Page 45 of Playworld
She said, “Dang it, Leo,” because the Locatellos weren’t allowed to cuss. Then she started counting Mississippis, and we ran.
The game changed after that.
Usually, the four of us would cluster. But having Patrick and Bridget there splintered us. Anthony and Patrick paired off. Oren, who, to my consternation, abandoned me for Anthony the moment the cousins arrived, joined their triumvirate. So too did Bridget and Leo, who were often missing at each round’s conclusion. If we called out to them, they would not answer, at least not initially. They appeared from the dark, out of bounds, to which we voiced our disapproval. And when we did search for them, we would find them sitting together against the central air unit, say, with their knees together, or lying on their stomachs at the very edge of the boundary, as if they were at the beach, their shoulders touching. Their status as a couple was not mysterious; it was their familiarity andcomfort, as if they’d known each other for a lifetime; they seemed somehow more adult and a world unto themselves, and this impressed me deeply and filled me with a longing I could not name, one that exceeded my fantasies swirling around Deb Peryton or Gwyneth or even Naomi. When we accused Leo ofnotplaying, he shrugged as if unjustly accused and then said that we just weren’t looking carefully enough. (The two times Bridget was it, she managed to find Leo with nearly inhuman speed.) He was being magnanimous toward us for Bridget while protecting her at the same time, and it was exasperating. “You just ran right past us,” he said to Oren, and then to Bridget, “Didn’t he?” She did not agree but, keen to the tension, smiled at him, warmly, and then at Oren, who was, for the first time in his life, mute.
Strangely, it was as if Bridget were permanently it, even if she wasn’t. I was aware of her location at all times; simply being in the zone of her person commanded the totality of my attention. She put all my senses on highest alert: her scent was part Prell shampoo, part Cherry Smash lip gloss; the sound of her laugh was like a muffled bell. I did not dare run faster than her when we ran because it was an excuse to stay close. There was a strange luminescence about her person that shined from beneath her skin like a hand cupped over a flashlight. Even in the dark I could make out her features distinctly. I talked so loudly Oren told me to keep it down. Oren and my cousins had spent time together without me that I couldn’t make up; Anthony and Lucy and now, by proxy, Patrick were his allies and in on the joke, and they snickered. It was at these moments I realized they perceived the summers I spent on set as a sort of desertion, not only an abandonment but a choice that revealed a crippling and selfish aspect of my character of which I was not aware.
Which was also why I think Bridget’s presence affected me—now, especially, when I was it—because she was new to our group. This made her even more alluring, and it prompted me to violate the rules. Instead of remaining near the house, I backed up far beyond its gravitational pull. I clicked off the flashlight, listening for a while to the others booing, spooking each other, trying to lure me out—“I hear you, Griffin,” Lucy shouted from a good hundred yards away. My absence only ratcheted up the group’s terror. I watched their furtive figures orbiting the house. And I could keep track of where Bridget was. She was slightly knock-kneed,and this made her gait slow and effortful and easy to identify, especially when she ran up the hill toward the high side of the house. It pleased me to watch her so unreservedly.
Later, she and Leo unlatched from a shadow and began walking in my direction, toward her car, which was parked behind ours. They made their way around to crouch by the driver’s-side door, so that they were hidden from everyone’s view except mine. The pair of them, also out of bounds, listened for the rest of us and then, at a barrage of screams, covered their mouths to laugh at our silliness. When they were satisfied that they were safe, Bridget, in her down coat, crossed her arms behind Leo’s neck while Leo placed his hands on her hips. When they kissed both their spines straightened, their bodies braiding, and when one of the others came close, they’d stop and shrink against the car’s bumper, resting forehead to forehead, waiting for Anthony and Patrick to go running past, for Lucy and Oren to go chugging by. Leo said something to her, and they opened the passenger door and snuck into her car, into the back seat, and then sank beneath the windows, out of view. Strangely, this did not remind me of my evenings with Naomi. And I was not a bit jealous. If anything, I felt warmed by the sight of them instead of alone and cold.
Their extended absence soon disbanded the game. I heard Oren and Lucy complaining, and, disgruntled, they retreated inside. The car’s windows were by now fogged, the garage door closed, and I rolled onto my back and stared at the stars. I Morse-coded the flashlight’s beam toward the heavens, because I’d heard that these pulses traveled infinitely and might somewhere be seen, and I imagined telling an imaginary someone this fact, as she lay next to me while I held her hand.
—
Grandma’s scrambled eggs were firmer and drier than my father’s. From her pan they took on the color of the link sausage. To our orange juice she added brewer’s yeast, whose chalkiness we had to drink in its entirety or else not be excused. I still had room for a bowl of muesli afterward and another slice of pie. Then Oren and I departed for our cousins’ house. Anthony got permission to take Oren and me shooting. We took the three .22 rifles hanging on the rack in the living room, then walked to a dilapidated, two-story house on their property, and blasted bottles till we ran out of ammo. For lunch, Auntie Maine made us sloppy joes,French fries, and broccoli with Cheez Whiz. They got their milk from a neighbor’s cow, a skin of cream coated the top of the pitcher. It tasted like a shake, and for dessert I poured this over a bowl of Cap’n Crunch, because we drank skim at home and Mom never let us buy sweet cereal.
My father’s discontent during this holiday was an enormous, complicated matter. We often stayed through New Year’s, and since he had no skill at throwing a football or any interest in playing cribbage with my grandmother, and since he read only theTimes,which he couldn’t get in suburban Virginia, my father had no way to occupy himself. Three days in and he was going out of his mind. So far as I could tell, his discontent was a function of his simply being out of New York. Robbed of its noise and bustle, he responded with an ever-increasing antsiness. As if by leaving Manhattan, Manhattan, in his absence, threatened to disappear, and he must get back to it in order to preserve its existence. Because of this, Dad always seemed to be passing through, especially around midday, lingering long enough to ponder Grandma and me playing gin in the living room, or Grandpa in his study, practicing Spanish on his reel-to-reel while I watched TV, and then stomping away in a huff. His consternation grew worse with each passing day. Christmas Eve morning, after breakfast, he stopped in the doorframe of the living room, where we were all gathered. Mom was on the couch, reading with a throw blanket over her legs. He waited for her to put down her book. “Why don’t you go for a walk on the golf course?” she said. At this, Dad stared through the large bay window, at the number three fairway, its grass as brown and forbidding as tundra.
“Maybe I’ll go to Woody’s and do some last-minute Christmas shopping,” he said.
“In D.C.?” Mom said.
He shrugged, and she looked at her watch.
“Take the boys with you,” Mom suggested.
“I’m helping with the dinner,” Oren said. He was playing hearts with Grandma and Grandpa. We couldn’t go see the cousins. They’d gone off to see Uncle Marco’s side of the family—they were doubling up on presents, and the fact that we weren’t getting any gifts from Dad’s side, not even for Hanukkah, still made him furious.
“Griffin,” Mom said, “why don’t you go with your father.”
I looked up from Grandma’sEncyclopedia of Fishand pointed at myself.
“Come on,” Dad said, and winked. “I’ll make it worth your while.”
Dad asked for permission to borrow Grandpa’s Peugeot. The keys hung on a hook above the kitchen’s desk.
“Fantastic car,” Dad said once we were inside. He pulled the shoulder belt across his chest.
“What model is this?” I asked.
Dad shrugged. “It’s French.” He pushed the stick left to right and then turned the keys in the ignition. The engine sounded more like a piece of farm equipment than a sedan. A thrum came up through the seats and made the gearshift vibrate. The black fumes transported me back to New York, and I rolled up my slightly cracked window. We made a left out the driveway and headed toward the country club. We stopped at the four-way intersection at the top of the hill.
“Do you like driving a stick more than an automatic?” I asked.
“Absolutely,” Dad said. As if to elaborate, he let the car roll backward ever so slightly, giving it gas just as gently so that we advanced the same distance back to the stop line in a pleasant pull-me/push-you alternation. “More control.”
“Is it hard to learn?”
“Here,” he said. He crossed the intersection and, after entering the club’s stone gates, swung around back to its large, empty parking lot. “You try.”
It was not a long lesson. It might have been one of the only practical lessons my father ever taught me. I couldn’t sing, after all, and I wasn’t interested in opera or photography; I was already a more successful film and television actor, and Dad was no athlete. His magnanimity was as surprising as his patience. Perhaps he was relieved to have something to do. Perhaps he was also gladdened to be instructive and relished the real authority it conferred. Most likely it was both. There was no showmanship in the session. His method was very effective. Once I was installed in the driver’s seat, he assured me, “Don’t worry about stopping. We have plenty of open space, and if need be”—he touched the hand brake between us—“I’ve got it.” He had me keep my foot on the clutch and then give as little gas as possible but “steady pressure on the pedal,” hesaid, “the whole time. There. Just like that. Now just ease off the clutch.” We began to inch forward. “Don’t worry that we’re moving,” he continued as we advanced. I stalled and we started over. “I want you to feel the point of engagement. The moment the car drops into gear. Gently let the pressure off the clutch…now.” I was comfortably in first. We were moving. “Go around the parking lot at this speed,” Dad said. We drove the lot’s length and I turned. “Now comes the tricky part,” he said, as we turned again and onto this straightaway of sorts. “Give it a little more gas. You see the RPMs revving high on the dash? Depress the clutch.” I did and it felt like gliding. “Now drop it into second gear.” Later, we did some downshifting. Of course I stalled several times. When I apologized, Dad told me not to worry about it, and we went through all the stages of starting the car before moving again.
Maybe the lesson lasted a half hour. I don’t recall exactly, but by the end I was comfortably dropping the stick into neutral and braking before coming to a full stop and then, accelerating once more, getting it as high as third gear. We must’ve made at least twenty laps around the parking lot, because after several revolutions, Dad forgot himself, forgot I was driving. He seemed terrifically relaxed in the passenger seat, and he stared out the window at the surrounding landscape, as if he could finally appreciate the view, as if Manassas wasn’t so bad after all, and maybe for a while he considered how nice it would be if someone shared the family’s driving with him.
“If it snows tomorrow,” Dad said, “maybe I’ll take you back out here and teach you how to do a three-sixty.”
Even without traffic, it took us almost two hours to get to D.C. and find parking near Woodward & Lothrop. Still, Dad’s mood remained upbeat, and this cheered me. I felt as if I were being of assistance to the entire family. The department store was magnificent and vast, an eight-story building taking up almost the entire block. It was high-ceilinged and decorated for Christmas, with giant snowflake lights the size of chandeliers and the chandeliers covered in pine branches, pine cones, and ornaments. The tall, rectangular columns with their decorative capitals were hung with green and red velvet. And yet it retained a luxe, living room ambience. Dad was excited. He was well dressed—I only now noticed this—as if we were going out to a fine restaurant. Beneath hisovercoat, he looked dashing in his brown wool blazer and turtleneck, his suede slacks and black boots. He strode down the aisle with the haughty, chin-up indifference of a star walking a red carpet, and people noticed him, and I noticed him subtly noticing this, and when he spoke to me, he raised his voice a bit. “We’ll meet back here,” Dad said before the elevator bank, “in exactly an hour. Oh,” he added, and he handed me a ten-spot. “Some walking-around money.” And then he stepped on the giant car with the gold handrails and all the other fabulously dressed shoppers. “My son,” he said to the woman he boarded with, and she smiled at me and waved and, just as the doors closed, began talking to him.