Dad has come in to make a drink and is standing there, listening.
“Knock it off, Garvey,” he says. “I don’t want you corrupting her. She’s an innocent little girl and she doesn’t need a slob like you filling her head with bullshit.”
“Look who’s talking.”
“I’ll tell you something. Any bullshit either of you has gotten comes from your mother. Look at you. Just look at you. I tell you, I feel sorry for you with a mother like that. She left me a goddamn note right there.” He points to the counter because the kitchen table isn’t there to point to anymore. “Right there. Wouldn’t even tell me to my face she was leaving.” I think for a moment he’s going to cry.
“She was scared you’d hit her.”
“She was right about that. I would have hit her. Cowardly bitch.”
Garvey laughs. My father joins him. My heart is racing and I scrub the scalloped sweet potato dish as hard as I can.
We leave as soon as the kitchen is clean. I mention to Dad that I’ll be back up here Saturday morning and he just shrugs, like he couldn’t care less, which is a lot better than getting yelled at.
We are late, very late, getting back to Mom’s. I can see her trying not to let it bother her, but she’s been cooking alone all day and now the dishes that she covered with tinfoil are cold and she sits down and picks up her fork without saying grace either.
“Where’s Mrs. Waverly and Cousin Morgan?” Garvey asks.
“Oh, Mom,” I remember the placecards in my dress pocket. “Look what I rescued!” I spill them onto the table. The wooden fruits clatter together.
She shakes her head at them. And then scoops them up and throws them all in the trash in the kitchen. “Sorry,” she says to me, “but they give me the willies.” And then she says to Garvey, “I thought it would be better to just have it be us this year. I’m not used to this electric oven and I didn’t know what time to invite them for because I didn’t know what time Catherine would be serving lunch up there and they never stick to a schedule anyway and I just thought it would be easier, but now I’m feeling so guilty. Who knows where they’re eating. Probably at a restaurant. And they could have kept me company while I waited for you two.” She looks sad, sadder than I’ve seen her since we moved here.
Garvey doesn’t seem to notice. He puts his fingers to his Adam’s apple. “You/didn’t/want/to/hear/Mrs./Wa/ver/ly/com/plain/a/bout/her/an/gi/na/this/year?”
“Stop it,” she says harshly. “Stop that right now.”
Garvey just laughs at her tone. I wish I could do that. “Oh my God, Mom, it’s a scene up there. Catherine’s walking around with her boobs falling out of her dress and they’re both pounding down the martinis and her kids seem kind of shell-shocked. Frank is high as a kite and little what’s-her-name is like a feral child. She’s like Helen Keller.” Garvey shuts his eyes and gropes around for my hand and when he finds it he moans and scribbles in my palm with his finger. Mom can’t help laughing.
“You shouldn’t let Daley spend too much time up there,” he says.
I flail around blindly, too, but when I open my eyes no one is laughing.
They start talking about politics, about congressional seats and public funding. They can flip into this language I don’t understand so quickly. When Garvey asks Mom about her boss, things get more interesting. Garvey has a way of sniffing out the real story. For three months, all I’ve known is that he is a lawyer named Paul Adler, and when you call his office you get a lady named Jean who is never pleased you are calling. I know that Mr. Adler is involved in politics, too, and that my mother often has to stay in town for fundraisers. But Garvey, in a matter of minutes, susses out that he is thirty-six, Harvard undergrad and law, unmarried, handsome, Jewish, and has a crush on my mother.
“I think you like this guy. I think you like him a lot more than Martin.”
“Oh, Martin.” My mother waves him off.
“You like your boss,” he says in playground singsong.
“He’s much younger than I am.”
“Five years. And look at you. You look like a coed.” It’s true. Garvey has more wrinkles around his eyes than she does.
“It’s all that grease she puts on her face at night,” I say.
“Like a bug in amber,” my brother says.
“He leaves me these little cryptic notes on my desk.”
“I can just see him. Some poor kid in jail’s life hangs in the balance, but he’s busy at his desk composing the perfect little bon mot for you. Has he made a pass at you yet?”
“No.”
“Oh c’mon. He hasn’t even kissed you yet?”
“No. On the cheek.”
“You’re lying.”
“I am lying.” She bursts out with a huge long laugh. She is happy again, and relaxed, her hands dangling off the arms of the chair, her head off to one side. She keeps laughing, her mouth wide open, her front teeth slightly bent together but still white and pretty and young.
7
It turns out it’s serious with this guy, Paul. Mom brings him home one Thursday night to meet me. He reminds me of a greyhound, lean and quick. He wears glasses. He notices everything.
“How do you like Ashing Academy Founded in 1903?” he asks when my mother has abandoned us to arrange the take-out on plates.
“You’ve done some research,” I say.
He tips his head toward the corner of the room. “I saw it on your bookbag.”
“I like it. I’ve never gone anywhere else so I don’t have anything to compare it to.” There’s something about him that makes you sit up straight, makes you want to say things right.
He looks at me like he’s really taking it in. “It’s funny that way, isn’t it? I’ve only worked for this one law firm, so I don’t know any better either.”
“Do you like it?” I’ve never asked a grown-up if they like what they do. I just assumed they all came home and complained about their work like my father did.
“I have a ball at work.”
I must have given him a face without knowing it because he says he’s serious; he loves his work. He tries to tug his pant cuff down closer to his shoe. He looks like he’s a tall kid pretending to be a grown-up. Then he asks me if I feel cut off from the town, going to private school, and I tell him I didn’t used to, but living down here has made me realize how few of the neighborhood kids I know. “Pauline, my babysitter, knows everyone,” I say. “It’s weird.”
“It’s not weird. It’s to be expected.”
I stand corrected, my math teacher says when someone finds a mistake on the board.
My mother puts the food on the table and calls us over.
“You are here,” she says to Paul, patting the top of the chair she usually sits in.
“Couldn’t I be over there?” he says, pointing to a side spot, next to the wall.
“No, no, you’re the guest of honor,” she says.
Paul sits but keeps looking up and flapping his hand above his head.
“What on earth are you doing?” my mother says, smiling, looking up to the ceiling, too.
“Just checking for swords hanging by hairs.”
My mother bursts out laughing but I have no idea what he’s talking about.
“They haven’t taught you about Damocles yet?”
I shake my head.
In the fourth century B.C., he tells me, there was a terrible tyrant of Syracuse named Dionysius. He was brilliant in battle and mean as a snake to everyone around him. He liked to surround himself with intellectuals like Plato, but he also liked to toy with them. Paul leans back in his seat, as if he’s telling a story about his own family. Dionysius once read some of his poetry to the famous poet Philoxenos, and when Philoxenos didn’t like it much, Dionysius had him arrested and banished to the quarries. A couple of days later, he had the poet brought back to hear some more of his poetry. Once again he asked Philoxenos what he thought, and Philoxenos whimpered, “Take me back to the quarries.”