Each time Larken sees him she examines his expression closely, trying to detect a mischievous twinkle, a suppression of pride. She’s been the beneficiary of such looks from Arthur before—when she was awarded a position on the faculty, when she passed her orals for her MFA, when she received her doctorate—so she knows exactly what to look for.
So far, she has not found it.
On an afternoon in mid-May, she is summoned to the chairman’s office.
“You probably know why you’re here,” he begins, once Larken settles into the chair across from his desk. “It was a tough decision, but the committee went with Mirabella.”
“Sorry?” She’s sure she’s misheard him.
“Of course you were on the short list, Larken,” he says amendingly, his tone a parody of unctuousness, “and you shouldn’t take this as any kind of affront. Your contribution to the faculty is hugely important.”
“I don’t understand. Can you explain the committee’s thinking?”
“Well, your scholarship is unquestionably first rate, and of course you’ve been here longer than anyone except Arthur, but the committee felt it was important to have a chairperson who demonstrates a certain flexibility, as well as strength under duress.”
What is this bullshit?
“To be honest,” he continues, “your performance this year hasn’t exactly been up to its usual level of excellence. I know you’ve had some personal issues …”
Hell YES personal issues! she wants to shout. My father died, my stepmother had a nervous breakdown, my brother quit his job, my sister is a nut case …
“… and all of that was taken into account, but at the same time, you’ve never shown any interest in traveling—”
“I don’t remember ‘must be willing to fly’ being part of the job description,” she remarks, making no effort to excise the sarcasm from her voice.
Richard brings one of his hands up to his mouth and rubs at the lower part of his face as if erasing an inappropriate, telling expression. When he lowers his hand and speaks again, his look is one of diplomatic blandness. “I’m sure you can understand how that kind of handicap would make it difficult for you to fulfill some of the responsibilities required of the department chair. I’m speaking, of course, about the trip to England.”
“Oh, right,” Larken says, holding fast to bitterness because if she doesn’t she might crumble. “That’s really what this is all about, isn’t it? That trip. After all I’ve done for this department and these students. I can’t believe this …”
He smiles, folds his hands, leans toward her. “It’s not the fear of flying per se, Larken, it’s the way you mishandled the situation, the fact that you signed on for the trip knowing that you had this handicap—”
“I signed on because Eloise asked me to.” Larken hates the pleading tone in her voice. “I signed on,” she repeats, with forced restraint, “out of loyalty.”
“I understand that, Larken, and yet you didn’t make any effort to handle your condition with medication, or whatever it would have required. Mirabella did an admirable job, considering the situation …”
“… I’m sure she did …”
“… but nonetheless, those students and their parents were short-changed. I took a lot of heat over the fact that what those families were promised—not to mention paid for—and what they received was very different.”
“So what you’re saying is that this is really all about you.”
He speaks with a weary patience. “No, Larken. I wasn’t on the committee. You know that.”
“But I’m sure you managed to make your viewpoint known.”
He sighs. “I daresay the person who was the most disappointed by all this was Arthur.”
The space containing her lungs and heart collapses. “What?”
“He was the one who expressed doubts that you’d be able to handle the chairmanship after what happened in December. You must know that that was very, very difficult for him.”
“Arthur?” she says, dazed. “Arthur?”
“I’m sorry, Larken. This must be hard news to hear.”
Larken thinks back to the hospital, to Eloise standing next to him, holding his hand, asking, Will you go?
It was a test, Larken realizes, incredulous. All these years, she’s misunderstood. She’s never been special or beloved. The question—this one (Will you go?), maybe all of them—was posed not to a surrogate daughter, but to an intellect-in-training, a malleable protégée, a candidate.
Richard stands and makes his way to the door. “As I said, I hope in time that you’ll understand …” He continues to speechify politely even as he’s giving her the boot. After she leaves, he’ll surely open up his grade book and inscribe an F next to her name.
Kris is at her desk, giving Larken an aggressively sympathetic smile, an intensely Christian smile. “Kiss?” she offers.
Fuck off, Larken thinks.
She starts making her way to the small room at the other end of the building where she teaches her last class of the day, a graduate seminar on the Flemish masters.
There are clusters of students lining the long hallway. They’re animated, happy, passionate. As Larken passes by, a few of them lift their heads, wave, say hello, acknowledge her, but most of them are distracted and self-absorbed in the way of the young.
She becomes aware of an unusual conformity in their speech, almost a choral quality—as if their conversations are making use of a shared palette of words, as if they’re all talking about the same thing.
Professor Piacenti, the students are singing.
Isn’t it exciting?
Elegant Mirabella.
Italian leather shoes.
Sooo beautiful.
Chairman, chairman
Soooo authentic.
She’s perfect!
Perfect
Piacenti
Chairman Piacenti
Chairman Piacenti
Larken realizes that she was never in the running for professional advancement, and not because of her slacker performance or her fear of flying. How could she have been so self-deluded? She was doomed to a failing grade by flat shoes and obesity and the most mundane and inelegant of appellations.
Chairman Jones. Could there be a less euphonic title?
After class, she skips out on her office hours. On her way to the parking lot, she sees Arthur and Eloise walking through the sculpture garden, arm in arm.
They see her. They wave.
She rushes away, without waving back.
He’s running. It’s Thursday—three days since Bethan’s visit, three days until the audition Eli has signed him up for. He’s picked up the phone numerous times, even dialed all but the last digit, and then hung up.
Why did she have to say look him in the eye?
He’s practiced a speech, and he reviews it now:
Eli, I’m extremely flattered that you’ve asked me to try out for your play. You are an excellent writer. It’s very good.
These statements are absolutely true. He can speak them with confidence.
Coming up with a truth beyond this has been difficult.
But I’m going to have to … I can’t try out because … I’m sure there’s someone else who … I can’t do it … I could, but I can’t …
And then he hits upon something:
But I’m not going to try out.
I’m not going to try.
That’s true. That’s straightforward. He can say that.
Gaelan checks his watch. It’s nearly one, they’ll be done with dinner, so he takes the turnoff he’s been skipping for the past few weeks and jogs toward the Ellis farm.
He arrives just as the work hands are heading back out to the field with Bethan’s father.
“Prynhawn da, Mr. Ellis,” Gaelan says. “Sut wyt chi?”
“Yn dda iawn,” he answers formally. “Diolch.”
“Mae hi’n braf heddiw,” Gaelan adds.
Mr. Ellis regards the sky, hums
doubtfully, and then asks, “Wyt tichwilio am Bethan?”
“No. Rydw i yma gweld Eli.”
“Ah.” His expression is still stern, but it shifts enough for Gaelan to understand that he’s more welcome if his purpose involves Eli rather than Bethan. “Mae ef yn y t” Mr. Ellis says, inclining his head toward the house. “Mae ef yn dysgu bar mitzvah.”
“Diolch yn fawr, Mr. Ellis.”
“Croeso.”
Bethan answers the door. “Hello,” she says, using the same laconic delivery and wearing the same indecipherable expression as her dad. Gaelan had forgotten how alike they are. “He’s in Bryn’s old room, the one at the front of the house.”
Gaelan nods, makes his way upstairs, knocks.
“I’m studying, Mom.” Eli’s voice is higher than he remembered.
“It’s me. Gaelan.”
When Eli opens the door, he looks frankly flabbergasted. Gaelan realizes that this is the first time in the history of their encounters that Eli hasn’t been prepared to see him.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Can I come in?”
“Sure.”
Eli steps aside. His room isn’t the tidy habitat Gaelan had somehow expected; it’s as messy as that of any twelve-year-old male. It’s as messy as Gaelan’s room, for that matter.
“I’m sorry I interrupted your studying,” Gaelan says. “Is this a bad time?”
“No,” Eli says, excavating a chair from beneath a pile of clothing and books. “You wanna sit down?”
“Thanks. Did you mom mention that I might be coming over?”
“My mom? No.” Eli regards him suspiciously, and Gaelan suddenly remembers that he was supposed to keep Bethan’s visit a secret.
He backpedals. “So what are you studying?”
“Oh, the usual seventh-grade stuff. Plus Hebrew.”
Gaelan looks at the Xeroxed pages laid out on Eli’s desk—the odd, foreign letters with their boxy, architectural shapes. He has a strong impulse to pick up the pages and turn them upside down, suspecting they’d make more visual sense to him if viewed that way. “This looks really hard.”
Eli shrugs. “It’s a lot like Welsh, actually.”
“How so?”
“No vowels.”
Gaelan nods. “You seem a little … down today.”
“I’m fine.”
“So what does this say?”
“It’s my Torah portion, the section I have to recite from the book of Genesis. It’s about Joseph. You’ve probably heard of him. You know: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”
“Oh. That Joseph. Yeah, I’ve heard of him.”
Eli looks down at his desk. “Joseph is the child of Jacob’s old age.”
It’s at this moment that Gaelan notices the family photograph on the shelf next to Eli’s desk. Eli wears a carefree, mischievous expression that Gaelan has never seen; it’s impossible to know whether this is because he’s younger, ten maybe, or because he’s being contained within the circle of his parents’ arms. They’re all laughing. They must be at a baseball game.
“I’m sorry about your dad,” Gaelan says. “I mean, I didn’t know him, but he must have been really special.”
“His name was Leo Mordecai Weissman. He was a professor of religious studies at the University of Washington.”
“You must miss him. I know I miss my dad.”
Eli looks quizzically at Gaelan for a moment and then follows his gaze to the photo. “He was a lot older than Mom, but funnier.”
“It works that way sometimes.”
“He taught me a lot of jokes. You wanna hear one?”
“Sure.”
“Okay,” Eli begins, with renewed energy. “President Bush, the pope, and the Lubavitcher rebbe are on an airplane flight to a conference of the world’s most powerful and spiritual people. Suddenly, the engines fail! The captain comes to the passenger cabin and shouts, ‘We’re going down, and there are only three parachutes, and I’m taking this one. Good luck!’”
Gaelan watches and listens, trying to identify which parts of this funny small boy derive from Bethan, who he knows so well, and which parts are inherited from his father, who he knows not at all.
“‘I’m the most powerful man in the world! I must be saved!’ says President Bush. He grabs on to a parachute and jumps out the door of the plane …”
—and yet he does know Eli’s father, somehow, because in recognizing what is not Bethan he sees what is Leo, and by the end of Eli’s joke he discovers that he likes Leo Mordecai Weissman very much. He must have made Bethan very happy.
Eli is revving up for the punch line. “… ‘Not to worry,’” says the rebbe. ‘The most powerful man in the world just jumped out of the plane holding my tallis.’” He throws himself back with such hilarity that Gaelan has to reach around the back of his chair to keep him from toppling over.
“You’re not much of a joke person, are you?” Eli observes.
“Oh, it’s a great joke. I’m just not much of a laugher.”
“So, why did you come over anyway?”
“Oh, well, I wanted to tell you, I mean, ask you about the tryout on Sunday. Do you have any advice? I’ve never auditioned for a play before.”
“Not really. I’m not an actor. I’m a writer. But one of my friends back in Washington—he’s been in a bunch of plays—he says that the most important thing is just to go in and have fun. Pretend you’ve already got the part.”
“Okay. Thanks. I’ll do that. Good luck with your studying.”
“Good luck to you, too.”
Bethan is in the kitchen; he calls good-bye to her on his way to the front door.
“Did you tell him?” she asks.
“It’s all good,” he replies.
As he bounds out of the house, he sees Mr. Ellis and his work hands in the field. Unconscious of the fact that he hasn’t been capable of the gesture for many months, Gaelan lifts his arm in a broad, exultant wave.
In response to feelings of intense shame and self-loathing, Larken would normally collaborate with the fast-food industry; there is both punishment and comfort to be found in ingesting excessive amounts of trans fat.
But in this case, she knows that Jon is waiting for her at home. She called him on her cell phone and shared the bad news. At the very least, she’ll have the gift of a shoulder to cry on; at best, she’ll be rewarded with a curative screw. There’s no Happy Meal in the world that beats being in love.
When he answers the door, she rushes into his arms.
“I’m so sorry, Larken,” he says, but instead of the usual sensation of sinking into him, she experiences his body at an odd, insulated remove, as if he’s encased in heavy-duty bubble wrap. “Nobody deserves the chair more than you.”
Then she looks beyond his shoulder into the apartment.
“What’s going on?”
“Come in. I have some news for you as well.”
“I guess so.”
“You want some tea or wine or something?”
“No. I want to know why you’re packing.”
“Always the forthright girl,” he tries to joke. “I’m moving. We’re moving.” He sighs. “Mia and I are getting back together.”
“What?”
“We’re going to try again.”
“Why on earth would you want to do that?”
“What do you mean, why?”
“She dumped you. She dumped you in the worst, most hurtful way imaginable, and you know she’ll do it again. She’s a toxic, self-absorbed, self-centered—”
He interrupts her. “Stop. Please. For the sake of our friendship—”
“Our friendship?”
“—please stop. Mia and I are married, Larken, that’s why. We made promises and we’re going to try to keep them.”
As the possible ramifications of his words begin to take shape, Larken feels a sudden weakening in her legs. She has to sit down. “What about Esmé?”
“What ab
out her?”
“I would think that Esmé is the best reason for you and Mia not trying to get back together.”
He doesn’t reply.
“And what about the three of us? You and Esmé and I have been playing family every weekend for months now. Is all of that going to stop?” An even more terrifying thought occurs to her. “Am I going to get to see her at all?”
“Mia and I haven’t talked about that.” His body slumps, his chin falls to his chest, he runs his fingers through his hair. This series of gestures conveys an impotent helplessness that she finds infuriating. All the things that she has loved and cherished about him suddenly repulse and anger her.
“Please don’t tell me that this is about staying together for the sake of the child,” she says with lashing force. “And please don’t evoke that sanctity of marriage bullshit. You haven’t exactly held up your end of the bargain, have you? You’ve broken just as many promises as she has.” She has a thought that makes him even more repellent. “You haven’t told her about us, have you?”
Jon starts to cry, but she is merciless.
“You haven’t, have you?” she rushes on, hearing herself from a distance, because it cannot be her, speaking like this; she has never spoken like this to anyone. “You son of a bitch. You really think you can try again when you’ve neglected to tell your wife that you’ve been fucking your downstairs neighbor, your friend, your babysitter, from the moment she vacated the premises? What kind of future marital bliss do you think you’re going to be able to build on that, Jon? Answer me.”
Jon swipes at his eyes and then sits down on the sofa next to her.
“I have told her, Larken. I couldn’t call myself much of a man otherwise, could I?”
His words not only bring the accelerating tension in her body to a full stop, but reverse it to such an extent that she feels frightened: It is not just her muscles that release, but tendons, sinews, cartilage, whatever attaches bone to bone, organ to peritoneum, heart to mediastinal space. He takes hold of the pile of bones that until moments before were her hands.
“Marriage doesn’t exist in a vacuum,” he says. “Mia’s infidelity is as much my fault as much as it is hers. I’m very, very sorry that I brought you into all this.”
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