19

My father was witty throughout dinner, sipping a dark pinot noir that I was allowed to taste, too, a wine so smooth and full that it was like sitting in a magnificent church full of plush, wine-colored carpets, with little points of light reflecting the candles. Linda listened to him. I watched her listening, and realized as she sat chewing and smiling at my father’s jokes that my mother was a terrible listener. She wouldn’t even pretend to listen; as soon as she got even a little bit bored, she would give gigantic stage yawns and begin to give little hints like “For Christ’s sake, shut up.”

My father was happy. Linda was happy. “We’d make a nice family, don’t you think?” my father said, undoing his tie when we had returned home.

It was a trap, a friendly trap, but I stood away from it. I formulated several stupid replies, but I could not make any of them.

“Of course, you don’t have to decide anything now. It’s not fair for me to back you against the ropes.” He moved the brush on the dresser. “Did you like her?”

He said it like a man who was sure of himself, knowing perfectly well that anyone would like this woman, and that the question had only one, very obvious answer. But he was vulnerable, too, and wanted to make some sort of point by asking the question. Like maybe to demonstrate to me how deficient my mother was compared with Linda. I did not want to say anything that might be understood to be a criticism of my mother, although why I wanted to protect her I have no idea.

“Of course I like her,” I said, but my answer came so late that bad feeling had slipped into the room. My father unbuttoned his shirt with quick movements. He examined his face in the mirror like it was a recent purchase.

“Anyone would like her,” I added, implying that she was too likeable.

“She’s a painter, you know.” My father lifted his jaw at me as he said this, and his eyes were bright. He looked like he wanted me to take a punch at him. I had about as much fight in me as an old potato, one with bone-colored sprouts fanging out of it.

“What does she paint?” I said in a stupid voice.

“Scenes.” He was on his toes, practically dancing like a boxer, and I saw that my father was really in pretty good condition for a bony, wrinkled guy. He didn’t look strong, but he looked like he had a lot of stamina, and I wouldn’t want to fight my father with fists or with anything else.

“What kind of scenes?” I asked in the same dull voice.

“Trees and meadows. Flowers. And seascapes.”

“Seascapes.”

“That’s right,” my father said, stepping forward. “She paints pictures of things that she finds beautiful.” He said the word “beautiful” like it was a word from a foreign language. “Oils, and acrylics, too. She’s taken classes.”

I nodded, wanting to agree, but how could I agree? What did I know about anything? I didn’t know. My father snapped the shoes off his feet and threw them into the closet where they hit the back wall with a bang. I sensed that he would have loved to throw the shoes at my head. Maybe my father was hoping I would heave a jar of mustard at him so he could go for my throat.

“I can see that she’s a quality person.” I didn’t like the phrase “quality person”; it reminded me of the “quality meats” signs you see in grocery stores, but I was not very brilliant sitting there on my father’s bed. “She’s very nice.”

“Look,” my father said, stepping into the closet. “She gave me this painting for my birthday. I got it framed as a surprise.”

It was terrible. A murky, greenish mess that was supposed to be a forest scene. A brown skeleton at the edge of a turd-colored smear depicted a deer at the edge of a clearing. If I had painted a picture like that I would have destroyed it, or at least kept it to myself. I definitely would never have given it to anyone as a birthday present, except as a joke. I was ashamed of my father’s eager smile, and of his girlfriend’s incompetence, and I knew I would have great trouble organizing my face into an expression of courtesy, much less of appreciation.

“What a pretty frame,” I said. “Such a big picture, too. Quite a lot of work.”

“Yes,” my father said, beaming down at it like it was studded with diamonds and rubies and he had never even dreamed of possessing such an item of beauty. “She copied a snapshot I took. The real picture didn’t have the deer. She added that. Of course,” he added, guiding the picture into the closet, “she has a lot to learn. She’s taking classes. I think people should develop their talents as far as they can. And, you know what?”

“What?”

“She sells her paintings. One just like this fetched one hundred and fifty dollars at an art show.”

I stood up, feeling that I was completely encased in hardened plaster. “That’s really great,” I said, and explained my tremendous fatigue.

I drank the rest of the rum, swallowing long slugs of it as I sat by the open window listening to the surf. I was about to slip out the bedroom window, but I let myself out the front door, instead, reasoning that I had nothing to be ashamed of. It was ten-thirty, but I was carrying the bottle in my stomach, and I felt it was worth the risk to stand at the edge of the surf and smell the air.

There was no light on the water this time. The water was black, with only a curl of phosphorescence as it broke. The rum had made me clumsy, and I sat down heavily. I was not drunk so much as drugged, and as I lay down, the world turned around me, not quickly, but slowly, like an old, badly trained elephant chugging around and around on one huge leg.

The headlights leaped over the sand again, but this time I lay flat. The sound of the engine grew loud, and the spurt of static from the radio froze me as I wondered if perhaps it might be a mistake to play around with these people. It was too late, however. The jeep slowed near me and nearly stopped. Gears clucked, and the jeep eased down the slope just beyond me and drove along the edge of the foam, its taillights the brightest thing around, so bright that my hand glowed red.

The next day, my father got into the car but held the keys in his hand. He shook open a pair of dark sunglasses and when they were hooked over his ears it made his lean face look dangerous. He put the keys into the ignition, but still did nothing but wait, like he wanted me to say something. I did, finally, although I would have said it anyway, later on, at the airport. “Thank you for having me down,” I said. “I really appeciate it.”

He nodded sharply, and smiled and, just as quickly, did not smile. “Think about it,” he said.

“Okay.”

“I mean it. You can live here. My life is your life.”

He looked into his open palm like he was reading his own future, and not quite sure he liked what he saw. “You should decide before too long,” he said. “In just a few months, it will be summer. That will be the perfect time to move.”

Tears burned me for a moment and he put his hand to my shoulder. His fingers were strong, and worked my shoulder joint so that it emitted a creak. My shoulder hurt and I wanted to shake his hand away, but I didn’t for fear of offending him. So I sat there grinning back my tears, enduring his hand.