Chapter 17

Spring 2000

I felt like a tourist returning to Chicago after so long. Five years might not seem like a long time, but so much had happened to me since I’d last lived in Chicago. Everything in my life was different, especially me. I was older, a father now, without my own mother and sister with me. My whole perspective had changed, and I saw the city with new eyes.

During the second semester of medical school, I had the opportunity to embrace the city in new ways that wouldn’t have been possible when I was in high school. On weekends when we had an hour or two between studying, Rob and I took the kids on excursions to my favorite spots.

One February afternoon, we visited the Field Museum of Natural History. We pushed Jamie and R.J. in strollers down through the Loop to the museum district. It was one of those strange Midwestern winter days when it was unseasonably warm and the snow had begun to melt, teasing us into thinking that spring would come early even though we knew better. As we stood in front of the museum, I took a deep breath.

“Can you smell that?”

Rob titled his head and sniffed. “Diesel? Pizza? Lake Michigan?”

I shook my head. “It’s the smell of spring. I remember that smell from every year of my childhood. There’s just something about the smell of this kind of day that reminds me of throwing off our coats and running around, delirious because the temperature broke forty degrees.”

Rob smiled. “In San Diego, spring smells like the ocean and new flip-flops. But I can relate.”

We went straight to what had always been my favorite exhibit, the Ancient Americas. When I was in elementary school, the Field Museum was a regular stop on the roster of school field trips. Some kids got bored with seeing the exhibits and didn’t care about what the world was like before 1990. But I always loved the replica of the ice age, with its mammoth hunters and crude tools. I was fascinated by the 800-year-old pueblo dwellings and the Aztec empire’s ingenuity. The progression of human existence over 13,000 years appealed to my child’s desire to find order and purpose in everything.

Rob held R.J. in one arm as he took it all in.

“It puts it all into perspective, doesn’t it? We complain about exams and diapers, but these people built empires and created farming from scratch.”

I laughed. “So we’ve become a species of wimps?”

“Definitely.” He looked down at R.J., who was chewing on a pacifier and pointing at a spearhead from the ice age. “Not my son, though. Notice he’s attracted to weaponry.”

I peered into Jamie’s stroller. He was asleep. “Well, maybe when my kid wakes up he’ll help R.J. build an empire or something.”

I also dragged Rob to a mid-season Bulls game with me, claiming that I needed a fix of NBA. It’s not that there wasn’t basketball in Durham—there was Duke, of course, and nothing rivaled the excitement of seeing the Blue Devils win in Cameron. But there was nothing else quite like watching a Bulls game, even in the post-Jordan years. Bulls fans never abandoned the hope that a miracle like Jordan could happen again. So Chicago fans faithfully crowded into the United Center, tried to get excited about terms like “rebuilding” and “upside potential” while they rooted for Elton Brand and endured a seventeen-win season.

Jordan was no longer there in person, but the ghosts of his six championships swirled around the banners in the rafters, and if you prayed hard enough, maybe Elton Brand would stick around and Ron Artest would turn into the next M.J.

Rob agreed to go while Chico watched the boys, even though he was a Lakers fan who had nothing but contempt for the Bulls. Granted, they were terrible, one of the worst teams in the NBA that year, but Elton Brand was averaging twenty points and ten rebounds a game, so I convinced him that he should attend a game so he could see the future of the league in person.

“Plus, the Lakers are overrated. Shaq and Kobe? Please.” I tried to sell this notion, even though we both knew that if the Lakers didn’t win the championship that year, something was wrong with the world.

Rob sighed. “This is why people in the rest of the world have no respect for the Bulls anymore. You’re delusional.”

I tried another tack. “The Staples Center is a dumb name. You haven’t won a title since 1988.”

“Shaq was the MVP of the All-Star Game this year. We had a sixteen-game winning streak earlier in the season.”

“Jordan is the greatest player of all time.” It was really all I had left.

“Whatever. Just get us some beer. The least you could do is pay, since you dragged me here.”

Rob and I had a solid “guy” bond, but Chico and I had a special connection as well. On the day we met, I had left the record store feeling buoyant and cheerful in a way that felt alien after so much turmoil. As I walked around the streets of downtown Chicago, I found myself spending less time on nostalgia and more time thinking about Chico, the way her smile only lifted one side of her mouth, as if her lips wouldn’t commit to a full smile. I actually laughed out loud remembering the things we’d said to each other, drawing quick looks from the people striding by me on the sidewalks. This only made me laugh again—one of the things that people complained about northern cities was the way no one said hi to each other as they passed; when in North Carolina, it was considered rude not to at least nod to those strangers you passed. In Chicago, a lone person laughing to himself could be crazy or simply amused, and the quick look was meant to assess the situation without becoming involved. Longer eye contact would only be interpreted as encouragement—if engaged, the person might attack, or relay what he’d found so amusing. Neither was an attractive option to the passerby, who had no interest in either option. But I had found a stranger who wasn’t afraid to make eye contact, and so maybe people just connected differently here.

Chico. When I finally went home that day, I played my new Hall and Oates CD while I lay on the futon with my eyes closed, a smile still on my face. Flirting. I never flirted, so it took me hours to realize that the feeling I had was the effortless pleasure of connecting with another person on a very basic level. I had always been so serious, about my family, about my relationships, about school, and I seemed to have missed an important part of life. Fun. What a revelation. As Darryl Hall sang about rich girls, I marveled at how this simple concept had eluded me for so long. Chico seemed fun. She was the type of woman I was usually attracted to. She didn’t wear makeup, and her only adornment was a row of earrings in one ear (just one in the other ear). She wore that T-shirt that falsely declared she was not Chico, but it wasn’t overly tight or meant to draw attention to her body. He jeans were loose and faded, and the beat-up Chuck Taylors on her feet looked like she’d been wearing them since high school.

But more than anything, talking with Chico about a random CD was a relief from everything else in my life, and that element of our friendship didn’t change as we got to know each other. I told her about my revelation about fun, and to my surprise, she didn’t laugh.

“I think we can learn a lesson from The Shining on this topic,” she told me one morning in March. We had gotten up early to go over notes for an exam that was coming up the next week. We met at a diner that stayed quiet until the morning commuters rushed through around eight o’clock, and Jamie slept beside us in his stroller.

“The book or the movie?”

“Never read the book. Nicholson has never been better, and even thinking about that scene with the old naked lady in the bathtub still scares the bejesus out of me.”

I thought briefly of Angela and smiled. She would never see a movie without reading the book first. How else could we argue about which was better afterward?

“Anyway, what’s the lesson? Don’t move into a deserted-yet-haunted hotel with your family? Pay more attention to your kid when he starts to go crazy? Lay off the booze?”

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” Chico said this with complete seriousness, as if it were some sage bit of wisdom that was supposed to immediately shed light on the darkness of my soul.

“Chico, everyone knows that you have to have balance in life. It’s easier said than done—I mean, look at me,” I said, gesturing to my sleeping son. Jamie gave a little snore and shifted, as if to emphasize my words. “I’m dragging a baby out to a diner at five o’clock in the morning to study for a medical school exam.”

She shook her head. “Don’t be so literal. Remember what happened, how Jack kept trying to write? It wasn’t happening, but he couldn’t stop doing the same thing over and over? He never stopped to think about changing, maybe trying to leave or just starting a new book. He drove himself crazy trying the same thing and failing, until all he was typing was ‘all work and no play make Jack a dull boy’ over and over. By the time it came to that, it was too late, he was doomed, Scatman Crothers was his son’s role model, and nothing would ever be the same again.”

She shrugged, as if the meaning of all of this was obvious and needed no further explanation. She picked up her notebook and started flipping pages.

“Now, can we get back to the Structure and Function notes? I’m really lost.”

I was lost too, because I had no idea how I could connect my life to her interpretation of The Shining, unless she was telling me not to move to a mountain lodge without at least doing some research. But Chico had moved on, so I motioned to the server for another coffee and opened my own notes.

Later, I finally got what Chico was trying to say. If Plan A isn’t working, you have two choices: move on to Plan B, C, or D, or drive yourself insane trying and failing at Plan A. My Plan A had always been to decide what I thought was right, and to fit myself and everyone around me into that mold. Chico was telling me that Plan A might not always be the best choice, and failure was more about refusing to change to a new plan when the first doesn’t work.

I didn’t know what my Plan B would be, but I promised myself that I’d at least give it a try. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

* * *

That semester, Angela’s break from UIC and my spring break coincided. She had been working hard, taking five classes in order to finish her bachelor’s degree, and her parents wanted to reward her with a vacation.

“They want to take me and Jamie on a cruise to Mexico, just for the week,” she told me over the phone. “They said they’ll watch Jamie while I relax a little. You don’t mind, do you?”

I knew I would miss my son, since we hadn’t spent a week apart since he was born. But when I thought about it, I realized I could use a break myself.

“Of course not—it sounds like a fun trip. You’ve been working really hard.”

“So have you. Actually, you could use a break, too. I could tell my parents that you have to come, too—we’re like a package deal,” she blurted.

We both paused, imagining the five of us on vacation together. Angela’s parents had shifted from complete dislike to vague tolerance when it came to me. I figured that by the time Jamie went to elementary school, they might have moved all the way up to begrudging acceptance, which was all I really hoped for. So a vacation together seemed a bit ambitious.

“Umm, I think we’d all be happier if I stayed back home,” I said diplomatically.

Angela laughed. “You’re right. My parents aren’t exactly easy to get along with.”

“And hey, I can relax right here at home, watch some college basketball, root for our alma mater. Just make sure to bring back my boy—don’t let your parents try to keep him in Mexico.”

“Oh, don’t worry. My father hates Mexicans,” she teased. “Happy spring break, El.”

Rob went home to San Diego for the week of spring break, so Chico and I were left on our own. It had been a rough winter that year, snowing almost every week until February, when a brutal cold invaded the city. Walking anywhere was out of the question because no matter how much we bundled up, the wind found any exposed skin and froze into solid, making my nose feel as if it was filled with ice.

“I think my eyeballs are actually frozen,” Chico called to me over the howl of the wind one day when we ventured out for coffee the first morning of our break. It was a bright, clear Saturday morning, one of those deceptive winter days that looks so appealing from inside. The sky was pure cerulean and the sun reflecting off the fresh snow made air seem crisp and inviting.

Chico had called me, proposing a walk and coffee to celebrate the break, and I had optimistically agreed after looking out my bedroom window. By the time we met at the coffee shop, her corneas were in a deep freeze, and I wondered whether my fingers would ever be functional again. We ordered and didn’t dare take off our coats as we leaned over the steaming cups.

“Great idea, this ‘morning walk,’ ” I complained.

Chico waved me off with a mitten-covered hand. “I thought you men were supposed to be tough. Stop being such a pretty boy.”

“That was Rob who claimed to be tough. Not me. We pretty boys like to be pampered,” I told her. “Where did you get adult-sized mittens?”

She sniffed as if testing to see if her sinuses still worked after the cold’s assault. “Why, so you can mock me? These mittens have Gore-Tex in them. It’s why my fingers are fine and you look like you have claws.”

“No, I asked so I can get some. What kind of a pretty boy has claws? They might take away my membership in P.B.A.—Pretty Boys of America.”

“I would laugh at that, but my lips are petrified.”

After arguing over who was colder and several more cups of coffee and a plate of pastries, we decided to retreat to the indoors for the rest of the day.

“Your place or mine?”

Chico considered this. “Well, your place is bigger, but my place is closer and there’s a video store on the way. We can rent some movies, get some popcorn and red licorice, and we’ll be set for the day.”

I glanced at my watch. “You know it’s only ten o’clock, right? We just ate a bunch of cheese Danish—can you handle licorice and popcorn, too?”

She pulled her knit hat down low on her head, zipped up her parka and stood up. “I can handle anything, pretty boy. The question is, can you handle it?”

I made a big show of pulling on my leather gloves and wrapping my scarf around my neck just so. “I can handle it. Just don’t tell the P.B.A.”

In the video store, Chico was horrified by my ignorance of classic films.

“You’ve never even seen the obvious ones? Casablanca? Some Like It Hot? Anything with Fred and Ginger?”

“No, no and no.”

She glared at me. I held up my hands. “Sorry.”

Chico stomped off and came back with an armful of old movies. “Your ignorance will not stand, Ellison Emory. Not on my watch.”

We spent the entire day in a decadent state of laziness, watching Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Spartacus, In Cold Blood and Roman Holiday while stuffing ourselves with junk food. Around three o’clock, Chico paused Rear Window to go into the kitchen. I was lying on her overstuffed sofa and I dozed off for a few seconds. I was jolted awake when Chico kicked at my feet.

“Wake up! I didn’t break out the good stuff for you to sleep through it.”

I thought she meant the movie until I pried open one eye and saw her holding a bottle of expensive tequila. I sighed and sat up.

“So now this is turning into a real party?”

She did a little dance, holding the bottle over her head. “That’s right. You up for it?”

I yawned and pretended to think about it. “I suppose so. I mean, we are celebrating spring break, right?” I took the bottle from her and peered at the label. “Mexican—perfect. We’ll bring Cancun right here to Chicago.”

Chico nodded. “Now that’s the spirit. I’m going in there to make us some margaritas, which I think the P.B.A. would approve of. When I get back, make room for me on the sofa. We’re just getting to the good part in the movie, when he notices the invalid wife is missing.”

“Thanks for telling me what happens.”

“The movie was made in 1954. I can’t help that you’ve been living under a rock your entire life.”

It turned out that Chico didn’t just have the one bottle stored away in her cabinet. She had an entire stock of fine liquor.

“My uncle gives me liquor as gifts for every birthday and Christmas,” she explained after we’d finished the tequila and moved on to vodka sours. We had run out of movies and we were just sitting on the sofa underneath quilts, listening to music that played softly from speakers all over the room. It was only six o’clock in the evening, but it was already dark and with just a lamp on, the atmosphere was dim and cozy.

“Why?”

“He owns a liquor store.” This made us both giggle, and then the giggling made us laugh. And then we couldn’t stop laughing at the fact that what we were laughing at wasn’t all that funny. It was a contagion of laughter, and we fed off each other until we were holding onto each other and Chico spilled her drink onto her quilt, which made us laugh even more.

When it finally subsided, she tossed her wet blanket aside and wiped her eyes.

“Here, share mine,” I offered. She snuggled next to me under the quilt, and suddenly the room was still. I was well into a deep, hazy buzz that heightened my senses. I looked around Chico’s tiny living room. She lived in an old house that had been converted into oddly shaped apartments. Her personality was evident in every detail of the room, from the Indian rug covering the scratched wood floors to the black and white photos of all things music related that covered the walls. Her stereo was the most expensive thing in the room, and stacks of CDs and albums shared space with books on her shelves.

At that moment, Purple Rain was playing and the staccato rhythm of “Darling Nikki” floated around us. I’ve always thought that was one of the songs that really proved Prince’s genius. If you listen to it without seeing the movie, it just sounds like a song of regret because this Nikki won’t commit. She’s too involved in partying to really settle down, even though the guy in the song wants her more than anything. But then, you see the movie, and it’s a taunt, a metaphor for a woman who isn’t what you thought she was. It’s like he’s spitting in her face through music, trying to make her hurt like he’s been hurt. And I’ve never heard a song that sounded, musically, anything like it. It drags you in with some tame notes at the beginning, and by the end he’s screaming, begging Nikki to come back. Then, suddenly, he’s spent, and on the record there was the creepy backwards singing.

I was thinking all of this, lost in the music washing over me, drunk from too much fine liquor but not caring. Chico’s head was on my shoulder, and her hair smelled faintly of coconut. She looked up at me.

“This was the first album I ever owned. I convinced my mother to buy it for me after I heard the big kids playing it at school,” she said quietly. “I was the coolest third-grader at my school because I brought the album cover to school. Remember that cover? Prince, with all that long, curly hair, sitting on a motorcycle, smoke all around him?”

“I remember Apollonia standing in the doorway in the background, wearing a cape and hardly anything else. Kind of racy for a seven-year-old kid.”

Chico gave me a lazy smile. “My mother didn’t know anything about Prince. If she had, she might have thought twice about letting me buy the album.”

I smiled back at her, and our eyes held way longer than was necessary. I wasn’t thinking of anything except the realization that at that moment, I wanted nothing more than to kiss Chico. She beat me to it, and our lips met, softly. The kiss was long and slow, and when we parted, I opened my eyes to see the question in Chico’s gaze.

My head cleared a little, and I considered her question. Another kiss would no doubt lead us further, and part of me wanted that. Maybe this, I thought, would be Plan B—kissing Chico again, seeing where it led us, not worrying about the consequences. But the other part of me always wanted to think about consequences, and even tequila and vodka couldn’t completely silence my logical side. That side said that what made Chico so fun was the element of possibility or the unknown. We were attracted to each other, but we were friends. Maybe that’s part of what made our relationship fun—we left the possibilities unexplored.

I opened my mouth to say all that, but Chico stopped me. She shifted her body away from me on the sofa and looked away.

“Let’s not. Your life is complicated enough. Let’s just chalk this up to tequila and keep being friends, okay?”

“Okay. But don’t forget about vodka—it deserves at least some of the blame.”

For the first time that day, I thought about Angela and Jamie. I didn’t know where things would end up with Angela and I, but couldn’t deny that I still had feelings for her. And we’d always be Jamie’s parents. Chico and I were friends, good friends, and I didn’t want to jeopardize that. Adding sex to the mix wouldn’t be fair to any of us, no matter how much I wanted to kiss Chico again, to stay under the quilt with her forever, reveling in the feel of lips and the smell of her hair.

I took a deep breath and stood up. “I should go.”

She nodded. “But get a cab. I don’t want to have to answer to the P.B.A. if you freeze to death.”

At the door, I stopped and turned back. “Thanks, Chico.”

“For what? Getting you drunk and then kicking you out into the cold?” she joked.

“For being a real friend.”

She pushed me out the door, gently. “Don’t get all emotional on me. Call me tomorrow. We’ll feed our hangovers with brunch, and I’ll take you to get some mittens.”

* * *

It was Chico who introduced both Rob and me to Chicago’s tastiest restaurants all that spring. She made a list of her favorites with codes indicating price, location and whether they were baby-friendly or not.

“You’re like a human tour book,” I told her. I knew she’d done the whole list from memory and personal knowledge.

“Wait, this all isn’t from Fodor’s?” Rob was incredulous. “I was sitting here wondering why you didn’t just give us the book instead of transcribing everything.”

Chico sniffed and put on a pious expression. “Fodor’s. Please. I am a native. I know Chicago better than those hacks at Fodor’s.”

“Maybe you should start a line of your own. Call it ‘Chico’s,’ ” I suggested. “You could have a little intro explaining how you got your name, give the whole thing a little character.”

Rob and I looked at each and laughed, remembering the story of how she got her name.

Chico glared at us. “Maybe I’ll do just that. And when I make my millions, you can believe that there are two little people that I will definitely leave behind.”

We were sitting at a Lithuanian restaurant on the south side eating homemade sausages and trying to decide whether to order mushroom barley soup or something more adventurous. The place was tiny, just a few tables and white walls decorated with oversized, black and white photos of Baltic Sea harbors, Vilnius churches and the Hill of Crosses near Siauliai. The room was warm and disparate fragrances mingled: pork chops, sautéed vegetables, fried steak, pickled herring and something sweet and wheaty Rob and I couldn’t identify.

“Beer ice cream,” Chico informed us. “Also known as god’s greatest invention next to humans.”

“What’s a kugeli?” Rob asked.

“Don’t be such a nerd. Be adventurous and order something without knowing its exact ingredients,” Chico demanded, tempering her words with a smile. “Remember, you’re Tough Rob.”

“Good point, Chiquito. Tough Rob isn’t afraid of foreign foods. It’s kugelis for me.”

The kids were with us, busying themselves with pounding spoons against the tabletop while they sat in twin high chairs. The owners of the restaurant came by periodically to pinch their cheeks, laugh at the noise they were making and coo to them in Lithuanian. I smiled to myself, thinking that five years ago, I never would have imagined sitting in a child-friendly Lithuanian café with these people who had become like family to me.

Kugelis turned out to be a mixture of bacon, egg, cheese, and hash brown, pureed and then fried in a patty. It was served with apple sauce and sour cream, and when Rob’s eyes rolled back into his head at the first taste, I worried for his health.

“Your eyes will stay like that if you keep it up. Didn’t your mother ever tell you that?” Chico teased.

Rob moaned. “It would be worth it if I could eat these every day for the rest of my life.”

He fed a tiny bit to R.J., and we all laughed when his small son made the same face as his father, then demanded more.

I tried the mushroom barley soup and Jamie discovered a love for sauerkraut that surprised us all.

“Are you sure he’s not German?” Rob asked, watching Jamie devour spoonfuls of the cabbage mixture. I shrugged and kept feeding Jamie, who grunted loudly when he was ready for another bite.

“Maybe on Angela’s side.”

* * *

While Rob, Chico and I became close, Angela didn’t meet many friends in her classes at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“It’s so big,” she complained one night. It was a late night in February, and she was staying at my apartment because it was too late to ride the L back to her parents’ place. This happened a lot. We often took care of Jamie together at night, taking advantage of the other one’s presence to get a little studying done in between marveling at Jamie’s every accomplishment. If it got too late, Angela would stay over, sleeping in my bed while I slept on the sofa.

We never talked about the arrangement, never examined it too closely. I don’t think either of us wanted to break the spell of happy companionship that was developing between us. She had kissed me on Christmas, but it wasn’t a kiss that promised anything. In any case, I wasn’t looking for promises. I knew all too well how those could be broken.

Tonight, we sat on my living room floor, staring at the remnants of take-out Chinese food. It was a Friday, and both of us had been too tired even to watch a movie after Jamie fell asleep. We just lounged on large pillows I kept on the floor, listening to Deborah Cox’s latest CD. I had been skeptical about her music choice, but Angela insisted that “Nobody’s Supposed to Be Here” was the song that perfectly fit her mood.

“There are 25,000 students there. At Duke, it felt like everybody knew each other. At least the black people. I never thought I’d say that there were too many black people at a college, but it just makes it so hard to get to know anyone. They all have these cliques and things, it’s impossible to get to know anyone without the whole ‘where do you belong’ conversation.”

I took her hand and held it. “When we moved to Durham after my mother died, something like that happened to me. I went to a private Catholic school with mostly white kids, and I was special there, but I’d known those kids since kindergarten, so I also belonged. When I went to Durham, all the kids were black, and suddenly I wasn’t black enough. It’s not exactly like what you’re describing, but I think the feelings are the same.”

This was the most I’d ever told Angela, or anyone, about the time just after my mother died. The only person I had been able to trust before now was Maren. She had been the only other person who understood.

Angela squeezed my hand. “So how did you get over it?”

I looked away. “I didn’t. I guess that’s why I’m telling you this. You can’t worry so much about fitting in, or finding a place. You’ll find a place where you belong—maybe at this school, but maybe not. Keep it in perspective—you’ll only be here a semester. Then, you’ll be off onto something different. Graduate school, a Ph.D., teaching. Whatever you want, you can do. This is just a blip.”

I wished someone had told me this when I was seventeen. But there was no one who was close enough to me to talk to me about this kind of thing except my father, and I wouldn’t have listened to him even if he had tried.

I could feel Angela’s eyes on my face, so I finally turned back to her. I hesitated, not wanting her pity. But when I looked into her eyes, all I saw was caring. Not passion, not lust, just simple affection.

“Thanks, Ellison.”

I shrugged. “I only have my own experience—I don’t have the answers for anyone else.”

She held up her hand. “You helped me, and you opened up to me. So just accept my thanks.”

I bowed my head. “You’re welcome.”

I thought she would change the subject to put us on more comfortable ground. The CD changer was now playing Macy Gray’s On How Life Is—my choice for the evening.

“It seems like it’s been easy for you since you’ve been back in Chicago. You found Rob and Chico right away,” she said. “I’ve been kind of jealous of the friendship you all share.”

I considered this. “We didn’t mean to exclude you.”

“That’s not what I meant. I just meant, I wish it was so easy for me to make friends. I feel like it’s always a struggle to find people who really get me.”

I nodded. “You know what? I feel the same way. It’s just that Chico and Rob were some kid of fluke. We happened to meet and we just clicked.” After a pause, I added, “I always thought making friends came easily to you, actually.”

We both laughed. “Well, I guess we’re learning something new about each other after all we’ve been through,” she said.

There didn’t seem to be anything else to say, so we sat quietly, listening to Macy Gray’s scratchy voice singing “I Try.”