Numbly, I watch my father behave in a way I’ve seldom seen. I’m riveted by how unfamiliar he seems to me and I can’t look away, even though his loopy expression makes me feel a little queasy. He’s grinning so wide, he looks positively goofy. He calls her “Dr. Mary,” as in “Dr. Mary and I both loved the New Haven Symphony’s season,” and in response she laughs and rolls her eyes.
“It’s so embarrassing when he calls me that, isn’t it, Frances?” she says, winking at me conspiratorially from across the candlelit table. “Like I’m one of those radio call-in hosts who isn’t really a doctor?”
“Actually, it’s just Franny,” I say, and my voice sounds strangely cold.
“Of course! So sorry. I knew that. I guess I’m a little nervous to finally meet you,” she admits shyly, and my father gazes at her, delighted.
Dinner arrives, and I finally manage to sputter out a few sentences as I pick at my burger. The Finnegans always have a barbecue instead of a caterer, and usually I love how homey and informal and comforting the food is, but tonight I’ve lost my appetite.
“Would you like to dance with me?” Dan asks, once the dinner plates are cleared and the cake has been served, and though normally I wouldn’t want to dance, at least not to this slow song, I’m relieved to have an excuse to get up from the table.
“Yes, please,” I say, and Dan takes my hand, guiding me smoothly to the dance floor.
From the start, it’s obvious he can dance—that he can really dance. His lead is gentle but confident, and it almost makes me look like I know what I’m doing, too.
“Cotillion,” he says, before I can ask. And then, “You okay, Franny?”
“I’m fine,” I say. “I don’t know why I’m acting so weird. It’s just—Dr. Mary? It’s so cute. Cute is the one thing I never thought my father would suffer from.”
“He seems happy, though.”
“I know. He does. And of course I want him to be. He’s just never brought someone to a family thing before.”
“I understand,” Dan says, pulling me a little closer so I can hear him over the music.
It’s the perfect thing to say, and I lean my head on his shoulder, grateful not to have to explain myself further.
My cousin Katie makes her way across the dance floor, hand in hand with her new husband. She’s still in her wedding gown, but has traded her heels for high-top sneakers more comfortable for dancing. She hugs everyone as she passes, and her groom shakes hands, and sometimes they join in to dance with some of the couples on the floor. When she spots me, she leaves his side for a moment, reaching out to grab my hand and putting her arm around Dan.
“Your boyfriend’s so cute!” she squeals. “I didn’t get a good look at him before.”
“He’s my roommate, Katie,” I say emphatically, not looking at Dan. “I told you, my boyfriend had to work. You looked beautiful today, by the way.”
“Yes,” Dan says. “Beautiful ceremony, too.”
“Thanks, Fran. Thanks, Roommate.” Katie raises her eyebrows at Dan and looks him up and down. “You’re a good dancer,” she says, a gleam in her eye.
“Thank you,” he says, with a funny little bow.
“But this Sinatra stuff they’re playing now, this is just the warm-up, you know.”
“I’ve been informed about the upcoming mandatory dance party, yes,” he says formally, but grinning a little.
“Good, ’cause the DJ takes over after dinner, and this place is gonna get ugly,” Katie says. “After the old people leave, there’ll be real music. And by real, I mean old music, and new music, and horrible, shitty music. We don’t care, as long as you can dance to it. We’re gonna Macarena this thing if we have to, to keep this party going. The Macarena—that’s how low we’re gonna go. You’re not too good for that, are you, Roommate, with your fancy dance moves?”
“Certainly not,” says Dan, with pride.
“I like him,” Katie says to me. “You’re sure he’s not your boyfriend?”
“Ha, ha,” I say, and even though I’m sure, I’m glad she approves of the first-ever person I’ve brought home since Clark.
After she leaves, Dan and I continue to dance, swaying back and forth without saying anything. It’s strangely comfortable, this not talking. In my heels, his shoulders are the perfect height to rest my arms on. I can just see over him to where the light has faded outside, and the little fairy lights inside the tent are beginning to glow, making everything feel magical and warm.
“So, why do you have a tuxedo?” it occurs to me to ask, tipping my head back to look up at him.
“Well, ah, we had to have one. For my college a cappella group.”
“No!” I say, taking a step back, trying to picture what Dan would look like in a line of tuxedoed college boys, bobbing merrily in unison.
“Yes,” he says proudly.
“Really? You sang in one of those groups?”
“Yes. Is that so hard to picture?”
“It’s—surprising, I guess. I’ve never even heard you hum. And don’t you have to, like, do backup singer—type choreography and sing all that barbershop stuff?”
“We weren’t a typical group like that. We made unusual selections, musically speaking. We did some parodies, which were well received. We actually got the chance to …”
“What?”
“Well, we got the chance to appear on The Tonight Show.”
“What! The Tonight Show? Why haven’t you ever told me that before?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Dan says, hanging his head a bit. “I didn’t want to brag, I guess.”
I want to tease him for not telling me, for keeping a secret like this, but there’s something about how humble he is in this moment—his looking embarrassed to have drawn attention to himself—that makes my heart swell.
“I hope I can see it someday,” I say, and I can see him blush.
“The thing is, it turned into a bit of a sore spot. Within the family.”
“How is that possible?”
“Well, my father’s side has been going to Princeton for three generations, and there have been certain, well, expectations. I’m the first to defy some of them.”
“They considered appearing on The Tonight Show a form of defiance?”
“It was considered a distraction from my studies, artistic nonsense, you know,” he says bitterly. “Later, when I announced I wanted to write, my father blamed it on the group somewhat, as if one creative endeavor had somehow opened a floodgate to them all. But studying to be a doctor, as the generations before me did, well, that wasn’t for me. Right before we appeared on the show, I announced to my father I was dropping out of pre-med to be a screenwriter. The idea of writing movies for a living—never mind the subjects that I’ve chosen to write about—well, that’s been a little bit difficult for them, for the family. I’m actually somewhat of a disappointment to them, it seems. My father cut me out of my trust fund and never saw the show.”
“But how do you …”
“How do I live?”
“Well, yes.”
“I have a small inheritance from a great-uncle who always wanted to be a painter. When it runs out, I’ll get a regular job, I guess. Or go crawling back to my father, which would probably mean going back to school to be a doctor.”
“So, you’re on a deadline, too!”
He smiles. “I suppose we have that in common, yes.”
I picture Dan at the dining room table back in Brooklyn, poring over his notebooks and computer every day, eating the same cheap chicken plate from the same horrible place, nursing one beer each night that he’s afraid to put on the coffee table, and the thought of him being made to feel that anyone is disappointed in him shifts something inside of me. I can almost hear it, a sound both sharp and soft, like a piece of heavy paper being ripped out of a notepad, and all of a sudden I feel overwhelming respect for Dan. I care about him, but it’s more than that—I’m proud of him, too.
It’s a relief to recognize th
at these feelings are nothing at all like my feelings for James. With James there’s heat—it’s exciting to be with him. My feelings for Dan are more like a warm glow, like the lights in the tent, and similarly contained. He’s a good person, I think.
That’s all.
Later, somewhere between “Whoomp There It Is” and “I Saw the Sign,” my father and Dr. Mary come over to say goodbye. They’re gleaming with sweat, and with the low lights and his flushed cheeks, my father looks like he could be thirty again. Suddenly, I’m terribly sorry for how I’ve behaved, and I wish I could go back and replay the whole evening, getting to know her better, and in general inserting a better version of myself into the picture.
“No, don’t go!” I say to them both, clasping Dr. Mary’s hand in mine.
“We have to,” my dad says, somewhat out of breath.
“It was so nice to finally meet you,” Dr. Mary says, bringing her face closer to mine. “I hope we can see you again, very soon.”
“Me, too,” I say. And I realize that I mean it.
The next two hours fly by as Dan and I dance to every silly song the DJ plays. Somewhere around the B-52s’ “Rock Lobster,” I can feel my legs have turned to jelly.
“I don’t think I have anything left,” I say to Dan, a little breathlessly.
“Thank God,” he says. “I’m soaked.”
“We’ll have to sneak out,” I yell to him over the blaring music. “If Katie sees us, we’re toast.”
“Okay,” he says with a grin, up for the challenge. “You break right, I’ll duck left, and I’ll meet you outside.”
We get lucky when “This Is How We Do It” comes on and the dance floor floods with the remaining guests. At our empty table, still littered with cake crumbs, I grab the vintage clutch I borrowed from Jane, then slip out the front door of the tent, trying to assume the nonchalant look of someone who isn’t leaving, only going out for a breath of air. Outside the tent, the night is impossibly dark and I blink a few times, disoriented, trying to get my eyes to adjust.
“Pssst,” Dan says from behind a tree on the lawn. I catch the moon’s reflection on the ocean, lighting the way to the beach.
“Run!” I whisper, and I take off, suddenly giddy and giggling uncontrollably.
I reach the sand well before Dan, and I kick off my shoes and catch my breath, lulled by the sound of the waves softly kissing the shore. The motel where we’re staying is just half a mile down the beach, close enough to see from here. I hardly paid attention to the room when we checked in—we only had time to dump our things on the beds and change quickly before the wedding. But now I see the motel’s softly glowing neon sign and the images come to me: the small room, the two beds that seemed uncomfortably close together, the bathroom we’ll share, the decisions we’ll have to make about brushing our teeth and who showers first.
“Franny?” Dan has somehow crept up behind me without my noticing. It’s too dark to see him exactly, but I can tell he’s close and my heart beats faster. My dress is damp from the dancing, and now there’s a breeze from the sea that sends a chill through my body. I have a feeling that he’s about to kiss me, and I start to shiver. I can’t let that happen, no matter what. It would mislead him—I have feelings for him only as a friend. But I’m paralyzed in this spot on the beach for some reason, powerless to move away from him.
I can’t see Dan well enough to read his expression, and I can’t summon the words to explain to him how I’m feeling, and now there he is, a step closer, close enough for me to smell the beer on his breath. He takes my hand in his and holds it to his chest so I can feel his heart beat, and then he steps even closer, so close he towers above me, just inches away, his body sheltering me from the breeze. But I can’t let it happen; I don’t want anything to happen to change things between us, although in a way I do.
“Don’t,” I say too sharply, and Dan freezes.
“Don’t,” I say again, unnecessarily, since neither of us has moved.
And so we simply stand there, for I don’t know how long, completely still, with only the sound of the ocean and the beating of Dan’s heart against my hand.
26
That night in the hotel I lay awake staring at the ceiling, irrationally irritated by the sound of Dan’s snoring, as if his ability to sleep when I can’t is intentional, his snoring a deliberate intrusion, keeping me awake another boundary he’s recklessly disregarding.
The next morning is even worse. Dan insists on paying for the room, a gesture that annoys me for some reason, and while I wait for him to check out, I grab a local paper from the stack on the worn coffee table in the motel lobby for protection. I’ll read this in the car to avoid having to talk, I think to myself. But once we’re on the road I realize it’s one of those free papers that have a single two-paragraph story about a high school teacher’s retirement, and about thirty-two pages of ads and classifieds. Still, it’s the only armor I have against holding an actual conversation, so I pretend it’s the most compelling read ever, almost convincing even myself. I’m so engrossed in surveying the details of the Angelo’s Pizza two-for-one coupon for the tenth time that I practically jump when I hear Dan’s voice.
“The traffic’s so bad, it looks like Russia, don’t you think?” he says, glancing over at me.
What am I supposed to say to that? I already told him I’ve never even been to London. Why would he think I’ve been to Russia, of all places? He’s just showing off his fancy education, and his tuxedo and the dumb a cappella group he mistakenly thinks is cool.
“You would know better than I,” I say, stiffly.
“Huh?” he says, sounding genuinely confused.
“I’ve never been.”
“You’ve never been where?”
“I’ve never been to Russia,” I say too loudly. “So I wouldn’t know what the traffic is like.”
He tries to hide his smile, but fails miserably. “ ‘It looks like rush hour,’ I said.”
“Oh,” I reply in a small voice, and return to pretending to read.
James eventually called from L.A. and got his super to open his apartment and I retrieved my purse, Jane started work on a new movie starring Julia Hampton, and Dan and I spent the days wandering our respective floors of the apartment, separately restless. I could hear his footsteps pacing on the creaky floor below, could hear him open the refrigerator, could imagine him hovering in front of it, staring absently into its emptiness as if some new contents might suddenly have appeared since the last time he looked.
I come down the narrow staircase softly, not wanting to disturb him. I’m planning to take a walk, to leave another application at another restaurant, to go somewhere, anywhere.
“I’m blocked and unable to write,” he calls, from his usual place at the dining room table, hardly looking up from the computer screen.
“I’m agentless and unable to find employment,” I say from the bottom stair.
“Want to go to the movies?”
“Sure,” I say, and he closes his laptop with a thwack.
We leave the house without looking in the paper or calling ahead. The sun is shining and the tops of the trees in Prospect Park have turned bright green. We walk down toward Atlantic Avenue, our sneakers making no sound on the pavement. The bustling street in front of the theater is another world away from our sleepy neighborhood—full of commuters coming from the buses and subways, and shoppers flooding the discount stores. Only one movie fits our timing—a romantic comedy starring Cordelia Biscayne as a popular wedding photographer unlucky in love.
“Capturing Kate?” I say doubtfully.
“I hear she can capture love on film, but in real life she’s underdeveloped,” he says drily, reading from the advertising poster by the ticket booth.
I usually like these kinds of light Cordelia Biscayne movies—better than the ones where she’s bravely defending a wrongly accused criminal, or bravely fighting a losing battle with an obscure disease—but nothing about Capturing Kate rings true
for me today. In the story, Kate is torn between two men: a handsome, slick, wealthy Manhattan art dealer who wants to make her famous and take her to parties, and an even more handsome but much more kind and unassuming photographer who works in the darkroom, who wants her to travel to third-world countries with him and be a photojournalist. After it’s over and she picks the guy you knew she would pick all along, the movie finishes with a cute photomontage of the pictures they take of each other in exotic places. I sigh in the dark theater.
On the walk back home, I’m feeling off. My head hurts from the giant diet soda I chugged and my eyes haven’t yet adjusted to being back in the sunlight. Dan seems unburdened, happy, and says he actually enjoyed the film.
“I can’t believe you liked it,” I say, hugging my arms around myself even though it isn’t cold out.
“Why, because I’m a guy?”
“No, because it was so dumb. It wasn’t even well written.”
“I thought some of the dialogue was pretty sharp, actually. A real-sounding romantic relationship is the hardest thing to write.” He lumbers along, face turned up to feel the sun, hands stuffed in his pockets.
“But the relationships didn’t sound real. That love triangle. So unrealistic! She’s choosing between a rich jerk and a good guy who seems to be poor, but eventually turns out to be rich, too. That took two hours to figure out? I mean, the whole ‘love triangle’ thing bothers me. Who even thought of that? I’ve never been in a love triangle. Especially one where the girl is torn between the obviously right guy played by the more famous actor and the obviously hideously wrong guy played by the slightly less famous actor. And also, why does the heroine always have a sassy best friend? And why is she always a brunette?”
“Um, Franny, you have a sassy best friend who’s a brunette.”
“Wrong. I’m her sassy best friend who’s a brunette.”
Someday, Someday, Maybe: A Novel Page 24