something wrong.”
I stood in the shadow of the sideboard in my pajamas, one of my earliest memories. I gnawed a toothpick, prosciutto and melon from Greenblatt’s Delicatessen. This was in the old house on Warnall Avenue in Westwood. Walnut floorboards and crystal chandeliers.
“This is the movie business.” Teddy was at the dining table, deflated in his chair. He wore his off-hours uniform of scuffed Gucci loafers and pale denim shirt. His long hair was already thinning, his blond mustache pale at the tips. “Nothing gets done without desperation.”
“That’s the flaw,” Williams said. He studied the glass of ice water in his hands like it was a diamond. “It’s what’s wrong with the business, and it’s our friend’s tragic flaw.”
Leave it to Williams to put it in Aristotelian terms. He set his water down, spotted me, and winked.
“Nathaniel, c’mere.”
I walked over to him. I could hear Beau’s heavy tread beginning at the far end of the long hallway that ran past my room.
“D’you like school?”
I nodded. Maybe I did, and maybe I didn’t: it was too soon to know which of these men, which father, I’d come in time to resemble. The educated or the more instinctual one. Will took me in. I felt it, what Beau must have felt when they met too. The strength of his whole attention, neither gentle nor harsh, a caress without any love in it. Already, I was friends with his son. Little Will and I had been paired off by something besides being the two youngest boys in our class. Call it fate.
“Go to bed, sweetie.” My mother could hear Beau coming down the hall also. “Go on.”
Williams winked at me. There was alarm in my mother’s voice, the way there’d been when she’d spoken up earlier. I think there’s something wrong . It seemed to carry some balance of affection and horror. But I was far too young to interpret that. She stood in her regal turn-of-the-decade beauty, black turtleneck and flower-printskirt. Long-faced, ash-blonde, and somber. She waved her True cigarette at me. Go .
I love remembering my mother this way. Twenty-nine, not yet consumed by alcohol and disappointment. She took a sip of wine, her profile whittled, elegant. The convivial Hollywood wife. Williams turned away, but I could feel him still, the enigma of his strange concentration. Few men are truly fathomless, yet he seemed so.
“Who’s this?”
A booming voice sounded above me as I collided with Beau in the doorway. I couldn’t help it, I walked right into his elephantine leg. I looked up and saw him staring down at me.
“You’re Nate,” he added, and smiled. And absently stroked the back of my head and shoulder, once. It was like being pawed by a clawless dog.
I bounced off him. Without anything to say, and a little bit intimidated by his fatness, by his slothful and easy bonhomie.
“G’night, kid,” he murmured, as I slithered around and off to my bedroom. I was six years old and of course didn’t mark any of this out as unusual. But I remembered it all the same. My bare feet kicked across the polished brown floors; our terrier, Suzie, followed; Teddy’s voice carried after me.
“Sweet dreams, Nathaniel.”
Thus, I met my father, and with him the man who was his necessary concomitant, Williams Farquarsen, whose future would haunt us all. Understanding none of it, just letting their laughter blend into typical adult chatter, while I left them behind, in dream.
Now Beau sat and ate a plate of curdled, kelp-colored eggs with windows on two sides of him overlooking the sea. Thinking about the only two kids he knew he had and protecting his plate as though someone might take this, too, away from him.
Rachel, be reasonable!
Reasonable? He could still hear her sneering. Reasonable people have jobs!
These past few years, it had gotten worse and worse between them. She’d left Waxmorton and set up shop on her own, yet having her independence made her controlling. She’d grown secretive,
I stood in the shadow of the sideboard in my pajamas, one of my earliest memories. I gnawed a toothpick, prosciutto and melon from Greenblatt’s Delicatessen. This was in the old house on Warnall Avenue in Westwood. Walnut floorboards and crystal chandeliers.
“This is the movie business.” Teddy was at the dining table, deflated in his chair. He wore his off-hours uniform of scuffed Gucci loafers and pale denim shirt. His long hair was already thinning, his blond mustache pale at the tips. “Nothing gets done without desperation.”
“That’s the flaw,” Williams said. He studied the glass of ice water in his hands like it was a diamond. “It’s what’s wrong with the business, and it’s our friend’s tragic flaw.”
Leave it to Williams to put it in Aristotelian terms. He set his water down, spotted me, and winked.
“Nathaniel, c’mere.”
I walked over to him. I could hear Beau’s heavy tread beginning at the far end of the long hallway that ran past my room.
“D’you like school?”
I nodded. Maybe I did, and maybe I didn’t: it was too soon to know which of these men, which father, I’d come in time to resemble. The educated or the more instinctual one. Will took me in. I felt it, what Beau must have felt when they met too. The strength of his whole attention, neither gentle nor harsh, a caress without any love in it. Already, I was friends with his son. Little Will and I had been paired off by something besides being the two youngest boys in our class. Call it fate.
“Go to bed, sweetie.” My mother could hear Beau coming down the hall also. “Go on.”
Williams winked at me. There was alarm in my mother’s voice, the way there’d been when she’d spoken up earlier. I think there’s something wrong . It seemed to carry some balance of affection and horror. But I was far too young to interpret that. She stood in her regal turn-of-the-decade beauty, black turtleneck and flower-printskirt. Long-faced, ash-blonde, and somber. She waved her True cigarette at me. Go .
I love remembering my mother this way. Twenty-nine, not yet consumed by alcohol and disappointment. She took a sip of wine, her profile whittled, elegant. The convivial Hollywood wife. Williams turned away, but I could feel him still, the enigma of his strange concentration. Few men are truly fathomless, yet he seemed so.
“Who’s this?”
A booming voice sounded above me as I collided with Beau in the doorway. I couldn’t help it, I walked right into his elephantine leg. I looked up and saw him staring down at me.
“You’re Nate,” he added, and smiled. And absently stroked the back of my head and shoulder, once. It was like being pawed by a clawless dog.
I bounced off him. Without anything to say, and a little bit intimidated by his fatness, by his slothful and easy bonhomie.
“G’night, kid,” he murmured, as I slithered around and off to my bedroom. I was six years old and of course didn’t mark any of this out as unusual. But I remembered it all the same. My bare feet kicked across the polished brown floors; our terrier, Suzie, followed; Teddy’s voice carried after me.
“Sweet dreams, Nathaniel.”
Thus, I met my father, and with him the man who was his necessary concomitant, Williams Farquarsen, whose future would haunt us all. Understanding none of it, just letting their laughter blend into typical adult chatter, while I left them behind, in dream.
Now Beau sat and ate a plate of curdled, kelp-colored eggs with windows on two sides of him overlooking the sea. Thinking about the only two kids he knew he had and protecting his plate as though someone might take this, too, away from him.
Rachel, be reasonable!
Reasonable? He could still hear her sneering. Reasonable people have jobs!
These past few years, it had gotten worse and worse between them. She’d left Waxmorton and set up shop on her own, yet having her independence made her controlling. She’d grown secretive,
Similar Books
