Seventeen

Leo stares at the toilet, the open bowl grinning, a white jack-o’-lantern taunting him. C’mon! it says. Leo, by the locked door, hesitates. To puke or not to puke?

That is the question.

He slides down to the cold slate floor. His dad had pulled a number on his mom with these tiles, switching the French slate she ordered for a cheaper option.

To Leo, it had seemed like a reasonable plan. When his dad held up the samples, they were indistinguishable: volcanic, rough to the touch. Leo shrugged. “Looks the same to me.” “Good man,” his dad said, cuffing him on the shoulder. When his mom spotted the cardboard box with the Oregon stamp down in the basement, she was livid. “But you didn’t know when you saw the floor,” his dad protested. “Only when you saw the box!”

Leo closes his eyes. His mom never took stuff like that lightly. On The Cosby Show, Clair Huxtable would have hollered, “Cliff!” And Cliff, in one of his geometric sweaters, would have pointed at her. “Gotcha!” he would have said, eyes bright. By the show’s end, Clair would have decided to buy a new dress with the money saved from the tile—a perfect compromise, bringing the show full circle. Cliff would protest the cost of the dress (“You spent how much?” he’d say, holding the receipt), but then she would step out wearing it, pausing in the doorway, and he’d make his Oh oh oh face, his eyes rolling back while he did a little dance with his fists. Then he’d chase her around the bedroom. The Cosby Show almost always ended with the Huxtables about to have sex. It was no wonder they had five kids.

Leo loved that show growing up, watching it faithfully every Thursday. How they came together, those Huxtables! They had money but weren’t obscene about it. And no matter what an episode started with—a joint found in Theo’s textbook; Rudy stealing money off the counter—it always ended on the right note, balance restored.

There was probably a formula for it. Some sort of way to calibrate problems and bring everyone into harmony. “Fight with judgmental brother” could go into the Cosby calculator and it would spit out a script. “Bridal wedding jitters” could be handled, no problem.

At work, Leo makes his team put together a sheet of FAQs to go with every client proposal. This sounds great. How much is it going to cost? and Why the on-site visits? They customize it for each project, a chance to show that they’ve been listening. It works as a cheat sheet, too, a way for the client to get quick answers after zoning out in meetings. Look! Leo always wants to say when he passes it out. Look at us already anticipating your needs!

The thing has been a hit, and Sanjay had personally complimented Leo on the idea. FAQs have their own sort of golden ratio, information and brevity and tone all in balance, with little quips to keep everything peppy. Just like on a sitcom.

You could say things in FAQs that you couldn’t say in meetings. The stuff you would never say aloud was suddenly right there on paper, complete with exclamation points. Whoa! That price sounds steep. Where’s the money going? In the polite, formal world of conference rooms, the chatty FAQs cut to the chase.

If only they could exist in real life, floating down from the ceiling when you were faced with a dilemma.

Q. If hammered, or well on your way, is it a good idea to make yourself puke? Like if you think there’s a fair chance you’re going to anyway? Or is that just kind of wrong?

A. Good question! We’ve definitely all been there. While not a great strategy to turn to frequently, it is okay on occasion to bow to the porcelain god. Chances are, if the idea occurs to you, there’s probably a reason why. Just remember to hit the mouthwash!

Leo has no desire to puke, feels none of that tickle of bile in his throat. He isn’t there yet. But he knows that if that last green martini is permitted to reach his liver, he will be back here out of necessity. And it won’t be pretty.

Over to the bowl he goes. He gets down on his knees and thinks of nasty things: the time in third grade Marty Goldman had chased him around the room, snot running out of both nostrils, past his chin, the horror of it stretched over his lips; that time Dedalus rolled in shit, actual shit, and Leo had to bathe him in the maid’s bathroom because Mom didn’t want the groomer to quit. Fecal clouds had risen into the air—

Leo retches. He grips the sides of the toilet. The toilet is his friend, sympathetic, waiting with open arms.

He doesn’t mind being so close to it. It is impeccably clean, except for a single pubic hair caught on the rim, pitched like a flag. It ushers in the second wave, his stomach emptying, and Leo thinks he is in the home stretch.

He sits back on his heels. He feels a debt to the toilet. How serenely it accepted what it was given. We should all be so stoic. No one ever sat there and felt grateful for the thing. No one ever thought, Well, damn, toilet, thank you.

One more. Leo feels the last of it come out. He reaches for toilet paper, wipes his mouth, then flushes.

In the mirror, his face is splotchy. He splashes it with cold water, rinses his mouth. Opens the medicine cabinet. No mouthwash, but he spots a toothbrush, his dad’s, probably, and quickly brushes his teeth, the toothpaste bracing. The mint cuts into his gums and he wonders if they really put fiberglass in there or if that’s a myth. Patting his face dry, he attempts to take stock of himself.

Q. Did that actually help?

A. Not really, no. Stephen was right, you haven’t eaten enough. It’s always a tough combo: drinks, empty stomach. Go get some food!

A tall order in view of his most recent activity. Just the thought of those oysters, that sweating mound of liver—

Leo feels the bile rise and grips the sink’s edge. Steady, steady. The doorknob rattles as someone tests it. He remembers Nora waiting for him and does a last check of his reflection in the mirror. His face is flushed, but otherwise he looks good. He is wearing that shirt she likes, bright blue with thin stripes, the stripes perhaps making him look taller.

He feels grateful to Nora. She has gone easy on him today. He’d probably done fifty trips up and down the stairs that afternoon, fetching things for everyone else. But Nora mysteriously stayed off his list. She hadn’t given him the wide eyes and said, “Oh, shoot. I totally forgot my coat back at the loft. And, well, I’d go get it, but . . .”

No one filled in that blank anymore for Leo. They didn’t even let the sentence trail off convincingly. They sent him to do their bidding, not even trying to come up with a reason half the time.

Q. And why? Why do they think they act that way?

A. Because I let them.

It’s true. Leo prides himself on being there for his family. He isn’t especially good-looking or smart, but he’s helpful. That’s his role. He’s so predictable in wanting to help that they no longer wait for him to offer.

Q. Does this mean that I’m a pushover?

A. Pretty sure you’ve answered that one for yourself, bud.

“Hey,” Nora calls out. “You okay?”

Leopold crosses the bathroom, opens the door. “Me? I’m great.” He turns to her. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

She smiles. “Let’s go get a drink.”

“Um. Okay.”

Leo does not bother with the Q and A’s on this one.

“That toast was amazing,” Nora enthuses. She is caught up in the party, animated, and she leads him through the crowd. He estimates forty or fifty people, a good number this year. “I mean, when he started out—I didn’t know where he was going with it, you know? Did you expect him to say that?”

“Hmn? Which part, love?”

Nora throws Leo a look, not fooled by his trick. “The part about the funeral. That part. You seemed pretty moved yourself, there. Ooh, let’s just grab these.” She spots glasses of champagne ready for the taking.

“Did you eat?” he asks her casually. “Dinner, I mean?”

“I had a bite back at the loft.”

“That’s good,” he says vaguely, steering her toward the food. He scans the table for something easy. Crackers, he sees happily, grabbing a handful.

“Anyway, I was so nervous for him. And you could tell no one had a clue—about, you know, today. It has to be strange, to hear it like that. To come to a party and then hear about a funeral.”

You’re so pretty in your dress, he stupidly wants to tell her. It has a V-neck. Deep enough that he can see where her freckles end and the creamy milk of her skin begins. He wonders what she has on underneath. Usually it was just boring beige, but sometimes for parties she puts on something special, black and lacy.

The crackers are crumbly, dry. He washes them down with some champagne. It’s okay, he tells himself. You’ve eaten now.

“And then, the way he brought it all together at the end—it was so sincere. It was brave of him to go there.”

Like the show, he wants to tell her. Just like The Cosby Show. “That’s what a good speech does. A good anything. It goes somewhere weird but makes you feel like it turns out okay in the end.”

She looks at him and laughs. “My, my.”

“You look so good,” he says, lowering his voice. “So beautiful.”

“I do, huh?”

“I mean it. I couldn’t stop talking to you when you were looking at—I mean, looking at you. When you were talking. To the old guy?”

Nora giggles. “Stuart? He was sweet.”

“Who is he?”

“That’s Stephen’s adviser. Chair of the department.” But she sees the look on Leo’s face. “You’re not still mad at him, are you?”

Leo looks away and drains his glass.

“You know he means well,” she says softly.

Q. Am I the toilet of this family, accepting its shit?

He thinks of the white bowl with its leering grin. “Means well. Everyone means well.”

“Come over here.” Nora draws him to the alcove so that they can have some privacy. She stops in front of the desk where Leo found Stephen earlier—a lifetime ago, it seems. She puts her hands on his shoulders and pushes him into the chair. He goes down easily.

“You never stay mad at people.”

“Maybe.” He feels strangely light in the chair, as if he might be floating.

“But you’re mad at him. Over what?”

“He needs to mind his own business. He always has these opinions, like he’s so high-and-mighty. He was talking about Grandma Portman one minute, and then suddenly he wasn’t. He ambushed me!”

“Listen. I kept thinking about your dad today, that this was going to be an awful day for him. But I think the person hit the hardest by this was Stephen. It sounds like he was really close to her.”

“‘Sounds like’ is right! None of us knew.”

“But that’s his business. He doesn’t owe us any explanations.”

Leo looks up at her and folds his arms across his chest.

“What?” she asks.

Q. What do family members owe one another?

A. The truth. Always, and nothing less.

“We don’t know Stephen. We think we do, but he has these secrets. It’s like he’s a spy!”

“That’s preposterous.” Nora laughs. “Stephen’s not like that at all.”

“So you knew about his trips to the nursing home? And how much he loved it there?”

Leo watches her face falter. “We all have our secrets,” she replies defiantly.

“Look, my dad—you liked that toast, and I know you like him, and there’s a reason. It’s because he’s open. That toast—” Leo squints. He had seen a connection ahead of him like a mirage. It fades with his approach. “You liked that toast because . . .”

“Because he was open?” Nora tries.

“Yes! Exactly. Because he was open! Because he came out and said what he thinks! My dad doesn’t hide anything. He doesn’t suddenly tell you, ‘Oh, P.S., I’ve actually been leading a double life this whole time.’ ”

“ ‘Double life’ is kind of strong.”

But something bothers Leo, some pesky thing. “Like before, he was talking about life insurance,” Leo says instead, ignoring the pesky thing. He pauses, slightly taken aback by his own words.

“Life insurance?” Nora repeats, puzzled.

“Yeah, with those guys. Paul. The other guy.” Leo frowns, trying to remember the name. “Gary? Greg? Anyway, he was saying he thinks it’s this new thing, financially.” Leo can’t make the words come out right. His dad had started in on his theory in his assured way. “Something I’ve been playing around with,” he said casually, and the guys leaned in to listen.

“He talked about life insurance getting traded. People could sell their policies for money.” Like if you knew you were going to die, Leo almost says, but he stops himself. Even when drunk, the traffic guard is on duty, red sign in hand. No go.

“Life is ours to gamble with,” his dad had said. Leo had immediately seen the beauty of it. If you knew you were dying, why not cash out? You could pay the hospital bills or go on some grand adventure. Who knows? Maybe it even helped to have people bet against you. You could prove them wrong. Or you could go to the grave knowing you had paid your debt, brought a positive gain to others.

“God, that’s awful. Is that really what we’ve come to?”

Nora doesn’t get it. Insurance is like any other commodity. Why shouldn’t you be able to sell it? His dad had phrased it so sensibly that you could tell his friends were impressed. Maybe even Helen, too. His dad had found the silver lining to the darkest cloud.

The minor is proved by the major, Leo wants to tell Nora. It was a small example, but it drove home a larger point. “He doesn’t shy away from stuff,” Leo says. “He’s never reluctant to go there, to talk about things that other people won’t.”

“Hmn. So you weren’t surprised that he brought up the funeral?”

Leo pauses. That, actually, had taken him aback. “Well,” he says, hedging. He leans against the desk. The wheels of the chair suddenly give.

“Whoa!” Nora quickly stops the base of the chair with her foot and reaches out with her arms to grab him. “Easy there. You okay?”

“Yeah. Totally good. You were saying?”

Nora regards him. “I’m not drunk,” he wants to say, but he knows this will only make him sound drunker.

“It’s not always so easy,” Nora says finally. “You’re that way, and that’s great. Maybe your dad’s that way, too. But not everyone is.”

That pesky feeling is back, and Leo frowns to himself. My dad’s open, he had told Nora. But what Stephen said about the nursing home didn’t exactly fit with that.

“I’ve struggled with that part of it,” Nora says earnestly. “You know, it can be hard to talk about—about everything that’s happened.”

Leo makes his automatic noise of sympathy.

They put her out there preemptively, Stephen had said. The same way Leo had tried puking. It wasn’t a great solution.

Q. Why isn’t that strategy effective?

A. Because sometimes misery comes and bites you in the ass anyway. And there’s nothing you can do to prevent it.

Grandma Portman had suffered the pulmonary embolism in February. When Leo looked it up online at the time, he read about the causes. Inactivity was first on the list. Bed rest, long flights. He vowed to get up from his desk more at work.

But what if being at the nursing home had contributed? Her house in Brookline was always immaculate. The few times they went up to visit in years past, it was obvious she took great pride in it, every surface gleaming, different pots bubbling on the stove. Leo thinks of his beloved old skillet. What if it got sold without his permission? What if it and his apartment and his job and his car—his car!—all got taken away?

Maybe that house had been her heart, sustaining her. Maybe it gave her a sense of purpose after her children had left and her husband had died. Maybe you took away the heart and the blood stopped pumping.

“This’ll be easier,” Dad had said in his reasonable voice. “And nursing home is a misnomer. It’s a social living community for seniors.”

“Makes sense,” Leo had replied. He didn’t doubt his dad for a second. Leo never stopped to think about whether it was what his grandmother wanted. He’d always assumed the embolism was inevitable, but what if that place had caused it? Maybe the clots were her accumulated misery, climbing the veins of her legs like the ink on Helen’s skin.

“And it’s the same with the wedding,” Nora comments.

“With the wedding?” Leo repeats, jarred into the present.

“Leo, were you even listening?”

“Of course I was. You just kind of threw me for a loop there, at the end.”

Nora regards him skeptically. She sighs. “Look, I just—I know this isn’t what you want to hear right now. I know you’re mad at Stephen. But, to be honest, it was sort of a relief to hear him say that stuff. It was nice to know that I haven’t been forgotten. Because that’s how it feels sometimes.”

He feels his anger stir. Forgotten? She is in his every thought.

“There’s this constant pressure with the wedding,” she continues. “Stephen was right, in a way, that it’s too much to think about right now.”

“The thing is, love,” he says, keeping his voice casual, “we don’t actually think about it much anyway.”

“You see!” Nora pounces. “That’s just it! That’s exactly what I mean. You’re always alluding to it, referring to how we aren’t planning, aren’t doing enough.”

“I wasn’t complaining,” he interrupts. “I was just saying—I fail to see how I’m putting ‘constant pressure’ on you.” Leo thinks of his clients. He thinks about how he tries to echo their language back to them.

But Nora is shaking her head, and with alarm he sees tears of frustration in her eyes. Ugh, Leo thinks. He wants to throw his hands in the air. For the second time today he has been ambushed. But he isn’t allowed to express his own anger in these moments. The traffic guard eyes him, whistle at the ready, redirecting him with a winding arm.

“What is it, love?” he asks.

“You don’t pressure me. I get that. But I can feel you not pressuring me. Does that make sense? When you know someone really well, you can tell when they aren’t saying things. And I can feel you not talking about the wedding. I know it drives you nuts to not have a date—”

“But I’ve never said that! I’ve never—”

“I’m not saying you have. I’m not saying you complain. I’m talking about the stuff you don’t say.”

Leo rests his head against the back of the desk. He presses against it, resisting the urge to bash his head into it. “Are we really having a fight about what I don’t say?”

“Weren’t you the one just talking about being open?”

“So what you’re saying is that you want the wedding to go away?”

She eyes him and then bites her lip.

“You can say it,” he says tiredly.

“Yes,” she answers in a small voice.

“Say more about why.” He massages his temples.

“I don’t want to feel like the delinquent, like I’m holding you back. I don’t want the constant guilt of that. But I also don’t think the planning should be filled with dread.”

He tries not to wince. “Dread?”

“Every time I try and think about it—and I have, Leo, really. But all of that stuff—invites and dresses and guests. It’s just too much for me right now.”

“Okay.” Leo nods. The way to the daughter is through the mother, he thinks. The way to mother through daughter. And suddenly he sees it.

Q. What if things aren’t going as expected?

A. Change your expectations.

“And what if I were to make that all go away? The two things you just talked about, the guilt and the dread. What if I were to make them vanish?”

“How?” She glances down at her ring, as if he might perform a trick with it. He feels like a chess master who has seen three moves ahead.

“Let me plan the wedding.”

“What?”

“Just hear me out a second. I think the issue here is that you’re confusing the planning with the wedding.”

“What do you mean?”

“Plenty of people dread wedding planning.”

“But brides live for that stuff ! They have binders! Magazines!”

“Not all brides. Wedding planners exist for a reason.”

“For people who are busy,” Nora says dismissively. “Those people still enjoy it.”

“Says who? You’re making assumptions.” He watches her face. “I’ve been unfair. I see it now. I’ve been trying to get you on board. But you’re right. That’s a lot of pressure. And why? You don’t want to be thinking about that stuff. Listen, Nora, all those excited brides? I bet most of them have reluctant grooms. We’ve just swapped roles!”

She smiles a little despite herself. He is suddenly excited by this version of events. “This is what we haven’t been saying,” he says eagerly. “You’re absolutely right, Nora. There are things we haven’t been saying. So let’s just be open about all of it. You don’t want to plan the wedding? Then don’t! It makes total sense that you want nothing to do with it.”

“It does?”

“You’ve had a rough year. I know how hard it’s been. I know that better than anyone. So why add this to your plate?”

Leo is aware of himself seated while Nora stands. He gazes up at her. There should be a chair when guys propose, he thinks. “Let me do this for you. Let me take care of it. It’s the least I can do.”

She is quiet, looking off to the room beyond.

“You’ll feel better knowing it’s taken care of. I bet I could handle it in a weekend, make all the decisions. Then they’d be done. That way you know I’m not thinking about it. That way there’s nothing between us.” He wipes his hands together as though getting rid of crumbs.

“But doesn’t it bother you?”

“What?”

“That I don’t want to be involved? Don’t you want me to be involved?”

If Leo had a ring, he would present it now. “But that’s just it. I don’t want you to be anything other than what you are.” He knows it is a winning line, and Nora rewards him with softened eyes. She leans down and puts her arms around his neck.

“Is that a yes?” he says, smiling.

“Oh, Leo.”

“I get it, I get it. No pressure.” He thinks of the bartender and his ceremonious bow, tries to imagine some sort of gallant gesture. All he can think to do is to pat his lap.

She sits obediently but perches on his knee, looking distracted. He puts his hand on the small of her back to steady her and is aware, dimly, of his desire. If he plays his cards right, he might be able to close the alcove door. And why not? He thinks of the lilac garden. How long had it been since they’d felt passion like that? Christ, how long had it been at all? He imagines reaching across her body and sliding the pocket door shut. He imagines their bodies intertwined while the party continued, just feet away.

He touches Nora’s leg, tracing circles across her knee.

At work, he feels vastly superior to Dave, takes pride in being more responsible, more on the ball. But some part of him cringes at the thought of Dave having diagnosed him so accurately. Whipped? Yes. Getting any? No.

Leo brings his hand up to Nora’s face, touches her jaw. But his hand makes momentary contact with her hair and she freezes. She follows his gaze to the doorframe, to the crowd, as though she can sense his thoughts. There was a time when she would have been game.

“Maybe what you say is true,” she concedes.

“Maybe?” he asks hopefully.

“I just don’t want to feel rushed.”

“Yeah, I get that.” He tries to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “Just think about it, okay? Sometimes it’s hard to see past the moment you’re in. Sometimes you need someone to help you through it, to lead you to the other side.”

“I know.”

“Don’t read into the wedding-planning stuff. You think about these things too much.”

“I know.” She smiles.

“We’ll figure it all out.” His hand returns to her knee and he hopes she will embrace him again. He starts to slide his hand up her thigh, but she abruptly stands.

“We should get back to the party.” She nods at the room.

To have sealed the deal, he thinks regretfully, watching as she tugs at her dress. Oh, to have sealed the deal, with the whole party right outside. Then they would have rejoined the room, hand in hand, smiling at each other. They would have looked at each other, feeling assured. Because that is why sex matters, to give you the feeling of a secret you share with someone else.

Leo frowns, the word catching in his thoughts. But surely this is a different kind of secret, a good kind of secret. He picks up a champagne glass from the desk and drains it.

“We all have secrets,” Nora had said. She had stated it in that voice of hers, obstinate and clear. Maybe she was right. Maybe being open was an illusion. His father, it turned out, hadn’t been so forthright with them. Even if Stephen was exaggerating about their grandmother’s unhappiness, in truth their dad had never said a word about what she wanted.

During the toast, Leo became aware of the loss of his grandmother for the first time. “She wanted what we wanted,” his dad said, and Leo felt sudden moisture in his eyes. “She was a lot like you,” Stephen had told him. Leo had never thought of Grandma Portman that way. He never imagined the two of them having anything in common. But what if she truly was like him? What if she had sacrificed everything for her kids, only to end up alone? The thought made Leo want to weep.

He wants to catch Nora’s hand and ask her, “Do you think she was miserable? Did Stephen tell you that, too?” He suddenly wants to ask Nora a hundred questions. “That thing you said about secrets. What did you mean?”

He finds he wants to tell her things, too. “I wanted to do you in that chair, just like that time, your old apartment.” Would she remember now? Would she look at him disgustedly? “I wanted to cry during my dad’s toast because it all seems so sad.” Would she understand? Maybe they were all seeking the same assurance but in different ways. Maybe they all wanted to close that alcove door and just do different things behind it.

He wishes he could ask Nora what it feels like when she pulls. “Is it like sex? Not orgasmic, but like that feeling after?” His mind searches for the description. That feeling like you can finally breathe. That you know something deep down, have been reminded of something primal. Is that how it feels? Like a release? And Stephen, with his trips to the home—could it be that he felt something like that, too?

Maybe they were all trying to escape, but in different ways. Maybe it was okay to escape if you returned to one another recharged.

But Nora is leading him out into the party, and he can’t stop to ask her. She looks back at him, over her shoulder. She has her party face back on, ready to rejoin the crowd. “I’m going to talk to your dad. I haven’t really had a chance yet.”

“Okay,” he mumbles. “Give what I said some thought.”

“I will.”

He watches her walk away, letting go of her hand, her petite frame in that white-and-green dress. Her body is compact in a certain way, athletic.

The game! He remembers it and glances at his watch. A few minutes after eleven. He might be able to catch the tail end. His heart skips.

He retreats from Nora, backing away from her as if he has hit a three-pointer. He slides the door to the den open, then closes it behind him. He reaches for the remote.

Detroit leads by twenty points, 99–79, with less than two minutes on the clock. Leopold feels tremendous. This is the moment he’s been hoping for all day, convinced he would have to sacrifice it.

He settles onto the sectional. Detroit will win, he suddenly knows. Anything can happen in two minutes, but this game belongs to them. It has been theirs all along.

It feels so good to give in to this, to do what he wants. It is exhausting to accommodate others all the time. No one wants him to be in here, away from the party, which is why it feels so good to be doing it.

So maybe I do know, he thinks, turning up the volume. Maybe I do know about secrets after all.