A Day in June

by Marisa Labozzetta

  “What do you mean?”

  “Being old like that. Like Harold said: It’s hard to envision.”

  “Maybe it’s because you’d never consider the idea. Suicide, that is.”

  “Maybe.”

  “TGIF.”

  “Can’t hear you,” he shouts from the kitchen.

  “Thank God it’s Friday,” she yells back. “You can spend the whole fucking weekend with him.” Of course she’ll be there too—with Faye. Where else would she be?

  * * *

  Eric is not in the mood to meet a new woman tonight. He’s tired. Are thirty-two-year-olds supposed to get tired? He doesn’t dare express his fatigue in front of the older generations, who’ll come back with something like What have you got to be tired about? Or Wait until you get to be my age. Or the one he really hates: When I was young, I never slept. He spends enough time thinking about what he should be doing when he’s not driving his mother to chemotherapy or grocery shopping or worrying about the contest. He spends enough time thinking about how sometimes all he’d like to do is sleep.

  Worry, he has found, takes the greatest toll on one’s body—even a young body. But Becca is hot on him meeting a woman from her yoga class who’s just joined a veterinary practice in Rutland. And so he showers and puts on a clean pair of jeans and the light-gray longsleeved polo shirt he’s never worn that his mother ordered from L.L. Bean last Christmas. He makes a minimal effort to make himself presentable; he doesn’t want to look too good. Not that that isn’t hard to achieve. It’s just that he feels too weighed down right now to take on a relationship.

  * * *

  When he arrives at Michael and Becca’s, bottle of wine in hand, he finds Bicycle Girl straddling her Schwinn and peering through the kitchen window, as he too has been guilty of doing. Michael tells Eric she’s been there for an hour.

  “She only shows up when you’re here,” Michael says as they stand in the open doorway. “It’s as though she knew you were coming. Like she was waiting for you.”

  “That’s possible,” Eric tells him, unmoved. “She could have overheard me tell my mother. She’s at the house most days for one meal or another.”

  “Let’s invite her in.”

  Eric looks at Michael perplexed. His friend knows the deal. “No.”

  “Just for a few minutes.”

  “No!”

  “Why not? What makes you so sure you’re handling her the right way? Maybe ignoring her isn’t the answer. Maybe she’s craving to be included.”

  “You want to ride around all night again when she takes off? Come on, Mike. Cut it out.”

  “There’s a lot of new research being done on autism and antisocial disorders, nonthreatening ways to communicate with them and have them reciprocate. We have kids at school on the spectrum who—”

  “I said no. You don’t know what’s been done for her all these years by her parents, my mother. You don’t know what sets her off. You don’t even know what’s wrong with her. You don’t know everything, Mike.”

  The restraint Michael is exercising is palpable: Eric recognizes it’s impossible for Michael not to act on his impulses when he believes they’re based on sound reasoning.

  “Let me try,” Michael insists, taking a step in Bicycle Girl’s direction, then freezing when his friend grabs his arm. Eric releases his grip but the damage has been done, the tone for the evening set.

  A car pulls up and a petite brunette with long wavy hair gets out. Bicycle Girl rides away. Eric isn’t worried, knowing she’s gone off of her own accord and that, barring any unwanted advances, she’ll eventually wind up at her father’s house or Eric’s tonight. He also knows that he and Michael will get past their little altercation soon enough—maybe with a beer and pithy apologies or just a slap on the back—but for the next three hours, they are tolerant of each other, making an effort to put the pretty and pleasant veterinarian at ease. Over Becca’s paella and several glasses of Pinot Grigio, Eric inquires about the doctor’s life; she asks him about his, both knowing that neither will take the initiative to arrange a second date anytime soon.

  Chapter 24

  Saturday, May 10

  SOMETHING HAS HAPPENED. Something has changed. A calm presides over the stifling apartment by Saturday morning. Ryan and Jason find Faye in the armchair next to the bed, wearing a pink cashmere sweater and glasses, reading the Globe aloud to Harold. Jocelina has brought a box of doughnut holes and turned on the coffee maker in anticipation of the couple’s visit, as though it is nothing more than a casual social call.

  “How is he?” Jason is disappointed to see that Harold has declined since the night before. He was counting on trying new tactics.

  “Anastasya put him to bed last night after you left. He hasn’t gotten up except to go to the bathroom. Jocelina brought this.” She points to a portable commode next to the bed. “She’s very good that way. I don’t know where it’s coming from, but it keeps on coming,” she says referring to Harold’s incessant need to urinate.

  “Not so loud. I have my hearing aids in.” The voice from the bed is fainter but his speech is fluid. Eyes wide open, he smiles with lips that are drier than they were the night before, cracking at the corners of his mouth. “Sorry if I have bad breath.”

  “Would you like to brush your teeth?” Jason asks.

  “Nope.”

  “It might make you feel better.”

  “Nice try.”

  “This is your show, Harold. You make the calls.”

  “So you’ve come over to my side, young fella?”

  “I’ve always been on your side.”

  “Faye’s come on board. What a woman. I’m such a lucky man.” He smiles at her and she returns the admiration with an added shrug of her shoulders, as if to say: Do I have a choice?

  If she’s such a wonderful woman, why do you want to leave her? Jason thinks, but the tide has shifted and he will no longer swim against the current; rather he’ll let it take him wherever it carries Harold.

  “Is Ryan here?”

  “Running some errands. She’ll be here soon. Would you like to listen to some music?” Jason asks.

  “There’s a box with some CDs in it we haven’t unpacked yet. It’s under that thing that looks like an old radio. It is a radio, but there’s a CD player in it too. Pretty nifty, eh? Got it on sale at Caldor before it closed.”

  Jason fishes through the box beneath the side table in the living room, puts a CD in the retro radio, and Moonlight Serenade turns the place into a ballroom.

  “Care to dance?” Harold asks Faye.

  “If only we could. I’ll fix Jason a cup of coffee.” Jocelina appears at her side, helping her to maneuver the walker.

  “Maybe the music makes you sad?” Jason asks Harold.

  “Hell no! The fact that we can’t dance only confirms my position. You know, when I was a young man in Brooklyn … Did I tell you I grew up in Brooklyn?”

  “No. I didn’t know that.”

  “My older brother and his friends had a block party and paid next to nothing for Glenn Miller and Louis Armstrong to come. Can you imagine?”

  “That’s pretty amazing.”

  “Of course, they were just starting up then. But they were popular just the same.”

  “How’d you end up in Boston?”

  “After the war. I went in right after high school, just in time for the Big One. The war was pretty much over after that, and my buddy told me to come and start a furniture business with him. I figured what the hell. Something new. So I went.”

  “And your buddy?”

  “He had no luck. Survives the Battle of the Bulge and gets taken out by pancreatic cancer at thirty-eight.”

  “That must have been tough on you.”

  “On me? Tough on his family. Tough on him. Life is tough.”

  “So is dying.”

  “Can’t give up, can you?”

  “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “Let me tell you something.
When you’re ready, it’s easy. It’s just that easy.”

  “I admire you, Harold.”

  “No you don’t. You think what I’m doing is wrong. A sin against God.”

  “It doesn’t matter what I believe.”

  “For the record, there are no sins against God. Just against people. That’s where I stand.”

  Ryan walks in with a box of breakfast sandwiches from a café and package of swabs.

  “You’re a genius,” Jason says, giving her a peck on the cheek. “Harold, can I moisten your lips? Ryan brought these for you.”

  “Okay.” He finally agrees to something.

  “How about we eat these on the patio? Is that all right, Faye?”

  “The patio. That’s a good idea, Ryan. It’s cruel to eat in front of him. Come, Jocelina. Bring the doughnut holes and coffee. Have some breakfast.”

  Jason picks up two chairs from the kitchen table and follows Ryan and Faye out the sliding doors into the narrow sitting area with its bistro set. They fit snugly around the table, like rolled-up anchovies in their compact can, on this beautiful morning.

  “Faye, shouldn’t we call hospice? A rabbi? Shouldn’t we call someone?” Ryan speaks just above a whisper, as though tiptoeing on sacred ground, even though Harold can’t possible hear her.

  “Jason is here. He feels comforted by Jason.” She shrugs her shoulders. “Maybe he’s a goy deep down.”

  Jason knows that’s a funny line, but he can’t seem to laugh or even smile.

  “There might still be time. Let me try,” he says.

  “No. Someday you’ll understand.” Faye becomes serious. “You move slowly, Everything takes so long. You nap a lot. It’s hard to read, to hear. And the worst part is, people treat you differently. Life gets just a little too small.”

  “But Harold isn’t doing badly at all,” Ryan tells her.

  “This takes courage. Don’t let him fool you. I’ve been to a ninetyyear-old’s birthday party where the guest of honor is doing great. Then you see her a few years later and it’s a different story.”

  “Promise me you won’t ever do this, Faye,” Ryan says.

  “No promises, bubeleh.”

  Faye’s phone rings, and Ryan runs in to answer it. It’s Lauren; she usually calls on Saturday mornings. When she finds out what’s going on, she’s furious. “Why am I not surprised? What did we know about him? Harold is committing suicide, and the kids are helping,” she tells Joe.

  “What the fuck!” Joe can be heard saying as he gets on the extension phone in the bedroom. “What the hell’s going on? This is not right. You two kids should not be dealing with this.”

  “I warned you, Ryan,” Lauren says.

  “I’m driving up to Boston!” Joe says.

  “No, Dad. It’s under control. We can handle it.”

  “What do you know about dying, about making arrangements?”

  “Harold has it pretty well covered. Really. He even wrote his own obituary—one handwritten sheet of paper in the top dresser drawer, with the number of the funeral home and all. Says Faye can do what she likes with the ashes. It’s okay, Dad. We’ve got it.”

  “Give me that undertaker’s name and number. Just give me his name. Let me take care of this.”

  “I already called him, Dad. He said to call when it’s time.”

  “I don’t like this. Is there someone helping you?”

  “Jason.”

  “Other than Jason.”

  “She can do it, Joe,” Lauren says. “She wants to—and obviously Faye wants her to.”

  “We’ll come up for the funeral,” Joe says. “We’ll come for Faye.”

  “No funeral. He wants to be cremated.”

  “A memorial?”

  “No. Nothing. He doesn’t want anything,”

  “That’s wise,” Lauren says.

  “That’s pitiful,” Joe says.

  “Ryan, find out who his doctor is and have him send someone from hospice.”

  “Mom—”

  “It’s for his sake, Ryan. Call the doctor.”

  “Would you like to talk to Faye?” Ryan asks her parents.

  “Yes. Put my mother on.”

  “Don’t yell at her, Mom,” Ryan whispers into the mobile as she carries it out to Faye.

  “What do you think I am? An insensitive moron?”

  “And Mom, in case I forget tomorrow, with all this, Happy Mother’s Day.”

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” they can all hear Lauren tell Faye. She has not called her mother “Mom” in years.

  When she was in college, Lauren decided to call her mother and father by their first names. Her father found it amusing; if Faye was upset, she didn’t let on: it was the Age of Aquarius, and they were all equal in Lauren’s eyes—men, women, parents, grandparents, and children. When she had Ryan, she taught the baby to call them all by their first names as well. But as time went on, Lauren began to envy her friends whose children addressed them as Mommy and Daddy; she began to tire of the odd stares and occasional questions as to the true relationship between her and Ryan, and so she told Ryan to call her Mommy. But it was too late—too hard for the little girl to make the switch.

  Then, one Mother’s Day, when Ryan was in high school and she asked her mother if she would like anything special (a question to which Lauren had always answered no), Lauren admitted that she would very much like for Ryan to call her Mom. Ryan found the request surprising and a little problematic, because she liked calling her parents by their first names: It made her unique among her friends. Nevertheless, she made the effort, and when the next Mother’s Day arrived, she was no longer even tempted to cross out the Mother in her card and write Lauren, as she had done in the past. The same went for Joe, who had always preferred being called Dad.

  Ryan’s parents became like all her other friends’ parents: They were Mom and Dad. Joe’s parents had never allowed Ryan to call them by their first names, considering it disrespectful. In their family, everyone even had a title that accompanied their names, like aunt, cousin, uncle, or comare. When Ryan asked Faye and Sid if they would also like her to make the changeover, both said she could call them anything she cared to call them. Such nonsense over nothing, her grandfather said. Call me grandpa, zayde, Sid, schlemiel. And so they remained Faye and Sid to Ryan—and to Lauren.

  Chapter 25

  Sunday, May 11

  EARLY IN THE morning Jason phones Father Curran for the second time since he’s taken his leave. It’s not against the rules: He’s already told his mentor he’s not returning to the novitiate. This time he’s asking for advice as a member of the Catholic Church—not the Jesuit community. The priest is not surprised either time; nothing rattles him.

  While Jason is talking to Father Curran, a fully dressed Tiffany comes into the kitchen and Jason steps out onto the fire escape. She plops a backpack on the floor, pours herself a glass of OJ, and fills a bowl with granola and milk. Slicing a banana, she asks Ryan what all the secrecy is about. She knows what’s going on with Harold; Ryan had to tell someone, and Tiffany can, on occasion, have a good take on extraordinary circumstances.

  “He’s talking to his advisor.”

  “In the seminary?”

  Ryan nods. “Where you headed?” she asks Tiffany.

  “Hiking in Vermont.”

  “Alone?”

  “With a friend. I’ll be gone a few days.”

  “Talk about secrecy. You never bring anyone here anymore, Tiff. We’d like to meet your friend.”

  “It’s gotten kind of crowded here,” Tiffany says, fishing through some fruit in a wooden bowl on the table and selecting a green apple.

  “Do you resent Jason being here? It’s just for a short while. You’ve certainly had friends here for long stretches.”

  “We don’t have time for each other anymore,” she says, examining the apple.

  “You’re jealous of Jason? You’re never around. At least not when I’m here. And when I am—”

  �
�What?” She looks at Ryan.

  “Forget it.”

  “No. What were you going to say?”

  “Sometimes you have no concept of privacy. You run around half naked.”

  “Sorry if I’ve invaded your space.” She decisively drops the apple into her backpack.

  “You don’t get it,” Ryan tells her.

  “No. You don’t get it. I’m not your problem,” Tiffany says, shaking her finger at Ryan.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You figure it out.”

  Ryan doesn’t understand Tiffany’s obsession with their relationship. It’s not as though they’ve known one another forever. The girl wasn’t even able to tell her she had a booger in her nose at lunch with Eric and Danni at Baby’s Grill in Brackton. When she confronted Tiffany about it later as they shared the queen-sized bed at the Daffodil House, Tiffany said she hadn’t wanted to embarrass Ryan.

  What kind of friend lets her girlfriend sit there with snot in her nose? Ryan asked her. Tiffany told Ryan that she had already made an ass of herself lying about Jason and what he did for a living. Ryan accused her of an over-the-top performance with the vendors, to which Tiffany had no defense except that she had just gotten into it because she found it so exciting. And with that, Tiffany asked something she’d never asked her: Did she ever consider being with a woman? It was a natural question. If Ryan had, for some matter of convenience, found herself in bed with a male friend of hers, he most likely would have asked if they could, for just that night, be friends with benefits, and he wouldn’t have been the first guy to ask the question. But she wasn’t even sure if that’s what Tiffany was suggesting for the two of them since Ryan hadn’t given her the opportunity to elaborate. She had simply said, no.

  “Look, Tiff,” Ryan says, trying to make peace with her roommate. “I can’t help it that Jason’s back in my life now.”

  “He never left.”

  “Let’s have lunch when everything with Harold is over. Maybe go to a movie.”

  “Sure,” she says, slinging the backpack over one shoulder.

  “Are you dating a guy?” Ryan asks.