“I’m sorry, babe. You look awful. Can I make you some tea?” And can you please not get too close to me in case you’re contagious?
She put the markers under his nose. Except, up close, they weren’t markers. They were pregnancy tests. And the symbols in the windows were all different, but they all pointed to the same answer. The pluses, the double lines, and then the one that was hard to misinterpret—pregnant. Wasn’t he too old for this? Wasn’t Angela too old? Two nights earlier he had been in bed with another woman. What did it say about his feelings for Angela that he’d slipped so easily under someone else’s sheets? He hoped to chalk his poor judgment up to the stress of selling the hotel and having everyone on campus, but he couldn’t be sure. Brian had already made up his mind that he wouldn’t tell Angela about what had happened with Aimee. On a particularly slow day at the hotel, he’d joined some staffers in the break room and watched an episode of one of those daytime talk shows featuring a couples therapist who’d said coming clean about extramarital sex is for the cheater’s benefit, not for the spouse’s. Don’t hurt someone just to clear your conscience.
Angela stood up and moved into the bedroom, sinking into the mattress. She began to cry what were unmistakably tears of joy.
He didn’t know what to say. His mind was blank, his throat dry. Brian could feel that this was going to be one of the defining moments of his life—that he could prove to himself his maturity and potential—and yet he couldn’t see past his own foibles to say anything intelligible to Angela other than, “Oh my God.”
“I know we didn’t plan this,” Angela said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “And you don’t have to do anything. But I’m so happy. I didn’t think this would happen for me. I’ve always wanted to be a mother. Growing up around my dad at the hotel and working here myself, I’ve been obsessed with the idea of family. But it just didn’t seem like it was in the cards. And now, when we weren’t even trying. Don’t worry—you can be involved as little or as much—”
He had to say something more. But what? He didn’t know if he was happy or scared. He didn’t know if he wanted to be a dad at this point in his life. It was something he’d desperately wanted as a younger man, when he’d been newly married and believed the blank page of his life thus far would fold into something beautiful like origami. When he looked up Melinda on Facebook, it was easy to imagine photoshopping himself into the Dad role.
He was certain of how he’d been raised; how lucky he was to have such devoted parents. Filling his father’s shoes would be difficult, but it was a worthy thing to strive for. With so much out of his control, finally there was something he could do right.
“It’s wonderful news,” he said, and pulled Angela into a tight embrace.
* * *
• • •
The rain let up by late morning, and Shaggy led the pack of them as they set off on their stroll. Only twenty minutes into the walk, and Louise nearly combusted when she caught Shaggy digging up the rhododendron. Then his mother’s wheelchair got stuck in a small ditch, and Zach had to hoist her out. Greta pleaded with Peter to pull out his AirPods as she trudged along in high heels. Phoebe constantly made everyone stop for pictures, and Roger shut down all suggestions with the phrase “lost cause.”
“Where are the balls?” Michael asked when they reached the tennis courts. The baskets of balls used to line the courts; tossing balls from the baseline into the hopper was a favorite activity of all the kids.
“We had to lock them up because the guests were stealing them for their walkers,” Brian explained.
Next they visited the roller rink—everyone silent, thinking about the scene with Michael and Diego—and then they moved on to the ice rink, the outdoor and indoor pools, the golf clubhouse, the rec room, the cabaret lounge, the card room, the dining room, and the auditorium. The “tour de force” concluded in one of the standard hotel guest rooms. The roller rink needed a new floor, the rec room had no working arcade games, the cabaret lounge reeked of Camels, the dining room’s color palette could take away one’s appetite (but mysteriously never did), and the guest rooms were tired. Brian tried his darnedest to focus, and he appreciated that he bore enough gravitas that everyone looked to him for direction, but all he could picture was the little seed sprouting inside Angela’s womb. His seed. Good timing remained his Achilles’ heel.
At every stop, his father brought up a Benny memory, and Louise would make everyone pause to hold a silent vigil for the man. “Remember when Benny decided to host the sixty-plus tennis tournament and half the men threw out their backs?” “Remember when Benny insisted on judging the Miss Golden Girl contest?” “Remember when Benny threw out that comic who made an anti-Semitic joke during his performance?” Brian felt his pulse quicken every time he heard the man’s name. He had half a mind to chime in, “Remember the time Benny cheated my father? No, wait, you don’t. Because only I know that, and I’m going to explode with the information.”
After two hours of traversing the property, they called it quits. His mother’s wheels were caked in mud, and Phoebe claimed her calves were sore from the goat yoga.
“I’ll draw up some numbers on how much I think these renovations would cost. Without even doing the math, I know we won’t be able to do everything. And Phoebe, the insurance costs alone that would be required for us to bring goats and llamas onto the property makes that a nonstarter. Also, no cryotherapy. Air-conditioning put the Catskills out of business decades ago—we’re not making people any colder.” Phoebe pouted but didn’t verbalize a rebuttal. She would probably mount a social media campaign against him instead. Whatever. He had bigger fish to fry.
“Well, that sucks,” Zach said bluntly. This generation didn’t bother with artifice. It was refreshing, not unlike the way the old-timers were, freely speaking their minds no matter whom they offended. It was Brian’s generation, bracketed by two impossibly tough-to-please age groups, that watched their words so carefully.
“But we can maybe explore some of your other ideas,” Brian felt compelled to add. “I like the app check-in, which will reduce staffing costs. And a selfie station, we can handle.” The truth was, it helped Brian to focus on work. The baby and Benny’s deception were the boulders on his shoulders, but they didn’t change the immediate situation. The owners had to decide whether to sell, assuming Diamond’s offer was still on the table. If the buyer pulled out because of fishy financials—well, Brian would cross that bridge when he came to it. Hopefully Howard wouldn’t unleash any new information on him later that day.
“Bri, I’d like to help,” Peter said when they had stopped in front of the giant tire swing, hanging from one of the more formidable oaks on the property. It was the swing that Brian had fallen out of and broken his wrist when Peter had pushed him too hard. Fanny had nearly lost her mind that summer because Brian had refused to keep his cast dry, claiming dubiously that he’d “fallen” into the pool each and every time. “I can run numbers with you. We can shoot around ideas.”
“I thought you were driving back tonight,” Greta said, visibly in shock.
“I decided to stick around a bit longer,” Peter said, and, quite uncharacteristically, sat down on the swing and started pumping his legs with reckless abandon. Neat black work socks rose to midcalf, meeting pale skin that hadn’t seen sunlight in who knew how many years. Greta slid her sunglasses up to her head because, like the rest of them, she clearly couldn’t believe her eyes.
“I had another thought,” Peter said, his voice practically giddy as he sailed through the air. “If there’s a chance the Golden will be turned into a casino like what happened over at the Concord, shouldn’t we check that out? The future of this spot matters. It’s not just about getting top dollar from the buyer.”
It’s not? To hear a sentimental statement from Peter made everyone do a double take. It was startling, in the best possible way.
“Are you sa
ying you want to go play blackjack?” Greta asked, fighting her bandages to smile.
“Roulette is more my thing, but yeah, let’s gamble,” Peter said.
“I’d like that,” Michael said, and Phoebe and Zachary chimed in that they were game.
“Stupid waste of time,” Roger called, but he pulled car keys from his pocket.
“I’m going to stay back,” Louise said, exchanging a look with Aimee.
“Why? It’s not like the slot machine is going to take a dump on you, Grandma,” Zach said. “Just stay away from the craps table.”
“Too soon, Zach,” Michael said, hitting him on the arm. But even Louise smiled, and soon they were all doubled over.
Chapter Twenty-One
Peter
So his son was gay? It wasn’t like he hadn’t known. Greta didn’t seem bowled over by the news, either. The question was why they had never discussed it—with Michael or each other.
The answer was simple. He and his wife didn’t talk about anything. Neither did he and his children. He could barely remember his last heart-to-heart with any of them. He worked until midnight on most nights, and Greta was lightly snoring when he entered their bedroom—could none of those plastic surgeons fix her deviated septum while they were operating? Then the weekends would come, and he’d disappear into his home office to continue working. There was no end to the work. It was like waves crashing on shore. The minute the tide seemed to settle, another wave came along.
It turned out that if you wanted to, you could fill every inch of your waking hours, and even the space of your dreams, with the minutiae of corporate takeovers and leveraged buyouts. You could serve the client while shampooing, riding in a taxi, while you pretended to listen to your child tell you about their day. It was all billable, too. Such was the beauty and curse of being a lawyer who charged $1,500 an hour for services.
In the beginning, his impulse to work hard had been to provide Greta with everything she wanted. Peter worried his in-laws were supportive of their marriage because they were under a false impression of just how full the Golden coffers were. Yes, his parents were comfortable, and the hotel netted a hefty profit at the time he started dating Greta Bauman, but outside of the family, the rumors of how much the hotel was worth were largely exaggerated. The truth was, Peter did nothing to clear up the misconception. He had pined for Aimee Goldman for as long as he could remember, and when it was clear that was never going to happen, he started asking out other women. Nobody sparked much interest, and he rarely made it past a second date. Then came Greta. She was funny, in a sarcastic way that kept him on his toes, and she was beautiful. Greta was at the University of Pennsylvania studying English at the time he met her. She was never without a book, and he loved that she used big words he pretended to understand and then looked up later. Her most appealing quality was that she liked him back. And unlike Aimee’s parents, who acted superior to his own, the Baumans were thrilled with the match. Steven Bauman all but handed his eldest daughter to Peter on a silver platter he swiped from a waiter. If he could have rolled her down the aisle like a bowling ball, he would have. Peter vowed to himself never to let Greta or her parents down. He was so grateful to have met her—a woman who helped him get over Aimee and showed him it was possible to love more than one person in a lifetime.
But what had he gone and done with this purest of desires to please his wife? He’d infused their bank account with money beyond their wildest dreams while leaving her emotionally bankrupt. Peter hadn’t felt particularly guilty about the nonstop working when the children were little and Greta didn’t have a spare second to breathe. She was so busy shuttling Phoebe to soccer and Michael to tap (okay, there was their first clue), and then making sure the homework was done and correct and packed into the backpacks and the backpacks not forgotten, that he honestly thought if he tried to engage with her on any serious subject, she might implode.
Their problems had started in earnest when Phoebe had left for college. Greta, once too busy to take bathroom breaks, grew restless. She developed nervous tics, like tapping her suddenly always-polished fingernails on their glass kitchen table when they ate and tucking and retucking her highlighted hair behind a diamond-studded ear. She couldn’t fall asleep without the television on to quiet her brain. Then Michael had left, and things had really taken a turn for the worse. It was then that Greta had started the process of replacing her children with new body parts.
That had been two years ago. Michael was only going to be a junior at Harvard. Maybe there was time to right the ship of his marriage. Being back at the hotel was crystallizing everything for him. He called Michael.
“Time for Ping-Pong?” he asked after his son picked up on the third ring.
“Are you serious?” Michael asked.
“Yes, why?”
“Um, we’ve never played Ping-Pong in my entire life. We never do anything together,” Michael said.
Peter’s stomach turned. He forged ahead, though a part of him was begging to retreat.
“Well, let’s start now,” he said.
Peter agonized while waiting for Michael to come to the rec room. It made Peter sick to think that his son had secreted a part of himself for so long. Should he or Greta have sat their son down to ask if there was anything he wanted to tell them? Was that what people did nowadays? These types of things weren’t discussed at his law firm; even with all the diversity breakfasts and ally groups, no one actually gave out an instruction manual that explained how to broach certain topics. He and Greta had tiptoed around the question of their son’s sexual orientation for years, with things like “Well, that’s just Michael,” or “You know Michael and his ways.” How had two intelligent, worldly people been so capable of turning a blind eye? His parents had been truly clueless, arguably more excusable than he and Greta, who had known and chosen to ignore it.
It went without saying that they would accept their son, but had they considered how difficult it would be for Michael to come out to them? If they had, it had only been in private, fleeting moments. The dismissive attitude wasn’t uniquely directed to his dealings with Michael. When he worried about the state of his marriage, it was only in passing while the elevator in his office tower climbed to his floor. When he realized he didn’t really “get” his daughter, it was only to dwell on it for the brief second when someone at work would say “My kid loves @Free2BPhoebe” and he’d graciously nod.
When Michael arrived, Peter changed his mind.
“How about a walk instead?” he asked. They didn’t need to volley a ball back and forth from ten feet apart. They needed to talk.
“Dad, we don’t have to do this,” Michael said as they set off toward the tennis pavilion. “I’m fine.”
“I know you are. You’re more than fine. I just wish you had talked to me more,” Peter said.
Michael stopped abruptly.
“Talked to you more? When? While you were on a conference call? Should I have asked your assistant for fifteen minutes? You were never around,” he said.
Peter flushed. Why had he done that? Made it Michael’s fault that he’d never sought him out? That hadn’t been his intention. Though he shouldn’t be surprised. It was too much to assume he could go from walled-off absentee parent to Dr. Phil in minutes.
“You’re right. I wasn’t around. But I’m going to make an effort. Anything you need,” Peter said.
“In that case, it’s hot. Can we go back inside?” Michael asked, grinning for the first time since they’d met up.
“That I can do,” Peter said, smiling in return.
“Is that you and Mom?” Michael asked when they approached Memory Lane. He was looking at a picture of a man attempting to put a bite of wedding cake into his new bride’s mouth, but both were laughing too hard to connect.
“That’s us,” Peter said, and he watched his son’s mind churning with surprise. “I was never ve
ry coordinated.”
“And that’s you and Uncle Brian?”
Peter nodded.
The picture Michael was staring at showed two boys running wild by the kidney-shaped pool. Whoever had snapped the picture had captured the exact moment that Brian was about to push Peter in. The corners of their smiles stretched to their ears. Peter noticed Aimee in the background, hanging by the diving board, watching. Always Aimee near them. She was their shadow, their third musketeer, their forever friend. How was it that now he saw her at most once a year, the last time being at a funeral? He wondered what was happening between her and Roger. All married couples tangled. Greta could chew him out for something as simple as putting back a near-empty carton of orange juice. But the tension between the Glassers seemed of a different nature, a level beyond everyday bickering. He hoped Roger was treating Aimee well. She deserved it.
“Wow, Dad. You used to be fun,” Michael observed.
“I guess I was,” Peter said. “But never as much fun as your uncle. Sit with me a minute.” He gestured toward a bench positioned under a photograph from the 1968 Gold Rush.
“Michael, I love you. Nothing you could say or do would ever change that. I hope you know that,” Peter said, looking into his son’s soulful eyes.
“I do know that, Dad,” Michael said. “But it still feels good to hear it.”
“I’ll bet it does,” Peter said. “I’m going to get better at saying a lot of things.”
* * *
• • •
It’s very bright in here,” Peter said, squinting his eyes to adjust as their group entered Resort’s World casino.
“It’s also very loud,” Greta said, sticking her fingers in her ears.
“It smells like Cheetos,” Phoebe said, pursing her lips. She had a heart-shaped mouth, like Greta used to, before she’d filled her lips with injectables. “Dad, why are we here again?”
Last Summer at the Golden Hotel Page 20