Sunday night and the city is quiet, people recovering from their weekend, gaining vigor for the coming Monday. Morris walks down the East River Park to South Street Seaport. The empty fishmongers’ stalls reek of old catch. He heads further south, to Liberty Park, then up the west side of the island to Forty-second Street and over to Times Square, where the neon lights tear up the night, giving the place a look of day.
He walks for hours, trying to clear his mind of Stefani, of Andrea, of Jetski, and of his mother.
Prom. The concept’s so distant, so old-fashioned to Morris, like the idea of war bonds or mustache wax. Proms seem like something that would have gone the way of gauchos with knee-high tube socks, something that's an embarrassing memory.
When Morris was a senior in high school, he wanted to go to prom. There was one girl he planned to ask. Lacy Laimey. She was studious and plump and had shiny, blond hair that reflected light. She sat beside him in Latin class, always faced rigidly forward, her profile soft and engaging. “Going to prom?” Morris asked, summoning the courage to talk to her one day after class. The dance was two weeks away. Lacy looked to the floor, then to Morris. “I can’t find a dress I like,” she said. “I don’t want to look at prom pictures twenty years from now and think ‘God, what a terrible dress.’ ”
“So you’ve…” Morris felt his chest tightening, like he’d been wrapped in a wet sheet. He was too late. “Someone’s already asked you?”
“I can’t find someone I like,” she said, then looked to the floor. When she lifted her head again, she caught Morris with a direct, stunning look. It was like being hit with mace; Morris was immobilized, choking. “If someone I liked asked me,” she told him, “I’d go. I’d find a dress I liked.”
“Yeah,” Morris finally mustered. “Yeah, I know what you’re saying.” They both stood there, like they were waiting for a bus, or for the start of an eclipse, or for a helium balloon to finally descend. Waiting for something they knew would happen. Something that must happen.
Morris was going to ask her to prom.
They faced each other until they could no longer face each other. “I…” Morris said. He didn’t ask. His courage failed. “I know what you’re saying,” he said, then turned and left, leaving Lacy and her wet, eager eyes.
Now, Stefani wanted him to go to Prom. “Promise,” she kept saying on the phone.
He agreed to meet her after school the next day.
Morris pauses at the window of a travel agency. Posters of Greece, the cutting blue waters, the majestic ruins, hang in the window. Mom must have family there, he thinks, then wonders why he doesn’t know. For all his years of talk of traveling, he’d never once thought to see if he has family elsewhere.
He’s tired of himself, of the illusions he’s held for so long, tired of saying and not doing. All the tales of travel are tales he’s annexed, stolen. Books are good, up to a point.
He thinks of Stefani. “I can’t wait to see you tomorrow,” she said, before ringing off.
“Patience,” Morris said, more to himself. He’d tell her tomorrow, “No more.”
“Yeah, patience,” she replied. “Patience is a vulture.”
“Virtue,” he said. “It’s virtue.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“I think you’re wrong.”
“I’m not.”
“Well, okay. If you say so. Virtue is a vulture,” she said, then hung up.
Chapter 25
The Trouble with Bliss Page 25