The Pursuit of Other Interests: A Novel (14 page)

“Why does that matter?”

“I want to know. It’s important.”

“Why?”

“It just is.”

“When you were holding the can of lima beans in the kitchen. After you went shopping.”

He shook his head in disgust. “I never should have bought those stupid lima beans! I knew it! Why didn’t you say something then?”

“What was your plan, then, never to tell me?”

“I was going to tell you.”

“Why didn’t you, then?”

“I don’t know. I was going to, though.”

“I know why you didn’t tell me. Because I’m not important enough to tell, because I don’t matter anymore.”

“Oh, come on! That’s ridiculous. Completely ridiculous.”

“Why, then?”

“Because I was embarrassed. Why do you think?”

“You were embarrassed? That’s it? That’s why you didn’t tell me? You were
embarrassed
?”

“Yeah, okay, I was. Because you told me not to take the job. You never wanted to move. All that.”

“So you were afraid I was going to say I told you so? That’s what you think of me?”

“Jesus.” His face was hot. He switched the phone to his other ear. “Is that why you’re in Maine? Because I didn’t tell you right away?”

“No. I’m in Maine for lots of reasons.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t have three hours, Charlie.”

“Well, how long are you going to be gone?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? What about our son? If you could stop thinking about yourself for a minute, maybe you should think about him.”

“Stop thinking about myself? Myself? I’ve never thought about myself. Ever. I’ve never had time to. I’m always thinking about you. What mood you’re going to be in when you come home.
If
you come home.
If
you’re going to get that big account.
If
you’re going to win that big award.
If
you’re going to get promoted.
If
you’re going to be in Paris for a month. You’re the only person who matters in our house.”

“Listen, just settle down.”

“Don’t you dare tell me to breathe. I know that’s what you’re about to tell me to do, so do not do it. Do
not.”

“I’m not going to tell you to do anything.” He said this very calmly, even though he had been about to tell her to breathe. “Listen, you have to come home now. This is ridiculous. Do you want me to come out there and bring you back?”

“I can get back on my own, thank you very much. I’m very capable of doing that.”

“You’ve never traveled by yourself before. What happens if you have one of your sleeping things and…and walk into the ocean? Maine is a very dangerous place. Stephen King lives in Maine.”

“I’m not going to walk into the ocean,” she said. “Unless I want to.” She hung up.

When he got home, he went upstairs and immediately began a search for Bailey Island, Maine. He needed information.

He didn’t find much other than an odd photo gallery featuring artsy and, he thought, menacing Bergman-like black-and-white pictures of weather-beaten homes and rocky windswept shorelines. This did little to comfort him. He imagined Donna walking in her sleep over the rocks, her arms out in front of her and in a trance as she stumbled around in her pink flip-flops, while nearby, black bears raised their noses to the wind and picked up her scent.

Exactly what Donna was doing there, he didn’t know. The fact that she could do something so drastic as to leave him, then head across the country to a remote and possibly hostile place, was dumbfounding. He had known this woman for his entire adult life and if someone had asked him if she was capable of such a stunt, he would certainly have said no.

He went downstairs in search of the mail and then bourbon but instead found Kyle sitting at the baby grand, softly plunking at the keys. He looked up quickly when his father entered the room.

“You going to play something?” Charlie asked. A few years back, Kyle had taken lessons, though Charlie had never once heard him play.

“No,” Kyle said. “Do we have anything to eat?”

Charlie’s body sagged. He had planned on being alone and indulging himself with his worries, but now he had to deal with the task of feeding his son. “Isn’t there anything in the refrigerator?” he asked.

“I didn’t look there.”

“Where did you look, then?”

“Nowhere.” Kyle pushed the hair out of his eyes with a slow, sweeping motion of his hand, a gesture Charlie had seen Donna make a hundred, a thousand, a million times with her own explosion of hair. “What’s wrong?” he asked. Charlie was staring at him.

“Nothing,” Charlie quietly said. “Come on. Let’s go get some dinner.”

A half hour later, while Kyle was pouring syrup out of a small stainless-steel pitcher onto a high stack of pancakes, Charlie asked if he had ever heard of Bailey Island.

“Bailey Island,” he repeated. “Is that near Cuba?” He stopped pouring and licked some fingers.

“It’s out East. In Maine, or by Maine.” Charlie paused. “You’ve heard of Maine, right?”

Kyle’s eyes were blank.

“Have you ever heard Mom mention it? Did she ever say she wanted to go there, or had friends there, something like that? Did it ever come up in conversation?”

Kyle finally responded. “Maine,” he said, thinking. He started in on his pancakes.

Charlie sipped his coffee and watched him eat. They were sitting in a booth by a window at Will’s, the very coffee shop Charlie had spied Donna in. While Kyle ate, Charlie searched the room for clues that might tell him how often she frequented the place, but all he saw was the old man wiping down the counter.

“Is that where Mom is?” Kyle asked. “In Maine?”

“Yes. She called me from there today.”

Kyle had no reaction. He methodically ate his pancakes, pausing only to stuff some bacon into a side of his mouth. Charlie sipped more coffee.

“How come you’re not eating anything?” Kyle asked.

Charlie shrugged and put down his cup. Outside, a young couple walked by, hand in hand. They wore matching Burberry raincoats and were carrying brown weatherworn leather briefcases. The woman, a short, Nordic-looking blonde, swung hers energetically at her side. When they passed the window, she glanced Charlie’s way and smiled, a perky little corporate smile. Up until recently, Charlie’s life had been full of perky little, briefcase-swinging women and suddenly he missed each and every one of them.

Kyle stopped eating. “You can have some of my pancakes, if you want,” he said.

“No, I’m all right.”

“You want some of my bacon? We can split it.” He pushed a side plate forward. Charlie picked up a piece, and took a small bite. It was hard and overcooked. He put it back.

“So,” he said. “How’s school?”

“Okay. I’m in a play.”

“A play? A school play? I thought you were going out for basketball.”

Kyle drank his milk. “I am. I can do both.”

“Do you have time to do both?”

“Sure.”

“Does your mother know you’re doing both?”

“Yeah, she knows.”

“Okay. Well, we’ll have to make sure we come see the play. What’s the name of it?”

“Mr. Vengeance.”

“
Mr. Vengeance?
I never heard of it. What’s it about?”

“It’s about a guy who kind of flips out and kills a bunch of people in a high school.”

Charlie absorbed this description before asking, “What kind of play is that? Who wrote it?”

“Matt.”

“Matt? Matt who? You mean your friend Matt?”

“Yeah. Matt.”

“The tall guy? He wrote a play?”

“Yeah. It’s a student production. He writes a lot of plays.”

“Jesus, that guy’s a playwright? What kind of part do you have?”

“It’s pretty small.”

“How small? Do you have any lines?”

“Not, like, officially.”

“What do you mean, not officially?”

“I kind of scream.”

“You scream? That’s it?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t do anything else?”

“No.” Kyle ate a piece of bacon. “I play a dead body.”

“A what? A dead body? The whole time?”

“Yeah. Except when I scream. I’m still alive then. But then I get shot, so the rest of the time I lie there dead.”

“How long are you dead?”

“About two hours. I’m the first one shot.”

“Two hours. You mean the whole time you’re onstage, you’re dead?”

“Yeah. Pretty much.”

Charlie stared out the window. He was becoming concerned. “Is this Matt a good friend of yours?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Does he have other friends, or are you his only one?”

“I don’t know. He has other friends.”

“Matt doesn’t do drugs or anything, does he?”

“What?”

“I mean, as far as you know.”

“No.”

“You probably wouldn’t tell me if he did, would you?”

“No.”

Charlie drank more coffee. “Why would you want to play a dead body for two hours?”

Kyle shrugged. “I only have to go to one rehearsal.” He cut into a pancake with the side of his fork. “Did you get a new job yet?”

“What?” Charlie was trying to determine what his son’s desire to play a dead body in public said about his parenting abilities.

“Did you get a new job yet?”

“I just started looking. It takes time. Sometimes a long time.”

“Do we have any money left?”

“We’ll be okay. We have to economize a little. Just to play it safe.”

“Be frugal?”

“Yeah. You know what that means?”

“Yeah.” Kyle stopped eating again and stared at his food. “Maybe we shouldn’t go out to eat so much. Mom and I go out to eat a lot. That’s not being frugal.”

“I can afford pancakes.”

He went back to his food, but with less gusto than before. “I was thinking that maybe I should get a job like you said.”

“You don’t have to get a job. I’ll be working again soon.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t have moved here. Maybe we should move back home.”

His comment, which Charlie knew was an unspoken sentiment in their house, shook him and he couldn’t immediately respond. “We are home,” he finally said. “This is our home.” He picked at some of the bacon. “Why? Do you miss the old neighborhood?”

Kyle shrugged. “I don’t know. Sometimes.”

“Don’t you like it here? We’ve been here awhile.”

He shrugged again. “It’s okay.”

“What don’t you like about it?”

“I don’t know. It’s real quiet all the time. I kind of feel like I’m in outer space. I can hear myself breathing, like an astronaut.” He drank his orange juice and finished a last corner of toast. “How come you got fired from your job?”

“I don’t know. Lots of reasons.”

“How did they do it? Did some guy come into your office and say you’re fired?”

“Actually, I went into his office. You got the rest of it right, though.”

Kyle looked out the window and nodded. “That’s pretty harsh.”

“It wasn’t that bad. It happens. If you work for a big company, you can’t count on anything. Sooner or later, they’re going to get you. It was my turn, that’s all. Pretty much everyone gets fired eventually. It’s like dying.”

“Do you think they might call you and give you your job back?”

“No.” Charlie saw his own reflection in the window. He was smiling, for some reason. “That’s over. I never had a chance there. Let’s just say it was a bad marriage.”

Kyle looked out the window and Charlie’s and his eyes locked for a moment in the reflection. Then he turned his head back down toward his plate. “Are you and Mom getting divorced?” he asked.

Charlie froze. He was still looking at his own smiling reflection. “What? Did Mom say something about that?”

“No.”

He looked at Kyle. “Then why would you ask that?”

“I wondered, that’s all.” Kyle’s face reddened. He kept his head low over his plate, but Charlie could feel his knees pumping nervously under the table.

“No. We’re not getting a divorce. Everything’s going to be fine. It’s a tough time right now for us. We’re all stressed. Everything’s going to be all right, though.”

“Mom cries a lot,” Kyle said.

“She does? When? What do you mean?”

“When I come home from school. I see her crying. Ever since Bill Morgan left.”

Charlie swallowed. “Who’s Bill Morgan?”

“He’s from Bright Day,” Kyle said. “He worked there with her, I think. He lives in a lighthouse or something. He showed me pictures.”

“Lighthouse? What are you talking about?”

Kyle pushed the remains of his pancakes off to the side of his plate with a knife. “He used to come to the house a lot,” he said. “For like coffee and stuff. He was there a lot.”

“At our house? How old is he?”

“I don’t know. About your age,” Kyle said. His eyes were still down on his plate. “He went back home, though, a few weeks ago.”

“Back home? Where does he live?”

“Maine,” Kyle said. “He went back to Maine.”

Charlie never had time for epiphanies, one of those life-changing moments of clarity and self-realization that happen regularly in movies or in contemporary fiction. Epiphanies happened to other people, people who had time for introspection, and a natural inclination for reflection. Up until the moment Kyle told him about Donna and Bill Morgan and Maine, he had never seen the need for one.

After they returned from dinner, he sat in his office and tried to conjure one up. He figured that, all things considered—finding out that his wife was in another state, with (possibly) another man—an epiphany was in order. He spent a good part of the evening sitting alone in the dark, breathing deeply, waiting for understanding, and clarity, to find him.

The fact that he had taken his first-ever Valium before his epiphany search definitely played a role in the Zen-like way he approached matters. An ER doctor had prescribed the Valium months before to help settle him down after the loss of the Southwest Airlines business, but Charlie had been hesitant to indulge, turning instead to bourbon. Tonight, though, he had taken two, along with a large glass of white wine.

The medication was helping. As he sat in his office, staring at a photo of a lighthouse he had found online (he had Googled “Lighthouses,” then “Lighthouses in Maine,” then “Light-houses in Maine + sex”), he felt weightless, airborne. And while clarity and understanding continued to elude him, he didn’t feel entirely unpleasant.

Around midnight, he tried Donna’s cell phone again, then made his way up to Kyle’s room. He found him sleeping fully clothed on top of his blankets. Charlie turned his desk light on and stared down at him. His mouth was slightly open, and his hair was pushed back to reveal a light patch of pimples. As he watched him lie there with his arms tucked under him in such a way that only his hands were visible, like cupped paws, Charlie’s mind flashed back to his days at the zoo. Kyle looked like a peaceful, slumbering animal. A big puppy dog.

He sat on the edge of the bed and looked at his man-puppy son.

“How you doing?” He asked this loudly, like a deaf person might. He had no control over the volume of his voice.

Kyle’s eyes shot open. “What?” He looked confused, but remained perfectly still.

“What’s up?” Charlie asked.

“What?”

“Were you sleeping?”

Kyle had tiny headphones plugged into his ears and stared at Charlie with wide eyes.

“You were sleeping, weren’t you? Sorry. I’ll go now. I didn’t mean to wake you. I thought maybe you were just lying there.”

Kyle blinked. “What?”

The Valium and wine were really kicking in. Charlie felt the room spin, then tilt to the left, then right. He wiped some drool off his chin and looked at Kyle: his son, his child, his
legacy
. When Charlie was dead and gone, Kyle, not the Bagel Man commercials, not the commercials with the parachuting kitten wearing tiny red galoshes, would be the only proof that he had ever existed. This thought struck him as profound. If he weren’t so highly medicated and if his tear ducts were able to function, he certainly would have wept.

He said, “Good night, son,” deeply, hoping to sound like Atticus Finch.

Kyle closed his eyes. Charlie could hear tinny music coming from the headphones. “Everything is going to be okay,” he said, even though he knew Kyle was asleep. Charlie tried to pat him on the head, but missed and instead affectionately patted the side of the pillow.

He stood, shut the light, and walked unsteadily toward the door and out into the hall. At the top of the stairs, he decided that he might need a drink or something to eat. He wasn’t sure what time it was, what day, or even his last name, but he had a sense of being hungry, very hungry. He put his hand on the banister and stared down the stairs. Everything tilted again and he gripped the banister tighter. The floor below seemed far away, very far away.

A light. A voice. Things in and out of focus.

“Dad? Are you all right?”

Charlie followed the voice, and gradually Kyle came into view. He was staring down at him, his eyes wide with concern. “I’m fine, why?”

“Are you sure?” Kyle asked.

“Yes.”

“Why are you lying there?”

“What?” Charlie tried to move and managed to lift his head an inch or so.

“Why are you on the floor?”

It was only after he asked that question that Charlie felt the pain in his face. It was intense and searing and he considered screaming.

Kyle put his hands under Charlie’s shoulders and pulled him to a sitting position. “Did you fall down the stairs or something?”

“Fall?” Charlie was trying to move his mouth back and forth.

“I think you fell down the stairs last night.”

Charlie stopped working his jaw and considered this theory. He moved his head slowly from one side to the next. He was seated at the bottom of the stairs and his face was throbbing.

“I might have,” he said. His teeth hurt.

“Your face is all weird.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, puffy. And you got a lump or something on the side of your forehead. Right there.” He pointed and then helped Charlie to his feet.

“Is there any blood?” Charlie asked. He lightly touched his forehead.

“Yeah. A little on the floor and a little on your face.”

Under normal circumstances, the prospect of blood, particularly his own, would have catapulted him into a hysterical search for the nearest ER. But since he was so dazed, he decided to table his panic until he could think clearly. Besides, he still had a fair amount of Valium cruising through his system and the parts of his brain that housed the hysterical neurons weren’t quite operational.

“I’m okay,” he said. “I must have slipped. But I’m okay. What time is it?”

“It’s about seven-thirty.”

“In the morning?”

“Yeah. Should I call someone? Like a doctor?”

“No. I think I’m okay.” He walked stiffly into the kitchen, purposefully keeping his back to Kyle, embarrassed and disgusted with himself. He didn’t want Kyle seeing his face any more than necessary.

“Do you want some breakfast?”

“I have to go now,” Kyle said.

“Go where?”

“School.”

“Oh, that’s right. School. You go to school. That’s right.”

“Are you going to be home when I get back?”

“Sure.” Charlie opened the refrigerator, leaned down into it, and took out a jar of mayonnaise, which was the first thing he could put his hands on. He was doing his best to pretend that falling face-first down a flight of stairs after taking drugs was not in any way, shape, or form a cause for alarm, or even interest.

“Are you sure you’re not hungry? How about some eggs?” He held the jar of mayonnaise up high over his head, his face still buried in the refrigerator. “I can make them fast. Whip them right up.”

“I gotta go,” Kyle said.

“You sure?” Charlie held the jar up even higher. “I make great eggs.”

“I don’t want any.”

“Okay, well, see you soon, then.”

After Kyle left, he took stock in the hallway mirror: he had the beginnings of a black eye, a heavy and drooping eyelid, and rough scratches on one cheek, which was at least twice its normal size. From the looks of things, it appeared that he had fallen on just the left side of his face. He turned his head one way, and then the other: one side was normal, the other, Elephant Man. Normal. Elephant Man. Normal. Elephant Man. He kept turning his head, both amazed and horrified at the difference. As Kyle had pointed out, there was also a Milk Dud–sized bump on his forehead. He gingerly touched it and moaned. Then he stepped closer to the mirror and probed his mouth. His lips had a film of dried blood on them and he carefully peeled it off with his thumb and index finger. It was while he was doing this that he discovered that one of his upper front teeth was loose. He touched the tooth with his pinkie finger; it wiggled.

“Oh, my God,” he said. He stepped close to the mirror and touched his tooth again. It was now crooked.

“Please, God, no,” he said.

When he touched it a third time, it completely gave way, falling out of his mouth and onto the floor, where it bounced crazily.

“Oh, my God,” Charlie said again. “Oh. My. God.”

On his way downtown to the dentist, he wondered if he could be unconscious and not know it. His head ached terribly and he felt out of focus, disoriented. He wasn’t sure if it was because of his head injury or the Valium, but either way, he knew he was in no condition to drive. He hugged the shoulder of the right lane as he drove, hunched forward over the steering wheel, a wad of blood-soaked toilet paper stuck in the tiny hole in his upper gum. When he entered the Loop, he adjusted the wad, pressing it in tight, and called Donna. He got her voice mail.

“It’s me. Listen, I don’t want to interrupt your little vacation or whatever it is you’re doing, but I was in a serious accident. I think I’m okay. I’m in stable condition. I’m on my way to the dentist right now. I lost a lot of blood. A few pints, maybe. I don’t know how much, but I’m a little dizzy. Call me ASAP. And you should come home ASAP. This is ridiculous.” Then for effect he added, “We have no food in the house and Kyle is hungry.”

Since he had called ahead to the dentist, they were waiting for him. As soon as he got there, a hygienist rushed him into an office and began rinsing out his mouth with warm water. He closed his eyes and tried to remain calm as she worked in silence. Her focused urgency alarmed him and when he could, he took extra-deep breaths. In his right hand, he clutched a bloodied napkin that held the remains of his severed tooth.

When the hygienist was finished, he asked where Dr. Ronin, his dentist, was.

“He’ll be right in.” She was a small, pretty Hispanic woman whose brown eyes worriedly searched the Elephant Man part of his face. “Were you in an accident?”

“No, I woke up like this. Now, where is he? Dr. Ronin. I need him now! Pronto! I lost a lot of blood.”

“You’re fine,” she said.

“I am
not
fine. Do not say I’m fine. Where is he?”

A moment later, Dr. Ronin walked in and, after inspecting the inside of his mouth, quickly assessed the damage.

“I’m afraid you’re going to need a prosthesis,” he said.

“Prosthesis? What do you mean? Like a fake leg?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t understand. What do you mean, yes?”

“I mean, yes, you need a prosthesis.”

This diagnosis and, he thought, the overly direct way it was communicated, shook him. “I can’t believe this. You mean you can’t use the old one?” Charlie presented him with the bloody napkin.

Dr. Ronin backed away. “What’s that?”

“Unwrap it.”

The dentist carefully took and unfolded the napkin, then picked up the tooth.

“See, it’s in perfect shape,” Charlie said. “Can’t you just insert it back into place? Just pop it in?”

Dr. Ronin examined the tooth. He was a small, shy man with white hair and bushy Einstein eyebrows. Charlie had been his patient for more than twenty-five years and, despite the fact that he had moved his offices three times and never once sent him a change-of-address notification, Charlie still believed he cared for him. “No,” he said. “It wasn’t a clean break. There’s still some tooth fragments in your gum. You need a prosthesis, Charlie.”

“For the rest of my life?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus. Well, how will this work? Will I be able to eat regular food?”

“You’ll be able to eat anything you want.”

“Really? What about apples, then? Can I eat apples?”

Dr. Ronin put the bloody napkin with the tooth on the counter behind him. “You probably shouldn’t eat apples,” he said. “At least not for a while.”

Despite the fact that Charlie hadn’t held, much less eaten, an apple since the fifth grade, this news stunned him. “You mean to tell me I can never eat an apple again? Is that what you’re telling me? For the rest of my life? Come on, you’re kidding me, right? I mean, you’re kidding.”

Dr. Ronin turned his back to Charlie and started washing his hands in a sink. “Charlie, please, you’ll be fine.”

“What about other things? Other foods?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, like…like taffy? What about taffy?”

“Taffy?”

“Yeah, taffy!” Charlie yelled this.

Dr. Ronin turned and leaned against the sink while he methodically dried his hands. “Do you eat a lot of taffy?”

“Sometimes,” Charlie said. He put a hand up to his mouth and then pulled it away with a snapping motion, like he was eating taffy. “I eat it sometimes.”

“I would probably advise against eating a lot of that.”

“Advise against…?” Charlie stopped, not able to complete the sentence. The news kept getting worse. He started breathing deeply again.

“Charlie, please. You’re overreacting. I need you to stop this right now.”

“Overreacting? I can’t eat apples, I can’t eat taffy. I bet I can’t eat corn on the cob. Am I right? Can I eat corn on the cob? Tell me the truth! I want everything on the table. Everything.”

Dr. Ronin was silent.

“Tell me! I have a right to know the truth about the corn!”

“You can eat creamed corn.”