A Friend of the Family (12 page)

“I know,” I said, and I did.

Then Mrs. Stern came in, fed him some pills; soon he was asleep
on the couch, and he lay there all afternoon as still as night while Joe and I watched college basketball in the kitchen and Mrs. Stern cleaned the clean house. Late in the afternoon, Susie showed up with her girls, and after a half hour of tickling the kids, Joe and I took our leave. Niels roused, barely, smiled at me, tried to shake my hand. He was dead ten weeks later to the day. Iris went into labor during the fourth night of shivah, and her son, like his older sister, spent his first week on earth at his grandparents’ small row house in Philadelphia. He was, as Mrs. Stern had predicted, named for his grandfather.

A
LL THIS FROM
a cigarette burning in Laura’s hand, the angle of her chin, the purse of her lips. Then Elaine snapped me out of it. “Don’t worry, you don’t have to go out there,” she said. She had crept up behind me while I was gazing out the window. Mosquitoes were humming and buzzing near the porch lights, but Laura’s cigarette smoke kept them from biting. “I’ll invite them in for dinner. You can set the table.”

“I’m in my sneakers,” I said. “I should go out.”

“You can’t set the table in your sneakers? Come on,” she said. “It’s fine.”

But I wouldn’t be deterred, wouldn’t wimp out. I jogged out to the porch, dodging mosquitoes, fake-jaunty, and smiled at the pair of them.

“So you still up for a game, you two? Let an old man kick your collective butt?”

“I thought you’d abandoned us,” Laura said with a leisurely shake of her head. She let smoke stream through her nostrils. “Nice shorts.”

I looked down at my baggy, stained self; in that split second I’d forgotten what I was wearing.

“Actually, we were thinking of going into the city, right?” Alec
said, flicking his eyes from me to Laura. “Maybe something’s playing at the Angelika?”

Laura shook her head. “You know what, I think I should probably head back. I don’t want to offend Neal by missing his girlfriend’s hospitality. This might be my last, best hope of getting on his good side.”

“Steamed eggplant,” I said.

“Exactly,” Laura said.

“Well, what about the MOMA exhibit?” Alec said, doing his best not to sound crestfallen. “This weekend?”

“Now that,” Laura said, “is a definite. We’ll take the bus? Meet at my parents’ house on Saturday?”

“You’re going to MOMA?” I asked, as though this had not just been established.

“Yep.” Laura grinned. “I haven’t been there since the renovation, and Alec says there’s a David Smith installation I’ve got to see. Plus the building itself is supposed to be a masterpiece, yeah? And there’s a really great restaurant downstairs. Maybe we’ll make reservations if we’re feeling fancy.”

My son, as a rule, rejected fancy restaurants as both boring and capitalist. “That sounds great.”

“You know, I haven’t been there either,” I blurted. “To MOMA, I mean. Or the restaurant.”

“Then you should come along.”

Alec gave me a look of death, which I pretended not to see. “You sure I wouldn’t be cramping your style?”

“Oh, no,” Laura said. “It would be fun.”

“Maybe your dad would like to join, too. It could be a family outing. A little Stern-Dizinoff togetherness, like the old days. Remember when we used to go to Delaware in the summer? Rehoboth Beach?”

“My dad’s not much for art museums, Dr. Pete.”

“Well, ask him. Ask your mother, too.”

“You really want to go?” Laura said while Alec glared holes into the porch. “A field trip?”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve done anything cultural,” I said. “I’ve got to keep this old brain from rotting.”

“It’s not such an old brain, Dr. Pete,” Laura said, standing up. She grabbed her purse, tousled Alec’s hair. “So I’ll see you Saturday, kid?”

Kid. Thank God.

“You want me to walk you home?”

“Your mom has dinner ready, Alec,” I said. If he hated me already, I saw no reason not to push it.

“I’m okay,” Laura said. “I’ll catch up with you on Saturday.”

“Sure,” Alec said, and the two of us watched as she tossed her hips down the front path, pausing by the forsythia bush to light another cigarette.

“She smokes too much,” I observed as soon as she ducked around the corner.

“You are such an asshole.”

“An asshole? Isn’t that a bit much? Want to shoot some hoops?” Ordinarily I took more umbrage to name-calling, but I was inexplicably giddy. She called him kid. She invited me along on their date. She wasn’t out to seduce my son and loosen his already-tenuous hold on grown-up life.

“I was going to go out with Laura
alone
and you turned it into a fucking family reunion.”

“Oh, relax, Alec. You’ll get to spend lots of time with Laura, I’m sure.”

“But what the fuck
was
that? Why would you
do
that?”

“Watch your language,” I said, heading over to the driveway, where a couple of basketballs were piled against the garage. “If you’re that mad at me, let’s get it out on the court.”

“Why?” He was whimpering like a toddler. “You know I want to spend time with her, and you just totally inserted yourself where you don’t belong.”

“Stop whining,” I said. “You’re either playing or you’re not.”

He stared at me for a minute, then shook his head with more disgust than the situation could possibly have warranted. He stomped inside and slammed the door in case I hadn’t gotten the point.

“Suit yourself,” I said out loud, and made thirteen free throws in a row before Elaine called me in for dinner.

I
F ALEC WAS
angry with me for the rest of the week, I was too busy to notice it. After a slow postholiday start to things, by Friday the New Year had reached normal levels of calamity, and that night I was in the hospital until just past ten. I came home and collapsed, balling my tie up in my fist and tossing it across the bedroom, then undoing all my buttons. The house was quiet, the rooms were dim, and I tilted my head up to the ceiling and thought about just passing out like that, still dressed, a Weejun dangling off my toe.

“You all right?”

“What?”

“You look like a corpse.” Elaine must have been holed up somewhere downstairs; she came into the bedroom with a smear of chocolate on her chin and sat down next to me on the bed. I licked my finger and wiped it off.

“I just had a little,” she said. “I shouldn’t even keep it in the house.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“I know what you’re thinking.” But she didn’t. The phone rang and I reached over her to pick it up. I was awake enough again. My wife’s whole face smelled like chocolate.

“Dr. Dizinoff? Pete? It’s Arnie Craig.”

“Arnie,” I said, wondering again what the point was of paying for an unlisted number. “How you doing?”

“I’m good, good,” Arnie said, although the embarrassment in his voice told me otherwise. “I’m sorry to be bothering you at home, Doc. On a weekend.” The necessary preamble; he wasn’t sorry so much as ashamed.

“It’s not the weekend yet, Arnie. What can I do for you?”

He let out his breath, relieved. When patients called me at home, I did my best to be cordial, knowing that their anxiety almost always outweighed the importance of whatever they were interrupting. Most of the time, there was at least a semijustifiable reason to worry, enough reason to call 911, in fact, but the home callers either had a pathological fear of ambulances or emergency rooms or were familiar enough with me to know that I’d treat them kindly. Spiking fevers, worrisome rashes, diarrhea, water in the ears.

“It’s Roseanne,” Arnie said. “She’s locked herself in her room, sobbing. She’s been sleeping all day — all week, actually. I don’t know, it’s not like her,” he said. “She’s just been so, so unlike herself lately. I’m worried,” he said. “I didn’t know who else to call.”

This was a matter for a psychiatrist, and I told him so. I used to be wary of suggesting mental health treatment, especially to burly guys with Jersey accents, à la
Monsieur
Craig—whatever general distrust these types had of doctors usually went triple for shrinks. But it was going on eleven, and I wanted to take my socks off. “A good psychiatrist will sort this all out.”

“There’s other things, too, though, Doc.” Arnie wouldn’t let me off
so easily. “She lost a little more weight. I noticed because she doesn’t have much of an appetite — I was watching. I didn’t mean to interfere with her privacy, but we even brought in lobsters the other night, from John’s Fish, you know, and she wouldn’t touch them. It was strange. My girl always liked to eat.”

“Well, to be honest, it sounds like a bout of depression, Arnie,” I said. “Loss of appetite, mood swings, it’s all part of the game. But it’s very easily treatable — there are all sorts of medicines. Very fixable. I really recommend that you see —”

“But what does she have to be depressed about? Is it still that boyfriend?”

“It doesn’t necessarily have to be
about
anything, Arnie,” I said, wondering how there could be anyone left in Bergen County who hadn’t seen a Paxil commercial.

“I’m sorry?”

“Look, Roseanne’s a young girl in a transitional time. She doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life, just made a big move back to the East Coast when she thought she was going to build a career in California. She has a lot to worry about. It’s a difficult adjustment for her. But I think, with some counseling, she’ll really be fine. Call Round Hill Psychiatric in the morning. They’re a wonderful practice, all of them. Owen Kennedy specializes in young adults—maybe Roseanne will want to see him.”

“I thought about taking her to work with me,” Arnie said. “To the lot in Paramus tomorrow. Rosie’s good with business, you know, and I thought if I gave her something to do, something to focus on, but my wife said she wasn’t sure if that was the best thing. But I think I need to keep her busy, don’t you think so, Doc?”

“That could be good.” I sighed. Keep her busy. Just try to relax. Put on the Barry White and let nature take its course. “But first she
needs some mental health attention, she really does. It doesn’t mean she’s crazy if she goes to a psychiatrist,” I said, doing my best to soothe without condescending. “It only means she needs a little bit of help.”

Elaine gave me an “another crazy patient?” look; I shrugged at her and felt a surprising stab of sadness for spunky, miserable Roseanne and her confused galoot of a father.

“I don’t know much about shrinks,” Arnie confessed.

“They’re nice guys, Arnie. They’ll take great care of her.”

“Okay,” he said. “We’ll call tomorrow.”

Elaine was still looking at me. I looked away. “You take it easy, Arnie, okay? Roseanne’s gonna be all right.”

“Thanks, Doc. You, too.” And we hung up, and I closed my eyes, and exhaustion washed back over me like a tide.

Elaine lay down next to me and I could feel her warm body along the length of mine, feel her gearing up to say something. Any chance I could pass out before she opened her mouth?

“The car’s making funny noises.”

“The car?” I kept my eyes closed. Elaine drove a three-year-old Saab 9000 for which she’d gamely learned to handle a clutch, but the thing was a sled, useless in snow, rain, even distant thunder.

“Like this sputtering noise all week. Like a sort of—” She pressed her lips together and made a floppy sound with her tongue.

“I just had Arnie Craig on the phone. I could have asked him about it.”

“He’s a mechanic?”

“A car dealer.”

“So what does he know?”

“He knows cars.”

“I’ll take it in to the mechanic on Monday,” Elaine said.

“Good idea.” We were reconciled. I felt her remove my shoes, my
socks, unbuckle my belt. We still hadn’t made love in this New Year. Which was dangerous: ever since her illness, no matter the other distractions in my life, I’d tried to be as conscientious as a Boy Scout about having sex with my wife. I didn’t want her to feel unattractive, in any way less than desirable, when she was so prone to feeling that way without any interference from me. If I told her I was really too tired to do it, I’d set off a night of recriminatory panic. Not worth it. But still, as she lifted my undershirt and rubbed her manicure up and down my chest, I couldn’t imagine how I was going to gird myself.

“You wanna?” she whispered, easing me out of my boxer shorts.

“Elaine,” I whispered back, noncommittal.

She kissed me. My wife approached sex with the same competence and enthusiasm with which she approached throwing dinner parties, as a taxing but ultimately pleasurable chore, and something that should be done regularly for the sake of a healthy marriage. “Is that a yes?”

“Sure,” I said, mustering whatever energy I could dig.

“Have you been good?” she asked me.

I nodded. This would help. “I’ve been very good,” I answered chastely.

She smiled and shrugged out of her utilitarian underwear. For some reason, when making love to my wife, I liked to retreat to a little boy persona and often came within ten seconds whenever she started cooing that I was a “good boy.” “Good boy,” she would whisper, as I thrust and pumped on top of her (or behind her, or underneath; Elaine was as cheerful as a cheerleader about assuming whatever position I wanted). “Good boy,” she would murmur into my hair. “Good boy.” And she would sigh and draw a finger down my back.

“I want to be a good boy, I want to be a good boy.” Which was true, which was all I’d ever wanted.

“Help me be good,” I would beg her. “Please, please, help me—” And then blast, it was over.

But tonight, after she’d sat astride me for all of five minutes, I considered attempting to fake it—did she really have to know? — and then to my surprise I sputtered out a small orgasm; satisfied, my wife climbed off me. She and I made love like the sexual revolution had never happened; my satisfaction supported her sense of herself as a woman, and even if only one of us came (that would be me), we could usually both go to sleep content.

“I love you,” she whispered, kissing my sandpapery neck.

“Me, too,” I said, and I fell asleep, my clothing piled like sandbags all around my spent body.