“Yeah, Dad, but you’re the one who left, not Mom.”
“Okay, I admit that. But in people’s lives...”
“And you know, being great in tragedies doesn’t necessarily mean a person’s good at other things, too, you know what I mean?”
“I didn’t mean that to sound...”
“No, I know. But, like, what am I supposed to say to that? Gee, too bad there weren’t more tragedies? I mean, do you see what I mean?”
“Yes, Lissie. But I’ve tried to be a good father in other ways as well. I wasn’t saying that rushing you to the doctor...”
“Oh, I know that. I meant... like... well, for example, I had to learn from Mom just how long this thing with Joanna had been going on. You expect your welfare to be of some concern to me, but you never tell me anything. So how can you expect... I mean, it was going on for two years, Dad. And God knows how many other women...”
“There were never any other women.”
“Well, Mom doesn’t seem to think that was the case.”
“Mom is wrong.”
“She thinks you had an affair with Mrs. Blair, for example.”
“I didn’t.”
“Well, she thinks so.”
“Your mother...”
“It doesn’t really matter, anyway, does it? I mean, who cares about that, that’s not the point. The point...”
“The point is I wasn’t.”
“Okay, you weren’t, let’s say you weren’t. The point is you didn’t choose to tell me any of this, I had to hear it from Mom. She’s the one who tells me things, she’s the one who accepts me for what I am, Dad.”
“What are you, Lissie?” he said. “Please tell me what you are.”
“You know what I am, Dad. I’m a hippie.”
“A hippie,” he repeated, and nodded.
“A hippie, yes, Dad.”
“Well,” he said, and sighed. “I guess it’s okay to call yourself a hippie and go running around the street in secondhand clothes when you’re only nineteen. But if you’re still running around the street that way when you’re forty, then you’re not a hippie anymore, Liss, you’re a bum.”
“What are you saying, Dad?”
“I think you know what I’m saying.”
“You’re calling me a bum, right?”
“No, I’m not. But, Liss, have you reenrolled at school, for example?”
“You know I haven’t.”
“Have you made any plans at all for the future?”
“Not yet.”
“What kind of work are you doing now, Liss?”
“Baby-sitting. Waitressing. Like that,” she said, and shrugged.
“And when you’re forty?”
“My life-style doesn’t have to change simply because I get older. I don’t need as much as you do, Dad. I don’t need an apartment with a dozen rooms in it...”
“Six, Liss.”
“I don’t need vacations in the Caribbean...”
“You never seemed to complain about them when you were...”
“I don’t need a goddamn fancy sports car... what are you driving these days, Dad? What’s Joanna driving?”
“Is that your quarrel with us? Our life-style?”
“I don’t have any quarrel with you.”
“Then why haven’t you written? Or called?”
“I’ve been busy making my own life. You kicked me out of your life, so now I’m trying to make a life of my own. Is there anything wrong about that?”
“Only the part about kicking you out. Nobody’s done that, Lissie.”
“No. Then what was marrying Joanna?”
“Marrying Joanna was...”
“Was kicking out me and Mom, that’s what it was.”
“No, Lissie.”
“No? Then what’s today? The same thing all over again, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
“We come all the way down from Boston to see you, and you go running off to Long Island. Okay, maybe Yom Kippur is important to Joanna...”
“It’s the most important Jewish—”
“When did you get to be Jewish, Dad? The point is, do you have to kick us out into the street? Do you know what checking into a hotel tonight’ll mean for Sparky and me? Do you have any idea what kind of white-black shit we get dumped on us all the time?”
Jamie glanced at the waitress hovering near one of the screens shielding the kitchen.
“Oh, fuck her,” Lissie said, “this is your daughter here.”
“What do you want me to do, Lissie?”
“What time will you be back tonight?”
“Late.”
“So can’t we stay in the apartment while you’re gone? I mean, will that be such a big deal? If we spent another night with you?”
“I’m not sure how Joanna would feel about that,” he said, even though he already knew exactly how Joanna felt about it.
“Well, yeah, Joanna,” Lissie said.
“But I’ll ask her,” he said.
“It would be a big help, Dad,” Lissie said. “You’ve got no idea what we go through, I mean it.”
“Let me ask her,” he said, and covered her hand with his own. “I’m sure it’ll be all right.”
She put her hand over his, and suddenly grinned across the table at him. “Do you know what I used to love with all my heart?” she asked.
“What’s that, Lissie?”
“When you used to hang my pictures in the living room. On all my birthdays. Do you remember that, Dad? When you used to hang my pictures?”
“Yes, I remember,” he said, and turned away to signal for the check because he did not want her to see the sudden rush of tears to his eyes.
Joanna was sitting in half-slip and bra at the dressing table, putting on her face, when he came into the bedroom at three that afternoon.
“How’d it go?” she asked.
“Fine, I think.”
“The talk, I mean, not the lunch.”
“The talk especially,” he said, and went to her and put his hand on her shoulder.
“Well, good, darling,” she said, and smiled at him in the mirror. “Is Sparky back yet?”
“No, not yet.”
“Well, what are we...?” She turned and looked at the clock on the bedside table. “We’ll be leaving in an hour, Jamie.”
“Lissie asked if they could spend the night.”
“What’d you tell her?” Joanna said, and looked up at him.
“That I’d discuss it with you.”
“The answer is no.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t like the idea.”
“If you didn’t mind the idea of them sleeping together in the guest room last night...”
“Who says I didn’t mind the idea?”
“Joanna, she’s nineteen years old. That’s old enough to be treated like a grownup. When you were nineteen...”
“When I was nineteen, I didn’t bring men home to my father’s house. I spared him at least that, Jamie.”
“I’d like to do her this one favor,” Jamie said.
“One favor? Jesus! You’ve been running yourself ragged over her ever since I’ve known you. A million and one favors, you mean.”