Page 120 of Playworld
It also had air-conditioning, which was a relief from August’s unrelenting, kiln-hot temperatures, an all-out assault comprising sunlight that reflected off car windows so brightly I had to squint and heat thatradiated from the tarred cracks so softened in places it stuck to the soles of my sneakers. This swelter was coupled with humidity so high it made any breeze feel more like a blast from a hand dryer and, rather than eradicate the city’s smells, only intensified them. Traffic and the uncurbed dog shit and the refuse in the wire trash bins through which this fruited air passed. The stink rising from the subway’s grates after mixing with the tea-brown puddles that never seemed to evaporate along the tracks—a steeped, rusty mixture of rail soot and grime that the cars’ blue flash ionized into a gas and, taken together, only existed at summer’s end in New York, when the season seemed endless; and relief, which fall promised, also meant the beginning of school.
“If I had a place like this,” Oren said, “I’d never leave.”
He was one of my dressing room visitors. He did not come by often—maybe three times that month. Things had not been the same between us since he told me how I’d deserted him the night of the fire. If my recollections, which were so vivid, could be so suddenly altered, who was I? Whathadhappened? I apologized to Oren on his first visit. I confessed that no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t remember doing what he’d accused me of, and in response he said, with some exhaustion, something so wise it was on par with one of Elliott’s aphorisms: “Let’s chalk it up to childhood.” It was for him I’d stocked the room with food; when he’d showed up that first time, he mentioned he was hungry, but when I offered to take him to the commissary, he declined, he had to get back to work—which I incorrectly assumed was still at Popeyes. After that, I was sure to have his favorites: Streit’s matzo, which he liked to eat with margarine, as well as Flower brand Moroccan sardines, the ones in tomato sauce, plus Oscar Mayer bologna—my most famous commercial—with Kraft singles, which Oren rolled into tubes. He’d been living with Matt, he told me when I asked, at Matt’s father’s place in the Beresford. It was great, he explained. He was a record producer and spent his weekdays in Los Angeles and Nashville, so they had the run of the apartment. “Speaking of,” Oren said, sounding like Dad, “I love what you’ve done with the place.” He meant the maps of dungeons and castles for Griffynweld I’d taped to my walls, the monsters I’d drawn (a mind flayer, a manticore, a harpy, a golem, a griffin), my manuals and dice stacked next to my unreadpile of summer reading books. I urged him not to look too closely. It would spoil the surprise. We’d be playing together in September, when Dad finally got home.
“You mean ‘if,’ ” Oren said.
I didn’t want to think about it.
“You speak to him?” he asked.
“He calls me here sometimes, before curtain.”
“Where is he now?”
“D.C.”
“What about Mom?”
The Monday morning after my weekend at Amanda’s, before I’d headed to work, Mom had called me into her room. A mostly packed suitcase lay on her bed. “I’m taking the train this afternoon to Virginia, to spend some time with my parents,” she explained as she folded some remaining clothes. “Most of my ladies are on holiday anyway,” she said, referring to her clients. Dad’s show had just begun previews at the Kennedy Center, so I asked Mom if she was going there to be nearer to him. She shook her head. “I’m going there to be nearer to myself,” she said, clicking the suitcase’s clasps. I understood what she meant and I didn’t. She beat me to my next question.
“The Shahs have agreed to let you stay with them while I’m away.”
I blinked at this several times; it was all the reaction I could muster. “But they live in Great Neck.”
“They commute,” Mom said.
“What about Oren?”
“He’s staying at Matt’s.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“A week,” Mom said. “Maybe longer.”
“Are you and Dad getting a divorce?”
“We haven’t talked about it.”
“Does he know you’re leaving?”
“We haven’t talked about that either.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will when you get older.”
“Why do adults always say that?” I asked. “It makes me never want to grow up.”
“That’s fair,” Mom said.
“It’s not.”
“No,” Mom said, “none of this is fair.”
She reached her arms out to me and we hugged. I had grown much taller than her, though she only seemed smaller when we weren’t touching. Her temple rested on my chest. She was the most physical with me when she was in pain.
“Naomi is very fond of you,” Mom said. “You’ll be in good hands.”