The Anglophile (12 page)

“No,” Kit says, quite shocked.

He honks in approval. “As long as you get married by Exit Thirty.”

“He's got a ways to go,” my uncle calls out. “Must be about Shari's age, twenty-five—”

“Sam,” I stop him. “I'm
thirty-five.
”

Sam stares at me in disbelief. “How the hell did
that
happen?”

“Thirty-six,” is Kit's delayed response to Frank.

Well thanks to Frank, now I know my new boyfriend's age.

“You look good for an old geezer,” Franks says.

Kit grins. “I stay out of the sun. Bad for the Brits.” He takes a drink of water, and asks, “So, what's your dance?”

“Jitterbug,” Franks declares. “There's still a few places old-timers can jitterbug in the Bronx. You should talk to Shari's uncle about it. Sam was the jitterbug king.”

He was? “Tell me more,” I say to Sam.

My uncle smiles. “They saw me dance in Colorado. Most of us knew each other in Aspen. The Tenth trained in an ad hoc military hut in the Telluride area. Forget about my dancing—I bet you didn't know that the ski industry started because of our fellows. Pfeifer built Aspen of course, he's a good man, and Pete Seibert created Vail. You know Nike sneakers?”

“Sure,” Kit says politely.

“Bill Bowerman. Founded the damn thing, and one of ours. And Bob Dole is Tenth Mountain, too. A real joker. I trained with him in the Rockies. Sent me a post
card recently. He's the one who convinced me to switch parties.”

Even if he knew some of this information already from his recent reading, Kit is entranced. Me, too, although I'm embarrassed it took a foreigner's accompaniment to have heard any of these stories.
My
uncle knows these people? Really?

Another soldier runs over to our table. “Anyone have a clean glass? I'm looking for a clean glass.”

He takes the empty one from our table, and as soon as he is seated back at his table, Frank pokes Kit and says, “That fellow was a hypochondriac back in the war, too. Just what you need in the Alps. We're worried who's still alive after the battle at Lake Garda, and he's worried if his finger is frostbitten.”

After the meal, the president of the chapter calls us to order, and after a pledge of allegiance to the American flag and a moment of silence for the new crop of Tenth Mountain reps in Afghanistan and Iraq, he proceeds with his order of business before the awards.

Another former soldier interrupts: “Why are we having this meeting on a Wednesday? If we want the descendants to be part of this why don't we have it on a weekend? I frankly think you've made a hash of it, Ed. Time for Harry to run for president.”

“I can hardly even get to the meetings,” someone, who I assume is Harry, says. “Now you want me to grow an extra pair of testicles and run for president?”

President Ed is indignant: “Honestly, Phil, I haven't made a hash of it. I rang the head of the descendants to give us a date. No answer. There's only one descendant
eager to help us however she can, a woman named Kay Kay.”

“What kind of name is that?” calls out an amused voice from the back, rickety with age.

“Kay Kay?” says another decorated soldier. “It's people like that make me feel like I'm living in a giant cartoon where I'm the punch line.”

“That's her name. She lives in Manhattan on Fifth Avenue and Fifty-eighth Street—does all our labels for us—I send her a hundred names and she has them back to me in a week.”

“Sam's niece, do you know Kay Kay?” a man way down the table asks me.

Sam waves an exasperated palm in the air. “Murray, don't be silly. New York is a big place.”

“It's an unusual name, Sammy.”

“No, I don't know her,” I answer back with a smile.

“Son of a gun, all of you,” Frank hisses says with an exaggerated pained expression. “Mr. President is speaking, have some respect.”

“Yes, well, where was I as far as the descendants go?”

“Kay Kay,” Uncle Sam calls out.

“Yes, Kay's not the problem. She's lovely. About the others, I said to my wife, what the dickens. Let's have a meeting when it's convenient to us. If anyone wants to go after them again, be my guest. You can look at their Internet site—”

“Can I have that Internet number?”

A woman at the front table says, “Address, Pete. Internet address. And it's in the
Blizzard,
Pete, read the new issue of the
Blizzard.
”

“A smart lady,” the president says to the woman. “You're a dynamo for pulling together that latest
Blizzard,
honey.”

Kit beams at me. I can tell he loves these characters and their unselfconsciousness that comes from living through experiences worse than anything either of us could even conjure up in our heads.

Another hand goes up, and the veteran is called upon: “I want to ask that we send the mementos to my house.”

“Son of a gun,” says another without permission to talk. “I brought that up five years ago.”

More voices:

“Let the guy speak, Murray.”

“He's an officer.”

“Yeah, Quartermaster, you had to talk from the back and now you can talk from the front.”

Then it's time for my uncle's award. The chapter president nods to an official photographer and says, “I now call upon Sam Blum, who finely and bravely served our country from 1941 to '45.”

There is loud applause and hooting.

I never knew my uncle was such a natural ham when handed a microphone. “Who's just cheering because he wants a George Foreman grill?”

Even louder hooting. Sam bows with a grin, and I can tell here in this room, he is greatly loved.

“Twelve days in combat and I got my
kishkes
blown out at Riva Ridge—many of you know I had amnesia, so everything I've learned about my time there I learned from rehooking up with you fellows.”

After the award ceremony is over, and Sam is reseated,
I give him a kiss and reveal more of my embarrassing family ignorance: “I didn't know you had amnesia.”

My uncle looks at me, deciding what to say. “My legs were pinned by the shrapnel—the military used the New York Jews and Italians as pack rats.”

Several soldiers, mid-dessert, look up in surprise.

“Let's save this for another time,” Sam says dramatically.

I hold my uncle's eye. “I'd love that. How about when I get back from England?”

Sam smiles again. His teeth are suspiciously white, very possibly he was just fitted for a new set of dentures. “Good for you. I knew you'd get there. When are you going?”

“In two days, with Kit.”

“I love the place myself.”

“You've been to England?” This is insane. How did I miss this tid-bit, too? There is not a chance I wouldn't have heard about a relative's trip to England.

“I was there with your grandmother in 1974. We saw London, and Stonehenge, although that was a real tourist trap.”

Kit nudges me.

“Grandma Sadie went to England?” I'm beyond surprised now, I'm gobsmacked.

“Your mother never told you that?”

“No.” And why wouldn't she? Does she still think my family embarrasses me? Do they? C'mon, I tell myself. I'm being a bit paranoid here. Even my mother has other things going on in her life than to be my family almanac. So a remarkable detail or three finally got revealed.

Kit smiles as I sting. “I'd love to ask you more questions one day, too, Sam. I've read two books on the Tenth.”

“I'm on e-mail.” Sam writes down his new Earth-link account details on the program in his spidery old handwriting, and I wonder what else my mother hasn't told me.

I
'm stepping out of the shower as the phone rings. I call for Kit to answer it—it could be the passport agency.

Kit brings me the phone and whispers, “A woman with a masculine voice.”

That's either Aunt Dot or Dr. Zuckerman's nurse calling back with the results of the blood test.

“Ms. Diamond, I have Dr. Zuckerman waiting to speak with you.”

“You're still in America,” Dr. Zuckerman says two minutes later. “Good. I thought I was going to have to leave a message.”

“Passport mess.”

“Maybe you can use one of those services.”

“I did. They're not going any faster.”

“Well, at least your doctor has delivered. You are hy
pothyroidmatic as I suspected, a strong candidate for Hashimoto's disease.”

I clench my jaw before I speak. “How bad is that?”

“If you're going to have a disease, it's certainly not the worst. Lethargy is one of the main symptoms, which explains your energy level the past few months. And you can gain a lot of weight with a loss of metabolism. Count yourself lucky there.”

“I know I was joking about my weight in your office, but I was thinking about what you said—and realized I've mysteriously gained about ten pounds the past two years.” Disease? That word lingers in my head as I nervously ramble on. “Not that I'm normally a stick, but I've never had a weight battle before—”

“Sssh. Calm, calm, you'll probably lose it just with Synthroid. This is a disease that's easy to control with a daily pill. But it is a pill you'll be taking for life I'm afraid.” He pauses dramatically and adds, “I am going to put you on .75 milligrams to start. I think you'll feel an improvement right away, and when you get back, we'll test your blood levels again. It takes a while to level off.”

“Okay.” If he's not too worried, I'm not going to shit myself either.

“So, what's your pharmacy's number? I'll call in the prescription.”

“Hold on.”

As I reach for the Yellow Pages to find Avenue A Drug and Beauty, a beloved mom-and-pop holdout among the billions of New York Duane Reades and Rite Aids, he tells me they'll probably fill my prescription with a generic version of Synthroid—Leve some
thing. I make like I was listening carefully and tell him whatever's cheap and effective works for me.

“So, bon voyage,” Dr. Zuckerman says warmly after I give him the number. “Maybe you can look up Owen in England.”

“Is he in England? I thought he was here.”

“I told you, he's back and forth all the time. He's leaving sometime this week. He'll be based in the British Museum scholar room. They know him there if you ask. He's trying to arrange for an international cell phone, but no word on that yet or where he's staying.”

“You know, you
are
a wonderful
Schadchen.
You've got yourself a second career if you want it.”

Dr. Zuckerman laughs and after a final goodbye hangs up.

“What's a
Schadchen?
” Kit says as he pours me a second cup of coffee. (Our brew has improved, as late last night we stopped in Porto Rico Importing on East Ninth Street for fresh ground French Roast Colombian.)

“Yiddish for matchmaker. My thyroid doctor is trying to set me up with his son.”

“And you are going on that date?”

“No. I told him I was taken but he didn't seem to listen. I don't have the energy to repeat myself. I knew his son as a child, so I would like to look him up, platonically. I'll explain my current rap to him.”

“Well maybe you'll have the energy for his son when his medication kicks in.”

“Hey, listen. One handsome man in my life is enough!”

“His son is handsome? Maybe the doctor's making a good match—”

“When he was twelve. And hey, I just called you handsome—” I wave my hand to dismiss this bit of silly conversation. Kit grins as I give him a playful squeeze on his elbow. “Anyway, how is this ambrosia coming out of my dinky coffeemaker?”

“I made it differently. I boiled it in a pot, and then drained it. You don't get enough caffeine in those makers.”

“I'm impressed. You can make me coffee every day of my life. I can't touch this.”

We sip and comfortably stare into each other's eyes.

Is he as wonderstruck as I am by how everything except a timely passport has just magically worked out for us? “A penny for your thoughts,” I say.

“I'm a very happy man.” I kiss him again on his nose. “A pence for yours.”

I smile guiltily. “I was thinking about how this is the smug coupledom Bridget Jones hated so.”

He double-checks my eyes, surprised. “You read that kind of fluff?”

“Um. Yeah. To relax.”

He scrunches his nose.

I hit him on his arm. “Hey, snob! Look at me, Kit! Lay off Bridget Jones. A woman is fighting for two British men's affections. You think I'm not going to like it?”

“I just thought you were more selective.”

“Excuse me, Cambridge snob. And by the way Helen Fielding is very smart. She ‘read English' at Oxford.”

“Whatever.”

“Oh, you picked up that obnoxious phrase from my little shitty America.”

He sniggers. “You're the one with class consciousness, not me.”

“I'm not asking you to be my therapist,
arse
-hole. I'm just saying, you leave off Helen Fielding and further-more, if you ever, ever say a word against
The Secret Garden
I'll wring your neck.”

“That's a kid's book. Apples and oranges.”

“Sure, but it's my all-time favorite book. I'm just giving you a heads-up.”

“What is it with women and
The Secret Garden?
Every girl I've ever gone out with talks about this book.”

“It's sexy.”

“It's a kids' book. How sexy can it be?”

I think for a second as he smirks at me. “There's this tradition of treacly American TV specials called
Hallmark Hall of Fame.
They aired their version of
The Secret Garden
in the late eighties.”

“So naturally, you watched it.”

“Of course I did. And the girls I liked best on my dorm floor
had
to watch, too. That was one of the first times I saw my man Colin Firth, as the grown-up Colin passionately kissing Mary.”

“Your man,” Kit laughs to himself.

“Yes, my man,” I say defensively. “We cheered from the couch. The writer and director simply rewrote them as family friends, because they knew what girls
really
wanted from those characters, and finally had them go for it.”

“Should I reread
Rin Tin Tin
for the sex scenes?”

“Is there anything else you want to deride me about?”

Kit sips and then says, “Yes, as a matter of fact. Did you ever have a conversation before about how you sleep?”

“Why, how do I sleep?”

“You're like an arrow spearing me in the side. You twist sideways, and you're constantly jabbing your feet into me.”

“Whoa. That's specific.”

“Well, if we're going to sleep together some more, and I assume we are, we need to figure out a solution.”

“Yeah, well talk to me as soon as you trim your toenails, Kit. It's like nuzzling up to a horned stag.”

Kit coughs indignantly, but the ringing phone halts the littlest of duels.

“Two more days,” another woman from the passport service insists after a loud sneeze. “There's nothing I can do.”

“There's a backup due to terrorism,” I preempt her. Her coworker is probably avoiding me after I called her on her expedition skills.

“Exactly. So you've been keeping tabs on the…”

I grunt toward the receiver when I hang up. “We have to change our tickets again. There's no way British Airways is having this.”

“Drink your coffee, I'll call.”

“Oh God, thank you. I don't think I can listen to this.” I choose Cathy's bedroom with its softer light and thick new mattress perfect for reading the paper. I lie across her expensive down quilt. I must remember to neaten it before we leave for the day; she'll be back tomorrow.

Kit calls me out again.

“That's fixed. So what are we going to do with still more extra days in New York?”

“British Airways went for it? No crazy fee?”

“We're going four days later than our original plans. That should give us time for that bloody passport.”

“You're my hero. How did you do it?”

“Charm school,” Kit says between chews. After his success on the phone, he's finally trying out the bubble gum tape I bought him in a Korean deli.

I blow out air in envy and awe. “Cambridge is one damn expensive charm school.”

Kit laughs and says, “Maybe with the extra time I can meet your brothers or your mother.”

“My mother is easy,” I say. “Gene and Alan, that'll take a bit of finagling.”

“Finagle then. Can't we do it in one hit? How about a dinner party? We can host it here.”

 

Our lot is decided by a phone call later that afternoon from my banker brother Gene.

“Hey, stranger, what's new?”

“Not much,” I lie.

What would Gene be telephoning about? Even if we're not exceptionally close anymore, we're on okay terms. But he
never
calls.

“Were you planning on calling me this century?”

“Of course, but you can call, too.” I swallow guiltily. As a matter of fact, I was very close to ringing him this morning after facing facts: even though asking for a handout is just not done in my family, I'm going to need a loan as I sort out my botched dissertation. A trip through England is a luxury, but what then? I have to do it. My stomach tenses. Do I have to do this now?

“You hear about the funeral? I got the call from Eric.”

“Wait—what—Dot died?” Sure, I complain about Dot's incessant nagging to my mom, but I don't want my aunt dead. In one instant I realize I love(d) her.

“No. The skunk.”

I breathe out. “Oh, my God! Dot's okay?”

“You thought Dot died, idiot? You really think I'd be jabbering away when I said hello?”

“It's been a rough week. Don't fight me today.”

“Who's fighting? I'm just the messenger. We have to go to the funeral. It's tomorrow. They need to bury him in twenty-four hours.”

“Why? Because he is going to decompose after that and stink up the place?”

“No, because he's a Jewish skunk.”

“What?”

“You have to bury a Jew in twenty-four hours.”

“He's a skunk.”

“This is Dot we're talking about. It's going to be at an animal cemetery in Westchester tomorrow.”

“She lives in the Catskills though.”

“Apparently this is the best resting place a skunk can go to rot. It's where Judy Garland's dog is. That was a big drawing card.”

“Can't you or Mom represent?”

“Represent? Who am I, Snoop Dog?”

“Listen, I have a friend from England in town. I'm touring him around.”

“
Listen,
then you have to take him. Mom says Galoot—”

“Galoot,” I repeat with considerable sarcasm.

“Galoot,” he picks up after a little laugh. “Yeah, Ga
loot was like a son to Dot. Mom'll never hear the end of it if we don't go.”

Uncle Sam, as quirky as he is with the chronic gift-giving, is from my mother's side, the Blums. I can't think of one Blum that is really off his or her rocker. But I cannot subject Kit to the full-blown Diamond madness. Can Kit spend another day on his own? Maybe he can take in the Guggenheim or the revamped MoMA.

“I'm not promising anything. Give me the details,” I say to my brother as Kit looks at me inquisitively.

“Alan's coming.”

“Alan? Our Alan?”

“I do not lie.”

Alan Andrew Diamond has always been the most difficult for my mother to wrangle, especially when we were kids. In the morning he'd go through all of evolution before he could fully function as a human being. He has the strongest will of anyone I know, in a negative way, and even to this day he leads the pack of everyone I know for most phobic.

“If Alan can leave the sandals behind and come, you can get your ass out there, too. Do it for Mom. Surrender now. You can fight her for an hour, but she's going to make sure you do the right thing.”

“The Catskills is so convenient.”

“No, I told you, pay attention. The funeral is closer than that. In Hartsdale, next to Scarsdale. Galoot's getting the royal burial at a famous pet cemetery.”

“Dot.” My single word sentence is loaded with disapproval.

“She's your flesh and blood, and she loves you.”

“You're working for your mother now?”

“You're going to cave. Let's get it over with.”

“We just returned the car rental.”

“What's your roommate's name? Cathy?”

“Yeah?”

“Cathy and you don't have the kind of money to be renting cars. Use the subway. Isn't that the point of living in Manhattan?”

“Pay attention. I told you, I have a visitor from England in town. A guy. We've been sightseeing.”

“Then bring him along. If he's a visitor here, he might even enjoy it.”

“A cemetery? C'mon.”

“This place sounds kind of insane. Mom was reading to me from the brochure she picked up with Dot when they made the arrangements.”

“What, they picked out a skunk casket?”

“Rosewood. Cost Dot five hundred bucks.”

“Um, I was joking.”

“And there's lots of famous dead dogs. You can come to my house and I'll drive you.”

“Let me talk to my friend and I'll call you back.”