by K. C. Maher
‘Because you never buy anything for yourself.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘Yes, it is.’
I sit up straight—never to admit that I buy the finest, sometimes even tailored, casual clothing. Only an expert could see that they’re not ordinary men’s weekend wear. Who, no matter how rich, goes to such lengths? Probably only other men hoping that they’ll appeal to a girl at the apex of childhood. (Although, Amanda’s past that already. Which is really yet another reason for me to look impeccable.)
We stand up and Amanda tops off my orange juice. She lifts a glass of her own. We clink icy rims and Samson lies at our feet, his tail thumping.
Before I parade around with Samson to prove I’m the world’s most regular guy, before I can even shower, Amanda needs to assess my wounds.
‘Funny thing,’ I tell her, ‘by this morning they were scratches, not gashes.’
‘I don’t believe it. I have to see for myself.’
Without thinking, I say, ‘be my guest,’ only to panic when she indicates for me to take my shirt off. I step into the laundry room, peel off the saturated synthetic top, and toss it in the machine. Half-naked, I step into the kitchen, plant my elbows on the counter, and drop my head. Her fingertips travel along my spine, dabbing at beads of sweat.
‘Don’t do that, honey. It’s embarrassing.’
‘No, it isn’t. Three little Band-Aids? I don’t believe it.’ She pries one edge and all three limp, sodden strips fall into her hands.
‘Just drop those, Amanda. They’re disgusting.’
But she opens the cabinet under the sink and carefully deposits them in the wastebasket.
‘It’s a miracle. Last night they were gruesome lacerations. Now they’re topped with that goo that turns into scabs.’
Goo? It makes me queasy.
Amanda stands on tiptoe and kisses the place between my shoulder blades where a pool of sweat has collected.
‘I love the saltiness.’
Where in Christ does she get this? Not from movies and TV. People on screen don’t sweat unless they’re lying or dying. No girl sidles up to some hunk saying she loves his stink.
I’m hurrying away now to clean up. In fifteen minutes, I’ll be the epitome of normal.
‘Wait. What do you like for breakfast?’
I stare at her, blinking. Amanda’s wearing a dark ribbed top and a very short, very silky skirt. Light from the windows and glass doors surrounds her. I almost forget that I’m shirtless and smelly. I almost step forward to kiss her shimmering head. A residue of common sense stops me.
‘Walter, breakfast.’
‘Uh, that’s okay. I like to eat later.’ Up two steps, I turn and thank her for the orange juice. ‘It was incredible.’
When she follows Samson, who’s nearing the stairs, I say, ‘Wait there—ten minutes.’
Upstairs, I’m far too conscious of myself naked in the shower while she plays downstairs with the puppy. For weeks, my dreams have been vague or nonexistent. But last night, the nightmare voices returned as one scold. You think you’re fated to love that girl, to nurture her during her childhood so that when she’s a woman, you can love her. What would a judge and jury say? Familiar with the voice, I woke choking with sorrow.
We walk Samson down Sunnyside Lane. The dog trots along as if he’s large and in charge, instead of eight little pounds of fur. He turns his head when we arrive at Broadway, as if to show Amanda and me that he’s out and about from now on.
Wayne drives past in a huge bakery truck, different from the meat truck he used to drive. I wave to him and he tugs an imaginary cord. An SUV passes and Amanda recognizes the Baxter twins strapped into contraptions in the back seat. They’re fighting for primacy and apparently shouting her name. At the light, we see the nanny turn around, shaking her finger and yelling.
Soon, we stand at the top of Main Street, which is very steep and undulates several blocks down to a sparkling patch of the Hudson River. The view is magical, not of this world. I can’t help holding Amanda’s shoulder, my palm on her Real Miranda jacket.
Samson circles around us, binding us with his leash. We’re both lingering, not wanting to separate just yet. Perhaps Amanda also realizes that since spring break has ended, we’re beginning our final phase. In any case, Samson’s not prepared for her to leave. And we’re all stalling. Amanda says that she and her friends work on the newspaper at the diner. ‘Otherwise, we would have to attend “home room.”’
In December, the head English teacher approved her idea for an advice column called ‘Ask Off Line.’ Everyone submits semi-disguised smutty questions, assuming the teacher won’t notice. Mostly, Amanda says, he doesn’t, or pretends he doesn’t. ‘My answers are snotty. Like, you’re boring, or really, you don’t know? It’s supposed to be funny.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me? I want to read it.’
‘You’ll think it’s silly.’
‘No, I won’t.’
She says, okay, she’ll bring the next issue home. I ask for back issues, too. She should keep copies for herself, in any case.
‘And you’ll be there at 4:30?’
‘I’m always there. You know that.’
She finds a reason to smile and her voice is breathy. ‘Tonight’s puppy school.’
‘We have to make sure Mike clips Samson’s claws.’
Hearing his name, the dog jumps into Amanda’s arms. She kisses him goodbye and asks, what do I think? Can she kiss me goodbye?
I smile, because, of course, the question is not a question. She puts Samson down and he pulls hard on the leash. She waves and skips down Main Street.
Twenty Eight
I traipse around town for two hours with naughty but friendly Samson. Running to the top of Oak Grove Point, I lead the puppy toward the front porch. He pulls sideways to urinate on the daffodils. He shakes his crooked little leg when Heather Crosby phones. She has Glen Engle on the line.
‘Thank you, Heather. I’m just entering the house.’ Inside, I unhook the puppy’s leash and hear my former boss say ‘Hello.’ No mention of sending me Leonardo da Vinci quotes. For Glen Engle, saying hello is a concession, but he tosses in another, asking why I haven’t sold my soul to the competition.
I deliberately say nothing, so he’s not obliged to wonder what I have been doing.
‘Not long after you left,’ he says, ‘I decided it was time for me to make a change.’ He has now secured proper clients for a new venture and is eager for us to meet.
But before offering him a date and time, I make Glen listen to my gratitude for his interest in me. ‘Unfortunately, I’m expected at law school in September.’
‘Which law school, teaching what?’
‘I’m getting my degree.’
‘Why?’
‘I always intended to study law but got sidetracked.’
‘You’ll change your mind after we get together,’ Glen says. ‘I’m convinced you and I can transform the market.’
He’s off the line and Heather’s preparing to schedule our meeting. First, however, she mentions Sterling, and rather than listen to more, I propose lunch on Tuesday, the last week of May. ‘Unless there’s a conflict with Memorial Day.’
There isn’t.
Ending the call, I scroll through all my old contacts for the Dean who accepted me into Yale Law School sixteen years ago. Luckily, he answers the old number. Luckier still, he remains Dean.
He says, ‘Glad you called, Walter,’ as if we speak regularly. I tell him I’m ready to take the LSAT again, as it must have changed several times since I was a prize-winning prodigy.
‘No need for that. In your case, Walter, it would be superfluous.’
Assuming the class has been full for months, I clarify that we’re talking about next year’s enrollment. Should anyone defer, unlikely as that is, I’d like to be considered.
The Dean, who’s heard of my work following the financial crisis, says the law school has space for me this year,
or any year. My presence will benefit the entire institution. And, if I can find time to visit at the end of May, he would like to introduce me to the faculty.
I thank him and hear myself add that bank regulation in particular interests me.
‘Then you’ll be in a prime position here,’ the Dean says. A famous labor lawyer has agreed to teach an extensive seminar there. He drops a name and reveals that the lawyer ‘is currently forming a Wall Street task force.’
I thank him and he thanks me—all of which is far better than I would have ever imagined.
Samson has fallen asleep inside his cage, door open. I arrange to meet with the Dean and the famous lawyer for lunch the day after my proposed meeting with Glen Engle. Which I intend to cancel.
After the phone call, I slide open the glass doors and step into the garden. The backyard flowers sway on tall stems topped by fat green buds tipped with bright color. And, a road map unfurls in my mind. The commute to New Haven, Connecticut takes an hour and a half. Amanda will never miss me.
Except—the realization hits so hard that I fall against a tree trunk, the wind knocked out of me. Amanda must not miss me! She’ll be in high school!
Her interests will change and keep changing.
Nearly blind with alarm, I wander back inside the house, scarcely aware of the pounding behind my eyes. Samson’s awake and out of his crate. He’s growling and ripping apart a large throw pillow while my mind mimics shattering glass. Through splintering shards, I glimpse Amanda beside a seventeen-year-old boy driving a BMW. Hopping out, she waves and calls ‘Hi Walter!’ Dashing from her house, returning to the passenger seat beside the faceless prince, Amanda blows me a kiss. ‘Bye, Walter!’
I can endure Olivia’s absence. But I refuse to live here as Amanda’s kind, dependable neighbor. I’ll rent an apartment in New Haven. And if Olivia maintains her rule that I must not visit, Kaye will have to invite me to dinner with Roy Emerson. They can include me in weekend sailing expeditions. In time, Olivia will learn to suffer me the same—really, better—as she now suffers Sterling.
But Amanda must forget me. For if our magical rapport were to continue against all odds, she would miss her adolescence. Happy, sad, hard, confusing, and uncomfortable as it’s often portrayed, nobody knows better than I do how skipping this phase can affect the rest of life. She must not spend the next four years in a vacuum, which is what I would be to her—at best. We cannot continue even into summer without stopping time.
So instead of calling Glen and cancelling the meeting, instead of phoning Mike about Samson’s claws—the dog is now onto the matching pillow—I phone the man who manages my trust fund. We’ve only spoken twice that I remember: when I was twelve and my parents folded my deceased sister’s portion into mine. And again when I was twenty-one and asked him to name Olivia as the sole beneficiary. Knowing that Sterling would always have more money than she can sensibly use.
On the phone now, I ask him to split the trust, which has grown quite large, between Olivia and Amanda Jonette. I’ll send her social security number.
He says, ‘Very good, Mr. Mitchell,’ and the labyrinthine process of dividing one trust into two is underway.
After this, I lie down for half an hour until my headache dissipates enough for me to run. Before my anxiety can rebound, I locate an alternate path that eventually connects with my usual loop. The exertion relieves my panic.
When Amanda arrives home from school, I’m soaked in sweat again and drinking orange juice. Pillow stuffing litters the floor and Samson’s in desperate need of a walk.
Twenty Nine
After puppy school and after Mike trims Samson’s claws, we still have time for television. Samson sets us up the same as before. The little black dog swipes at the rug and thumps his tail until Amanda and I get off the couch and down onto the floor. When we start playing with him, though, he growls. I take him to his crate, but he escapes, runs to the couch, settles in his corner, and falls suspiciously fast asleep, snuffling—what Amanda refers to as his ‘adorable baby snore.’
She stands in front of the sliding glass doors, luminous against the dark night, and says, ‘Take off your shirt.’
When I resist, she reminds me I have promised to let her rub my shoulders—from now on.
She’s right, so what’s to resist?
A barrage of old and new desires, magnifying every pleasure I’ve ever known—that’s what!
Foolishly, I assumed another arousal wouldn’t differ much from those I secretly vanquish practically constantly. But these back rubs send a whole new kind of thrilling terror rushing through me.
I take off my shirt, rest my cheek on a pillow, and feel her straddle my lower back. ‘Close your eyes,’ she says and massages my upper trapezius muscles until they loosen, which makes me loosen. After a few adjustments, Amanda strokes my naked dorsal body with ecstatic reverence. Eventually, she swoons on top of me and my internal alarms blare.
‘Stop!’ My voice is faint but strident. ‘Stop, now!’
She stands up and I lie there, saying, ‘Give me a minute, honey.’ I need at least that long before I can put my shirt back on and stand up. Amanda waits on the couch. The TV is back on. I sit beside her.
‘Fair is fair, Walter. You have to do me.’
I laugh. ‘You can’t be serious.’ My primary rule is that she can touch me but I can never touch her. (Of course, I grant exceptions, probably more than I realize, but for all that, I have not succumbed to a real transgression. As if I should be proud of that! I’m not. Just thankful.)
Amanda’s saying, ‘I know the rules. Such as, I cannot take off my shirt and you can. Men walk around half-naked in public. Women don’t.’
‘What men are you talking about? The ones in cologne commercials?’
‘No, the fat men at the park, who drink whiskey from thermoses that fool nobody.’
At 10:00, I take Samson’s crate to her house and we walk him on the path that leads to the highest elevation of Oak Grove Point. A clearing there presents a large flat boulder. I stand on it and construct a series of arcs proportionate to heaven and earth as I perceive them. Strange and whimsical, I admit. But gazing at the sky, I find an imaginary sphere to support me. It’s modeled on Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man, in three dimensions. I extend my arms and legs within an orb and imagine rolling through universal waves. Like this, I’m weightless. I spin above the ground and yet remain upright, proper, and good.
Amanda appears out of the darkness, talking on the phone and laughing. Samson on his leash sends her flying one way and then the other. I jump from the boulder and she lands close enough so that I can see her expression beckoning me. When I stand near her, she hands me the phone. It’s Olivia.
‘Hi, sweetheart.’
‘Hi, Daddy. Tell me about this puppy. Amanda says he’s as much mine as hers.’
‘That’s right.’ (Whatever Amanda wants.) ‘You and Amanda can share him.’
‘Only in theory, Daddy. If we still lived across a driveway from each other, we would. But we don’t.’
A rusty substance trickles inside me like ground water seeping through the crack in a foundation. ‘All right,’ I say. ‘Let’s use a looser definition of sharing.’
Olivia giggles. ‘I love you, Daddy. “A looser definition.” Wait till Karl hears that. Is Amanda still there?’
I hand the phone back to her and take the dog leash. Amanda says, ‘After you see him, Liv, if you aren’t a hundred percent sure his name is Samson, we can change it. He’ll still be a baby and won’t know the difference.’ Amanda takes the leash from me and Samson pulls so hard that her phone flies in the air. I catch it and put it to my ear. ‘Olivia, sweetheart? Did you know the puppy was your mother’s idea?’
She laughs. ‘No way!’ Then she hangs up, but her voice stays with me. I forgot to tell her that when she visits, she can bring Karl.
*
Every school-day morning, we walk Samson together to the top of Main Street and reluctantly part compa
ny. I wonder if Amanda also feels our impending final goodbye coming nearer every day. It surprises me whenever she doubts my love for her. I hide what I can out of necessity. But even without the experience of being loved before, she should know: I’m devoted to her for life.
Another reason to linger at the top of Main Street: In the past two weeks, the landscape has become magnificent. I bend toward Amanda while she tells me things she’s been meaning to tell me. Standing there, Amanda, I, and even the puppy blend into the morning’s breathtaking beauty. We belong to the dazzling fabric spooling beneath our feet.
When Amanda does turn and skip down the hill, Samson whines and barks, vanquishing the suppressed dread within our everyday goodbyes. She’s off to the diner until Spanish class at nine. I drag the whimpering puppy on his leash. But once we’re past the corner, and Amanda’s out of sight, he trots fast along Broadway. If we happen to see anyone, Samson is friendly, his little ears cocked, his tail wagging. If we see another dog walker, he or she and I talk. Samson happily sniffs and snarls at animals ten times his size. Given a chance, he’ll intimidate a timid dog. Either way, I’ve learned to limit the interaction to two or three minutes. Samson races to the Hudson River as if unleashed, despite my strong hold. At first, I had to drag him back uphill to the aqueduct until he discovered he could spare his rump by using his feet. Now, he bounds uphill as eagerly as down.
*
But this morning, the puppy refuses to go outside. It’s raining. Really just slightly drizzling. Holding Samson’s leash, I push him out the door, onto the porch. He whimpers and claws the painted wood, cowering on the top step. Amanda scolds him for being a baby, swats his nose, and says, ‘What’s wrong with you?’
He growls. The fur on his back rises in a thin line. Then he jumps under the porch, crouches there, and empties his bladder and bowels before scurrying back to the front door.
So, Samson and I stay put, keeping our paws dry. Instead of waving goodbye, Amanda drops her backpack and cartwheels. Then she stands upright, fetches her books, and disappears. In the kitchen, I shove Samson into his crate and hurry upstairs to watch her dance down the hill.