“Strange, isn’t it?” Suzy lets out a small sigh, so thin that it sounds like a gasp. “I can’t stand myself for letting them go that way. I blame Damian. I blame myself for choosing Damian. But at the end of it all, they’re not here. I can’t stop thinking about it. That they’re gone, that they disappeared while I wasn’t even looking, while I hadn’t yet had a chance to solve anything, solve me, solve Damian, solve why I had to run away all those years. I thought I was the one leaving them, but parents, they always have the last word, don’t they? Still, I never think about them. Not really. What I’m not sure of is if I miss them. I’m not sure if I can honestly say that. I’m not sure if guilt has much to do with love.” Suzy is glad that there is a cigarette. She is glad that she is not here alone. “I’m a horrible person, aren’t I?”
Caleb does not respond. He is playing with the plate of cheese, separating the mozzarella into little braids, making the holes in the Swiss bigger. Finally, he piles the bits of blue cheese into a little heart shape before pushing the plate toward Suzy.
“Sagittarius? In two weeks, the 24th?” Caleb’s eyes are on her now. Soft eyes. He wants to say something clever, something that will ease the moment. “The stars are in your favor, darling, you can’t be horrible. Nope, they won’t let you.”
The night is deeper. The wine bottle is nearly empty. The heart-shaped blue cheese looks ruffled and strange, like the map of the universe on the Grand Central ceiling. It feels good to be with Caleb.
“So you think Michael’s lying to me?”
“Absolutely.”
“What a scum.”
“What a two-timing bastard!”
They both start laughing when the phone starts ringing. Four times. Exactly. Then the click. Suzy is almost relieved. Whoever has been waiting. Whoever is still watching. Whoever is not letting go.
10.
MICHAEL, IT CAN ONLY BE MICHAEL at this time of the morning. The phone is an alarm. Seven a.m. Probably lunchtime wherever he is. A miracle that he’s even waited until now. He probably thought to let her sleep a little. He is being considerate.
“So where were you yesterday?”
He is not happy, Suzy can tell. His voice is tight. Something’s up. He never gets so tense unless it has to do with his work, the nature of which Suzy barely understands.
“The case took longer than usual. I was stuck at the DA’s office.” Balancing the receiver between her right ear and her shoulder, Suzy opens the refrigerator and takes out the Brita pitcher to fill a glass. Her head sways with pins and needles. The wine last night took its toll. They had opened another bottle after the first one. She vaguely recalls Caleb urging, Why not, drink it up before thirty! He kept pouring more, and Suzy kept giggling, emptying each glass much more quickly than she should have.
“I called the whole fucking day!” He is fuming now.
“Michael, it’s early.” Her head is caving in. She is not up for this battle.
“I’m tempted to just get on the next fucking flight to see you.
He can be such a child, so wildly different from Damian. Is this what Jen meant by “hiding”?
“So why don’t you?”
Suzy is good at handling his moods. That must be why he calls three times in a row. He knows she will never humor him. He knows she will never let him in.
“Four-point-three million, Suzy. Four-point-three fucking million on the line. Germans are fucking snakes. Everything’s all ready to go, and, boom, they need another fucking meeting, another fucking review, another big fucking waste of my time. And I’m fucking stuck here rather than fucking you, tell me the logic.”
Michael hates Germany. He hates almost everything, but he hates Germany more than most things. He thinks all Germans are Nazis and penny-pinchers. Suzy has no idea where his resentment stems from; she’s never quite bothered to ask. He is stuck in Frankfurt and can’t bear it. Thus his petulant mood. Suzy could see Michael lounging at a hotel lobby, a cell phone in one hand, with the other stirring two sugar cubes into his espresso. The top button of his shirt would be undone. No tie, since he would have taken it off immediately upon storming out of the meeting earlier. His feet up on the table. His eyes glancing at the Herald Tribune as he rants into the phone. Suzy suddenly misses him.
“I’ve got my period. We can’t do it anyway.”
That gets the abrupt silence, and then a chuckle. He’s already better, she can tell.
“Christ, Suzy, is that all you can say?”
“No, there’s more. I also have a pounding headache.” She pops two tablets of Advil into her mouth.
“A hangover?” He sounds doubtful. A bit suspicious, a bit jealous. But all an act, Suzy knows. Jealousy is not a part of their arrangement.
“Umm. I celebrated my twenties, the passing of it, I mean, or that’s what Caleb said at least.” Suzy is grinning. She might still be a little drunk.
“But your birthday is not for another two weeks?”
Of course he would remember. He would probably send her a dozen long-stemmed roses, boxed. He would make a reservation at the Rainbow Room. He would slide across the table a blue Tiffany case in which there would be a set of sparkling diamond earrings. He would do everything so that she would feel the weight of a mistress.
“I began celebrating early. I wanted to be happy yesterday.”
Maybe that’s what Suzy wanted. Maybe that’s why she circled on the Number 7 train for two hours. Maybe she was doing everything she could to stop the gushing sadness. Half the Korean community didn’t exactly shed tears when they heard about his death! Mr. Lee did not spare his words. So many people had hated her parents. One of them might have hated them enough to want them dead.
“Babe, you listening to me?” Michael is shouting. He’s forgotten about her headache.
“Sorry, what did you say?”
“I said, save your celebration for me. I said, wait.”
It is a game for Michael, to pretend to claim her. Suzy goes along with it because she knows what happens when it isn’t a game, when the claim is for real, when the claim takes over and plays out. Damian would never have asked her to wait. He would have taken it for granted. He would have expected nothing less. And she would have, almost indefinitely, if he had asked.
“I’ll wait, I promise.”
“Christ, I’m really fucking dying to see you.”
When Suzy puts the phone down, it is still early, too early for anything. But Grace would be up. She would be getting ready for school. A little after seven. Suzy cannot remember anymore when high school starts, probably eight, or maybe eight-thirty. Teachers always come in before students, or at least they should, although, as Suzy recalls from the schools she attended in Queens and the Bronx, kids were often made to wait for teachers who sometimes didn’t show up at all. Grace wouldn’t be like that. Grace would show up on time. Her lessons would be well prepared, all set to go. Her hair would be neatly trimmed and coifed, and her dark-navy two-piece suit freshly pressed and buttoned. Or at least that’s how Suzy pictures her.
Grown-up Grace, born-again Grace, thirty, the ESL teacher at Fort Lee High School—her only family.
It must be an impulse. Or last night’s alcohol still in her blood. There is no other explanation for such courage, such longing to hear her voice. Suzy begins dialing the number. 7:15 a.m., what is she thinking? There’s the ringing, once, twice. Something lurches inside her. Her heart seems to be made up of tiny wings which all begin to flap at once. The sudden ocean inside. The waves breaking. She can feel the tightening in her throat. They have not spoken in years, not since the funeral, not since she was twenty-four and Grace twenty-five. Suzy keeps counting age, as though each year pushes her farther away from her parents.