The Perfect Son

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The Perfect Son Page 10

by Barbara Claypole White


  “How’s your girlfriend?”

  Harry’s chin jutted up in a salvo of tics. “I-I d-don’t have a girlfriend.”

  “Cute, blond, mismatched Converse. Five foot four, if I had to guess.”

  “She’s not really . . .”

  “You’re not doing that casual hookup thing, are you? You do know that’s how kids get STDs.” Or AIDS, like your uncle.

  “Dad. I’m not interested in flings.”

  “So how does she fit into your life?”

  “You really want to know?” Harry blushed.

  “No, Harry.” Felix scratched at the label on his small bottle of Perrier. “That’s why I asked.”

  “I think she’s, like, amazing.” Harry paused to clear his throat. Of all the tics, this one bothered Felix the least. It could easily pass for an allergy symptom. “But she has serious family stuff going on.”

  “Might I point out that so do you?”

  “But what if that’s all there is? What if it’s just a connection of need?”

  “Does it matter? Harry, your life will be filled with women. Don’t overthink first love.”

  “Suppose it’s not first love?”

  “Suppose you take a risk and find out?” As he did when Ella got pregnant.

  “Dad, what was it like when you met Mom, when you first saw her?”

  Felix glanced up at the decorative red light fixture hanging above their table. “She was beautiful. It was passion at first sight.” And a whole lot of lust.

  “Not love?”

  Someone behind them coughed. Felix frowned and leaned across the table.

  “That took longer. Your mother also had ‘serious family stuff going on’ the first time we met. Your grandmother had just died, and Mom left London shortly afterward to go home and be near your grandfather. We didn’t really get together until five years later, when she returned for her thirtieth birthday. It all happened quite quickly after that.”

  “Wow.” Harry bobbed in his chair. “Mom never told me that bit.”

  “Which bit?”

  “About you meeting and then being apart for five years.”

  “What exactly did she tell you?” And which part did she leave out?

  “That she fainted on the Tube, and this handsome Englishman raced to her rescue. It sounded very romantic.”

  “Indeed. Although I’m not sure about the handsome part.”

  Ella, as pale and delicate as a fairy in an Arthur Rackham illustration. Ella, so vulnerable and needy. That moment she’d started to crumple, to sink without a sound, he’d barged through the rush-hour crowd so he could catch her before she hit the dirty floor of the carriage. Thought had drowned out all reason: “No, you can’t die. I haven’t met you yet.” He’d wanted to keep her safe, protect her. Had he? Had he done any of those things?

  “Did you have many girlfriends before Mom?”

  “I thought we were talking about you.”

  “I’m curious, Dad. You and I never talk about this shit.”

  “Unlike you and your mother, I choose to not talk about my feelings, Harry.” Felix’s left foot tapped the floor. “To do so makes me intensely uncomfortable.”

  Felix pulled out his phone to check his messages before remembering he’d taken a leave of absence from work. Robert still copied him on everything, but Felix was forcing himself to not engage. Either you were in or out, working or not working. He had never felt so redundant.

  “But did you date women? You know, before Mom.”

  “Of course I did. I was twenty-seven when we met.”

  “So?”

  “So?”

  “Other women?”

  “Harry. I’m not good at relationships.” Felix looked round to make sure no one was listening. The tables were far too close together. Anyone could be eavesdropping. Harry thumped his elbows on the table and leaned forward, eyes wide and eager. “Let’s put it this way: yes, I dated a lot of women. Some beautiful, some smart. But I never understood them and they never understood me. I tried to do what a boyfriend was supposed to do. Compliment them, be chivalrous . . . But your mother was different. From the beginning.”

  “How so?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do.” Harry grinned. “C’mon, Dad. Boy talk.” He twitched through a grimace and blinked compulsively. “It’s all a big mystery to me. Girls aren’t exactly rushing to date the weird guy.”

  “You’re not weird if you hide it.”

  “That’s not going to work for me. I’m more of a what-you-see-is-what-you-get person.”

  Felix picked up his Perrier and finished it in three swallows. “Maybe you could try harder to disguise the tics.”

  Harry didn’t answer. He merely knotted up his napkin.

  This was why confidences were bad, very bad. It was too easy to say something that could be misconstrued.

  “Your mother understood me.” Felix sighed. “That was the difference.”

  Harry glanced up through his hair. “What you mean is that she accepted you the way you were. Warts and all.”

  “I suppose.”

  “So you didn’t really hide anything from her. Did you?”

  Had Harry just outmaneuvered him? “We should leave in ten minutes.”

  According to MapQuest, the singing teacher lived 3.4 miles from the Mad Hatter Café, and they needed a few extra minutes to park. How he’d been talked into voice lessons that cost fifty dollars a week was beyond comprehension. According to Ella, singing was another form of therapy, but surely they had spent enough over the years on the neurologist, the child psychologist, the psychiatrist, and the medications. For six months straight, when Harry had been taking a drug that didn’t exist in generic form and had to be ordered from Canada, his prescriptions had cost more than the mortgage. Much of Harry’s care had not been covered by health insurance. Certainly not the acupuncture and the biofeedback. Ella had become something of an expert in alternative medical treatments for Tourette’s. None of them had worked.

  Harry jiggled from side to side, then drained his hot chocolate, literally holding the mug upside down for the last drop. Felix drummed his fingers on the table. If only he had emails to answer.

  “Dad, did I thank you for my sandwich today?”

  “No.”

  “It was perfect. Thanks. But you don’t have to cut the crusts off. Really.”

  “It wouldn’t be perfect with crusts on.”

  “But I like crusts.”

  “Then it wasn’t perfect, was it?”

  Harry frowned. “Can we just leave this at ‘Thank you, I really appreciate what you did for me today’?”

  Felix tried, and failed, to process the idea that a sandwich with crusts left on could be perfect. Mother had always insisted on crustless cucumber sandwiches made with soggy white bread.

  “I . . . I also wanted to tell you that I’m canceling my birthday sleepover,” Harry said.

  Felix sat up. What sleepover? Ella hadn’t put sleepover on his to-do list, and there had been no talk of a sleepover before the heart attack. Of course, he wasn’t even supposed to be in town this weekend. Had Ella and Harry planned something and not told him?

  “It doesn’t seem right with Mom in the hospital, and it doesn’t seem fair to you.”

  “What day was this planned for?”

  “Friday night.”

  Felix glanced at his watch. “How many boys are we talking?”

  “Five. Plus me. And Ginny and Stella, who were going to be picked up by eleven. And I would’ve invited Sammie, but I guess it’s irrelevant now.”

  Felix nodded and almost said, Too bloody right. Nine teenagers, and he couldn’t cope with one. But what if he could pull this off? Might it tie everything up with a bow? Might Ella accept that he’d fulfilled his promise? And if that happened, might the incessant worry about failure be replaced with a mission-accomplished mindset?

  “You should invite Sammie.”

  “What?”

&nb
sp; “Harry, life has to go on. Mom would want you to do this. You’re only going to turn seventeen once.”

  “Seriously?” Harry shot up; heads turned. Felix made the down-boy-down motion with his right hand.

  “Okay! You’re the best, Dad. The best!”

  “Harry,” Felix dropped his voice. “Please sit down.” People are staring.

  “You’ll need to organize cake and pizza and lots and lots of soda!”

  Felix regretted it instantly. “How much is lots?”

  Sitting in the music teacher’s front room on a ridiculously low, sagging sofa, Felix gave up trying to read the New York Times. He refolded it, tried again to cross his legs—which was impossible given that his bottom was inches from the ground—and listened. Harry didn’t sing much when he was in the house, but Felix was painfully familiar with the warm-up exercises. Even in a classroom setting, they sounded like a cat being strangled.

  Zak, the teacher, began strumming an acoustic guitar while Harry jabbered away about school. And I’m paying for this? A discussion followed on the importance of thinking ahead for the switch to modality three at the end of the third line in “Pony Street.” Elvis Costello’s “Pony Street”? Tom had been a big Elvis Costello fan. Once, he’d taken Felix to see Elvis perform at the Royal Albert Hall. Felix sat up.

  Then Zak started playing real music, and the unfaltering voice that accompanied him was Harry’s. From the front room, it was impossible to imagine that such a powerful voice—clear and rich—belonged to a teenager with vocal tics. Felix never indulged in what ifs—because really, what was the point?—but he couldn’t stop the thirty-second fantasy: What if his son had never developed Tourette syndrome? How different would their lives, his marriage, have been?

  Felix closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, the music had stopped. Harry emerged, head bobbing, and tripped over air. His voice folder and sheets of music drifted to the floor.

  “Keep up the good work, Harry. Same time next week,” Zak called out, as an attractive young woman with pigtails walked in carrying a guitar case.

  “Hey, Harry,” she said, grinning.

  Harry, who had been down on all fours, shot up with his arms full of paper. “Hey, Rach.”

  “Harry,” Felix said, “please take two seconds to put those back in your folder before you drop—”

  Too late.

  Rach giggled. “You klutz!”

  “Tell me about it.” Harry laughed.

  “Here, let me help,” she said.

  “Nah. I got it. My dad can help. Go have your lesson. The clock’s ticking.”

  “Nice to meet you, Harry’s dad,” Rach said, and disappeared into the music room.

  Harry was back on the floor, trying to retrieve a piece of paper from under the upright piano, where there was dust and God only knew what else. In a house this dilapidated and rickety, mouse droppings and dead cockroaches were likely candidates.

  “Aren’t you going to ask what I think?” Felix said to Harry’s backside.

  “Sure, Dad. What did you think?”

  “Not bad. Except for that note you missed at the end of the third verse. And there was a bit after the second verse when your voice wobbled.”

  Harry stood, laid out all his pages on the piano stool, and stuffed his folder in an annoyingly haphazard way. “That’s why I didn’t ask,” he said quietly.

  They drove home in silence, except for Harry’s vocal tics.

  ELEVEN

  Felix stared at his Thursday to-do list until a low-grade headache set up shop in his temple and started telegraphing little messages of pain across his forehead. Tugging off his glasses, he squeezed the bridge of his nose.

  Midnight, and he had two things left to accomplish before bed: hang the happy birthday banner and blow up balloons. Were fifty too many? Ella had told him not to bother with balloons, but if he was doing this, he was doing it right. Besides, a quick Google search would, no doubt, debunk the mystery of how to hang balloons.

  Due to the astronomical expense of party supplies, Felix had taken full advantage of all the deals. Thanks to the discovery of BOGOF—buy one get one free—they had enough paper goods for Harry’s eighteenth. In fact, they would never need to buy paper plates or napkins again, which was why he’d chosen a timeless color. Black.

  He should probably create tomorrow’s to-do list before the headache crippled him. Suppose you had to do this task multiple times a year because you had more than one child? Unimaginable.

  He pulled out a blank index card and started writing. Had Harry told everyone to bring sleeping bags and pillows? Could sixteen-year-old boys be relied upon to remember pillows? What if they forgot to bring bedding? He ripped up the list and started over.

  Remind Harry:

  1) All boys sleep in his room. (No louts sleeping on the sofa.)

  2) Midnight curfew on noise.

  3) Guests must be gone by noon on Saturday. No exceptions.

  Felix glanced over at the three boxes of pancake mix sitting in the middle of the kitchen island. Could he pull off pancakes and bacon for six when he’d never cooked them for one? The mix came in a box labeled “just add water!” How hard could it be? He pulled out another index card, Saturday’s to-do list, and wrote: make test batch of pancakes while boys sleep.

  Back to tomorrow’s list:

  Get up at 5:30

  Shower

  Make Harry’s breakfast

  Pack Harry’s lunch

  Although really, Harry should be able to do those last two himself.

  Drive Harry to school

  Come home

  Do a load of laundry

  Go to Harris Teeter and pick up birthday cake

  Clean the powder room

  Hoover

  Tidy up

  Should he have hired Merry Maids? Ella had told him to not clean beforehand but merely “clear the decks.” Which made him intensely nervous that (a) people would be coming into an unclean house and (b) that he somehow needed to protect his possessions. Would they break furniture? Not use coasters? Sneak illegal substances into his house as easily as Katherine had?

  He should probably stop by Pizza-To-Go on the way back from Harris Teeter. Meet with the manager and confirm that yes, they could indeed deliver four large pizzas at 7:30 p.m. (Should he have taken care of this yesterday?) Felix kept writing:

  Stop at Pizza-To-Go

  Put soda in fridge

  Put candy in bowls

  Had he bought enough soda? Should he have provided more choices for the kids? And when Harry said put out a few bowls of candy, how many did he mean? This was so unlike work, real work. This was the great unknown of vagueness, and it came without explicit instructions.

  Felix got up, freed the stopper of his cut-glass decanter, and poured a healthy shot of Macallan. He went back to the sofa and added hide the alcohol to his list.

  So many possibilities for disaster. And suppose Harry didn’t have a good time? Suppose his guests didn’t have a good time? Shouldn’t there be more organized activities? Suppose the loo got clogged from overuse and he had to call Dickie the plumber on a Friday night? Suppose the kids stole the Mini for a joyride around the neighborhood? Did teens en masse devolve into mob mentality?

  This whole event was ludicrously unstructured. The only definite was pizza at seven thirty: two cheese, one pepperoni, one Hawaiian. Although why anyone with half a brain, even a teenager, would choose to eat anything as disgusting as Hawaiian pizza was incomprehensible.

  Felix pulled out the Pepto-Bismol bottle, unscrewed the top, and swallowed two pills with a chaser of single malt. A hive of stinging bees had surely taken up residence in his stomach. If only it could be this time tomorrow. No, not tomorrow, since there would be six large, smelly teenage boys camped out in the bedroom down the hall. This time on Sunday, then, with the house quiet and Harry asleep. When Harry was awake, the house was littered with the perennially half-finished: a glass of orange juice left on the island for two ho
urs; soda cans moved to the sink but not rinsed out and dumped in the recycling; dirty crockery left on the counter and not scraped, rinsed, washed, and slotted in the dish rack to dry. (Felix refused to use the dishwasher. If he had his way, they wouldn’t have one.)

  The ghost of birthdays past hovered—the good old days when Ella organized extravaganzas for twenty children at a local museum and never once lost her cool.

  Two more days until Ella came home and life could revert to the way it was supposed to be. The way it had always been. Well, not quite. He would still have to chauffeur Harry around and drive Ella to medical checkups and then rehab. Do the supermarket run and be the errand boy. So not exactly the same as before. In fact, nothing like before.

  Harry nearly melted when Sammie rubbed her thumb along his palm. Holding her hand was the softest, warmest, safest, sexiest feeling ever. He would never tire of it. Seemed the Beatles actually got something right. Who knew?

  Hand in hand, they walked across the school parking lot.

  “Oh, your dad has a Mini. How cute,” Sammie said.

  Dad and cute? Really?

  One good thing about Dad doing pickup—unlike Mom, he never got out of the car. Mom was always the only parent on the porch at pickup, and the only parent who drove for every field trip, and the only parent who volunteered for every school event. At the science fair, one of the little kids had actually mistaken her for staff. When she was back in charge of, well, everything, maybe he should grow a pair and finally set some boundaries. Ask her to wait in the car at pickup, like Dad.

  Dad appeared to be asleep. Not surprising, given how hard he’d worked on the party. At this point, Harry just wanted it to be whatever Dad wanted it to be. Maybe they should have canceled. He and Sammie could have gone to the movies instead and held hands in the back row.

  Harry knocked on the window. Dad shot up like Max had when Mr. George caught him napping in calculus earlier that day. “Are we boring you?” Mr. George had asked, and Harry had willed Max not to say yes. Thankfully, the psychic vibes must have worked, because Max had apologized. Seriously un-Max-like behavior.

 

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