14 Degrees Below Zero

by Quinton Skinner

  “That’s dark,” Andrea whispered.

  The phone rang a third time. Jay considered letting her voice mail pick it up, but Lewis’s pull was too strong.

  “It’s my dad,” Jay said, picking up the phone.

  “I have to go to the bathroom anyway,” Andrea said, getting up. Jay glanced around and saw a couple of guys in the café casting surreptitious glances in Andrea’s direction. What did it do to a girl to have such spectacular symbols of sexuality affixed right to her center of gravity? Apparently, she ended up with a guy like Brad. It was for these sorts of ideas, Jay thought, that fate was going to punish her someday.

  “Dad,” she said, taking the call.

  “Jay, how are you?”

  “What’s wrong, Dad?”

  “What do you mean? Everything’s fine.”

  “You sound weird.” Jay sat up straighter on the stool. She saw herself half-formed in the glass.

  “Well, I guess something has happened.”

  “Something?” Jay said. “Dad, what’s going on?”

  “I went to see Stephen,” Lewis said somberly.

  “Dad, where are you?”

  “I’m driving,” Lewis replied. “I’m going to drop off my car at home and take the bus to work. I thought I would talk to Stephen, but I had no idea what a disaster it would be.”

  Jay ran her hand through her hair. “What happened?”

  “Well, I sat in on the end of one of his lectures,” Lewis said. “I must say—it was very informative.”

  “Dad, you’re being cryptic. Did you guys have an argument?”

  “I guess he didn’t see me, because he seemed surprised when I came down to say hello after the class.” Lewis paused. “Just a second. Some son of a bitch just cut me off.”

  Lewis had mellowed over the years, but behind the wheel he was still the star of his own tragic opera, betrayed and ill treated by the venality and heedlessness of Minnesota’s motorists. It gave Jay a stomachache to remember all the time she spent sitting next to him while he cursed the world.

  “Anyway, I wanted to speak with him about the . . . his grievances. I thought it was appropriate. He came to my place of work. Didn’t that give me the right to do the same?”

  “Dad, I don’t know.” Jay sighed. “I don’t know.”

  “I have to say that he reacted badly.”

  “How?” Jay asked.

  “Stephen refuses to treat me with any respect,” Lewis said. “All I got for trying to reach out was hostility. What have I done to make him dislike me so much?”

  Jay shifted the phone to her other ear.

  “I don’t think it’s a matter of him disliking you, Dad,” she said.

  “You know me—I want to get along,” Lewis said. “But he makes it impossible. He’s the one who started this. When I tried to bridge the gap, I just got more flak. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now.”

  Andrea returned to their place by the window. Her red hair was tucked back behind her ears, and she studied her napkin while pretending not to listen to what Jay was saying.

  “You don’t have to do anything, Dad,” Jay told him.

  “Look, honey, you know the last thing I want to do is cause problems for you,” Lewis said through a hiss of static.

  “I know that, Dad,” Jay told him.

  “I don’t want to be the stereotypical father who rejects all his daughter’s suitors,” Lewis said. “I know you’re a grown woman. I kept my opinions to myself until Stephen opened up this can of worms.”

  Stereotypical father—like the time Lewis threatened to drive by himself to Oregon and extract some vaguely defined restitution from Michael Carmelov? That scene had ended with both Jay and Anna in tears, shocked by the depths of Lewis’s rage. Only a threat to call the police had kept Lewis in Minneapolis, seething, affronted, and (once or twice) repulsed by the sight of Jay’s swelling belly.

  “Stephen is a very rational person,” Jay said. Andrea glanced her way. “I have a hard time believing he was so confrontational.”

  “What are you saying?” Lewis asked. “Are you saying I started it?”

  “No, but I also know how hard it is for you to back down,” Jay said.

  “Why should I back down?”

  “Dad, don’t yell—”

  “All I am trying to do is to protect you and Ramona.”

  “Dad, listen to yourself,” Jay said. “Stephen isn’t someone we need protection from.”

  “Maybe you don’t think so,” Lewis sniffed. “But you didn’t see him today. I didn’t want to bring this up, but there are aspects of his attitude toward you that are disturbing.”

  “Dad, I don’t—”

  “I guess it’s occurred to you that you’re a very attractive young woman,” Lewis added. “And that Stephen is significantly older than you. I see how much he likes how you reflect on him.”

  “Dad, this is not a conversation—”

  “I know, I shouldn’t have said that.” Lewis paused. “It’s just that I’m worried, honey. I think all the time about what’s best for you. And for Ramona.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “I’d do anything to protect you and make things right for you.”

  God, why did he have to be like this? All this intensity, all this consuming need to get a reaction from her . . . and now this insistence that she be on his side.

  When she was alone with Stephen, she could imagine standing up to Lewis. In those moments, full of lucidity and purpose, she could even imagine the sort of person she wanted to become. And yes, she had imagined herself as a professor’s wife, wrapped in Stephen’s benevolent distraction.

  But like a whisper in her ear, she knew that Lewis had given voice to thoughts of her own. Men tired of women, and one day Jay’s toned thighs and upturned breasts would lose their allure for Stephen. One day Jay would be thirty, then forty, while Stephen’s students would retain their evergreen youth. Could she be sure her appeal to him was based on more than his constantly expressed lust and the magnetism of physical attraction? And could she be certain that Stephen might not be deceiving himself, in addition to her?

  “Dad, I’ll talk to Stephen,” she said.

  “Well, all right, you have your own decisions to make,” Lewis said. “I just pulled up in the driveway.”

  “Let’s not make too big a deal of this,” Jay said.

  “It’s hard for me to know what to say,” Lewis replied. “Stephen is interfering with what means the most to me. It’s impossible not to take offense.”

  “I’ll talk to him.”

  “I wish that were enough,” Lewis said.

  Jay heard the sound of her father getting out of his car. “What does that mean?” she asked.

  “Nothing.” The front door opened. “I love you, honey. I’ll call you later. Have a good day at work.”

  “I love you, too,” Jay said, and hung up the phone.

  “What was that?” Andrea said, snapping Jay out of the one-second reverie of impossibility into which she had fallen.

  “My dad,” Jay said. Andrea knew Lewis from elementary-school days. She had once referred to Lewis as sexy, a moment that never failed to make Jay feel utterly revolted with every aspect of existence.

  “I know it was your dad,” Andrea said impatiently. “But that sounded like a really weird conversation. Is there some problem with Stephen?”

  “I didn’t think there was,” Jay said.

  “You don’t sound so sure,” Andrea observed.

  “Break up with him,” Jay said.

  Andrea’s round eyes widened behind her angular glasses.

  “Excuse me?” she said.

  “Brad,” Jay blurted out. “You asked me what I thought. Break up with him. That’s what I think you should do.”

  “Wow,” Andrea said, sliding her hand over Jay’s forearm. “That conversation with your dad really freaked you out.”

  “Life’s too short,” Jay said. “Look outside. It’s getting co
lder. The freeze is setting in. What more evidence do you need?”

  INTERLUDE. NO ONE GOES AWAY, SHE SAID.

  Ramona was not having a good morning. First she had not been given toast for breakfast when, as everyone knew, Monday was the day for toast and sugar. Then she had gotten scolded for moving the littler kids out of the big chair in the front room—and hadn’t been able to defend herself, because doing so would have meant exposing the identity of the Perfect Princess, which was simply not done.

  She had so many worries. In the morning Mama had been crabby and thinking of all the grown-up things that Ramona wasn’t supposed to know about. Like being angry, and being in love, and dying.

  It would be a really good time for Grandma to come back. Ramona couldn’t understand what was taking her so long.

  Grampa Lewis was acting weird, and that made Ramona worried. Sure, he had bought her a big ice cream the other day—strawberry, her new favorite—but before that he had been saying weird things to Mama in the kitchen. Things about Stephen.

  Ramona liked Stephen, and she didn’t like Stephen. Stephen was nice. Stephen was yucky. It was yucky how he kissed Mama, and how they slept in bed together. Ramona used to sleep in bed with Mama, but now she figured she was no longer welcome.

  “Ramona?” asked Teresa, one of the day care ladies. “Are you going to be ready for lunch in a few minutes?”

  “Sure,” Ramona said quietly.

  She looked at her hand. It had a new freckle on it that Ramona wasn’t sure she liked. Mama said there was nothing to do about it, that she’d get even more freckles as she got older, and that they’d never go away.

  It was hard to get used to the idea of things never going away. Because the weird part was that some things did go away. Like Grandma. Who was coming back any time.

  “Play with me?” said Vanessa, one of the Twins. Ramona knew it was Vanessa, rather than Elaine, because Vanessa always wore a ribbon in her hair. Ramona was jealous of the ribbon because it was very beautiful. The Twins were two years younger than Ramona, and as such occupied a sort of mascot role for the Perfect Princess.

  “Not now,” said the Perfect Princess. “Later.”

  “Aww,” said Vanessa.

  Grampa Lewis was acting really weird. There was nothing wrong with Stephen. Stephen was actually really nice. Ramona didn’t like him all the time, but he liked her, and that was a pretty nice way for things to be. Ramona wouldn’t like it if Stephen went away.

  Ramona wondered if Grampa Lewis was going to make Stephen die, or if Stephen was going to make Grampa Lewis die. It would be good, as long as one of them died and went to get Grandma and brought her back. But what if one of them died and made Ramona wait, the way Grandma did?

  Ramona didn’t want any more people leaving. She twitched her hand in the air, the one with the freckle, the way she did when she was making magic. No one goes away, she said without making a sound.

  Grampa Lewis and Stephen were going to have a fight. Ramona just knew it. She didn’t understand why, but it had something to do with both of them wanting Mama. The way Ramona had her Bear, and her lamb, and all the other animals who lived in her bed and who she had to tell stories to before they could go to sleep.

  “OK, Ramona, come on in,” said Teresa from the doorway to the kitchen. “Your lunch is ready. Hey, what are you thinking about? You look so serious.”

  “Nothing,” said the Perfect Princess, ready for her royal meal, moving through the room with the carriage of undying royalty.

  12. THEY HAD LEARNED TO PROTECT THEMSELVES FROM DISAPPOINTMENT.

  “You’re putting a wall around yourself,” Stephen said, the phone cradled against his shoulder, both elbows planted on his office desk.

  “I’m not, I’m really not,” Jay said. “When can you come over?”

  “My office hours are over at four, then I have a quick meeting,” he replied. “Can I take you out to dinner?”

  “I don’t feel like going out,” Jay said. She spoke to him on a break from her shift at the Cogito. Stephen imagined her standing there in that depressing kitchen. She would be wearing those black pants and one of those classy tight tops that drove him crazy and more than once had compelled him to make her late for work.

  “OK, I understand,” Stephen replied. “I’ll get some takeout and come over. I’ll get Vietnamese—dumplings for Ramona.”

  “I don’t know, Stephen,” Jay said. “I think maybe I need a night or two to get my head together.”

  Stephen’s pulse sped up. Jay had never before used the conditional language of the distant lover.

  “All right,” he said uncertainly. “What did Lewis tell you about what happened today? Because it was really—”

  “I can’t get into it,” Jay said in a tone that encompassed the environs from which she spoke. Stephen thought of that preening peacock of a manager there, the guy who was always so chummy with Jay while sizing her up like a piece of exotic pastry.

  “I haven’t done anything wrong, Jay,” he pleaded.

  “I know.”

  “I love you, darling.”

  “I love you, too,” Jay said. Thank God she gave him that.

  “I don’t want to lose you over this.” Stephen glanced up. Standing in the doorway was Katrina Mason, the girl from his class he’d been trying so assiduously not to undress with his eyes during that morning’s lecture.

  “Is this a bad time?” Katrina said.

  Oh, she was so perfect. Stephen shifted the phone to his other ear and motioned to the empty chair diagonal to his.

  “No, no,” he said. “I’ll just be a moment.”

  “Who’s that?” Jay asked.

  “A student,” Stephen replied, looking away from Katrina.

  “You have quite a following over there,” Jay observed. “Is she pretty?”

  “Not at all,” Stephen said. “Listen, you have to know I mean every word of what I’m saying.”

  Stephen spoke in a hushed voice, all too conscious of Katrina’s inquisitive presence not five feet from him. From the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of bare knee as she crossed her legs. Healthy, healthy, he told himself. Pretending not to notice would be the real disorder.

  “I . . . I believe you,” Jay said. “Look, my break is almost over. I’m going outside for a smoke.”

  “A smoke?” Stephen said. “You don’t smoke anymore.”

  “I guess things are changing,” Jay said. “I bummed one off Fowler.”

  “I don’t like to hear you talk like this,” said Stephen.

  “Call me tomorrow,” Jay said. “We’ll try to work all this out.”

  “Work it out?” Stephen said. “What is there to work out? I won’t talk to your father anymore. It’s his problem.”

  “I need to think,” Jay said quietly. She had no idea, but even her voice was a thing of beauty—husky yet feminine, infused with the wisdom of a woman twice her age.

  He couldn’t be losing her, could he?

  He looked up at Katrina, whose innocent features were framed by close-cropped dyed-red hair. She regarded Stephen as though he were a specimen of an extremely rare beast.

  I can go, Katrina mouthed.

  Stephen shook his head. “Give Ramona a kiss for me, and we’ll talk in the morning. OK?”

  “Fine,” Jay said, with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm.

  “I love you,” Stephen said.

  “I love you, too,” Jay said, with a tone Stephen had heard other women use before. She did not particularly mean it. Then she hung up.

  “Are you all right?” Katrina asked.

  It took a fair amount of self-control not to immediately unburden himself upon his student, whose solicitous body language made clear that she had affixed upon Stephen any number of romantic delusions. But part of his job entailed understanding that attaching herself to him was part of Katrina’s intellectual development. Any indulgence of her attraction was tantamount to the abuse always potential in an analyst/patient relations
hip. He put his fist to his cheek and allowed himself the pleasure of looking at her.

  “I’m fine, thanks for asking,” Stephen replied while his mind reeled. His attachment to Jay, he admitted to himself, was founded upon a tacit trade-off between her intrinsic qualities of beauty and smarts against his own status and experience. In other words, he had assumed that if anyone was going to tire and seek escape from the relationship, it was going to be him. Now, imagining life without Jay was enough to induce panic. He had more rivals than allies, and no real friends. Being with Jay enabled him to define himself in a way that he liked, and made it possible to get through the day.

  “Maybe I should come back another time,” Katrina said uncertainly, showing a hint of affront once she realized she was not the center of Stephen’s attention.

  “No, I’m sorry,” Stephen told her. “Please.”

  “Was that your girlfriend on the phone?” Katrina asked, smiling as though pleasantly scandalized.

  “Let’s hope so,” Stephen said, trying to smile in return.

  Lewis unbolted his front door that night while trying to fight off a full-blown shiver induced by the deepening chill and the chemical tang of the pharmaceutical stew coursing through his veins. Carew undulated at his feet, the sound of the lock throwing him into rapture.

  Yeah yeah yeah Lewis, Carew said with his eyes and tongue. Yeah yeah yeah fuckin’ yeah.

  “Go on,” Lewis told Carew. “Get inside.”

  The dog had passed the twilight with his shitting and sniffing at the park, off his leash and reveling in his freedom while Lewis smoked a cigarette and shivered. Dogshit Park had once been the place where, a full two decades ago, Lewis had brought the toddler Jay to stagger and reel in the sand while he and Anna marveled over her every utterance and physical breakthrough. Now the slides and climbing apparatus were occupied with other people’s children, their squeals and preverbal utterances filling the void of time with memories to sweeten bitter futures.

  “What, are you hungry or something?” Lewis said to Carew in the kitchen. Carew sniffed at his empty bowl with anticipation—Lewis realized the dog was trying to condition Lewis, to plant the idea to feed him, which filled Lewis with unexpected appreciation for the beast.