The Girl From Home

by Adam Mitzner

  They met four years earlier, at a benefit for the American Museum of Natural History. Natasha was there as the date of someone who made the mistake of leaving her unattended for too long, and she ended up going home with Jonathan. They married less than a year later.

  Even while they exchanged their vows, promising to stay together for richer or poorer, until death did them part, Jonathan knew that their marriage would be based on something far less romantic. He would provide Natasha a life of luxury, and she would always look beautiful.

  Right now, those vows are in full effect. Natasha is wearing a full-length black leather coat and red boots that lace up nearly to her knees. With her five-foot-ten frame, she looks today like a well-heeled dominatrix.

  “You’re home early,” she says.

  Jonathan detects an undercurrent of disappointment in his wife’s observation. Normally he arrives home after midnight, and she never fails to complain about that, reminding him that the market closes at four thirty, which requires Jonathan to offer the rejoinder that he follows the markets in Russia and the subcontinent, and that investing is only a small part of the job. Getting the money to invest is what really matters, and that requires a lot of wining and dining, such that all the nights he spends in five-star restaurants drinking outrageously priced alcohol are still work related.

  “Correct, and I have no obligations,” he says. “So let’s celebrate my being home early by going out for dinner tonight.”

  “That sounds lovely,” Natasha says. Jonathan assumes Natasha had other plans, as sitting home alone was not her style. But whatever she had on tap for tonight can apparently be easily jettisoned, because she immediately says, “Should we go to Pavia’s or that new Jean-Georges place on Madison?”

  She’s given him a choice between the two priciest options within a ten-block radius. But Jonathan has never thought twice about dropping four hundred dollars for dinner. He opts for Pavia’s because he likes their rack of lamb.

  When they arrive, the maître d’ greets Jonathan by name, while the coat-check girl kisses him on both cheeks. After they’re seated, and their drinks have arrived—chardonnay for her and another Johnnie Walker Blue for him—as nonchalantly as he can, Jonathan announces, “Well, today was Numbers Day.”

  This is enough to capture Natasha’s full attention. Many of their discussions over the past few months about their future expenditures—most significantly, about buying a summer home in the Hamptons, that section of God’s country that juts into the Atlantic at the farthest end of Long Island, and where Manhattanites “summer”—have ended with Jonathan saying “Let’s see what the number is.”

  “And? East Hampton or Southampton?” Natasha asks.

  Meaning, is Jonathan’s bonus enough to buy in East Hampton, or will they need to lower their sights and look in the slightly less ritzy Southampton?

  “Maybe Bridgehampton,” he replies.

  Bridgehampton is geographically between East and Southampton. Jonathan assumes Natasha knows that he’s being symbolic and that he’d never be caught dead buying a house in Bridgehampton.

  Natasha has apparently had enough of their little game. “Jonathan, just tell me the damn number.”

  Jonathan takes a gulp of his scotch, as if he needs liquid courage to impart this news. “I’ll spare you all the platitudes that they blow up my ass before getting to the bottom line, and of course it’s all conditional on final approval, but they think the gross number will be around . . . ten million.”

  It takes Natasha the amount of time that passes for Jonathan to lift his drink back to his lips for her to compute the bottom line. “So, about two-point-five will be liquid, right?”

  Given that Jonathan is lying about the actual number, he has to recalculate it in his own head before answering. “A little less,” he finally says. “And don’t forget that the first five hundred grand goes to pay down the firm credit line and we owe about a hundred thousand to Amex.”

  Jonathan’s draw—his salary before bonus—is a half million dollars annually. That translates into, after taxes, take-home pay of twenty thousand a month, nearly all of which goes to the mortgage and maintenance on their co-op, the one hard asset they own. The rest of their living expenses—which includes Christmas in Aspen and Easter in Anguilla, the two hundred thousand for the summer house they currently rent in East Hampton from Memorial Day to Labor Day, the thousand a month that goes to the parking garage for Jonathan’s Bentley (the car itself is on a three-year prepaid lease), and then whatever else catches their fancy throughout the year, and man, there’s no end in sight on that front—comes from the five-hundred-thousand-dollar credit line Harper Sawyer provides him, which is always maxed out before Christmas. From that point on, they live off Amex until his bonus arrives in late March, and then the entire process starts all over.

  “We have about four million in the brokerage account,” she says. “If we put that down, plus what you clear from the number this year, and mortgage the rest, we’ll be able to buy something nice.”

  “I’m not looking to buy something nice, Natasha. I’m only going to buy oceanfront, and only in East Hampton, and we don’t have enough borrowing power for that. Not this year. I’d rather rent on the ocean and buy next year.”

  “This may come as a shock to you, Jonathan, but East Hampton has many homes that are not on the ocean. Some are on bays or, God forbid, landlocked, but I can assure you that in the ten-to-fifteen-million-dollar price range, they’re still very habitable.”

  “Not for me,” he says definitively.

  Natasha sighs. “Jonathan . . . at least let me go see what’s out there.”

  “Look, if you want to spend your time driving three hours each way to East Hampton, be my guest. But I want to be crystal-clear with you about something. I am not going to settle. If we can’t buy something on the ocean this year, then screw it, we’ll just rent on the ocean this summer and buy next year. I’m sorry, but I want what I want.”

  I want what I want. It was Jonathan’s mantra, the credo on which he dedicated his life. He followed it with religious fervor, fully believing that he was destined to have whatever he desired.

  2

  Nine Months Later/December

  Nine Crowne Road could be refitted as a museum exhibit depicting 1970s–1980s middle-class suburbia simply by placing a turnstile at the front door. In fact, Jonathan suspects a near replica of his childhood home is probably an attraction at Epcot.

  By rote, he climbs the stairs and heads to his old bedroom. Nothing has changed since the moment he left for college. It still has the same baby-blue dyed wood paneling his parents bought because it was on sale at Two Guys, along with the old red-and-blue wall-to-wall carpet, which has always reminded him of the Union Jack flag. Even the lighting fixture hasn’t changed—a basketball hoop with a red, white, and blue globe in the net—and it must be worth something now, given that the ABA hasn’t existed since 1976.

  Jonathan throws his suitcase on his twin bed and begins to unpack its contents. He carefully places his navy Brioni suit and white dress shirt on a hanger, and then hooks it over the doorknob, hoping the wrinkles fall away before he has to get dressed tonight. He realizes he forgot to bring dress shoes, so he’ll have to wear his Gucci loafers, which he would otherwise never wear with a suit.

  As he pulls out the rest of his clothing, it reminds him of one of those GQ articles about the eight pieces of clothing you need to take to a deserted island, or something like that. In addition to tonight’s ensemble, he’s packed running shoes and the related gear, even though he hasn’t run now in months, a pair of jeans, two button-down casual shirts (one white, one blue), some T-shirts, his favorite Loro Piana cashmere sweater, a week’s worth of underwear and socks, and a toiletry bag.

  Seeing it all laid out, Jonathan reflects on his walk-in closet back in the city, stacked with thousand-dollar Berluti shoes and six-thousand-dollar suits. He shakes away the thought of what he’s left behind and places his meager
belongings into a single drawer of the dresser that still shows the outlines of the New York Mets stickers he had once plastered all over it.

  When his clothes are put away, Jonathan explores the house as if it’s uncharted terrain, and not the place he called home until he left for college. The living room with its L-shaped sectional—the one item of furniture not from his father’s store, which, of course, made it his mother’s favorite—the den with its dark-brown-and-rust-color theme; the downstairs playroom that his sister, Amy, claimed as her bedroom after Jonathan left for college, which at least had a decor that was more 1980s than the rest of the house, with a purple polka-dot color scheme inspired by the cover of Prince’s 1999 album.

  The kitchen is new, meaning that it dates from the Clinton administration. It was the big expenditure his parents made after Amy graduated and his parents were no longer burdened with tuition payments. It was still done on the cheap, but at least it’s white, and not the avocado green Jonathan remembers from growing up.

  Jonathan decides that if ever a moment called for some alcohol, by God this was it. His parents were never drinkers, but for as long as Jonathan could remember, his father kept the same bottle of scotch in the cabinet under the kitchen sink. It was purchased on the day Jonathan was born, with his father intending to open it on his son’s eighteenth birthday.

  Jonathan searches under the sink for the bottle. He finds it in the back, wedged against the pipe. Pulling it out, he examines the label. It’s a blend, and a crappy one at that. A brand Jonathan had never seen in an advertisement or a liquor store or on a restaurant menu, and Jonathan can’t help but shake his head in disappointment. Even when William Caine was trying to go all out, he was subpar. It only further fuels the mystery in Jonathan’s mind of how it could possibly be that he had fifty percent of that man’s DNA running through him.

  For an occasion nearly two decades in the making, when the seal on the scotch was first broken, it occurred without any pomp. Jonathan was on his way to go out and celebrate with his friends when his father asked him to stay for just a minute longer and handed him a glass filled with a centimeter of amber liquid.

  “I can’t believe you’re giving your just-turned-eighteen-years-old son alcohol right before he gets in a car,” Jonathan’s mother had said.

  “It’ll be just a sip, Linda. And, besides, I doubt he’s going to like it much . . . To my son on his eighteenth birthday,” William Caine had said, clinking his own glass with Jonathan’s. “You’re going to want to sip it very slowly. Just take a small swallow in your mouth, and then let it roll down your throat.”

  Jonathan followed his father’s instructions. Even so, it tasted like smoke at first, and then morphed into fire as he swallowed.

  The entire event lasted no more than ten minutes. His father mentioned making the scotch drink an annual birthday ritual, but the following years saw Jonathan spending his birthdays at college. He and his father never shared another glass.

  The bottle appears just as full as it was twenty-five years ago. After pouring a generous amount, Jonathan takes a sip. As he had expected, it’s barely drinkable. Jonathan hasn’t had anything but top-shelf scotch since . . . maybe since the day he turned eighteen.

  He takes the glass outside. Even in the bright sunlight, there’s a sharp chill in the air. As cold as it is now, Jonathan knows it’s going to get much worse before it gets better.

  Much like his own life, come to think of it.

  * * *

  An hour later Jonathan pulls his Bentley into the Lakeview Wellness Facility parking lot. He hasn’t yet seen any lake that might be viewed, although he leaves open the possibility that there’s some body of water somewhere, so maybe every part of the name isn’t a total lie.

  Jonathan has no illusions that the wellness part couldn’t be further from the truth. He’s certain that no one ever gets well at Lakeview. Like the old Roach Motel commercials—people check in, but they don’t check out.

  An odd anxiety takes hold the moment Jonathan enters the facility. He fears that his father has just died, or will expire in the next few minutes—before he makes it to his old man’s room. Less than a hundred yards away from his destination, Jonathan begins to jog through the halls, full of dread that he’s too late.

  When he reaches his father’s room, his fear appears to be realized. William Caine lies there motionless.

  Jonathan can feel his heart thumping as he approaches. His father does not stir, even as Jonathan reaches out to grasp the man’s thick, hairy fingers.

  They are warm to the touch. Then his father slightly moves his hand but still doesn’t open his eyes. Nevertheless, it’s enough proof for Jonathan that his father’s alive.

  Jonathan walks out of the room to the nurses’ station. It’s manned by three women, all wearing white nurse’s uniforms. One is African American, and the other two appear to be Hispanic. Each is at least fifty pounds overweight.

  “I’m Jonathan Caine,” he says to none of them in particular. Then he points at the room he just exited. “That’s my father, William Caine. How’s he doing?”

  “Oh, hi,” says the African American nurse. “Yeah, you look like him.”

  Jonathan’s heard for years that he resembles his father, and he always took it as a compliment. His mother had never made any secret that looks were the reason she had married William Caine. Sometimes she’d say it as the worst type of insult, as in, Do you think I would have married him if I’d known what he was really like? But what did I know? I was twenty-two and he was the best-looking man I’d ever laid eyes on. Those looks included chiseled cheekbones, a long, straight nose, a strong, dimpled chin, and piercing blue eyes, all of which Jonathan inherited.

  “So how’s he doing?” Jonathan asks again.

  The nurse shrugs. “The same. He was awake earlier today. Talking a little bit.”

  “Do you think he’s asleep for the night, or could he wake up?”

  “No way of knowing.”

  Jonathan checks his watch. It’s five o’clock, and the reunion starts at eight. He needs no more than an hour’s lead time to get ready, which means he might as well spend the next two hours watching television beside his father, rather than doing so by himself in his father’s house.

  He goes back into his father’s hospital room and settles into the red vinyl recliner under the window. Finding the remote on the night table, Jonathan clicks on the wall-mounted television and surfs the channels until arriving at the Michigan–Ohio State football game, and decides that’s as good as anything else to pass the time.

  * * *

  Jonathan’s mother died nine months ago. Cancer. Diagnosed in June and dead by March. She had been complaining about something being wrong with her husband’s mind for at least two years before she got sick, although truth be told, she had been complaining about her husband’s mental state for as long as Jonathan could remember.

  The last time Jonathan saw his father was at his mother’s funeral. During the drive home, he finally saw what his mother had been talking about.

  “Johnny,” his father said.

  Jonathan let slide his father’s use of his childhood nickname, which he hadn’t answered to since high school. Like everyone else, his father had long referred to him as Jonathan, so the reversion to Johnny was just another sign of his old man’s decline.

  “I have something I need to ask you.”

  “Sure,” Jonathan said.

  “I don’t know if you’ll know the answer, but I know you’re very smart, so I thought I’d ask.”

  “Okay.”

  “Did you hear that person who talked at the funeral and kept saying how your mother was an angel?”

  That person was her brother, Alan. Jonathan’s father had known him for more than fifty years.

  “Yeah. Uncle Alan. Right.”

  “Well, is it true?”

  “Is what true, Dad?”

  “Is your mother an angel?”

  Of all the descriptions of Li
nda Caine, angelic was not one that Jonathan would apply. Beautiful. Overbearing. Ill-tempered. Those fit. Angelic, less so.

  “She loved you very much,” Jonathan said.

  His father violently shook his head. “No. I’m not asking about me. I’m asking about her. Is she an angel? Is she?!”

  Jonathan found his father’s anger even more disconcerting than the absurdity of the question. For all of William Caine’s faults, losing his temper wasn’t one of them. Jonathan could scarcely recall the man being forceful about anything in his life, yet now he was demanding to know whether his dead wife was an angel with the urgency that suggested innocent lives were hanging in the balance.

  “Do you mean like in heaven?” Jonathan asked. “With wings and a halo?”

  “Yes,” his father said with utmost seriousness.

  Jonathan sighed deeply. He truly didn’t know what type of response was appropriate in such a situation, but figured that you responded to people with dementia the same way you did a child.

  “The thing is, Dad, that angels exist only in heaven, so no one knows if Mom is an angel or not, because if she’s an angel, it’s in heaven.”

  His father nodded, seemingly satisfied with this answer. “That’s what I thought,” he said. “I knew that guy was lying, because he couldn’t know if Linda was an angel. Nobody can.”

  Jonathan isn’t certain whether any actual diagnosis has been made of his father’s condition. His younger sister, Amy, has told him that the doctors have bandied about different medical-sounding things, which she often mentioned in connection with some celebrity who suffered from the malady. Parkinson’s, like with Michael J. Fox, was ruled out, but Parkinson’s syndrome, like with Muhammad Ali, was a leading candidate when the symptoms were physical only, most noticeably that his left leg dragged when he walked. When his father’s mind began to falter, Alzheimer’s became the new diagnosis, with Ronald Reagan getting top billing, but Amy’s Internet research recently led her to conclude he might have Lewy body. Jonathan had never heard of that one, but Amy said Robin Williams had it, and she described the disease as like Alzheimer’s, only with hallucinations, pointing out that their father was often talking about having different imaginary friends.