by Bob Morris
So, I lie in bed, thinking about him out there alone.
Are all children so haunted by their parents?
CHAPTER 6
And Bobby Makes Three
At nine o’clock the next morning, the phone wakes us up. I hear Dad fumbling for it in his bedroom. His “Hello” is groggy, then his tone changes to something muscular and energized, as if he suddenly gave himself a shot of testosterone.
“Well, hello, Edie!” he yells. “What a thrill to hear your voice!”
Her boyfriends number one and two are occupied for the morning, it turns out. So she has suddenly become free, and wouldn’t it be nice to get together? Dad tells her yes without even bothering to ask how I feel about it. I’m at his bedroom door, and he is sitting in bed in his pajamas, so animated on the phone that he knocks down several pill bottles on his night table. After hanging up, he lumbers to his bathroom to run the electric razor on his already clean-shaven face.
“But, Dad, I was going to make you banana pancakes this morning.”
“Let’s do that tomorrow. It’s a beautiful morning for a drive. And Edie asked that you join us. You’ll like her, I guarantee it. You have a lot in common.”
“Don’t you understand you’re never going to win her over, Dad?”
“I still have high hopes to make her mine. Maybe today will be the day.”
I’ve never seen him hustling so fast. He shaves, splashes on aftershave, pulls out his best shirt—a bold check so natty that I wouldn’t mind wearing it myself—the good penny loafers, and a festive sky blue sweater just back from the dry cleaner. Then he asks me how he looks. I tell him fine.
“But, Dad, I already went on a date with you last night. I can’t be a third wheel again this morning. It’s enough already. You don’t need me for this.”
“Don’t think of Edie as a date. Think of her as a cousin. We’ll go for a drive.”
“I don’t want to spend the morning in the car. I want to get some sun.”
“So, let’s take your convertible. You can be our chauffeur.”
“You, Dad? In a convertible? I don’t see it.”
He doesn’t like wind. He doesn’t even like fresh air. This is a man as likely to get into the backseat of a convertible as go surfing, and yet, an hour later, I am in the parking lot of her building, watching him climb after her into my backseat, new hip and all, like something between a Galápagos tortoise and a horny teenager.
“All aboard!” Dad crows.
I adjust my rearview mirror. Look at them back there. She’s in a Versace knock-off scarf and Jackie O sunglasses. He has the sky blue V-neck tied around his neck—Mr. Love Boat. “All set, you two?” I ask.
“Very cozy,” he says. “Onward, driver!”
I pull out on Ocean Boulevard, a beautiful South Palm Beach day. The sun is coming out from behind the clouds. Birds are singing, traffic moving. The palms are swaying, and there are flowers popping up everywhere, like air kisses at a cocktail party. The wind is too loud for us to have a conversation, and that’s fine. What am I supposed to say to her anyway? I keep an eye on them in my mirror. Dad’s hair is blowing all over the place. I have never seen him so happily wind-tossed. Any other day he would not put up with all this weather, pleasant as it might be. But today, he’s young again, on a mission to win her over. I can’t help rooting for him.
As we pass Donald Trump’s golf club, he’s putting his arm around her. Now he’s resting his head against her shoulder, and she’s not pulling away. Geez. Should I even be looking at this alter-kocker porn flick in my rearview mirror?
I step on the gas and floor it across a bridge into West Palm.
“Whee,” she crows. “This is fun!”
“Bobby always shows me a good time,” he says. “We’re a couple fun guys!”
I feel like something between a chaperone and drug runner with these two kids in my backseat, high as kites. On Flagler Drive, along the yacht-clogged waterway, he suggests we go to the Norton Museum.
“Pull in right there,” he yells.
“That’s not it,” I yell back. But it is. I’ve missed the turn. Rather than explode the way he would when I dismiss his advice, he laughs and lets me pull around without further direction. What is the hormone she is emitting? I wish I could have it to sprinkle on him later, after she’s gone. Inside the museum, which is full of friendly docents trying to make the most of their senior years by embracing the arts, I stroll alongside them as they hold hands like two kids going steady. She’s got a nice little look. Her silver hair is cut short. The pink button-down and well-tailored slacks are flattering. She’s trim and vital. I feel older than either of them right now, and exhausted, really. But then, this is the second time I’m the third wheel in two days.
How has my life come to this? I pick up a postcard in the gift shop of Edvard Munch’s The Scream. Could anything express more precisely my state of mind?
Now we’re back in the convertible, heading home.
The old man’s having a ball with her back there. I turn on the radio.
They sing along and giggle into each other’s faces. Then she leans back into him; they’re cozy as kittens in the sun. Maybe he knows what he’s doing. Maybe he’s going to kiss her on the lips before we drop her off to get her to see he’s the best thing that could happen to her and inspire her to leave behind boyfriends one and two. He’s nuzzling her neck. It’s not pretty. But in a way, it’s just beautiful.
Might I learn something from him? His intention is so fierce, his craving for affection so pronounced. Love is everything, and he’s unafraid to let her know it.
We’re back on Ocean Boulevard now, the final stretch. With a last kiss and fierce declaration of love, is he going to make her see what a catch he is and turn her life around so that she will finally declare herself only for him and him alone? When we stop in front of her building, a white 1960s low-rise fantasia, he leans in and kisses her cheek, lets it linger there for longer than a moment. She pulls back, gives him a playful swat.
“Oh, Joe! You’re the sweetest,” she says. “This was fun, Bobby! Thank you so much for being our chauffeur! See you soon!”
Then she gets out of the car and walks away. Overhead, gulls call, laughing at us.
I am furious. But Dad doesn’t look all that upset. In fact, he’s all googly-eyed, as if he’s just been touched by an AARP angel. He is smiling all the way home.
When we get to his apartment, he sits down, looking content. I pace his living room.
“What is she, out of her mind, with you and the two other boyfriends, Dad? Is this the three faces of Edie or something?”
“No,” he laughs, sitting comfortably in his beige leather recliner, like something between a Bubba and a Buddha, “she’s just a very nice woman who appreciates me.”
“Yeah, a third of the time if you’re lucky. She is nothing but a time-share, Dad. Why are you so stuck on her anyway?”
“Because she’s easy to be with, just like your mother was. And she’s foxy. We have chemistry.”
I stop dead in my tracks. “Chemistry? At your age?”
And then he looks me in the eye and says, “Listen, with the pills they have today and the positive effects of the hernia surgery I had last year, I can go all night if I want to.”
I’d like to run out the door. I resume pacing. “Okay, Dad. That is overshare. Enough. I think you’re a fool settling for her.”
He waves me off with a hand, as if he were hearing utter nonsense. “Bobby, please don’t judge my happiness. If this is all I can get for now, I’ll take it. Now what about you? How’s your social life?”
“Thanks for asking. It’s nowhere, as usual.”
“So no prospects at all?”
I sit down. He wants me to share. I’ll share. I kick off my sandals.
“Okay. I’ll tell you. I met someone last month. He was terrific for a while.”
“Good. And what was his name?”
“What’s the difference? You t
hink you know him? Ira, okay? His name’s Ira.”
He nods, mulls it over.
“Ira’s a nice name. Can’t go wrong with that. Tell me about him.”
“He’s great. Smart, funny, works in publishing.”
“Sounds promising. What happened?”
“It just didn’t work out.”
“Why? Was it your fault or his?”
“I don’t know. How would I know?”
I step out to the balcony. It really is a perfect sunny day for self-recrimination. My fault or his? Mine. I just wasn’t sure he was the one. So I ran. I like things simple. I like my space, my quiet. But I also hate my life. I step back inside and throw myself on the couch, while Dad sits in his chair. Now we have the full patient-therapist relationship—without any of the insight or training.
“Look, Dad, I tried, I failed.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I was scared of disappointing him. I think he might want more than I know how to give. So we never even got started.”
“Might. Maybe. Not very convincing, Bobby.”
“My love life is a series of failures. I’m not cut out for being with anyone.”
“That’s not true. But you do like things the way you like them.”
“Yes, and where do you think I got that from?”
He nods. “We’re alike that way. But you really should be sharing your life with someone. You have so much to offer. You’re a good person.”
“Since when am I a good person?”
“You’re a good person. Look how good you were to your mother.”
“Me?”
“Look how good you’ve been to me this year, when I’ve been so lonely. You deserve happiness. Companionship. So why don’t you try?”
“With who?”
“With this Ira. Stop running, stop thinking, stop questioning. Just try. And if it doesn’t work out, maybe you should focus on something else I’ve been thinking about for you before you’re too old.”
“What’s that?”
“I think you should consider becoming a father.”
“What, Dad?”
“I said,” he repeats evenly, “I think you should try to become a father.”
“Oh really? And, um, how do you propose I do that?”
“Bobby, you have so many single lady friends who want to be mothers, and who I bet would just love to make a baby with you, however you do it.”
“Never mind how we do it. The question is why,” I’m shouting at him. “Why do you think it’s so important that I have a child?”
He reaches over now, and takes my hand in his.
“Because,” he says, “just look at what your mother and I got when we had you.”
His words stun me, like when you come around the bend to a magnificent view of the sea or the mountains that you knew was there but never expected to see so suddenly.
I mean, wow. I could never say anything like that to anyone.
But maybe that’s because I don’t have anyone to say it to. I don’t want to let this go. Alien as it is for me, I want to say something back, to let him know I heard him.
“That just might be the nicest thing anybody’s ever told me, Dad,” I finally say.
“Every word of it is true,” he says.
CHAPTER 7
Auld Lang Resigned
When I get back to New York, I find myself doing something unheard of—taking my father’s advice. I decide it wouldn’t be a bad idea to e-mail an attractive lesbian couple I know who were recently joking with me about having a baby. Or should I say “gay-by”? Only how do I word it? Sperm with your eggs? I end up with something a little more straightforward.
Hi Girls! Seasons Greetings! Hope this doesn’t seem weird, but I want to let you know that if you ever do consider having a child, I’d love to help. Let’s talk, ok? Bob
Their reply appears in my inbox two days later. Is this the e-mail that will change my life forever, adding meaning and maturity, all without much responsibility? With some trepidation, I double-click for the answer.
Bob! That’s so sweet! But just so you know, yours is the fourth solicitation we’ve had this month from a gay male friend. What’s with you people? Anyway, we’re flattered and thank you for thinking of us in that way. We’ll keep you on file. Happy New Year!
What happy New Year? My mother is gone. My father is insane. My brother and his wife and kids are away at some expensive Caribbean resort. And I’m alone in their apartment on the oh-so-parental Upper West Side (sippy cups! double-wide strollers!) without a date for New Year’s. There are two cats and one guinea pig to look after. The cats pretty much avoid me. They can see I’m in a bad mood. I look out at all those other apartment windows out there, full of couples and families, fanning out from here into New Jersey and on to Pennsylvania and then eternity. All those lives. Sometimes I see couples arguing in kitchens or rushing in foyers, getting ready to go out. I tell myself that life is unpleasantly noisy and complicated in all those apartments, in all those families and relationships. Those lives—listening to each other, worrying about each other—are just so full of conflict and compromise. I tell myself I’m lucky I’m free. But to do what?
Most friends are out of town. I don’t feel like seeing the ones who are around. I file a column about the conundrum of how to break off boring friendships. I order in and read the daily papers. I think about calling Ira, but don’t. How is it possible to have this privileged life and be so miserable?
One night I get a call from Dad. I haven’t heard from him since I got back from Florida. Now I know why. He’s met someone. Or perhaps I should say re-met someone. The first time they were introduced at the home of friends across the road, he didn’t given her much thought. After one date, he wasn’t feeling anything. A few weeks later, in the aftermath of Florence and Edie, he found the strength to give this woman another try. Suddenly, things are happening between them, all kinds of things. So many things, I feel like I’m listening to a kid at camp describing a really good week.
“Her name is Doreen,” he says. “She’s a very cultured lady, well read, sociable, and very active. Also Jewish-minded, but not overbearing about it.”
They are going out together every night, he’s telling me, to concerts, movies, lectures, and dinners with each other’s friends. Better yet, she has been cooking for him, something he loves, not just because it saves him the expense of paying for their dinners, but because it gives him comfort to be eating homemade meals at a kitchen table.
“Her cooking is almost as good as Mom’s,” he says.
My mother’s cooking was anything but good. She was certainly not the gourmet my brother would have liked. That would entail spending money on fine ingredients and taking a more sophisticated approach to cuisine than is possible in a kosher, microwave-driven home. And like so many housewives of her time, she had the added onus of trying to cut back on both our sugar and cholesterol. My brother and I ended up snickering at recipes made with artificial ingredients of unknown provenance. Generic instead of name brands. Cyclamates instead of sugar. Diet margarine instead of butter. Artificially flavored gelatin and tubs of nondairy whipped cream that might have been better suited for waxing the station wagon. “Love Canal pie,” we dubbed one such dessert. Mom just laughed. “You two are such critics,” she said. We never gave much thought to how hard she worked on what she prepared. But my father loved everything she served him, which is not to say he didn’t doctor things once she placed them on the table. He poured salad dressing on her lasagna, applesauce on her casseroles, and had a handy bottle of artificial raspberry syrup for many of her well-meaning confections. I can still see him sitting at our round kitchen table, puppy-dog-happy with all there was to eat in his bowl.
“Step on his foot and he opens his mouth,” my mother used to cluck.
And now, he has finally found someone to feed him the same way. A Doreen. And I can tell it’s serious. There is none of the tentative quality i
n his voice he’s had with so many other women he’s fished up and tossed back this year. She cooks for him. He sings to her. They dance in the elevator. They are excited about New Year’s Eve tomorrow night, with plans to attend a synagogue dinner dance. This could finally be the one. But I want to know what we’re getting into here.
“I have a few questions,” I say.
“Of course,” he replies. “Be my guest. I’ll be happy to tell you what I know.”
I sit down on the window ledge, looking out over Manhattan as it falls into winter dusk. I’m holding a pencil and tapping it on a pad, as if I were a reporter on a crime case.
“Where does she live?”
“Her building is called the Seacrest. It’s south of the Lake Worth Bridge.”
“South? That’s not as nice as where you are. Is it a good building?”
“Very nice, on the ocean side. And she has a huge apartment.”
“Really? Ocean view?”
“No. Ground floor, a three-bedroom.”
“Ground floor? Oh. And where does she live in the summer?”
“She stays in Florida.”
“Really? She must not be so well off then, huh? And is she attractive?”
“Fair, not bad. She wears a wig, I think.”
“A wig? What is that, Orthodox?”
“No, she has some minor condition, not serious.”
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m not sold, Dad.”
“Why? She’s a lovely person with a good figure. And we’re having a ball. I don’t think I’ve been this thrilled with a woman since your mother was well.”
“Oh, really now!”
“I wish you wouldn’t be so cynical.”
“Me? Cynical?”
“Doreen isn’t perfect, but she’s perfect for me. Listen, it’s a decision to see how wonderful someone is, flaws and all. That’s what it takes to find a match. Love is a decision, Bobby. But what about you? Do you have a date for tomorrow night?”