Ask Again Later Part 17

"Well, the smart-a.s.s has disappeared for the moment," I say.

"I miss the smart-a.s.s," Perry says.

"Letting go of defenses is never easy. You seem melancholy, but relaxed," I say.

"I know," Perry says. "It feels foreign to me. I hate it." He smiles. "If you were my therapist, I'd tell you this has been one of my favorite sessions ever. It was so true and so all about me."

"Yeah?" I say.

"I never looked at the movies as a chance to be next to someone; I always thought it was avoidance. It seems so obvious now that you've said that," Perry says. "Thanks."

On our second toddy, midsip, I remember my father was supposed to meet me at my apartment. I was going to show him the two-bedroom pride of my existence. Then we were going to order takeout.

I race over to my apartment building almost an hour late.

Holiday Tipping WHEN IT COMES to holiday tipping, never give homemade baked goods. Always give cash. Select the magic number you are willing to part with, and tack on an additional 10 percent. It will appear very generous. I'm only telling you what I wish someone had told me. Undertipping at Christmastime will catch up with you. Someday. Somewhere. At the place of their choosing.

I look around the lobby; Jim is nowhere to be seen. The doorman appears. It's payback time. I can feel it.

"You looking for your dad?" Federico says.

"Yeah," I say.

"I keyed him into your place. He was sitting here for a while, and he looked beat," Federico says.

"You let him into my apartment?" I ask.

I'm slightly drunk, and sort of giddy. My father is in my apartment. The doorman let a stranger into my apartment. It occurs to me that I don't even know my father's age. I can guess. But I don't know how old my father is. It seems like the sort of thing a person should know.

My father is sitting on my couch watching TV. His tie is off. He has a bottle of water in one hand and a beer in the other. His boots are sitting by the front door, toes pointing north.

Before I left for work this morning, I looked around my apartment and tried to see what it would look like to someone walking in for the first time. Flowers would help, I remember thinking, but of course I didn't buy any because I'd forgotten my father was coming over.

"Hey, Dad," I say. "You must be pretty smooth to talk your way into my apartment."

"Yes. Very smooth," Jim says.

"Did you eat anything?" I ask.

He must have. My apartment smells like a grease fire. He broiled a steak and didn't use the fan on the stove.

"So, was he a gentleman? Never mind, none of my business," Dad says.

My father has the manners of a man from a different time. He is a man from a different time. He was fifteen years older than my mother. When they married, she was twenty-seven. Men can wait to have children. The window of opportunity must seem like some never-ending field of poppies. Just enjoy! Inhale them with your eyes, nose, and every pore. There are so many beautiful flowers. Given such wonderful choices, wouldn't you be required to admire them as a group before you can stand to select just one-and, of course, in his case, he was never able to stick with just one.

"It wasn't a date. I was with a friend," I say. "We lost track of time. Sorry I'm late."

He opens two more beers. We play a game of backgammon. If I had taken the time to buy flowers, I doubt he'd have noticed.

We play two rounds. Then one more round for a tiebreaker. When I sit with him for a while, I always get stuck on the same thing. How did they let it slip away-our family? My family?

My father seems committed to making this last-ditch effort, to rein it all in, give it a tidy ending. He'd be a father who gave his daughter a job; he'd be the kind of guy who would visit his ailing ex-wife. It all just seems so sad and full of regret. Yet he doesn't seem sad; he seems rather content.

"What would you do differently? If reliving your life were possible?" I ask.

"Where do I start? I would have worked harder to make a life with your mom. Yet I'm not sure working harder would have changed anything. But allowing that relationship to fail, especially the way it failed-with you girls and so on," Dad says.

I'm picturing a dam giving way, and things around it collapsing. The water's reach is farther than you could ever expect.

"Thanks for waiting up for me, Dad," I say. I don't say that I've always wanted to have a father wait up for me. "I'm sorry I was so late."

Fake Accent I CALL MARJORIE because I come across a piece of paper that has her name and number on it, and I remember I'm supposed to call her, but I don't remember why I'm supposed to call. Because we're sisters? Because she's recently had a baby and people who have babies lose touch with people who don't have babies?

A woman with a rich European accent answers the phone. I'm thinking it has to be the baby nurse. Marjorie must be at the gym with her personal trainer, making her postbaby body even better than her prebaby body. But I thought the latest baby nurse was a quiet Colombian woman (a perk to hiring her, according to Marjorie, was that she didn't understand a word of English and therefore could not eavesdrop). This seemed like an odd consideration, as Marjorie has a track record that demonstrates little need for secrets.

"Doesn't that mean she also can't communicate with Poison Control?" I ask, concerned this hadn't occurred to Marjorie in her postnatal haze.

"You're such a worrier!" Marjorie says.

The woman answering the phone sounds as if she might be European royalty, though from what country she's sp.a.w.ned I cannot determine.

"Halo?" says this refined voice.

"May I please speak with Marjorie?" I ask.

Extremely long pause follows. Possibly she's inhaling a cigarette. Blowing adorable smoke rings into the baby's face?

"Hey, Em, it's me," Marjorie says.

"Oh?" I say. "What's with the accent?"

If I hadn't asked the question, my sister would not have explained herself and would in fact have pretended she hadn't answered the phone in a foreign dialect. She is my mother's daughter so much more than I could ever be my mother's daughter.

"Oh, I'm dodging our super," Marjorie says.

"You're a grown woman-you have a baby," I say.

"Don't sound disappointed. It's judgmental. Besides, you know I'm crazy," Marjorie says.

"Right. The proof just keeps on piling up," I say. "I thought all of that would change when you became a mother. But you're able to produce a staggering amount of horses.h.i.t."

"G.o.d gives everyone a unique gift," Marjorie says.

"What did you do to the super? Or do I not want to know?" I ask.

"I saw a c.o.c.kroach," Marjorie says.

"Yes?" I say. It's New York City.

"I freaked out on his answering machine," Marjorie says. "Actually, I was still kind of drunk this morning and overreacted. I had a real harpy rant: 'What if it goes after the baby? You're responsible if it chases my precious son,'" Marjorie says, laughing.

"The super? Or the c.o.c.kroach?" I ask. "Never mind, but I think you might be right about the baby nurse," I say, remembering what I was supposed to call her about.

"Of course I'm right about the baby nurse-she really is a better mother than I could ever be," Marjorie reasons.

Excellent point. Yet if you can see your deficiencies so clearly, can't you correct them?

"Thanks for checking in," Marjorie says. "But I'm in a hurry. I'm about to meet Dory at Swiss Chalet; we're headed to St. Moritz, and I have a tire around my belly-and my a.s.s-and I need some new ski clothing and some cigarettes."

Dory is back on the payroll. She also has Marjorie on a strict postpregnancy diet of lemon water and cigarettes.

"Oh, okay. Who's watching Malcolm while you're away?" I ask.

"Baby nurse," Marjorie says. "Unless you want to watch him."

How did Marjorie pick and choose which of our mother's personality quirks to keep in her version of motherhood? And how did she decide which odd behaviors should be replaced to create her own unique spin on raising a baby?

I hang up the phone. I imagine what kind of mother I'd be. I sometimes think motherhood might expose some of my better qualities. Patience. Affection. Storytelling. Why is it easier for me to imagine having a baby than having a relationship with Sam? I'm fantasizing about a relationship that doesn't allow me to have one foot out the door. That's a first.

Doctor/Patient Relationships HE'S ALL MINE. Except that he's also the woman's whose appointment is just before mine (head cast down, looks like she could be blown over by a strong gust of wind, but still pretty in a bookish way, which is a quality I suspect he'd really like). I hope for my sake he doesn't have to listen to her tales of s.e.xual dysfunction. I hope instead it's something he wouldn't secretly find kind of appealing. Pyromania, for example.

She and I have something in common-which is scary. We're both kind of in love with Paul. I can tell by the way she leaves his office looking so territorial and reluctant. I remain forever grateful that I don't have to see the parade of his patients and measure myself against each one of them.

"What are you thinking?" Paul asks.

"Ask again later," I say.

He waits a beat. "What are you thinking?" Paul asks again.

"I'd tell you, but you'd mock me," I say.

"Mocking people can be very entertaining," Paul says.

I consider it. I've had this question ricocheting around my brain for a few weeks now; when I was close to asking it, I'd wise up. It's a test: I want to see if he'll lie or tell the truth. Testing people is a terrible thing, and it's my compulsion.

"Okay," I say. "Okay. Okay...yeah. Um, would you ever...hit on me? Like at a party or something?" I ask.

He smiles. "Patient-doctor relationships aren't ethical," Paul says.

"If it were ethical, it'd hardly be exciting," I say. Nitwit! "What I'm saying is, what if I wasn't your patient? Pretend we're total strangers and we meet at a party-then, would you hit on me?"

"Meeting you at a c.o.c.ktail party-I'd be thinking that I'm twenty years older than you," Paul says.

"And to your thinking that's a good thing or a bad thing?" I say.

He smiles.

"Okay, we're at a party, and I'm offering s.e.x, no strings attached?" I say.

"It would be rude to say no to that," Paul says.

I'm satisfied with this. I've begged the guy to hypothetically consider sleeping with me. And I'm satisfied? But he's not.

"The truth is, I'd be more likely to 'hit on you' in real life. I know you. At a party, you'd just be one more person," Paul says.

"You'd really hit on me?" I say incredulously. "You might want to investigate that self-destructive streak before the inquest. I like you. I really do. But I will not lie under oath."

My conversations with him are always directed at the wrong person. I need to transfer this longing back where it belongs. To Sam. As safe as it is, I can't keep hitting on my shrink.

"I just realized what I've been doing," I say. "I need to call Sam."

"Good," Paul says. "Are you going to?"

"Eventually," I say. "We both know I like to put off the things that are good for me."

"I've noticed. I wasn't sure you had," Paul says.

"Yeah. Mammogram...Sam..." I say.

Finding Religion IT'S EIGHT-THIRTY on Sunday morning. I'm running out of the park, and walk over to Madison to pick up a post-jog latte to simulate that runner's high I've heard so much about. I see Marjorie. She looks great. If this were a year ago, I'd a.s.sume she was dressed from the night before, and picking up a bagel on her way home to sleep it off. In the way that my mother is a morning person, my sister is the polar opposite.

"Hey!" I call.

"Hey, sweetie," Marjorie says.

"You look great," I say.

"It's the microdermabrasion. My cheeks feel like a baby's a.s.s. And the spa offers child care!" Marjorie says, smiling. "Well, off to church!"

"Right," I say, wink-wink, "off to church."

"Seriously," Marjorie says.

"No," I say. "No. I thought 'church' was code for 'sleep off hangover.' I'm surprised to see you awake and dressed."

"That's what happens when you have a baby. Besides, we've found the Lord," Marjorie says. "Who knew he'd be attending the city's hottest nursery school? We have to be model citizens for two years 'til he's in. We're greeters today."

"Doesn't Little Malcolm have legacy status at at least two nursery schools?" I ask.

"Oh, honey, the world has changed. We need a safety school," Marjorie says.

Marjorie has a baby, someone else to consider, and I don't. I do, of course-my mother. She is my emotional seat-filler. She gets to be the most important person in my life until I get more courage and put an end to this procrastination.

Marjorie doesn't know where her child will be admitted to nursery school to play with blocks, meet tiny friends, and nap on linoleum. And she's apparently so consumed by it she's willing to greet people on the steps of the church on Sunday morning. Not bad for someone who would fail the simplest of drug tests.

I'm a lawyer. I can mount a defense for my procrastination. I mailed a postcard to Sam. I left a message for him just before my pizza date with Will. In each case, he didn't respond. I saw him having lunch with, gasp, a woman. When I called from the hospital, he was entertaining. These are all great reasons never to contact him again. Except they're actually not a defense at all but a string of pathetic excuses. Why would he respond to a postcard? All that postcard told him was that I haven't learned anything. I reach out from a distance. I keep myself planted safely far away. No risk. No return.

The Things We Do for Love I'M IN THE KITCHEN at the office. I am opening the fridge to put some milk away when I notice how out of order the whole inside is. I've seen the same yogurt in there for at least two weeks. I start tossing things out quickly, as if they are bombs about to explode. It's very satisfying. The riddance of things we don't need.