Child of My Right Hand (8 page)

“Mister Barish,” began an older woman. “Simon's father, that right?”

“Speaking. Who is this?”

“Gladys O'Brien, Rich's grandmother.”

Without hearing another word, Jack knew this would be a grievous conversation. That must have showed, because Genna turned, mouthing her words, “I'll get Lizzie.”

“Mrs. O'Brien,” Jack said. “I'm going to change rooms, would you hold a moment?”

He left Simon's room carrying the portable; he didn't want to chance Simon listening in. Genna walked beside him. “Who is it?”

“Rich's grandmother.”

Genna looked as if she'd been gut-punched. “Oh,” she said, and hurried up the stairs.

“Mrs. O'Brien.” Jack looked out the family room picture window into the trees and down the stone path to the meadow. “Is something wrong?”

“I won't mince words.” She wheezed slightly, as if out of breath or asthmatic. “Don't believe in it.”

She spoke in the distinctive manner of the country folk of southwestern Ohio, not a drawl, but not a northern rhythm, either.

“Rich's been living with me and my son. Until yesterday, when we decided it would be better for him to live with his mother, up Earlham way.”

You're telling me this why? But he knew she'd get to it, and that when she did he wasn't going to like it.

“We got these letters, notes, really, from your son. You know what kind he is, dontcha?”

Through the picture window Jack watched leaves tremble.

“Why don't you tell me, Mrs. O'Brien?”

“These notes is hardcore, is what they are. They describe what your son would like to do to my grandson. Got the picture?”

It occurred to Jack this might be blackmail. “It would be better,” he said, “for everyone, if you threw those notes away.”

“My son's gointer decide. It was me, I'd burn 'em. My grandson's fifteen.”

Jack listened to her labored breathing. He didn't know what to say. Months later, he realized she probably had her own worries about what kind Rich was, too.

“Well,” she said. “Just thought you'd want to know.”

“I don't see why anyone needs to see those notes.”

“That's for my son to say.”

After another silence in which he thought he would just fucking kill Simon, Jack said, “Thanks for calling, I appreciate it.”

She hung up, and Jack wondered if he should have offered to buy the notes, unseen, unread, no haggling. He hung up and wondered how soon Genna would return. There was no way he'd have this conversation alone with Simon, no way at all.

***

When Genna reached the middle school, a half dozen minivans ringed the soccer field. Years ago, when Jack coached Lizzie's U-11 and U-12 teams, she'd hated being the coach's wife, the star player's mother. She didn't mix easily with stay-at-home moms. She never knew what to say or how to say it, and thought she'd go mad when the women revealed what they really thought about the world. Still, it was an unalloyed joy to watch Lizzie dribble through the opposing team, take a booming shot on goal, and think smugly, Yes, that one's mine.

In Tipton, Genna didn't feel she could leave all the soccer socializing to Jack. She parked her minivan beside the others and joined the gaggle of waiting women.

“Hi,” she said. “I'm Genna, Lizzie's mom.”

“Lucille,” said a short brunette. “Katie's mom. I've seen you at the games.”

Two other women introduced themselves, both blondes, but she forgot their names as soon as she heard them.

“Your Lizzie can really play,” said Lucille. “We're so glad to have her.”

The others murmured, and Genna thought, How awful. One child scorned, the other welcomed because she can kick a soccer ball. Genna checked her watch. Six-ten.

“Excuse me,” she said. “Doesn't practice end at six?”

The stouter blonde grinned. “I see you ain't been picking up. Steve never lets them go till six-fifteen, six-thirty.”

Feeling properly rebuked, Genna turned and watched the rough and tumble scrimmage: three male coaches and the girls. This was what she hated. The women were catty as hell, and she never knew what to say.

On the field, Lizzie dribbled towards the goal behind which the moms waited. A coach ran at her, forcing a pass, which she delivered left-footed, Genna noted, wondering if the other women had noticed. The left wing, whoever she was, received the pass and flubbed the shot.

“If the levy fails,” the small brunette was saying, Lucille, “I hear they're canceling all varsity sports except football.”

They can't do that, Genna thought, Title IX. But she kept quiet. Didn't want to seem like a smart mouth.

“I don't believe it,” said the larger of the blondes, whose ten-years-out-of-date shag grew from dark roots. “That school board's been threatening us for years with flood and famine if we don't keep letting them stick their hands in our pockets. Nothing ever happens.”

“Excuse me,” Genna said. “I'm new in town, so maybe I'm wrong. But I thought a levy hadn't passed in twelve years.”

“Well, yeah,” said the blonde. “But you understand what I'm saying.”

Not really.

“If the levy fails,” Lucille said, “we're sending Katie to Bishop.”

“What's that?” Genna asked, feeling sick to her stomach.

“A Catholic school in Hamilton.”

Genna asked, “You think the levy has a chance?”

Lucille, who was thin and fine-featured, another bird-woman like Marla, started to answer, but thought better of it. The big blonde said, “Lost by fifteen hundred votes just last spring.”

“Excuse me,” Genna said, “what's your name again?”

“Marge.”

“That's right,” Genna said. “I'm so bad with names.”

“Don't sweat it, hon.” Something in the way she said it, Hon, which was common usage here and meant to be friendly, Hon this, Hon that, rankled Genna. “There's lots of us, only one of you.”

“My husband and I”–Genna knew she should probably zipper her lip, as her mother used to say, Zipper your lip, Genna–“are part of a group at the university trying to register students to help pass the levy.”

“Ya know,” Marge said, “I'm not against the levy, I'm really not.”

But you're not for it, either.

“I've got three kids in school, I know they need money.” Marge sucked both lips into her mouth, and for a moment looked toothless, or as if she were trying to be careful of what she said. “But people in Roscoe township, where I live?” She hesitated again. “They're tired of Tipton folk trying to raise their taxes.”

“Excuse me,” Genna began, noticing that little Lucille and the other blond were slowly edging away, “a levy hasn't passed in twelve years.”

“But every year they try, and never once has anyone from Tipton knocked on the doors of me and my neighbors, telling us why we should support a levy. Don't you think that's stupid?”

“Yes,” Genna said. “I certainly do.”

Marge's mouth opened, but nothing came out. Then she continued, but with considerably less heat, “Now here you come saying you're going to register students, when everyone knows they're not gonna pay the taxes, we are.”

There was a shout on the field. A little dark-haired girl had scored a goal.

“That's my Katie,” Lucille said. “You watch, they'll call practice now.”

A moment later, a whistle blew and the girls trotted off.

“I'm glad we had this conversation,” Genna said to Marge, who eyed her suspiciously. Then Lizzie ran up, sweaty, lovely.

“Hey, Mom. Where's Dad?”

“Starting dinner.”

Genna grinned at Marge and Lucille. Yes, my man's starting dinner.

***

Jack told her as soon as she walked in, but they agreed to wait until after dinner to tell Simon. Lizzie chattered happily about what a jerk one of the other players was, how she mouthed off and refused to run laps, and Coach Steve let her get away with it.

“That would never happen on the Titans,” Lizzie added, biting into a hamburger that bled ketchup and mayo. “Jeff would have made her run six hills the first time, and kicked her off the second.”

“Wipe your chin,” Jack said. “Do you wish you still played for the Titans?”

Jack rarely asked such direct questions. The conversation with Rich's grandmother, Genna thought, must have really upset him.

“Hell, no.” Lizzie grinned, flaunting her newfound right to swear. “I'm always telling the girls they have no idea what a hard coach is like. They are so protected.”

“And ignorant,” Simon said. “Country-ass ignorant. Half the kids have never been out of Ohio. Soon as I can, I'm moving to New York.”

“Then you better pull your grades up,” Jack said. “New York's expensive, you'll need a good job.”

At the mention of grades, Simon shut down. They didn't mention Lizzie's grades, either, and how unfair was that, Genna thought, not being able to praise one child for fear of wounding the other. After dinner, Simon headed for his room.

“Let's get it over with.”

Jack nodded. He looked as miserable as she felt. They trooped downstairs for the second time that day to stand in front of their son's locked door. She glanced at Jack's rugged face, and he knocked, then knocked again. For a horrified moment she thought maybe Simon had hurt himself. Teenagers did that, and Simon had so many struggles. Just as Jack was about to rap a third time, Simon opened up.

“We need to talk to you.”

What now? Simon might have asked but didn't.

“That phone call,” Jack continued, “was Rich's grandmother. Apparently you've been writing certain notes?”

Simon looked so aghast, at once terrified and prepared to deny the whole thing, that Genna's heart floated out to him.

“What notes?”

She wished he hadn't said that. Jack turned towards her, his neck bulging.

Genna said, “I think we should talk about this with the door closed.”

They stepped into the messy room, which accurately reflected the disorder, Genna sometimes thought, inside Simon's head.

Jack said, “The notes in which you talk about what you want to do to or with Rich. And there's no point trying to lie your way out of this. Rich's grandmother and father have the notes, so drop the bullshit.”

She hated the way he spoke to Simon without respect, leaving him no role except buffoon, which was how she knew Jack thought of him at moments like this. It was how Simon thought of himself; he didn't need to hear it from his father. Simon leaned back on his bed, shrinking into himself. His upper lip trembled.

“And no crying,” Jack added, bitterly, “okay?”

“Jack.”

He must have grasped she was this close to beating the crap out of him as big as he was, because he took a deep breath and seemed to come back to himself.

“Simon,” she said, “whatever you feel for Rich, you know you shouldn't write such explicit notes. Did you pass them at school?”

Simon nodded. His upper lip still trembled. She hoped for all their sakes, especially Jack's, that he didn't begin to cry. “I feel so stupid,” Simon said.

Jack didn't bark, You should. Instead, in a kinder voice than she might have expected, he said, “Never put anything like that in writing.”

Genna said, “We don't think anything will happen. Rich's grandmother said his father will decide what to do with the notes.”

“I'm not sure what the law is,” Jack began, “but Rich is only fifteen, Simon's seventeen.”

“They're both still minors,” Genna said.

Glancing first at Simon, Jack answered, “Sixteen's statutory rape.”

After a moment, still not looking at them, Simon whispered, “We didn't do anything.”

She was relieved, but how awful for Simon to admit it. Assuming he was telling the truth.

“Good,” Jack said. “Then I don't think anything's going to happen.” He smiled at her, and then at Simon. “Just don't put anything in writing, okay?”

She wondered if Jack had followed his own advice when having that affair.

“Can I watch television?” Simon asked. “I don't have any homework.”

She glanced at Jack. Simon had had a hard day. Jack shook his head. She said, “Why don't you study French, dear? I can help if you want. Or go over math with Dad?”

Simon looked as if she had suggested he drink urine. “I can do it myself.”

Walking out of his room, she heard Simon close and lock the door.

When Rich's father didn't call that night or the next, Jack assumed disaster had missed them like the fourteen-wheeler that had once roared past them on I-80 in the eastern slope of the Sierras, horn blaring, brake linings already smelling of the crash that would occur half a mile down the road.

“Not this time,” he'd said to Genna when they passed the overturned truck. “At least not for us.”

Thursday morning, buoyed by a similar sense of survival, he phoned a friend in the math department, who called his favorite undergraduate; by noon, without having met him, he'd arranged for someone named Tom Martin, or possibly Martin Tom, to tutor Simon twice a week. Later that afternoon, Marla called his office.

“Jack,” she said, “this is Marla Lindstrom.”

He was uncomfortably excited to hear her voice. “How are you?”

“Fine, thanks.”

Did he note a note of tension?

“I'm calling about Simon.”

As if he might think she was calling about him. “Everything all right?”

“Oh, yes.”

The screen saver started up on his desktop: Hiya Dad! in three-dimensional red and green script forming and unforming a double helix, with H-I-Y-A, D-A-D! replacing the standard base pairs: his gift, last Father's Day, from Simon and Lizzie.

“Simon tells me you're finding him a math tutor. I've found him one for French.” She hesitated. “If you're interested.”

“Absolutely. But I feel we're taking too much of your time.”

“Don't be silly.” She laughed, and the sound surprised him, a giggle from a woman otherwise so very grown-up. “I'm very fond of Simon.”

“So am I. Thanks for calling.”

“Don't you want the tutor's name?”

Jack wondered if she could tell, through the phone line, how red his face was. He jotted down the name, a high school senior taking French IV at the university. “Thanks again.”

“If there's anything else,” Marla said, “just let me know. Simon really touches my heart.”

Jack hung up, full of questions.

***

Jack had met Dr. Charles—“Call Me Chuck”—Claybourne a few weeks before, walking Sam. Sam had bounded ahead, off leash, but within whistle-shot. Max, a standard black poodle, heeled on a thin leather lead. Sam spied or more likely scented him and charged off ignoring Jack's high-pitch, two note whistle. He shouted, “Sam, Sam. Goddamn it, Sam!”

The next time they met, Genna accompanied him, and Mary Claybourne walked beside Chuck. Mary's pale skin was set off by very dark hair, a contrast she obviously worked to maintain: long sleeves and sunhats. Sam lumbered towards them, nose and feathery tail high and wagging (his tail, not the nose). Max broke out of his heel and bounded towards Sam who'd begun snuffling Mary Claybourne's crotch.

“No, no!” Mary cried, her hat tumbling. “Bad dog!”

“Do something,” Genna said. “That woman's having a fit.”

Elegant Chuck (dark hair, silver sideburns), one hand around Sam's collar, the other around Max's, struggled to separate the frolicking canines.

“Good boy,” Chuck was saying. “Good boy.”

Jack grabbed Sam's collar and wrestled him away. “Sit,” he said. “Sit.”

Sam looked up as if he'd never heard that before. Sit?

Jack pushed his dog's substantial butt towards the ground. “He's friendly.”

“But not very well-trained,” Genna added.

“I can see,” Mary said, untangling herself from the poodle's twisted lead and bending to pick up her hat.

When the invitation arrived a few weeks later, Genna asked, “Aren't those the poodle people?”

Jack nodded.

“They probably want to introduce us to dog trainers.”

As it turned out, the Claybournes wanted to introduce them to the other residents of Forest Glen. The invitation, which Jack posted on the fridge, was to the Third Annual Forest Glen Octoberfest Pot Luck.

“Don't tell me you want to go.”

“Why not, Gen? Meet some new people?”

“The Octoberfest Pot Luck?” That wary look came over her face. And not just wary. “You know how uncomfortable I'll be.”

“We'll go for a little while.”

“You never go for a little while.”

For two weeks, the invitation had hung on the fridge, like a splinter in their collective psyche. Jack didn't RSVP to say they were coming; Genna didn't call to decline. Friday after work, as he stood in the kitchen sipping wine and waiting for the pasta water to boil, Genna said, “Mary Claybourne called.” When he looked vague, she added, “She wanted to know if we were coming to the dog-training party. I told her we'd be delighted. You owe me one, dear.”

Saturday night, carrying a covered dish of shrimp fried rice, Jack and Genna strolled up the driveway to the Claybournes's stylish contemporary. Though it was mid-October, the air remained warm and Genna wore one of her favorite summer dresses: blue Indonesian rayon with cutout work at the neck and on the shoulders. She wore also an air of satisfaction, for she had done what he wanted, which for the time being made her the better person.

“Thanks for coming,” Jack said.

“It might be fun.”

He looked at her, disbelieving.

“I feel different about a lot of things. Look.” She pointed to a small white sign at the corner of the lawn. This yard enclosed by Happy Dog. “What's that?”

“Some kind of invisible dog fence.”

“I bet you a week of cooking dinner they suggest we get one.”

Though he knew she was right, he answered, “You're on.”

***

Inside, Genna sipped white wine. In the past twenty years, she'd attended hundreds of dinner parties like this one, at which the principal libation was better-than-jug-but-not-really-very-good white wine. God, what she wouldn't give for a glass of the beyond-their-means Montrachet her mother served. Mother's other staple was celery sticks arranged like smelt around pools of ranch dressing. When Simon and Lizzie were small and accompanied them everywhere, Genna was always saying, “No double-dipping, kids.” She missed those days.

In California, a person could count on guacamole. In Ohio, someone always brought spinach dip in a hollow loaf of bread. Why would anyone do that to bread or spinach? For the past two years, since the local Kroger opened an olive bar, kalamatas and oil-cured Moroccans had been staples. Genna glanced around the family room with its tiled floor and French doors opening onto a brick patio and estimated that of the thirty or so adults hors d'oeuvring and chatting, twenty concealed olive pits in their palms not knowing what to do with them.

Unlike most parties they attended, at which everyone was from her department or Jack's, this room was filled with strangers, many of whom did not appear to be academics. There were several white-haired couples, long since retired from whatever work they had once done. Two women with big hair, one blonde, one brunette, wore powder blue pedal pushers. (No academic woman would be caught dead in pedal pushers; it was almost as if universities taught courses on what was and was not permissible. Pedal pushers were definitely not.) There were two black couples, one old, one young, both named Porter, who had brought barbecued chicken wings, which also marked them as non-academics. (Too down-home for African American academics to bring to a racially mixed group.) There was also a twenty-something couple in neo-hippie attire. The woman, who was full-bodied without being heavy was clearly sans brassiere, while the man sported earrings in both ears and barbed wire tattoos on his biceps.

Genna moved to the Octoberfest table. Pitchers of pilsner, plates of spaetzle and schnitzel, sauerbraten and brats, metts, and several varieties of sausage she didn't recognize, which people around greater Cincinnati seemed genuinely to enjoy but which Genna never let pass her lips. It wasn't so much that she was a food snob or anti-pork, but that twenty years ago she had watched a CBS documentary on meat processing.

Jack was working the room, weaving his big body in and out of cliques of party guests. Years ago, she'd been offended by how he left her alone, fearing he found other women more interesting. She no longer believed that, not because he'd proved faithful—he hadn't—but because she'd accepted that gregariousness as part of Jack's nature. He arrived at every party, no matter how meager its prospects, like a child rushing downstairs on Christmas—or was it Chanukah?—morning.

“Have you tried the schnitzel?”

Genna found herself face to face with Mary Claybourne, who wore a pale yellow summer shawl around her bare shoulders.

“Not yet.”

Genna immediately regretted her answer. Mary's elegant nose twitched.

“It's my grandmother's recipe,” she said. “My maiden name was Krauss.”

“Ja,” Genna said. “Octoberfest.”

“Ja,” Mary repeated. “And be sure to try a bratwurst. We buy them in a special butcher in Zinzinnati. Zie gutt.”

Not on your life, Genna thought, smiling, as Mary slid away, circulating between her guests, many of whom were heaping their plates. When she looked around and spotted Jack, he was standing beside Marla Lindstrom. Genna's hand went to her hair, fluffing the curls it had taken two hours with rollers to produce. She walked to the hors d'oeuvre table, dipped two carrot sticks in ranch and bit into them. She allowed herself two olives, one Moroccan, one kalamata, swirled the pits between her tongue and teeth sucking off every salty morsel before discretely pushing the pits between her lips into a purple cocktail napkin. She washed the olive taste away with a slug of white wine. Jack was still talking to Marla, and Genna considered going through the food line and heaping a plate with every Oktoberfest specialty, two or three of each, a plate to end all plates, and eating it all, her fat ass be damned, or better still, taking the laden plate, a sinkhole of German gastronomic achievement, to Jack. Here, she'd say, I made it for you, dear.

No, she'd take the plate and stand beside Jack, beside bird-like Marla's tiny breasts and teeny waist, and she'd stuff herself, the grease from sausages that Marla would never in a million years eat glistening on her cheeks. Even after gorging, there would be so much food, her plate would make a really satisfying thump when she hurled it into Jack's rugged face and the non-existent bosom of that skanky bitch.

Instead, Genna pitched her napkin-wrapped pits, refilled her plastic glass with the Claybournes's excuse for Chardonnay, then joined Jack and Marla on the other side of the room.

“We were just coming to find you,” Jack said. “Ready for dinner?”

“I
was
thinking about food.”

“You go ahead,” Marla said, moving away. “I've already eaten.”

When the paper plates were in the trash and coffee water was boiling but dessert had not yet been served, Chuck moved to the center of the room. “Now is the time,” he began, “for official business. I'd like you to meet the newest Forest Glenners. Jack and Genna Barish are both Tipton professors. Jack's in History of Science, Genna's in French and Women's Studies. They bought the Lessinger house and have two teenagers, although I suspect more of you, especially you joggers, have met their friendly golden retriever, Sam.”

There were murmurs. What a sweet dog Sam was, and Oh, they bought the Lessinger house, then a voice called from the back of the room, “Have you told them I sell Happy Dog at cost to Forest Glenners?”

“That's Bill Morris,” Chuck said, raising one of his bushy silver eyebrows. “Always trying to do a little business.”

Polite laughter rippled through the room, as Jack leaned close and whispered, “What do you want for dinner tomorrow?”

“Humble pie all week.”

They stood and introduced themselves, and although she couldn't remember names, it felt warm and friendly, certainly very welcoming, all these suburban strangers inviting her into the group. What next, she'd believe in God or the Republican Party?

Committee heads talked about their budgets and plans for Block Watch, Forest Glen beautification, fall clean up and spring planting. Finally, Bill Morris, he of the Happy Dog franchise (he was also, she learned, a realtor, who over the years had sold many of the Forest Glen houses, several of them more then once) stepped forward. He had coifed white hair like what's his name, the booby-headed anchor on Mary Tyler Moore's old show.

“As all of you know,” he began, “there's another Tipton school tax levy on the ballot next month. As a real estate professional— ”

How pompous.

“—I believe passing this levy is crucial to homeowners. I have, therefore, gotten permission from our Commander in Chief,” Bill Morris directed a smarmy smile at Chuck, “for a representative from TUTS, Tipton University for Tipton Schools, to say a few words. Most of you know Marla Lindstrom, who used to be our neighbor. But before she gives you all the facts and figures she's so good at,” Bill Morris turned towards Marla and actually winked, “I want to say my piece, which is this. As homeowners concerned about property values, it's absolutely crucial to the continued growth of Tipton to pass this levy to help fund our schools. Whether or not you have young children, and right now I'm talking to you retired folks, ”

“Bill,” someone called, “let Marla speak.”

There was general laughter, and one of the women in pedal pushers, whom Genna assumed must be Mrs. Bill Morris, stood up and corralled the noted local windbag. Marla stepped to the center of the room.

“Bill,” Marla said, “I want to thank you for saying so many of the things I wanted to say, and for inviting me to speak to this amazing Octoberfest pot luck.”

As the crowd settled into paying attention, Genna glanced at Jack, who took her hand then returned his gaze to the speaker. Despite Marla's presence, the room felt safe and warm, as if they had joined a group of friends around a fire. How strange and surprising was that.