“I’ve had some rough days,” she said after a while. “But I think this has been the worst day of my life.”
The moon above us, in the Philly haze, was a dissolving beige lozenge. My response to its fullness was Pavlovian, a quickening of the pulse that was hard to distinguish, in the moment, from my fear of my mother’s pain and from the thrilling cruelty of what I was doing to her. My chest felt too tight for me to say anything, even that I was sorry.
* * *
I met Anabel’s father later that summer. For two months, she and I had played house with some of her remaining forty thousand dollars, sleeping until noon, breakfasting on toast, trolling thrift stores to improve my wardrobe, escaping the heat at double features at the Ritz, and perfecting our wok skills. On my birthday, we made a plan to become more serious about our work. I began to write a manifesto for The Complicater while she embarked on the year of reading she needed to do for her grand film project. She went to the Free Library every weekday afternoon, because we’d decided it was healthy to be apart for some hours and she didn’t want to wait for me at home like a housewife.
David Laird called on one of those afternoons. I had to explain to him that Anabel had a boyfriend and that I was that person.
“Interesting,” David said. “I’m going to tell you a little secret: I’m glad to hear a male voice. I was afraid the wind was blowing in the direction of that mentally-ill dyke friend of hers, just to spite me.”
“I don’t think that was ever in the cards,” I said.
“Are you black?” he said. “Handicapped? Criminal? Drug addict?”
“Ah, no.”
“Interesting. I’ll tell you another secret: I like you already. I take it you’re in love with my daughter?”
I hesitated.
“Of course you are. She’s quite something, isn’t she? To call her a handful is the understatement of a lifetime. They really broke the mold with that one.”
I could already hear why Anabel hated him.
“But listen,” he went on, “if she likes you, I like you. Hell, I was even prepared to like the mentally-ill girl, although, praise the Lord, it didn’t come to that. Anabel’d do almost anything to spite me, but she won’t go so far as to cut off her nose, if you know what I mean. I know her, I know that pretty nose of hers. And I want to know the guy she’s living with. What do you say to dinner at Le Bec-Fin next Thursday? The three of us. The reason I called is I’ve got some business over in Wilmington.”
I said I’d have to ask Anabel.
“Aw, hell, Tom — it’s Tom, right? You’re going to need to grow some serious gonads if you’re going to live with my girl. She’ll eat you alive if you’re not careful. You just tell her you said you’d have dinner with me. Can you say those words to me? ‘Yes, David, I will have dinner with you’?”
“I mean, yeah, sure,” I said. “If it’s OK with her.”
“No, no, no. Those aren’t the words. You and I are having dinner, period, and she can come along if she wants to. Believe me, there’s no way in hell she’s letting the two of us go out alone. That’s why it’s important that you say the words to me. If you’re this afraid of her now, it’ll only get worse later.”
“I’m not afraid of her,” I said. “But if she doesn’t want to see you…”
“OK. All right. Here’s a different argument. Here’s another secret for you: she does want to see me. It’s been more than a year since she got to spray me in the face with cat piss. That’s what she does. And she doesn’t like to admit it, but she enjoys it. She’s got a lot of cat piss, and there’s only one face she wants to spray. So when she says she doesn’t want to see me, you tell her you’re going to see me anyway. It’ll be our little secret that we’re really doing it for her.”
“Wow,” I said. “I’m not sure that’s a good argument.”
David laughed loudly. “Oh, come on, I’m just fooling around. Let’s go and have a great meal at the best place in Philadelphia. I miss my Anabel.”
Of course she threw a scene when she learned I’d spoken to him. He was a seducer, she said, and when he couldn’t seduce he bullied, and when he couldn’t bully he bought, and although she was on to him and had built up her defenses, she didn’t trust me not to be seduced or bullied or bought. And so on. I’d been offended by much of what he’d said, but I also couldn’t get it out of my head; who else, after all, could I talk to about Anabel? I experimentally grew some gonads and said it was hurtful and insulting not to trust that I loved her, not him. I experimented further and told her I’d given my word to have dinner with him. And, exactly as he’d predicted, she agreed to come along.
I tasted my first $3,000 wine at Le Bec-Fin. David had handed Anabel the wine list, and she was reading it when the sommelier came by. “Give her a minute while she finds your cheapest bottle,” David said to the sommelier. “In the meantime, Tom and I will have the ’45 Margaux.”
When I sought Anabel’s approval for this, she widened her eyes at me unpleasantly. “Go ahead,” she said. “I don’t care.”
“It’s a little game she and I play,” David explained. He was a tall, trim, vigorous man with nearly white hair, a distinguished male version of his daughter, much better-looking than your average billionaire. “But here’s an interesting fact for your future reference. At a place like this, the very cheapest bottle on the list is often sensational. Not sure why that is. It’s the mark of a great restaurant, though.”
“I’m not looking for something sensational,” Anabel said. “I’m looking for something I won’t gag on the price of.”
“Nice for you that you’ll probably get both,” David said. He turned to me. “Ordinarily, I’d order that bottle myself. But then she and I couldn’t play our little game. You see what she makes me do?”
“Funny how women are always to blame for what men do to them,” Anabel remarked.
“Has she told you how she broke her teeth?”
“She has.”
“But did she tell you the best part? She got back on the horse. Blood all over her face, her mouth full of broken tooth, and she gets right back on the horse. And she gives that bridle a yank like she’s going to rip its head off. She almost broke its neck. That’s my Anabel.”
“Dad, shut up, please.”
“Honey, I’m speaking well of you to your boyfriend.”
“Then don’t omit the part about my never getting on a horse again. I still feel bad about what I did to that poor beast.”
Given Anabel’s hatred of David, I was surprised by their intimate way together. It was like watching a pair of Hollywood execs abuse each other — you had to be powerful to take the abuse with a laugh. When David mentioned, offhandedly, that he’d remarried, Anabel’s response was “To one person, or several?”
David laughed. “One is all I can afford.”
“You’ll need at least three in case you have to kill a couple more.”
“I married a dipsomaniac,” David explained to me.
“You created an alcoholic,” Anabel said.
“Somehow men are always to blame for what women do to them.”
“Somehow it’s always true. Who’s the lucky lady?”
“Her name’s Fiona. You’ll want to meet her.”
“I won’t want to meet her. I’ll just want to sign over my birthright to her. Just show me the dotted line.”
“Not going to happen,” David said. “Fiona signed what they call a prenuptial agreement. You’re not going to be rid of your birthright that easily.”
“Watch me,” Anabel said.
“You must talk her out of this madness, Tom.”