The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing - Melissa Bank [36]
"No idea?" Archie said.
I shook my head.
I said that my question seemed to bother the doctor, and it sounded wrong to me, too, though I didn't understand why. "I felt like I'd spoken French in science class."
Archie said, "Maybe he just didn't like being asked a question he couldn't answer."
"Maybe," I said.
We took our coffee into the living room. He stood at the stereo and asked if I had any requests.
"Something Blue–ish," I said.
While he flipped through his records, he told me about the time he'd asked his daughter for requests; she was about three and cranky after a nap, going down the stairs one at a time on her butt. He imitated her saying, "No music, Daddy."
"I told her we had to listen to something," he said. "And she languorously put her hair on top of her head and like a world-weary nightclub singer said, 'Coltrane then.' "
That's what he put on now. I asked how Elizabeth was, and he said she was beautiful and smart and impressive, finishing her junior year at Stanford. She'd spent the year in Israel on a kibbutz. She'd forgiven him, he said, and they'd grown close; he might meet her in Greece over the summer.
I said that I'd been hoping to go to Greece that summer myself, but I wasn't sure now.
He sat beside me on the sofa, and patted my hand.
When we talked about Mickey's reading, I admitted that I hadn't read Loony yet, and Archie promised to get a copy to me. I could see how proud he was of the book, and I was wondering if I'd ever felt that way or would, when he asked what I'd acquired recently.
"Malaise," I said. I wasn't ready to pinpoint how nowhere my career was. "I have a new boss," I said.
"Who's that?"
I said, "Mimi Howlett."
He said, "I knew Mimi when she was an editorial assistant," and right away I thought, He slept with her.
He asked me what the last book I loved was. I was trying to remember the title of any book I'd read recently, when he added, as though it was just another bit of conversation, "Did you read my book?"
"Yes," I said.
"Did you like it?"
"A lot," I said.
He asked if I minded that he'd written a novel about us, and I said, " I minded the way you submitted it to my publisher."
"It was a mistake," he said. "I'm sorry."
"I know," I said.
He said, "I was a little bit desperate."
"Can you be 'a little bit desperate'?" I asked. "Isn't that like being 'a trifle horrified'? Or 'mildly ecstatic'?"
"Leave a man his dignity," he said.
I said, "The amazing thing was that you pulled off a happy ending."
He said, "We deserved it."
"How're you doing on the drinking?" I asked.
He said, "Great," and told me that he'd started taking a drug called Amabuse, which would make him violently ill if he drank. Plus, he'd been to AA. He showed me a white poker chip they'd given him to mark his sobriety. He said he didn't go to the meetings, but he carried the chip around in his pocket all day.
I told him I was happy for him. Then I said, "What do you think they give away at Gamblers Anonymous?"
When he hugged me good night, it was just arms and squeezing, but now the familiar lack of comfort comforted me. I'd once told him that his hugging reminded me of the surrogate wire mothers in the rhesus-monkey experiment; it was more like the idea of a hug than the real thing.
"Archie," I said, "your hugging has not improved."
He said, "Lack of practice."
—•—
He called the next day and asked if I wanted to have dinner.
I confessed that I was criminally behind in my submissions and planned to read my head off.
"Bring them here," he said. "And I'll read my head off, too."
I called home before leaving the office. It was a relief not to pretend to be busy. "You sound good," my father said, and I could hear how pleased he was.
—•—
I sat in Archie's big leather armchair. He stretched out on the sofa. When I started to say something, he said, "No talking