She agreed, or she pretended to. She said she would call back in a few days, when she wasn’t working and George was asleep or at school. A week went by in which Alan cocooned himself in routine. Every time he spoke with George, the boy was with Consuelo. Alan questioned his own judgment—his desire to feel that George, like him, was filled with sorrow—but he sensed a new distance or apathy in George. He seldom asked about Treehorn, and when Alan asked him what friends he’d played with or what he had done that day, he offered not a single detail. In the midst of weary silences, Consuelo could be heard urging George on in a poorly disguised whisper. (“Tell your daddy about the donkey that came to your school, the way you rode him!”)
Then Alan came home one night to a message from Greenie that sounded fearful and obligatory: how bad she felt; how she was “checking in”; how she hoped he was talking with friends…. He erased it and did not call back. He drank half a bottle of Scotch and worked himself into a silent rage—not at Greenie but at Ray McCrae. It was a good thing he had no way to reach the man. He would have made a lout of himself.
Some might have thought it strange, or repressed, that Alan did not feel immediately angry at Greenie. He simply canceled the mover he had reserved. He shoved the one box he had packed into a corner. Whenever he left the apartment, he took circuitous routes to avoid his own street. He did not want to run into Walter or Fenno McLeod or anyone else who might inquire about Greenie. It struck him, in a rush of bitter shame, that Walter might know.
He called Jerry. He said nothing about Greenie but listened as Jerry described his good works for the city. He began to think about Marion again; he had to make her look at him as something other than a threat.
Something would give, he thought. Something had to give. There was a physics to emotion as well as to matter. This was the one thing Alan knew.
SIXTEEN
“I THINK THIS PLACE IS RUN BY THE MOB,” he whispered across the table, an obvious bid for her trust. “But the soufflés are out of this world.”
Saga watched Michael unfold his napkin and smooth it across his lap. She did the same. “It’s very pretty,” she said. “I haven’t been to many restaurants other than Uncle Marsden’s favorites.”
Michael made a face of friendly disbelief. “You don’t really still call my dad ‘uncle,’ do you?”
“Of course I do. You still call him Dad.”
“Touché.” He beckoned to a waiter. The waiters wore tuxedos and carried their noses high, like hounds sniffing the wind. “Glass of wine?”
Saga shook her head.
“She’ll have a Pellegrino,” Michael told the waiter with confidence. “And what reds do you have by the glass?” After describing a number of wines to Michael, the waiter told them about food specials—and warned them to order their soufflés now or it would be too late. Fancy restaurants were exhausting, thought Saga. She did not enjoy having to focus on the waiter, on his lofty nose, to pretend they were having a real conversation, so instead she looked around at the breathtaking cavern of a room in which they were seated. The ceiling was surely over two stories high; hanging from it were fans that wobbled as they turned, making her even more nervous than she already was. Thank goodness there was no fan over their table, nothing that threatened to fall on her head.
“You’ve got to have a soufflé,” said Michael. “The special sounds great, but they’re all stupendous. You can’t go wrong.” He pointed at her menu.
Saga looked down, for an instant unable to decode the choices before her.
“Does madame like citrus flavors?” said the waiter, pretending to be helpful (now, she decided, he looked like an angry bull terrier). “The Grand Marnier is quite superb. It’s made with a touch of tangerine.”
“Yes, that one sounds fine,” said Saga; anything to make him go. The combined scrutiny of Michael and the waiter was too much to bear.
She followed Michael’s suggestions for an appetizer and a main course, even though she was nowhere near that hungry.
“Dad says you’re getting into the city a lot these days. I’m glad to hear that,” said Michael. “He says you’re working for the ASPCA.”
“No,” said Saga. “It’s a smaller group. We don’t have that kind of money or so many people.” She didn’t want to say the name, for fear of Michael’s reaction. “True Protectors” had come to sound silly even to Saga.
“From what I hear, they should be paying you.”
“No, it’s strictly volunteer. Not even the guy who runs it gets paid. He does it in addition to a full-time job.” She felt a surge of admiration for Stan.
“Ah.” Michael buttered a roll. Saga wished he would get it over with; she knew exactly why he had asked her out for this expensive lunch. “Would you give me a tour of the headquarters sometime?” he said. “If it’s anywhere downtown, I could meet you there at lunch one day. Maybe my firm could make a donation. They’d match anything from me if it’s a five-oh-one C three.”
A brief explosion of laughter escaped from Saga. She was glad she had no food in her mouth. “Well, it’s in Brooklyn, and it’s kind of private. It’s in someone’s house. It sort of is his house.”
Michael frowned. “Is it regulated by any kind of agency?”
“Stan does a great job. You don’t need any agency to figure that out. You just need to know animals.” She hoped she didn’t sound annoyed. She couldn’t afford to irritate Michael, not any more than she knew she already did.
He nodded, chewing. The waiter came with their twin servings of snails in little pools of butter. The round dish, with its circle of round compartments, reminded Saga of a watercolor tray, though in this case there was no color (unless you counted the flurry of parsley).
“How’s Denise?” she said. “How’s she feeling?”
“Denise is so great, I am in awe,” said Michael. “Four months to go and she is already just enormous. I don’t know how Mother Nature does it!”
His phone rang just then, and to her amazement he took it out of his pocket and turned it off. “A fine meal shouldn’t be spoiled by interruptions,” he said. “Eat up! They’re really wonderful in a completely old-fashioned way.” Saga watched him press a piece of bread into one of the butter pools. She picked up the tiny fork and forced herself to eat two snails. She thought of Uncle Marsden and his contribution to the advancement of salad.
Enough, she decided. She took a deep breath. “Michael, did you ask me out so we could talk about the house?” She hated the high, uncertain sound of her own voice, but Michael’s face loosened with gratitude.
“Yes, I did, Saga. Did Dad say something? He said he wouldn’t—not because I didn’t want him to, but because he…well, we’ve had disagreements.”
“Okay,” said Saga. “He didn’t need to say anything. I’ve heard you talking. About the house closer to town.” No expression, she thought. Let me say these things with no expression.
“Saga, Dad’s getting older.”
“So are we all, Michael. Please, just let’s tell the truth about all this.”
Michael glanced out the window. Saga looked, too. Between two buildings across the street, she had noticed a view of the Hudson River when she sat down. She was startled to see that now, all of a sudden, the river had been replaced with another building—a building that moved from right to left. She gasped.
“What is it?” said Michael.
“The—” She saw the tail end of the cruise ship, then the river view restored. “Oh.”
Michael laughed nervously. “You okay?”
“I just remembered something, that’s all.”
The waiter took away their snail plates. “You didn’t like that,” said Michael. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not relaxed here, Michael. You want to take away my home.”
He did not smile or look away. “I want you to see this house, with me and Dad, next weekend. It’s really cute.”
“Cute,” said Saga. No expression. No expression!
“Ok
ay,” said Michael, drawing out the word. “You think I mean tiny. You think I’m talking real-estate lingo. I’m not. Saga, that house is just too big for the two of you. Have you noticed that mice and bats have moved into the back attic, under the eaves? I think the local wildlife believes the place is abandoned!”
Saga was aware of the creatures who shared the top floor with her, though she had never seen them. She was fairly certain that in fact a family of squirrels, not mice, had moved in. At night, she heard their cavortings through the upstairs walls and found them comforting. Uncle Marsden, with his poor hearing, was probably none the wiser.
“You can hire an exterminator if you think they’re wrecking stuff,” she said, though the thought that he might do this made her sad. She knew she had to make—what was the word?
Accommodations. (A long, long train, all its cars the same dark blue.)
Now two businessmen in glossy suits took the table beside them. One placed a briefcase on the cushioned bench right next to her thigh. Saga smelled an intense cologne. The scent was exotic but slightly sickening.
“I guess you and Denise want the house for yourselves. That’s it, right?”
“You make us sound so greedy.”
“You’re having these babies, which is great, and you need more space. But why do you have to take your dad’s house?”
“Because it’s my house, too, Saga. And Pansy’s and Frida’s, but they…” Michael closed his eyes briefly. “Saga, do you think Dad’s emeritus salary pays the taxes on that place in this day and age? The heating bill? I’m afraid not.”
Saga was glad to see the waiter this time. He set before her a plate with a piece of pearl-colored fish, a cluster of tiny potatoes, and something oily and green, all in a ring of rosy-colored sauce. It did smell good, but she wondered how she would eat it. She stared for a moment at her oddly shaped fork and remembered, painfully, the way it had felt just after the accident to confront any array of tools, things she saw as familiar but was not certain she knew how to use. She picked up the fork. She’d had no idea Michael was helping pay for the house—if it was even true. Well, it probably was.
“Listen, Saga, you’re my cousin, my flesh and blood! The last thing in the world I’d ever want to do is throw you out, but I think you and Dad have settled into a…I think you need each other in ways…I don’t want to pass judgment here, because I’m grateful he’s had your company the past few years. I think he’d have gone downhill much more severely after Mom died if—”
“He hasn’t gone downhill at all, if you ask me.”
Michael raised his hands in defense. “You’re right. He’s amazing for his age. I’ve heard he still gives a great lecture, too, and that he stays up with the new science, even though he pretends to be a curmudgeon.”
“Let’s not change the subject,” said Saga.
“I’m not. Let me tell you one of my biggest fears: that Dad will fall down those treacherously crooked stairs to the basement or electrocute himself rewiring a lamp or…well, the house itself is a bit of a peril, let’s forget about Dad’s state of mind. Or body. Though you cannot ignore the physical reality. Because once you get older, no matter how sharp you are, all it takes is one misstep and next thing you’re in the hospital with a busted hip or ribs, then in the nursing home. People fall apart fast at that age if they have an accident. They just don’t have the resilience…” Michael wasn’t dense. He saw Saga’s cold, hard stare and knew he had begun to offend her.
He raised his knife and fork, glancing down briefly at his steak; this discussion had not spoiled his appetite. Abruptly, he set them back down and looked almost piercingly at Saga. “Please try not to see me as the bad guy. How can I make you believe that I’m also concerned about you? Dad is old, Saga, but you’re young. You shouldn’t be swallowed up by the demands of that huge house and a man who takes so much for granted.”
Saga stared out the window for a moment, then back at Michael. “Tell me about the house.”
Michael frowned. He looked down at his plate and ate a bit of meat. He sighed loudly. “Okay then. So Saturday we are going to look at it. We’ve got first refusal. Even if we don’t want it, it’s not likely to go on the open market. It’s a real gem.” He continued to eat. Saga could see that her coldness had unsettled him. She felt both ashamed and triumphant.
“This is my idea,” he said. “Denise wants to have the babies here, in the city, with the doctor she knows, start this new life in the place we know best. We figure we’d be looking to move out in October, November at the latest.”
No expression. Saga felt the tears rise. No expression! “You’ve just gone and decided without us,” she said.
Michael finished chewing his mouthful of food. He looked sad but impatient. “Dad knows all this. He’s the one who’s refused to tell you about it. I have no guilt there.”
“So he’s agreed to this other house.”
“Contingent on seeing it,” said Michael.
Contingent: mustard, ridged like bark, rough to the touch.
“What if he doesn’t like it?” said Saga.
“I’m pretty sure he will. I’m pretty sure you will. It’s got a beautiful modern kitchen with everything built in.”
How awful that sounded. She thought of the cabinets with their wavy old glass, reflecting back and forth across Uncle Marsden’s beautifully unmodern kitchen. “And will you be paying the taxes there, too?”
One of the men at the neighboring table looked right at her. Her tone now had plenty of expression.
“Oh Saga,” said Michael, “I was so afraid it would get hostile like this.”
“I’m not hostile. I’m just…”
Michael waited.
“I’m just sad. That’s all. Just incredibly sad.” And murderously angry.
Michael reached across the table and grasped her left hand with his right. “I am trying to be honest with you. Which is more than some members of my family have been. If Dad…if he really saw and respected who you are, he’d make you get out more, meet other people. When you were with David, you had a very full life, and you can have it again. You weren’t married, but it was obvious that once you…” Was Michael clenching his teeth? He glanced at the ceiling, then said, “Ask Dad to tell you more about your life before the accident.”
“It’s my life now that matters,” said Saga. But how could she talk back to Michael now that she knew he had been supporting her? It made him almost noble; never mind all his snooty, unkind remarks in the past. She was a charity case. His charity case.
“I hate it that I’ve made you cry,” Michael whispered. “Please.”
Please what? she wanted to say. Please disappear? Please act like what’s good for me is terrific for you? Please don’t be so attached to a home that’s never really been yours in the first place? Please get a brain transplant and go to law school, maybe in California? But answers like those were not fair to this Michael.
If someone out on the sidewalk had peered through the grand window beside their table, that person probably would have thought that she and Michael were a couple in the middle of a breakup. They’d have wondered, What is that dashing, well-dressed man doing with that rough-around-the-edges woman who isn’t dressed up enough for that restaurant? Saga thought of David (for this she could blame Michael), who by now quite probably had a wife. In Zimbabwe or even in Connecticut, maybe the next town over. And that did it: now she could not stop crying, though she cried as silently as she could.
“Oh dear God,” said Michael. “I am sorry, Saga.”
The waiter seemed to appear from nowhere. “Finished, sir?”
Michael looked at Saga, a question. She nodded to her lap.
“Yes, yes,” he said.
“The soufflés will be ready in ten minutes. May I bring coffee or tea?” Saga heard the waiter but did not look up.
“Maybe we’ll just have the check,” said Michael.
“No!” said Saga, but still she kept her face down. “I do wa
nt my soufflé.”
Michael sighed. “Good. Then coffee for me. Double espresso.”
Again, she felt his hand on hers. “My life is good now. I want yours to be the same. I don’t know what else to say.”
Saga pulled her hand away, though she knew it was childish. She wiped her eyes and looked up at her healthy, successful cousin who couldn’t be content with what he had; no, he had to take what she had. Or that was how it felt. “Well, you could say that you and Denise will take the cute house.”
Michael smiled at her, a Saint Bernard smile, mournful and guilty.
“Never mind,” she said. “Let’s have our soufflés, okay?”
“You’re going to love this place,” said Michael. “I promise you.”
“Be careful what you promise, isn’t that what they say?” said Saga. Or was it be careful what you wish? And then it came, the small steaming delicacy that looked like little more than a droopy brown hat. She inhaled the steam; it smelled woefully similar to the cologne of the man at the very next table. She ate it anyway: every bite and slowly. It was food the texture of love, sweet and airy, warm and moist; the taste didn’t matter so much. She and Michael did not speak again until they stood on the street and he embraced her.
“If it makes you feel any better,” he said, “Frida and Pansy are pretty pissed at me too these days. They think Dad’s favoring me because I’m giving him the grandchildren he never knew he wanted so much.”
Saga tried to smile, to share his simple joke. “I guess you must be very sure about what you want,” she said.
“It’s becoming a father. I feel like I have so much catching up to do.”
“Oh, well,” said Saga, “I could tell you a thing or two about that. The catching-up part.”
Michael gave her a searching look. They said good-bye; they would meet again on the weekend, to see the cute house, the consolation prize. That would make sense, wouldn’t it? Just about all of Saga’s life was a consolation prize.
SHE WALKED UPTOWN. She had an envelope of notices to post, this time about meetings. As much as he did not like having too many people in his life, Stan needed more volunteers. “We’ve been discovered,” he said. “Which is the good news and the bad. It means we’re about to become a dumping ground for half the abandoned creatures of Brooklyn and Queens. Yesterday I got a call from a Dalmatian rescue league on Staten Island. Katy bar the friggin’ door.”