Every Day (24 page)

“Yes, I did.”

“So don’t act so pissed off.”

I direct my attention to the only one of us with a clean mouth. She’s happy to have me join her at piling up the animals and fencing from her Fisher-Price farm. For her I remain blameless and heavenly.

“What’s the news?” Simon asks. He’s barreled in with the sauce and noodles all in one bowl.

“He wants to see Isaac,” I report. “Before things get unspeakable.”

“Then he should.”

Simon disappears for the salad and bread, then adds, “And I should meet him. I’d sort of like to see what all the fuss is about.”

“I’ll talk to Isaac later, when he’s not so indisposed.”

Outside Isaac’s room I pause and listen for talking under the music. At Hastings there was a door-open, one-foot-on-the-floor rule during coed visiting hours. I thought it was funny that a person like Fowler was assigning proctoring duties and had to enforce such safeguards against promiscuity.

I rap loudly on the door. “Dinner.”

Then I hurry to the shower, shed my slept-in dress, soap,
rinse and towel off, planning a youngish outfit all the while. I put on jeans and an ironed blouse, high-heeled huaraches, and I pin my hair back in a clip.

“Wow, Mom, you look pretty,” Jane says. “Doesn’t she look pretty, guys?”

Simon says, “Yes, she does,” and Isaac looks for salvation from all of us in his lap. Alex has risen from her chair to shake my hand. She towers above me, and her extended arm, sunned, sans hair or moles or extra flesh, is that of a ballerina and yet puts me in mind of God reaching down from the apex of the Sistine Chapel to desperate, adoring underlings.

•   •   •

After dinner I’m on the phone calling our friends. The kids want a party, a barbecue. During dinner we made up the guest list. So far everyone’s coming—Eliot, Garland and Travis, Fowler. I suggested Fowler’s coming to Isaac’s final ball game, and Isaac shrugged, “Whatever.” We sent him and Alex over to her house with an invitation, and we await word.

“I don’t get it,” Kirsten says when I call her.

“It’s a party,” I explain. “To have fun. After Isaac’s last game of the season. Fowler wants to see him play.”

“Hold on,” she says, covering the phone for a muffled consultation.

She returns with, “I don’t think so. It might not be good for Adrienne and Garrison. Ted thinks they might get depressed.”

“Not
good?”
I whine. “For
Adrienne?
I thought she’d jump at the chance to be close to someone who’s actually
dying.”

I hang up, shaking. Their selfishness has sent chills all over me.

“I won’t be able to help with the shopping,” I tell Simon.

“You’ll be
do
ing the shopping,” he says.

“What about Fowler? He can’t get here by train or bus, not in that chair. He’ll only have had it a couple of days.”

“I’ll pick him up.”

“Oh no, Simon, really. That’s above and beyond.”

“Everything about this is above and beyond, so why make distinctions? Why draw lines? If you’ve taken him on, I have too. Let’s not try to be discerning at this point.
I
am going to get him.”

I worry about this, naturally. “Just don’t kill him.”

Simon laughs. “I don’t have to do that.”

“Simon!”

“I mean, that isn’t on my mind. I’m not entirely without scruples, you know.”

“I know. You have many, many scruples. I’ve met you before.”

“I’m taking Isaac with me. It isn’t a good idea to have a first meeting occur at a public sporting event. First we’ll go to a diner, Isaac and I, and then pick up Fowler—could I call him by his other name? It’s too preppy for me, this last-name-as-first-name business.”

“Call him Jim.”

“I’ll do that.”

“I’ll let him know you’re picking him up, in that case.”

At one point, when she is married to Jules, Catherine drives to pick Jim up at the train when he comes to visit her and Jules and their daughter, Sabine, on the Rhine. She has dressed up for him, and Jim has the impression that all is not right for her in her life with Jules and Sabine. In the village, they become known as “the three lunatics.”

Simon is sparing me the extra melancholy here. Perhaps I won’t have to drive myself and one of them off an unfinished bridge.

•   •   •

At ShopRite I decide to put everything on a card instead of using the cash Simon took out last night. A hundred dollars isn’t going to suffice, in the end. I send Jane off with a list she can fulfill in one half of the store, with her own cart, and Daisy and I work on meats, beverages, and deli salads.
By the end of our separate foraging we stand at the checkout with two carts piled over capacity, and the bill totals just under two hundred dollars.

“That’s nothing for us now,” Jane says proudly.

We load in, assembly-line style, Jane as middleman between me and the cart, Daisy in the driver’s seat of the Mustard Bomb. I’m grateful for this project; all morning I’ve been thinking of the other car, its volatile cargo, its bizarre destiny. As we are meeting them at the field—Isaac left in uniform, cleats and all—I will have no idea what to expect on arrival.

“Stop worrying, Mom. You’ll get wrinkles,” Jane advises.

“I’ve already got wrinkles.”

“You’ll get more!”

Anyway, we have much ahead of us before game time, which is twelve o’clock—arranging the outdoor furniture, the bar, transferring the food into more appealing conveyers, providing a general welcome for our guests, a welcome that has so much riding on it.

•   •   •

From our camp behind home plate I have a clear view of the wagon when it pulls in. Isaac is the first out, and he opens the trunk where Simon joins him to help with the chair. Fowler’s head appears on the far side of the car and then disappears, as they help him into the chair. Simon walks ahead, purposefully, with a folder of colored pages in one hand. Isaac pushes. I wave madly until they see us and start heading over.

“How was the
ride
?” I holler before they reach us, a real Mother question, a pleasantry that eludes answer, inane, idiotic.

Fowler’s got Daisy’s favorite cap on, and he tries to acknowledge me by tipping it, but the arm can’t manage the arc up. Isaac releases one hand from the chair and gives a thumbs-up.

“I’ve got coffee in the thermos. Does anyone want?”

Now I’m Daddy, focusing on the food to steer through tension. But the tension is my own.

“He wouldn’t let me show off,” Fowler says. “He had to push.”

“Take the help,” Isaac teases, just like Simon does with me when I play Iron Lady and insist I can do everything myself.

I’m stuck on the two faces, identical, one above the other. Simon occupies the girls with some bakery cookies, then attends to the straightening of the stack of papers in the folder, half an inch high, mint green.

“She brought all the stuff you like, Dad,” Jane says, forever smoothing. “We have milk in a carton, sugar, hot cups, coffee, juice, and croissants. Even jam. And you should see what there is for the party. We set it all up, all the tables and chairs and the ice and sodas. Mom’s
really
nervous.”

Some of Isaac’s teammates are gathering in front of the fence.

“I’ve gotta go,” he says to Fowler. “Warm-up time. My bag’s in the car.”

“Can I walk you?” I ask, dying for information.

“No, Mom. It’s okay.”

“It’s open,” Simon tells him. “Coffee, Jim? I’m starting on my second breakfast here.”

“Great. It’s not too hot for coffee.”

In fact, the weather is turning. A cool enough breeze, occasional clouds: September weather a couple of weeks early. I don’t think we could have asked for a nicer day. The two men remind me, minus the wheelchair, the mammoth effort on Simon’s part, of golfers, squinting into the challenges of the course, with goodwill.

•   •   •

After the coffee, Fowler suggests we move nearer the bleachers between home plate and first base.

“We’ll be over shortly,” Simon decides. “The girls and I need to do a little more eating, I think.”

“You go on and find us a spot,” I tell Fowler, remembering that he may want a chance to motor on his own.

“You bet,” he says. He works the gadgets with ease, turns the chair, and charges off.

“What’s all that?” I point to the flyers.

“Tot Shabbat. The group of little kids at the temple,” he says. “For after the game. See if we can drum up some interest.”

“Nearer my God to thee,” I mutter.

Deadpan, he tells me, “Just because you’ve left the earth, don’t expect us all to follow.”

I look at the gathered families.

“I think he’s very impressed,” I offer, remembering my place on the undistinguished periphery.

“I don’t give a shit about that,” Simon retorts.

The crowd cheers as our team fills the field, Isaac taking up the enviable outfield.

“What I meant is,” I apologize, “I don’t see how you get to it, how you know that this is the thing to do.” I point to the folder.

“At one point,” Simon says casually, “I might have had some interest in talking to you about this.”

He starts over to the bleachers, but I catch his sleeve. “Please. Just tell me how it went.”

“It went,” Simon pauses, “quietly. Jim was all ready to go. He took a good long look while Isaac stood there taking a good long look, and then we were all laughing for some reason—nerves, probably—and the rest was logistics.”

“Hm.” I’m actually jealous, wishing I’d been there.

“What else can I tell you? He’s a man seeing his son for the first time in fourteen years. I can’t blame him for wanting a front-row seat.”

“We can all have a front-row seat,” I say.

“You go. I’m letting them have their day.”

I join Fowler as Isaac’s team, having kept Dobbs Ferry at zero during the first inning, comes in for a turn.

“Come here,” Fowler says, holding out a hand. I perch on a few inches of metal bench beside one of the Ardsley mothers. I keep Fowler’s hand between my two. Isaac’s team huddles and erupts with a howl, bringing their fists high; then Isaac breaks away to start the batting.

His signature walk to bat involves the habitual downward focus and a few thumps on the earth with the bat, a flirtatious glance at the field, several shifts in weight from one long leg to the other, then the utter sobriety he brings to lifting the bat gracefully up behind him in defiant readiness. It happens to be true that he rarely fouls, has never struck out in a formal game, and can be counted on to hit a ground ball through the infield at least once per game. The outfielders run, stumble, scoop up the ball, and throw it just too late to third or home plate, and Isaac, if he’s come in, strides neutrally back to the bench, as if any acknowledgment of his success will detract from it, will mortify his teammates and the spectators, always a small crowd.

The pitch comes in down the middle, fast, and Isaac smacks it, hurls the bat, and bolts for first and beyond.

“He’s got it!” Fowler shouts, rising from his chair, rocking it, falling back.

The Dobbs Ferry fellows do their sorry dance as Isaac lopes around the field and tags home. He catches his breath, doubled over, hands on his knees, by the swearing catcher. Then he looks straight at me and Fowler and laughs skyward, his arms open in the wild questioning gesture my father is famous for, as if to say, “You were expecting something less?”

“IZ-ZY! IZ-ZY!” his teammates chant.

“That’s a kid-and-a-half!” Fowler says, grinning. “He plays ball like a pro!”

“He does?” I ask, because, in fact, I don’t know this.

Fowler looks at me, disappointed. “Open your eyes, Mom. He’s God out there. He’s where everyone’s looking.”

Of course, Fowler would notice this. I have always looked
only at Isaac on the field, letting the other players drift, helpfully or drastically, in and out of my vision, their names and heights and hair color sliding away with their actions. It’s Fowler’s first time out, his first time looking at the only thing worth looking at, that being his own child.

To my left, in a clump of mothers and dads, is my husband, gingerly offering the printed news of the temple, his place of refuge from me.

•   •   •

The victory over the Dobbs Ferry team, subtle and well played by both sides, is cause for further celebration. Garland and Travis, who caught the final inning, are our first arrivals. I steal Travis away for a conference and some help in the kitchen.

“You didn’t tell me Isaac was such a Romeo,” I scold.

“Fool. This is just the beginning of the nightmare. But you don’t need to worry with her, darling. The car’s a total deception. She’s a
doll.
It’s like she just came out of her house for the first time this summer. I’m surprised they didn’t home-school her. She’s a five-year-old with breasts. And speaking of the Aidinoffs—”

He pulls me over so I can peer out the window at a couple older than ourselves, standing at the edge of it all, with Alex. Mrs. Aidinoff has on muted madras trousers and an ivory blouse, an outfit I might be seen in ten years hence, and her husband, like Simon, wears pressed jeans, loafers, and a tennis shirt.

“I think it might be a good idea if you went out there,” Travis says. “Garland’s beating you out for the big shmooze. Here’s to arranged marriages!” He raises a cup of iced tea. “I’ll stay here and remove Saran Wrap. You go on, get out there, before Garland takes over.”

“Hard to believe, of a guy who never says anything!”

Eliot sweeps in, studies me, then Travis, trying to discern the cause of the laughter.

“Eliot, Travis. Travis, Eliot.”

“Is she being wicked?” Eliot says sweetly. “Pay no attention to her, Travis. She’s the world’s most ungrateful woman!”

He’s got a canvas bag of books for me and two bottles of Chardonnay. “I brought the Bemelmans for their majesties. It’s a loaner, though.”

Travis relieves Eliot of both packages.

“She
is
a bitch,” Travis says. “Come help me with these barbaric salads. You’d think there wasn’t enough mayonnaise on earth. Have they ever heard of oil and vinegar?”