was he not dead, she turned out to be the betrayer. Did he know that she was alive? It was entirely possible that he assumed she was the one to change her mind and go to Guyana, that he had read the newspapers horrified. Hadn’t she, after all, been more accepting of Reverend Jones than Lucas had been? She perused the note several more times. It was dated, too—“Friday,” the night he never returned from the gig she thought he had.
She stuck it in her sock drawer and left it there. But as she made scrambled eggs for Emily (it was Jared’s late night), she kept jiggling her legs and walking around. When Emily wanted to go out onto the porch and work on the snowman she was building, Janet jumped about as if she were cold, though the weather was pleasant. When it was time for Emily to go to bed, she could hardly read the book. When Emily pointed out letters and even short words she recognized, Janet was too distracted to be enthusiastic. Janet kissed Emily good night, turned out the light, closed the door, and she went straight to her sock drawer, got out the note, read it again. She would do nothing.