The Final Detail: A Myron Bolitar Novel (29 page)

These same people he so easily picked apart were the first generation fully out of Russia or Poland or Ukraine or some other shtetl-laced combat zone. They’d hit the New World running—running away from the past, the poverty, the fear—and they just ran a bit too far. But under the hair and the jewelry and the gold lamé, no mother bear would ever be so quick to kill for her cubs, the women’s hard eyes still seeking out the pogrom in the distance, suspicious, always expecting the worst, bracing themselves to take the blow for their children.

Myron’s dad sat in a yellow, pseudo-leather swivel chair in the brunch room, fitting in with this crowd about as well as a camel-riding mufti. Dad did not belong here. Never had. He didn’t play golf or tennis or cards. He didn’t swim and he didn’t brag and he didn’t brunch and he didn’t talk stock tips. He wore his work clothes of all things: charcoal gray slacks, loafers, and a white dress shirt over a sleeveless white undershirt. His eyes were dark, his skin pale olive, his nose jutting forward like a hand waiting to be shook.

Interestingly enough, Dad was not a member of Brooklake. Dad’s parents, on the other hand, had been founding members, or in the case of Pop-pop, a ninety-two-year-old quasi vegetable whose rich life had been dissolved into useless fragments by Alzheimer’s, still was. Dad hated the place, but he kept up the membership for the sake of his father. That meant showing up every once in a while. Dad looked at it as a small price to pay.

When Dad spotted Myron, he rose, more slowly than
usual, and suddenly the obvious hit Myron: The cycle was beginning anew. Dad was the age Pop-pop had been back then, the age of the people they’d made fun of, his ink-black hair wispy, static gray now. The thought was far from comforting.

“Over here!” Dad called, though Myron had seen him. Myron threaded his way through the brunchers, mostly overkept women who constantly pendulumed between chewing and chatting, bits of coleslaw caught in the corners of their glossy mouths, water glasses stained with pink lipstick. They eyed Myron as he walked by for three reasons: under forty, male, no marriage band. Measuring his son-in-law potential. Always on the lookout, though not necessarily for their own daughters, the yenta from the shtetl never too far away.

Myron hugged his father and as always kissed his cheek. The cheek still felt wonderfully rough, but the skin was loosening. The scent of Old Spice wafted gently in the air, as comforting as any hot chocolate on the coldest of days. Dad hugged him back, released, then hugged him again. No one noticed the display of affection. Such acts were not uncommon here.

The two men sat. The paper place mats had an overhead diagram of the golf course’s eighteen holes and an ornate letter
B
in the middle. The club’s logo. Dad picked up a stubby green pencil, a golf pencil, to scribble down their order. That was how it worked. The menu had not changed in thirty years. As a kid Myron always ordered either the Monte Cristo or Reuben sandwich. Today he asked for a bagel with lox and cream cheese. Dad wrote it down.

“So,” Dad began. “Getting acclimated to being back?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Hell of a thing with Esperanza.”

“She didn’t do it.”

Dad nodded. “Your mother tells me that you’ve been subpoenaed.”

“Yep. But I don’t know anything.”

“You listen to your aunt Clara. She’s a smart lady. Always has been. Even in school, Clara was the smartest girl in the class.”

“I will.”

The waitress came by. Dad handed her the order. He turned back to Myron and shrugged. “It’s getting near the end of the month,” Dad said. “I have to use your pop-pop’s minimum before the thirtieth. I didn’t want the money to go to waste.”

“This place is fine.”

Dad made a face signaling disagreement. He grabbed some bread, buttered it, then pushed it away. He shifted in his chair. Myron watched him. Dad was working up to something.

“So you and Jessica broke up?”

In all the years Myron had been dating Jessica, Dad had never inquired about their relationship past the polite questions. It just wasn’t his way. He’d ask how Jessica was, what she was up to, when her next book was coming out. He was polite and friendly and greeted her warmly, but he’d never given a true indication of how he really felt about her. Mom had made her own feelings on the subject crystal clear: Jessica was not good enough for her son, but then again, who was? Dad was like a great newscaster, the kind of guy who asks questions without giving the viewer any hint of how he was really leaning on the issue.

“I think it’s over,” Myron said.

“Because”—Dad stopped, looked away, looked back—“of Brenda?”

“I’m not sure.”

“I’m not big on giving advice. You know that. Maybe I should have been. I read those life instruction books fathers write for their children. You ever see those?”

“Yes.”

“All kinds of wisdom in there. Like: Watch a sunrise once a year. Why? Suppose you want to sleep in? Another one: Overtip a breakfast waitress. But suppose she’s grumpy? Suppose she’s really bad? Maybe that’s why I never dealt with it. I always see the other side.”

Myron smiled.

“So I was never big on advice. But I have learned one thing for sure. One thing. So listen to me because this is important.”

“Okay.”

“The most important decision you’ll ever make is who you marry,” Dad said. “You can take every other decision you’ll ever make, add them together, and it still won’t be as important as that one. Suppose you choose the wrong job, for example. With the right wife, that’s not a problem. She’ll encourage you to make a change, cheer you on no matter what. You understand?”

“Yes.”

“Remember that, okay?”

“Okay.”

“You have to love her more than anything in the world. But she has to love you just as much. Your priority should be her happiness, and her priority should be yours. That’s a funny thing—caring about someone more than yourself. It’s not easy. So don’t look at her as just a sexual object or as just a friend to talk to. Picture every day with the person. Picture paying bills with that person, raising children with that person, being stuck in a hot room with no air-conditioning
and a screaming baby with that person. Am I making sense?”

“Yes.” Myron smiled and folded his hands on the table. “Is that how it is with you and Mom? Is she all those things to you?”

“All those things,” Dad agreed, “plus a pain in the
tuchus.
”

Myron laughed.

“If you promise not to tell your mother, I’ll let you in on a little secret.”

“What?”

He leaned in and whispered conspiratorially. “When your mother walks in the room—even now, even after all these years, if she were to, say, stroll by us right now—my heart still does a little two-step. You understand what I’m saying?”

“I think so, yeah. That used to happen with Jess.”

Dad spread his hands. “Enough then.”

“Are you saying Jessica is that person?”

“Not my place to say one way or the other.”

“Do you think I’m making a mistake?”

Dad shrugged. “You’ll figure that out, Myron. I have tremendous confidence in you. Maybe that’s why I never gave you much advice. Maybe I always thought you were smart enough without me.”

“Bull.”

“Or maybe it was easier parenting, I don’t know.”

“Or maybe you led by example,” Myron said. “Maybe you led gently. Maybe you showed rather than told.”

“Yeah, well, whatever.”

They fell into silence. The women around them chatted up their white noise.

Dad said, “I turn sixty-eight this year.”

“I know.”

“Not a young man anymore.”

Myron shook his head. “Not old either.”

“True enough.”

More silence.

“I’m selling the business,” Dad said.

Myron froze. He saw the warehouse in Newark, the place Dad had worked for as long as Myron could remember. The
schmata
business—in Dad’s case, undergarments. He could picture Dad with his ink-black hair in his glass-walled warehouse office, barking out orders, sleeves rolled up, Eloise, his long-time secretary, fetching him whatever he needed before he knew he needed it.

“I’m too old for it now,” Dad went on. “So I’m getting out. I spoke to Artie Bernstein. You remember Artie?”

Myron managed a nod.

“The man’s a rat bastard, but he’s been dying to buy me out for years. Right now his offer is garbage, but I still might take it.”

Myron blinked. “You’re selling?”

“Yes. And your mother is going to cut back at the law firm.”

“I don’t understand.”

Dad put a hand on Myron’s arm. “We’re tired, Myron.”

Myron felt two giant hands press down on his chest.

“We’re also buying a place in Florida.”

“Florida?”

“Yes.”

“You’re moving to Florida?” Myron’s Theory on East Coast Jewish Life: You grow up, you get married, you have kids, you go to Florida, you die.

“No, maybe part of the year, I don’t know. Your
mother and I are going to start traveling a little more.” Dad paused. “So we’ll probably sell the house.”

They’d owned that house Myron’s entire life. Myron looked down at the table. He grabbed a wrapped Saltine cracker from the bread basket and tore open the cellophane.

“Are you okay?” Dad asked.

“I’m fine,” he said. But he wasn’t fine. And he couldn’t articulate why, even to himself.

The waitress served them. Dad was having a salad with cottage cheese. Dad hated cottage cheese. They ate in silence. Myron kept feeling tears sting his eyes. Silly.

“There’s one other thing,” Dad said.

Myron looked up. “What?”

“It’s not a big deal really. I didn’t even want to tell you, but your mother thought I should. And you know how it is with your mother. When she has something in her mind, God himself—”

“What is it, Dad?”

Dad fixed his eyes on Myron’s. “I want you to know this has nothing to do with you or your going to the Caribbean.”

“Dad, what?”

“While you were gone”—Dad shrugged and started blinking; he put down his fork, and there was the faintest quiver in his lower lip—“I had some chest pains.”

Myron felt his own heart sputter. He saw Dad with the ink-black hair at Yankee Stadium. He saw Dad’s face turning red when he told him about the bearded man. He saw Dad rise and storm off to avenge his sons.

When Myron spoke, his voice sounded tinny and far away. “Chest pains?”

“Don’t make a thing of it.”

“You had a heart attack?”

“Let’s not blow it out of proportion. The doctors weren’t sure what it was. It was just some chest pains, that’s all. I was out of the hospital in two days.”

“The hospital?” More images: Dad waking up with the pains, Mom starting to cry, calling an ambulance, rushing to the hospital, the oxygen mask on his face, Mom holding his hand, both their faces devoid of any color ….

And then something broke open. Myron couldn’t stop himself. He got up and half sprinted to the bathroom. Someone said hello to him, called out his name, but he kept moving. He pushed open the bathroom door, opened a stall, locked himself in, and nearly collapsed.

Myron started to cry.

Deep, bone-crushing cries, full-body sobs. Just when he thought he couldn’t cry anymore. Something inside him had finally given way, and now he sobbed without pause or letup.

Myron heard the bathroom door open. Someone leaned against the stall door. Dad’s voice, when he finally spoke, was barely a whisper. “I’m fine, Myron.”

But Myron again saw Dad at Yankee Stadium. The ink-black hair was gone, replaced with the gray, fly-away wisps. Myron saw Dad challenge the bearded man. He saw the bearded man rise, and then he saw Dad clutch his chest and fall to the ground.

Myron tried to shake it off. No choice really. But he couldn’t stop thinking about it. And he couldn’t stop worrying. Worrying had never been his style in the past, even when a crisis loomed. All of a sudden he had the worry-queasies in his stomach. It was true what they said: The older you become, the more you are like your parents. Soon he’d be telling a kid not to stick his elbow out the car window or he’d lose it.

Win met him in front of the auditorium. He was in classic Win pose, eyes level, arms crossed, totally relaxed. He wore designer sunglasses and looked ultrasleek.
GQ
casual.

“Problem?” Win said.

“No.”

Win shrugged.

“I thought we were going to meet inside,” Myron said.

“That would mean I’d have to listen to more of Sawyer Wells.”

“That bad?”

“Imagine, if you will, a Mariah Carey—Michael Bolton duet,” Win said.

“Eeuw.”

Win checked his watch. “He should be finishing up now. We must be brave.”

They headed inside. The Cagemore Center was a sprawling facility that featured oodles of concert and lecture halls that could be cut to any size by sliding walls back and forth. There was a summer camp for young children in one room. Win and Myron stopped and listened to the children sing “Farmer in the Dell.” The sound made Myron smile.

“… the farmer in the dell, the farmer in the dell, hi-ho-the-dairy-o, the farmer in the dell …”

Win turned to Myron. “What’s a dell?” Win asked.

“No idea.”

Win shrugged and moved on to the main auditorium. There was a table out front selling Sawyer Wells paraphernalia. Cassettes, videos, books, magazines, posters, pennants (though what one does with a Sawyer Wells pennant went beyond Myron’s capacity to imagine) and yep, T-shirts. Groovy titles too:
The Wells Guide to Wellness, The Wells Rules for Wellness, Key to Wellness: It’s All About You.
Myron shook his head.

The auditorium was packed, the crowd so silent they’d put the Vatican to shame. Up on the stage, jittering to and fro like Robin Williams in his stand-up comic days, was the self-help guru himself. Sawyer Wells was resplendent in a business suit with the jacket off, shirt cuffs turned once, fancy suspenders cutting into his shoulders. A good look for a self-help guru: The expensive suit makes you reek of success while the jacket off and rolled-up sleeves give you the air of a regular guy. A perfectly balanced ensemble.