An Available Man (26 page)

Still, he hesitated, remembering her cool demeanor at the market that July day, and holding Laurel in his arms this very morning. He had been careful not to commit himself to her, but that was mostly out of fear of being left again. Then why was he still thinking about Ellen? Maybe it
was
his turn to be selfish, even devious, but it didn’t come naturally to him. And there was no one he could comfortably confide in and ask for advice.

Perversely, he believed that only Bee could have helped him straighten out his complicated feelings, and she had never been as absent as she was right then. Amy Weitz had said that the dead seem to hang around for a while, as if to guide and comfort us, and then slowly disappear into an unapproachable distance. How did we let them go?

Edward had only visited Bee’s grave a few times since her death, and then it was to escort Julie, who’d asked him to go with her. He had held her while she bawled, and they’d weeded
the ivied plot together, and laid a few small stones on the monument, like primitive visitor’s cards, in the Jewish tradition. Edward had brought a handful of them from his own backyard. But he didn’t really sense Bee there, in the cemetery, despite her name and dates etched into the polished granite, the terrible memory of the coffin being lowered into the freshly turned earth. She was elsewhere, she was nowhere.

He went back into the house and returned the remainder of the twine to the crazy drawer, but left the grocery receipt on the counter. Then he took Bingo out for a walk. The dog was going to die before long. All the panting he’d been doing lately wasn’t due to the thermostat being set too high, as Edward had reasoned in his denial. And the uneven clatter of his ancient heart meant that it would probably suddenly stop. Still, he plodded from tree to bush to tree in his usual circuitous path, calmly attentive to business, and not for the first time, Edward felt as if he were the one being walked. He was already heavyhearted—he would miss Bingo’s company, his unconditional canine devotion. Another living presence in the house. But the vet’s words had gone right over that furry head. What separated man most notably from beast were language, the opposable thumb, and a knowledge of death. Oh, lucky dog!

He would have to prepare Mildred, though; it might happen on her watch. When he called to tell her, she said, “Yeah, I know.” But she was referring to her observation of Bingo, not her psychic abilities. “He’s been going downhill for a while,” she said, “and they don’t get much older than he is.” She agreed with Sacco’s advice to just let him be, as long as he wasn’t uncomfortable.

For a crazy moment, Edward considered talking over his love life with Mildred—a neutral party, widowed herself, as he’d learned the day they’d had tea together. Someone basically practical,
despite her paranormal dabbling, and trustworthy. But she was liable to break out her Tarot cards, or look for answers in the lines on his palm, and fortunately the moment passed. Like Julie, he was responsible for his own happiness.

As soon as he hung up, Edward glanced down at the receipt on the counter, and reached for the phone again. It rang before he could pick it up, startling him. He expected it would be Laurel, stopping him from his intention, instinctively or accidentally. They often spoke at about this time, when most couples he knew—as he and Bee had always done—convened to prepare supper, to have a drink together, and to review their respective days. The lonely hour, as he thought of it now, and he regretted not asking Laurel to come home with him.

But when he answered the phone, Sybil was on the other end. In typical Sybil fashion, she eschewed the formalities and got right to the point. Did he have paper and a pencil handy? Her cousin had asked her to give Edward her work number, so he and Laurel could arrange that visit to the conservation lab at the Met. He took a pencil from the mug on the counter, and after looking around in vain for something else to write on, he ended up reversing the receipt to its faintly printed side. “Shoot,” he said, imagining himself framed in the sight of an executioner’s gun.

Afterward, he poured himself some dry sherry and turned the receipt over and over in his hand until he chose a side and slapped it down on the counter. Then he picked up the phone again and punched in Ellen’s number. A man answered and he hung up.

The Way We Live Now

D
uring sixth period on Thursday, Edward was drawing a cross section of an animal cell on the blackboard: membrane, cytoplasm, nucleus, when the fire bell went off. It was cold and rainy, but they all had to leave the building immediately, without retrieving their jackets or slickers from lockers and closets. The headmaster’s sonorous voice over the PA system reminded them of the protocol. Out on the street, the students shivered and rejoiced in the fate that had freed them temporarily from the tedium of academe.

As usual, there was no fire, but this wasn’t just another drill, as Edward discovered in a quick conference with an eighth-grade dean. Someone had phoned in a bomb threat to the school, the third one since 9/11. They’d never found out who had called in the other two, although there was speculation: a student aspiring to new levels in telephone pranks, a disgruntled fired teacher, a
crazy parent—it could have been anyone, really. And there were real bombs exploding somewhere every day.
The way we live now
, Edward thought as he herded his chattering, rain-soaked students in disorderly lines two blocks away from the police action. One girl held a page of notes over her head, its penned words dissolving into a blue blur.

It was another false alarm, they concluded, after the bomb squad had scoured the building. But by then the school day had ended, and the students were allowed to retrieve their belongings before being sent home. Edward erased the cell he’d been drawing on the blackboard, grabbed his briefcase, and headed for Englewood.

There was a message from Nick on the phone, asking Edward to stop by after dinner; he and Amanda had something to show him. There had been similar messages in the past, once to unveil a new car, he remembered, and once to surprise Bee and Edward with champagne and cake on their anniversary. He imagined he was going to be shown a sonogram picture this time, a swirly little black-and-white Rorschach in which one might discern a blip of new life, or pretend to, and he felt a buzz of anticipation, edged with sadness and something else he couldn’t identify. Envy? Fear?

He did a quick calculation—the baby he and Bee hadn’t been able to produce would be in college now. It wasn’t like Edward to think this way, to sentimentalize something—somebody—that had never materialized. Even Bee hadn’t done that. Despite her disappointment, she’d finally said, “But we have a lovely life just as we are, don’t we?” She was thirty-eight by then, and her pregnancy with Julie had been difficult and tenuous. They decided not to seek medical intervention.

It wasn’t the nonexistent child he mourned now, but those
months of hopeful lovemaking, their blinkered gaze fixed on the infinite, lucky future. And he wasn’t afraid of moving up into the next generation, of making that leap toward the precipice. He was already almost there, even without a replacement in the wings. When his sister Catherine was pregnant with her first, their father had joked, “I don’t mind becoming a grandfather, but I’m not crazy about sleeping with a grandmother.” Well, that wouldn’t be Edward’s problem, or his pleasure.

But he envisioned telling people—Sybil and Henry, his friends at school and from the Vineyard—and the air of celebration. When had he last had any good news to share with anyone? What would Laurel think, or say? He stopped at a liquor store on his way to the kids’ house and bought a bottle of chilled Taittinger, but he left it in the car, just in case the news didn’t turn out to be what he’d expected. Maybe they were only going to show him a garden catalog and ask his advice about plantings, or roll out plans for finishing their basement, which Nick had been talking about for a while.

But there was Julie, peeking through the front window and waving at Edward, and when he went inside, Gladys was in the living room, too. The whole family hadn’t been assembled to consult on some home improvement. “Close your eyes, everyone,” Amanda ordered before she and Nick left the room. They all laughed, looking at each other like disobedient, scheming children. “I think I’m going to be an aunt,” Julie whispered. Gladys took Edward’s hand and squeezed it. “Be ready to call 911, honey,” she said. “Surprises are dangerous at my age.” Her bony hand was cold, but her grip was fierce.

Then Amanda and Nick came back in, and he was carrying a carton. “You can open your eyes now,” Amanda said, although they were all staring at her and at the carton, which appeared
to be shifting on its own in Nick’s arms. “Voilà!” Amanda cried, and drew a white puppy from it, like a rabbit from a magician’s hat. Gladys dropped Edward’s hand and put it to her breast.

“This is Chanel, everybody,” Amanda said. “Say hello, sweetie.” The puppy was yipping and wriggling convulsively by then and Amanda dropped her into Julie’s lap. The letdown Julie must have been experiencing seemed to be immediately replaced by her enchantment with the fluffy little dog. “Oh, look at you! Aren’t you the
cutest
,” she crooned, and Chanel reciprocated by lavishly licking Julie’s face and neck.

“Mazel tov
,
”
Gladys said weakly.

Edward was glad he’d left the bottle in the car. He’d be damned if he’d break out good champagne for a French poodle.

“She’s a bichon frise,” Amanda said, as if she’d been reading his mind. “What do you think of her, Dad?”

Edward couldn’t help himself. “I thought you weren’t ready for a dog, for the responsibility,” he said. He sounded as peeved as he felt. “That’s why you couldn’t take Bingo.”

“That was such a long time ago,” she said. “But we’re ready now, right, Nick?”

Nick didn’t look directly at her or at Edward. “Right,” he said.

“And we thought we could ask what’s-her-name, Mildred, to do some dog walking for us, too.”

“Bingo and Chanel will be like cousins,” Julie said, and Edward wondered if there was something wrong with her, if she was even more immature than he’d thought. He had planned on telling them all about Bingo’s heart and his prognosis, but now the timing didn’t seem right. Julie might even suggest that he get a puppy, too.

Amanda said, “Well, enjoy yourselves, we’ll get some coffee,” and she and Nick and the carton disappeared from view.

“A
dog
,” Gladys said, the moment they were gone. “I was hoping … I thought we’d have someone to name for Mommy.” Edward reached over and patted her arm.

“Poppy. Gladys,” Julie said sternly, “we have to look happy for them.”

“What are you talking about?” Edward asked her.

She shook her head at him and sighed, a teacher striving for patience with a slow pupil. “They probably can’t get pregnant, and Chanel is just a consolation prize they’ve given themselves.” She was cradling the puppy as if it were a baby, a role it seemed to enjoy.

“Oh,” Edward said, chastened, and suddenly deeply admiring of Julie. She must have inherited some of her mother’s natural instincts about human behavior. But he had a queer, pervasive sense of loss, too. Only hours ago, he’d stood in the rain near the school, contemplating children calling in bomb threats, and others carrying out actual bombings elsewhere. The animal cell erased from the blackboard, the words running from that girl’s notepaper in the rain—an unlearning, the way we live now. It would be wanton to bring another hostage to fortune into this ephemeral, stupid world. So why did he feel so crestfallen?

Amanda and Nick came back inside. He set down a tray and went to Gladys and knelt before her. “I almost forgot,” he said. “We have something else to show you.” And he took a black-and-white picture from his shirt pocket and put it into her waiting hand.

The Missing Piece

G
ladys didn’t work on jigsaw puzzles to fuel her aging brain. She’d begun doing them as a young housewife—a break from marriage and mothering that required her concentration, but not her heart—and there was always one in progress on the bridge table in her living room. Bee had learned her colors and flower names from a botanical gardens puzzle, and there was a half-finished replica of the Rockefeller Center ice rink on the table when Edward came to tell Gladys about Bee’s illness. Before he could speak, his glance fell on a twirling skater in a fur-trimmed red skirt, a dizzying image that stayed in his head for a long time afterward. He never saw that particular puzzle again, though, or any other at Gladys’s apartment until Nick and Amanda brought her a new one as a ninety-first birthday gift, and sat down with her to get it started.