Page 104 of Playworld
“Has she ever told you, unconditionally, that she’s not interested in you?”
I shook my head again.
“In my experience—this was before your mother, of course—no girl’s ever going to spend that much time with you if she doesn’t like you.”
I felt so flooded with hope I couldn’t speak.
“Some women,” Dad said, “want to be in control. And some want you totakecontrol. True, some just like to keep their options open, which is maybe what she’s doing. But do you ever get that feeling? That sense,” he went on, and paused, “of an opening?”
“Sometimes,” I said.
“Next time you do”—he grabbed at the air as if he were trying to catch the steam in his clenched fist—“take it.”
Two men entered the room.
“Maybe treat this period like the offseason,” Dad continued. “Like your wrestler friend. Work on other parts of your game until Alissa comes around.”
“Amanda.”
“In the meantime”—and here Dad lowered his voice—“rent a good porno. For the technical aspects.” He winked. Then he cupped my head and, after pulling it toward him, kissed my temple. “I’m gonna miss you, boychik.”
“I’m going to miss you too.”
“Take care of your mom,” he said. “She can get very emotional when I’m gone.”
—
Until early July, when we began shootingThe Nuclear Family,my only jobs were to audition, work out at the Y, and get ahead on my summer reading.
The Boyd Prep summer reading list always arrived with my final grades and was as dreadful a document as my transcript, if not more so, since it hung over my summer like bus exhaust. That morning, I found Mom in her bedroom, sitting at her desk with both the list and my grades. I was just home from my second audition of the day. “Congratulations on your English exam,” Mom said, handing me my report card and Boyd’s reading list. She watched me review them: four high Cs and a B-plus (English); four novels of our choice, as if that made it any better, plusThe Sun Also Rises.I half smiled at her and she half smiled back when I returned my transcript. I noticed she’d done some reorganizing. Dad’s clutter, which had collaged her desktop, had been arranged in several new office trays. Her closet door, open behind her, revealed a file cabinet, its bottom drawer open. She placed my transcript in a folder with my name on the tab. She checked her watch and then got up from her chair. “Come on,” she said, and held up the reading list, “we can go to Shakespeare and Company and buy some of these, and then I’ll take you to lunch before your next appointment.”
At the bookstore, we separated. I took my time, and this greatly pleased Mom, who came up to me now and again and said, “Isn’t wandering around this placethe best?” I nodded brightly, though I was making my choices based strictly on the width of the spines. When we reconvened at the checkout line, I’d arrived with the four thinnest ones I could find:Heart of Darkness,Death Comes for the Archbishop,The Crying of Lot 49,andSeize the Day.
“Don’t get that,” Mom said, frowning at the Pynchon. “Get this instead.” She handed meGoodbye, Columbus.“It’s romantic. Oh, and I picked this out for you”—she held upMoby-Dick—“because I know how much you liked that Farley Mowat book last year. And these,” she said, holding upMiddlemarchandThe Portrait of a Lady,“because they’re only the greatest novels of all time.”
I flipped through the latter and slowly nodded. Four hundred plus pages of the smallest print I’d ever seen.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Even if you don’t read those this summer, you can have them for your library. Should we go eat? All this shopping has left mefamished.”
We walked down Broadway. Under this June-blue sky, the summer felt endless. On the crossing islands trees, the light silvered the rustling leaves, so that they flashed like metallic pom-poms.
“I’m sobushedthese days,” Mom said, looking at her watch. Her morning Pilates sessions with her clients had left her more tired than she imagined, she explained, and since she’d started her business, it was more of a challenge to make time for her professional class in the afternoon. I told her I was tired too and mentioned my workout, explained to her who Vince Voelker was, our chance meeting at the gym, and that I was going to train with him this summer. At this she gently took my scruff and shook it, then led us east, toward Columbus Avenue, the street shady, wind-sheltered, quiet. Of everyone in our family, Mom had the least amount of actor in her, though I now detected a feigned boldness in her step, her chin tilted just a few more degrees skyward than normal, an extra fierceness with which she clutched her purse’s strap—all of this, I thought, connected with her clean desk and the several months that lay before her, in charge of Oren and me, in charge of her life, and Dad mostly gone. We had the block to ourselves, so I took her elbow. She turned to me and, because she was rarely one to make small talk, smiled, and I smiled back, and she said, “I’m glad we got that done earlier. It gives you a chance to get ahead for next year.” And I briefly laid my head on her shoulder.
Mom took us to Lenge. As she opened the door, she looked back and said, “Have you ever eaten sushi before?” When I shook my head, she said, “Well, you’re in for a treat.”
We were greeted by the hostess and followed her into a windowless dining room that seemed doubly darker and cooler given the brightness outside. It was as quiet as an empty theater. When we took our seats, Mom, who had lowered her voice, said, “Do you know what sushi is?” When I shook my head again, she leaned her chest over the menu, clutching it from beneath, so that we were closer to each other. Her eyes shined. I could tell she was thrilled that she was introducing me to something. “It’s raw fish served on rice. Or wrapped in seaweed. When I used to work with Pilates, he claimed that if your muscles were really sore andyou needed to recover fast, this was the very best meal you could have.” The waitress appeared and tonged each of us a rolled towel, so hot that steam rose from it. Mom wiped her hands, an act I copied. “We’ll have green tea,” she told the woman when she returned, “and two assorted sushi. Oh, and I’ll have a hot sake.” When the waitress took our menus, Mom shrugged her shoulders and quietly clapped.
“That’s the sushi bar,” she said, and thumbed behind her. There were two chefs behind the counter in aprons and paper hats, quietly and intently at work. “I like to eat there after barre sometimes and read. And you can watch the chefs make the individual pieces and the rolls. All the fish is kept in those refrigerated cases.”
“They look like observation cars,” I said.
“Don’t they?” she said. “Can you see the salmon? Isn’t it beautiful? And that long red piece of fish next to it, the one that’s almost cherry colored. That’s tuna.”
The waitress reappeared with our appetizers.
“Don’t you love the spoons?” Mom said. “This is miso soup.” She stirred her soup. “Smell that. It’sloamy,right? Like soil. And those are mushrooms, and a bit of scallion. And the tiny white cubes are tofu, which are also made from soybeans. The greens are seaweed. It has lots of protein and minerals, which are good for after workouts.”