H
ank and I
are walking through Georgetown.
It’s early evening and the sun is setting, and we encounter dozens of our neighbors and their dogs. Whenever Hank and I venture out into the neighborhood, it strikes me how clearly neither of us belongs. Everyone in Georgetown, at least everyone outside of campus, is wealthy, and they dress the part. In expensive suits and sweaters from places like Ralph Lauren or Burberry, they walk their pure-bred, well-groomed dogs, often making wide circles around Hank the mongrel and his incessant butt sniffing. My neighbors have all probably lost half their net worth in the last month, but they still exude wealth effortlessly.
With my plastic CVS bag in hand, I bend over to pick up one of Hank’s shriveled little turds. I’ve done this a thousand times, but I still find it humiliating. It’s like I should stand on a parked Volvo station wagon and scream, “Yes everyone, I just picked up shit! And now I’m going to carry it around with me in this little baggie!”
I call Sonya’s son, Brandon Ross. It’s been a long time since we’ve spoken. For most of my dad’s career, Curtis has gone back and forth between his loft in Manhattan and his condo here in D.C. near American University where he’s the figurehead of the school’s MFA program. During my childhood visits to New York, Brandon and I were inseparable. These sorts of friendships are hard to bridge into adulthood, though, especially when one is married and the other couldn’t be further from married.
“Well, I’ll be dammed,” says Brandon. “Tommy Violet. Are you in New York? Are you stepping out on your wife?”
“No. And no. I’m in D.C. I’m walking Hank. He says hello.”
“Lame!” Brandon yells. “There’s a club opening tonight in Tribeca. We could have ripped shit up old school. I saw Daddy Warbucks on
Letterman
the other night. Still a hunky old bastard, isn’t it? Holy shit, you would not believe the hooker I saw a few minutes ago. She looked like Cher . . . if Cher was a black transsexual.”
In a matter of seconds I remember why I like Brandon so much. I imagine him outside somewhere, strolling along in whatever cool outfit he’s got on, casually dodging cars and taxis and moving trucks and eight million other people shouting into their iPhones and BlackBerrys.
“Wow,” I say. “I haven’t seen a hooker in a long time.”
“Bullshit you haven’t. You know how many hookers there are in D.C.? It’s like a cottage industry down there. They just don’t look like hookers. They dress like Sarah Palin and blow energy lobbyists. Trust me, you’re probably surrounded by hos right now.”
Just then, a middle-aged woman in expensive running shoes passes. She’s pushing one of those jogging strollers and I’m almost certain that she’s not a prostitute, but, who am I to label anyone?
“You still doing any acting?” I ask.
“Jesus, it
has
been a while since we talked, huh? Nah, I’m tired of all that off-off-Broadway bullshit. There’s just no call for my particular brand of thespianic brilliance in this town. I was modeling sunglasses for a while, but that got kinda shady. No pun intended. I’m all legit now. This cowboy got himself a
real
job.”
“Yeah, your mom told me. Literary agent. Getting into the family biz.”
“Oh, don’t even get me started on my mother. We’re currently not speaking.”
“Really? Does she know that?”
“Oh, she’ll figure it out. She absolutely detests my new boyfriend, Blaine. For as tolerant as the almighty Sonya Ross pretends to be at fund-raisers, deep down she wishes I’d bring home some nice little Jewish princess to make babies with.”
“Wait, your boyfriend’s name is Blaine? Brandon and Blaine? When are you guys getting your own show on Bravo?”
“Fuck you and your stereotypes. He happens to be very rugged. He’s not even out to his family yet, the closeted motherfucker. He’s a tattoo artist—how hot is that?”
When I was eleven and Brandon was nine, he revealed to Sonya and me in Central Park that he sometimes thought about kissing G.I. Joe on the mouth. Even then, ignorant to the many lifestyles a guy could choose from, I remember not being all that surprised. “Me too,” said Sonya, sipping an iced tea, not even bothering to look up from whatever manuscript she was reading. Brandon is the sort of homosexual who is exclusive to either coast. While poor, confused boys in Michigan and Ohio and Iowa hid their dark secrets behind walls of self-loathing, Brandon was encouraged to be as in love with himself as any child in history. Even after their divorce, the proud Ross parents would sit together at his ice skating competitions, dance recitals, and lip-syncing contests.
“You didn’t get a tattoo, did you?” I ask.
“No. Jews aren’t allowed. I’ll eat a bacon double cheeseburger the size of a fucking Olsen twin, but I won’t allow an ounce of ink to sully this virgin skin. Just call me Jewy Von Irony.” Brandon turns away from the phone then, yelling obscenities at someone. “Fucking cabbies. I mean, shit.”
“So, an agent now?” I say.
“Word. Mommie Dearest hooked me up with some freaky connection. Hello, nepotism. It’s amazing what the Ross name will get a boy in this town. Oh, and speaking of my mother. I thinking she’s currently getting laid.”
“What?”
“I’m pretty sure she’s got some secret piece of ass somewhere in the city. Probably some failed writer or something. She’s been all dodgy lately about her whereabouts. That’s not the kind of thing you can sneak past a guy like me. I’m like, ‘Mom, I wrote the book on secret sex, so step off.’”
As I pull Hank away from a beagle puppy’s hind end, it dawns on me that Brandon’s conversations with Sonya are probably a lot different than the conversations I have with my mother. When I was fourteen she tried to tell me about condoms and I nearly choked to death on a Nilla Wafer.
“So you know,” I say. I’m desperate to change the subject away from Sonya’s potentially secret piece of ass. “It’s kind of a coincidence that you’re an agent.”
“OK, Thomas Violet!” he shouts. “Stop being coy with me. You call me out of the blue and act all casual and keep me from my happy hour. What do you want?”
“Well, I was kind of hoping you could maybe read something for me. Something I’ve been working on.”
“Holy shit. Don’t tease me. Please God, tell me you’ve written a tell-all about Curtis and his wives. He’s splitting up with Ashley Martin, right? I heard that somewhere. That skinny bitch has had work done, hasn’t she? Nobody with two percent body fat has tits like that. It’s
muy imposible
. That’s Spanish for ‘fucking impossible.’”
“No, Brandon. It’s not a tell-all. It’s . . . a novel.”
Aside from the muffled sounds of New York in the background, there’s only silence. “A novel? Are you fucking kidding me? A novel?”
I tell him that I am indeed serious and that I’ve written an honest-to-God novel, and then there’s some more silence and a car honking. I consider telling him that the one person who read it—a twenty-three-year-old assistant copywriter—thinks it’s awesome.
“You know,” he says. “This actually could be even better. Less trashy and lucrative, of course, but
classier
. Son of a literary monster takes his own shot at fiction. We could put your pretty face on the back cover looking all young-Violet. There’d be a ton of buzz. Could be like Oprah-buzz, actually. Shit, your dad’s almost done with that new one, right? Dual releases would be off . . . the . . . hizzi.”
Before Brandon can begin planning a Violet-themed water ride at Six Flags, I stop him, and I’m only mildly concerned that he’s yet to ask what the book is even about. “The thing is,” I say. “I was kind of thinking of a pseudonym.”
“A pseudonym?”
“Yeah, a fake name.”
“I know what a pseudonym is, you asshole. Are you off your fucking rocker? Do you have any idea how hard it is to sell a novel right now—in
this
fucking economy? Especially from some no-name first-timer. Memoirs, baby, that’s what the people want. And if they do buy something that’s made up, they want it
barely
made up. Former assistant at
Vogue
writes a novel about an assistant at
Vogue
. That kinda thing. Unless your book is about the son of a famous novelist who tries to write a novel and who happens to have a hot, crazy-assed stepmom, I don’t want to hear about it.”
I stop and lean against a light pole as Hank inspects his favorite fire hydrant. To an eavesdropper, it might sound as if Brandon is angry with me, but he’s not. He’s no more angry with me than he is with the cabbie he yelled at a minute ago, or the doormen and bartenders and bouncers he’ll inevitably yell at later tonight.
“Well? Is that what it’s about?” he asks. “You, thinly veiled?”
“Not exactly.”
“
How
not exactly?”
“Not at all.”
Brandon laughs loudly, and then assures me that this is not a laughing matter. “Is there sex in there, at least? Or maybe some abused teenager or an autistic kid who can talk to dolphins? We need a hook, something hot for the blurb.”
“No. It doesn’t have any of those things. But my main character gets to second base in the twelfth chapter. That’s pretty hot, right?”
“Well whoop-de-do. I think I just blew a load in my pants. Now I have to go home change my boxer briefs. Thank you very much.”
Up the street, a kid climbs out of an old car. It’s Danny again, my character. I see him in the oddest places. He nods at me and then disappears behind a row of bushes.
“So, you’ll read it then, right?” I ask.
Brandon is quiet, letting me sweat it out for a moment. “Fine. But, I should warn you, I’m having my hot intern look at it first. And I’m hanging up now. It’s time for me to get drunk with my
real
friends who actually live in a
real
city. Oh, you’re coming to that Pulitzer thingy with Curtis next month, right? Wear a blue tie, OK? Blue makes your eyes pop. Now seriously, I’m going. Good-bye, Mr. Fucking Pseudonym.”
T
he next day
, Wednesday morning at 11:30 a.m., I sneak out of the Death Star again to meet my stepfather, Gary, for lunch in Georgetown. The fact that he’s offered to come into the city is extraordinary. Like many Virginia suburbanites, Gary considers D.C. to be little more than a traffic quagmire full of liberals and morally questionable politicians. Literally, he is the only person I know who plans to vote for John McCain, and he thinks Sarah Palin is both qualified to be vice president and “sharp-looking.” I like him so much though that it’s impossible to hold these things against him.
As I approach Johnny Rockets, I see his mammoth SUV parked illegally on M Street. The blue Ford Excursion is the size of a New York City studio apartment. It’s probably only been sitting here for five minutes, tops, but it’s already gotten a parking ticket, and it’ll probably get another one before lunch is over.
Inside, Johnny Rockets is crowded and smells like a big French fry, and an Elvis song is playing, “Blue Suede Shoes.” I know this place well. It’s Allie’s favorite restaurant on earth, and it’s where we eat when she’s in charge. It’s always crowded, even more so now, and I find Gary sitting at a red booth sipping from a soda the size of buckets that pioneer women used to bathe their children.
“Hiya, Tommy,” he says. Usually, Gary would spring up and give me a bear hug, but he’s jammed into his booth pretty hard, and so he offers me one big hand. He looks tired, a little bewildered even, and there’s a stain on his Ford polo—a couple of them actually.
“You got another parking ticket, Pop.”
He sighs. “What? You’re shitting me. I don’t understand how people figure out how to park in this damn city. You gotta have a Ph.D. to read all the signs. No parking here on Tuesdays between three and four, except on Thursdays. Like I got the time to figure all that out.”
“You parked in front of a fire hydrant.”
He studies my face, trying to figure out if I’m kidding, which I’m not.
He’s as big as two of me, and he looks cramped in this close, stuffy place. His gray hair would normally be in its military-style buzz cut, but it’s grown out like a Brillo pad on his big head, making him look like a more casual, world-weary version of himself.
Our waiter in this ol’ fashioned American diner is Asian and incredibly friendly. I order a giant Diet Coke of my own, and we both ask for cheeseburgers and fries. This is one of those lunches that’s going to leave me sitting sleepy and fat at my desk for the rest of the day, but seeing Gary always inspires my desires for excess.
“How’s the Honda riding?” he asks.
“Good,” I say.
“You been checking the oil like I told you?”
“You kidding? Every week.”
Gary is the owner of the Mid Atlantic region’s third most successful Ford dealership, and my Honda came off his preowned lot. It physically pained him to put me in a non-American car, but he promised that if I checked the oil regularly and took care of it, it’d go for two hundred thousand miles. Gary’s grasp of the true depths of my incompetence is shaky though, and I’m not even exactly sure how to check oil, or what I’d do if I found that the car actually needed more of it.
“Saw your dad on
Letterman
,” he says. “Never cared much for
Letterman
, but Curtis was funny.”
“Yeah, he did all right. I think they put too much makeup on him, though.”
“That’s just for TV. Whenever I’m in those commercials for the dealership, they pile that stuff on. It’s because the camera picks up every nook and cranny. Photo shoots are even worse. You see my new billboard, the one out on I-95. They airbrushed my crow’s-feet. Said it made me look more honest, whatever that means.”
The waiter drops my gargantuan soda off with a thud, and I stop him. “I’m sorry. I actually ordered the
big
soda,” I say, to which Gary and the waiter just look at me, and I can actually hear crickets. This joke never works, but I try it whenever possible.
“Did I tell you I read one of your dad’s books?”
He’s caught me in mid sip.
“The new one with all those short stories. I liked it. He certainly has a way with words, your dad. Is he still driving that Porsche around? You should tell him about our new Mustangs. What with the economy all hitting the skids, I could probably get him in one pretty cheap.”
Most men would prefer that their wives’ former husbands simply drop dead and fall off the face of the planet; Gary wants to put his wife’s former husband in a bitchin’ new ride. “I’ll be sure to let him know,” I say.
“Your mom told me about that story, ‘Macy’s.’ She said it was about you. Did he really lose you in a store like that?”
“Well, he never won the Pulitzer for parenting,” I say.
When our burgers arrive, we eat and listen to classic rock ’n’ roll songs. He tells me about the dealership and how my half brothers are doing, Brett and Randy, two far more capable men than I, living in Dallas and Kansas City. And then he catches me off guard for the second time. “So, I hear your dad is having some marriage troubles.”
“Well . . . I guess you could say that.”
“That Ashley gal of his from the magazines? She’s beautiful. How could he let a woman like that get away?”
It takes me a moment to realize that he’s not being sarcastic. Gary has made the classic mistake of equating precise cheekbones, perfect breasts, and a vague association with philanthropy as the signs of a good woman. “Gary, my dad has let far better women get away. Did you know that I’m actually four months older than she is? I’m older than my stepmother, Pop. That’s just not the natural order of things. The fact that I’m not in therapy is a statistical anomaly.”
He pokes at his hamburger, looking under the bun at the half-melted cheese. “Well, I guess he could have just about any woman he wants, what with him being who he is and all.”
This is a strange conversation for Gary and me to be having. Curtis is a topic we generally avoid, which I’ve always liked. He’s one of a small handful of people I know in the world who seems to have no interest in my dad. Until now. “You freelancing for
People
magazine?” I say. “Is this why you wanted to have lunch, to talk about my dad?”
“I was just . . .
making
conversation.”
“We’ve never had to
make
conversation before. Why is your shirt so dirty? What, have you been using it as a napkin? Is there something wrong?”
If Gary looked merely melancholy before, that’s all come crumbling down now as I really look at him, sinking there in the booth across from me. He rubs his eyes with his fists and sighs. “Well, it’s your mom. When was the last time you talked to her?”
He watches me chew and swallow for a while as I think about the four or five missed calls I’ve had from her. I feel like a dick—classic Child-of-Divorce Syndrome. “I’m not sure. A week, ten days maybe? Why?”
Gary wrings his napkin, tearing at the corners. “Well, I’m sure it’s just a coincidence. But, well, it all started about ten days ago, after your dad won that award. They talked on the phone—”
“Wait. My mom and dad talked on the phone?”
“Yeah. I know because I answered. They talked for about an hour actually. And, since then she’s been . . . different. And then I hear in the papers about your dad and Ashley splitting up, and I guess I just—” His face begins to flush, and he doesn’t want to say whatever it is that he’s trying to say.
“You guess what?”
He leans forward, his big belly halved by our table. “Do you think maybe they’re seeing each other?”
“Seeing each other where?” Hearing myself say it, this combination of words, I get what he’s asking, and I laugh. “Gary. I can’t even remember the last time they were in the same room together. There’s . . . no way. What are you talking about?”
“OK, that’s what I thought, too, obviously. I mean, this is your mom, right? But, well, she’s a complex woman, Tommy. I’m not an idiot. I bought your dad’s book last week, and it seems like every story in there is about . . . well,
affairs
and people cheating on people and hurting each other. I hate to even think it, but . . . I don’t know. I wouldn’t put it past your dad is all. Seems like it’s probably second nature to him.”
As I set my cheeseburger in its little red basket, I tell him that I wouldn’t put it past him, either, but that the person we’re really talking about is my mother and his wife, but still, the part of my brain that focuses on fucked-up, unforeseen shit begins working through a series of complex probabilities. My dad is in love again—as always—but I have no idea with whom. The smart money would be on anyone else in the world other than my mother. A barista-in-training at Starbucks. One of his students. A longtime enemy’s wife. One of the waitresses here at Johnny Rockets. Jesus . . . anyone. “No, Gary,” I tell him. “No.”
“Yesterday, I was in our bedroom, and I found one of his books in her drawer in the nightstand. I didn’t even think we had any of his books—she used to tell people they weren’t allowed in the house. But there it was.”
“Which book?” I ask.
“A small one, not very long. November something.”
“
Tomorrow Is November
?”
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s it.”
The chilling remains of burger look gross and fleshy in the basket, nestled in fries. That was my dad’s first novel, and it’s dedicated to her.
“I keep trying to call her, but she doesn’t even want to talk to me. Says she wants to think about some things. I’m not an expert on women or anything, but
thinking
doesn’t sound like a good thing at all. Because women only think about bad things, I’ve found.”
Gary is right, of course, especially when it comes to women like my mother.
“Wait,” I say. “You’ve been trying to call her? Call her where?”
Gary’s eyes fall to the salt and pepper shakers at the middle of the table. “She’s been staying out at your aunt Bernice’s for a little while now, over in Maryland. She’s . . .
sorting
some things out. I don’t know what to do, Tommy. What’s gonna happen if she decides she doesn’t want to come back?”
The waiter returns, sneaking up on us, a ninja waiter. He sets a second Diet Coke in front of me—a bubbling tub of soda. “Another
big
drink?” he asks.
Apparently now he gets my joke.