Ghosts of Manhattan (24 page)

“So when are you two going to deliver us a grandchild not getting any younger here and neither are you would be nice to know the child you see in our day we raised children when we were young and they were the focus and family the priority.” He starts talking while looking at Julia and ends looking at me.

“That's none of your business, Dad.” Julia is uncomfortable but firm and looks him right in the eye, meaning to shut this down before it goes a comment further.

“Alistair, please.” Patricia puts her hand on Julia's forearm again and slowly strokes.

I let it all pass but Alistair doesn't want to end dinner having been rebuked. He moves on like a pitcher who has thrown a called ball and goes right back into his windup for the next pitch. He decides to press what he clearly views to be a related point.

“Nick, how long do you keep it up on Wall Street younger man's game you know could buy a little business to run and live in a house with a yard find a little business that does some good and gives some back could be fun.”

He knows very well this hits a nerve with me, that some part of me agrees with what he says. Coming from him, I can't see it as support but only as antagonism. Maybe he's pissed that even average bond traders make more than partners in law firms. I lean back first to think about the best way to respond, and I decide direct is best. “Alistair, every time we see each other, you find a way to criticize me and my job and try to convince me to make changes as though you're not happy with who I am. As though you think I'm soulless, my job is soulless. Why would you say that to me? Is that what you think?” I lean forward at him to show I intend to get an answer to the question.

There's no sound but the clinking of teacups in saucers. Alistair clears his throat. Like any passive-aggressive, he's not used to direct confrontation or an honest interpretation of his question that forces him to defend why he asked it. He prefers to have his subtlety returned with subtlety.

“It's a fine job provides for the family and all to be sure not at all soulless just there comes a time and people try things make career
changes see what's out there and this is what you've done for a dozen years and just a thought.”

Confronting Alistair like this is one step. I could smile and shrug it off now and everyone's temperature would drop and it would all be forgotten. I could stop it at this level of damage. Or I could take the next step and say what I've thought but held back for the sake of keeping the peace, keeping Julia out of the cross fire of open war. To take the next step with Alistair would be irreversible. If I fight with Julia, we have a foundation of years together and a contract that means we work to fix it and we want to forgive. To fight with Alistair would poison the soil we've been trying to build on and we'd abandon the effort and the toxic ground. On the other hand, to confront him is the honest thing to do. I want to make the changes in my life to cut away the negative and focus on the positive. If I believe in this, then Alistair must go. These are the kinds of decisions I need to make.

This is a turn down a one-way street with no U-turns. I feel myself press down the accelerator. “Just a thought,” I repeat back to him. “Here's a thought for you, Alistair.” I look for a moment at Patricia, then at Julia, then settle back on Alistair. Patricia looks horrified at what she knows is coming. Julia looks calm as though this is something she's been predicting for years would come and is happy to see it and feels vindicated. There's even a small smile curling up one side of her mouth, and in the middle of this it strikes me how beautiful she looks. Alistair shifts in his chair with hands clenching the edge of the table like an airline passenger hitting turbulence.

“You're incapable of being honest with yourself, which is lucky for you because you don't have to come face-to-face with what a pompous clown you are. You reinvent history and yourself to be whatever makes you feel happy and secure. What's unlucky for
everyone around you is that we're stuck with you. You're just as incapable of changing from the piece of crap that you are because you can't or won't face how twisted up you are, and so we all have to sit around and indulge this illusion you've created of yourself, for yourself. Just a thought.” I remember my commitment to filter the negative and say only the positive. My new rule lasted about two hours before I overwhelmed it.

Alistair looks stunned and angry. I don't think he heard anything specific that I said after the first few words. He internalized only that it was insulting and insolent and he dismissed it. Patricia has her hand to her mouth.

I play back in my head what I've said, and I know it is immature bordering on irrational. I'm tempted to apologize, throw up my hands and say hey, let's forget the whole thing, but that feels impossible and might make me look even crazier.

Julia takes a final sip of coffee and, putting the cup down, says, “Okay,” with more emphasis on the
kay
than the
o
, which seems to signal the end of dinner. All four chairs push back from the table at once. The simultaneous precision is comical. And tragic.

January 29, 2006

JULIA GAVE NO EXPLANATION AND NONE WAS ASKED
for. She simply said she wasn't going to come. I simply nodded and said okay. It's hard for me to gauge the damage from last night's dinner, given she's not a fan of her own father, as well as the context of the already catastrophic level of damage in our marriage.

I park behind a line of cars along the street of my sister's home. It's the kind of town that averages about a half acre per house. Hundred-year-old renovated homes with manicured lawns are close together, creating a real neighborhood with enough kids always nearby to meet in groups and play in the streets.

Ted Golb is walking in front of the house carrying bags and wearing a tall hat that looks out of a Dr. Seuss story and that says “Happy Birthday” around it.

“Nicholas, my man.” Never Nick. He never calls anyone by the name they go by. If I went by Nicholas, he'd call me Nicky. He always changes everyone's name to some form of nickname he can use. He feels it's the chummy thing to do, that it breaks
down barriers and means we're old friends. It's part of his social awkwardness.

“How are you, Ted.”

“Hey, pal.” He raises his hands a few inches to show they are full of bags. “Would you mind getting some beer and soda and ice from the refrigerator out back and bringing it in? See if anyone needs a refill?”

“Sure. If you have a mop, I can do the kitchen floor. Maybe sweep out the garage?”

“No need, buddy. All set.” I assume he's choosing to ignore my sarcasm rather than having missed it entirely. I want to be sure, though.

“I must have skipped over the part in the invitation that said this is a barn raising.” As I say this, I realize I must be in a worse mood than I had thought. I'm not lashing out at Ted as much as I am at Julia. But the fact is I do hate people that host a party, then hand out chores to arriving guests.

“Barn raising?”

“Hasn't anyone ever told you that you can hire people who come over and do this sort of thing so your guests can actually be guests?”

“Listen, if you don't want to do it, that's okay.” He looks a little off balance and is trying to be friendly but isn't quite smiling. He's a sort of Fred Rogers type, plus I'm his wife's brother, so he probably feels he can't get angry with me.

“It's no problem. I'm on it. See you in there.” I start for the back door to the house before he can apologize or tell me how rude I am. I don't know which it would have been.

On the back porch they have a refrigerator that lies down like an oversized coffin. I get twelve Budweiser and twelve Mountain Dew and fit a bag of ice under each arm and enter the house from
the porch into the kitchen. They have a huge Victorian house built in the late 1800s. The house has a main central staircase, and each of the rooms connects in a ring around the main stairs, so a person can move from room to room in a circle around the first floor and come back to where he started. I go from the kitchen to the dining room, where I see Ted and drop my load next to him like I'm delivering a summons. “Here you go.” I smile and again move on before he can react.

I cross through the foyer of the front door and into the living room on the other side, where I get Susan's eye. She's surrounded by the parents of Andy's friends, I imagine talking about soccer leagues and flute lessons. Between me and Susan is my mother, talking with a couple, and she beckons me over with one hand while still finishing her sentence. I step toward them just as the front door of the house opens. Into the foyer behind me run Andy and several young birthday revelers who were playing outside.

“Uncle Nick!” Andy runs directly for me. He still has his jacket on and I can feel he carries some cold air with him as he gives me a leaping hug. He smells like soap and leaves.

“Happy birthday, big man.”

“Thanks! See ya.” He runs off past his mother and my mother, with a herd of others like him trailing behind and all shouting words communicating nothing more than a train whistle blowing.

“Children, mind yourselves,” my mother says with no playfulness, like the kids are dogs and she's not a dog person. They run by her and she takes a dramatic step backward even though they weren't close to her. “Oh, the humanity.”

“Jesus Christ, Mother.” Although she's not fat, my mother is a big woman with a physical presence. She always looks elegant without being overdressed for the occasion. Usually it's a dress from St.
John or Chanel. The kind older women with money wear. Today it's a pale-blue dress with a pearl necklace and earrings. She's never worn a pair of jeans in her life and the image seems impossible.

“Nicholas, I beg your pardon.” Sue's friends take an exit.

“Where's Dad?”

“He had some work to finish. He'll be along in an hour or so.”

“Okay.” I turn and walk away. I don't want to spend more time with her. That was plenty. I'm reminded of how oddly adolescent my relationship with her remains, which makes me dislike her even more. Ironically, she seems to like me more now than when I was a child, probably because I'm not so inconvenient anymore. I'm an adult with my own life, so now she needs to engage me only as much as she would a friend from a book club.

Susan uses the commotion to break with the other parents and come over to me. “Hey, big brother.”

“Sometimes I still can't believe my little sister's a mom at all.”

“I used to have those moments. The kids pounded them out of me very quickly. Where's Julia?”

“She's not coming.” There is no excuse like a sprained ankle or car trouble that I can deliver in an easy manner. It's just a brief statement of fact that lands with a thud.

“Let's go talk upstairs. The first floor's overrun.”

“Okay.” I smile my appreciation and am surprised to find how much I'm looking forward to talking with her. “I'm going to stop by the bar on the way. Can I get you something?”

“Gin and tonic. I'll escape now. See you in the den upstairs.”

I walk back through the foyer into the dining room, where the bar is set up on one end of the table. I move workmanlike with a lowered gaze to avoid making any accidental invitation to conversation. In a moment I have two glasses loaded to the rim with gin
and tonic and I'm back to the foyer and up the stairs without having uttered even a grunt to anyone.

They've styled their den in a classic way with wood paneling on the walls, a dark walnut desk, and built-in bookshelves full of old books that give the room the smell of a library's old book room. Susan's sitting on a two-seat leather sofa against the wall, and I hand her a drink and lean against the desk in a sideways sit.

“Mom's her usual charming self. How's Caroline?”

“She's good. She was cute this morning with Andy for his birthday. It's funny having two. One day they're best friends and loving and supportive. The next day the opposite. But either way, they know each other better than anyone else.”

“Like you and me.”

“Yup. How are you, Nick? Any special reason why Julia isn't with you?”

“Hm. Special reason. Probably. I can start with the most recent reason, which is that last night at a casual dinner for four with her parents, I managed to punctuate the end of dinner by calling her dad a pompous clown and piece of crap.”

Some people reflexively say “You're kidding” or “Seriously?” when hearing a story like that. Susan never does that, which I appreciate. “I would love to have seen Alistair's face.” She smiles and takes a sip of her drink. “Jesus, Nick, are we out of tonic?”

“I only barely saw his face myself. A little red, a little contorted, then turned to the door. There wasn't a discussion.”

“He is a pompous ass. Once he calms down, he ought to realize you did him a favor.”

“Not likely.”

“How did Julia react?”

“About like you. Except our problems run pretty deep. I've
always kept things in check with Alistair, just going along to get along with him because it's better for us, but now I feel like I'm losing my grip. I wasn't mad at Alistair. I don't care enough about him to get mad at him, but I carried some old wounds into dinner and he hit a nerve.”

“And you went after him.”

“Whatever I used to value enough to keep the peace with him wasn't there. It wasn't that I was thumbing my nose at Julia. I didn't want to hurt her or make things hard for her. It was just a reshuffling of priorities so that I did something more for myself without worrying about consequences.”

“What nerve of yours did he hit?”

“The usual raw and exposed nerve. That my career is meaningless and juvenile. Which is also part of the problem with Julia. Some form of what he said, she thinks.”