Turn of Mind - Alice LaPlante [38]
I would have thought they were synonyms, he says.
There are nuances, I say. I am warming to the discussion. Anything is better than another endless chat about nothing over tea with Magdalena. A repercussion has the nuance of being punishing, I say. An outcome is simply a result. You do something, and you have an outcome. An output for an input.
And were you always pleased with the . . . outputs . . . of your actions?
I was not pleased with the outcomes of some of my surgeries, certainly —a small percentage, but nevertheless they existed. But I made the best decisions under the circumstances. Those were not mistakes. They were decisions that had outcomes.
Mark is silent for a moment. You’re on top of your game, certainly, he says. No one could pull a sly one on you today.
That actually makes me smile. He sounds about ten, just having been caught smoking cigarettes with Jimmy Petersen behind the Jewel.
Why? I ask. Did you hope to?
He doesn’t answer, instead changing the subject.
Did Amanda talk to you?
About what? Oh. Did you hit her up, too?
Well, I’d gotten a nice check from you. It would have been tasteless to approach you again so soon.
And what did she say?
So, she didn’t tell you? Odd. I would have thought that was the first thing she’d do.
No. She liked to keep her own counsel. So what did she say?
She laughed at me. Told me to stuff it up my nose.
That sounds like Amanda.
It was infuriating. I could have killed her. Mark fidgets in his chair. Oh. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.
Said what?
You know. He looks at me. Or maybe you don’t. Never mind.
We sit in silence for a moment. When Mark speaks again, his voice is again one of a small boy.
You haven’t asked how I’m doing, he says. How my work is, how my love life is.
I get to my feet. The cleaning crew is coming closer, they’ll be here in a few minutes and we’ll have to move. I am glad. I am annoyed with the conversation.
I assumed that if you had something to tell me, you would, I say. You’re not a child anymore. Use your words.
Mark stands up, too, and unexpectedly he is laughing. I should have known you wouldn’t fall for that, he says. But it was worth a try.
I’ve never been susceptible to emotional blackmail before, I say. And despite my diseased brain, I have no intention of becoming so now.
Well, let me use my words, as you suggest, and give you a synopsis of my current affairs, Mark says. Tall, dark, handsome twenty-nine-year-old lawyer, with a bit of a substance-abuse problem, looking for love and money in what are apparently all the wrong places. His voice is mocking, but there is a slight sag to his shoulders. I notice his clothes are hanging loosely on his frame, that his jacket cuffs reach too far down over his wrists and that his belt is cinched tight to keep his trousers around his too-slender waist.
I find myself reaching out, and almost touch his right cheek, when he flinches, pulls away.
I like you more the other way, he says. It suits you better. He gestures to the cleaners, who are at the threshold to the den, waiting for permission to enter. Thus ends another visit to dear old Mom’s, he says, adding, as he leaves the room, and to use another ironically appropriate expression, let’s forget this conversation ever took place.
From my notebook. December 15, 2008. Amanda’s name written on top of the page.
Jennifer:
Today we decided to walk to our favorite Middle Eastern take-out place on Lincoln, the one with the sublime hummus, then over to the park for a picnic. Yes, it was that warm! I made you wear your gloves and a hat, because you are still struggling with that cough. Magdalena fussed a bit, but we overruled her. You were clearly itching to get out.
You kept saying how you wished James and Peter could come along. I was unclear at first about why you thought they were missing, and it turned out you attributed their absence to that old man-excuse—work. No matter that Peter had retired more than a decade ago, and James would have retired last year if he’d lived.
Funny how at