The Art of Fielding_ A Novel - Chad Harbach [113]
David sat up indignantly, gripped the armrests of his chair. “Surely you’re not suggesting—”
Affenlight held up a placative hand. “No no no.”
“I would never.”
“Of course,” said Affenlight. A knock at the door—could it be Owen? Better late than never. Of course Owen couldn’t stay, not with David here, but that didn’t matter, what mattered was that he’d chosen to come. Affenlight pushed back his chair, but the door swung open before he could reach his feet.
Pella stood in the doorway, still dressed in her dining-services uniform. Affenlight hadn’t seen her in a baseball cap since she was a child. Maybe that was what made her seem suddenly young, or maybe it was the way she hovered anxiously in the doorway, as if waiting for the grown-ups to finish. “No blood on the floor,” she said. “That’s a good sign.”
Affenlight smiled. “We went outside for the messy stuff.”
David was up out of his chair. “Bella.” He took a step toward her. Affenlight tensed, ready to hurl himself between them, but he was still behind his desk and it was a silly impulse anyway. They kissed on both cheeks like good cultured people while Affenlight studied his daughter’s face for signs of love.
David held Pella at arm’s length by the shoulders. “What happened to your finger, Bella?” His tone was that classic romantic-parental blend, as admonitory as it was solicitous.
“I walked into a tree.”
“I suppose that’s a common hazard here,” David joked. “Too many trees. At least it’s turned a pretty color.” He was still holding her by the shoulders, observing her proprietarily. He looked pointedly at her stained collared shirt. “I thought we were going to dinner.”
“We are.”
“Am I overdressed, then?”
Affenlight was familiar with the kind of man who wilted around men but bloomed when dealing with women—supremely heterosexual, indifferent to or disdainful of or afraid of other men, but also supremely attuned to women’s needs and interests. David had bloomed just that way when Pella walked in.
“I have to get ready,” Pella was saying. “Did you check into your hotel?”
“No, Bella. I came straight to you.”
“I made a reservation for eight o’clock at Maison Robert. I’m sure you’ll hate it, but it’s all we’ve got.”
“I’m sure I’ll find it delightful,” David said.
“Right.” Pella looked at Affenlight. “So should David come back and pick us up? Or what?”
“Us?” said David.
Us? thought Affenlight. During their early-morning tête-à-tête Pella had said she needed him during David’s visit, but Affenlight hadn’t figured that that would involve eating dinner with the man. Not that he was unwilling; if Pella wanted him there as a buffer, he was glad to comply. It was flattering, a hopeful sign, that she wanted him there.
“Us,” Pella said. “My father and me.”
“Bella,” David began to murmur in low pouty tones meant to exclude Affenlight, “I mean, really—”
Affenlight’s eyes flicked out to the quad and saw through the dwindling rain that the twin dormered windows of Phumber 405 were alight. Someone was home, Henry perhaps—but then that unmistakable slender silhouette appeared against the windowlight, lifted the window with two hands, leaned out appraisingly over the misty quad. He disappeared into the room, reappeared with two small slender items between his fingers. One he placed between his lips, the other he sparked between cupped hands and used to solicit a prick of orange light from the first. And Owen leaned out over the darkened quad, elbows against the sill, and commenced to smoke his joint. Seeing him there made Affenlight terribly sad. Not only because Owen hadn’t come but because he looked so satisfied and self-contained as he leaned and smoked and thought his thoughts, as needless of help or company as some gentle animal feeding in the wild. It made Affenlight feel not only superfluous but also, by comparison with such wholeness and serenity, hopelessly agitated in his soul. He needed Owen, but Owen—being himself whole, or never