“Yes, I did,” I respond, nodding too earnestly as if to warn them of what’s to follow.
“What house?”
“Adams.”
“What year?”
“I left.”
No one wants to ask the question—“What happened?” So they are silent for a moment. Maggie’s face goes sad, concerned. I don’t like it this way.
“I moved here. I wanted to try something new.”
“Acting?” Maggie’s up again.
“Music.”
“Are you a musician?” I can see her picturing me at Lincoln Center, in my tux, tuning up in the horn section. It seems a shame to mar the image.
“No.” They’re puzzled, but Marco seems to be enjoying himself, the budding story — if you can call it that. To me a list of events, well detailed or not, has never been one.
“I chickened out. I was playing around the city, working construction, too. I went back to school.”
“Where?” asks Maggie.
“Hunter. It’s a city school.” Maggie stays spunky. Diana nods to herself as though she’s figured something out.
“How was that?”
The food comes. My steak, though plated beautifully, looks inedible — a dense slab of flesh. I’m not hungry and my gas pains have stopped. In fact, it seems that my stomach has disappeared.
Marco stops his fork at his mouth.
“Do we need wine?”
The girls refuse. I wait for everyone to begin and then I cut off a piece. I chew and swallow. The meat seems to free fall, as though I’m throatless, returning to its original shape as it does. It finally hits bottom. My stomach comes alive, rigid and unhappy.
“So what do you do?” asks Diana, no longer so formal. I’m not sure why. Perhaps the food and drink have started working. Perhaps she, because I can’t match her resume, is no longer threatened. Perhaps she likes me. Maggie seems very interested, not in my response, but in Diana’s response to me. She’s lost her smile, chewing slowly. Marco is consumed by his food.
“You teach, right?” More of Marco’s faulty intelligence, but it’s okay. I start nodding, not to her question but to some internal beat I can’t seem to refuse. Her syntax is slipping. Her jaw muscles relax. She puts her fork down and spreads her long fingers on the white tablecloth. Her hands are fine and ringless. She gently pushes her palms into the linen. Her calm makes Maggie change — drop the rosy-cheeked smile. They’re not so young anymore. They both exhale and seem to, right there in their seats, become women.
Marco hears the silence and stops. We all exhale together and look to one another. I feel tired and it seems okay to show it. I cover my face with my hands, rub my palms into my eyes as though I’m just waking up. When I take them off my face, Maggie and Marco are eating again. Diana watches me. Everyone has a new face, born from a tacit agreement that the old bald white guy isn’t here: The Irish Catholic girl doesn’t have to pretend to be a WASP; the black girl doesn’t have to out-WASP her. And Marco can stop trying to guess at who’s mocking him — all manner of thing well.
I’m still nodding. And it must seem to her a profound response — that I’m contemplating my years, my road to here. Perhaps I am, but I can’t tell. The nod becomes a slow rocking. She joins me, rocking. Poor Diana, trapped in oak-paneled rooms and towers of glass and steel, never an error in diction, tone, or pronunciation, but never arrogant, never haughty. Poor Diana, some twenty-first century princess. For her sake, I lie.
“Yes.” We both stop rocking.
“Where?”
“Hunter College.” Another lie.
She nods, once. “That’s great.” Maggie nods, too. “My mom went there, back when it was free.”
“It was a teacher’s college.”
“Yep.” The three of us take it in.
Marco gestures at my plate with his fork. “How is it, man?”
I look down at my half-eaten steak and wonder how I’ll finish it. I cannot. Maggie pushes rice around her plate. Diana picks at her vegetable concoction. Her jaws move slowly and evenly. I cut another piece and wonder if I should bother chewing it before dropping it into the pit.
“I inhaled mine.”
“Was it good?”
“Great.”
He’s buzzed. There’s more red in his face than usual, along with a hint of moisture. I never figured him for a lightweight. He excuses himself. Maggie looks at me as though she’s a child, waiting for a bedtime story. I would like to tell her one — tell her something — but I have nothing to say. I look at my plate; the blood from the endless meat has contaminated my potatoes. I cut a big slab and swallow it. It lands heavily, making me wince. I look at the girls. They’ve pushed their plates away. Maggie still wants her story. Diana wants one, too.
“What kind of law are you interested in?”
Maggie starts to answer but stops and gives way to Diana.
“Corporate. IP and such.” Maggie nods in agreement. And I must give something away with my face or body, an eye roll or slight sag, because she holds up a hand as though to hold off my judgment.
“I’m not going to lie. I want to make money,” she nudges Maggie. They both grin. Then she grows serious. “I owe my parents that.” She tries to find agreement in my eyes — as though I would understand. Whatever she sees allows her to continue. “And I don’t want to have to worry about money. I want to be able to travel, and when I have kids, be able to take them places, as well — give them things, not spoil them. I mean I’ll want my kids to have jobs, but I also want to give them every advantage.”
Diana can’t possibly know how many times in the last twelve years, I’ve heard this speech — how much I continue to hear it from those who believed themselves to be entitled but haven’t achieved it yet. They don’t want much. . only what they want — some minimum of comfort and privilege. But there’s something about her that makes me listen, more than her beauty. She seems to believe what she’s saying.
“How much personal wealth does someone need?”
I shrug.
“Both of my parents were teachers. Don’t get me wrong. They did wonderful work. They touched a lot of people, but how many CEOs did they meet?” She points at Marco’s empty seat repeatedly, like the gesture’s a stutter, until she finds the words. “Do you know who he’s had lunch with this summer?” She almost stands. Thankfully, she doesn’t. Militancy doesn’t become her. I think she knows that. She regroups but doesn’t recant the “he,” as though Marco was a “he” to me, as well.
“I get it from two sides — race and gender.” She stops, seems to search for something inside and begins again. I look at the blue wall again and think of whales, great fish, sea beasts, and what a swallowed man would find in their bellies: whole civilizations, perhaps wicked, perhaps good, but full of people who have long forgotten they were once in flight at sea.