Love in the Present Tense

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  “Gracias,” Barb said.

  “Por nada, Missis. Is okay.”

  Then we were standing out in the hall together, completely alone. She looked me up and down as though she’d never really seen me in the light.

  “God, look at you. You’re so handsome. I’ve never seen you in a suit before.”

  I said, “It doesn’t happen every day.”

  “Nice tie.”

  “I like it.”

  She gave me a smile that made me want to pull her off into the upstairs bathroom and get her out of that great dress. Or just work around it, I didn’t care. She reached out and removed the handkerchief from my breast pocket and brushed at the shoulder of my jacket with it.

  “You had a little bit of drool,” she said. “It’s okay now.” She refolded the handkerchief and tucked it back in my pocket.

  “I’m sorry about this.” I gestured with my head in the direction of Marta’s quarters.

  “It’s taken care of. Forget it. Slip Marta a twenty before you go.”

  I made a mental note to slip her two twenties.

  We turned and walked down the hall together. Back to the land of the guests. And Harry. It came back down on me like an anvil on a cartoon mouse. I felt like I was walking to the gallows for my own beheading.

  On our way down the stairs I felt her hand run down my sleeve and touch my hand. She gave it a quick squeeze.

  “Relax, Mitchell. It’s going to be fine.”

  Then we were downstairs and it was too late for any of that. No more room for the slightest touch or the most subtle aside.

  It was time to be received by the mayor.

  “There he is,” Harry said. Bellowed would be more like it. “Come here, you.”

  He was standing out on the deck on the coastal side with three other people, all of whom were strangers to me. The sun set behind a sharp line of fogbank just under his left armpit as he held his arms outstretched. He had a drink in one hand, which, come to think, might be the only way I’d ever seen him. I thought he wanted to shake my hand, but he threw his arms around me and gave me this great smothering bear hug, which startled and embarrassed the hell out of me. I could feel a little of his drink slosh onto the back of my jacket.

  Then he held me at arm’s length and looked me over. “You look great,” he said. “You look like a young man on his way up. Which is exactly what you are.”

  Harry was a fleshy, beefy man of fifty-something, with silver hair and leathery skin and a made-to-order political persona. When he smiled I could just see that face on an election poster. I wondered how much he had spent on those teeth. Nobody is born with anything that perfect. I pictured his dentist driving an imported luxury car.

  “Let me introduce you around,” he said. “This is Martin Broad, my campaign manager. And a damn good one he is, too. And you’ve met Bruce Stagner.”

  “Of course,” I said. “Mr. Stagner. Of course.” I had no memory of ever having met the man.

  “And this,” Harry said with a great flourish, “is my daughter, Karen.” He reached out for her and swept her around by her elbow to face me.

  “Your daughter,” I said.

  My face felt flushed and I prayed it wasn’t obvious. In front of me stood this stunning woman who looked maybe a year or two younger than me, with butt-length hair, a tight, off-the-shoulder dress, and cleavage that just wouldn’t quit. I knew their daughters were grown and out of the house, but I’d been seriously wishing for a pouty college freshman.

  Harry said, “Come on, gentlemen. Let’s give the young people a chance to talk.” I hoped like hell he didn’t mean that the way I knew damn well he did.

  “Well,” Karen said. She looked down into her cocktail glass, absently twirling an ice cube with one long, red fingernail. “The famous Mitchell.”

  “Why am I famous?”

  “Mom and Dad think very highly of you. Dad says you’re a talented young man. And he told me you were handsome, too. He didn’t exaggerate. Hard to imagine somebody hasn’t already snapped you up.”

  If I had, at that moment, fallen through the redwood decking to my death, it would have come as a welcome alternative.

  I didn’t, though. I’m sorry to say I didn’t.

  Over dinner Harry dropped the news. Clinked his knife against his water glass until all eyes turned to him.

  Then he said, “I suppose you’re wondering why I called you all here.”

  Barb was seated right across the table from me, and I shot her a look, which I had been trying to avoid doing.

  Then he announced his intention to make a run for Congress. “It’s a long shot,” he said. “I’m a one-term mayor, and not of the biggest city in California. But it needs to be done. There’s been a three-term Republican stranglehold on that seat. Some good, middle-of-the-road Democrat has to come along and break it. Maybe I’m the guy who can do it and maybe I’m not. But I’ve got great people on my team, and that’s what counts. That’s where all you competent folks come in.”

  He went on a good bit longer. Everyone stared with rapt attention, and so did I, but I wasn’t listening. I was thinking, if he wins they’ll move to Washington. Then I thought, no. If he wins he’ll spend eighty percent of his time in Washington and she’ll still be here. I wondered how long it would take me to find out.

  I wondered if Leonard was sleeping peacefully.

  I felt a foot bump against mine, a small woman’s foot. I thought it was Barb, connecting with me under the table. But just at that moment Barb half-stood to move a floral arrangement, because it obstructed a guest’s view of the mayor as he spoke. I knew her feet had to be underneath her.

  As she leaned forward, the vee of her dress lapels spread slightly and I found myself looking down her dress. Move your eyes, I thought, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t look away. My body reacted to the sight of hers, and I couldn’t convince it that this was not the moment. It wouldn’t listen to reason.

  Karen was, of course, seated next to me. So my search for the owner of the foot needed go no further.

  The rest of the guests were long gone. I ached to be but had not succeeded in making my break. Instead I had been railroaded into the parlor for a private game of pool. I puffed lightly on the illegal Cuban cigar that my host had insisted I smoke. He’d also brought me a brandy from the wet bar in the corner of the parlor, and it sat on the rail of the pool table, mostly untouched. I was driving for two that night. But I sipped at it occasionally for his benefit.

  “This is a real opportunity for you if you use it well,” he said. “There’ll be expansion involved. You’ll need new hardware, new employees. You’ll work closely with Marty Broad, and also with Barbara. She’ll be coordinating. We’re talking Web promotion, direct mailing, publications, electronic communications, the whole nine yards. Everything computer related goes to you.”

  He also said some other things I missed while I was thinking, how did I ever get into all this? I never intended to do software or Web design or have my own business. I wanted to teach grade school. It seemed weird to remember that, like it was decades ago. But really that dream was just a few years stale. I’d come to this town for college. Got my teaching degree and then got distracted by money. You don’t exactly get rich teaching grade school. But I don’t think money mattered at the time. And I couldn’t remember when it started being about the money. Why it suddenly mattered.

  But Harry was still talking, and I was missing it. Of course, drunk as he was, he was probably missing most of it, too.

  “There’ll be some late nights involved. You can’t handle it all, delegate. But it’s still your baby. Barbara, she knows how I want things run, and she can be places I can’t. But I know you two can work together. She thinks highly of you. You know that, right?”

  “I have a great deal of respect for the woman, sir.”

  “That’s good,” he said. “You know. Love me, love my wife. That sort of thing.”

  “I do, sir.” Then I quickly added, “Both.”
It dawned on me gradually that I had just told Harry I loved him.

  “Don’t call me sir.” A wave of his hand sent a plume of exhaled smoke rolling over the table. It wrapped around the hanging Tiffany lamp and clung there, only slightly swaying. “Makes me feel like a dinosaur. You know you can call me Harry.”

  “Right. Of course. Harry. I’ll need to make a fairly early night of this.”

  “Of course you have good people already,” he said. I’m not sure he’d even heard me. “You have that good assistant. That sharp young man. What’s his name?”

  “John Cahill.”

  “Right, right. And look. If I get elected, there’s a bonus in it for you. Substantial. You know what I mean when I say substantial?”

  “I don’t think I do, sir. Harry.”

  “I mean walk into a Mercedes dealership, pick one out, pay cash. That kind of substantial. A man on the rise needs a good car. Show the world who he is. Where he’s going.”

  “Don’t think I don’t appreciate it,” I said. “But I’m thinking I need to make an early night of this.”

  A movement in the hall outside the parlor caught my eye, and I looked up. Barb was crossing the doorway, hesitating just long enough and just wickedly enough to really take me in, and I returned the favor. She smiled, and then the vision was gone again, leaving me tingling, hollow, disoriented. Half erect and completely stupid.

  “My daughter seems quite taken with you,” Harry said. He clapped me on the shoulder, startling me. I tried to line up a shot. “You have no idea how much it would please me to welcome you into this family in a more literal sense.”

  I watched miserably as I scratched the cue ball into the side pocket. “Your shot, sir. She’s a lovely young woman, but that might be a bit premature.”

  He fished out the cue ball and placed it rather drunkenly on the green felt. Once again I had no idea if my words were even getting through.

  “I never had a son,” he said. “Wanted one, though. Oh, I know. I’m being mushy. Forgive me. I just want you to know that Barbara and I care a great deal about you.” For one awful minute I thought he might be about to cry. How many drinks has he actually had? I wondered.

  “I’m honored,” I said. “Really. But I should be going.”

  He clapped me on the shoulder again and racked up a new game. We hadn’t yet finished the old game, but I didn’t correct him.

  She walked me out to my car. The valet had apparently gone home for the night.

  I buckled Leonard into the passenger seat and slammed the door as quietly as possible. Then I turned to face her and leaned on my car. We just stood for one long, quiet moment in the dark. Alone and free for one wonderful split second of time.

  “What are you going to do about him?” she said.

  “Who?” I thought she meant Harry.

  “Leonard.”

  “Oh. Well. I don’t know. What can I do?”

  “I mean, if she doesn’t come back.”

  “Oh, God,” I said. “I can’t think about that now. Please don’t make me think about that now.”

  “Okay. Sorry.” She reached out and touched my face for just a fraction of a second. We both looked up at the house. Every window seemed to face out onto the spot where we stood. She let her hand fall again.

  I said, “That was really, really, really, really awkward.”

  “You were fine, though,” she said. “You did fine.”

  “He stopped just short of telling me I was the son he never had. I had no idea he felt that way. I mean…does he? Does he really like me that much, or did he just have a little too much to drink?”

  A barely perceptible shrug. “A little of both, I think.”

  “If he wins are you moving?”

  “No. He’ll just be away a lot.”

  Wouldn’t that be a shame? I wanted to say. But I couldn’t bring myself to. I couldn’t shift gears that fast. I was still too unbalanced. It would have felt too callous.

  “Maybe Tuesday,” she said. “He’ll be out of town. I might be able to stay the night. I’d have to put my private phone on call forwarding. You’ll have to let me answer your phone if it rings.”

  “Does he know?”

  I’m not even sure what possessed me to ask. But it had flitted through my mind at several points in the evening. I’d felt almost like he was driving at it.

  Love me, love my wife. You’ll have to work closely with Barbara. There’ll be some late nights involved. I know you two can work together.

  It felt like a system of hints. It felt calculated.

  “Dear God, no,” she said. “If he ever knows, you’ll hear about it. Believe me.”

  LEONARD, age 5: i knew that

  Hannah bumped me off my regular computer, the one I played games on while the rest of the guys worked. As Mitch liked to say, I’d graduated quickly from the first-grader games and moved on to using a joystick to save the universe by repelling alien invasions.

  “I gotta have the seventeen-inch monitor this morning,” she said. “Here. You can use the old laptop.”

  She set it on my little desk. The guys actually gave me my own desk. How cool is that?

  “But it doesn’t have my games installed.”

  She held up a disk. “I put ’em on floppy for you. I got you all set up.”

  Then she started working. But she was talking to me at the same time, trying to explain how to find my games on the A drive. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do this, but I couldn’t quite figure out how to tell her. The screen was just too little.

  “Double-click ‘my computer,’” she said.

  “I don’t know what that is.”

  “The icon that looks like a little computer.”

  “I can’t find it,” I said.

  “Upper left of your desktop.”

  “Oh. Okay.” I could see icons, just not well enough to know if they looked like little computers. I double-clicked the one in the upper left corner. I was just trusting Hannah. “Now what?”

  “Now hit ‘three-and-a-half-inch floppy A.’”

  “I don’t know where that is.”

  “Leonard,” she said. “You know an A when you see one.”

  “Yuh,” I said. “But I don’t see one.”

  She stopped what she was doing. Saved and closed the file I think. Then she came and looked over my shoulder. “You don’t see an A anywhere on that screen?”

  “Not really.”

  “Okay, come with me a second. Let’s try this on the seventeen-inch.”

  She popped out the disk and put it into my regular computer. “Try it now,” she said.

  I double-clicked the little icon that looked like it was a computer. Then I said, “Oh. There it is. A.” I had to lean in a little, but I could see it.

  “Is that why you lean in so close?” Hannah asked. “To see the screen better?”

  “Yuh. Why’d you think?”

  “Gee, I don’t know. I thought you were just being intense. Well, never mind,” she said. “You can have the big computer. I’ll work on the laptop for now.”

  A minute later, when Mitch got off the phone, I heard her say, “Doc? Can I talk to you privately for a minute?”

  MITCH, age 25: the pledge

  The optometrist said, “Amblyopia in the left eye. I can’t help noticing that.”

  I said, “In English, please?”

  And Leonard said, “It means my eye wanders around. Looks at my nose a little too much.”

  The doctor laughed. “Why do I think this is not your first eye appointment?”

  “Because it’s not,” Leonard said.

  “His prescription has changed a lot. Too much, really. His myopia is progressing pretty rapidly. That’s why I strongly suggest a dilated exam with an ophthalmologist. Too bad we don’t have more information about his background. He wasn’t by any chance a premature baby, was he?”

  “What in God’s name would that have to do with anything?”

  “There’s an eye
disease related to prematurity—”

  “Yuh,” Leonard said. “ROP. I got that. From being borned too soon.”

  I just kind of stared at him. Wondering why he’d never told me. Then again, I suppose I’d never asked.

  “Well, that fills in a good amount of background, right there,” the doctor said. “He should be screened every six months or so to prevent later complications.”

  “Yuh,” Leonard said. “I know.”

  “What kind of complications?” I wanted to know.

  “Well,” the doctor said. “In ninety percent of retinopathy of prematurity patients, the symptoms seem to reverse themselves without intervention. But in the other ten percent there can be serious complications. The scar tissue can cause retinal dragging, which I suspect may already be coming into play. Sometimes growth in the eye through adolescence causes retinal tearing. Or actual detachment. What we call late-onset retinal detachment. That would be the worst case. That’s what we’re screening to prevent.”

  “And the upshot of that would be…”

  “If left untreated? Blindness. But there are excellent treatment options. I’m sure a good ophthalmologist will discuss them with you. Of course, you not being the actual parent, I’m not sure how much of this you want to know. But if you’re legally fostering him, the state of California might be some help to you. If you’re willing to brave the red tape.”

  “So, we’re talking expensive.”

  “At this point,” the doctor said, “I’m not sure you even want to know.”

  We were driving home in the car, and he had on his new glasses. He just couldn’t get over how cool they were.

  “They’re so light,” he said. He was shaking his head back and forth, then up and down. No elastic strap, either. The light lenses helped keep the glasses from falling off. Also the doctor had fitted the earpieces so they wrapped around his ears from behind and held on. He could hold his face down with the glasses pointing at the floor, and they weren’t heavy, and they didn’t fall. I knew this was the pair of glasses Pearl had always wanted him to have. Thing is, they were expensive. Really expensive.