ldren ate Lucky Charms, Cheerios, and something that had peanut butter on it.
The table is like an archeological reconstruction of a twenty-first-century family
breakfast.
"Are you dating anybody?" I look up and Gomez is still leaning on the
counter, still holding his coffee cup at chin level.
"No."
"Why not?"
None of your business, Gomez. "It never occurred to me."
"You should think about it." He sets his cup in the sink.
"Why?"
"You need something new. Someone new. You can't sit around for the rest of
your life waiting for Henry to show up."
"Sure I can. Watch me."
Gomez takes two steps and he's standing next to me. He leans over and puts
his mouth next to my ear. "Don't you ever miss.. .this?" He licks the inside of my
ear. Yes, I miss that. "Get away from me, Gomez," I hiss at him, but I don't move
away. I am riveted in my seat by an idea. Gomez picks up my hair and kisses the
back of my neck.
Come to me, oh! come to me!
I close my eyes. Hands pull me out of my seat, unbutton my shirt. Tongue on
my neck, my shoulders, my nipples. I reach out blindly and find terrycloth, a
bath towel that falls away. Henry. Hands unbutton my jeans, pull them down,
bend me back over the kitchen table. Something falls to the floor, metallic. Food
and silverware, a half-circle of plate, melon rind against my back. My legs
spread. Tongue on my cunt. "Ohh..." We are in the meadow. It's summer. A green
blanket. We have just eaten, the taste of melon is still in my mouth. Tongue gives way to
empty space, wet and open. I open my eyes; I'm staring at a half-full glass of
orange juice. I close my eyes. The firm, steady push of Henry's cock into me. Yes.
I've been waiting very patiently, Henry. I knew you'd come back sooner or later. Yes. Skin
on skin, hands on breasts, push pull clinging rhythm deeper yes, oh-
"Henry-"
Everything stops. A clock is ticking loudly. I open my eyes. Gomez is staring
down at me, hurt? angry? in a moment he is expressionless. A car door slams. I
sit up, jump off the table, run for the bathroom. Gomez throws my clothes in after
me.
As I'm dressing I hear Charisse and the kids come in the front door, laughing.
Alba calls, "Mama?" and I yell "I'll be out in a minute!" I stand in the dim light of
the pink and black tiled bathroom and stare at myself in the mirror. I have
Cheerios in my hair. My reflection looks lost and pale. I wash my hands, try to
comb my hair with my fingers. What am I doing? What have I allowed myself to
become?
An answer comes, of sorts: You are the traveler now.
Saturday, July 26, 2008 (Clare is 37)
Clare: Alba's reward for being patient at the galleries while Charisse and I look at
art is to go to Ed Debevic's, a faux diner that does a brisk tourist trade. As soon as
we walk in the door it's sensory overload circa 1964. The Kinks are playing at top
volume and there's signage everywhere:
"If you're really a good customer you'd order more!!!"
"Please talk clearly when placing your order."
"Our coffee is so good we drink it ourselves!"
Today is evidently balloon-animal day; a gentleman in a shiny purple suit
whips up a wiener dog for Alba and then turns it into a hat and plants it on her
head. She squirms with joy. We stand in line for half an hour and Alba doesn't
whine at all; she watches the waiters and waitresses flirt with each other and
silently evaluates the other children's balloon animals. We are finally escorted to
a booth by a waiter wearing thick horn-rimmed glasses and a name tag that says
spaz. Charisse and I flip open our menus and try to find something we want to
eat amidst the Cheddar Fries and the meatloaf. Alba just chants the word
milkshake over and over. When Spaz reappears Alba has a sudden attack of
shyness and has to be coaxed into telling him that she would like a peanut butter
milkshake (and a small order of fries, because, I tell her, it's too decadent to eat
nothing but a milkshake for lunch). Charisse orders macaroni and cheese and I
order a blt. Once Spaz leaves Charisse sings, " Alba and Spaz, sitting in a tree,
K-I-S-S-I-N-G..." and Alba shuts her eyes and puts her hands over her ears,
shaking her head and smiling. A waiter with a name tag that says buzz struts up
and down the lunch counter doing karaoke to Bob Seger's I Love That Old Time
Rock and Roll.
"I hate Bob Seger " Charisse says. "Do you think it took him more than thirty
seconds to write that song?"
The milkshake arrives in a tall glass with a bendable straw and a metal shaker
that contains the milkshake that couldn't fit into the glass. Alba stands up to
drink it, stands on tiptoe to achieve the best possible angle for sucking down a
peanut butter milkshake. Her balloon wiener dog hat keeps sliding down her
forehead, interfering with her concentration. She looks up at me through her thick
black eyelashes and pushes the balloon hat up so that it is clinging to her head by
static electricity.
"When's Daddy coming home?" she asks. Charisse makes the sound that one
makes when one has accidentally gotten Pepsi up one's nose and starts to cough
and I pound her on the back until she makes hand gestures at me to stop so I
stop.
"August 29th," I tell Alba, who goes back to slurping the dregs of her shake
while Charisse looks at me reproachfully.
Later, we're in the car, on Lake Shore Drive; I'm driving and Charisse is
fiddling with the radio and Alba is sleeping in the back seat. I exit at Irving Park
and Charisse says, "Doesn't Alba know that Henry is dead?"
"Of course she knows. She saw him" I remind Charisse.
"Well, why did you tell her he was coming home in August?"
"Because he is. He gave me the date himself."
"Oh." Even though my eyes are on the road I can feel Charisse staring at me.
"Isn't that.. .kind of weird?"
"Alba loves it."
"For you, though?"
"I never see him." I try to keep my voice light, as though I am not tortured by
the unfairness of this, as though I don't mourn my resentment when Alba tells me
about her visits with Henry even as I drink up every detail.
Why not me, Henry? I ask him silently as I pull into Charisse and Gomez's
toy-littered driveway. Why only Alba? But as usual there's no answer to this. As
usual, that's just how it is. Charisse kisses me and gets out of the car, walks
sedately toward her front door, which magically swings open, revealing Gomez
and Rosa. Rosa is jumping up and down and holding something out toward
Charisse, who takes it from her and says something, and gives her a big hug.
Gomez stares at me, and finally gives me a little wave. I wave back. He turns
away. Charisse and Rosa have gone inside. The door closes.
I sit there, in the driveway, Alba sleeping in the back seat. Crows are walking
on the dandelion-infested lawn. Henry, where are you? I lean my head against the
steering wheel. Help me. No one answers. After a minute I put the car in gear, back
out of the driveway, and make my way toward our silent, waiting home.
Saturday, September 3, 1990 (Henry is 27)
Henry: Ingrid and I have lost the car and we are drunk. We are drunk and it is
dark and we have walked up and down and back and around and no car.
Fucking Lincoln Park. Fucking Lincoln Towing. Fuck.
Ingrid is pissed off. She walks ahead of me, and her whole back, even the way
her hips move, is pissed off. Somehow this is my fault. Fucking Park West
nightclub. Why would anyone put a nightclub in wretched yuppieville Lincoln
Park where you cannot leave your car for more than ten seconds without Lincoln
Towing hauling it off to their lair to gloat over it-
"Henry."
"What?"
"There's that little girl again."
"What little girl?"
"The one we saw earlier." Ingrid stops. I look where she is pointing.
The girl is standing in the doorway of a flower shop. She's wearing something
dark, so all I see is her white face and her bare feet. She's maybe seven or eight;
too young to be out alone in the middle of the night. Ingrid walks over to the girl,
who watches her impassively.
"Are you okay?" Ingrid asks the girl. "Are you lost?"
The girl looks at me and says, "I was lost, but now I've figured out where I am.
Thank you," she adds politely.
"Do you need a ride home? We could give you a ride if we ever manage to
find the car." Ingrid is leaning over the girl. Her face is maybe a foot away from
the girl's face. As I walk up to them I see that the girl is wearing a man's
windbreaker. It comes all the way down to her ankles.
"No, thank you. I live too far away, anyhow." The girl has long black hair and
startling dark eyes; in the yellow light of the flower shop she looks like a
Victorian match girl, or DeQuincey's Ann.
"Where's your mom?" Ingrid asks her. The girl replies, "She's at home." She
smiles at me and says, "She doesn't know I'm here."
"Did you run away?" I ask her.
"No," she says, and laughs. "I was looking for my daddy, but I'm too early, I
guess. I'll come back later." She squeezes past Ingrid and pads over to me, grabs
my jacket and pulls me toward her. "The car's across the street," she whispers. I
look across the street and there it is, Ingrid's red Porsche. "Thanks-" I begin, and
the girl darts a kiss at me that lands near my ear and then runs down the
sidewalk, her feet slapping the concrete as I stand staring after her. Ingrid is quiet
as we get into the car. Finally I say, "That was strange," and she sighs and says,
"Henry, for a smart person you can be pretty damn dense sometimes," and she
drops me off in front of my apartment without another word.
Sunday, July 29, 1979 (Henry is 42)
Henry: It's sometime in the past. I'm sitting on Lighthouse Beach with Alba. She's
ten. I'm forty-two. Both of us are time traveling. It's a warm evening, maybe July
or August. I'm wearing a pair of jeans and a white T-shirt I stole from a fancy
North Evanston mansion; Alba is wearing a pink nightgown she took from an old
lady's clothesline. It's too long for her so we ha