“Come on, my car’s right here.” He gestured to his red Saturn coup parked at the curb. “I can take you.”
He opened the door for me, then quickly reached over to brush a Sports Illustrated magazine off the seat and to push a toolbox underneath it. I climbed in, marveling at the fact that the car still looked essentially the same as it had the last time I was in it. How old were we then? Nineteen? As Grant shut the door behind me, I felt as if I were being sealed into a time capsule. The sharp scent of Drakkar Noir assaulted my nose and my memory, along with the faint lingering odor of stale beer from a long-ago spillage.
“Wow, I can’t believe this car is still going. I think the last time I was in it, we were cruising this very length of Main Street and cranking the latest Tesla cassette tape.”
Grant laughed, throwing the car into gear and tearing out of his parking spot a little too fast. “She’s treated me well, this old girl. Course, I added a CD changer and got rid of the tape deck. Lots of memories. Funny to think of all the action the backseat had . . . and now there’s a booster seat back there.”
“Yeah, well . . . that’s what all that backseat action eventually leads to.” I squirmed inwardly at the awkward mental image he had thrust upon me.
Grant had been the envy of us all, purchasing the zippy red Saturn SC Sport the first year they hit the market. It had those cool flip-up headlights and drove low to the ground. At the time, he was the epitome of sexy-cool to most of the underage female population. Then again, we were all wearing acid-wash jeans and scrunchies in our hair. It was depressing as well as disturbing, not so much that he was still driving it, but he was still treating it like a pussy machine after all these years.
“So . . . what belt is Jake up to in karate?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Green. The kid could pretty much kick my ass. He’s getting big! Speaking of which . . .” We had pulled into the lot adjacent to the park. Abbey and Brina were taking turns on the small rock-climbing wall, with supervision from Marissa. “Look at those long legs on your little one. Was her dad tall? I never met him.”
“You did, actually. He came to the ten-year reunion.” I rested my hand on the door handle. “Pete was five-eleven.”
Grant absently tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, clearly not interested in the physical attributes of any other member of the male tribe, living or dead. “Hey, Chad and Diane are coming into town in a few weeks. Why don’t you come to dinner with us?”
The way he suddenly slid his arm across the seat back, along with his trademark flashing of a lazy smile, made me wonder if he still looked at me and saw a girl with second-skin Jordache jeans and teased hair. It was as if he swapped a John Hughes teen flick in his mind for what had really happened between us freshman year. And as if no time had actually passed between then and now.
“Thanks, but I don’t think—”
“Come on. It would be like old times.”
Clearly all the varnish and lead paint chips at the antique shop had gotten to him. Sure, I knew Chad, who had been on various sports teams with Grant. And his wife, Diane, had been a classmate of mine since elementary school. But we hadn’t had any old times, good times, or fast times at Lauder High as a foursome. My girlfriend status with Grant had been such a short blip; it could barely be classified as a “time.”
“I was actually just talking to Chad the other day, and your name came up.” I raised an eyebrow at him in response, and he bumbled onward. “You know . . . about how you are, well, back in town and stuff. It’s cool having you back.” He leaned in closer. “You’re so . . . down-to-earth, Tree. Not like a lot of the chicks around here.”
“Yeah?” I pictured myself down-to-earth, all right; belly to the ground and squirming past Grant’s land mines and foxholes. You were right, Pat Benatar. Love is a battlefield.
“So what do you say, Tree?”
I clenched the stapler in my hand, thinking of the many ways I could use it as a weapon if required. Like pinning his balls to the gear shaft if he inched any closer to me. “I’m really swamped right now, planning this program and all.” My words came out in a rush. “Why don’t you call me after it’s over next week and I’ll see how things look? You know, with Abbey and a sitter and stuff.” I had the door open now. “Thanks for the ride, see ya.”
“Hmm, so perhaps the bad bed juju has been lifted?” Marissa opened the fence gate for me as the Saturn spun a wave of gravel onto the grass in its departure. “I see he’s still driving like it’s 1999.”
I laughed and folded the remaining flyers in half before Abbey’s keen eyes could catch a glimpse of her favorite cat. Otherwise, I’d hear talk of nothing more for the remainder of the week.
“Can we do pizza, please?” Abbey and Brina began their twin nuclear assault to break us down.
“Aunt Miso said we had to wait to ask you.” Abbey, ever since she began speaking, loved to refer to her favorite aunt-by-proxy, but wasn’t able to pronounce her name quite right.
“Well, we’ve got no other plans . . .”
“We’d better stop home first,” Marissa said. “Joey and Daddy would never forgive us if we went to Marino’s without them.” Taking that as a yes, the girls squealed and ran to Marissa’s minivan. “Is that good with you?”
“Sure, I’m along for the ride.”
“Speaking of rides . . .”
“He was leaving the shop as I was going there to hang a flyer and he offered me a lift. Hey, remember Chad and Diane?”
“Barely.”
“They got married after graduation and moved to Texas. Anyway, he asked me to go out to dinner when they come to town.”
“Hmm. Double date with superficial people you didn’t care much for in high school. Not exactly an ideal first date.” We loaded and locked the girls into their seats. “But then again, it’s getting back on the horse.”
“And you are beating a dead horse. Remember, I had a first date with Grant. And a second. And a third. It was a road to nowhere. If I get back on that road now, it’ll be like admitting there is nothing better out there for me.”
We watched out the window as a pack of boys from the high school track team galloped past along the shoulder of the road. Quasi-men, chins jutting and firm thighs pumping in adolescent adrenaline swagger.
Marissa gave me a long look as she waited for traffic to pass. “It’s only regression if you tell yourself it is, Tree. A lot of time has passed. He could have a totally different set of values by now.”
I glanced back at the girls, who were happily passing a stuffed animal back and forth between them, and remembered Grant’s “backseat action” comment. “It’s entirely possible he may have a different set of values, Mariss. But what if they are worse now than before?”
Marissa chose not to comment. Instead, she plucked one of the flyers from my lap. “I still can’t believe you found him . . . and he agreed to come to our dinky little library. You sweet-talk him?”
“Not exactly. We just e-mailed. But I think I did a pretty good job of convincing him it would be worth his while.”
Man of the Hour
“Abbster, pick up the pace! We gotta go.”
“I don’t want to go to the liberry today, Mommy.”
Normally, I would gently and patiently remind her that, while there were many fruits in the world, “liberry” was not one of them. But there was no time for a grammar lesson today. “Well, you don’t have a choice. Mommy has to be there today, so come on.” I did the hop-shuffle dance into my sandals as I began the search for my keys.
It was the day of the program, and of course we were beyond late. I pictured poor Adrian Graves (which wasn’t easy to do—again, having never seen him) waiting at the train station for his ride to the library. He was supposed to call before his stop, but hadn’t yet, so perhaps we would still have time to drop the CDs and instruments for the kids a
t the library before running to fetch him.
“But Mom.” Abbey stretched the latter word out to three syllables. “Maxwell MacGillikitty is on! I wanna stay here!” I threw her sandals down beside her just as I spied my keys on top of the TV. I must’ve tossed them there when I turned it on to occupy Abbey while I dressed.
I hadn’t anticipated the closet crisis until I pulled open the door that morning. What to wear? It was worse than I had feared. My B.C. (Before Child) working-girl wardrobe looked dated and sad. There was a ball gown, a barn jacket, and barely anything suitable in between. I had finally pulled on a dark denim pencil skirt and a cute wrap-blouse in plum I had picked up at Barneys on sale at the end of last summer. Sort of hmmm . . . sexy secretary, I now observed, tilting my head to inspect my reflection in the mirror and smoothing back my curls. As I raced to grab Abbey a clean dress from her room, I sent up thanks to the gods above that I had bothered to shave my legs that morning.
“Here. Put this on. Now. The TV is going off.” Abbey shot me the juvenile version of a murderous look, eyes squinting and her head quivering. “It can go back into the closet, you know,” I offered. She quickly hopped up and pulled the sundress over her head.
On September 10, 2001, I was still in a solitary state of mourning. By the next morning, the entire country had joined me. My world became that much more shocked and saddened. Like everyone else, I sat glued to the TV as it all came crashing down, over and over on a continuous film loop. I cried for all humanity, for Abbey’s future, and, as ever, for Pete. I wondered what he would have thought had he lived to see what was happening in our former backyard: as a father, as a New Yorker, as a reporter, as an American, as a human being. On September 12, I unplugged the TV and pushed it into the closet, where it stayed for several months. I didn’t need a twenty-four-hour network enabler to feed my sorrow. I canceled the cable and paid my respects by reading the Portraits of Grief via the New York Times website every morning until the last piece ran on New Year’s Eve. Later that day, we bundled up and headed to Marissa’s for a sleepover to ring in 2002. It was there, over monkey bread and morning cartoons, that my daughter’s love for Maxwell MacGillikitty, Feline Private Eye was born.
Maxwell was a plucky little Maine coon cat who consistently found himself tiptoeing around one mystery or another in his tiny English fishing village of Mousehole. Luckily, with the aid of an unlikely sidekick in the form of a duck named Mr. Quackson, he was always able to wrap up the muddles within a thirty-minute, commercial-free time period. The show hadn’t exactly exploded in popularity here in the States, but it had developed a small cult following. And my daughter seemed to be leading the campaign.
I found myself wheeling out our old telly soon after her first taste, like any indulgent mother would. After banging on the top for several minutes to beat some good reception out of it, I allowed her one show a day, which turned into one hour, followed by a full-blown addiction to PBS. She began to walk around the house giving props for whatever good things came into her life in the form of a public service announcement: “This donut was made possible by the generous support of viewers like you. Thank you.”
Every episode ends with Maxwell humbly pulling down the brim of the tiny deerstalker’s detective hat perpetually perched between his tuft-tipped ears and quipping the line, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” I was certain Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was rolling in his grave, but my daughter gobbled it up with a spoon, quoting his lines and relaying his adventures to any hapless child who stood within shouting distance at the playground, grocery store, or random parking lot.
Abbey was still grumbling from her booster seat as we cruised down Main in search of a parking space. The rear lot the library shared with Starbucks was full, forcing us to park down near Underwood and Overhill Antiques. Luckily, the Mini could wedge into spots the lion’s share of Lauder Lake vehicles—SUVs and minivans—could not. I grabbed my box of program material with one hand and Abbey’s shoulder with the other and maneuvered us across the street.
“What if I never find out what happens to Maxwell after he gets trapped in the Wild Bird Hospital while trying to rescue Mr. Quackson from the clutches of the evil Dr. Loveydovey?”
“Well, maybe you can ask Adrian Graves about it, since he makes part of the show.”
“I thought Maxwell MacGillikitty was made possible by funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,” Abbey said, scooting under my arm as I propped open one of the library’s double doors.
“Yes, love . . . but someone still has to write the story and sing the song, right?” I hustled her into the large programming room located off the wing of the children’s library. It was a great space, with tons of windows and lots of kid-size tables and chairs for crafts and summer reading club programs. Today, the library staff had pushed the tables to the back of the room and set up two curved rows with a dozen chairs each. There were already a few early birds eagerly awaiting the event, including Karen with Jasper and Marissa with Joey and Brina. I was relieved to have the friendly and familiar support. Abbey immediately fell in with her friends, which allowed me to hustle to the front of the room and set up the props I had brought. The dollar store had had small tambourines and egg shakers that fit into the program’s supply budget, so I figured the kids could use them to join in with the music. I stashed the extra CDs I had purchased from the Bruised Apple in the corner, hoping if all went well, perhaps I could hand them out to the kids at the end of the program and Adrian Graves could autograph them.
“So are you nervous?” Marissa asked, trying out an egg shaker. “And where’s our rock star? It’s almost four now.”
“Shit,” I grumbled, low enough for the other parents and kids not to hear. “I instructed him to call me just before he got to the station.” I checked my cell and peered out the window down Main Street. “He’d better show. I’m not about to stand up here for an hour and pretend I can play music.” There was a small PA system, consisting of a microphone on a stand and an amplifier, which I tested to make sure it was in good working condition.
“Need any help in here?” Gwen poked her head in. Instead of her usual cement-colored library director suit, she actually looked festive in a sack dress of a salmon hue.
“Nope, we are all good,” I assured her.
“I can’t wait to meet your singing sensation!” She smiled and greeted some more parents and kids, who settled themselves on the chairs and cross-legged on the carpet.
“Well . . . I wouldn’t exactly call him a sensation. But I think he’s fun and talented and the kids will like him,” I replied, hoping he didn’t show up with a swastika tattooed on his forehead. I didn’t exactly explain to Gwen the limited knowledge I myself had of the man I had hired to perform.
“I’ll keep an eye on the kids.” Marissa nudged me. “Maybe you should go outside and call him.”
I slipped into the main area of the lobby. It had the usual Friday afternoon pace of patrons returning and borrowing, studying and socializing. Amelda and Judy, two clerks who were probably working in the library before the birth of Dewey, were stationed at the circulation desk. I wandered over to the front door, debating whether to just run to the station or to stay put and pray for the best.
Leanna and her son, Dylan, were just coming in. Dylan, a quiet and broody nine-year-old, was out of the age bracket I was aiming for with the program, but I was thankful they came to show their support anyway.
“Hey, are we late?” Leanna gave Dylan a gentle shove. “In with you, no complaining. You’ve got your Game Boy, you can deal for an hour.” He skulked toward the programming room. “What’s up? You look freaked out.”
We moved away from the front door and into the Fiction section as the van from the Rainbow School pulled up to the curb. “He’s not here yet.”
“Holy crow. What are you going to do?”
“I dunno. Maybe he missed his train or something. I’m so . . .” I stopped midsentence, noticing a man had breezed in moments ahead of the Rainbow kids. He had a softshell guitar case slung over his shoulder and was inquiring at the circulation desk.
“I bet he thinks one of those old biddies at the desk is you!” Leanna giggled. I took a moment to size him up. Not particularly tall, but of slim stature. His dark blondish hair, at least from my view, was somewhat raggedy, but perfectly respectable for a musician. He was wearing a black button down styled after an old-school tux shirt, with thin ruffles running down the front. His jeans were dark wash and looked expensive. I suddenly felt small-town and shoddy. I wished I had thought to pluck my eyebrows and give my chipped toenails a fresh coat of polish.
The clerks were gesturing and pointing toward the programming room. “Oh, but wait, here she comes now,” Amelda announced as I hastily approached. He turned, displaying a face much more weathered than I had initially noticed from afar. Tiny wrinkles fanned from the outer corners of his eyes, and his hair had quite a bit of gray streaking through the blond, especially at his sideburns. For some reason, I had anticipated him being younger than me. I recovered quickly, sticking out my hand.
Louder Than Love Page 5