The Whole World Over (42 page)

When had Marion said she would call?

He would wash the dishes and clean the kitchen. If Marion had not
called by then, he would clean the oven. If she had not called by then, he
would take a bath. In a bath, unlike a shower, he could hear Joya's
phone ring. If she did not call by the time he got out of the bath, he
would check his own machine for messages back in New York.

He threw away the leftover, spoiled food. He filled the sink with
soapy water and put the dishes in to soak. Under the sink, he found a
sticky old bottle of furniture oil. He would try to restore the surface of
the table.

Alan opened the dishwasher; it was full of clean dishes.

"Oh God." He sighed.

The proper places for plates, bowls, mugs, and glasses were easy to
find. The silverware drawer was the first one he tried, the one he would
have chosen for this purpose. Logical Joya. (Why had no one married
logical, clever, admirably independent Joya, Joya with the killer legs? If
she were not his sister, would
he
have married Joya?)

The incidental pieces—the spatula, whisk, and long knives—were
harder to place. The third drawer he opened was stuffed with take-out
menus and other papers; immediately, right on top, he saw a pamphlet
about a "resource and support group" for single women who wanted to
adopt a child. He lifted it daintily, as if it might mask an explosive
device, and saw an envelope with the return address of a missionary
service in India. Jumbled in alongside it were the business cards of two
adoption lawyers and a social worker.

Why, before the previous night's disastrous conversation, hadn't he
suspected that Joya would pursue this way of becoming a mother?
Stephen was beginning to talk about adoption, too—though it would
be much harder for him. No doubt there were support groups for single
men who wanted to adopt—and whip-smart adoption lawyers who
worked with tenacious idealism to help their gay clients—but Alan's
job came before all that. So how could he have been spending the
past two months probing the ins and outs of this monumental choice
with a man who had been a total stranger just one year ago yet never
have had a clue that his own sister was going through the very same
struggle?

"Somebody shoot me," he muttered into the drawer before closing it.

The next one, of course, held all the wooden spoons, potato peelers,
ladles, and knives in two spotless plastic bins. He put away the utensils
he still held in his left hand and returned to the dishwasher. By ten-thirty
he had it loaded. Only the roasting pan still lurked in the sink, filled
with soapy water. He would wait to start the dishwasher because that
noise, too, might drown out Marion's call. The oven, as it turned out,
was self-cleaning; there would be no penance involving arms caked with
the brown crud of baking and broiling, of splattering fat.

NOW IT WAS ONE IN THE AFTERNOON.
Alan had dressed. Joya's
kitchen phone had taken on a decidedly contemptuous air.

He called Fenno McLeod back in New York. It was while walking
Treehorn one evening that Alan had resolved to make this trip; on their
way home, as if to cement that resolve, he had stopped in at his favorite
bookshop to buy a travel guide. Providing for the dog during his
absence was a detail that hadn't occurred to him yet. In a rare stroke of
luck—dumb luck, the only kind Alan deserved these days—Fenno had
offered advice on which guide to buy and then, quite offhandedly,
had offered to look after Treehorn. Now, Alan could hardly believe he'd
imposed this task on a virtual stranger—even if McLeod
was
known
about the neighborhood as someone who clearly loved dogs.

"Your lassie's asleep in the garden," the Scotsman told Alan over the
phone. "Tuckered out from a long gallivanting run along the piers with
Emily. Doesn't seem too mournful about your absence, I must tell you."

"I'm so grateful," said Alan. Though who was Emily? Another
assistant?

"Not to worry," said McLeod. "You'll just have to buy more books
now, won't you?"

"I will," Alan said. "Absolutely I will." Everyone he knew and loved,
he thought as he hung up the phone, would get books for Christmas
that year.

He called his machine. There were three messages: his mother checking
in about Christmas ideas for George's gifts; Jerry wanting to catch
up, wondering if he and Greenie were free for dinner some night; and
Gordon Unsworth.

Gordon. Gordie. Gordie of Stephen and Gordie. Alan smiled grimly
as he listened to the message a second time. ". . . I know you're seeing
Stephen now, alone, but I was hoping I could just talk with you about . . .
things." He left three phone numbers.

"Things!" Alan exclaimed to his sister's cool, indifferent loft, to the
actress on the billboard, her manufactured smile no longer in the sun.
Now her teeth looked gray, even predatory. "Things!"

He hunted below the sink for a scouring pad. He found one. As he
scrubbed mercilessly at the roasting pan, he spoke to it. "Hello there,
Gordie. You'd like to talk about things? What things would those be?
Broken things? Unfinished things? Things you own? Things you regret?
Please, I'm a thing specialist here! Talk to your heart's content about
things.
Oh, the shame and the glory of THINGS!"

At 1:32, according to the digital clock on the microwave oven, Alan
laid the pan—probably cleaner than it had been since it was purchased—
facedown on a towel. He dried his sore hands and punched Gordie's
office number into the phone. To his surprise, Gordie answered.

"Alan Glazier returning your call."

He heard a long, grateful sigh. "Oh thank you. I thought you might
not call back. I'd have completely understood."

"I always return calls," Alan said, trying not to sound cold. "Tell me
what's up with you."

"What's up with me is I'm—I was going to say I'm miserable, but
that's not it. I'm . . . baffled. I sort of can't believe I took the drastic step
I did."

Alan let the silence stretch for two or three seconds. "You mean, leaving
Stephen the way you did."

"Yeah. Like an ass. A royal ass."

Like a pig, thought Alan. Like a selfish, frightened, faithless pig.
Wouldn't it be funny if Joya had a device that tape-recorded all her
calls? It was entirely plausible, since she was in a profession that might
attract threats.

"Do you want to see someone and talk, Gordie? Because I have a
commitment to Stephen now. I could ask how he feels if I see you once
or twice—or I could just refer you to someone else."

"I understand," said Gordie. "Could you do that? Ask him if I could
just tell you what's going on with me?" Alan heard the disruptive click
of call-waiting. "Because he doesn't return my calls anymore. I mean
not that I've called him more than a—"

"Gordie? Gordie, I'm sorry, but I have to put you on hold. Can you
hang on a minute?"

"Of course," said the repentant Gordie, and Alan switched to the
alternate line. He heard a woman speak his name, but the din in the
background nearly engulfed her voice. Was it Marion or Joya? "Hello?
Hello?" he said, as if he wasn't sure they had any connection at all.

"Alan, it's me. It's a bad day, but I have a breathing space right now.
I've left you three messages on your cell phone. . . . Maria, no, he said to
use that tureen with the antler on top. It was a gift from one of these
guys." Greenie laughed. "I know, it's revolting and tacky. Warm it
slowly so it doesn't crack when we pour in the soup. . . . Alan? I'm completely
stressed out. We're feeding governors from two other states, and
this morning I made biscuits with George's class. They came out of the
oven looking like a field of little meteorites."

"Greenie?" Alan pressed his free hand against his chest. "Did you get
my message last night?"

"Well, yeah," she said. "And I happened to talk to Joya last night,
too; she told me you were there! Alan, what's going on? Why would you
go all the way out there? Is everything okay with Joya? I'm kind of
worried about her."

There was a loud clattering noise on Greenie's end. He heard her
groan. "Oh no, oh—can we glue it back on? Can somebody go find Bill
and get a hold of some Krazy Glue? We can heat the thing up, put in the
soup, then glue the antler back on. Wait a sec. Oh don't—Alan, I have to
go, but we have to talk. I don't know what's going on—there or here. I
won't be back till late tonight. Call George at least."

She said good-bye, and Alan realized he had said almost nothing. No
lies, no excuses, no confessions, no explanations. No further declarations
of love. But he was fairly certain that Joya had told her nothing
incriminating about his visit. Still, Greenie had been speaking so loudly,
with so many people around her, that he could read nothing into
her voice. He hung up the phone. Immediately, it rang. Stunned, Alan
grabbed it up. "There appears to be a receiver off the hook," declared a
prissy robotic voice. "Please hang up and try your call again."

Gordie. Alan had left Gordie hanging until, quite reasonably, he
had hung up. Alan struck the wall twice with the receiver. A shallow
dent in the Sheetrock mocked his petty rage. The dent was shaped like a
smile.

More than anything, he wanted to go out, to pace the city from end
to end—perhaps to show up in person at Joya's office. He realized he
had no idea where her office was, but if he ransacked another drawer or
two, he'd find out. Where else in his sister's life did he need to meddle?

Hadn't Marion said she would call in the morning? It was well past
morning. Why shouldn't he call her? Alan got his address book and
called the number he had never used before. A man answered.

"Can I please speak to Marion?" he said without greeting.

"Marion's not here just now," the man said. "Who's calling?"

"Alan Glazier." He felt naked, stripped to his pale and quivering
flesh.

"Hello, Alan. I'm Lewis." The man's voice was warm. It was, without
doubt, the voice of a doctor. Did they teach you this voice in medical
school, or if you happened to grow up with a voice like this, did someone
steer you toward becoming a doctor?

Alan said nothing.

"I'm Marion's husband. I have to tell you that Marion's taken our
son to visit friends for a long weekend. She needs to think a lot more
about your request to meet Jacob."

"You mean, she's protecting you."

"No," said the calm, kind, enveloping voice of Lewis. "We talked
about you last night, and I told her this is entirely up to her. As it
should be."

"But if it were up to you, you'd tell her never to speak to me again."

Lewis sighed. "No, not at all. I have two children who are more or
less estranged from me because of their mother. When it comes to family
matters, I don't make judgments, and I certainly don't give advice. I
could never do what you do."

"You couldn't begin to know what I do," said Alan. Alan wondered
why he was even talking to this man. He wondered why he was acting
so juvenile. No, that part he couldn't honestly wonder about. His belligerent
pride was part of what had landed him here in the first place.
Don't fool yourself, he thought, you've earned every bit of this trouble
and humiliation, fair and square.

Briefly, Alan thought again of all those prizes he'd won as a child.
Never once had they, or his fine high grades, made him feel secure.
He had always suspected that once he reached the end of his glowing
school career, some sort of comeuppance would be awaiting him,
patiently, like a robber hiding behind a bush at the end of a finely gardened
promenade.

"Alan?" Lewis said. "Alan, are you still there?"

"Yes," said Alan. "Yes. I don't know what to say."

"I'm sorry. I know you must be pretty angry," said Lewis. "She isn't
doing this to be cruel. It's just so—well, obviously it's complicated. You
haven't done anything wrong. She wanted me to tell you that. She felt
terrible not calling you, but she was afraid that if she spoke to you,
you'd change her mind. And she needs to think things through with as
little pressure as possible."

"Oh." Trumped yet again by the wisdom and kindness of Marcus
Welby, M.D.

"You know, this will sound presumptuous, but I have a feeling that
one day we'll meet. Marion says we have a lot in common."

What was Alan to do now, thank the man for his generosity? Ask
what he was doing home on a Friday—whether he, too, was low on
patients?

"She promises she'll be in touch," said Lewis. His tone was more
apologetic than reassuring, the tone he would use to tell a patient that
while, yes, they'd caught the cancer early, there would still be evil medicine
to take.

She promised she would CALL!
Alan wanted to shout. She promised
. . . But had she promised anything else? Oh, promises. As durable
and easy to define as jellyfish bobbing up and down in the waves.

"Thank you, Lewis," he said, forcing himself to say the name.
"Would it be inane to ask you to tell her I called?"

Lewis, bless him, did not laugh. "I knew you'd call—I mean, I would
have called, too. So of course, of course I'll tell her."

Alan sighed, his chronic trademark sigh. "So that's it then," he said.
He thanked Marion's husband again. In unison, the two men said
good-bye.

"That's it then," Alan repeated, breezily, to the voracious sitcom
actress, to Joya's view of industrial San Francisco. And hey now, as it
turned out, there was plenty of time to see a few sights in this handsome
city! Where had Alan put that guidebook he'd bought from Fenno
McLeod? Had he even remembered to bring it with him?

REMARKABLY, ALAN WAS WAITING FOR THEM
at the mouth of
the tunnel leading from the plane. "I pleaded," he said, "and they
took pity on me." He put down a large shopping bag and held each of
them tightly a long time, first George and then Greenie.

"Am I ever glad to see you!" he said to George. He tapped his watch.
"We have to catch up on this Christmas business. I got us a tree, and
Santa came, even though he knew you weren't here yet. And how about
some of Nana's fruitcake?"

"Yuck, Dad," said George. "You know I hate that. We all hate that!"

"All right then, no cake but your mom's." Alan glanced fondly at
Greenie.

"Where's Treehorn?"

"She had to wait at home," said Alan. George made a face but did
not complain.

Greenie stood deliberately back from the reunion of father and son.
For once, she was content to be a witness. She had been awake for nearly
four days straight, making roasts and cookies, pâtés, English puddings
(Yorkshire and plum), half a dozen bûches de Noël. Ray might instruct
his staff to surround the mansion with a thousand flickering farolitos,
but he was a sucker for all the Dickensian trappings.

She followed Alan and George down the escalator to Baggage Claim.
The airport was close to vacant; they had a bank of plastic seats to
themselves. As Alan talked to George of gifts and food and snow and
sleds, Greenie watched the blades of the carousel turn in a gleaming
oval, awaiting the onslaught of trunks, duffels, skis, and alpine backpacks.
Just like her: waiting to see what sensations would hit as she
reentered her old life, or what remained of that life.

She was glad that she had already run the gauntlet of Christmas entertaining
on someone else's behalf. She had become a placid, willing vessel
of Ray's private nostalgia and public benevolence, an all-consuming
project that had left her mind both spent and purged. Just as fortunately,
she'd had precious little time in recent weeks to think about, let alone
see, Charlie. Perhaps, she thought (or wished), I won't even miss him.
After all, she reasoned, they were just friends. While you, she thought as
she watched Alan lean toward their son (looking so pleased, his love so
hungry and sated all at once), you are my
husband,
you are my husband
of
ten years.
This meant, she also reasoned, that Alan would always be
to some degree transparent: not invisible but impossible to see, the way
you can't see great portions of your own body except in photographs or
elaborately positioned mirrors. Wasn't a husband, after a while, just
another part of you, a part you were destined never to see without unflattering
distortions?

She watched Alan touch his son on the nose and then, having captured
his attention, reach into the shopping bag. "And now . . ." He
pulled out a large present and gave it to George. Repeating the motion,
he held out another to Greenie.

George said, "Dad, this is rapted in the newspaper!"

"Well, okay, so maybe I forgot to buy real wrapping paper. Some
details I've had to fudge. But look, I managed real ribbon."

"Yes," acknowledged George. He shook his present, sniffed it, and
examined its underside. "Can I open it now?"

"That's the idea, guy."

After Alan helped loosen the ribbon, George tore off the paper in one
dramatic gesture. "What is it!" he exclaimed, staring at a plain cardboard
box. He shook it from side to side till the bottom fell out, leaving
the lid in his hands. Holding the lid above his head, as if he mustn't let
go of it, he looked down. "It's a . . . it's a . . ." Finally he dropped the lid,
sat on the floor, and rummaged in the box.

"Oh my goodness, a cowboy suit," said Greenie, her first words since
getting off the plane.

George looked from the box to his father. His expression was neutral,
almost pensive.

"Let's see!" said Greenie.

Carefully, George held up a black suede vest. Tassels sprouted from
shiny round grommets along the bottom.

Greenie reached over and felt the material. "This is the real thing."
She picked up the shirt from below; it, too, was black, with white piping
and pearl snaps. Across the chest, a graceful linear drawing in reds and
blues, galloped a crowd of horses. "George, look at this."

George dropped the vest and turned his attention to the shirt.

"A herd of mustangs!" said Greenie.

"Maybe," said George. "Or maybe Chingo Teak ponies. They're
wild ones, too." He looked at his father. "You know, Dad, cowboys
don't really wear their clothes like this."

"Yes, they do," said Greenie, "when they're dressed up. I see them at
Ray's house all the time. You should see how fancy some of their outfits
are."

In the same box, under a pair of black jeans, cocooned in tissue paper
printed with horseshoes, sat a small gray Stetson hat—identical to one
that Ray wore—and beneath it the requisite boots.

"Oh Alan." Greenie was both touched and worried, because like so
many extravagant gifts that parents dream will answer their children's
most fervent longings, this one seemed to be falling flat—not entirely, as
George continued to examine the shirt with fascination, turning it around
to verify that (yes) the horses galloped full circle around the wearer, but
his reaction seemed to be one of ingenuous caution or even skepticism.

"Open yours," Alan said to Greenie.

"Later. Look, here come the suitcases."

"No, now," he said. "Really."

"Here," Greenie said to George, "you're so good at tearing off the
paper, why don't you help me?"

Inside Greenie's box was another pair of cowboy boots. Hers were
red, with cutouts shaped like soaring swallows, cameos of blue against
ivory leather. The swallows made her think of Ray's ranch, where swallows
built nests in the rafters, yet also of Maine, where sometimes you'd
see them careening and flitting, like stunt pilots, over the water. The
boots, so beautiful, embarrassed her. Inexplicably, she felt herself recoil
at the perfection of Alan's present. Was she too exhausted for gratitude?

"What do you think? Honestly. Will you wear them?" said Alan.
"Because I can return them. I don't want to see them gathering dust."

Behind him, Greenie caught sight of the one suitcase she had packed
for both herself and George, toppling through the chute. "How did you
know my size, Alan? Men never know their women's shoe size."

He frowned briefly. "The shoes you left in our closet. I'd like to say I
know all your physical dimensions by heart, but that would be a lie."

And we never lie to each other, do we?
thought Greenie. "Alan, I'm
overwhelmed," she said. "I'm going to put them on right now."

As they walked from the terminal to the parking garage, people who
passed her would look down and smile. "Look! Bluebirds of happiness!"
said an older man to a little girl at his side. "Merry Christmas,"
he said to Greenie.

"Same to you," she answered.

"Do mine have bluebirds?" asked George, whose cowboy outfit,
repacked, was now under Alan's arm.

Alan said, "Yours have lasso designs stitched right into the leather."

George was silent for a moment. He clasped Alan's hand, the one that
also carried the suitcase. "I don't like lassos," he said softly. "They're
mean."

Greenie could see that he had struggled not to make this complaint,
but honest declarations held powerful sway for children. She said, "Did
you know that lassos can be used to rescue animals? If a calf or a foal
gets caught in a river and can't swim, a cowboy can lasso it and pull it
back to shore."

"Oh," said George. "I didn't know that."

As Alan unlocked the car he'd borrowed from a friend, he said,
"Before I forget, Walter told me that if you don't call him by tomorrow
morning, he'll never forgive you."

Walter. For days now—some of the busiest days of her life—Greenie
had forgotten that Alan would not be the only person to see on this trip.
She'd known there would be Tina and Sherwin; that was business. Tina
wanted to buy Greenie out, and Greenie had agreed. (Walter had told
her that he knew a lawyer who'd do the deal without fleecing them.) But
there were also the friends to whom she'd sent brief, hasty e-mails,
assuring them that she couldn't wait to get together when she came back
for Christmas. Now, all she wanted to do was climb beneath a pile of
blankets and sleep. "Are we invited to parties?" she said. "I think I'm a
little partied out."

"The Christmas parties you missed," he said dryly. "But New Year's,
yes, same as always." He named an old friend of his from the institute,
one with a pair of twins the same age as George. They had an annual
New Year's Day buffet: borscht, ham, and black-eyed peas. Greenie and
Alan had been to eight or ten of these parties, each one nearly identical
to the last. Just as dependably, all the children went home with indelible
beet stains on their brand-new holiday outfits and came down with
whatever virus one of the other children had passed around with the
carrot sticks and hummus.

To be back in New York was thrilling and enervating, familiar and
strange. Nothing had changed, yet suddenly there were too many people,
there was too little sky, and the damp air was a visceral affront. The
weather wasn't much different from the weather she'd left behind here
nine months before, as if in her absence the climate hadn't bothered to
change. Only Greenie had changed.

GEORGE WAS NOW THOROUGHLY
obsessed with horses. He neglected
his miniature railroad and had abandoned his dinosaurs to concentrate
on a collection of lifelike model horses he'd started when Diego gave
him two duplicates: a bay gelding, head down to graze, and a trotting
Appaloosa mare with a billowing mane of pearl-colored plastic. In six
months, Greenie had added four more to the collection, Ray two, and
Mary Bliss the one that Greenie liked best: a roan pony with a bridle
and western saddle. The leather was tooled with looping vines, the fastenings
a good imitation of antique silver. But George had promptly
removed the saddle and bridle; riding was not the point of his horseplay.

"Wild, wild, you are wild, the Connemara king of wild!" he proclaimed
in a joyful, breathless murmur as he galloped the pony along
a bookcase, past the long-forgotten Sneetches and an all too pedantically
human Harold; past Mr. and Mrs. Mallard in distant, irrelevant
Boston; past Frog and Toad, whose genteel voices had not been heard
for months.

On one visit to the library after school—Consuelo took him twice a
week—George had apparently asked the librarian for "bigger, betterer"
books on horses; so now, nearly every time, Consuelo would read aloud
to him from a large dusty reference book called
The Golden Equine
Encyclopedia.

When Greenie returned from work, George would tell her something
new he had learned. "The Hackney has a very short tail and it steppens
very high," he might say, demonstrating with raised forearms. Or "Did
you know there are horses who don't live here, in the United States? The
Suffolk punch lives in England. The Tendon Sea Walking Horse lives by
the Tendon Sea. The grass is blue by the Tendon Sea." Greenie was surprised
how many kinds of horses she had never heard of. She knew a little,
but nowhere near as much as George, so she did not tell him that the
Tendon Sea Walking Horse came from and was named for Tennessee or
that Kentucky was the bluegrass state or that fancy show horses like the
Lippizan stallions were trained on a lunge line, not a lunch line.

His favorite storybook was called
Bronco Busters.
In it, three crude,
swaggering migrant cowboys failed to break the spirit of a young black
horse. Every night, a small boy would visit the horse in its corral. Gradually,
through music, food, and quiet musings about their future together,
he won the animal's trust. At the end, after the insolent cowboys drove
off in their sinister pickup, the boy freed the horse, climbed up on his
back, and rode him away toward the mountains.

George had made two friends in his kindergarten class—a boy named
Sven and a girl named Hope—but when they came over, they had very
little interest in the horses. Sven liked the dinosaurs, though mostly he
wanted to browse again and again through the Pokémon trading cards
he brought along, displayed in a binder of plastic sleeves (which gave
Sven, in Greenie's eyes, the unsavory air of a traveling salesman). Hope
liked putting on the plastic masks that Greenie had bought for George
after he'd shown so much interest in the Hopi mask at the Governor's
Mansion. But his friendship with the enigmatic Diego was still the one
he treasured most. Greenie's schedule did not permit her to do much of
the driving to and from Diego's house; about once every two weeks,
Consuelo drove George out to Tesuque at three (when Diego got home
from school) and brought him home by six. This was easier for Diego's
mother, who had other children to look after and, according to Consuelo,
no car of her own. George would return from these visits energetic
and open, dispensing tales about the hand-fed squirrel on the roof,
the goats that liked to stand in the sun on top of their shed, and, above
all, the horses that grazed the fields of the neighboring ranch. He had
learned to identify all of them by coloring and most of them by name.
("Carumba! What do you think about
that
name, Mom?" he would say
proudly. Or "My favoritest one today is Fengali. Fengali has the longest
tail of everyone. It's black.")

Greenie would have found George's fixation funnier than she did if
she had not felt equally yet shamefully enthralled by something other
than horses. Greenie's obsession was Charlie, and it was not a matter of
pretend. In October, before the parade of holidays began, Greenie had
met Charlie in town two or three times for lunch, but he had not
dropped by her house again and never asked to see her at night. Nor did
he mention her mother again. He spoke much more often now of his
visions and ideals, what he readily called his "crusades," than he did of
the past. With relief and regret, Greenie wondered if Charlie was backing
away. When she began to wonder if his motives might be noble or
cowardly,
Stop!
she warned herself. It simply did not, could not matter.