INTERSTATE 4
Happens during the drive back home. He’s with the kids on the main highway south, his wife’s with her folks for a couple of days in New York. He said goodbye to her about three hours earlier. Last saw her at the front door. They’d all gone to the city to visit her folks and do some things there. While she went with a friend to a matinee one day, for lunch and a long talk with another friend and then alone to some bookstores and an acupuncture session the next day, he took the kids to several museums: Natural History, the Modern, Met. He also wanted to take them to the Frick, which he hadn’t been to in years and the kids had never seen — he thought they’d like the courtyard pool with the lily pads in it, he thinks, and also the Limoges — they had at the Walters in Baltimore — and he wanted to sit on the couch with them across from the Rembrandt self-portrait in that long room and talk about how the face, expression and body bulk always reminded him of his father. He used to go there a lot just to look at it, no other painting, or maybe the two Vermeers in one of the front hallways, how could he just go past those? so something else to show the kids they might like, sit on the same couch and jot down whatever came to mind about him and some of the incidents between them and sketch and draw the painting, usually in different colored ballpoint, and sometimes the painting and the huge vase of flowers or leaves on the table between him and it, though he wasn’t an artist. What happened to those drawings and notes he doesn’t know. But they said too many museums in two days so choose any three of the four so long as one was the Natural History. They also wanted to go to the Central Park merry-go-round and zoo and F.A.O. Schwarz after all the museums, “have a day on the town just for kids, hamburger restaurant for lunch but not a fast-food — stuff like that,” Margo said. He said they went to Schwarz’s—“it sounds funny calling it that, but anyway, the last time, and the zoo and merry-go-round the two times before that. But if you want to go and we’re all not too pooped by then, okay — at least it isn’t Christmas or Easter seasons at F.A.O.’s with wall-to-wall shoppers but mostly sightseers like us.” Merry-go-round was closed with no sign on it saying why, on a day it was supposed to be open. They went to the zoo, had lunch at its cafeteria because it was convenient and the food looked pretty good, then F.A.O.’s where Julie cried almost the second they got inside when he wouldn’t give her money to buy anything. “I thought the understanding we’d agreed to at home was that we’d come only to look, not buy — window-shop, they call it, though in this case outside-in window-shopping — come on, sweetheart, don’t make a scene, you’re embarrassing me, people are going to think I really did something wrong like beat you and then the police will come and I’ll be arrested and you’ll have to save up all your next year’s allowance to bail me out,” but words weren’t working so he tried taking her aside but she pushed his hand off her waist and said “Get off me. And you are doing something wrong. You can’t take us here every time and expect us not to buy something; it’s unfair,” and Margo said “It is, Daddy.” “All I want is ten dollars for if I see something I like. That’s not much.” “Ten dollars? What do you think, I’m made df money? which is what my father used to say whenever I asked him for ten cents for a comic book, and he had much more dough than I. In comparison, he was practically rich, but he knew I shouldn’t ask for money when anyone was around, which doesn’t apply here since we don’t know any of these people, but especially when the agreement beforehand was not to ask for any money at all. But look, I’ll give you each, something my father never would have done, two bucks to spend as you please.” “Two dollars is nothing here,” Margo said. “That’s what I’m saying — this is a place just to get ideas for things to buy in cheaper toy stores.” “Ten,” Julie said. “I’ll pay you back tomorrow.” “With what?” People passing were looking, some smiling or raising their eyebrows as if they knew what he was going through with the kids and he said “Come on, both of you, over here where we can discuss this without the world bonking into us,” and they did. “Now, with what money you going to pay me back?” to Julie. “And I give you ten, I have to give Margo ten — that’s twenty dollars and we’re not even talking tax, and New York’s got something like eight percent now, maybe even nine.” “What about the money Grandma gave Margo and me for summer? That adds to thirty, which is way more than twenty.” “Oh, fifteen plus fifteen; this kid can count; very good. Mommy and I bought you things with that money, and I don’t want to argue anymore. I’ll give you each three dollars, buy what you want. If it’s not enough for whatever you pick out, put a down payment on it, what do I care? I’ll also give you enough for the tax, so up to three-fifty apiece, but that’s my last offer.” “Ten.” He said “Why do you have to be so stubborn?” and she said “You owe us thirty dollars: Grandma’s. You didn’t spend it on us. Mommy was holding it and I remember when you didn’t have enough and you asked her for it; you bought gas.” “You have five seconds to accept my offer, Julie,” looking at his watch, and she said “I want the money that’s mine, or just ten dollars of it.” “Okay, that’s it, agreement’s over, I’m sorry you have to lose out on this too, Margo, but she won’t compromise, so we’re going,” and when he took Julie’s hand and she pulled it away, he said, which he knew was a threat she wouldn’t take seriously, so why’d he make it? — it just came out, he’d done it several times before and she always reacted the same way and after the last time he told himself he’d never do it again—“You don’t want to go? Fine, stay, but we’re going,” and took Margo’s arm and they went through the revolving door. Looked back, she was staring angrily at him and then turned around and headed for the escalator. “That goddamn kid, I’m so goddamn sick of her,” to no one, and to Margo “Stay here,” and she said “Don’t hit her,” people going in and out bumped into him or skipped around him and he said “Excuse me, sorry,” and to Margo “What do you mean? When have I ever?” and went back in. Have I ever hit them? he thought. I don’t think so. She was at the escalator, her back to him — once, if any time, and not hard, but he forgets when and which one and just a slap on the back of her hand and probably for something important, like she was about to dart into the street or just after she did it or started to and he caught her — pressed a button on a panel beneath a large bear and it started talking, mouth moving, “Hi, I’m Teddy Ruxpin” or something, and gave directions to the Barbie shop. “Up the escalator, turn left, keep going straight till you pass the Talking Tree, then right till you come to the Barbie dolls, they’re real pretty and say hi from me, Teddy.” Another button; he said “Julie!” Same intro, then how to get to the stuffed animals, “and when you get there, check out my friends and me, Teddy Ruxpin.” “What do you think you’re doing?” Another button: board games. She said “I’m staying in the store till I find something I like. With my money Grandma gave me, which you should give back or it’s stealing.” “Stealing, hey? Wait till Christmas and I’ll go ho-ho-ho.” “You’re not funny.” “I’m not funny? And why do I answer every utterance of yours with a question? But then who’s funny, you?” “I’m serious, Daddy.” “And I’m not? Listen, you’re not getting any money. I have to be decisive. I shouldn’t tell you what I have to be, for you might think I haven’t made up my mind and that you can change it—” “I don’t know what your word ‘decisive’ means.” “So we’re leaving, right? My threatening to leave you here before was stupid, since I would never do that, but now I’m serious, so,” which he didn’t want to say, it’ll only make things worse, and he knew he’d never carry it out, “if you insist on embarrassing not just me but you too, by staying when I’m saying we have to go, then I’ll be forced to drag you out of here or lift you up, rather, and carry