A Changed Man

by Francine Prose

  Bonnie feels Danny’s disappointment. She wishes she could be more reassuring. But since when is she the expert on Vincent’s future plans? Obviously, and in more ways than she wants Danny to know, she’s already proved how good she is at misreading Vincent completely.

  “Want to hear something strange?” asks Bonnie.

  “What?” Plainly, Danny couldn’t be less interested in hearing something strange.

  “I keep thinking about that dog that you kids and your dad got at the mall. About those nights after it ran away, when I’d listen for it to come home.”

  Lately, Danny’s acted as if any mention of his childhood is a weapon Bonnie’s using against him. Trying to infantilize him, or, alternately, kill him with boredom. But now he turns to her and says, with genuine astonishment, “That is so fucking awesome!”

  “Language!” says Bonnie. “What’s awesome?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that, too. Dee dee dee dee…” Danny hums the theme from The Twilight Zone.

  How young and innocent Danny still is, to see every coincidence as a supernatural occurrence. First kids believe in Santa Claus, then in the paranormal. When did Bonnie quit believing? Bonnie is still a believer. She believes in Meyer. She believes in the foundation and its goals. She believes that just wanting to do good means, in and of itself, that you are diminishing the quantity of evil in the world. She believes that Vincent became a better person when he lived with her and her children and worked for Brotherhood Watch.

  “You know,” she says, “when you were little, you read my mind all the time. I’d be driving you somewhere in the car, and I’d think something—and, out of nowhere, you’d say it.”

  It happened. Bonnie knows it did. The fact that she remembers means that time is not lost. Those years existed and still exist. Their lives coincided and overlapped. This person began life inside her. No one else could be closer. Bonnie concentrates on the road, partly so they won’t get killed, and partly so as not to burden Danny with the gummy intensity of her emotions.

  “How old was I?” asks Danny.

  “Seven, eight. Maybe older.”

  “What did I mind-read?” asks Danny. “What kind of stuff did I pick up on?”

  Bonnie thinks for a long time. “Gosh, you know, I can’t remember.”

  “Great,” says Danny.

  “You know what I do remember? How guilty I felt about the dog, because I’d been annoyed at your dad for buying this obviously deranged puppy from the mall. As if the whole point was to annoy me. And then when it ran away, and I saw how sad you were…”

  “Dad liked to annoy you,” Danny says.

  “Did he?” says Bonnie. “Really?” Why did she think she was paranoid for suspecting what even a child could see?

  Max says, “I remember that dog.”

  “How could you? You were hardly born,” says Danny.

  “I was too born,” says Max. “Moron.”

  “Shut up,” Danny says.

  “Was I or was I not born yet?” Max says.

  “Of course you were born,” says Bonnie.

  “I’ve been thinking about that dog,” Max says.

  Danny says, “That is strange.”

  “Why?” says Bonnie. “We’re a family. We went through stuff together. We should be thinking the same things.”

  Not even Max wants to be thinking the same things as his mother.

  “All right,” Bonnie says. “Look. The dog is the last thing that ran away. Till now. First the dog and now Vincent.”

  Their father doesn’t count. They knew in advance he was leaving, though it was like any slow death, shocking when at last it occurred.

  “But you know,” says Bonnie, “I’m not sure it’s fair to connect Vincent with a dog raised in such a way that it couldn’t interact with humans.” Bonnie doesn’t want them knowing that she lies awake listening for Vincent’s return. The question she wants to ask her sons is: Do they think he’ll come back?

  “You can drop us off here,” Danny says.

  “We’re two blocks from the school,” Bonnie says.

  “That’s okay,” says Danny. “You can drop us here. We can walk.”

  Both boys jump out of the car.

  “See you later. Love you,” she says.

  “See you,” says Danny.

  “Good luck,” says Max.

  “Retards say good luck,” Danny says.

  “What do you say?” Max asks him.

  “Break a leg,” says Danny.

  “So break a leg,” Max tells Bonnie.

  “I hope not,” Bonnie says.

  “Don’t tell her that,” Danny instructs Max. “Now she’ll worry that she’s going to break a leg.” And then, miracle of miracles, Danny smiles at Bonnie.

  Bonnie smiles back. “Love you,” she says.

  “Love you, too,” says Max.

  “Go ahead, Mom,” says Danny. “It’s okay. You can get there before us.”

  Bonnie has a sudden desire to make the kids get back in the car and drive on without stopping. No graduation speeches, no office, no work, no going back to the house. No missing Vincent. Hit the highway, start over. The new American dream. The spirited wacky single mom, taking the kids on the road, the quirky impossible heroine of so many novels and films. But ultimately they would have to stop, and what would they do then? Bonnie’s having Vincent’s fantasy. He’s never coming back.

  As Bonnie pulls away from the curb, her eyes fill. She’s been on the edge of tears ever since she woke up. She knows what lies ahead of her. Everyone cries at graduations. The tears per person ratio is probably higher than at weddings, about which there are usually more mixed feelings. Maybe it’s the spectacle of all those young people leaving school without a clue to the future or to the dog-eat-dog world they’re so eager to enter.

  Maybe no one will think it’s odd if Bonnie bursts into racking sobs in the middle of her speech. She can blame it on “Pomp and Circumstance.” She can say it’s a Pavlovian thing. The song has made her cry ever since her own sixth-grade graduation. What sensible person wouldn’t cry? Whose crazy idea was it to spin graduation as marking a new beginning? Even in sixth grade she knew that she would never see sixth grade again. She’d been so overcome by grief they’d practically had to carry her out of her grade-school auditorium. The fact that “Pomp and Circumstance” goes straight to her tear ducts in a way that “The Wedding March” never has should have told her something before she got married.

  Bonnie’s already miserable, and she hasn’t even parked. Each sorrow piles on another, a layer for Vincent’s absence, another for how she has failed her kids. Another layer for how her life has gone, her broken marriage, how old she’s grown, how much she misses her parents. Layer upon layer, weighing on her heart…No need to “share” that with the graduates! It will be traumatic enough for Danny if Bonnie sticks to what they worked out. But how will she get through the part where she apologizes for Vincent’s absence? Something came up. He’s home with the flu. The guy left town for a while.

  The truth? Roberta would kill her. They don’t want that news getting out. Vincent might still come back, and it’s hardly going to do the foundation a favor if their donors think they’re supporting a program designed around a here-today, gone-tomorrow Changed Man instead of the steady, dependable Changed Man they all admire so much.

  For one blessed moment, Bonnie accepts it all. She appreciates what Vincent’s done. She’s satisfied with that. They never asked for a lifetime commitment. A moment later, she feels crazy. She needs to see him. At once. So much is still unresolved. Was there anything between them? Could she have fallen in love with him and somehow not have noticed?

  She can’t get used to his absence. It’s like a death. Except that no one’s dead. She hopes. The fact that he packed his duffel bag and straightened up his room put an end to Bonnie’s fear that a hit squad from ARM might have kidnapped him when he stepped outside the Chandler studio for a breath of air. Nazi thugs don’t drive
you to Clairmont and wait while you make your bed. Unless, of course, they waited while Vincent got the money and drugs that Raymond claimed he stole. Was Raymond telling the truth? She’d never thought that Vincent was on drugs. And he stole nothing from her and the kids. Which either meant he was never a thief, or that he had changed, after all.

  So another man left her. Leaving after a few months and one clumsy mistake of a kiss is nothing compared to bailing after thirteen years of marriage and two kids. So why should she feel worse about this than she did about Joel? Because Joel was about the past, and Vincent seemed like the future. A future with Vincent Nolan? Bonnie needs therapy. Now.

  She can say that Vincent has gone on a retreat. She can start her speech that way. Sometimes you need a break from your life to see where your life is going. That wouldn’t be a total lie. It’s true. The guy has retreated.

  Bonnie takes the last parking space in the faculty lot. Go ahead, let them tow her. As she introduces herself to the guard at the door, she sees, standing beyond him, an angelic blond girl in a white satin dress. The girl spots Bonnie and steps forward and gives her a single red rose.

  “I’m…” Bonnie misses the girl’s name. She’s been sent to meet her and take her to Mr. Armstrong’s office. Bonnie’s getting the VIP treatment. Already she’s choked up. Why didn’t she have a daughter? Why didn’t she have more children? She wishes she had a toddler who still loved to cuddle. Why should Joel be the one to get the Bulgarian baby?

  Bonnie and her beatific escort weave through the crowd of kids converting their discomfort at seeing each other in caps and gowns into manic activity and squawks of raucous laughter. Bonnie has never felt so alone. How different this would be if Vincent—or Max and Danny—were with her.

  Bonnie’s precisely on time, so why are Linda Graber and David Armstrong waiting for her in the hall, peering down the corridor like sailors looking for land? From a distance Bonnie can see on their faces an expression she knows all too well, the taut desperation of longing to see a particular person.

  “Great to see you!” David Armstrong kisses her cheek as if they’re old friends. In fact, the first time they spoke was when he called to strong-arm her into this. Bonnie only knows who he is from seeing him at PTA meetings at which his main function seemed to be leading the parents in a round of applause for the terrific job the teachers are doing. Armstrong reminds Bonnie of a clean-cut, bespectacled, 1950s game-show host.

  “Great to see you, Bonnie. Really great.”

  “Welcome.” Linda Graber shakes Bonnie’s hand. “We’re so happy you could be here. I so admire what you do, and what I respect even more is that you’re still doing it. Most people would have burned out by now.” Is Linda implying that Bonnie’s stuck in a job that anyone but a masochist would have quit ages ago?

  “I guess the same could be said for what you do.” So instantly, instinctively, Bonnie and Linda have fallen into that special relationship you have with a teacher who doesn’t much like your kid, a relationship that Bonnie has had with too many of Danny’s teachers. Now she tries not to stare at the moles on Linda’s neck and chest, above the Frida Kahlo shawl that goes with the center-parted, rolled-up dark hair.

  “May I ask…where’s Mr. Nolan?” Smiling rigidly, David Armstrong peers over Bonnie’s shoulder, as if Vincent’s absence is a childish prank that Bonnie will soon tire of.

  “I don’t know,” she says. “I honestly don’t know if he’s going to be here or not.”

  That’s all the raw material Armstrong needs from which to manufacture shock and disappointment. How could Bonnie not know? Obviously, she’s lying. Or making excuses.

  And she is lying. Mostly. She’s ninety-nine percent certain that Vincent is not going to show up. But there is that one percent of her that almost dares to imagine that this could turn out to be like some cheap Hollywood romance. At the very last minute, Vincent will come through. He knows when and where graduation is. She’ll look up and see him at the back of the auditorium. And she’ll know that he has decided. Chosen Brotherhood Watch. Chosen her.

  How depressing that her fantasies have regressed back to that scene in which Dustin Hoffman appears at the back of the church in The Graduate. But Vincent’s appearing would mean more than that. This is not about some confused rich kid having sequential affairs with a woman and her daughter. If the miracle happens, if Vincent comes, hundreds of young people will witness someone choosing good over evil. They will remember it all their lives. It will be more like a religious event than a high-school graduation. Except that only Bonnie and Danny will know what it really means. Everyone else will just assume the ex-Nazi showed up late.

  Why is Bonnie fooling herself? Vincent isn’t coming.

  “Where is he?” echoes Linda. Didn’t they see Chandler? Are they so eager to have a speaker who just trashed his cousin on TV? But that’s not what they saw at all. They saw Vincent protecting Meyer.

  Vincent didn’t care what anyone thought. He was punching out his past. Bonnie doesn’t believe in violence. But is one guy hitting another guy really the end of the world? Raymond parked in her driveway and terrified her child. Raymond came after Meyer. It’s not that Raymond deserved to be hit. But he wasn’t exactly blameless.

  On the drive home from Chandler, Danny finally told Bonnie about finding Raymond in the driveway. Bonnie was as frightened as if it were occurring right then.

  “And you didn’t tell anyone?” she said.

  “I did,” Danny said. “I told Vincent.”

  Both boys were jacked up and babbling, saying more than they meant to. “Fucking Raymond,” Danny said.

  Bonnie let the language go. Danny was right. Fucking Raymond. It was Raymond’s fault that she and her boys were going through this. No one told him to come to the show. If he hadn’t spoiled it, it would have been a great program, a whole hour about Meyer and Vincent and the foundation. Vincent would have gone home with them. They would have been celebrating….

  Graber and Armstrong are waiting for her to say something. “I know that Vincent knows when graduation is. He was looking forward to doing this.” It’s all she can say. And all they can handle. Meanwhile they’ll settle for Bonnie, who is at least physically here. Against formidable odds, they have found an acceptable last-minute replacement, a speaker who is not being indicted on child pornography charges. One speaker will have to do. They’ll let her explain to the crowd that the celebrity former skinhead canceled at the last minute. Not that the crowd much cares. The students want their diplomas. And the parents would just as soon not hear from a guy who could spoil this happy occasion by bringing up subjects like hate.

  Once again, tears threaten. Bonnie swallows hard. She’d rather not break down in front of Linda Graber and David Armstrong.

  “We really appreciate this,” Linda says.

  “It’s a pleasure,” says Bonnie.

  “You never know,” says Dave, confidentially. “This could work both ways. Some of these kids have very wealthy parents looking for a tax-deductible charity.”

  What a vulgar, awful man, making this about money! Rather than what it’s really about, which is flat-out blackmail. Instead of struggling over Danny’s paper, which is what she should be doing, Bonnie’s taking the easy way out, pulling strings for her kid, which hardly puts her in the best position to tell Dave Armstrong to go to hell for suggesting that she shake down the wealthier parents. Besides which, Bonnie will accept any donations the parents want to make. It’s not for her. It’s for Meyer’s work. Whatever that is now.

  Lately, Meyer has been talking about going on a series of solo fact-finding missions to Turkey and the Middle East. By now it’s reflexive for Bonnie to encourage Meyer, partly because his ideas are often so marvelous and surprising. Secretly, she’s terrified by the thought of him jetting into some hostile outpost and relying on charm to protect him.

  It’s admirable that a man of Meyer’s age would have the courage and the integrity to leave his comfortable life and
see, up close and personal, what his fellow humans suffer. How inspiring that someone who has achieved what he has achieved should push himself, should ask more of himself. He is a saint. An angel. Of course, he has his flaws. But all told, he is a good man, a man who is trying to do good.

  Unlike selfish Bonnie, who can’t help wondering: What do Meyer’s plans mean for her? Meyer sounds as if he means to spend the rest of his life on the road, bouncing from one scary airport, one filthy jail cell, one torture chamber to another. Yesterday, he told Bonnie that Irene had accused him of wanting to wander off and stage a theatrical public death, like Tolstoy’s last hours in the deserted railway station. And Meyer had told Irene: What’s good enough for Tolstoy is good enough for me.

  But what about the foundation? Without Meyer, it will be nothing. Everyone is leaving. First Vincent and now Meyer. Meyer isn’t a young man. This can’t be good for his health.

  Just then, an air raid signal goes off.

  Linda squeezes her eyes shut. Dave chuckles.

  “Don’t panic,” Dave says. “It’s the first warning before assembly.”

  “Euphonious, isn’t it?” Linda says.

  “What do they need to be warned about?” asks Bonnie.

  “Us,” says Linda.

  “Heh-heh,” says Dave.

  “Tardiness,” says Linda.

  The brain-frying buzzer sounds again. Danny listens to this all day. No wonder annoying is the most common word in his vocabulary. This buzzer is constantly interrupting his thoughts, his daydreams, anything he might be learning. Naturally, the kids come home wanting only to gobble chips in front of the TV and be numbed out by its soothing drone. How could Bonnie have not heard the sound track of her children’s days? It’s only a buzzer. She’s got to relax if she plans to get up onstage and talk. Suddenly unable to recall one sentence she planned to say, Bonnie struggles against a sudden urge to sit on the floor and put her head between her knees.

  “Are you all right?” asks Dave.

  “I’m fine,” says Bonnie.

  “Nervous?” says Linda Graber.