No Relation

by Terry Fallis

  “And …?” she prompted.

  “Well, I’ve never really considered that there are other people out there living with what I’m living with. But of course there would be. I’ve never in my life encountered anyone who might really understand what it’s like. It would be interesting to meet a few, have a beer, and compare notes.”

  She paused for a moment in thought before responding.

  “Well, you never know, New York is a big city. By the way, are you still working on your little famous names classification system? What do you call it again?” she asked.

  “I think of it as a taxonomy. Yep, I’m still fiddling with it.”

  “Good for you. Sounds like an interesting project.”

  “Thanks for the time, Dr. Scott. Good session.”

  I always said “Good session” when we finished. It was my standard parting line. But it really had been a good session. A very good session.

  I was up from the subway on the final stretch along Bank Street to my apartment when my cellphone chirped.

  “Hello.”

  “Hi, Mr. Hemmingway, it’s Susan from the U OF C library and archives.”

  “Hi, Susan. You can call me Hem. Everybody else does. The ‘Mr.’ always makes me feel a little nervous.”

  “Sure, Hem. Thank you. I just wanted to follow up on my letter asking about any papers or personal effects you’d like to add to the Hemmingway Archive. It’s been a while since we’ve received any new material from the family. Don’t forget, it’s a tax-deductible donation.”

  “Right. I’m sorry, I meant to call you back,” I skated. “I’ve been, um, very busy the last few days. I’ve got nothing to contribute right now but I’ll certainly keep you posted. My sister is really into the family history. I’d give her a call.”

  “Yes, Sarah is in here quite often looking through the archive. I’ll ask her when she’s in next,” she said. “Oh, and I’m sorry about what you’re going through right now. Bye.”

  Great.

  When I got back home, I felt good. I wasn’t trying to, I just did. It was strange having your live-in girlfriend bolt and not be broken up about it. But I wasn’t. I ordered Chinese and tried for a while to work on the novel. Chapter 12. Nothing. No words. White screen, blinking cursor mocking me, Hemingway’s ghost somewhere nearby. Yes, I was quite sure.

  On the bright side, the apartment still looked great. Clean apartment = clean slate. In my mind’s ear, I could almost hear the cast of Annie belting out “Tomorrow.” While I brushed my teeth, I had a moment to wonder what it would be like to have pain-free hindquarters again, to be able to sit in a hard chair again, to sidestep a Broadway matinee lineup, accidentally bump my ass on a parking meter, and not yelp and tear up and bite a hole through my tongue. More Advil, then I went to bed, still on my stomach.

  It happened about six and a half hours later. I don’t know how it arrived. I just know that it arrived.

  CHAPTER 3

  It was still dark when I awoke. I wasn’t tired in the least, though I should have been. The garish orange digits next to me blared 4:32 a.m. In hindsight, there was no earth-shattering epiphany, no profound revelation. I’m not prone to such dramatic breakthroughs. It was really just a simple, solid, sound idea that seemed to arrive fully formed, along with a sentence I’d heard earlier.

  “Well, you never know, New York is a big city.”

  Yes, it is. Yes, it is.

  I turned it over in my mind for about an hour before getting up and wakening my laptop. I mapped out the idea. Fiddled with it. Made it bigger, made it smaller, then made it just right, I hoped. I took about half an hour finding the words for the ad, then copied and pasted them into the little box on the New York Times classified ads website. I chose the “New York Region only” option. I could always spread my net wider if this initial approach failed. Now I just needed a date, time, and location to complete the ad.

  Where to do it. A local church? No, not the vibe I was going for. A hotel? Kind of expensive, and it may not set the right tone. A bar? Tempting, but too many distractions, like beer, and karaoke … and beer. The boardroom at Macdonald-Clark? I could probably arrange it, but unless he was busy, it would probably mean seeing Bob again, and I just wasn’t up for that. (Bob busy? Good one.) So no go on the MC boardroom. Public library? Now we’re getting warmer, but still a tad restrictive, I thought. Where, where, where …

  I found myself stalled on location for about an hour as I explored different options. Then it suddenly came to me. The perfect solution. I cannot explain why it took me so long to think of it. I’m a member, after all. I went to the website and confirmed what I suspected. They were open very early in the morning to cater to the before-work crowd. After ransacking the apartment in search of my membership card, I finally dug it out from the drawer in the front hall table. I dusted it off and made the call. I hung up ten minutes later with a meeting room reserved for a couple of hours the following Thursday evening. It didn’t cost me a penny. Pays to be a member, even one with a dusty membership card.

  I flipped back to the NY Times classifieds site and added the final details. I plugged in my Visa card number and hit the big red button to make the buy. I considered a Facebook ad, and even composed a few options, but decided against it in the end. It was a fallback measure I wasn’t convinced I’d need. “New York is a big city.”

  I returned to the YouTube clip to scan the new comments added overnight. The rough one-in-twenty-five pattern that I’d identified the day before persisted. The total comment count had risen to nearly 315. Sprinkled among the 75 or so newly added venomous comments were three positive ones from, I’m not kidding here, Paul Revere, Clark Griswold, and one J. Garland. Very cool.

  I admit it. I was kind of excited. I felt like I suddenly had a new mission. Not a lofty, altruistic, philanthropic one. No, not so much. More like a self-interested purpose that might help a few other people similarly afflicted if everything went well. That was good enough for me.

  “Hey, big bro,” she said as she came through the door and gave me a stiff, almost perfunctory hug.

  As promised, she’d arrived just about eleven on the dot. She looked great, wearing jeans and what looked like might be a man’s button-down collar dress shirt. She’d always looked great, yet never ever gave off the impression that she knew or cared. I’d always liked her short hair, eschewing what Entertainment Tonight tells me is the current trend toward longer tresses.

  “Hi, Sarah. Safe flight?”

  “No, the landing gear jammed so we were forced into a belly-down skid on a runway of foam. There was fire everywhere. Luckily we came to rest near the taxi stand so I just zipped down the inflatable chute into a cab and here I am. That’s why I was a few minutes late,” she replied.

  She looked up and saw my face. I was still stuck on “belly-down skid.”

  “Hem, the flight was fine,” she said. “I always say something like that when people ask me that stupid question. If my flight hadn’t been safe, I wouldn’t have just walked through your door, now would I?”

  “Shit, Sarah, it’s just a figure of speech, a friendly, small-talk greeting very commonly directed to people who have just come from the airport. I wouldn’t say it’s stupid.”

  She headed for the kitchen and straight for the fridge.

  “Whatever. I’m here and I’m safe. Got beer?”

  “There’s Corona in the door, but it’s not even noon,” I reminded her.

  “Yeah, but I’ve been up since 5:15, Chicago time, so it feels like happy hour to me.”

  She popped the cap on a Corona and dropped into a chair. I was still kind of standing there in the centre of my own living room.

  “Hem, sit and tell me what the hell happened at the office yesterday. It sounds like you were royally screwed over.”

  She threw one leg up and over the arm of the chair, making herself very comfortable before taking a long draw on her beer. I tend to follow instructions when they’re forcefully delivered, e
xcept, apparently, at the DMV, so I sat down.

  “Well, it seems I overstayed my welcome at Macdonald-Clark. Idle Bob, the GM, let me go and …”

  “With cause or without?” she interrupted.

  “Without cause.”

  “What did they offer?”

  “I got a year’s severance.”

  “One year. Hmmm. When do you have to sign it back?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When do you have to sign back the separation agreement? Please tell me they had paperwork ready,” she said sitting forward.

  “Oh yes, they had the paperwork ready,” I replied. She resumed her relaxed position in the chair. “I signed it all yesterday.”

  She leapt to her feet and crossed the floor toward me with what looked like fratricide in her eyes. She towered over me and bellowed.

  “You what!? You didn’t! No you didn’t! You did not sign the agreement yesterday! You’re messing with me, right? You’re just waiting for your lawyer’s comments, right?”

  She wasn’t really tall enough to tower but that’s certainly how it felt.

  “The paperwork all seemed in order and a year’s salary seemed fair to me. In fact, it seemed generous,” I replied.

  “Did you even read the agreement?”

  “Well, I read a lot of it, partially.”

  “Did it include a section that precludes you from going back for more if you sign and take the money?”

  “Sarah, I’m eighteen inches from you. My deaf neighbour probably thinks you’re speaking to her.”

  “Sorry. Did it have that clause or didn’t it?” she asked in a voice that she dropped from earsplitting to loud.

  “I don’t remember much about the document after, um …”

  “After what?”

  “… after ‘This agreement lays out the terms of separation blah, blah …’ ” I said, looking at the carpet. Sarah exhaled like she might never take another breath.

  “Sarah, calm down. Bob said it was much more generous than the statutory requirement and that there was no point in negotiating or I’d only get what the legislation dictates,” I explained in my most reasonable voice.

  “That’s what Bob said, is it?”

  I nodded like a five-year-old on the time-out chair.

  “Hem, that’s what they always say. You’d worked there, what, fifteen years? Any lawyer worth her salt could probably have gotten you more. You should have stood up for yourself more. But it’s too late now. Next time, come to me. I can help on these things.”

  “I didn’t really like my job. They did me a favour.”

  She plopped back into her chair with a heavy sigh that conveyed “You’ve disappointed me” more effectively than the actual words ever could have.

  “Sarah, you know I’m not good at confrontation. You’ve cornered the family market on that. I get all queasy.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well, my stomach churns and I feel like I’m …”

  “Not that part! What do you mean I’ve cornered the family market on confrontation?” she said in her best confrontational voice.

  “I don’t know. You’re just so good at yelling at people. Shit, you’ve been hollering at me for a decade. You make me nervous. You intimidate me. I’m not even sure you like me.”

  “Of course I like you. You’re my big brother,” she yelled. “I love you the way younger sisters love their older brothers. You just infuriate the crap out of me sometimes, the way older brothers do.”

  “What have I ever done to infuriate you? Surely not reading my separation agreement and missing out on getting thirteen months’ salary rather than twelve isn’t infuriating. You can’t care that much about it. I certainly don’t care that much about it.”

  Sarah closed her eyes, then pressed and rubbed her face with both hands. She did this for about thirty seconds. That’s a long time when it passes in silence. I could hear her breathing.

  “You don’t get it yet, do you?” she started, this time in a soft voice that made it all the more compelling. I said nothing. “Look, Hem, I truly believe I was born to business. I got all of Dad’s business smarts and you got all of Mom’s caring, nurturing, artistic genes. All I’ve ever wanted is to make our company as competitive, profitable, and prosperous as it can possibly be. It’s all I want to do. I just want to impress Dad and work my way up to the top. There is so much more the company could be doing to cement our leadership in the market. But we’re just sitting back and waiting for shit to happen. In this climate, we need to be bold, and instead, we’re hanging on to those archaic founding principles. They’re holding us back and may lead us into a decline that could actually take us down if we’re not careful.”

  “So tell Dad. You have to get up in his grill and make your case. You should be great at that.”

  “Don’t you think I’ve tried that? I’ve tried to speak to him. When that didn’t work, I wrote a strategic plan that I don’t think he even read. He’s not going to listen to me. He never has. He’s not going to start now.”

  “Sarah, I know he’s tough to reach, but he’ll listen if you get him in the right setting, at the right moment, with the right message.”

  “No, Hem. You don’t understand. He won’t take it from me. He won’t,” she replied, looking sad and defeated.

  “But why won’t he?” I asked. She raised her eyes to me. Sad and defeated gave way to something else more akin to fury.

  “Christ, Hem, are you that blind? I can’t get through to Dad because I don’t have a fucking penis and I’m not the fucking first-born son!”

  Don’t ask a question if you really don’t want to hear the answer. We sat there and looked at each other for a time. And then, as if to match her eloquent and powerful declaration, and then raise it, I dug deep into my intellectual and oratorical reserves and countered with carefully chosen words, delivered with passion and gravitas in the awkward air between us.

  “Well, that’s certainly a charming and elegant synopsis of the situation.”

  See what I mean? I’m not good at confrontation.

  “That’s all you’ve got?” she said, sighing.

  “Well, that’s all I’ve got right now. I’m sure I’ll have more later.”

  “Right. And for the record, I stopped worrying about being charming and elegant a long time ago.”

  “Even if what you say is true, do you have to yell at me all the time?” I asked.

  “I’m sorry, it just boils my blood that your destiny is to run the company yet you want no part of it, while I want nothing else but can never have it. It’s such a cruel joke. Dad really wants you back to honour his precious family tradition. You won’t come back, but I’m right there. I’m just down the hall, his own flesh and blood!”

  She paused again, but not for long.

  “He barely acknowledges my existence, let alone my work! I get a nod in the corridor if I’m lucky. It’s bizarre. So yes, I’m bitter. I’m angry,” she said before softening. “That’s why I get pissed off with you. You have the opportunity and you have the choice. I have neither. I know it’s not your fault. I know you shouldn’t have to be someone you aren’t, and take on a role you don’t want. No one should have to do that. I also know you’re not trying to infuriate me. But in the end, you have something I desperately want. So you get caught in my crossfire. I’m sorry.”

  “If this is driving you insane, and from my seat it seems to be, why don’t you just leave, come to New York, and get a job here? You could do anything you want in this town.”

  “But I don’t want to leave. I love the company. I love the idea of family tradition. I actually think it’s important. I just don’t want the tradition to be quite so rigid. I want to change it up a bit.”

  “Well, I never thought I’d ever say this, but believe me, I truly wish you had been born first and had, you know, a penis,” I stammered. “I need a beer.” I got up and headed for the kitchen.

  Really, this was no revela
tion, no blinding insight. Deep down, I guess I knew.

  This great family conflict had always swirled and flowed just below the surface, only occasionally bubbling up into the open air. As the years passed, I came to believe that we might even escape a cataclysmic eruption. I should have known better. Like the good folks of Pompeii all those years ago, I was surprised when the blowout hit me in my own living room on just another average day. It’s not that I hadn’t seen it coming. I’d just always chosen to look right through it.

  “So what the hell happened with you and Jenn?” she shouted from the living room.

  I carried two beers back into the living room and handed one to Sarah.

  “In the last twenty-four hours, I’ve come to think of it as a good thing,” I said. “I may not yet have a lot of perspective on it, but it is instructive that I haven’t really thought much about her since she left. And I can’t say I really miss her that much. It’s strange. It seems we’d just been going through the motions for the last couple of years.”

  Sarah looked perplexed and annoyed at the same time.

  “What a colossal waste of time. Why didn’t you break it off when it first started to go stale?”

  “Sarah, not everyone is born as decisive and direct as you were.”

  “Hey, I wasn’t born this way. This crazy family made me like this,” she said and then pointed at me. “You made me like this!”

  “You’re welcome,” I replied. She smiled. “But I think you were born with all the drive, conviction, and tenacity you carry around with you. I think it’s been in you from the very beginning.”

  We sat there in silence for a while. It was overcast, but light still angled in through the window, the shadows of leafy tree limbs floating on the hardwood floor.

  “I’ll never forget the day you came home from the hospital. I had a hard time wrapping my head around the arrival of a new baby sister. You were tiny in my arms. Even by thirteen, I’d already done a lot of growing. I was a big kid. But my clearest memory was of just how beautiful you were.”

  “What a shock I must have been to Mom and Dad,” she said. “Imagine. You’re minding your own business, running a company and running a home, living your life, and suddenly, thirteen years after the family heir is born, I land. The accident. The afterthought.”