Across from the television was a collection of boxes that hadn’t been there when I lived at home. I opened the first to find Chase’s schoolwork and report cards. I didn’t need to look at these to remember that they were mostly As, the exception being the C he got from his tenth grade history teacher, “that maggot” Mr. Olafsson, and the Bs he would always get in Art because he thought it was “silly.”
In the second box, I found a bunch of my papers, mostly high school stuff. It was difficult to place archival value on ancient trigonometry tests and a book report on The Man Who Fell to Earth, but I’m sure my mother didn’t know which of these things would be meaningful to me and which wouldn’t. There was my speech after I became sophomore class president. Did I really say things like “We can make the future ours” and “This school can only do for us what we let it do for us,” or did I more effectively edit myself when I actually delivered it? I remember a lot of applause, so perhaps there was one further draft that didn’t make it into this box.
Under a few more quizzes was my acceptance letter to Emerson. I’d applied to three other schools and gotten accepted to all of them, but this was the one I wanted. The letter came a full two weeks after the last of the others, but I refused to consider the option of Ann Arbor or College Park or Syracuse. Emerson was small, it was progressive, it had one of the best communications programs in the country, and it was in a city I loved. The day I received it, Chase talked some guy outside of a liquor store into buying a bottle of champagne for him to give me.
Right underneath the Emerson letter was one of my notebooks. Every time my father’s store would stock a new kind of notebook (different binding, different color, different rule size), I would make him bring me one. I wouldn’t use these for schoolwork, but rather for personal writing: schemes, white papers, opinion pieces, a bit of journaling, stream of consciousness stuff that should be forever stored in boxes. And my lists. There was a time when I attached great importance to itemizing the best of everything. The best rock songs (what ever made me put Sting’s “Fortress around Your Heart” ahead of the Beatles’ “Ticket to Ride?”). The best movies (a tie between E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind for first place). The best novels, the best ice cream, the best cop shows, the best presidential speeches (student council not included), the best state governors, the best TV news anchors, and, of course, the best amusement park rides. I had notebooks filled with these and I would review and revise them on a regular basis.
I sat on the couch and flipped through the notebook for several minutes. I had to laugh when I thought about how important these lists once were to me and yet how I had almost entirely forgotten them. I wondered if I should start making lists again. Best Women Who Gave Me the Time of Day? Best Job Exits? Most Annoying Exchanges with a Customer? Or perhaps Best Days in Lenox? Best Music for the Drive Back?
Maybe Best Reasons Why Iris and I Should Remain Only Friends?
I closed the notebook and put it back in the box. I flipped through some more term papers and post-cards before closing it up and putting Chase’s back on top. I’d get to the other boxes at some point in the future.
I walked past the carpeting. I remember thinking when I was much younger that there was some kind of magic involved in crossing from the carpet to the concrete. That it was the dividing line to some other world. What it really was, of course, was the byproduct of some crisis in the store that required all of my father’s attention for an extended period. Once the crisis was over, his desire to finish the basement had dissipated and the floor remained half naked.
The unfinished half served as both a repository for old things no longer useful (both of the discarded refrigerators, my mother’s sewing machine, the console stereo) and as storage space for Christmas decorations, the aluminum folding table, the forty-cup coffeemaker, and other items utilized during the occasional festivity. And there, too, under a white sheet that had in fact gathered dust, was my woodworking equipment.
This was as close to Zen as I got when I was a kid. I could spend huge stretches (usually when Chase was engaged otherwise; he would be too distracting even if he was just watching TV) carving, sawing, sanding, and finishing. I created pieces that often served little function other than letting me transform them, but also lamps and bookends and even, once, a chair. A number of these were still in the house, but had folded so completely into my image of the place that I hadn’t picked them out as my own inventions since I’d been back.
In the intervening years, one of my parents had drawn the equipment together and pulled it under this sheet, but it hadn’t been touched otherwise. I took the sheet off entirely now and moved things out into an approximation of the workstation I’d used back then: workbench in front of me, belt sander to the left, lathe and band saw to the right. I still had a block of wood positioned in the lathe. It was long and thin and I couldn’t remember what I’d planned for it. I picked up a file from the bench and ran my fingers over it, dislodging sawdust that had been in place for nearly a decade. I’d spent so many hours here building things and imagining building others.
I looked at my watch and saw that it was time for me to get going to the store. I put the file back down on the bench and gave one more glance at the block of wood in the lathe, telling myself that I would come back down here when I had more time.
Before my next chess match with my father, I went out to get a couple of whole-wheat bagels for us to have with our tea. My mother wasn’t sure why I couldn’t just make some toast, but she didn’t object, either.
As I’d promised myself, I’d bought a book on chess strategy. I got it in the bookstore in Lenox the last time Iris and I were together. (“Will this make you a professional overnight?” she asked. I told her I was simply hoping to give my father a better game.) I’d read it carefully and practiced certain situations in my mind. The result was an opening I’d never used before and I could see from the expression on my father’s face that he hadn’t anticipated it. Six moves into the match, though, I was once again out of my depth.
“Did I ever tell you about the job I had in Columbus?” I said.
My father nodded “no,” never taking his eyes off the board.
“I was the head sandwich guy at this huge deli near Ohio State.”
He brought out his Queen’s Knight and said, “Well, it’s good to hear you were the head guy.”
“All that education really paid off,” I said. “The place was a sandwich factory. We’d make hundreds of them a day. I had three people working for me. I did things with smoked turkey that others could only dream of. In other words, it was a ridiculous bore.”
“What made you think that it wouldn’t be boring to you?”
“I didn’t really think about it very much. I liked the town and I liked the vibe. And the guy who owned the deli was hilarious.”
“All sturdy reasons for a career choice.”
I moved a bishop to Queen Four as the book suggested I do. “You know, I actually did give some thought to my career when I went to work for Minnesota Public Radio. I had to bullshit my way into the job after all of the other things on my resume, but I connected there a little. The first month or so was entry-level production assistant stuff, but I got to know the station manager and after a while he let me do some programming. I was good at it, I think. Not as good as I was at making grilled jerk chicken on sourdough maybe, but pretty good. I used to have a cassette with some of the shows, but I can’t seem to find it.”
“So what was the problem this time?”
“Stuff got weird with Kristina and it sort of affected everything.”
“Kristina was the woman you were seeing in Minneapolis?”
“Yeah. And when things started to go south for us, I found it a little hard to hang on. And at that point the radio thing started to be a little bit of a hassle.”
My father returned his focus to the board.
“You know, I’ve never once been fired,” I said.
“Congratulations.
”
“I’m not bragging, but I thought you might have been wondering. I’ve never left a place because of that. Though there were one or two times when I thought I could be fired if things kept going the way they were going.”
My father made his move and then sat back in his chair. I glanced over the board carefully to see if he had somehow checkmated me while I wasn’t paying attention.
“Do you know what Amber was like thirty-four years ago?” he said. “They weren’t exactly selling out the inns for $250 a night. It was all very speculative back then. Some good years when the town seemed to be going somewhere and then a number of down years would follow.
“I leased the space on Russet Avenue during one of those down periods. We had a little bit of money and we’d had some encouraging conversations with the town planners. It seemed like a good idea. Obviously, it turned out to be a good idea, but those first few years were a bitch.”
He breathed deeply and then exhaled. “I loved making that store work, though. I was always moving merchandise around to see what drew the customers’ attention. I tried out different lines to see which ones worked best, I changed the colors of the walls, the kind of music we played, the volume of the music we played, and even the hours we were open. In those first few years, I was tinkering all the time.”
We exchanged moves. I had never heard my father talk about the store this way before. He’d never told me about the work that had gone into making it what it was. For as long as I could remember, it had looked relatively the same.
“Of course, not long after we opened the store, your mother became pregnant with you. There was so much going on back then. A couple of stores closed on Russet Avenue and I was worried that I was going to have to close mine too if things didn’t pick up. I was in the store from opening to closing just about every day while your mother took care of you. I felt bad for leaving her alone like that, but I knew that my job was to put money in the bank. And then she got sick.”
“Mom got sick?”
“Very sick. You never knew about this?”
“I’m pretty sure I would have remembered.”
“A terrible stomach problem. She lost a lot of weight and needed to spend most of her time in bed. The doctors kept giving her different things to do about it, but none of it seemed to work. It was a rough stretch for both of us. I was worried that she was going to be like that forever – or that it could be even worse than that. I wanted to take care of her, but I couldn’t give her all of my attention because of the other responsibilities. She didn’t get better until a couple of months before she became pregnant with your brother. The doctors finally got it right, I guess, because she’s been fine ever since – though you’ll notice she stays away from spicy food.”
I glanced toward the kitchen, even though I could-n’t see it from where I sat. “I can’t believe I never knew about that.”
“It was in the past. And things turned around after that. Anna was feeling better and the store was treading water. And then that article about Amber came out in the Times and suddenly we were the next big thing. People moved in, tourists started coming, and business took off. By the time your brother was born, things were moving.
“I like to say that it was my marketing genius that made the store the success it’s been. But in truth it was just a number of very good breaks.”
It was fascinating to hear my father speak this way. Aside from the fact that he was speaking this much at all, he was telling me things I never knew before, adding a voice-over to the home movies I had in my mind.
My research into the game of chess didn’t pay immediate dividends. The inevitable checkmate happened sooner than expected. Sooner than the last match, for that matter. My father hadn’t even finished his bagel.
He looked at the clock on the far wall. “You’ve gotta get to the store, don’t you?”
“I have a few minutes.”
“Nah, you’ve gotta get to the store. There’s a show I want to watch anyway.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Ingredients
I tried to call home from college every Wednesday around dinnertime. It was my father’s early night at the store and he and my mother tended to be home. One particular night, though, I called and got Iris on the other end.
“Chase is in the shower and your mom and dad decided to go out on a date,” she said. “Your mother left us a pot roast for dinner.”
“A specialty of the house.”
“So I’ve heard. Your mom’s a pretty good cook.”
“She likes doing it and we like eating it. It works.”
A Suzanne Vega album was playing in the background. It had to be one of Iris’, as it definitely wasn’t Chase’s kind of music.
“How’s the semester going?” she asked.
“Great so far. I have a lunatic philosophy teacher who’s sort of ‘all Kant, all the time,’ and I finally had to give in and take the physics class I’ve been avoiding since my freshman year. But my media classes are very good. I especially like the documentary video course.”
“Do you make them or watch them?”
“Make them and watch them. The making part is the final.”
“Let’s see; you’re going to do a video on John Belushi as the best suicidal comic of his generation.”
“Actually, I was thinking of doing it on you and Chase as the best couple.”
“Best couple of what?”
“Yet to be determined. I haven’t finished my research.”
“Can you hang on a second?” Perhaps a quarter of a minute passed and then Iris was on the line again. “God, I love that part. The rim shots toward the end of ‘Luka’ get me every time.”
I found myself smiling broadly. “Are you coasting through the second half of your senior year?”
“Semicoasting. I actually have to work in my AP English and AP World History classes. I’m also involved in the school play. We’re doing Streetcar.”
“That’s serious stuff for high schoolers.”
“The director wanted to do Judgment at Nuremberg.”
“Give me a break.”
“I mean it. I think the PTA talked him out of it.”
“Do you have a big role?”
“Decent role. I’m Stella.”
“You’re Stella?”
“Are you suggesting that you don’t think I can handle the role?”
“You just don’t seem to be the Stella type to me.”
“I guess we all have our secrets.”
“Stella, wow. I can’t wait to see it.”
“I’ll save you two on the aisle.”
“One on the aisle will be fine. Unless I’m taking Chase as my date.”
“I think he’ll be waiting in the wings for me. So when are you coming down again?”
I hadn’t actually planned to come back to Amber anytime soon. I needed the weekend time in the studio and there was the woman at the record store. But when Iris asked, I realized that I really wanted to see more of her and Chase.
“I was thinking about coming down this weekend. Are you guys going to be around?”
“Well, I can’t ever be sure what Chase is going to want to do. For all I know, he could be planning to go up to see you. But yeah, I think we’re going to be around.”
“Great, we’ll hang out.”
“Sounds good. Want me to see if Chase is out of the shower yet?”
“No, it’s not necessary. I’ll catch up with him on Friday. Just let him know I called.”
The next time I went up to Lenox, Iris and I spent the afternoon on our usual walk through town. There was nothing redundant about this – there always seemed to be something new going on – and it had become a very pleasant ritual. On this particular trip, a farmers’ market had opened and we browsed the local corn and zucchini, the wide array of herbs, and the handmade breads, pies, and fresh pastas.
“I’m making dinner for you tonight,” I said as I reached for a summer squash.
�
��You cook?”
“I have cooked.”
“Successfully?”
“Triumphantly at times. You obviously don’t know about me and the sandwich shop in Columbus. And thanks for having so much faith in me, by the way. Yes, I have cooked successfully and I’m going to do so for you tonight.”
Not entirely sure what I was planning, I wandered around the market gathering ingredients for the meal. Other than my stint at that deli, I’d never spent very much time in a kitchen, though I liked cooking and I especially liked the satisfaction of making a meal for someone else. I decided to keep it fairly simple, planning pasta with yellow squash, tomatoes, and basil, and a salad, accompanied by a baguette and a peach tart we purchased from the bakery.
When we got back to Iris’ house, I set to work immediately, chopping vegetables and herbs, putting a pot of water on to boil. Iris opened a bottle of wine for us and sat at the kitchen table watching me. I accidentally put the squash into the pan before the oil and hastily removed it before it stuck.
“Were you searing?” Iris said playfully.
“I was screwing up.”
“Is that part of the recipe?”
I smirked at her and she took a sip of her wine in an attempt to hide her grin.
“You know, the last time a man made dinner for me, I was sick for two days afterward.”
“You hang around with the wrong men.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“It’s unlikely that this meal will make you sick. It may make you lose your appetite, but it won’t make you sick.”
“I’ll take my chances. You look good at a stove. Almost like a natural.”
Crossing the Bridge Page 16