Slide - Kyle Beachy [59]
“Dad? What's wrong?”
“Hi, Potter. It's Sherry.”
“Sherry?”
“Hang on a minute and I'll get your dad.”
Sweat like a ruptured pipeline.
“Son.”
“Dad? What's wrong?”
“Your mother's got one of her things. Something at the zoo. So we're on our own for dinner, you and me. Good game tonight. The Braves. Just swept a series in Cincinnati. Got that young pitcher, the guy, that Ortiz from Colombia. One of these South American guys with an unhittable slider.”
Of course everyone was still alive. I couldn't imagine my mother dead. Not the woman who could find life in the tiniest errand or activity And my father was too weathered; men with catalogs of history and permanently broken noses don't die. He was an institution all his own, imperishable.
“Do you always talk like this at work?”
“How's that.”
“Short, clipped proclamations,” I said. “Zero inflection.”
“You and your old dad. Dinner and a ball game. One of her activities, gluing centerpieces together for a fund-raiser. Hundred fifty bucks a plate, black tie. We'll go somewhere I can wear jeans. When was the last time I wore jeans to dinner? There's your inflection. Need at least two of these three from the Braves. Keep pressure on Chicago.”
The rest of the day I took scenic routes and moved slowly. The pool house, end point of end points, had lost my trust. Stuart had, as they say of overgrown lawns, let the place go. And in this matter I was helpless. For what recourse was there, really, for the young man who'd lost a friend to unreliability? Was I to plead for more attention? Say hey, hey, Stuart, pal, look at me?
At home, I waited on the couch, clean and hungry. Carla was wearing one of her nicer sweaters and black pants that couldn't be confused with pajamas. Clearly she was going somewhere.
“Is there a reason Dad is so gung-ho about eating with me tonight?”
“Reason? No reason,” she answered from the kitchen. “He wants to spend time with his son.” Now she was in the doorway, drying her hands on a dish towel. “No reason. Wants to talk with his son. I suppose that's a reason.”
I asked her to please repeat her plans.
“The Zoo-Ado is a week from Friday. We settled on a theme months ago, now we're beginning the preliminary decorations. The centerpieces and candle fixtures. Don't ask me the theme, because I'm not at liberty to say. Our goal this year is to wow. We want people to walk through those doors and think, wow.”
“So there's no reason for the dinner,” I said.
“He deserves a little of your time, I think. Sit down with your father. No reason.”
Out of habit I went to check my e-mail and, after however many hundred previous times proved fruitless, found a message sitting there from Audrey. For a few minutes I stared at the subject line: the search spreads southward. I closed the browser window and sat back in the chair. A box at least was something to hold, tangible. I opened another browser window and read the message.
P…
so far no faeries. our search has moved to swizzerlund. we got bigger nets and sharper focus. carmel says you'd be a better kisser if you put a little less heart into it. not sure yet if i agree.
loves.
—a
I deleted the message quickly, but this didn't have nearly the effect I'd hoped. Las Vegas, fall break of senior year. A haggard, early-morning, still-up kiss as just-up joggers and elderly tourists provided context. Following a river's flood of white Russians and much financial ruin. Audrey was asleep in the room six of us were sharing. Carmel and I stumbling from Caesars and sloshing our way to Mandalay Bay, the far end of the Strip. The kiss itself was mostly to signal that we should turn around. An awful kiss. We stopped cold and stepped apart and I felt as if I was staring into some warped mirror,