“Who playin’ dat?” she asked again.
If I couldn’t take her home, I wanted to take her away from her troubles, if only temporarily. I wanted to joke around, make her laugh.
“It’s a phantom,” I said.
“Phantin?” Her face scrunched up in confusion. “Whazzat?”
“A ghost.” I waggled my brows and wiggled my fingers. “Spooooooky.”
I regretted it as soon as I said it. After all, I didn’t want to scare the poor girl. I waited for her eyes and mouth to stretch into a grotesque grimace, I waited for her to howl in horror and run back to the emergency room. “Maaaaaaaaaaammmmmmmaaaaaaaaa! Ders a ghost playin dat pee-an-ah!” I would have hurried in the opposite direction toward the west elevators before her mother could come after me. How dare I scare the bejeezus out of her daughter? Doesn’t she have enough hardship in her life without having to worry about piano-playing ghosts?
Instead, she cocked her head to the side and glared at me through her bruised eyes. “Duhhhhhhhhh. It can’t be a ghost.”
“Why not?”
“A peeanah-playin’ ghost? That’s stoopid.”
“Why is that stupid?”
She exhaled deeply because I was trying her patience. “It’s stoopid ’cause ghosts got better things to do than play peeanahs.”
“Like what?”
“Like gettin’ ready for Halloween.” She shook her head disdainfully.
She saw me for the patronizing, bleeding-heart liberal asshat that I really am. Even this girl could see right through me. The phantom in the room was me.
fifty-two
Rightfully chided, I dejectedly headed to the infusion room on the second floor, which is where I’m writing from right now. I was about to describe the infusion room for you, and how unnerving it is to roll back and pass through the privacy curtain and see my dad sitting upright in the hospital lounger, hooked up to the IV, looking as drained and tired and glassy-eyed as one would expect from someone who is “down four or five liters,” as the nurse put it. I was about to describe the nurse’s purple clogs and Hello Kitty scrubs and how these cartooniforms are probably meant to be cheerful but have the reverse effect on me. I was about to describe how difficult it is just to sit next to my dad while he’s intravenously rehydrated with salt water one drip at a time, pretending to watch a lame game show, as he strains to make conversation about the best game-show host of all time, straining to discuss Bob Barker, and how he will always be remembered as the host of The Price Is Right, but also for his mission to get all pets spayed and neutered, straining because everything I say is overheard by everyone else in the room because the privacy curtains provide privacy in name only, as proven by my unintentional eavesdropping, just now, of the conversation between the nurse and the patient on my dad’s right-hand side, a discussion that included clinical keywords such as antiemetics, alopecia, and anemia, but none as revelatory as adjuvant chemotherapy.
I don’t need to describe the infusion room for you, or what it’s like to sit silently next to your dad looking as pale and frail and mortal as you’ve ever seen him, because this is the same room in which your dad endured six chemo cycles between this past January and June.
I only know this much because I called your mother and pled for information. Because after your beachfront confession, you barely spoke of your father’s cancer again. And when I asked, even begged you to unburden yourself to me, the person you professed to love more and deeper than you ever thought was even possible, you repeated the same mantra over and over again.
“There are no words,” you said. “There are no words for this.”
fifty-three
My dad and I didn’t talk much all afternoon. Occasionally we’d make comments about the low-life, no-class conflicts that are the mainstay of daytime television. Will a paternity test prove that Bubba Jon is the father of La’Shaundreequa’s twins? (No.) Will the plaintiff get back the fifteen hundred dollars she loaned the defendant so he could buy her a proper engagement ring but which he instead used to buy a plasma TV? (No.) Will the stripper be pleased to find out that her secret admirer is the scrawny senior citizen better known around the club as “the Geezer”? (Hay-ell no.) What if he offers to buy the new breast implants she’s been wanting to get? (Maybe.) Because he’s a millionaire? (Yes!)
After a few hours of these trashy entertainments, I couldn’t help but imagine how our own relationship might play out on one of these shows.
The Host: On today’s show we’ve got Jessica and Marcus.
The Audience: Woo. Woo. Woo.
The Host: Jessica was a virgin before she met Marcus.
The Audience: Ha. Ha. Ha.
The Host: Marcus had bedded approximately forty young women before Jessica.
The Audience: Daaaaaaaaamn.
The Host: For years Marcus has remained faithful to Jessica, but Jessica has had several sexual encounters outside their relationship.
The Audience: Oh, no she didn’t!
The Host: Less than one week ago, Marcus asked Jessica to marry him.
The Audience: Awwwwwwwwwwww.
The Host: But Jessica didn’t say yes. In fact, just before the proposal, she was thinking about breaking up with him.
The Audience: Booooooooooooo!
The Host: And it gets even more twisted than that!
The Audience: Woo. Woo. Woo.
The Host: It turns out that Marcus had also been thinking about breaking up with Jessica….
The Audience: Huuuuuuuuh?
The Host: Which she found out from her best friend, Hope…
The Audience: Mmmmmmm…
The Host: With whom Marcus had carried a secret relationship behind Jessica’s back…
The Audience: Oh, no he didn’t!
The Host: Let’s bring ’em all onstage and welcome them to the show….
The Audience: Wooooooooooooooooooooooo!
My imaginary televised nightmare was interrupted by a genuine commercial clip for an upcoming episode of The Dr. Frank Show. I pressed my face into my hands and moaned.
“What’s wrong?” my dad asked.
I removed one hand so I could point to the screen. “I had a job interview with Dr. Frank’s guest, Dr. Kate,” I replied, “and I blew it.”
My dad leaned forward to get a closer look at Dr. Kate, who was looking as luscious as ever.
“For her new business venture, the first to blend new media and neuroscience.”
My dad wasn’t impressed with the jargon. “Doing what?”
“Working as an online matchmaker for iLoveULab.” I blushed with embarrassment over the cheesiness of the job description, and the fact that I wasn’t qualified for it.
My dad threw back his bald head. “You?!”
“I know, I know,” I said, poking the channel changer. “But I blew the interview, so there’s no need to make fun of a ridiculous job that I didn’t even get.”
I assumed my dad would want me to provide the play-by-play of the botched interview so we could review what had gone wrong, and I could learn from my errors and prevent them from happening again. It was his preferred process for self-improvement, one best captured by the video collection of my worst high school track and cross-country meets, “Notso Darling’s Agony of Defeat, Volumes 1–4.”
But he let it go.
“I was thinking about what you said a few weeks ago,” my dad said. “About how you felt ‘unsettled.’”
“Uh-huh,” I replied, surprised by this unexpected turn to our conversation.
“The opposite of unsettled is settled. As in settling down.”
“Uh-huh,” I responded again, even more warily than before. I had no idea where he was going with this. I was starting to worry that this last bag of sterilized water had literally gone to his head. Was there excess fluid on his brain?
“When you get married,” he said, “you settle down.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But when does settling down turn into ju
st plain settling?” he asked.
This was the perfect opening for me to mention your proposal, and how it had inspired me to ponder that same question. But I was compelled to take an altogether different route.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you crash your bike on purpose?”
“Who told you that?” he asked, eyebrows raised. “Your mother?”
I nodded, then waved my hand dismissively. “I know. She’s crazy.”
“She is crazy,” my dad replied, his mouth turning up at the corners. “And she’s also right.”
Just then the nurse in the Hello Kitty scrubs threw open the privacy curtain. “Looks like we’re almost finished here, Mr. Darling!” she chirped. “Is your daughter driving you home?”
I was rendered speechless by my dad’s revelation, so he answered for me. “My wife should be on her way.”
Hello Kitty clucked sympathetically, then said, “The hospital can’t release you without a ride home.”
Hello Kitty was a short, wide-hipped bottle blonde, whose birth date was probably within a year or two of my mother’s (actual versus claimed) D.O.B. The nurse’s rucked face and shirred neck flesh indicated that she was doing little to fight the advances of late middle age, or that those measures that she had taken were not successful. Meanwhile, my mother was at the aesthetician erasing decades from her appearance with the help of synthetic injectable gelatins not yet approved by the FDA.
It was all so completely fucked up.
How did my parents get like this? I asked myself. And how can I stop it from happening to you and me?
I laboriously pushed myself up out of my chair, winded by my dad’s confession and the prospect of trying to track down my mother. “I’ll go down to the lobby and call her on a pay phone. I’ll get her here.”
No sooner had the words left my mouth than I heard heels clacking across the linoleum.
“No need,” my mother said, breezing through the curtains with a triumphant air. “I have arrived!”
fifty-four
My strange day stretched into an even stranger evening.
The first strange development was the car ride back to my parents’ place on the bay, which was strangely free of palpable parental tension and controversy. This would be strange enough on an ordinary day, never mind one during which my dad spent six hours in the hospital getting intravenously rehydrated after crashing his bike into a parked car in the failed attempt to steal my mother’s attention away from her rising career and her falling face. Their interactions were neither hot nor cold, but not quite warm, either. Their temperate discussion included driving (Dad got behind the wheel because Mom was worn out from her appointments), dinner (Dad wanted it but Mom didn’t want to make it), and their younger daughter (Dad encouraged me to spend the night, and Mom agreed). It did not include edema (Dad’s swollen face from the excess saline, Mom’s from a wrinkle-filling syringe) or any other topics outlined in the previous pages.
The condo hadn’t changed much since the last time I was there. It was still as beige and tasteful as ever, but with a cold, unlived-in quality. My mom’s own home seemed a lot like the empty rooms she was paid to fill with borrowed furniture and accent pieces to move white elephant properties off the market. I was standing in the foyer, overnight bag in hand, deciding what to do next, when I noticed that both my parents were staring at me expectantly, wondering the same thing. I felt that whatever I decided to do next was of monumental importance, as it would determine what we all did next. If I said, “Hey, let’s order a pizza,” we would order pizza, eat it together, and maybe, just maybe, have a conversation about what happened today. If I said, “Hey, I need to get away from you two because I’m totally freaked out about what happened today,” we would all go to our separate rooms. To be honest, I was feeling more in favor of the latter than the former, yet I was overwhelmed by a sense of familial obligation, to be the good daughter, to be the one who kept us all together.
“Hey, let’s order a pizza,” I suggested.
My mom picked invisible lint off her creamy sleeveless turtleneck. “I’m not hungry,” she said. “And I’ve got invoices to look over….” Without any further explanation, she swiftly headed upstairs to the corner of her bedroom that served as her home office.
I glanced at my dad, who was watching her retreat.
“I think there are leftovers in the freezer,” he said with a note of resignation. “I’ll put them in the oven while you get settled upstairs.”
“Get settled,” I said pointedly.
“Settled,” my dad said. “Right.” And then he laughed for the first time all day.
fifty-five
I needed to wash off the hospital germs, so I took a long, hot shower in a stall so pristine I could’ve eaten my dinner straight off the tiles. I’ve lived in the city long enough that I can’t help but look at all available space in terms of its NYC market value. As I scrubbed my legs, my torso, my arms, I noted that the stall is roughly the size of the Cupcake, and could easily be advertised as a $1000/mo studio on Craigslist.
I got out, dried off, and got dressed in the same T-shirt and cutoffs from the day before. The smell of browned cheese and crispy crust wafted upstairs and my stomach rumbled in hunger. It dawned on me that I hadn’t eaten all day, which, as you know, is very unlike me.
On my way down the hall, I passed by my mother’s bedroom. The door was ajar, so I gently knocked before pushing it open. She was seated in front of her computer, wearing the cashmere sweatpants that Bethany had bought her last Christmas. The matching hoodie was hanging off the back of her desk chair, and she was wildly fanning her tank top with a bunch of receipts.
“Hey, Mom,” I said. “Are you okay?”
She clutched the papers to her chest and jumped, causing her reading glasses to fall off her nose and swing from a gold chain around her neck. “Oh, Jessie! You scared me! I’m not used to having anyone around when I’m working.”
“Dad’s around.”
“You know what I mean,” she said.
“Actually, I don’t.” Mom was sort of panting, and her face was flushed pink. “Are you okay?” I asked again.
“I’m just hot,” she gasped, wiping her brow with the back of her wrist. “I’ve been having hot flashes for five years now. Enough, already!”
And before I could say, “Oh, menopause,” I was assaulted by the horrible shriek of the smoke alarm.
BEEEEEEEEEP! BEEEEEEEEEP! BEEEEEEEEEP!
Mom grimaced and covered her ears, but didn’t move from her spot in front of the computer.
BEEEEEEEEEP! BEEEEEEEEEP! BEEEEEEEEEP!
I raced downstairs to find my dad wildly waving two pot holders over the scorched leftovers on the cookie sheet. I slid open the back door to let in more air.
“Don’t worry!” he shouted over the continuous din of the alarm. “It happens all the time!” This explains why my mother hadn’t moved. “Damn sensitive smoke detectors!”
And just when I thought I couldn’t take another second of noise, the beeping stopped. My dad, in the meantime, had chiseled around the blackened cheese and put two slices on my plate. They weren’t inedibly burnt, just slightly overcooked. But at that point I was so hungry that I would’ve eaten the spatula.
Dad opened the refrigerator, reached in, and grabbed a brown bottle of light beer.
“Want one?” he asked.
“Dad! You spent the whole day in the hospital! You shouldn’t be drinking beer.”
“Athletes replenish fluids with beer all the time,” he replied, gesturing with his bottle opener made out of spare bike parts. It was another gift from the same Christmas as the cashmere tracksuit, only this one was from me. My mom hated it on sight and had tried to “accidentally” throw it out on numerous occasions.
“Alcohol is a diuretic.”
“Lighten up, Jessie.” He took a deep, satisfying swig. “It’s light beer, which is mostly water, anyway.”
I was aware
of how totally uptight I sounded. I wondered what my dad would think if he knew his daughter had recently gotten drunk on whiskey right in the middle of the afternoon….
“Want one?” He held a bottle out for me, then quickly retracted it. “Or are you more of a wine person, like your mother?”
I knew that this was not a question of choosing beer over wine. It was about siding with one way of life over another. One parent over another. And if I had any chance of getting any valuable information out of my dad about what had transpired today, I simply could not align myself with the wine people. Tonight I pledged my allegiance to the beer people.
“Thanks,” I said, popping off the bottle cap.
“Let’s sit outside while it’s still warm,” he said, grabbing two more beers before leading the way to the patio.
We both settled into the cushions of two side-by-side deck chairs. It was dark, and the only lights came from the neighboring windows, a citronella bucket candle, and the moon. Earlier in the evening there had been a few small motorboats puttering past their dock, but now, at nearly ten P.M., the channel was calm and quiet. Too quiet, in fact. I was no longer used to the total absence of white noise here in the remote out-reaches of suburbia, the blurry background buzz that muted all aural attention-getters. Without it, every sound called for attention. The teak furniture scraping across the cement. The empty beer bottle clanking the glass-topped table. The voice inside my head screaming, “SAY SOMETHING! ANYTHING!”
“It’s so quiet,” I said finally.
“We’ve got the perfect neighbors,” my dad said. “They cleared out after Labor Day.”