The Art of Fielding_ A Novel - Chad Harbach [81]
That settled it. Affenlight, pleased by Mike’s mention of his scotch collection, brought out three more bottles. They tested each in turn, murmuring, Ooh, peaty… ahh, smoky! as they made small noises of pleasure. They toasted Genevieve’s visit, Pella’s arrival, Owen’s Trowell, Henry in his absence. Mike, looking happier than Pella had yet seen him, roamed the room, browsing the endless shelves, until he found The Book itself—the oversize, hand-set, Arion Press Moby-Dick that her dad had bought for a thousand dollars in 1985 and was now worth thirty times more, not that you could assign a value to such a dear and beautiful thing… Soon Mike and Owen and Genevieve were gathered around, admiring The Book, listening raptly as Affenlight launched into the tale of Melville’s trip to the Midwest, his own discovery of the misplaced and tattered lecture, and the subsequent story of how the Melville statue and the name Harpooners came to be.
Pella stayed put on the couch. She had a complicated attitude toward her dad’s performances. Deep down she loved to listen to him and thought he should have been a truly famous man—president of Harvard, at least, or a small but influential post-Soviet country. But the way he cranked up the charm at certain moments and then basked in the adulation of his audience annoyed her. She knew this was precisely a professor’s job—to build a repertoire of lectures, refine them over time, and perform them as charismatically as possible. To never seem sick of your own voice, for the sake of others. And yet. You could take the same class only so many times.
When the lecture ended Mike wrapped a big paw around Pella’s hand, smiled at her gently. Her annoyance faded as she glimpsed Westish College through his eyes. To her it was a run-down, too-rustic safety school to which her father had banished himself; to Mike it was everything, his home and family, the place into which he’d poured every bit of himself, and which, as soon as the semester ended, planned to boot him out forever. He’d been trying to find a new home, a law school that would take him in, but it hadn’t panned out. If home was where your heart was, then Westish was Mike’s home. If home was where they had to take you in no matter what, then it was hers. She squeezed his hand.
AFTER ONE MORE SCOTCH, the evening passed its fulcrum. Mike fell asleep in his chair, his bowling-ball shoulders heaving politely, one bearded cheek squashed against an open palm. Affenlight caught Pella gazing at his sleeping form. She’d never gone for jocks—they were too straitlaced, too prone to follow orders—but Affenlight sensed that this one stood a pretty good chance. David had left three messages on Affenlight’s cell in the past two hours.
Genevieve’s shoulder was pressed against his own, but her attention had been diverted to Pella; the two of them were looking at Schwartz and whispering girlishly. Affenlight excused himself to carry glasses to the kitchen. He picked up a dishtowel and brushed some crumbs off the countertop. He flipped on the light above the sink. He flipped it off again. He was loitering, and he didn’t know why, or at least could pretend he didn’t know why, until Owen walked into the room and leaned against the crumbless counter.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Please.”
“Genevieve seems rather smitten with you.”
Affenlight feigned a smile. “As an erstwhile English professor, I should probably point out that that isn’t a question.”
“I’ll be more direct. You’re not intending to sleep with my mother, are you?”
Through the archway, not five yards away from where Affenlight was standing, Genevieve’s slim dark legs projected from the couch, her top foot bobbing gently as she dangled her sandal between two toes. “No,” Affenlight said. “I’m not.”
“Good.”
Owen looked at Affenlight intently, and Affenlight felt—well, Affenlight felt like an idiot. What would happen next? He slung his dishtowel over his shoulder, he pulled it down and wound it around his hand like a boxer’s wrap. Not since the night he found out that Pella’s mother had died,