Authors: Stephen White
TWENTY-TWO
I made sure my therapist was paying attention — truly paying attention — before I continued.
“While I was on the phone the next day and Thea was in the shower, Adam left. Just walked out the door, no note, no good-bye — nothing. I drove around the neighborhood looking for him for a while, but he was gone. His mother, Roberta — Bella — called our house a couple of hours later. Thea answered. Bella was concerned, but not frantic, and wondered if we’d seen Adam.”
“You’re saying his mother hadn’t known that he was visiting you?” Alan Gregory said.
“You’re quick,” I said to the shrink. My unkindness was reflexive. I didn’t give it a thought.
He did. “This makes you uncomfortable, talking about your son with me. When you’re uncomfortable you seem to get a little — what’s a good word — unpleasant? Testy?”
I was surprised to recognize the fact that his words didn’t add up to an accusation, just a question. I wasn’t accustomed to being confronted without being accused. In my family growing up they were Siamese twins.
“Yeah, I get unpleasant.” Left unsaid:
That’s a problem?
“I wanted to be certain we both recognized the tendency. It may prove relevant, that’s all. Go on.”
“They were living outside Cincinnati. Bella was separated from her second husband. Thea said Bella sounded nice; she liked her. Friendly, unassuming, just like Adam had said. They talked about Adam’s time with us. They talked about Berk.”
I thought my psychologist would say something then — maybe hoped he would — but he didn’t.
I started talking about Berkeley, what a character she was, when I noticed my therapist’s eyes start to squint. “What?” I asked.
“Tangent?” he asked.
“Probably,” I admitted. “His mother said Adam had run before. A few times. She called them his ‘adventures’ and made them sound kind of romantic. But he’d always called and let her know where he was. This time he’d been gone for almost three days and she hadn’t heard from him. She was getting concerned.”
I paused to give my therapist a chance to impart some wisdom, or maybe to take a gratuitous shot at Roberta’s laissez-faire parenting philosophy, but he either didn’t have any wisdom for me, or any spare criticism for Bella, or maybe he was just one constipated son of a bitch.
“You got nothing?” I said.
He had a little something. “Bella thought of calling you. Despite the fact that she had no reason to think you even knew that Adam existed — literally — she must have sensed something to suspect you might know where he was. Why else would she call your house looking for him?”
I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”
“No?”
“No.” I could have stopped there, but I knew I was already appearing petulant to him. I wanted to be petulant — I felt like being petulant — but I wanted to appear reasonable.
“Adam showed up in Ohio the next day. Bella called us back and said he was fine. I spoke with her that time. She asked me to let her know if he ever showed up again. She was curt. But her voice brought back memories from Buckhead. You ever notice that Southern girls sing when they talk?”
“Yeah?” my therapist said in reply, answering me without telling me a damn thing about his impression of the melody in Southern girls’ voices.
“Back then?” I said. “She was a nice girl. I was an asshole.”
Again, nothing.
Why am I paying this guy?
I went on. “That day on the phone? Even though she wasn’t in the best mood, she was still a nice girl. I wasn’t as much of an asshole. I took some pride in that. I did.”
I didn’t know that’s where I was going with the conversation.
Did he?
I’m thinking he did.
Maybe that’s why he’d been so taciturn.
Maybe that’s why I was paying the guy.
TWENTY-THREE
Lizzie recovered quickly from the run-in with the woman in Papaya King.
“You have unfinished business. I don’t say that to be critical, but rather to acknowledge how difficult the situation is. I have a lot of empathy for your situation. Any parent would want to feel that his connection with his child was … secure before —”
“With Adam? You’re talking about Adam?”
“With Adam,” she confirmed.
“I go back to the question of relevance. Why is that important to you, your … organization?”
Her mood had darkened; the captivating brilliance was gone from her eyes, replaced by something brooding. “We’ve learned — sometimes the hard way — that this arrangement works best when our clients are at peace with the world. When we’ve run into resistance from clients in the past about carrying out end-of-life arrangements, the culprit is often unfinished business — occasionally a pending deal involving significant money or major work issues, but mostly it’s unfinished emotional business. Family business, usually. Doubts about living inevitably create doubts about dying. My experience is that the doubts about living that haunt us most are the ones about our children. Experience has taught our organization that for our service to be maximally effective, we must do everything in our power to ensure that our prospective clients are secure financially, secure emotionally, and secure … psychologically. Being in a settled place with your children is an important part of that.”
I wanted the sparkle back in her eyes. I gave her a sly grin and asked, “Financially, emotionally, psychologically.” I ticked off the three criteria on my fingers. “So what’s my score? One out of three? Two out of three?”
She brightened suddenly, poked me in the ribs, and skipped ahead of me. For a moment, I congratulated myself on flirting her back into a good mood, and then I stepped back and realized I’d done it without learning what monster had darkened her soul in the first place.
I thought
I shouldn’t have let that go
.
“I take it that’s a one,” I said. “So I get an F minus.”
She pirouetted and began walking backward, facing me. Doesn’t take a genius to know that it’s not a wise form of ambulation in Manhattan. “You have money,” she said. “We both know that. So you get a one, at least. Rich boys always get a one.”
“So do pretty girls,” I said.
“True. And pretty boys get a half.”
“So I’m a pretty boy?” I asked, too desperately wanting her to say “yes.”
She didn’t answer me.
“I’m up to one and a half, then. Trash can,” I said.
She swerved around it as though she had radar.
“Old lady, shopping cart.”
That time she turned and looked. The sidewalk behind her was clear.
“Liar.”
“Sometimes, yes. Trick is knowing when I’m lying, and figuring out why. Back at Papaya King you told me you don’t like to be pushed around. Well, I don’t like to be told no,” I said. “I’m not accustomed. My money’s good. And I’m a big boy; I know what I’m buying into.”
Once again, as though she had inborn, back-scanning radar, Lizzie stopped just before she would have smacked into a stack of flimsy wooden crates jammed with fresh fruits and vegetables that were on their way into the cellar chute of a restaurant kitchen. I closed the gap on the sidewalk between us so that I was close enough to lean over and kiss her.
She hadn’t refreshed her lipstick since Papaya King and I could still smell the tartness of kraut on her breath.
“I read your profile,” she said. “I know about your penchant for …”
I found it sweet that she was trying to find an uncritical way to complete her thought.
“You know about my penchants? I’ve been told that they’re, you know, larger than … most men’s … penchants.”
“You’re making this difficult,” she cooed.
“My penchants have always gotten me into trouble. But you probably know that, too. If you know about Adam.”
“We do thorough background … investigations.”
I decided to let her off the hook. “Then you must know everything about Antonio. You know about my brother, too? I bet you do.” But I didn’t give her any more space physically. I was still inches from her.
“Conrad?”
“Connie.”
“Connie then. MS, Princeton.”
“ALS, Yale.”
“What … ever.”
I realized from her tone that she’d known all along that Connie was ALS, Yale.
“Then you know that I have reasons — great reasons — for signing up with your company.
Objective
reasons.” I’d intentionally emphasized her word. “I know what dying slowly is like. I know the price of not planning for the unexpected. More than most men, I know the value … of living. The capital
L
kind. To the fullest.”
She seemed to be considering my argument.
“Your brother would detest what we do.”
She was right.
I detested that she knew that about him.
How the hell,
I wondered
, does she know that about Connie?
“What makes you so sure?” I said.
“You disagree?”
“No. I’m wondering whether you spoke with him.”
She shrugged.
She flitted her gaze down to my mouth. “Are you planning to kiss me?” she asked.
“I’m thinking about it,” I said. I hadn’t been, but I started.
“Don’t.”
Don’t think about it,
I wondered,
or don’t kiss you?
“You got sad before, when we were talking about Adam. What was that? Let me in a little, Lizzie.”
I hadn’t intended the double entendre that was inbred in my choice of words, and as soon as I recognized it, its presence unsettled me.
She either didn’t see the dual meanings, or she didn’t care. She didn’t yield an inch of space, either corporally or rhetorically. “We sell peace of mind. The fulfillment rate on our policies? It’s not that large. The percentage of our clientele that end up in situations requiring us to provide end-of-life services would surprise you.”
“Because it’s small?”
“Yes. Young people, like yourself, tend to die suddenly. Accidents, heart attacks, strokes. Some chronic health tragedies — cancers, cardiac illness — do linger long enough for us to intervene. But we don’t sell death. And, although we are prepared to provide end-of-life services in the case of a prolonged condition, we’re not in the euthanasia business. Don’t misunderstand that. We’re in the quality of life business. What we sell, and what we do very, very well, is we sell assurance that if the worst occurs, your last days will be on your own terms. That … is true peace of mind.”
“Yes?” I’d covered the rational parts of her argument already on my own. Despite her eloquence I wasn’t that impressed with her soliloquy.
I still wanted to kiss her, though.
“Then I’m in?” I said.
“We don’t believe in selling voice lessons to a mute. We don’t believe in selling a Monet to a blind man.”
“That’s me? I’m dumb and blind?”
“Where peace of mind is concerned, maybe,” she said. “Remember what I said about unfinished business?”
“Everyone has unfinished business.”
“No,” she said, the word sharp as a crack of gunfire. “Everyone has unlived days. Children they won’t see graduate from college. A daughter’s wedding they won’t attend. Holidays to the Mediterranean they won’t take. A retirement palace they won’t enjoy. A mountain they won’t climb. But not everyone has unfinished business like you have unfinished business with Adam. Every inhale but the last requires an exhale. With Adam, you haven’t exhaled.”
“How do you —”
The Town Car rolled into place beside us and pulled to a stop.
Had she just signaled for it?
My final question hung in the air. She slithered away from me and stepped off the curb. As she pulled the door of the car open, she said, “We’ll be in touch with a final determination. I have to go.” She climbed in and closed the door.
“Thanks for lunch,” I said.
The dark rear window rolled halfway down. “You paid,” she said.
“And I got my money’s worth.”
TWENTY-FOUR
That evening in New York City, I walked over to 55th and Sixth and picked up a couple of cellophane-wrapped sandwiches at Pret for dinner and ate them in my room at the hotel while I drank half of the Yebisu. Some kind housekeeping ghost had placed the big bottle of beer in a silver champagne bucket and kept the cubes refreshed all day long.
Nice touch.
I allowed myself to get lost watching Central Park turn black as the day’s light seeped into … where? Where did it go?
A knock at my door.
Housekeeping yet again?
More towels to add to my stash, just in case I have a sudden urge to pat down a wet elephant? Perhaps another chocolate for my pillow?
No, a guy in a suit, a young guy, a black guy, a nice suit. Accented English. African, maybe. Not South African. Kenya? Perhaps.
He wasn’t with the hotel; that much was clear. No name tag.
He handed me an envelope. I noted he was wearing gloves. White gloves. The gloves were not intended to denote the elegance of his service.
No.
The white gloves were to avoid leaving fingerprints on the envelope.
“Good evening, sir,” he said.
Once he’d placed the envelope in my hand, he cocked his head just the slightest bit, and said, “Thank you, sir.”
I stood in the doorway and watched him march down the hall until he entered the distant elevator. When I returned to my room I threw the envelope on the bed. It was a thin envelope and I was assuming that college admission rules were in effect. A thin envelope meant rejection. A fat envelope meant: Fill out all these forms, send us a check, and you’re in.
The real message was, of course, the messenger. They were telling me that they could insert themselves into places — like the Four Seasons — that it shouldn’t be easy to insert themselves into.
I figured I could read the rejection letter later. The euphemisms that the Death Angels employed to refer to the services they were denying me would undoubtedly give me a chuckle.
My heart wasn’t broken.
Frankly, I was suffering slightly more regret that I wouldn’t be seeing Lizzie again than I was feeling regret that I hadn’t been judged a suitable candidate for the Death Angels. If I had to choose between having Adam in my life and being one of the Death Angels’ minions, it would have been an easy choice. I’d already begun rationalizing their rejection: What were the odds I’d ever need their services, anyway?
Most people died predictably, or suddenly.
Lizzie had said so herself.
I would be one of those. My 911 and I wrapped around a tree. Off a cliff. Head-on into a semi.
A bolt of lightning from the blue.
Or taking a breather on a winter afternoon on a rock shelf that was really a cornice …
Or, maybe, the one and only time I didn’t quite get both skis on the same side of every tree.
Thea called and put Cal on the phone so I could talk with her before she got totally distracted by other things. Cal was old enough by then that talking to her father when he was on one of his all-too-frequent road trips felt quaint to her, but she was a great kid with a soft, playful heart and she put up with most of her parents’ peculiarities.
Thea got back on the line. “How did your meeting go today?” She thought I was in negotiation on an offer to consult with GE on the development and marketing of their new line of portable scanners. Why did she think that? Because that was the lie I’d told her for going to New York.
GE didn’t need my help.
“Fine. I just need to decide if I want the aggravation.”
“Do you?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“Want to know what I think?”
“You think I should pass.”
“I married a brilliant man. You still going up to see Connie tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I think I’ll take the train to New Haven in the morning, spend the day with him.”
“I can’t tell you how much admiration I have for your brother. He inspires me every day.”
“I know.”
“When I find myself growing impatient over nothing, or feeling sorry for myself because I have a cold, or cramps from my period, I think of Connie. Please say hi to him for me. Tell him I’ll try to get to Connecticut soon.”
“I will.”
“You sound down, babe.”
“Tired, that’s all. I’m afraid of what I’m going to find tomorrow when I see Connie. You know. He doesn’t get better. That’s hard to watch.”
“I know.”
“I love you.”
“Me, too,” she said.
When the drivel on the television bored me, I opened the envelope that I’d tossed on the bed. The note inside was written in the same unremarkable script as the one I’d received after checking in to my room. This one said, “I will be in the lounge until ten o’clock.”
That was all.
My watch said I had twenty minutes to get downstairs.
Lizzie,
I thought, and my heart jumped just a little. Okay, my heart jumped a lot. I went from not knowing I had a pulse to knowing I had a pulse.
Did I think about Thea in the next few moments?
No.
But it wasn’t Lizzie waiting for me downstairs in the lounge. It was the would-be comedian from the lunch at Nobu.
The joke was on me.