A Window Opens: A Novel (18 page)

I turned in Genevieve’s direction and snorted quietly. “The world is watching? Seriously?”

I didn’t realize I’d spoken until Matthew said “Oh snap” under his breath.

We clapped our hands politely and flicked off the television. Genevieve nodded gamely. “Seems a little extreme, but we’ll go with it.”

“Yup,” said Rashida. “This comes straight from Greg. Near paperless it is.”

“I like where your mind’s at, Rashida.” Genevieve turned to me, then
said loudly so the whole room could hear, “Alice, please try to keep your editorializing to a minimum when we’re connected with Cleveland?”

I was too dumbfounded to respond. Wait,
you’re
the one who said this was going to be a huge snooze!

“Alice?” She snapped her fingers softly in my face.

“Yes, Genevieve. Of course.”

I thought of Margot, Oliver, and Georgie, shimmying into new bathing suits, and for an instant wished I was right there with them in my sensible Nautica tankini.

•  •  •

Most commuters have certain strategies for combating the tedium of the journey from one side of the Hudson to the other. Mine are sacrosanct: I head to the quiet car; I sidle up to the window in a three-seater, thus reducing my chances of having to sit next to somebody, since nobody wants the middle seat; and I pick the side of the train where I’m most likely to catch a glimpse of the sunset over the Meadowlands. It is, as Yeats said of Ireland, a terrible beauty.

With the exception of a handful of kindred spirits, I avoid all conversation with friends and neighbors. I listen to piano music on my way into the city, and on my way home, bracing for the onslaught of kids and chaos waiting for me, I listen to the train sound on my white noise app. This is how a train is
supposed
to sound: a peaceful clickety-clack punctuated by a romantic horn.

One night, I landed in the middle seat of a three-seater on the train home. The women on either side of me were ordering from Fresh Direct and I experienced a momentary thrill about being part of this exhausted, overworked club of working moms thronging to New Jersey.

When the conductor arrived to collect tickets, one of my seatmates couldn’t find her monthly pass. She muddled around in her purse for a few minutes before surrendering. “I need to buy a one-way to Glen Ridge.”

“That’ll be $11.75, including the $6 surcharge for buying on the train.”
The conductor was unapologetic. In fact, he seemed pleased to deliver the news.

The woman next to me raised her hand. “Wait—I think I have an extra ticket.” She pulled one from her purse and handed it over, waving away the other woman’s offer of reimbursement. “Are you kidding? Just pay it forward.”

•  •  •

This was the snapshot view through the trees as the train pulled into the station: Oliver and my dad playing Wiffle ball in our front yard. Oliver with the yellow bat to his ear; my dad winding up his arm.

In eight years of living six miles from my parents, I couldn’t remember a time when either of them had dropped by unannounced.

Knowing, heartsinkingly, what was in store when I got home, I took my time, appreciating the daffodils on the corner of Flower Street and the tapestry hammock rigged by my neighbors on their front porch every summer. A boy rode his skateboard down the front path of the school. Someone on the block was grilling; someone else’s sprinkler went
Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.

Suddenly, Jessie’s voice floated through the screen door.“You guys, dinner! Last one to the table has to clear the plates!”

Oliver glanced up at the porch. “Three more pitches, Jessie? I think I can hit it all the way across the street. I’m showing Pop.”

I couldn’t see my dad’s face but he appeared to be waiting for Jessie’s verdict. He knew who was boss.

“No, Oliver. Now. The salmon burgers are getting cold.”

I thought her tone was a little bit harsh, but Ollie bounced willingly up the front steps, taking two at a time.

When I arrived at the house, my dad and I were alone in the front yard. He wore khaki pants and a short-sleeved, bright-red Izod shirt. His eyes were hidden behind thick tortoiseshell glasses, and his hair was longer than usual, a frizz of black and white. He held up his hands, palms
to the sky, and slowly shrugged. From the string around his neck, Buzz Lightyear swung gently to and fro, unnecessary.

On the front porch, we took seats facing each other like opposing counsel at a deposition. He didn’t have to tell me why he was there; I knew.

The cancer was back.

•  •  •

When Will and I were kids, the best day of the year was the one when we got to go to our dad’s office. We each had our own day, unannounced beforehand. You’d wake up, get hustled out the door in semifancy clothes, grab a doughnut at Bun n’ Burger, and then you were off on the train. The big city glittered on the other side of the river, and you were the luckiest kid in the world to be on your way there.

Will loved walking by Madison Square Garden; I loved the different shades of Wite-Out. Pink, pale green, baby blue, canary yellow.

The day consisted of sitting in my dad’s office, reading
Harriet the Spy
and cobbling together an art project from copier paper and paperclips fished from a little magnetic holder. I was dazzled by the view from the 38th floor: a straight shot from 42nd Street all the way down Park Avenue to Union Square, populated by little dollhouse people and their microscopic dogs. I watered my dad’s ficus tree, filling Styrofoam coffee cup after Styrofoam coffee cup in the little office kitchen and carrying them carefully down the hall, hoping to cross paths with the woman who once said, “Well, hello, young lady. You must belong to Ed Pearse: you’re his spitting image!”

Things Not to Say to Someone Whose Parent Has Cancer:

• Are you close?

• Did he get a second opinion?

• Has he tried the Paleo Diet?

• Has he tried meditation?

• Has he read
The Power of Positive Thinking
?

• How long does he have?

• Do you know his end-of-life wishes?

• At least your mom is young.

• At least you have your own family.

• I’m sure he’ll be okay.

PS. Saying nothing at all is worse than saying all of the above.

Dinner was over; the kitchen was clean (for once), and I sat at the dining room table with a pile of paperwork fanned out in front of me. Half of it was an exhaustive report from the Scroll metrics team, which might as well have been in Cyrillic numerals, for all I understood of it. The other half was information on recurrences of throat cancer from various hospitals across the country: MD Anderson in Houston, Dana-Farber in Boston, Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. The names of these places were so affable-sounding, I could almost convince myself I was coordinating a reunion of far-flung old friends. Hey, Dana Farber, want to come over on Saturday night? Oh, sorry, I have plans with MD Anderson. Have you tried Johns Hopkins? He’d love your pork ragù.

The phone rang. It was Will, calling from his cell phone and obviously on the move. “Al? I’m driving over to Freeport for a sunset paddle. Just wanted to see how you’re holding up. I can only talk for a sec.”

I could picture my brother in his Keens and river shorts, sunglasses held in place with a Croakies strap, left elbow resting on the open window of his car. I even knew the scenery: Crystal Spring Farm, Bow Street Market, the Harraseeket Inn, rolling fields full of peaceful cows and Queen Anne’s lace all around. I felt a twinge of annoyance. Other than a few evenings at the community pool, I’d barely been outside since the snow melted. Now, here I was, taped inside a hot box of stress while my brother roamed free with a breeze on his ruddy face.

“Will,
you
called
me.
”

“Right. So, is there any news?”

“About Dad, you mean?” I didn’t intend to sound combative, but I
knew I did. Under the table, my knee brushed against something sticky, which turned out to be a big wad of purple gum. In my own home?! You have
got
to be kidding me.

“Of course about Dad.” Judging from the volume of the wind rushing past his car, I guessed Will was holding his phone in the hand closest to the window. He was no longer the same guy who frittered away his life savings on a foosball table for the Sig Ep house, but he still couldn’t be bothered to use basic grown-up safeguards like a Bluetooth device or even a seat belt.

“Not really. I mean, I think he’s still digesting the information and then he’ll come up with a plan with Dr. Davis. I’m actually doing a little research on my own right now, but not turning up anything very useful.” I dragged my thumb up the corner of one of my stacks of paperwork, flipbook style, only to see a dizzying assortment of medical terms pop out:
Nasopharyngeal. Oropharyngeal
.
Hypopharyngeal
.

“Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that. Do you know if they’re thinking about a vegan diet? A running buddy of mine had prostate cancer a while back and he had some luck cutting out—”

“Will, Dad doesn’t have prostate cancer.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that, Alice.” In his adult incarnation, Will was endlessly patient sometimes. I miss the explosive kid who punched a hole in his bedroom wall when our mom put the kibosh on his plan to camp out for tickets to a Mötley Crüe concert. “I’m just saying, it can’t hurt to be open to a holistic approach. Diet, meditation, some herbs. Don’t you think?”

Actually, I
did
think—it certainly couldn’t hurt to try these strategies, which my dad would almost certainly file away under “New Age.” But I resented my brother for shoehorning a phone call with me between leisure activities, for sounding so Zen about everything, and mostly for living in such a beautiful faraway place when I wanted him right there with me in New Jersey, where we could have this conversation over bitter diner coffee.

I took a deep breath. “Will, I’m trying to do my part here to make sure we have all our bases covered, but I have a full-time job and three
small kids and a dog. Why don’t
you
do a little homework on alternative therapies? I’m sure Dad would appreciate it.”

He didn’t counter with the obvious response: he, too, had young children (plus two guinea pigs, one pregnant) and ran his own business. “Awesome. I’m on it. Listen, Alice, I need to motor, but I want you to remember: we’re a team. Got it?”

“Got it. Bye.”

Later, alligator
.
In a while, crocodile.
Those were our old sign-offs, back when we were skulking around the backyard on walkie-talkies, pretending to be Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys (he was partial to Frank).

I pinched the little bridge of skin between my thumb and index finger, determined not to cry.

Just as I was about to return to my grim reading, Georgie and Margot strolled through the dining room. From the back, they looked like big and little versions of the same person, with shoulder-length wavy hair, narrow shoulders, and long, pale feet. They even wore matching ankle bracelets, woven from periwinkle thread by Jessie and studded with five wooden beads—one for each member of our family. The two girls appeared to be on some kind of mission—most likely to the freezer for lime popsicles—but Georgie paused at the threshold of the kitchen, where she turned to face me and then shimmied up the doorframe like a monkey, hands and feet pressed against each side.

She grinned mischievously when she got to the top.

“Georgie! Get down—you could hurt yourself!” Impressed as I was with her acrobatics, I still had to play my boring mom role.

She looked down at me, wrinkling her nose. “Mommy?”

“Yes?”

“I have a question.”

“Yes?”

“What do you daydream about?”

From the kitchen, over the sound of the freezer door unsticking, Margot said, “Georgie, you crack me up.”

“I don’t know. You guys, I guess? Who you’ll be when you grow up?”

Georgie slid down to the floor, crestfallen, her feet landing on the hardwood with a slap. “That’s
it
? I would of thought you’d daydream about
funner
stuff.”

I called into the kitchen as she disappeared to collect her dessert: “Me, too!”

G
reg Rockwell arrived in New York for three weeks, with the goal of “team building with my Big Apple peeps.” We prepared for his arrival with a flurry of activity—hanging tasteful art in our offices, ordering white melamine plates for the kitchen, creating a personalized guidebook for his family. I wrote up little descriptions of all my favorite kid-friendly places: the Cloisters, the Intrepid, the quiet little garden behind the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. I even included suggestions for the best places to get ice cream near the Museum of Natural History and the Met so Greg’s family wouldn’t have to pay tourist cafeteria prices.

“How do you know his kids aren’t lactose-intolerant?” asked Matthew, from his perspective high above my screen.

“I don’t. Maybe Emack and Bolio’s has sorbet?”

“You better hope they do.”

We invited Greg to all our meetings, but he came to none, not even the one Genevieve showed up for carrying a big pink box of scones. We invited him out for drinks at a rooftop bar, but he didn’t make an appearance there either. He never mentioned the guidebook, which seemed a
little silly in retrospect. My time would have been better spent mastering my new vocabulary: merch, omnichannel, POS, transaction data, authin. Sometimes I felt like one of the Danish au pairs I made plans with on the front lawn of the school—understanding but not understanding.

Despite his elusiveness elsewhere, Greg was right on time for our 1:1 meeting, which took place in my office. Like a roommate displaced by a college hookup, Matthew had to gather up his laptop and head to the conference room for the duration. Actually, Greg reminded me of someone I might have known but would never have been friends with in college; he would have been the guy doing keg stands in the basement of the frat house—someone Will might have befriended before he found Buddhism. Now, in his adult incarnation, straddling Matthew’s chair backward with his shirt untucked, Greg gestured with his chin at the stack of hardcovers on my desk: “You really want to pollute the environment with that crap?”