When Hannah sits down, Sam says, “It’s Sleeping Beauty. Are you hungover or something?”
“Where’s Oliver?” Hannah asks.
“He took Mom’s car to run an errand,” Allison says. “He said he’d be gone about twenty minutes.”
“Wait,” Hannah says. “He drove?” Oliver does not have a driver’s license. When Allison looks at her curiously, Hannah looks away. To Sam, she says, “I’m not hungover at all. I didn’t even drink last night.”
“You should have,” Allison says. “The champagne looked delicious.” Allison is six months pregnant and glowing even more than usual.
“Hannah, if you’re dating an Aussie, you have to step up,” Sam says. “Become more of a lush.”
“Oliver’s from New Zealand,” Hannah says. “But thanks for the tip.”
Sam grins, and Hannah thinks of the energy she used to expend feeling irritated by him. She didn’t understand back then that you don’t ask a person to defend her significant other, that she never should have asked Allison to. Not because of the sanctity of couple-hood (as far as Hannah can tell, there are only ever fleeting, split-second episodes of sanctity between any couple) but because maybe the person can’t entirely defend her mate, because maybe—probably—the person has her own ambivalence, and your criticisms are undermining. And not even of the couple but of this individual trying to move forward in her life, making choices that she hopes are the right ones when, really, how does anyone ever know? Forcing Allison to stand up for Sam, Hannah thinks now, was naïve as much as obnoxious. Hannah used to imagine a greater merging between two people, a point beyond which you felt an unquestioning certainty in each other.
“Did you sign the card for Mom and Frank?” Allison asks.
Hannah nods, taking a sesame bagel. “Dad’s in town, right?” she says.
“Yeah, we saw him yesterday. Are you thinking of…” Allison trails off, her expression encouraging.
“Maybe,” Hannah says. “But please let’s not have some big conversation about it.”
OLIVER RETURNS AFTER closer to forty minutes than twenty. When Hannah hears the car in the driveway, she grabs her coat and goes outside. Oliver kisses her on the lips, and she can taste cigarettes, the purchase of which she assumes was his errand. He is wearing a plaid flannel shirt and over it a black down parka that definitely doesn’t belong to him—it’s Sam’s or maybe even Allison’s. Hannah gestures toward it and says, “Cute.” Hannah and Oliver flew in last night from Boston, and then—Hannah’s mother apologetically insisted—Oliver slept on the pullout couch in the den. It’s slightly bizarre to have his handsomeness set down here by daylight in her mother’s familiar, comforting, unexciting condo.
“So Aunt Polly offered to show me her art class portfolio,” Oliver says. He perches on the porch railing, lights a cigarette, and takes a puff. “But I sense that it’s filled with giant penises, and I’m afraid I’ll feel inadequate.”
“Aunt Polly’s taking an art class? Like adult ed or something?”
“Ask her yourself. She’ll be more than happy to tell you. They’re currently studying the human form, and she said the male model is quite well hung.”
“Aunt Polly did not say well hung.”
Oliver holds up the hand with the cigarette in it, palm facing her. “As God is my witness.” He has that little pre-smile on his face, though.
“Aunt Polly would never say that. Or if she did, she must not know what it means.” Polly is Fig’s mother, fifty-eight years old, with graying black hair that’s usually pulled back in a bun. Every year on Thanksgiving, she wears an enamel turkey pin.
“Of course she knows what it means,” Oliver says. “Do you think she was referring to his earlobes? She also said she finds his scrotum exquisite. She’s never considered herself partial to the scrote, but something special’s going on with this guy.”
Hannah shakes her head—they both are smiling—and she says, “You’re such a liar.”
“Your aunt’s appreciation of the male sex organs is healthy. Don’t be judgmental.”
Oliver is still seated on the railing, and she has a strange urge to butt her head against his chest, like a goat. She’s not into the sex with him, but she’s always reassured by his arms around her. When he lights another cigarette, she feels a leap of happiness—she thought he would smoke only one, but now they get to stay out here longer, alone on the back porch. Oliver’s smoking doesn’t bother her at all, which is something that actually does sort of bother her. But the smoke reminds her, even when they’re together, of him.
“I might go see my dad today,” Hannah says. “Do you think I should?”
Oliver shrugs. “Sure.”
“Do you remember that I haven’t spoken to him for several years?”
“Not since he tried to force-feed you pasta, if I’m not mistaken.” Oliver often seems like he’s not particularly listening, yet he has an excellent memory. It’s both insulting and flattering.
“If I go, do you want to come?” Hannah asks.
“Do I want to or will I?”
“Either, I guess.”
“Will, yes. Want to, no.” Perhaps he senses that she’s displeased, because he reaches out and pulls her toward him so she’s leaning sideways against his chest. Although his cigarette must be perilously close to her hair, this configuration is pretty much what she was thinking of before, with herself as the goat. “You don’t need me to go with you, Hannah,” he says, and his voice is one of affectionate indulgence. “You’re a big girl.”
AFTER STEPPING OFF the elevator on the fourth floor, Hannah walks down the carpeted hall until she finds her father’s apartment. This is where he has lived for almost ten years, since selling their house on the Main Line. Though her heart is thudding, she knocks without hesitation; the gesture of knocking is habit. When her father opens the door, he smiles in a pleasantly superficial fashion, as he might for the adult daughter of a neighbor, and says, “Come on in.” She follows him and accepts his offer of Diet Coke, which is what he is drinking. (It’s weird—it’s practically girly—to see her father drinking Diet Coke.) Hannah is struck by, of all things, his good looks. At fifty-eight, he remains fit and lean; his gray hair is neatly combed; he is wearing Top-Siders, khaki pants, and a blue polo shirt with the collar visible above the neck of his gray sweatshirt. If he were a stranger Hannah passed on the sidewalk, wouldn’t she assume he had a life attendant to such looks? She’d think he had an attractive wife, with whom he would attend a benefit dinner at the art museum that night.
When they are settled in the living room, he says, “Long time, no see, Hannah. I have to confess, I was surprised when I got your call this morning. To what do I owe the honor?”
“Well, I’m in town for the weekend,” Hannah says.
“Indeed. And your mom’s becoming a real estate heiress, huh? Who’d have thunk?”
“Frank seems like a good guy.”
“I’ll tell you what Frank McGuire is, and that’s one shrewd businessman. He’s not afraid to get his hands dirty. I’ll say that about him.”
“Have you ever met him?”
“Oh, sure. Not for years, but I’ve met him. He’s a well-known fellow in this city.”
“He’s pretty low-key with us,” Hannah says.
“And how about yourself? I trust you’re gainfully employed these days.”
If he really does ask Allison about Hannah, it seems impossible that he doesn’t know what her job is. “I work at a nonprofit that sends classical musicians into public schools,” she says.
“Now, there’s some irony. I remember when you wouldn’t practice piano to save your life.”
“You’re thinking of Allison. I never took piano lessons.”
“I beg your pardon? You took them from that witch of a woman on Barkhurst Lane.”
“That was definitely Allison.”
“You never took piano lessons? I guess you had a deprived childhood.”
“Anyway,” she
says, “I’m on the fund-raising side.”
“A nonprofit, huh? Both you and your sister turned out to be bleeding hearts.”
“You were in the Peace Corps, Dad.”
He makes a kind of cheerful grimace. “Hard to believe, isn’t it? I always thought one of you would go to business or law school. It’s not too late, you know. You’re about to turn twenty-six?”
She nods. She can’t imagine anything she’d be less suited for than business or law school.
“You’d probably be right in the middle. An MBA in particular, that opens up a lot of options. If I were your age, I’d go for that, forget about this law crap.”
She nods some more. If she stays another fifteen minutes, that ought to be enough. “Have you been traveling much for work?” she asks.
“Less and less. I’ve got a case over in King of Prussia, if you consider that toilet bowl travel. Where I did go, not for work but for some R and R, is down to Florida last month.” Her father leans forward. “Grab that album on the shelf, will you? You’ll enjoy these.”
When she’s holding the album, he waves her toward him. Meaning they’re supposed to sit on the couch side by side? And since when has her father taken pictures? He always showed impatience when her mother had them pose; as her mother waited hopefully for the sun to reemerge, or perhaps for Hannah to smile, he’d say, “Hurry up and just take it, Caitlin.”
“I went with a couple of the guys, Howard Donovan and Rich Inslow,” he says. “Inslow’s separated now, too.”
Hannah does not remember her father having friends, certainly not close ones. The Donovans and the Inslows both belonged to the same country club as the Gaveners—her mother was no longer a member after the divorce, so Hannah rarely went—but the other men hadn’t appeared to be more than acquaintances. Interestingly, her father stopped dating around the time her mother started; he was in a few relationships at first, but those all fell away.
“It was a golfing trip, just a long weekend,” her father is saying. “This is the resort. Gorgeous greens, perfect view of the ocean. It’s in Clearwater, over on the Gulf.”
How strange to think of her father purchasing this blue leather album in a store, then sitting on this very sofa, perhaps, and sliding the photos under plastic. He has not labeled the pictures, nor has he done any weeding, including even the shots that are identical or out of focus or show the men with closed eyes. Here are Howard Donovan and Rich Inslow sitting in the waiting area of their gate at the Philadelphia airport, Rich eating some type of breakfast sandwich; here are aerial photos during the plane’s descent, a photo of Howard driving while Rich holds a map in the front seat, a shot of them unloading their clubs from the trunk of the rental car in the resort parking lot. On and on, her father’s mood steadily climbing as he shows her the pictures, and then comes the clear zenith: photos from what her father refers to as an Oriental restaurant where they ate the night before their departure. There are two shots of Rich with his arm around a young, pretty dark-haired waitress in a navy and white kimono, a few of the decor (heavy on bamboo, with the option—her father and his friends apparently declined—to remove one’s shoes and sit on the floor), and her father’s favorite shot of all from within this favorite setting, a sushi and sashimi tray ordered by Howard. Her father points out the slimy rectangles of pink and maroon fish draped over rice, the tiny heap of ginger. “You know what that is?” he asks, jabbing at a lump of pale green.
“It’s wasabi, isn’t it?”
“That stuff is lethal. It’s the Japanese kind of horseradish. Honest to God, it’ll bring tears to your eyes.”
She is shocked, and also afraid to look at him. As he turns the page, he’s describing a dessert whose name he cannot remember but which arrived at the table in flames. She feels utterly bewildered. This is who her father is: someone tickled by the existence of sushi. Someone who takes pictures inside a restaurant. Her father is cheesy. Even his handsomeness, she thinks, looking at one of the few photos in which he appears, is of a certain harmlessly generic sort, the handsomeness of a middle-aged male model in the department-store insert of the Sunday Inquirer. Has she only imagined him as a monster? His essential lesson, she always believed, was this: There are many ways for you to transgress, and most you will not recognize until after committing them. But is it she who invented this lesson? At the least, she met him halfway, she bought in to it. Not just as a child but all through adolescence and into adulthood—until this very moment. She realizes now that Allison does not buy in to it, that she must not have for years, and that’s why Allison doesn’t fight with their father or refuse to talk to him for long stretches. Why bother? Hannah always assumed Allison was bullied into her paternal devotion, but no—it is Hannah who has seen his anger as much bigger than it ever was.
After thirty-two minutes, Hannah carries her Diet Coke into the kitchen to throw away (years ago, Allison tried to get him to recycle, and of course he wouldn’t). Hannah wonders, does Sam also recognize that Douglas Gavener is not to be taken seriously? Does Dr. Lewin, from a distance? Does everyone except for Hannah and, for a time—for nineteen years, which is how long Hannah’s parents were married—her mother?
But not truly threatening isn’t the same as not a jerk. He was a jerk. Standing in the kitchen, she thinks she will go back out there and ask him just what he had to be so angry about all those years ago. His wife was kind, his daughters were obedient. They had the accoutrements of upper-middle-class life. What more had he expected?
But when she reenters the living room, he says, “Tell your sister or Sam to call me if they want the tickets—Eagles versus the Giants. There’s a chance I could get hold of one for you, too.” Then he extends his hand for her to shake, and this is why she can’t ask him anything. If he is shaking her hand, if he’s being this distant and careful, he knows he was a jerk. He doesn’t need to be asked or told—beneath his sour jocularity, he knows.
She steps forward and kisses his cheek. She says, “ ’Bye, Dad.”
FRANK MCGUIRE IS sixty-one, eight years older than Hannah’s mother. He’s about five-ten, with both a receding hairline and thinning hair, an ample midsection, pudgy fingers, and full lips; his lower lip in particular is as soft and large as a Hollywood actress’s. During the ceremony, holding a bouquet of freesias and roses, Hannah experiences a surge of thoughts, suppressed until this moment. Do her mother and Frank have sex? Is Frank in essence buying her mother’s middle-aged beauty, and is he able to buy it only because her mother has put it up for sale? What does his gut look like unclothed, and if you have a gut like that, do you go on top or on the bottom? It seems one thing to age together gradually, like maybe the drooping and expansion would be less obvious as it occurred over the years, but to come to each other for the first time this way—don’t you feel terribly apologetic about your own shortcomings, and afraid of what the other person might unveil?
Also, what about the information you disclose? With all that has happened to you by then, you must by necessity be picking and choosing, so do you simply jettison the most excruciating parts of your past? Would Hannah’s mother ever mention to Frank that her first husband once forced her and her daughters to leave the house in the middle of the night? Does Hannah’s mother remember this? She must. Not that they would ever talk about it, but she must.
“I’M GOING TO tell you something I haven’t told anyone,” Fig says, “but you can’t react at all.”
Hannah and Fig are sitting on the living room couch, holding plates on their laps. The food is catered, and Hannah’s mother has brought out the blue-and-white china and monogrammed silver, and all around them the other wedding guests, the majority of whom are relatives, talk noisily. The ceremony was brief, and it is now almost six and dark outside the unshut curtains. Inside, the room has a rosy glow: The glasses and silverware are shiny, and people’s cheeks are flushed, maybe because of the champagne or maybe because Mrs. Dawes, the oldest friend of Hannah and Fig’s deceased grandmother, has been du
tifully included in the festivities and the thermostat has therefore been jacked up to seventy-five.
“I’m serious,” Fig adds. “No gasping.”
“Fig, just say it.”
“I’m seeing someone new,” Fig begins, and Hannah thinks, Of course you are and is halfway to tuning her out, and then Fig says, “and it’s Dave Risca’s sister.”
At first Hannah thinks she didn’t hear correctly. “His sister?” she repeats.
“What did I just tell you about reacting?”
“I’m not reacting,” Hannah says. “I’m clarifying.” Fig is dating a woman? “You don’t mean seeing-seeing,” Hannah says. “You mean you made out at a party.”
When Fig says, “No, I mean we’re in a relationship,” Hannah thinks how this news will force her to reconsider the world. “I ran into her a few months after I moved back to Philly,” Fig says. “We were talking on the sidewalk, and I start to get this vibe, and she asks if I want to have a drink. And then one thing led to another.”
“What does she look like?”
“She’s stylish.” In Fig’s charmed, protective tone, Hannah can hear her attraction to the woman. The relationship might be partly a lark for Fig, but not completely. “She has, like, a delicate jaw and green eyes. Her name’s Zoe.”
“Long or short hair?”
“Short.”
This relieves Hannah. It would be somehow unfair, though not unsurprising, if Fig were dating a lesbian with long blond hair. “Is it really different from being with a man?” Hannah says.
“Not especially. I always found it easier to climax through oral sex than penetration anyway.”