“It wouldn’t be just a video-game arcade,” Frankie said to her. “We’d do food, beer, sports events—”
“I thought you were done with computers,” Teddy said to Irene.
“This one’s been disconnected from the Information Superhighway.”
“The what?”
“Dad. Dad,” Frankie said. “Tell Irene. You gotta invest your money rather than let it sit there, right?” He was talking fast, the mark of a desperate man. Loretta had kicked him out, and Teddy had a good idea why.
Teddy said, “What money? You’re broke.”
“But what if I wasn’t, huh? What I’m talking about is an arcade, a whole family thing, like Chuck E. Cheese without the fucking robots and the dress-up characters.” Frankie had always been scared of people in costumes. Never sat on Santa’s knee, ran terrified from the mall Easter bunny. “We serve good food, good beer, play good music. And here’s the clincher—no video games.”
Irene finally looked up from the computer. “You’re going to open an arcade,” she said, her voice flat. “With no video games.”
“Nothing but real pinball,” Frankie said. “It’s ready to make a comeback. Kids will eat it up.”
“You’re an idiot.” She did not quite glance at Teddy. “Do you know what this family would do for you? You’d throw everything away, and you have no idea what any of us—”
“Irene,” Teddy said, interrupting. “Time to go.”
“Where are you going?” Frankie asked.
“Out for an errand,” Teddy said. “Delivering some food to a sick friend. Irene, you ready?”
“Let me get my shoes,” she said. She did something on the computer keyboard, then stood up. “Don’t touch my stuff,” she said to Frankie. “And would you please wake up my son? He’s going to sleep the day away.”
“Let him sleep,” Frankie said. “He deserves it.”
“For what?”
Frankie hesitated. “For being a good kid who loves his mother.”
She snorted and went up to her room.
Frankie said to Teddy, “That’s Irene all over. Conventional. Not a risk taker. But you understand, right? I can’t just keep working as a phone tech. How’s Loretta supposed to respect me when I’m an installer? What are my girls supposed to think? I’ve got to work for myself. I’ve got to do something I’m passionate about. You wouldn’t believe the ideas I have for this place. I was thinking of making it a real, old-style arcade, with, like, 1950s memorabilia. You could come in with me!”
“My boy, my boy,” Teddy said. He walked forward, hands out, as if going in for a hug.
Frankie looked up at him eagerly. “You could be my partner! Silent partner, maybe, since you’ve never even gone to an arcade, but you could put in—”
Teddy gripped Frankie’s head. “Stop it. Just—” He didn’t know what to do with this kid. Never did know. He was the boy who wanted everything, and didn’t know how to get it. Hours in the corner, trying to levitate paper clips. “Stop it.”
Frankie tried to speak through squashed cheeks.
“No,” Teddy said. “I love you, but you’re killing me. Just killing me.”
The morning after he drove Maureen to the hospital and stayed the night at her bedside, he came home to shower and get a few things she’d asked for. Mrs. Klauser, their neighbor, had stayed the night and had made the kids pancakes.
Teddy called the children into the living room and tried to sit them down, but Frankie wouldn’t stay still, kept trying to explain the miracle that had occurred in their kitchen: “Best pancakes ever. Mrs. Klauser is the best. I want pancakes every day.”
Buddy was quieter than usual, on his own planet, crouched over a Hot Wheels car, pushing it through the carpet. Only Irene seemed to understand what was happening. She was almost eleven, only a year older than Frankie, but she seemed a decade more mature, a full voting member of the Parliament of Seriousness. Teddy was pretty sure she outranked him.
“Is Mom in the hospital?” she asked. He’d been planning to ramp up to the “H” word, but Irene had jumped ahead in the script.
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Teddy said. “She wasn’t feeling well, so we thought the doctor should—”
“Is she going to die?” Irene asked.
This wasn’t in Teddy’s script at all. “No, of course not! We’re just checking some things out and—damn it.”
Tears were already running down Irene’s face. He should have known better.
“She’s very sick,” Teddy said. “That’s true. But the medicines they’ve got today, the tools they have available—it’s just amazing. They’ve got a machine there that zaps the bad stuff. Pow, like a ray gun.”
“I know about radiation,” Irene said. “She’s been going for months.”
“Yes, but—” Damn it, what didn’t Irene know? “We gotta let all the medicines work. We’re not giving up, because that’s not who we are. Frankie, stop that.” The boy was standing in front of Buddy, deliberately blocking the Hot Wheels car with his foot. “Leave Buddy alone. Did you hear what I was saying?”
“Mom’s in the hospital,” Frankie said.
“That’s right. Now later I’m going to come back and pick you up. Mrs. Klauser is going to get you all dressed, and we can go down there for a visit, okay? I want you to wash your hair. All of you. And put on something nice.”
Frankie said, “Could you tell Mom something?” Buddy drove his car in the other direction, his back to the rest of them.
“Sure, sure,” Teddy said. He crouched down to look Frankie in the eye. “What do you want to tell your mother?”
“She should buy blueberry syrup like Mrs. Klauser. It tastes just like IHOP.”
“Syrup,” Teddy said.
“Blueberry. Can I go play now?”
Irene hadn’t moved, not even to brush the tears from her face.
“I need your help,” Teddy said to her. He stood up, and brushed the crease from his wool pants. “Can you help get the boys ready?”
She nodded.
“Good girl. I’ve always been able to depend on you.”
He was still leaning on her, now literally. He hobbled up to Mitzi’s Tavern using the newly purchased tri-tipped cane, but for extra drama he made Irene keep a hand on his biceps, as if at any moment he’d pitch over onto the sidewalk. He’d told her to keep one hand on him at all times, and to not forget to be nice.
Another weekend morning, another empty tavern. Barney locked the door behind them. “Don’t want the drunks wandering in,” he said. He nodded toward the open door of the office. It took Teddy and Irene a while to get there.
Nick Pusateri Senior sat behind the desk. Unlike Barney, who looked like an air mattress that had been inflated and deflated too many times, Nick was essentially the same man, only more weathered. Teddy thought, God preserve us from the longevity of assholes.
“Great to see you,” Teddy said.
Nick came around the desk and shook hands, his grip deliberately crushing. Teddy didn’t have to fake the wince, and he saw Nick enjoy that sign of weakness. Teddy didn’t let on that his only desire was to jam his tri-cane down the man’s throat. Yes, it’d be more work than a regular cane, but so worth the effort.
“And you must be little Irene,” Nick said.
Irene smiled a tight smile. Teddy hoped she could pretend to be the dutiful daughter through this meeting. She was innately honest, like her mother. Deception was Teddy’s department.