Ms. Taken Identity (20 page)

After the meal, we settle in the living room in front of the fire with glasses of wine and Chet Baker on the stereo. My next
move will be to lapse into a coma, since I’m warm and full and sleepy, and any misgivings I had earlier about the way they
were acting or whether or not I should’ve noticed something have all been put to bed.

“See, I told you he wouldn’t notice,” Skyler says to Bradley.

Aw,
hell!

I sit up and look at Bradley, but he’s just shaking his head like, “Dude, you disappoint me,” and then I look at Skyler, since
it’s obvious something
is
different—she just said so—but her hair and eyes and mouth all look the same, as do her breasts, which, I confess, I check
out, because for some strange reason I’m thinking maybe that’s it, though it hardly seems like the type of thing she’d expect
me to notice in the first place and comment on, or point out herself if I failed to notice. But it’s not those, or anything
about either of them, or the room, and it’s clear I’ve let everyone down.

Smiling, Skyler brings her hand up to her cheek, open palmed, more to display her fingers than anything. The firelight catches
something on her finger, causing it to glint. It’s a ring, on her left hand, on her ring finger.

“Holy shit!”

Instantly we’re on our feet, hugging and spilling our wine and acting like kids who just found out school is canceled, and
can you believe it? When we finally squeeze back on the sofa, Skyler tells me how it happened: two nights ago, he took her
out for dinner at her favorite restaurant, then they came back here and sat on the back patio next to the terra-cotta firepot,
a blanket between them, and he pulled out a ring box he’d made for her, and gave her the ring. No gimmicks, nothing hidden
in a box of Cracker Jacks, no proposal emblazoned on the scoreboard during the seventh-inning stretch; just Bradley, a ring,
and a question.

“May I see it?” I ask of the ring.

She reaches across Bradley with her hand and it’s trembling, she’s so excited. The center stone is a brilliant-cut round diamond,
with trillions and a row of tapered baguettes on each side, and the band is platinum. I don’t ask about the clarity or carat—VS1
at least and a carat and a half, my guess, but really it’s none of my business. Besides, I’d have to explain how I know anything
about engagement rings or the four Cs of diamonds, which would be from my chick-lit research, which I’d rather not get into
right now. What’s important is that the ring is classy and elegant and substantial. Like Skyler.

“Wow. I didn’t even know the two of you’d been looking at rings,” I say.

“We hadn’t been.” Skyler puts her fingers through Bradley’s and rests their intertwined hands in her lap. “This guy got the
bright idea to go out and do it all on his own.”

He shrugs. “When you know, you know.”

What he’s talking about, I realize, is the ring, the timing, and the woman. And from the way light’s shooting out from every
pore of skin on Skyler’s face, I’d say he got all three right.

We settle in for a new round of drinks, Bradley pouring, and he tells me I’m the first one they’ve told: his family finds
out this weekend, hers when they go to Colorado for Thanksgiving. Of course, he needed to tell me now to make sure I was free
on the first Saturday of October next fall. After all, what’s a wedding without a best man?

The day of the Showcase arrives and I discover I’m doing fine. Fine as we pack up the car with all the things she spent so
much time ironing last night, including my Zorro outfit, complete with mask and mustache (as opposed to a pair of slacks and
a polo: I’m into not being recognized). Fine at the studio as we help rearrange tables and hang up streamers and blow up balloons.
Even fine as the DJ sets up his equipment and does sound checks and plays snippets of Showcase songs. But not so fine when
we finally do slip into our outfits, and there’s an audience, and we’re about to go on, and the studio is no longer the safe,
cozy place where Marie and Adonis and I have worked so many hours, on our own, but has become a glitzier, fancier, Showcasier
place. I’m nervous. Sweaty palms, heartbeat-in-the-throat, wobbly voice sort of nervous.

Marie is standing next to me in that sexy getup, which isn’t helping matters a bit.

“You okay?” she asks.

“Yes. No.”

She rubs my back. “You’ll do fine. Think of all the time we’ve put in. Think of all the times you’ve done it perfectly in
practice. Hundreds, probably.”

“But not under these circumstances.”

What I want to tell her is that when humans get nervous, our bodies get flushed with adrenaline—
for fleeing!
—which overrides a lot of the body’s other functions, and memory is the first thing to go. But then I’m not sure if it’s memory
at all: maybe it’s hearing, or sense of smell, or peripheral vision. But since I can’t remember, it must be memory, which
is a terrible sign. Suddenly I’m quizzing myself about things I know for certain, just to reassure myself, but I’m getting
mixed results, since I still remember that Shelley wrote “Ode to a Skylark” but I’m having difficulty remembering which Brontë
sister wrote
Wuthering Heights
. And if I can’t remember that, is there any way I’ll remember to pass Marie on the correct side when we do our cape turn?

“What’s the worst that could happen?” she asks.

“I could forget every move I’m supposed to do, then trip and fall and take you down with me.”

“Fine. Say it all happens. Then what?”

I look at her in disgust. “What do you mean, ‘then what’? That means we’ve made total fools of ourselves, and everyone laughs,
and it’s a disaster.”

She shrugs. “So it’s a disaster. Everyone laughs. Then we go home.”

I’m not sure how this is supposed to help: so it’s a disaster and everyone laughs and we go home. But then she squeezes my
hand and smiles at me,
really
smiles, like this is one of the greatest days of her life, and I hear what she’s saying in a different way. Not that we go
home, in the sense of retreating from the scene with our tails tucked between our legs; but in the sense that, despite whatever
happens tonight on the dance floor—whether we end up in a heap or not—when the final glass of punch is poured and last cookie
eaten and all the balloons have gone soggy,
we
go home. Together. And because of that, this can’t be so bad.

The music comes on and that’s our cue to go out, and we get off to a shaky start, since I begin on the wrong beat; but after
that we’re good, solid, in sync, and it’s over before I barely have time to realize I’m doing it; and then we’re getting a
loud ovation and taking a bow, and I’m already ticked off that I didn’t jazz it up a little more, do something flashy with
my cape, because I know I could have. But maybe next time. Then the rest of the evening is ours to clown around and cut loose
and eat cookies and get flirty and laugh and kiss.

Back home, after a little celebratory sex, she tells me her brother is engaged. I don’t want to play dumb, ask dopey questions
as if I don’t already know (What’s his fiancée’s name? What does she look like? Who’s his best man?), so I ask a question
that I could ask even if she knew I already knew.

“Are you happy for him?”

She rolls on her side and gives me a ridiculously happy smile. “Very. I know how much he loves her. He’s exactly where he
wants to be.” Then she lays her head on my chest and nuzzles and does something that sounds like a purr. Which, I think, is
her way of saying so is she.

Early the following week I meet up with my dad and Nathan for a round of golf at my dad’s course. (My dad can’t actually golf
because he’s still too sore from surgery; he’s the designated cart driver.) It’s about fifty-five degrees, the sun is out
full-tilt, so the weather’s just about perfect. My golf game is not. I haven’t played in years and I’m rusty, spraying the
ball all over the course. Nathan, however, is firing from the get-go, grooving his swing, so that by the time I turn it around
and start playing better, it’s too late; he beats me by a half dozen strokes.

Afterwards, we grab our sodas and sit outside, and my father seems to know everyone, coming or going, and he introduces me
to some of the regulars. I feel like I’m the governor, shaking all those hands. Nathan talks about soccer and video games
and school, and he doesn’t sweat or choke or stumble on his words when he talks about girls, and I realize things have changed
mightily from my day. A border collie mix named Shep hangs with us, but he’s anxious to do some work, round up some cattle,
perhaps, or golfers.

Eventually my father checks his watch and turns to Nathan. “I think someone needs to be heading home to get the table set
for dinner.”

“Can’t Jessica do it? Or Mom?”

Not the right answer, from the look my dad gives him. Nathan trudges over to his bike.

“Please tell Mom I’ll be there in a few minutes,” my dad says. “And put your light on, son.”

“But it’s not even dark.”

“I need you to light the way for me. Okay?”

He flips the switch and a taillight beats out a red pulse. As he leaves the lot, he calls out a goodbye, and Shep takes this
as his cue for action—
finally!
—and tears out after him. They both dart out of view down a street that leads into my father’s neighborhood.

The sun begins to slip past the horizon, and we both watch. It’s the time of day when nothing is blanched or washed out by
the intensity of the sun, and everything—the trees, the grass, the skin on my father’s face—bears its truest colors.

“This worked out a little better for you, didn’t it?” I ask.

He tilts his head a bit. “Oh?”

I nod, to out there. “This world. This life.” I pause. “This family.”

He remains silent.

“You can talk about it. It won’t hurt my feelings.”

“I’ve already told you, Mitch. Your mother and I did some hateful things to each other. And because of that, we failed you
as parents. Or at least I did.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

He gives his head a helpless shake. “How can I? You want me to compare families? You’re my son, sitting right in front of
me. What do you want me to say?”

“The truth.”

“Ah, the truth. ‘What is truth?’” He says it in a voice slightly different than his own. “Pontius Pilate, right? At the interrogation,
just before he hands Jesus over to be crucified. Your Jewish father remembers that, from his days with his Catholic sons and
their religion classes.”

He smiles to himself, as if despite everything, there’s still a trace of something sweet and nostalgic about those days. But
it all drains quickly from his face.

“Here’s what I know, Mitch. I know there are nights when I have to get out of bed because I can’t sleep, and the reason I
can’t sleep is because I lost a daughter and two sons, at least their hearts. I had one chance at that, to be their father,
and I let them all slip through my hands. Then I think about Nathan and Jessica sleeping, and Leah in our bed, and I realize
those children wouldn’t be alive, and she wouldn’t be my wife, if my first life hadn’t failed. And that’s when it hits me,
the guilt, the shame, the gratitude, and I ride it out like a passing storm.”

I stare at this sixty-year-old man, the pouchy skin under his mud-colored eyes, the age spots on his wrinkled forehead. My
father. A man so miserable in one life, so happy in another. And what changed? There was no personality transplant, no conversion
to Zen Buddhism, no red Corvette: he found a woman he loved, and she loved him back. And that, I suppose, is the beauty and
tragedy of life. To bastardize a little Shakespeare, from
Julius Caesar
: Find the right person, and all of life leads on to fortune; choose the wrong one, and all the voyage of life is bound in
shallows and miseries. My father found the person he was supposed to love, the life he was supposed to live, and the family
he was supposed to be with. It just wasn’t mine.

“Do you think much about her?” I ask. Then I add, even though I don’t have to, “Emily?”

He smiles a pure smile. “Every day. That’s Jessica’s middle name, you know. And you should see Jessica’s baby pictures. You’d
swear it was Emily.” He’s lost in his thoughts for a moment. “Every time I look at Jessica, I see her. Both my girls.”

My eyes start to sting and well up. I clear my throat. “I should probably be going,” I say.

My dad rubs at his eyes. “Yeah, Leah’s probably wondering where the hell I am.”

The sky is washed in shades of lavender and pink, and if I had a camera, and knew anything about photography, it’s the kind
of sky I’d want to take a picture of.

“Thanks for coming out, Mitch,” he says, shaking my hand. “I had a great day with you and Nathan.”

He starts to shuffle away toward the clubhouse.

“Hey, Dad?” I call after him and he stops and turns. “Maybe next time we do this, you could bring Jessica. If she golfs.”

“She doesn’t,” he says. “But I’ll bring her anyway.”

I
t’s ten days before Thanksgiving and we’re lying in bed, afterwards. This is one of my overnight stays, so I’m settled, content,
dreamy, ready to welcome Mercutio’s Queen Mab and her hazelnut chariot and whatever visions she might be bringing my way.
Marie, though, has a little frowning look on her face.

“What do you want to do for Thanksgiving?” she asks.

I drape my arm across her stomach. “Spend it right here, with you.”

“Right. And miss out on all the stuffing and pie?”

I’ve been waiting for the Thanksgiving moment, and dreading it, but I’m glad I’ve given it some thought.

“Well, let’s see. You have a tradition with your family, I assume.”

“My uncle Ted’s.”

“And I have two families to deal with, my mom’s and my dad’s.” That’s one bit of truth I’ve given her, that my parents are
divorced. “So unless we want to be in one place all day and disappoint two other households, or spend the entire day running
back and forth all over the city, I suggest we do our own thing.”