Open House Read online

  “I don’t think so,” I say. “And I hope if you have a wedding, I’ll be invited.”

  “Oh, of course. You and Travis. And that King fellow, I’d like him to come, too. Very pleasant man. And a wonderful cook.”

  True. On a few occasions now, King has made dinner for all of us. He never measured anything, always succeeded in making something we all, even Travis, liked. Last time, King presented us with chicken roasted with some exotic herbal combination, tiny new potatoes, green beans, and a chocolate mousse pie we had all marveled at.

  “You could make this,” King told me that night, watching me eat a huge second piece. “I’ll teach you.” He tells me that all the time, that I can do things. Sometimes I want to say, “It’s all right. You don’t have to say that. I’m not so sad today.” But I never do. Instead, I save his confidence in me as though his words were silver dollars, knotted in a silk scarfand kept hidden in a dresser drawer.

  Travis comes into the kitchen, still sleepy-looking at ten-thirty, and heads for the cereal cabinet. “Can Mike Oberlin come over today?” He squats down to reach for Cheerios, his back to me. He needs a haircut; his pajamas are wrinkled; between the bottoms and top I can see his winter-white skin. He reminds me at this moment of a bird newly hatched from the shell. Were he younger, I would pull him onto my lap and hug him, bury my nose in his neck to breathe in the rich scent of child-sleep. Instead, I set out the milk for him, get him a bowl and a spoon, tell him of course Mike can come over. I relish these small returns to normality. I’ll be wonderful to Mike. “Wow, your mom’s cool,” Mike will say, lying on Travis’s bed with his shoes on, about which I will say nothing, not one word. “Yeah, I guess,” Travis will answer, full of pride.

  Travis fixes his cereal, then heads for the family room and the television. He’ll turn on MTV, I know, and I feel the usual stab of regret that he’s not watching Sky King or Fury instead of women’s breasts shoved into leather brassieres, ravaged-looking young men howling out sociopathic lyrics while they walk around sets that look like Armageddon. I’ve decided to let Travis watch occasionally instead of making it more alluring by disallowing it. Anyway, as he has repeatedly pointed out, everyone else watches it. He has to. When he told me that, I imagined him sitting in the lunchroom at school with other boys who were discussing the latest videos. “You see Madonna air-humping?” I imagined one boy saying, and Travis answering, “Yeah!” and giving the thumbs-up sign. This depressed me, so I revised the scene to have Travis respond by saying, “Air-humping? What’s that?” and then finishing the lunch I made him, all of it.

  Lydia folds the personals, drinks the last of her tea. “I’d better get moving. Katherine and I are going over to the mall to do a little shopping.” She goes to the sink to wash her cup, dries it, and puts it back in the cupboard. I put my mug in the dishwasher, then go to pick up the message on the machine. It is Jonathan, confirming our date for the evening, telling me that the restaurant he decided on is pretty fancy, just so I know what to wear. I hate this.

  I call King, leave him a message telling him what time to come over. He’s going to baby-sit for Travis—Lydia won’t be home and David is out of town on business. Probably not alone.

  “Dad has a girlfriend,” Travis told me, last time he came back from spending the weekend with David.

  “Really?” I asked, and Travis nodded.

  “Did you meet her?”

  “Yeah. That’s how I know.”

  “What’s she like?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, what does she look like?” I asked, to which Travis again replied, “I don’t know,” in an irritatingly dreamy voice that made me feel like shaking him.

  “Does she have blond hair?”

  He thought for a moment, then said, “Red. It’s long.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “Well, that’s all right. It’s all right, don’t you think? For him to have a girlfriend?”

  Travis didn’t answer. And I didn’t ask any more questions.

  13

  AT FIVE IN THE AFTERNOON, I HEAD FOR TRAVIS’S ROOM TO tell him it’s time for Mike’s mother to come, they’d better wait downstairs, she’d called saying she was in a hurry. Outside the door, I hear the sound of muffled giggling. I smile, wait. I want to eavesdrop a little. Sometimes I write down the good stuffin a journal I’ve been keeping since Travis was born.

  Apparently they are on the phone with someone. “Tell her you’ll meet her at the movie,” Travis says, and I hear Mike say, “Okay, so why don’t I meet you right outside the movie. Seven o’clock tonight.” He hangs up and the boys begin giggling louder.

  Oh, what is this? I think. They’re too young for dating! Then I hear Travis say, “How long do you think she’ll wait?”

  “Probably about five hundred hours,” Mike says. They laugh again, louder, little hyenas; and I understand that Mike has no intention of going, that whoever the girl is will be standing there, holding her plastic purse and not looking around anymore after a while, just standing there. I push the door open, announce brusquely to Mike that his mother is coming, he should get downstairs and wait for her. Then, pointing to a Baggie full of chocolate-chip cookies, “Are those the cookies I made?”

  “Yeah.” His collar is turned up in the back and I want to stomp forward and turn it down. Hard.

  “Give them back to me,” I say.

  “Mom!” Travis yells.

  “Sorry. I need them.”

  Mike hands me the bag. He looks quickly at Travis, then away. He will tell his mother on me, no doubt. “You know Mrs. Morrow?” he’ll say, “the one whose husband dumped her? She’s nuts now.” Well, the hell with him. The hell with his mother.

  Later, I will make Travis call that little girl back and set her straight. Then I’ll tell him that he’d better learn some things about how to treat girls, starting right now. I can’t wait to give him this lecture. If he interrupts me, I will take away MTV from him for one hundred years. And what a pleasant century it will be.

  “WHOA! YOU LOOK great,” King says, when I open the door.

  “Well,” I say. “Thank you.” I am wearing a cobalt blue dress, belted tightly at the waist. It’s short, shows off my legs, and the color has always been good for me. I do look nice, even if the weight I’ve gained recently is making the belt feel like a pretty instrument of torture. I have makeup on for the first time in weeks, and I’ve fancied up my hair with hot rollers. Joy is at each of my pulse points.

  King, dressed in a gray sweat outfit, is carrying two videos. “Terminator One and Two,” he says, “do you mind?”

  “I don’t care what he watches. I’m mad at him.”

  “How come?”

  “Oh . . . long story,” I say, and look away. Because the truth is, I realize now, I overreacted. I don’t know all the circumstances. Maybe the boys had some legitimate complaint against this girl. Maybe she had done something really terrible to them. But if so, they could have handled it another way. It’s David I was punishing, not them.

  “Where are you going tonight?” King asks.

  “Oh, out to dinner, some fancy place. I don’t want to go. I’m a nervous wreck. This feels so silly. Dating. What a dumb word!”

  “You’ll relax after you meet him. It’s hard, this part, the part right before they ring the bell. Doesn’t feel great to be on the other side of the door either, take it from me. Why don’t you come and sit down with me.”

  I follow him into the kitchen, sit at the table opposite him. It feels so strange, sitting in this homiest of places wearing heels and sheer-to-the-waist panty hose, and a dress I have to be careful not to spill on. I hope there’s nothing smeared on the seat of the chair, making a mark to which my date will point later, saying, “There’s, uh . . . I believe there’s something on your dress.”

  The kitchen light is such a nice yellow when it’s dark out like this. It’s so cozy. Why can’t I just stay home, change into my own sweatpants, and watch movies with the boy
s, make some popcorn drenched with butter, loaded with salt? Why do I have to walk around outside in high heels, feeling the bitter November wind at my ankles as though it is sniffing them, asking Are you crazy? Why don’t you have socks on? It’s supposed to flurry tonight, maybe it could get bad. I’d better stay home.

  “I’ll bet I know what you’re thinking,” King says.

  “What?”

  “You’re thinking of what you could possibly do to stay home.”

  “I am not.”

  “Listen, forget about it. Stop thinking about what might happen. Just sit here and let’s talk. About anything.”

  “Okay.” I fold my hands before me, try to think of something to say. My mind is absolutely blank. I am an imbecile. When my date tries to make conversation with me, I will only smile vacantly, like a Kewpie doll with feathers sticking out of her brain.

  Finally, King says, “So. Got any job prospects for Monday?”

  “Oh! I’m glad you said that, I meant to tell you. They did call me. I can have my choice—Laundromat attendant or receptionist. For a whole week!”

  “Take the Laundromat thing.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No.”

  “But isn’t that kind of . . . humiliating?”

  He smiles. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Have you done it?”

  “No, but I would. I like those kinds of jobs.”

  I nod, then say gently, “Didn’t you ever think maybe you’d like to go to college, you know, get a good education, some great job?”

  “I went to college.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I just assumed . . .”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Where did you go?” I ask casually. I’ll need to be careful, tell him without seeming insincere that it doesn’t make any difference, really, where you go to school.

  “MIT,” he says, and then, “do you have any popcorn?”

  I point to the cupboard over the refrigerator. “MIT?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The Massachusetts Institute of Technology?”

  “Yeah.” He pulls down a package of popcorn, brings it over to the microwave.

  “What did you study?”

  “Astrophysics.”

  “And did you finish?”

  “Sure.”

  “So . . . why do you walk dogs?”

  He turns around to look at me. “I like it.”

  Travis comes into the kitchen, sits down at the kitchen table. “Hi, King,” he says pleasantly. This is so when he’s nasty to me it will have a better effect.

  “Hi, Travis,” King says. “Want some popcorn?”

  “Sure!” He stares sullenly at me. I stare back, then make a face at him. I’m good at this. I used to sit at the kitchen table with Louise, fighting silently behind our mother’s back. Oh, the venomous stares we mastered, the contemptuous fury we could communicate in a split second’s time.

  The doorbell sounds and I start so hugely my hands fly apart.

  “Mom!” Travis says.

  I am going to throw up, right now.

  “I’ll get it,” Travis says. And then, from the hallway, he yells, “Mom! It’s that guy for you. He has flowers!”

  Oh God, I think.

  I look helplessly at King.

  “Well,” he says, “where do you keep the vases?”

  14

  WHEN JONATHAN AND I ENTER THE RESTAURANT, I HEAR A piano playing softly. In the far corner, I see a smallish black man, dressed in a tuxedo and a crooked black bow tie, seated behind a baby grand. He is older, his hair gray, his face lined. He is smiling—sadly, I believe—and playing elegant background music. He sees me staring and nods at me. “I know,” I feel like telling him. “I don’t want to be here either. Let’s go somewhere I can wear jeans and you can play what you want.”

  “Two, for eight o’clock,” Jonathan tells the maître d’, who looks as though he has been stuffed into his suit. Were he not so smuglooking, I would feel sorry for him. “Certainly, Mr. Schaefer,” the man says, checking a name off in a cream-colored register. “Right this way.”

  Oh, fine. Mr. Schaefer. Jonathan’s been here a hundred times. No wonder he’s perfectly relaxed. I never saw the point in going out to fancy restaurants. It’s not that I don’t appreciate good food; I love good food. But why go to all this trouble? Why put on fancy clothes to eat?

  I follow the maître d’ to the table, Jonathan close behind me. I don’t like having him so close behind me. Probably hairpins are sticking out of my French twist. I could have runs in the back of my nylons; I forgot to check. I have never learned to walk quite right in heels; I always wobble. I have never liked dressing up for any reason and I will never, ever do this again. It’s my life.

  Plus I hate Jonathan. Who can’t even be honest enough to spell his name with an H. Stupid prep school name. The name of a man who walks around flinging his hair back off his forehead, talking endlessly about sailing.

  When my chair is pulled out for me with a flourish, I sit down, furious. What is the point of all this formality? Why should my chair be pulled out for me? Do I look incapable of pulling a chair out for myself? Why doesn’t the maître d’ pull the chair out for Jonathan? Why must it always be the women doing these circus tricks? And then, watching the maître d’ pull the chair out for Jonathan, I think, Oh. Never mind.

  Well, here we are. Only a couple more hours to go. I smile tightly at Jonathan, then at the white-coated waiter, who has glided smoothly as a swan to my side. I know his type. He will pour coffee starting low and then let his arm rise up spectacularly high, as though the stream should be roughly comparable to Niagara Falls. And he will sneak up on us, using ridiculous silver tongs to place sculpted pieces of butter on our bread plates. And everything he does will be done with an air of distant disapproval.

  “Good evening,” he says, and I jump.

  “Oh!—Good evening,” I say, and wish so much that I were at home, asleep.

  “Would you care for a cocktail?” the waiter asks.

  Would I care for a cocktail? I would care for about ninety cocktails. “Yes, a glass of white wine, please,” I say. I hate white wine. I like red wine. Out of jelly glasses, like the gangsters in movies. But I think it might be wrong, red wine. Lightning-fast, the waiter recites a list of choices for white wine. Show-off. “I’ll have the first one,” I say. “The first one you said.”

  The waiter nods, turns to Jonathan. “A gin martini,” Jonathan says. “Bombay Sapphire. Extra dry, extra cold. Two olives. Straight up.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  “Excuse me,” I say, and when the waiter turns to me, I tell him, “I’d like to change my order to what he’s having.”

  “Certainly.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s quite all right.” He glides away.

  I smile at Jonathan. “So!” I clear my throat, look down at my purse. What’s in here? A lipstick, some tissues. A few bucks.

  “Are you nervous?” Jonathan asks.

  I look up quickly, laugh, and then, to my absolute horror, snort.

  Tomorrow I will kill my mother.

  “Me too,” Jonathan says.

  “Pardon?”

  “I’m nervous, too.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  He smiles. “I assure you, I am. I’m just sneaky about it.”

  “So do you . . . what makes you think I’m nervous? Is that why you asked that question? Because you think I am? Nervous?”

  “It’ll get better in a few minutes,” Jonathan says. “Honest.”

  “Right.” I lean forward a little, try to relax my hands, which have been clutching each other, rigor-mortis style.

  He is handsome, there’s no doubt about that. I wish I could freeze time so that I could stare at him for as long as I want. Thus far, I have taken polite little looks. He is blond, his hair nicely streaked; his eyes a deep blue. He wears a pair of tortoiseshell glasses that I like very much. He is tall, slim. Wh
at the hell is the matter with him that he has to have blind dates?

  Our drinks are delivered and we both take a sip. I lean back in my chair.

  “See?” Jonathan says. “It’s better already, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. It is.” Inside my pointy shoes, my toes uncurl.

  IT IS OVER DESSERT that Jonathan brings up Veronica. “According to my father, she’s quite an extraordinary woman.”

  “Oh, yes,” I say. “She really is.” I take another bite of crème brûlée. It is delicious. It is so delicious! It makes me happy, the rough burnt-sugar surface, the smooth insides. Maybe I’ll have another one. If I can have two martinis, I can have two desserts. The silver spoon I’m using is so elegant, so right. Look at these thick linen tablecloths, these lovely ivory-colored candles with their gentle, flickering flames, their flattering glow. I should go back to Tiffany’s and get some candleholders. I was right, when David first left, to want to live this way. This is the way to live.

  I take another bite, rub my tongue against the roof of my mouth. It feels wonderful. I look at Jonathan’s mouth. Sexy. Deep inside me, a pleasant stirring. I want to kiss him. Oh, I want to kiss him. Later, I will kiss him.

  Or now.

  I stand up, go over to his side of the table. “I just want to do something,” I say. I bend down and kiss him lightly on the mouth. Then I go back to my side of the table.

  “There,” I say.

  “Well, thank you,” he says. “That was nice.” And then, “Are you . . . all right?”

  “I’m fine.” I sigh, rest my head in my hand. I wonder where my shoes are. Well, they couldn’t have gone too far.

  “I’m afraid we’ve had a bit too much to drink,” he says, but his voice is kind, and rich, and he makes our overindulgence sound stylish.

  “Yes,” I say. “We certainly have.”

  “I don’t usually—”

  “Oh, me either!” What friends we are, able so soon to complete each other’s sentences!

  “You know, Jonathan,” I say, “you are a very good-looking man. And: I would like to kiss you again.”

  “Well,” he says. “Likewise.”