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Authors: Peter Cameron

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“So I don’t usually nap. I still feel guilty when I do. But I was sitting out on the porch this afternoon reading a magazine and I must have fallen asleep, because I woke and felt so strange. I didn’t know where I was. It took a minute, and then it all came back, but I still felt tired. So I thought, I’ll just lie down for a few minutes, and I went upstairs. That was about three o’clock. And now”—she looked at her watch—“now it’s six-thirty. I must be getting old.”
“How do you feel now? Are you still tired?”
“No,” she said, but in a tired way. And she looked tired, too. As if she knew what I was thinking, she said, “I’m feeling as fit as a fiddle. Although why fiddles are fit I know not.” She paused and smiled at me. I noticed that her pink smile didn’t quite match her lips. I looked down into my drink. My grandmother was going on about the fitness of fiddles, but I wasn’t really listening. And then I realized she had stopped talking, so I looked up at her. She stared at me for a moment and then said, “Oh, James. Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?”
I didn’t know where to start. Maybe it was the rye—I had already finished my drink—but I suddenly felt warm and happy. I still believed that everything was wrong, but I didn’t really care. It was like I was looking down on myself from the moon and could see how tiny I was and how tiny and stupid my problems were. So I had been fired, so I had acted like a jerk and alienated John, so I was a loner/loser, and so I didn’t want to go to college. None of that really mattered. It wasn’t like I was on a plane that had been hijacked and was flying toward the World Trade Center.
“I got fired today,” I said.
“Fired?”
“Yes. From my job at the gallery. By my mother.”
“And why did she do that?”
I told her what had happened with John. My grandmother sipped her drink while I spoke, and when I had finished she held out her glass to me and said, “I think we both need another drink before we continue. You go make them and I’ll turn the record over.”
We followed her plan and in a few minutes we had resumed our places, our drinks were fresh, and the B side of
The Fountains of Rome
was playing.
“You know,” my grandmother said, after she had tasted her new drink and made a noise indicating that she approved of it, “I think it’s rather a heartening story, what you told me. You acted stupidly and made a mess, but nevertheless I find it heartening.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Why? Because you wanted something, and tried to get it. You
acted
. You acted stupidly, but you acted, and that’s the important part. And people often act stupidly when it comes to love. I know I did.” She paused for a moment, as if she was remembering something specific.
I was shocked. She had said “love,” had mentioned love as if it was an element of the story. I thought for a moment that I had misheard her. I’ve never talked about being gay or straight or anything remotely connected to that with my grandmother. It was like she lived in this other world, the world of Hartsdale, the world of men who wouldn’t even put gravy on their meat, a world where those things didn’t exist. Did she think I loved John?
“Are you listening, James?” I heard her say.
“Yes,” I said.
“You didn’t look as if you were,” she said. “Well, in any case I don’t think there’s anything to worry about—it hardly matters to be fired by your mother from your mother’s business; it’s like being sent to your room when you’re naughty, and nothing more than that. And if this John fellow is a human being, he’ll realize that what you did, while stupid, is actually flattering and rather sweet—sweet in a dim, stupid way. But you’ve got to start somewhere.”
“You don’t think he’ll hate me forever?”
“Goodness, no. A week or two, perhaps, but forever? Hardly. If he’s got half a sense of humor about him, perhaps in time he’ll even be flattered, as of course he should be. You might send him a note—a polite note of apology, and leave it at that. All one can do in situations like this is apologize, and then the ball is in the other court, so to speak.”
She stood up. “I have lamb chops from the good butcher. And zucchini from the Takahashis’ garden. I assume you’re spending the night. Are you?”
“Yes,” I said, “if that’s okay.”
“Of course it’s okay. It’s delightful. Should you telephone your mother? Does she know you’re here?”
I lied and said yes. I knew it was bad not to let my mother know where I was, but I felt like since she fired me she didn’t really deserve to know.
“Fine,” said my grandmother. “So are all our problems solved?” This, like “We’re alive,” is a catchphrase of my grandmother’s. She’s a great believer in solving all problems before sitting down to a meal or going to bed.
“Well,” I said, “there’s still the problem of college.”
“I thought we solved that problem last week.”
“Not really,” I said.
“Remind me, what was the problem?”
“I don’t want to go to college.”
“Well, that seems very easily solved—don’t go to college.”
“I don’t think I can,” I said.
“You don’t think you can not go to college? I’m not sure I understand you.”
“Of course I could not go. The problem is what do I do if I don’t go to college.”
“Well, that seems like a different problem entirely,” said my grandmother.
“Yes,” I said. “I suppose it is. I wanted to use the money from college to buy a house in the Midwest and move there, but now I’m not so sure.”
“That sounds like a rather dreary proposition. Remind me, why don’t you want to go to college?”
“I told you—I don’t want to spend all that time in that environment with that kind of people.”
“What kind of people?”
“The kind of people who go to college. People my age.”
“Well, are there adult-school colleges? Or perhaps you could go to a correspondence school. Although I suppose one doesn’t
go
to a correspondence school—that’s the point. You could— well, correspond with a correspondence school. Do you think Brown would let you correspond?”
“I doubt it,” I said.
“I remember I saw an advertisement for a correspondence course in dog grooming—I think it was in the
Ladies’ Home Journal
. Would something like that interest you?”
“Actually, I wouldn’t mind grooming dogs. I like dogs. But I don’t think my parents would approve.”
“Well, James, you can’t spend your entire life pleasing your parents. And there’s really no pleasing your mother, is there? She fired you, after all.”
“Yes,” I said, “that’s true.”
“Well, why don’t we have dinner, and then sort this out. I can never think straight when I’m feeling peckish. Are you hungry?”
“Yes,” I said. I realized I hadn’t had anything to eat all day. I had planned to eat something when I stopped at home after seeing Dr. Adler, but was thwarted by the empty refrigerator (and Gillian).
After dinner we played Scrabble (my grandmother won) and then, while I did the dishes, she smoked a cigarette on the back porch. My grandmother has a dishwasher but she never seems to use it. I don’t think she trusts it—she only believes the dishes are clean if she washes them herself. When I finished with the dishes, I sat at the table and looked out the window, into the backyard. My grandmother was standing in the center of the lawn, smoking her cigarette. She had her back to me, so I could not see her face. It appeared as though she was studying something in the neighbors’ yard, or perhaps she could see into their lighted windows. I remembered watching the spooky family through the window the night I escaped from the dinner theater, and for a moment I felt a little disoriented, like when you look into two facing mirrors, and the world opens up and collapses at either end. I was looking through a window at my grandmother, and she was looking through a window (maybe) at her neighbors, and maybe they were looking out their front windows at someone in the house across the street or in a car parked in front of their house, and on and on all the way around the world. As I watched, my grandmother raised her arm, brought the cigarette to her mouth, inhaled, and then released the smoke in a long exhalation. When she was finished, she stubbed the cigarette out in an ashtray she held in the other hand—the lopsided one that Gillian had made. I waited for her to turn around and come back into the house, but she remained standing like that, transfixed, it seemed, by whatever she was watching. So I went upstairs to put sheets on the bed in the guest room.
After a few minutes I heard my grandmother come inside and she did something in the kitchen (probably reclean the counters I had already cleaned) and then she came upstairs. I was sitting on one of the twin beds in the guest room, looking at a
National Geographic
magazine I had pulled from the pile on the nightstand. It was from 1964, and on the cover a white horse stood on its hind legs. The banner read: “Vienna’s Very Own: Those Dancing White Stallions.”
My grandmother stood in the doorway. “Thank you for cleaning up the kitchen,” she said.
“You’re welcome,” I said. “Thanks for the nice dinner.”
“I know we haven’t solved the college problem, but—well—I don’t think I can be much help to you with that. I don’t understand enough how all that works these days. But I’m sure there are options for you, James. I’m sure it will all work itself out.”
“Yes,” I said. “I suppose it will.”
“And if college is all wrong for you, if you really don’t like it in the way you fear, well—it won’t be a waste to have gone. Having bad experiences sometimes helps; it makes it clearer what it is you
should
be doing. I know that sounds very Pollyannaish but it’s true. People who have had only good experiences aren’t very interesting. They may be content, and happy after a fashion, but they aren’t very deep. It may seem a misfortune now, and it makes things difficult, but well—it’s easy to feel all the happy, simple stuff. Not that happiness is necessarily simple. But I don’t think you’re going to have a life like that, and I think you’ll be the better for it. The difficult thing is to not be overwhelmed by the bad patches. You mustn’t let them defeat you. You must see them as a gift—a cruel gift, but a gift nonetheless.”
“I know I’m rambling, and I’ll stop. I’ve felt queer today, ever since I woke up from that nap. But there is something else I want to tell you. Something I want you to know, now. It’s about my will, James. I’m leaving everything in the house to you. The house itself will be sold, but everything in it will be yours. And I want you to do whatever you like with it all—keep it, sell it, give it away, burn it in a pyre, or any combination thereof. And of course you’ll be getting some money, too, but that’s too dreary to talk about.”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say. I was looking at a page of illustrations in the
National Geographic
, all pictures of white stallions doing different tricks.
“I just wanted you to know that,” my grandmother said. “I wanted you to know that it’s important to me that you decide what’s to become of all my things.”
“I’ll keep them,” I said. “I’ll keep everything.” I held up the magazine. “I’ll keep this.”
“No,” my grandmother said. “That’s not what I want. They’re only things. They don’t mean anything. Keep only what you want.” She walked across the room and kissed me, and stroked my hair. “And now I’m going to bed,” she said. “I don’t know how I can be tired after that long nap, but I am. And you look tired, too.”
“I am,” I said.
“It’s been a long day,” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Sleep well,” she said.
“Yes,” I said. “You too. Good night.”
She said good night and left the room. I sat on the bed for a while, thumbing through the magazine, but not really looking at anything. I was thinking about all the things in my grandmother’s house, and how much I loved them all. I felt in some stupid way that if I kept those things near me, perhaps my life wouldn’t be miserable.
But I knew they didn’t have that power, or any power at all. They were only things. Objects.
 
Wednesday, July 30, 2003
 
I WOKE UP ABOUT NINE THE NEXT MORNING. FOR A MOMENT I wasn’t sure where I was and then I recognized the curtains and remembered.
I found my grandmother in the kitchen. She had a huge mound of seriously deformed zucchini piled on the counter and was furiously chopping the long green tubes into disks.
“Wow,” I said. “I feel sorry for those zucchinis.”
“I don’t,” she said. “I hate zucchini. Mrs. Takahashi won’t stop bringing them over. I always thought her English was quite good, but apparently she doesn’t understand the meaning of ‘Thank you, but no more zucchini.’ So I’m making zucchini bread. I know it sounds awful, but it’s quite edible. Would you like some eggs? I’d gladly leave these alone for a while and cook you an egg.”
“No, thanks,” I said. “I’m going to head back to the city.”
“With no breakfast? How about some coffee?”
“I’ll pick some up on my way,” I said. I was eager to get home because I didn’t want my mother to flip out and call the police or anything. I had sort of promised her after what happened in D.C. that I would never disappear like that again. “It was good to see you,” I said. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
“It was good to see you, too,” she said. She put down the knife and wiped her hands on her apron. “I’m sorry if I was odd last night. I’m feeling much more myself this morning.”
“You weren’t odd at all,” I said. “You gave me a lot of good advice.”
“I seriously doubt that,” she said. “Go. You can catch the 9:57 if you hurry.” She kissed me, and then pushed me away.
The train was pretty empty, just a gaggle of Bronxville soccer moms going into the city to spend money. There was something creepily alike about all of them, as if they were the same model of car, just different years: one wore a white sundress with pink stripes, another wore a pink sundress with green polka dots. They all wore sandals and had designer sunglasses perched atop their similarly coiffed heads. I found this spectacle somewhat depressing, because I had always thought, or hoped, that adults weren’t necessarily as hobbled by mindless conformity as so many of my peers seem to be. I always looked forward to being an adult, because I thought the adult world was, well—adult. That adults weren’t cliquey or nasty, that the whole notion of being cool, or in, or popular would cease to be the arbiter of all things social, but I was beginning to realize that the adult world was as nonsensically brutal and socially perilous as the kingdom of childhood. But beneath their gloss of confidence and entitlement, I could tell the ladies were nervous, almost scared, for they knew they didn’t belong in the city anymore—once they married the investment banker and moved to Bronxville they ceased to be New Yorkers. The city is cruel in that way.
And then I thought that if I moved to Indiana (although after my conversation with Jeanine Breemer, I was having second thoughts about Indiana) I would be similarly exiled. I would be able to come back to the city, but I’d feel displaced like the soccer moms. Even if I went to Brown and came home fairly regularly, I might feel that way. Everything is always changing so quickly in New York City; if you go away for even a week you realize it: the Greek restaurant becomes an Ethiopian restaurant. The bakery has been transformed into yet another nail salon. I would be one of those people who emerged from the subway and looked around confusedly, having lost their sense of east and west, uptown and downtown. I’d start walking the wrong way, and have to stop and orient myself, like a tourist.
All this made me think maybe I should just stay and go to college here, and forget all about the Midwest and Providence, Rhode Island. I remember once in second grade the teacher pulled down the wall map of the United States and asked us to name the biggest and smallest states. Alaska was easy, but nobody guessed Rhode Island because it was so small you could barely see it. It was so small its name had to be written out in the Atlantic Ocean with an arrow pointing west. How could I move from the largest city in the country to the smallest state? Yet I didn’t know how I could go to college in New York, because I had applied to and been rejected by Columbia (although they referred to it as “not being able to find space for me”), and I wouldn’t become part of the evil empire that is NYU if you paid me. (NYU has single-handedly ruined most of the Village, including the dog run in Washington Square: they built this huge building that casts its shadow over the park, so that areas of the dog run are perpetually in shade.)
Sometimes I get in these moods where everything I see or think about depresses me. Everything seems like evidence that the world is a shitty place and getting worse. I remembered feeling that way in Washington and attempting to put a positive spin on all the things abandoned along the highway, and I tried to do that on the train, but it was impossible, as we were passing through a particularly ugly (and depressing) section of the Bronx.
Then we left the Bronx behind us and clattered across the trestle bridge that connected Manhattan to the rest of the world, and I could see it out the window—the glass towers reflecting the morning sun, a sort of shimmering haze of heat just beginning to blur the sharp focus. And I told myself: Look at that, look at New York, you love the city, it’s your favorite place in the world. But all I could think about was what was awaiting me there: my mother, who would be furious I had disappeared again after promising not to, and John. Every time I started to feel a little better and think that maybe things weren’t so bad, I’d remember John telling me that I was a fucked-up kid, and picture him sitting on the bench in the park, his head in his hands, moaning
There is nothing I want more than that,
and I would feel awful again.
I wished that Grand Central Terminal were a station and not a terminal, like Penn Station (although most people incorrectly refer to Grand Central as Grand Central Station), so the train would pass through and continue on to somewhere else, so that I could pass through and continue on to somewhere else, or just continue and never arrive, never stop. Spend the rest of my life in transit, safe inside a train, with the impossible unfortunate world hurtling past outside the windows.
Everything seemed very calm when I let myself into the apartment. In fact it appeared to be deserted. I stood in the living room for a moment, trying to discern if anyone was home. I wondered if they were out searching for me or at the police station. Then I heard the piercing wail of the coffee grinder in the kitchen, and walked down the hall. Gillian was standing at the counter in a T-shirt, grinding beans. The noise of the machine masked my entrance, so when she turned around and saw me she was shocked. “Christ!” she said. “Where did you come from? It’s very creepy to do that.”
“Are you making coffee?” I asked.
“No,” Gillian said. “I’m doing a scientific experiment. Of course I’m making coffee. Are you an idiot?”
“Well, make some for me, please.” I sat down at the table. “Where’s Mom?”
“I don’t know.” She poured water into the coffeemaker and turned it on. “In bed, I think. Or out, maybe. I just got up, and I’m in a very bad mood, so I wish you’d leave me alone.”
“Why are you in a bad mood?”
She turned around and looked at me. “Why am I in a bad mood? I’m in a bad mood because people like you—in fact not
like
you,
but
you—ask me questions like ‘Why are you in a bad mood?’ after I’ve asked them to leave me alone.” She returned her attention to the coffee.
I didn’t say anything for a moment, and then I said, “You know, you’re really turning into a very nasty person.”
She didn’t answer, just studied the coffeemaker, as if it were a scientific experiment. When it had finished brewing, she poured coffee into two mugs. She got milk out of the refrigerator and poured some into each cup and then added a spoonful of sugar to one. She brought the mugs over to the table and put the sweetened one in front of me. I was stunned: it was totally unlike Gillian to customize coffee (or anything) for me.
I sipped it and said, “Thank you. It’s very good.”
She didn’t drink her coffee, she just held it in her hands as if they were cold and she needed to warm them. After a moment she said, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m used to it.”
“No,” she said, “you’re right—I can really be very nasty. I’m awful.”
“You’re not awful,” I said.
“Yes, I am. I’m awful. And I’m not going to argue with you about it.”
“Fine,” I said, “but I don’t think you’re awful.”
Gillian didn’t answer. She had a strange quivery look on her face, as if at any moment she might burst into tears. We drank our coffees in silence for a minute or two and then Gillian suddenly said, “I’m in a bad mood because Rainer Maria dumped me.”
“He dumped you?” I asked. “What happened?”
“Yes,” said Gillian. “His wife got some fantastic job running the universe at Berkeley and they’ve offered him a job, too, and so they’re moving out there and turning over a new leaf and recommitting themselves to one another and reaffirming their vows and a lot of other stuff too revolting to mention.”
“Well, that’s not dumping you. He didn’t dump you. He may be leaving you, but he isn’t dumping you. There’s a big difference.”
“Yes, that’s a point he tried to make, but I fail to see the difference. It’s just a question of semantics. I suppose that’s the price you pay for loving a language theoretician.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” I said. “I liked R.M. I’ll miss him.”
“So will I,” said Gillian in an unnervingly unironic way.
“Well, maybe it’s all for the best. I mean, he was a nice guy and everything, but he was married and a lot older than you. Maybe now you’ll find someone more appropriate.”
“‘Someone more appropriate’: you sound like a guidance counselor, James. And you’re hardly the one to give advice—what do you know about love?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“My point exactly,” said Gillian.
“I’ve changed my mind,” I said. “You are awful.”
This rapidly deteriorating conversation was fortunately halted by the sound of my mother coming down the hallway. Gillian said, “Don’t say anything about this. She doesn’t know.”
“She doesn’t know what?” my mother asked. She stood in the doorway, wearing a bathrobe, her hair disheveled from sleep. She seemed in a bit of a daze, but that’s not unusual, as my mother often begins (and ends) her day in a daze. Neither of us answered her question and she apparently forgot she had asked it. She just stood there looking at us as if we were curiosities. Then she said, “James,” and walked over and sort of patted me on the top of my head. Then she said, “Coffee,” and walked over to the counter and poured herself a cup. Then she sat down at the table with us. I waited for her to continue her naming game and say “Table,” or “Gillian,” but she just sipped her coffee and looked vague.
I decided that given her stupor it was best to take the initiative. “I’m sorry,” I said.
She looked at me. “You’re sorry?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m sorry. I promise I won’t do it again.”
“I should hope you’ll never do it again! And really, it’s John you should apologize to, not me.”
“I did apologize to John. But I’m not talking about that. I’m sorry about disappearing.”
“Oh,” she said. “You disappeared?”
“Yes,” I said. “I didn’t come home last night. You didn’t even notice I was gone?”
“Ah—no,” my mother said. “I didn’t. I had a very unpleasant evening with Barry and was consequently a bit preoccupied.”
“Not to mention a bit inebriated,” said Gillian.
My mother glared at her, but apparently this hurt, for she winced and massaged her forehead.
“I can’t believe you didn’t notice I was missing,” I said.
“Get a life, James,” said Gillian. “You’re eighteen years old. Do you still want Mommy to tuck you into bed?”
“No,” I said. “I just thought someone might notice that I never came home.”
“Oh, we would, eventually,” said my mother. “You just have to stay away a bit longer next time. Where were you last night?”
“At Nanette’s.”
“I see,” said my mother. “And how is she?”
“She’s fine. Well, actually she seemed a bit tired. In fact she was taking a nap when I got there.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” said my mother. “That woman wouldn’t nap if you held a gun to her head.”
“Well, she was. She was sound asleep.”
“I don’t believe it,” said my mother. “She abhors napping. She thinks it’s an indication of a weak character.”
“Actually,” I said, “it was her father who thought that.”
“Her father? How do you know?”
“She told me,” I said. “She told me all about him. He sounded like a tyrant.”
“He was,” said my mother. “Well, I suppose the apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree. Like father, like daughter.”
BOOK: Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You: A Novel
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