A Friend of the Family (24 page)

“Well, it can’t hurt to check.” Joe, God bless him, was a terrific doctor, but one of those docs who ordered every test for every possibility, even if its statistical likelihood was negligible; he’d consider tropical wasting diseases for women who’d never left Bergen County. It was one of the reasons I only rarely talked shop with him: I preferred a different type of induction and chose to use reason and observation instead of expensive and unnecessary testing.

“I told her I’d try and get her an appointment with April on Monday,” I said. “I’ll see what April thinks, if she thinks it’s depression or something else.”

“Fair enough,” Joe said. “But still, maybe you should call her, bring her in for some blood work. Or maybe send her to an endocrinologist.” Then he went into the kitchen to get the bottle of champagne. I wondered what his patients thought when he automatically went to the worst-case scenario (pregnant, thyroid, Addison’s). Joe was a high-risk OB, a fraught subspecialty that required infinite diligence; for some reason he’d always found delivering babies who might die more rewarding than delivering babies who were sure to live. He got off on brutal cases: the worse the chances, the more invested he became.

We resumed our position by the grill and stared down at the vegetables, letting the flame warm our faces. The vegetables were turning nice and glossy, their edges just starting to char.

“You ever want to hunt, Pete?”

“Huh?”

“Like go hunting for a deer or something, then skin it and age it and cook it.”

I thought of Roseanne gutting a fish on Saranac Lake. “Never once in my entire life, Joe.”

“I’ve been thinking about that lately,” he said. “With all the deer on the side of the highway, a person gets ideas. What he needs to do
to survive. Or what he’s capable of. I’m full of soft skills, Pete, but I’ve been thinking I need to sharpen up a few of my hard ones.”

“You’re serious?”

“Totally serious,” he said. “I’ve been daydreaming of packing up Neal and Adam and driving up to Maine or somewhere, stopping at L.L. Bean, bagging us a deer.”

“That’s rather rugged of you, Joe.” I started forking up the finished vegetables and dropping them on the plate.

“I’m not explaining it well,” he said. “It’s just, I want to actually do something physical, self-reliant. Depend on myself for an entire meal, for more than that. Prove that if it were just me and the woods, I could survive.”

“You and the woods and L.L. Bean.”

“I probably won’t do it,” he said.

“No, no, it sounds … well, it sounds like a midlife something or other, to tell you the truth.”

“I know.” He chuckled. “Most guys just buy a Corvette, right? Or sleep with a twenty-five-year-old?”

“Now that’s the spirit.”

Iris came out onto the patio.

“Joe, come on, we’ve got to get to the airport.” Pauline was arriving home from a six-week idyll in Tuscany, learning Italian and writing poetry before beginning her career at MIT.

“I guess it’s that time,” Joe said, turning to shake my hand. “Don’t mention I said anything about the twenty-five-year-old.”

“Wouldn’t think of it,” I said. I waved at Iris and watched the two of them descend step-by-step down the lawn to their car, holding hands the way they did at the most casual moments.

If I had known that it would be the last—no, no, I won’t do that. There’s nothing to gain by doing that. I’ll leave it there: I watched the
two of them descend step-by-step down the lawn to their car, holding hands they way they did at the most casual moments, and then turned to bring the vegetables in, to bring out the tuna, to serve my wife her birthday meal. We gathered around the table together. It was a beautiful evening.

A
LEC HAD DONE
a pretty good job with the wasabi potatoes, which were maybe a bit kickier than I would have done them but were nevertheless a strong showing. He’d painted Elaine a tiny miniature of the George Washington Bridge at sunrise and had it mounted in a quirky copper frame. She squealed over it even more than she’d squealed over the earrings I’d brought her, which was fine. We put down the two brunellos with impressive ease and sat out in the backyard, the cake plates still cluttering the table, the three of us just enjoying the hum of the night, the buzz of the mosquito zapper, the faint swoon of Lionel Hampton from inside the house.

“I was thinking of heading to the Bergen bookstore next Friday,” Elaine said. “If there’s any way to see what books you need, we could probably get them through the school, use my employee discount.”

Alec shrugged. The idea was that he’d spend the first semester at home, where after all he had a fine studio, since the New School didn’t guarantee housing for transfers. After the first semester, if all was going well, we’d look into something for him in the city. He hadn’t mentioned moving in with Laura in the East Village, which was good because then we didn’t have to fight about it.

“Fifty-four,” Elaine mused. “Can you believe your wife is fifty-four? I’m an old lady, Pete.”

“You’re nothing of the sort.”

“I think I saw in one of your magazines, Mom, that fifty is the new thirty. Which means actually you just turned thirty-four.”

“Trust me when I tell you fifty-four is
not
the new thirty-four,” she said. “But don’t I wish it were.”

We were quiet then. I wondered about Elaine’s wish to return to thirty-four. Those were nice times, I know. We were new parents, just moved to Round Hill; I was building up my reputation at the hospital and Elaine was making friends in the neighborhood. But it was before she’d gone back to teaching, which gave her so much satisfaction, before I’d really established myself, before we’d gotten to know Alec as a person. In many ways, I was a happier man now than I was at thirty-four. In many ways, that particular evening, I was as happy as I’d ever been.

“What are you thinking about, Pete?”

“Musing,” I said. “A bit drunkenly.”

“What about you, Al?”

“The same.” He reached out with his fingers and stole a chunk of cake, just like his mother did when she wasn’t worried about her figure. Then he licked it off his fingers one by one. Just like her.

In the back of the yard, on the southwestern corner of the property line we shared with the Kriegers, two small deer pushed their tentative way out of a clump of lilac bushes. They were adolescent, probably female, since they were undersized and still spotted. Usually deer like that presented in much bigger groups. I wondered if their mother had been hit by a car.

“Get your canvas, Al,” Elaine whispered, as if human voices still had the power to scare suburban deer away.

“If Joe were here, he’d shoot them.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He told me today,” I said, “he’s had a notion to take Neal and Adam up to Maine and go deer hunting. Stop at L.L. Bean first.”

“You’re kidding,” Alec said, shaking his head. “Laura would just love that.” I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic.

“Joe wants to go shoot deer?”

Suddenly I was embarrassed for my friend. Round Hill obstetricians, especially of the Jewish persuasion, did not frequently admit to red-state bloodlust. I shrugged and watched the deer watch us, their huge black eyes hopeful and slightly dazed in the last light of the day. From the Kriegers’ side of the lawn, maybe ten feet in front of the deer, Kylie Krieger emerged in mustard-splattered overalls with half a hot dog in her hand. Kylie was probably five or six, a freckle-faced urchin who waved maniacally at me when I passed her in the street.

“I want to feed them!” she squealed. Then she looked at us guiltily.

“Hi, sweetheart,” Elaine called.

“I want to feed them!” she said again, and she thrust the hot dog in her palm out toward the deer, who looked at her curiously.

“Well, why don’t you, then?” Elaine said.

“Kylie! Kylie!” Mark Krieger, who back then I had no idea could throw a coffee mug as hard as I now know he can, came running into our yard after his daughter. “Kylie, what did I tell you about coming onto the other people’s lawns—”

“It’s okay,” Elaine called. “We’re happy to have her.”

Mark looked up at us gratefully. “We’re trying to get her to stand still for, I don’t know, more than five seconds at a time.”

“But Daddy,
I want to feed the deer!”
And then she threw the hot dog with all the might in her five-year-old body, and the deer backed into the lilac bush and hustled away, immune to the charms of our tiny neighbor.

“Nooo!” she shrieked as the deer scuttled into the darkness of the tree line.

“Oh, Kylie. You scared them.”

“Where’d they go, Daddy?
Where did they go?
”

“Honey, deer don’t like hot dogs. That’s what I was telling you—”

But it was too late. She flung herself into her father’s arms and began to weep uncontrollably, hitting her palms against her father’s chest again and again.
I want to feed the deer. I want to feed the deer.
Mark shot us an apologetic look and we shook our heads in sympathy. Maybe later I’d knock on their door, see if they wanted to come over for a glass of cognac. He looked like a man who could use a drink. He retreated back to their side of the lawn, and I could hear his wife start to panic. “Jesus, Mark, what happened to her? She’s hysterical!”

“God, you couldn’t take me back there for all the world,” Elaine said. “Temper tantrums and crying jags? No way.”

“But I thought you said you wanted to be thirty-four again.”

“I guess I forgot.”

“Come on.” Alec laughed. “I wasn’t really like that, was I?”

“You?” Elaine grinned. “Oh, no, you were a perfect angel all the time. You have frosting on your nose.”

He wiped his nose with his thumb, then licked the frosting off his thumb. “I was an angel, wasn’t I?”

“From the day you were born,” Elaine said, and then we were all quiet again for a while, the throb of Kylie’s hysterics still thumping in our ears.

“I have to tell you guys something,” Alec said.

This should have served as a warning for us to jump to our guards immediately, but the night was so languorous, our sense of peace so palpable, that our guards were impossible to find.

“Laura and I are moving to Paris.”

It didn’t even register. Not as a joke, not as a threat, not as a sentence. I reached out and cut myself another tiny sliver of cake.

“I’m sorry, Alec,” Elaine said. She waved away my offer of half the slice. “You want to what?”

“I don’t
want
to anything,” he said. “I’m doing it. Laura and I are moving to Paris in two weeks. She knows some people there, some guys from Tunisia, actually, who she harvested grapes with last spring. They’re opening up an art gallery-slash-clothing store, and they need someone to manage it, and they’ll pay her off the books.”

“That’s great for Laura,” Elaine said, “but what on earth does that have to do with you?”

“I’m going with her,” he said.

“But you’re not,” I said. Only slowly were any of the words he was saying even making sense in my brain. “You’re starting school next week.”

“No,” Alec said. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’m not going to school. I’m moving to Paris. With Laura.”

“But that’s impossible,” I said. “You already registered. You picked your classes.”

“I’m going to withdraw,” he said. “I’m moving to Paris.”

“Alec—”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “You’re starting school. Next week. You picked your classes. We put down the deposit. You’re starting school.”

“Actually, I’m going to withdraw,” he repeated. “Look, I’m sorry, I know you’re disappointed, but I still feel that my education would be better served if I went to Europe and—”

“Alec, I don’t think you’re hearing me. You are starting school. Next week.” I couldn’t even pronounce the word “Paris.”

“Dad, I’m sorry, but I’m not.”

“Listen to me,” I said. “I know you like Laura a lot. I know she seems like a very mature, interesting older woman. I know it seems like she’s had a lot of life experience—”

“Dad, this isn’t about—”

“Let him finish, Alec.”

“Laura Stern is not going to take you
anywhere.
You are not withdrawing from school. You are not moving to Paris. You understand me?”

“Dad, unfortunately you can’t really tell me what to do anymore,” he said. “I turned twenty-one in July. I’m an adult.”

“You are hardly an adult, and I absolutely can tell you what to do. We’ve indulged your bullshit long enough, and you are going to start classes next week like we agreed on.”

“Pete, lower your voice.” I hadn’t even realized I was yelling.

“Dad, look, I’ll refund you the money—”

“Do you honestly think this is about money?”

“Yes,” he said. “Of course it’s about money.”

“You are out of your mind, you know that? This isn’t about
money.
This is about you. You and your life. We have been, in my opinion, way too indulgent with you as you’ve dicked around for the past couple of years, but
no more.
You are going to school, you are
graduating
from school, and after that, if you want to move to Paris with some slut with a criminal record—”

He stood. “What did you call her?”

“Alec, sit down.”

“No, I won’t. What did you call her?”

“Alec, sit.”

“A slut with a criminal record? Is that what you think of her? She’s only your best friend’s daughter, Dad. She’s only someone you’ve known all her life.”

“Exactly,” I said. “I’ve known her all her life. And if you think for
one second you are getting on a plane to go to Paris with her, you are so out of your mind you should be committed like she was.”

“Fuck you, Dad.”

“Alec, you will not talk to me that way.”

“Fuck you—”

We only stopped when we heard the soft bubble of Elaine crying. “Please,” she whispered. “Please. It’s my birthday. Please can we not fight today?”

Alec sat back down, but his arms were crossed over his chest and he was glaring at me. I would have switched places with Mark Krieger in an instant, if only I could pick the kid up in my arms and tell him he’d been a bad boy and lock him up in his room for the rest of the week.