Surrounding her were yellow legal pads in various states of distress, clippings from their paper and others, a bit of lettuce and near it some crumpled wax paper, a stack of books, different makes of pens all showing signs of being savagely chewed on. Her glance up to him was a vague assimilation of an apology. He took off his blazer, took out something to read from the leather satchel he carried under one arm, and found a chair to sit on. He realized he had not eaten since eight that morning and made every effort not to look up at the row of clocks displaying the different times in Tokyo, London, New York.
At ten after seven he filled with joy as she began to stack things and put them away in the metal desk’s drawers, wrapped a light silk scarf around her neck, put the last of a packet of crackers in her mouth and threw away their plastic wrapping along with the lettuce and the wax paper. She mouthed something to herself as she inventoried the contents of her oversized purse, she pulled the ball chain of the iconic green-cased lamp, she stood and beamed at him briefly.
She walked ahead of him to the elevator; she beat him at pressing the button that would bring them to the lobby and out of the building. He was to follow her in his car to a restaurant she knew. She was a terrible driver, and he watched as she failed to signal, changed lanes without reason, drove too close to people, honked at red lights. Her slender wrist emerged and withdrew from the driver’s side window when she flicked her cigarette.
She had chosen a soul-food place with a wooden front porch and chairs that rocked and strings of heavy white bulbs that crisscrossed over the tables. She insisted on sitting outside, though the night was certainly not warm and nothing like the wet, dense Southern heat that the restaurant’s ambiance implied so heavy-handedly and that my father knew and my mother didn’t. She talked and listened with a rare balance and got gravy all over her face. When my father proffered his neatly folded handkerchief, she seemed touched by a gesture so old-fashioned, and took it gladly.
What was said? These are the details my father strains more to recall. She told him about her life and he told her his. Her father was a lawyer; her father was a drunk; she had found her brilliant older sister dead by her own brilliant hands when she was seventeen. Before college she lived in Yosemite for a while, cleaning cabins, swimming naked, taking and posing for photographs that later would go into an album titled THE FUN CLUB.
By the end of the meal they were both sufficiently drunk, she hooting and clapping her hand over her mouth as if in shock, he cackling and telling stories with his hands, using forks and knives as props. He insisted on driving her home and laughed at the way she stuck her head out the window like a dog, happy to feel air on her booze-warm face. He thought her somehow more beautiful red nosed and slightly sloppy. To his amazement, she invited him in.
After a nasty incident in which my father made the mistake of sowing one last wild oat with a secretary from the floor below who called him “dear,” my mother did not return his desperate answering machine messages, did not look at him in the break room, and certainly did not express thanks for the books and flowers he left at her house. But for reasons my father can’t supply, she finally gave in and then it seemed they were together for better or worse. As beautiful as she was, as hungry as she was, my mother had reached a point similar to my father’s at which she looked around and realized she’d had enough fun. After only four months, they leased an apartment together. She committed herself to domestic life, cooking terrible dinners, painting flea-market purchases yellows and blues, adding art to the walls of the absurdly long Victorian hallway to make it seem less like the brothel it once was. They bought a Siamese cat who was pretty thoroughly unpleasant to be around and made a habit of clinging to the walls and hissing, who is still alive somehow, and whom my father has always insisted he loves.
When she became pregnant six months later, my father, who figured he