Chapter 1.9
After a few months in the high school Max was delighted to find himself in a small group of honor students where competing academically was a social world onto itself, instead of nerdy behavior that the other kids teased him about. Josh was a solid middle of the road student and discovered a new interest in drama club, where he met his first girlfriend, Winifred Febre.
Winnie’s parents were both computer software developers that worked ridiculously long hours, leaving her and her older sister to fend for themselves most of the time. Elaine accepted her and encouraged the relationship immediately, thrilled to have another female in the mix. Max teased Josh about her from time to time, citing his own intention not to get involved with women until his career was well under way. Josh’s consistent response was, “We’ll see. It may not be up to you.” Max intended to organize every aspect of his life on a timetable and flowchart. His career plans were firm, but secret. Josh on the other hand had only a vague idea that next year may follow this year. Winnie was invited to Thanksgiving dinner along with Tom’s brother, Pete, and his wife Karen.
Pete was a police officer in Wilmington, and Max spent quite a while talking to him about his job. Karen was drinking steadily and rolled her eyes to mean that she was sick to death of Pete’s job. To be polite, Josh asked her several times about her job in the Recorder of Deeds office, but she always answered in two or three words and then fell silent again. Pete was in the middle of telling Winnie and Josh about a recent murder when Juliet and Marvin arrived uninvited.
Tom was infuriated, but Elaine greeted them warmly and arranged extra seats at the table.
When the conversation soon began to drag, Winnie said to Pete, “Mrs. Tyler’s son has been missing since last February.” Winnie loved mysteries, and was disappointed that no one else seemed to care about solving this one.
“Mitch?” asked Pete.
“Yes, Mitch. I only have one son,” said Juliet.
“He’s probably OK,” said Karen. “He’ll come home when he runs out of money.”
“Yes, I’m sure he will,” said Juliet, with a nice smile.
Josh was confused. Whenever one of them tried to tell her that she accused them of being heartless, because they weren’t frenetic enough to suit her. He said, “I thought you told me that he must be in terrible trouble, or else he would call. He would never make you worry like this, and all that.”
“He’s fine. I’m sure of it,” Juliet said. “Why must you be so dramatic?”
“He’s not being dramatic, Mrs. Tyler. I heard you say all that too,” said Winnie.
Juliet smiled, but made a mental note to try to embarrass Winnie before the day was over.
“Have your local police tried to trace him?” asked Pete.
“They’re useless,” said Juliet. She seemed very uncomfortable, even though everyone was trying to help her with her problem. “I’m sure he’ll turn up soon. It’s no big deal.”
She started to move away, but Pete said, “I can check around. I’ll see what I can find out.”
Juliet spun on her heel, surprisingly quickly. “Oh, no. Absolutely not. I wouldn’t want you to go to any trouble,” said Juliet.
“It’s not much trouble,” he said.
“I’m disappointed with you, Josh,” she said, angrily. “This is hardly the time or place to get into personal family business. Your young lady’s manners need some work.” She strode off to the kitchen angrily
“What did I do?” Winnie asked. “I didn’t mean to start anything.”
“That’s my grandmother for you,” said Josh. “You didn’t do anything. It all depends on what critter crawled up her butt and died lately.”
“Now, I’m curious,” said Pete. “Something’s weird about this deal.”
“I think you should mind your own business,” Karen said, sloshily. “Nothing good can come of messing around in Juliet’s life. It never does.”
“I’ll do as I please,” he said.
A week later, they all watched David Wells make an announcement on television. Max felt strange watching him take the podium at the Colorado Statehouse. He wasn’t yearning for some contact with him, like he thought he might be. He didn’t hate him either, like he did for a while. He was mostly curious, and hoping for some insight into the man that might explain some things about his own makeup. He kept thinking that it was weird that something that most people take for granted, knowing what parts of you might have come from each of your parents, was so enticing, and yet so scary for him.
David Wells said, “Thank you for being here today. I will read a prepared statement and then I’ll take a few questions.”
“I will not be seeking the nomination of my party for the presidency of the United States. I wish to serve the people of Colorado as governor for my full term, and another if they’ll have me. There is much work still to be done in our own state.”
Max said to Elaine, “We did that, didn’t we?”
“I wrote him a letter, telling him that you knew,” she said.
“Did he write back?” he asked.
“Not yet,” she said. Max turned back toward the screen.
Wells talked on for a few minutes about educational initiatives, highway improvements and taxes in Colorado, and then said, “I’ll take a few questions now.”
“Yes, Marie?” he said, indicating a reporter in a red sweater near the front of the room.
“Governor Wells, will you be running for the presidency in four years?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “I will not seek the presidency at all.”
He called on another reporter, who said, “Governor Wells, you’ve been a favorite in the party’s stable of possible candidates for a year now. There must be another reason why you will not run other than desire to serve the State of Colorado? What is that reason, sir?”
“Any reasons other than what I have already stated are personal and not political,” he answered.
“He’s almost honest for a politician,” Tom observed. “He could’ve easily dodged that question.”
Max made note of that comment.
Josh said, “He does look a lot like you, doesn’t he?”
“Shut up a minute. I want to listen,” said Max.
A reporter asked, “Which of the candidates who have already declared do you endorse?”
“I have not made a decision about that yet,” said Wells. “I have only made my own decision over the past week.”
The discussion went on for five more minutes, with the questions all trying to force Wells into making a comment about one or another of the other candidates, but he never did.
Elaine turned off the TV and asked Max, “What do you think?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I thought he looked unhappy.”
“I thought he looked arrogant,” said Elaine.
“I don’t think so,” said Max. “He’s a politician. Aren’t they all like that?”
“He looks like a man whose career just came to a screaming halt,” said Tom. “He’s trying to put a good face on it.”
Josh said, “At least he speaks in sentences that don’t go on for twelve or thirteen lines in search of a period like most of those dudes. I’d say that means that most of his brain cells are connected to one another.”
Max smiled. “Keep talking like that and people might get the idea that you’re becoming educated,” he said.
“Naw, it was a one-time slip of my coolness, just for you.” said Josh. “I thought you might like to hear something positive about the guy.”
“I still think he sounded arrogant,” said Elaine.
The guys all understood that Elaine had every right and reason to think whatever she wanted to about Wells, so they didn’t argue about it anymore.
Pete called Tom around the first of the year, on a Monday evening, when they were all sitting at the dinner table having roast pork and sauerkraut. “Remember at Thanksgiv
ing, your ex-mother-in-law, and Josh’s friend and all, talking about Mitch going missing?”
“Yes,” said Tom.
“Well, I forgot about it for a while, but I remembered today, and decided to look into it. It took me all of half an hour to find out where he is. You wanna guess?”
“I never really wanted to know anyway,” said Tom. “But go ahead. Where is he?”
“He’s serving three to five at Graterford Penitentiary for breaking into a truck at a rest stop on the turnpike. He’s lucky the trucker that caught him in the act didn’t kill him. He only broke his jaw and his arm. What an idiot.”
“Oh, for cryin’ out loud,” said Tom. “And the way Juliet went on about it. Wait until I tell Josh about this one. Thanks.”
Tom sat back down at the table and Josh said, “Tell me what?”
“That was Pete,” he said. “He found out where Mitch is.”
“Where is he?” said Josh.
“He’s in jail. Where he’s been since last February.”
“He’s in jail?” Josh exclaimed. “Jail?”
“I told you to stay away from him,” Tom said, calmly, putting more mashed potatoes on his plate. “If you would like to tell me how wise I am, you may begin.”
“Do you think Grammy doesn’t know, or do you think she’s lying?” said Josh.
“Oh, for God’s sake, she has to know,” said Tom. “She probably visits him.”
Elaine said, “She wouldn’t lie about something like that, would she? We have to tell her.”
“She has to know,” said Tom again. “She wanted to get a lot of sympathy and save face at the same time. It worked too.”
Elaine said, “Are you serious? Do people do things like that?”
“She’s probably convinced herself by now. Her grip on reality isn’t too tight sometimes.”
Josh said, “Well I don’t care. I’m going to bawl her out for what she put us all through.”
Tom said, “Do you really want to muck around with whatever goes on inside her head? What would it accomplish?”
Josh said, “We can’t pretend that we don’t know. That’s the same as lying.” Josh was irate and still adding one memory after another to fuel the fire.
“She’d deny it,” said Tom.
Josh’s fire was still on the rise. “Come on, Dad. Come with me to talk to her. I’m not going to let her get away with her stuff this time. She’s gone too far now.”
“Maybe we should all go. She might have a harder time lying to a whole group of people,” said Elaine. “Plus, there’s still a chance that she really doesn’t know. Then we could keep Josh from beating up on her for no good reason.”
“All right,” Tom said. “But I’m warning you. No good is going to come of this.”
Max said, “I’m half-ass related to an almost president and a convicted criminal. What the heck does that make me?”
“A middle-middle-middle-class American. Right smack dab on the pinnacle of the bell curve. Exactly halfway from anywhere,” said Elaine.
“Right,” said Max. Sometimes his mother’s logic was irrefutable.
After the dishes were cleared they all set out for Juliet’s house.
Juliet answered the door, and looked apprehensive. When they were all seated in the living room, Josh came right to the point.
“Grammy,” he said, “Did you know all this time that Mitch was in jail?”
Juliet became terribly calm and concerned. She shook her head and said, “I’m worried about you Josh. How do you get such wild ideas? Who would put such a thing in your poor head?”
“We found out through the police,” Josh said, gritting his teeth. “I guess they know whether they locked him up or not.”
“Oh, I see,” she said, smiling. “Now I understand. It was Pete, wasn’t it? He never was right in the head. You don’t listen to him, honey.”
Marvin said, “Yep. That Pete’s a wacko.”
Tom got up and said, “Come on, Josh. Let’s go. They didn’t want to know where he was after all.”
“I’m not done yet, Dad,” said Josh. He turned back to Juliet. “It was wrong of you to get everyone worried when there was no cause. You were mean. You have to say you’re sorry.”
Juliet started to cry. “Why are you doing this to an old lady?” she sniffled. “How did my good little baby grandson get so cruel?”
Elaine rummaged in her purse for a tissue to hold out to Juliet.
“I told you,” said Tom, totally unimpressed with the waterworks.
Juliet went from sniffling to vicious in less time than it took Elaine to pull back the tissue that she was holding out.
“What the shit does that mean?” Juliet shot at Tom as though her mouth was the muzzle of a firearm. Or maybe her GI tract was just connected upside down, so that what came out the top was what usually comes out the bottom, he thought. “Told him what? That I’m crazy? You’re the one that put him up to this, aren’t you? You put him up to this. You never liked me anyway.”
“Mrs. Tyler, I don’t think Josh meant any harm,” said Elaine with exaggerated calmness. “He was only trying to help you find out where Mitch was.”
She thought she could talk Juliet down before a full-scale war broke out. She could see that Tom was fuming but tightly controlled. Josh was enraged, but of the variety that was making him temporarily speechless. Max was horrified. She thought for a minute that she should probably have left him at home, but then consoled herself by deciding that he’d have to deal with people like this at some point in his life, so this might be a good educational opportunity for him. At least they had safety in numbers going for them.
“No one asked you people to meddle in my private business, Miss Society,” Juliet sneered at Elaine. Elaine was not at all used to being spoken to in such a tone, but she tried hard to manage the situation with as much dignity as possible for the sake of setting an example for Max. Being reasonable was now strictly an act, because it had taken less than five minutes for Juliet to fill Elaine’s head with an almost irresistible impulse to break something glass across Juliet’s face, an image the likes of which Elaine had never had to resist before.
“Actually, you did,” she said. “On many different occasions.”
“We all got along just fine before you got involved,” Juliet said, challenging Elaine with her eyes.
Josh snapped out of whatever state of mind had gotten hold of his tongue, possibly to come to Elaine’s rescue, and said, “You never answered my question. Did you know that Mitch was in jail all this time?”
“Yes,” Juliet half-screamed at Josh. “There! Are you happy now? Yes, damn you!”
Max was about ready to start digging a foxhole in the living room floor. He crossed his arms in front of his body and folded his trunk down almost to his legs.
“We can leave at any time,” Tom said to Max.
“No, Grammy. I’m not happy. How can I ever trust you if you lie to me?” said Josh. He reached out his hand to put it on Max’s shoulder. “And you’re scaring my friend. Why don’t you bring down the nastiness a notch or two?”
He must have gotten through to her. She looked at him without the ugliness for a minute or two and then said, “If I’d told you all that I was upset because they locked up my Mitch, you would’ve all laughed at me.” She stuck out her lower lip like a little girl and for a minute Josh had the clear impression that he finally was seeing the real Grammy, about four years old.
“No we wouldn’t,” Josh said. He moved his hand from Max to her. Tom was repulsed. Something about her felt contagious to him. Elaine felt an urge to mother her, even though she wanted to hurt her just a minute ago.
Josh went on, “We’d have been more supportive if we knew the truth.”
Tom wanted to say, “Watch out. You’re about to sign up for a lifetime of providing her with sympathy all the time,” but he kept his mouth shut. Josh seemed to know
what he was doing.
There was a long silence. It became so uncomfortable that Max said, “We’d better be going soon.”
That seemed to bring Juliet back from wherever her thoughts had taken her, and she said, “I’m glad you know,” to no one in particular. “I guess it’s easier that way.”
Marvin spoke up again and squeezed six words out. “Easier for me too,” he said. “Families suck.”
Josh gave his grandmother a hug. “Friends, again?” he said.
“Yeah, I guess. But you still have a smart mouth,” she said.
“Everyone says that,” he said.
“Let’s go,” said Tom. He nodded toward the door. He was glad that Josh got whatever he needed from this, but he emphatically did not want to give Juliet another moment of attention.
On the way to the car, Josh said, “She never did apologize for lying.”
“No, and I’m sure she never will,” said Tom. “It’s not possible for her. But you still did very well. A lot more than I would’ve done.”
“Thanks,” said Josh. “She’s the only grandmother I’ve got. Damn she’s hard work though.”
“Yeah, I know,” said Tom.
Max said, “Maybe I should be glad that my grandmother’s in a home and doesn’t know who we are.”
“Yeah, really,” said Josh.
Elaine surprised them all when she said, “That woman is not in her right mind. You should be trying to make her get help. You just ignore the problem.”
“As if she would ever listen to anyone. What a pointless effort that would be,” said Tom. “Never gonna happen.”
“I’m serious,” said Elaine. “She’s sick. She should have treatment.”
“Probably,” said Tom. “No definitely. But you can’t help people that don’t want help.”
“You have to try,” she said.
Tom seldom took anything so badly. He was deeply offended that Elaine would criticize him like that. There was a definite cooling off period in their almost-relationship for quite a while.