“I don’t drive,” said Lula, ungenerously. Of course she’d had dreams just like that.
“May you never have that dream, and may you never discover how closely it mimics real life. Groping around in the darkness, taking all the wrong turns. Don tried to warn me before I took this job with the bank. But I thought . . . I don’t know what I thought. The money and the power . . . I thought the additional income would be good for Ginger and Zeke, and that I could somehow improve the lives of all those poor folks who needed my help.”
This was more emotional intensity than Lula had heard from Mister Stanley in all their previous conversations combined. It could affect their relationship, and not in a positive way. Not knowing more than she needed to was a policy that Lula tried to follow, not only with Mister Stanley, but also with Zeke and Don. It was how you survived under Communism. Who said you had to be intimate with everyone’s personal secrets?
He said, “I always imagined that on the day Zeke left for college I would cheer up Ginger with a surprise—two business-class tickets to Venice!”
Lula tried to picture Mister Stanley’s head in Ginger’s lap while the gondolier serenaded them with swoony Venetian ballads. She said, “It’s not like Zeke’s moving to another country.”
“Losing is losing,” said Mister Stanley.
Now was the time for Dunia’s half-full-glass pep talk, but no matter how she tried, Lula couldn’t see what was left in Mister Stanley’s glass. He said, “After they leave the house, it’s never the same. It’s not supposed to be the same. Then you’d have a problem. Those kids who never leave home and turn into . . . I don’t know what they turn into.”
Lula said, “They turn into cannibals hiding body parts in the freezer.” She stopped. Mister Stanley was looking at her strangely. “That happened in Albania. Also here. I saw it on TV.”
“TV.” Mister Stanley made a face. “The point is, no one prepares you. Empty nest? Just that word—nest—is a joke. Empty heart and soul is more like it. That’s why it blindsides you. I know you probably think we’re not much of a family, Zeke and I—”
“Family is family,” Lula said.
“But what I want to tell you, Lula, and what you’ll find out when you’re a parent, is that every time I see my child, I’m seeing every moment that child has been alive, every stage of his life, the baby, the toddler, the older kid. Besides which I’m seeing my own life—”
Lula wanted to cover her ears. The sorrier she felt for Mister Stanley, the harder it would be to leave. Lula was alone too, but she still had a chance to find someone with whom to take that gondola ride. How pathetic, to console herself by measuring the potential brightness of her future against the certain gloom of Mister Stanley’s.
He said, “This college admissions process thing is an evil plot to make one hate one’s last months with one’s child. Even if you know it doesn’t matter, you still get sucked in.”
At least Mister Stanley was saying one and you again, instead of I or me. Lula twirled a forkful of crunchy pasta and tasted the afterburn of chemical tomato, harsh but with a comforting similarity to the pizzas she made for Zeke. She hoped Zeke was having fun.
What was that jangly music-box tune? Lula stared at her purse as if a small rodent was banging on a toy piano inside it.
“Answer the phone,” said Mister Stanley.
“I can’t find it,” said Lula.
“Push the goddamn green button!” Mister Stanley said.
Zeke said, “It’s me. It’s me. It’s Zeke. Tell my dad to come get me.”
Lula didn’t remember the motel being so far from the college. Perhaps it only seemed distant, every mile lengthened by her lack of confidence in Mister Stanley’s driving and by her terror that they would never find the dining hall entrance where Zeke had said to meet him.
“Where the hell is he?” said Mister Stanley.
Zeke emerged from the shadows and jumped into the back seat. “Let’s get out of here. Don’t even think about asking.”
“Have you eaten?” said Mister Stanley.
“Let’s go home,” said Zeke.
“You need protein,” his father said.
Some guardian angel of paternal instinct must have been guiding Mister Stanley, because after fifteen minutes on dark country roads, they pulled into the parking lot of a diner crowned with the feather headdress of a neon Indian chief. Zeke slid into a booth near the window. Mister Stanley sat next to him and Lula across the table.
Lula was glad she hadn’t filled up on motel spaghetti. She ordered a tuna melt, a piece of lemon meringue pie, and a large Coke. No, make that coffee.
Mister Stanley ordered the burger deluxe, then changed his mind and asked if they had a plain can of tuna, no mayonnaise, which they did, though it clearly lowered the waitress’s opinion of Mister Stanley. He said, “I’ll have coffee too. The hard stuff. Caf.”
“Coffee,” the waitress said. “And you, hon?”
“I’m not hungry,” said Zeke.
“You need a minute?” the waitress asked him. “You can tell me when I bring your mom and dad their coffee.”
“How could Lula be my mom?” demanded Zeke, after she went away. “She would have had to have me when she was ten years old!”
Mister Stanley said, “Zeke, you can trust us. What happened?”
No one expected Zeke to answer. Lula was startled when he said, “We were each given a big sibling, you know, instead of a big sister or brother, which is so corny and sexist. Bethany was my big sibling.”
The waitress brought their coffee. Sipping his, Mister Stanley watched Lula burn her tongue.
“Careful,” he warned her, too late.
“We went back to Bethany’s room and talked,” Zeke said. “Really talked. She told me about her town in New Hampshire, and how she’s the first person to go to college in her family, and I told her about us and Mom—”
“What did you tell her about us and Mom?” Mister Stanley asked.
“The truth. Nobody was trying to impress anyone. It was like we’d been friends forever. We went and heard these kids she knew in a band, practicing. We had dinner in the cafeteria. The food sucked, no one could eat it. But lots of kids came and sat with us, so it was fun, and then we went to her room and—”
“You don’t have to tell us this part,” said Mister Stanley.
“You do have to tell us this part,” said Lula. How stupid was Mister Stanley if Zeke was willing to talk? Let Mister Stanley look daggers at her. “What happened in Bethany’s room?”
“As soon as we got there, Bethany said she was going to the bathroom and she’d be right back, but after a while this other girl came in and asked where Bethany was, and the girl got all stressed and said she thought I knew, everyone knew, you had to watch Bethany constantly because she would try to kill herself the minute she was alone. Sometimes she got better, but she went through bad times. And this was one of them. Her friends had convinced the school to let her stay if they watched her round the clock. She told me they’d try to find her—”
“What kind of school is this?” interrupted Mister Stanley. “To allow such a thing! To permit a mentally ill girl to give tours of the college. And to put you in such a position! What happened to the poor girl?”
“What happened to me!” Zeke said. “I sat on the edge of her bed, thinking how lucky she was to have friends who cared about her so much. Also how weird it was, because Bethany seemed so cool and at peace with herself. Her friend told me to wait there, in case Bethany came back. And if she did I should hang on to her and find a way to let someone know. I started to get really nervous, thinking the whole college was probably searching for Bethany. She might be dead, and it would be my fault, even though no one had told me.”
“It wouldn’t have been your fault,” said Mister Stanley. “It would have been the college’s fault.”
Zeke said, “Finally I went out into the hall, and I ran into this older dude, some kind of hall monitor. He asked me if th
ere was a problem, and I told him everything. Like a scared little bitch. The dude said, ‘Fuck me, are those bastard theater kids up to that shit again?’ ”
“That person was in authority, and he used language like that?”
Zeke ignored his father. “It turned out they’d done it plenty of times. They call it real-life serial theater. Punking, college style. They do it to kids who are applying. Kids they figure won’t get in, so they won’t have to deal with them later.” Zeke’s voice had thickened with tears.
Mister Stanley said, “How could a tour guide and her sadist friends presume to know who will be admitted?”
Lula longed to throw her arms around Zeke and hug him to her chest and promise that soon, sooner than he could imagine, all this would seem funny. Though it was equally possible that it never would. Once, some girls in Lula’s neighborhood had locked her in a storeroom. It hadn’t made her claustrophobic or done any lasting damage, but still sometimes a bathroom lock jammed, and it all came back. She wanted to tell Zeke that he would grow up and be happy and loved. Today, she’d been mistaken for his sister and his mother, and tonight she felt like both, wishing she could protect him from so much she couldn’t control. Maybe that was what family meant: wanting, and not being able, to help the people you love. She used to wish she could get her parents a nicer place to live than a room in her aunt’s apartment in Tirana. The biggest apartment in the block, practically a villa, was occupied by the family of the prettiest girl in Lula’s class, a girl who early in life had pimped herself out to a Party official.
Mister Stanley said, “Someone should be informed. One can’t have . . . I’m sure the college . . .”
“I wouldn’t go to that school if they paid me. I want to go home. And if you tell anybody about this, I won’t apply anywhere. I’ll move to the West Coast and work in a photocopy shop. I’ll go live with Mom in Arizona.”
“Whoa there, big fella,” said Mister Stanley.
The waitress reappeared. “Can I get you something, hon?”
“Ant and roach poison,” said Zeke.
“Kids,” said the waitress, over her shoulder. “God love ’em.”
“That was terrible,” said Mister Stanley. “What you just said to that waitress. Zeke, my God.”
“ ‘Ant and Roach Poison’ is a song,” said Zeke. “A Sweat Bees song. Don’t you know anything, Dad? Okay. Miss? When you get a chance? I’d like a cheeseburger deluxe and fries and a chocolate milkshake.”
“You got it,” said the waitress.
Zeke wolfed down his food and ordered another side of fries. Lula and Mister Stanley each drank several cups of coffee. Mister Stanley tried to persuade Zeke to visit the other two colleges, but Zeke said no way, not now.
Mister Stanley said, “Look on the bright side. Everyone’s still alive, no one is sick or in danger, and whatever happens at the other two schools has to be an improvement.”
After that, he kept quiet.
Zeke ordered a slice of blueberry pie. Slowly, his mood improved. Mister Stanley said, “The motel has movies on demand. You can stay up late and order in any movies you want.”
“I hope it’s flat screen,” Zeke said.
Mister Stanley nodded.
The next morning they met in the motel lobby and drove home in the rain. Mister Stanley refused to start the car until Zeke fastened his seat belt. When they turned onto the highway, Mister Stanley said, “For the record, we never agreed that you could charge an adult movie.”
Zeke said, “You were snoring, Dad. The motel said it wouldn’t show up on the bill.”
“You believed them?” said Lula.
Zeke said, “Dad promised me it was flat screen, and it wasn’t. So who’s the liar here, really?”
Mister Stanley said, “I’m sorry, Zeke. But this is a moral discussion I don’t have the energy for right now.”
“Fine,” said Zeke. “Me neither.”
The minivan’s wheels on the wet road seemed to whisper sad sad sad. What if Zeke didn’t go to college? Could they stay like this forever, aging year after year into a trio of ghosts haunting Mister Stanley’s house? Mister Stanley should have thought twice before getting so upset about his son leaving home. Be careful what you wish for. Be careful what you fear.
When they got back, it was late afternoon. Zeke slammed the door to his room. Mister Stanley sat at the dining room table and began opening the mail. Lula asked if he was hungry, and when he said no, she went upstairs.
Her room smelled faintly of cigarettes. On her blanket was a small red cardboard box. “Little Charmy Puppy,” it said, in Chinese-style letters. Lula took out the furry Dalmatian dog and flipped the switch on its belly. She set the puppy on the floor. It barked and waggled its rear, then rose up on its stumpy hind legs and yelped so piercingly that Lula clapped her hand over Charmy Puppy’s mouth.
What an adorable present! She hoped it wasn’t a thank-you gift. Thanks for taking care of the gun. Lula rushed to the bureau. She unwrapped the gun, to make sure. Did Alvo suspect it slept with her underwear? Let him meditate on that. She counted her money. All there. She switched off the puppy, lay down on the bed, and put the toy near her pillow. Watched over by her mechanical pet, Lula fell asleep.
Chapter Eight
I n the days that followed, Lula rehearsed how she would thank Alvo for Little Charmy Puppy. It was nicer than imagining what she would say if Mister Stanley discovered that Albanians were creeping around his house when no one was home. When she noticed that she couldn’t look at the mechanical dog without sighing, she shoved it into a drawer, as if it were Charmy Puppy’s fault that Lula was attracted to a guy who would rather stalk her than see her. But then she took it out again and made it do its tricks.
Having lived with relatives in a cramped apartment, Lula had long ago learned how to construct an imaginary wall between herself and the pushy cousin brushing her teeth and spitting into the same sink. Brick by invisible brick she constructed such a wall between herself and Zeke, with whom she still grocery-shopped and ate and watched TV, though now it was as if they were living the same lives in separate buildings. Surely Zeke must have felt the chill. For once, Lula didn’t care. She would knock down the invisible wall as soon as Alvo showed up. It wasn’t Zeke’s fault that Alvo hadn’t called, but Zeke was the only one here to blame. She avoided Mister Stanley, except for the brief nightly exchange required to reassure him that his son was still alive.
To pass the time, Lula wrote a true story about having a crush on a neighbor kid and slipping notes under his door, but never having the nerve to write anything, so she’d doodle on the paper and hope he knew it was from her. Soon after, his parents moved out of the building, and later she heard they were terrified that the secret police were tormenting them with encrypted messages that said nothing.
One night, Mister Stanley told her that Don Settebello had asked if he could come for Thanksgiving dinner. “Little Abigail is going to be with her mom. I think that’s why Don wants to be with us. His second family.”
“I’ll cook a turkey,” Lula said.
“Have you ever cooked a turkey?”
“Many times back in Albania,” Lula lied. Her granny’s peshest, crumbled cornbread soaked with turkey gravy and baked crisp at the edges, was a legend. Anyway, all you had to do was turn on the Food Network, day or night, and learn some famous chef’s holiday turkey secrets. Lula kept hearing a funny phrase: a successful turkey. How successful could it be, dead and eaten by people?
But either to spare Lula the effort or because they didn’t believe she was qualified to produce this national ritual of the grateful Pilgrim stomach, Don and Mister Stanley agreed to split the cost of a caterer who specialized in festive dinners and whom Don heard was fantastic. Lula tried not to feel hurt. It was less trouble for her. Less trouble was very American, she might as well enjoy it.
No one cooked in this country, though they were obsessed with every mouthful and afraid of how it might harm them. One bond betwee
n Lula and Zeke was the pride they felt in the market among the shopping-cart cornucopias of good-for-you citrus and leafy greens, wheeling their own fuck-you cart, empty except for pizza crusts and frozen burgers. Though maybe only she and Zeke imagined that anyone noticed. It occurred to Lula that her willingness to sign on to Zeke’s diet might be an unhealthy sign of regression to someone else’s childhood. Or worse, a symptom of depression, a disease that didn’t exist when she was a child. Under Communism, suicide equaled a failing grade in the dead person’s political education.
On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, Lula worked beside Estrelia, straightening up, futilely trying to make the house welcoming or just presentable. Was Estrelia trying to say that she stuffed her family’s turkey with chiles?
“Pica,” Estrelia said, giggling as she pantomimed steam rising out of her mouth.
That night, Mister Stanley told Lula that Don was bringing someone. A woman. He said, “I couldn’t be happier. Don deserves some fun.”
“Great! Who is she?” Lula felt as if a fat cold raindrop had slid down the back of her neck. What was her problem? She didn’t want Don Settebello. He’d come on to her, more or less, and she’d gracefully rejected him without anything getting messy. Maybe she should have turned her palm up. Played with his fingers, even. What if Don had been her last chance at romance? At home everyone knew some spinster who’d rejected a suitable guy because she thought she could do better, and no one asked after that. Lula thought of the game of musical chairs she’d witnessed at La Changita. She felt like that girl who’d lost the first round. But why would anyone want a hero like Don when she could yearn after a lowlife who stalked her and left her cute Chinatown mementos?
My New American Life Page 14