Like the whole wide world is dazzling with potential.
Another word for hope.
Chapter Thirty
TIM
The guy who opens the door at Hester’s three days later looks like a skinny Jerry Garcia. He wears a faded, tie-dyed T-shirt and baggy corduroy cargo pants. He’s barefoot, balding, and bearded.
“You must be Tim,” he says.
You can’t be Hester’s grandfather, I think. Lousy casting. They’d never even be in the same movie.
“Yep,” I say. “That’s me.”
“Waldo Connolly. Come on in. Like Thai food?”
I haul in Cal and all his crap, looking around. Not what I expected for Hester’s backdrop. Shitloads of big, bright abstract oil paintings, one glass wall that juts out back, turning into a greenhouse-type room, plants everywhere, big braided rugs, loads of furniture that looks like it’s been carved out of trees, sometimes with the bark still on. A hobbit would be right at home.
I’m definitely not.
Waldo Connolly’s just standing there, smiling at me, thumbs hooked into his belt loops. I finally remember that he asked me a question. “Oh, uh, yes, uh, sir. Thai food. Love it. Probably. I’ve never had it.”
“Hester, he’s here,” he calls up the stairs.
I guess no court-martial.
I look around at the tables and bookcases. Lots of pictures of Hester with friends, Hester alone, Hester with Waldo, Hester with Waldo and some old lady—her grandmother, maybe. No pictures of the kid.
Speaking of, he’s chomping on my finger ferociously with his gummy little mouth. I scrounge out his bottle.
“Come on into the kitchen. You can heat it up in there,” Waldo says, walking through a brick-lined archway into another room.
The kitchen too is decorated in early Middle Earth. Copper kettle, huge black iron stove, lots of woven rug things on the walls and glass witch’s balls hanging in front of the windows, big puffy red armchair, big table that looks like it was hewn from a hundred-year-old redwood by John Henry or whatever.
“Microwave’s right there.” Waldo waves to a corner of the counter.
I’m actually surprised there’s a microwave and not a huge iron kettle over the fireplace.
The air smells spicy and thick. Waldo picks up a gigantic machete-type knife and stands looking at me as Cal’s bottle revolves. I resist the urge to protect my privates. But then Waldo pivots and starts whacking away at some big green vegetable-type thing on the counter.
“You like green papaya salad?” he calls over his shoulder.
“Love it.” I push the nipple into Cal’s mouth, and his head immediately lolls back against my forearm, eyelids half-lowered in ecstasy. This kid sure does love to drink. Can only hope he’s equally stoked about the solid stuff.
“That’s what we got going for dinner tonight. That and tom yum goong.”
“Great.” Whatever.
“Take a load off. Tell me about yourself.” Waldo aims the machete toward the big red armchair.
“I’m Tim and I’m an alcoholic” would not be the appropriate response. I’m a Sagittarius? I’m generally much more reliable with birth control than you might think? Not that I’ve had sex in a while. Like forever. Like since I had it with your granddaughter. Not that I remember that.
“Hi Tim. Hi Grand.” Hester bounces into the room at this point, wearing a surprisingly clingy blue dress—with cleave, even. Her hair’s wet and not in a ponytail, just down. Lipstick, eye stuff, the works.
“You look good,” I say, rising to my feet.
“Thanks. Um, thanks, Tim. Grand, did you give him a drink?”
I glance at Waldo, who’s looking a hell of a lot less friendly than he was a second ago. Oh, right, dumbass. He’ll think you just want in her pants again.
Screw being charming. I’m not good at that anyway when I’m not buzzed.
“Sir, I know what you must think of me . . . well, no, I don’t really, but I want to apologize. The year must have sucked for you too. I mean, that is, it must not have been easy for you either. So—” I cross the kitchen and extend the hand that’s not cradling Cal, which means I let go of his bottle. Cal lets out an angry squawk. I check on Hester, figuring she’ll reach for him, but she doesn’t.
Her fingers don’t even twitch like she’s restraining herself. Instead, she keeps her eyes steady on me.
“That’s mature of you, Tim,” Waldo says, pointedly not taking my hand. “I think Hester’s the one who deserves the apology. All I had to do was watch her suffer.”
Oh, just use the damn machete.
“He did. He did apologize to me, Grand. I told you that,” she says quickly.
Cal wriggles around in my arm, trying to latch back onto the bottle.
Dad? Dad! Help me. It’s right there. Dad!
I drop my hand and reposition the thing. At least I can make him happy.
“Would you like some nam dang-mu pan?” Waldo asks pleasantly, as though he hadn’t just left me hanging and made me feel like shit. Which is, I know, appropriate under the circumstances.
Still.
“It’s like a watermelon cooler,” Hester translates for me. “You’ll like it. Really delicious. Grand was a chaplain in Vietnam during the war, then he and Gran lived in Thailand for a few years after that.”
A chaplain. Like a minister. That explains the lack of soldja vibe.
“I’ll have that, then. Sir.” I’m standing straight and stiff in front of him, practically saluting. Or genuflecting.
“Tim, relax!” Hester pulls this big rocking chair that’s over in the corner of the room toward me, tips it so it rocks a little, pats the seat. Her grandfather gives her a sharp look over his granny glasses, then goes back to mashing something up in a big wooden bowl with this mallet-type thing.
Cal’s nearly fast asleep, his lips still twitching.
Waldo plunks a large hand-blown glassful of orange-red liquid next to me. “Here’s your drink.”
“It’s not alcoholic, is it?” I eye the glass, praying for a “no,” because right now I’m not sure I wouldn’t pound it even if it is.
“Just watermelon and ice. I know you’re in the program now. I respect that.”
Hester, who I didn’t notice had left the room, returns with a picture. “That’s my gran,” she tells me, her raggedly trimmed index finger tapping the face of a gorgeous brunette laughing, her head thrown back. “There’s Waldo. And here’s my mom.”
Ah. Hester’s missing mother. I’ve wondered what her story was, how she died, all that. I squint at the photo. Uh, she looks quite a lot like Madonna in her Like a Virgin phase. Fake pearls, crazy hair, shiny bustier displaying a shit-ton of tit. This is Hester’s mom?
“When did your mom, uh”—not croak . . .—“pass away?” I ask.
Hester and Waldo both laugh.
“She’s alive and well,” Hester assures me.
“Lives in Vegas. She can still kick it as a showgirl,” Waldo says with a trace of pride. “Got her mother’s legs and her sense of rhythm. Not a damn thing of mine, lucky girl.”
Not the background I would have pictured, if I even imagined one for Hester. More like the double strand of pearls and the blue blazers. No showgirls. No Vegas. I glance at Hester for a sec. She’s so orderly, controlled-looking. Well, no wonder, I guess. Her grandfather is the lead guitarist of the Grateful Dead, her mother, Madonna. How else could she rebel but to be Nancy Drew?
I sip the watermelon thing cautiously, trying not to jiggle Cal awake. “I should probably put him to bed.”
“It’s this way.” Hester stands up and leads me upstairs . . . to her room.
Which kinda breaks my heart.
It’s a kid’s room, that’s all I can say. Pink flowy curtains, flowered bedspread, concert stubs and movie stubs and those pics in vertical rows of four you get at booths in the mall—Hester and some girls—all shoved into the corners of a mirror. Worn, well-loved-looking teddy bear on the yellow pillow.
Lots of chick-type books—Jane Eyre and Twilight—all that.
“Calvin’s crib’s in here.”
Not in her room. Through her room in a hallway. Plus it’s one of those port-a-crib type things, not like some ancestral cradle carved from ancient oak. Plain sheet, plain blue blanket, no stuffed animals—not even a sock monkey. I mean, it’s not like Cal lives the life of luxury at the garage apartment. But, ya know, he’s got his plastic keys, and this stuffed duck I found, and the weird blanket with bears Mrs. G. lent me that he likes best—he always sucks on a corner of it. This is like the baby equivalent of a Motel 6. It screams “just passing through.” I ease Cal onto his back. He waves his arms, screws up his face like he’s ready to blast us, but gives in to sleep faster than I could snap my fingers.
We tiptoe out, back through Hester’s room. She’s walking in front of me. I touch her on the shoulder.
“I know I apologized before. But I am sorry. I’m so fucking sorry I screwed up your life.”
Hester drops down on her bed. “Tim.” She blows out a long sigh. “I don’t know how different forgiving you would be from now. I don’t blame you for what happened. It was just as much my fault.”
“I was the one who was plastered, Hes.”
Her eyes fill with tears.
“Oh shit. Don’t do that.” I look wildly around the room for tissues or whatever. “Don’t cry on me. Hes . . . stop it. Please stop it.”
“It’s just weird. That’s what you called me that night. You kept calling me ‘Hes.’” Her chin wobbles. “I liked it. Hester’s so formal. It’s odd to me that you don’t remember anything else, but that nickname keeps slipping out. I keep thinking maybe you’re lying and you do remember.”
Not even a sliver of light in that blackout. Sometimes I get little flares of lost days or nights, but that one—tiki bar, her—
“There’s nothing there,” I say, as gently as possible.
She sniffs and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand briskly, then sniffs again. “Not one thing? Not even the color of my bra? You didn’t have any trouble getting it off. Do you remember that at least?”
“Uh . . . pink?”
“It. Was. Navy blue.” She pounds the heel of her hand against her forehead.
I rub my own through the hair at the back of my neck, look out the window at my car.
“I don’t know why it matters to me. It’s just . . . right before we, you know . . .”
There’s a pause, and I feel like a bastard, and also totally pissed off. You know? Can’t you even say sex, Hester? You have a baby. We all know how it got here.
“I kind of realized how drunk you were, and I said we shouldn’t . . . because you wouldn’t remember. And you said, you said”—she stops to grab a Kleenex by the side of the bed and blow her nose—“‘Of course I’ll remember. Why wouldn’t I? How couldn’t I?’ Like I was so special, I’d be unforgettable. And . . . I believed you. And . . . and . . . you just didn’t.”
Now she’s sobbing away, and it’s starting to get loud and either she’ll wake up Cal, or Waldo will come charging up with his handy-dandy machete. No idea what else to do but sink down on the flowery bedspread next to her. Not too close.
“It had nothing to do with you, Hester. That’s just . . . not the way it works. I’m an alcoholic and I was an active one then and I just blacked the fuck out because of how I am—was—not because of anything about you. You could have been . . . Marilyn Monroe . . . and it wouldn’t have made one bit of difference.”
Her sobs quiet down. She looks up at me through her damp lashes, and then lowers her eyes. Edges a little closer. Flips back the dark hair that’s fallen over one side of her face.
Her eyes shift to my mouth.
I’ve kissed a ton of girls. They didn’t matter to me. I didn’t matter to them. I didn’t even matter to me.
I know what Hester’s going for here . . . some way to think of what happened with us as not just random. Believe there was actual feeling going on, not just biology. And Bacardi. But . . . I can’t. I’m a dick, but not that much of a dick. Not anymore, anyway.
I jerk my hand away from her back, shove it through my hair, jolt to my feet. “Man, I’m starving. Is your grandfather as good a cook as it smells?”
Hester’s head remains lowered, her hair parting to show the nape of her pale neck. I suddenly remember George Garrett telling me that showing your neck or your stomach were “the most vun-rable thing” animals could do, their softest, most easily destroyed parts exposed. I hate myself more than usual.
“Hester!” Waldo shouts up the stairs. “You two come on down. Dinner!”
“He’s great. A great cook.”
Waldo looks at us from under bristly brows as we enter the room. “Baby take a while settling down?”
“Not at all,” Hester says, just as I say, “Uh, yeah. Sort of.”
“Hmmph.” He pulls this wooden tray over and starts whacking at the round pieces of bread on it. Thwack. “About Calvin.” Thwack. “How much nuts-and-bolts talking have you two done?” He points the knife at me, then Hester.
“We’ve talked . . .” she says slowly.
“More about how he got here than what to do with him now that he is,” I blurt. Waldo’s face darkens. Hester turns red.
He ladles out a stew thing that includes shrimp with their tails still on, poking freakishly out of the broth, slides the wooden bowl toward me. “You two are on the threshold. This is the space between the questions. How are you going to walk through and come out enlightened?” He gives both me and Hester this hardcore stare, like he can pull the enlightenment out of us and slap it on the table next to the stew.
Uh . . . I dip a spoonful of steaming rice into the bowl and slurp it down, buying time. Hester sighs, shoulders slumping.
Minutes pass and we’re all staring down at our plates. Waldo starts eating, and then looks up through that forest of eyebrows at each of us again. “Well?”
“I just want to get back on track,” Hester says.
“I’m just hoping to come out of this sober,” I add.
“On track. Sober.” Waldo takes a mouthful of stew. “Those are destinations, for sure. But for now, there are doors known and unknown.”
Hester drops her spoon with a clatter. “Grand. So help me God, if you quote Jim Morrison at me one more time—I don’t want to hear it. He was as big a mess as Tim.”
Her voice is low, shaking. Waldo’s eyes widen for a second and he stops chewing.
“Bigger, even,” I say. “I wouldn’t be caught dead in leather pants.”
Waldo chuckles. Hester picks up her soup spoon again.
“Sooo. Where are we with the adoption agency?” I ask.
She’s right back to straight-A student, like her outburst never happened. “Obviously we’re not going to have any trouble placing him. The adoptive parents have to prove themselves to us more than we ever do to them—home studies, health tests, all that. That’s their job.” She’s scooping up broth with her bread. It’s hot as hell. I took one sip, my eyes watered, and I pounded back my entire glass of watermelon stuff. She doesn’t even blink. Waldo has actually picked up his bowl now and is drinking from it.
“So the question is the next step,” Waldo says. “The way through the woods.”
“We’re taking our time,” Hester assures him.
We are? There’s a “we”? My temples are starting to pulse.
“I’m all for doing this fast, like right away,” I say. “I mean, take the bull by the horns, bite the bullet.”
I have never used either of those expressions in my life.
“This is why it’s good that Tim’s involved,” Hester tells Waldo. “We’re on the same page here, as a couple.”
Waldo looks at me; back at her. “You’re both very young for this, Hester. And you two are not exactly a couple.” He smiles at me, but it’s a little like baring his teeth.
“Exactly,” I say. “We’re not.”
“You’r
e his father,” Hester says, looking down at her bowl like she’s reading tea leaves. “I’m his mother.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Our baby. Our decision. Do you understand, Grand?” Again, she’s looking at him, not me. “It has to be between Tim and me.”
He nods, weaves his fingers behind his neck, tilts it to one side, then the other, cracking it. “Which is why I thought you should bring him in in the first place.”
“And here he is,” Hester tells him.
Sometimes I really think I broke my brain, messing with it the way I did. I’m hearing what they’re saying, but it’s like I can’t make sense of it. What are they saying? I may be here, but am I really? Because I feel like the sperm donor. Which, I guess, is pretty close to the truth.
“We’ll figure it out. Together. Right, Tim?”
“Sure,” I say, staring at the clock. There’s a quiet wail getting louder and louder.
Thanks, Cal. I half rise from my chair. Hester heaves a heavy sigh. “No . . . I’ve got this. My turn, after all.” She straightens her back like she’s facing enemy gunfire and not a seven-week-old baby. Takes a slug of watermelon drink. Squares her shoulders.
For God’s sake. “Lemme see what’s going on,” I say, moving in front of her toward the stairs. Not hard, since she’s walking like her feet are encased in lead boots. “I’ll take him again tonight,” I tell her. “No big deal. What’s another night?” Of no sleep. And probably no late-night visit from Alice. Man—my own place, no parents, no house-parents, no hall monitors, but now I have a baby monitor.
Cal’s soggy and has leaked onto his long-underwear-type thing.
“I have a fresh sleeper he can wear,” Hester says from behind me. I nearly jump out of my skin. She has this ultra-silent way of moving—like her feet make no impression on the ground. She’d be an awesome assassin.
“Thanks,” I say, swabbing at him. I’m fumbling the diaper back on, clumsier than usual because Hester’s watching, then he pees. In my eye.
Blech. He’s my kid and by now I actually think he’s, you know, semi-cute and all that, but he frickin’ peed in my eye.