We Only Know So Much (15 page)

Tomorrow she’ll remember none of it. No, that’s not true. She’ll remember one thing:
Slut
.

thirty-one

A
ll kinds of misses at dinner tonight. Jean had spent the afternoon in the kitchen making a gumbo recipe she found online, hoping to take her mind off things. She gets compliments on the meal—it came out fine—but as for the success of the recipe erasing her obsessive grief, no such luck. At the moment, she’s back on the idea that James was just so close to life, that if she’d just gotten there a few minutes earlier . . . She feels her chin trembling and clenches her jaw to stop that from taking her over.

Priscilla is the only one doing much talking tonight. She’s still hung over from the night before at the club, but she wants to talk.
Uch, it was so messed up. Kyle was there being a total douche. He has
no
business. Like,
no
business. Like, who even asked him to get in my face?

Vivian says,
I was engaged twice before your great-grandfather, you know.

They do know.

Honey
, Jean says,
true love is a very rare thing.

Mom, what are you even talking about right now?

Nothing, nothing
, Jean says.

Is Kyle your lover?
Otis asks.

What? No
, Priscilla says,
Otis, where did you—

Gordon flashes to his son’s crossword puzzle—it was LOVERS, he was right—

Anyone want some more gumbo?
Jean jumps in before they go down that road.
There’s plenty!

—and now, observing his wife’s oddly cheerful effort at diversion, Gordon’s synapses start firing, a few of them at least, but then Theodore pipes in—

Remember when we used to go out in the canoe, Otis, when you were small?

I do, Grampa, can we do that again?

Sure!
Theodore says. Jean shakes her head in Otis’s direction. That’s not going to happen.

—and just like that, Gordon is back in the present. He hadn’t liked those last thoughts anyway, not at all, was sure there was nothing to it anyway.
Maybe I’ll take you in the canoe, Otis.

We can all go!
Otis says.

Jean shakes her head again, to no one in particular this time.

I just still can’t believe Taylor up and went to L.A. like that without even asking me how I felt about it
, Priscilla says.
Who does that? I’ve never wanted anything so much in my life.

What’s that, dear?
Vivian asks.

The TV show. The one I auditioned for. The one I’ve been talking about for ten minutes.

Oh! Well.
Vivian thinks it’s all so very unseemly. Proper young ladies don’t go to lounges like these unescorted. And television! If Priscilla intended to go to law school first, Vivian supposes, like that Nancy Grace, then maybe, maybe—but she doesn’t suppose that’s what her great-granddaughter has in mind. And for heaven’s sake, the girl’s knees are showing in that skirt she has on, and her hair is hanging down in her eyes. Vivian reaches over to push Priscilla’s hair behind her ears.
Do you like your hair like that, dear?
You should let me take you to my salon.
Priscilla’s eyes nearly bug out of her head. Gramma Bibbie’s hair is like, just this side of violet.

Yuh, thanks, Gramma
, Priscilla says, moving her head out of the way.

Now, how is school going for you, dear?

Uch
, Priscilla says.

Theodore’s med schedule was a little off today and currently he’s asleep, with his spoon, precariously loaded with gumbo, still in his hand. He wakes up when Mott licks his ankle, giggles, lifts the spoon to his mouth as though pauses for naps between bites were only necessary.

Your cousin graduated from Princeton!
Vivian says.

Yuh, I heard, Gramma Bibbie.

With honors!

Remember when we used to go out in the canoe, Otis? When you were small?
Theodore says.

Otis nods, doesn’t know what to say when his grandfather repeats himself.

We should do that again.

Listen
, Gordon says to his daughter,
just be grateful you can remember what happened last night.

Priscilla looks at her father like he’s on crack, looks around the table. These people are seriously stroking out right now. Priscilla has no idea what anyone’s talking about. Has it ever been this bad?

Eleven inches from the floor. Jean just about smacks her own head with the heel of her hand to get the thought out.

Why they decide to stretch this out and play a game as well is anyone’s guess.

After the table is cleared, Otis hands out papers, pencils, and a pile of books he’s picked out for a game of Liebrary. It’s a variation on Dictionary that he’d played recently at school—it’s his suggestion.
Except instead of writing a definition, you write the first sentence of the book
, Otis says.
We each take a turn being the “reader”—that person shows the book title and writes down the real first sentence, and then collects everyone’s made-up sentences, and reads them out loud.
Priscilla volunteers to be the reader for the first round because she doesn’t want to write.
And then we go around the table and we all guess which one is the real one, just the same way we do with Dictionary. It’s fun!
Priscilla rolls her eyes, holds up
A Confederacy of Dunces
.

I don’t know what confederacy means
, Otis says.

An association of sovereign states or communities
, Gordon says.

What’s sovereign?

Well, son, sovereignty is when you have supreme, independent authority over a geographic area, such as a territory.

Seriously, it’s like Dad memorizes Wikipedia entries, Priscilla thinks. In fact, that’s exactly what he does. He doesn’t intend to, he just has a good memory for things most people in his family find useless.

Otis is still confused.

It’s like a group, Baby Freak.

Everyone works on their sentences, then one by one hands their slips of paper to Priscilla to be read. She hands Theodore’s back to him for a second, says she can’t read one of the words, points to it. He erases and tries to rewrite it more legibly. His handwriting was never good, but it’s full-on wavy now.

You have to shuffle them so we don’t know whose is whose
, Otis tells Priscilla.
Because of if anyone was watching you collect them.

No one was.

Okay
, Priscilla says.
Here we go
. She shuffles them and reads the first one.

Once upon a time, there were some guys who were not so smart, and one of them was in love with a lady named Caterina Mary.

Otis has actually won this game one or two times, but the tell here, aside from “Once upon a time,” is the word “lady.”

Janet believed that her lover had been healed because she believed that she had been healed, that they had healed each other; she was wrong.

At first, Gordon is certain this one is Vivian’s; she reads a lot of paperback romances. For a second, he flashes back to LOVERS from Otis’s crossword, then pushes out the implication of that unpleasant thought as quickly as it comes in. It’s Vivian’s, he’s sure. Otis is the only one who will guess this one correctly. But, really, he won’t even know why. It’s an instinct, but he doesn’t make much of it.

Sebastian Montgomery
A man woke up to realize he had forgotten everything.

Jean has no idea this one is Gordon’s. She’s still entirely unaware of his concern about his memory. Like Jean, if he’s talked about it at all he’s done so in the abstract. Gordon had the good last-minute sense to cross out his giveaway, Sebastian Montgomery.

A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head.

A lot of them think this one is Gordon’s.

The dunces were getting really tired of the corner.

Everyone knows this one is Theodore’s, and it provides a welcome moment of laughter. Theodore has to wipe his eyes with his hanky from his own joke.

A slim, elegant woman in a timeless suit sat behind the wheel of a magnificent driving machine with the top down.

Gordon has gotten his wife’s and his grandmother’s mixed up. He’s now sure that this last one is Jean’s. It’s nicely written, he thinks, and believable.

Gordon’s first line wins the round.

Priscilla so doesn’t want to play again, but the light in her grandfather’s eyes makes her stick around for one more.

She huffs. Vivian takes her turn as the reader this time. She’s not much fonder of writing than Priscilla is. She put about all she had into that last one. She holds up the book,
Catch-22
, writes the first line down, notices it’s time for Nancy Grace, changes the channel on the remote, turns the volume up loud. When Vivian and/or Theodore are in the room, the volume tends to be up to unbearable levels—unbearable, at least, for Jean. She sneaks it down when she thinks they’re not paying attention, puts on the closed-captioning. Priscilla grumbles while writing, Otis writes and erases several times, Theodore chuckles.

They all hand their papers back to Vivian.

Don’t forget to shuffle them, Gramma Bibbie
, Otis says. Vivian shuffles, reads.

She He wondered if she he would ever make sense of what happened.

It was the most magnificent work of art anyone had ever seen.

It was love at first sight.

Gordon and Theodore guess Priscilla on this last one; Jean guesses Otis. Priscilla rolls her eyes. Gol, does, like, one person at this table know her? No one guesses that this is the real first line. Most of them think Jean’s is the real one.

The fisherman was sad.

Something
big huge
big was
totally
about to happen.

He was hoping to catch 24, but 22 was the best he could do.

Most of them giggle, they all know this one is Theodore’s, but a few guesses are made; some of the lines are more convincing this time, and no one is close to guessing the real one—everyone thinks the real one is Jean’s,
He wondered if he would ever make sense of what happened
—so the game starts to fall apart before they cast their final votes. Priscilla has sent twenty texts, can’t pull herself away from her phone. Theodore is distracted by the dog, gets up to get him treats, comes back, gives him one, falls asleep. Mott licks Vivian’s ankle.
Oh!
Goodness, that dog.
She gets up to clean herself up.
Honestly
. Game over.

thirty-two

G
ordon has been taking the memory loss powder from TV for about a week. He has no idea what’s in it and he doesn’t care. He’s got a strange energy, upbeat but strange—like when people are interested in you but, you know,
too
interested in you? Gordon was never glum, but nor was he chipper like this, smiley and wide-eyed. Seriously, it’s weird, ask Priscilla. Suddenly at meals, when anyone says anything even remotely personal, her dad is all up in their grill. Like when she mentions Taylor’s Hollywood trip again and how she’s super bummed that she never got called back, her dad nods, like a lot, like he’s got this weirdo look in his eye that’s supposed to be concern but really just makes her concerned for him.
Oh, oh, I see
, Gordon says,
well no, that doesn’t seem fair at all, not fair at all
. Or when Otis mentions he needs money for his school trip to an apple-picking farm, Gordon says,
Apple-picking! Doesn’t that sound like fun! How much do you need?
At this point, the entire family falls into stunned silence, because they’ve heard many different talks on the subject of apples over the years, and no one can believe that Gordon has made what seems to be an appropriate response, one that vaguely opens the door for a response back, even if given in this bizarrely eager fashion.

Also, he’s begun making paintings. He’s moved everything around in the garage, always more of a storage space than a place for cars anyway, and made it into a haphazard studio. After he started taking the memory loss powder, briefly uncertain about what to do with the extra energy he had, gazing at a favorite Matisse print in his office, he got it in his head to pick up a paintbrush. The idea had seized him seemingly out of the blue, but once it popped in, it seemed to him like it had always been there and he was in the car and at the craft store dropping hundreds of dollars on supplies. He is worrying less and less about his memory loss, caring less and less about anything but painting. Several of the paintings are so large that they won’t fit out the garage door unless he takes them off their stretchers.

Outside of one class in college, Gordon has zero training in art, although as can be expected, he claims to know a lot about it from having visited the Art Institute and the Prado. He’s taken art in high school but only as required, and he’s never taken a figure drawing class of any kind, so his figures are minus any sort of naturalistic dimension or proportion. They look kind of flat. There’s one of Trudy that shows her face absent of any features; in the background is Sheila the belly dancer. Sheila has a fully-featured face. The paintings are not terrible at all, they actually have a sort of outsider art feel to them, like maybe if you thought this guy had spent his childhood locked in a cabinet under the stairs you’d think they were brilliant; there’s something compelling about them, in an awkward sort of way. Technically, of course, he
is
an outsider, but somehow this seems too elevated or legitimate or something to apply right now. Maybe later. He’s not thinking past this moment right now, for a change.

Mostly, so far, he’s been doing self-portraits. In one, Gordon is standing with his fists clenched, arms down but sort of out to the side by his hips, with a sort of constipated look on his face, his brain floating over his head. It’s the first in a series he’s started of the family. Right now he’s just sketching; he’s got five more life-sized canvases set up next to his, life-sized meaning each one is the exact height of the family member plus a foot on each side to leave room for the figure to pose however they might pose. At the moment, he’s got nothing more than their basic body shapes penciled in. He sits down to contemplate what to do next. For the third time this week, Gordon is late for work. It’s possible, today, that he won’t make it in at all. He feels brilliance coming any minute.