Lunar Park Part 18

"It's Faheida," she corrected me quietly.

"Dr. Fajita, doesn't anyone see here that I didn't want-"

"Oh, this is ridiculous," Jayne shouted. "He's a drug addict. He's been using again."

"None of this has anything to do with being a drug addict," I shouted back. "It has to do with the fact that I didn't want a kid!"

Everything tensed up. The room went silent. Jayne stared at me.

I breathed in, then started talking slowly.

"I didn't want a kid. It's true. I didn't. But . . . now . . ." I had to stop. A circle was narrowing around me, and my chest felt so tight that I was momentarily lost in blackness.

"Now . . . what, Bret?" This was Dr. Faheida.

"But now I do . . ." I was so tired, I couldn't help myself and started crying.

Jayne stared at me with disgust.

"Is there anything more pathetic than a monster who keeps asking please? please? please?- please? please? please?-"

"I mean . . . what more do you want from me?" I asked, recovering slightly.

"Are you kidding? You're actually asking that?"

"I'm going to try, Jayne. I'm going to really try. I'm . . ." I wiped my face. "I'm gonna look after the kids while you go off tomorrow and-"

Jayne started talking over me in a tired voice. "We have a maid, we have Marta, the kids are gone all day-"

"But I can look after them too, when, I mean, when they're at the house and-"

Jayne suddenly stood up.

"But I don't want you to look after them because you're an addict and an alcoholic, and that's why we need people at the house, and that's why I don't like you driving the kids anywhere, and that's why you should probably just-"

"Jayne, I think you should sit down." Dr. Faheida gestured at the armchair.

Jayne breathed in.

Realizing I had no other options (and that I didn't want any other options), I said, "I know I haven't exactly proven myself, but I am going to try . . . I am really gonna try and make this work." I hoped the more I said this, the more it would register with her.

I reached for her hand. She knocked it away.

"Jayne," Dr. Faheida warned.

"Why are you going to try, Bret?" Jayne asked, standing over me. "You're gonna try because your life is so much worse by yourself? Because you're too afraid to live it alone? Don't tell me you're gonna try because you love Robby. Or because you love me. Or Sarah. You are far too selfish to get away with f.u.c.king lying like that. You're just afraid to be by yourself. It's just easier for you to stick around."

"Then kick me out!" I suddenly roared back.

Jayne collapsed into the armchair and started sobbing again.

This caused me to regain my composure.

"It is a process, Jayne," I said, my voice lowered. "It's not intuitive. It's something you learn-"

"No, Bret, it's something you feel. feel. You don't You don't learn learn how to connect with your own son from a f.u.c.king manual." how to connect with your own son from a f.u.c.king manual."

"Two people have to try," I said, leaning forward. "And Robby is not trying."

"He's a child-"

"He's a lot smarter than you give him credit for, Jayne."

"That's not fair."

"Yeah, right, it's all me," I said, giving up. "I've betrayed everyone."

"You're so sentimental," she said, grimacing.

"Jayne, you took me back for your own selfish reasons. You didn't take me back because of Robby."

Her mouth dropped open in shock.

I was shaking my head, glaring at her.

"You took me back for yourself. Because you you wanted me back. You wanted me back. You always always wanted me back. And you can't stand that that's how you feel. I came back to you because you wanted me back and this choice had very little to do with Robby. It was what Jayne wanted." wanted me back. And you can't stand that that's how you feel. I came back to you because you wanted me back and this choice had very little to do with Robby. It was what Jayne wanted."

"How can you say that?" Jayne sobbed, her voice high and questioning.

"Because I don't think Robby wants me here. I don't think Robby ever wanted me back." I became so tired when I admitted this to the room that my voice became a whisper. "I don't think the father ever needs to be there." My eyes were watery again. "People are better off without them."

Jayne stopped crying and regarded me with a cold and genuine interest. "Really? You think people are better off without a father?"

"Yes." The room could barely hear me. "I do."

"I think we can disprove that theory right now."

"How? How, Jayne?"

Quietly, and with no effort, she simply said, "Look how you turned out."

I knew she was right, but I couldn't stand the silence that would have punctuated that sentence, the silence that would give it dimension and depth and weight, transforming it into the sentence that would connect with an audience.

"What does that mean?"

"That you're wrong. That a boy needs his father. It means that you were wrong, Bret."

"No, Jayne, you you were wrong. It was wrong of were wrong. It was wrong of you you to have that child in the first place," I said, meeting her gaze. "And you knew it was wrong. It wasn't planned, and when you supposedly consulted me I told you that I didn't want a child and then you went ahead and had him even though you knew it was wrong. We did not make that decision together. If anyone is wrong here, Jayne, it's you-" to have that child in the first place," I said, meeting her gaze. "And you knew it was wrong. It wasn't planned, and when you supposedly consulted me I told you that I didn't want a child and then you went ahead and had him even though you knew it was wrong. We did not make that decision together. If anyone is wrong here, Jayne, it's you-"

"You're a walking pharmacy-you don't even know what you're talking about." Jayne was sobbing again. "How can anyone listen to this?"

I thought I had reached a threshold of caring, but exhaustion kept me pushing forward in a rational tone.

"You did a very selfish thing by having Robby, and now you're understanding just how selfish it was and so you blame me me for that selfishness." for that selfishness."

"You f.u.c.king a.s.shole," she sobbed, wrecked. "You are such an a.s.shole."

"Jayne," Dr. Faheida interrupted. "We talked about how you should ignore Bret when he says something you disagree with or know to be patently false."

"Hey!" I exclaimed, sitting up.

"Oh, I try," Jayne said, breathing in, her face twisted with regret. "But he won't let me ignore him. Because Mr. Rock Star needs all the attention and he can't give it to anyone else." She choked back another sob, and then she directed her fury at me again. "You can't step back from any situation and see it from any perspective but your own. You are the one, Bret, who is completely selfish and self-absorbed and-"

"Whenever I try to give you or the kids the attention you all say you need, all you guys do is back away from me, Jayne. Why should I even try anymore?"

"Stop whining!" she screamed.

"Jayne-" Dr. Faheida jumped in.

"Robby was f.u.c.ked up before I got here, Jayne," I said quietly. "And it wasn't because of me."

"He's not f.u.c.ked up, Bret." She started coughing. She reached for a Kleenex. "Is this really all you've learned?"

"Whatever I've learned in the last four months is that the hostility directed toward me in that house has alienated me from connecting with anybody. That is what I have learned, Jayne, and . . ."

I stopped. Suddenly I couldn't keep it up. I involuntarily softened. I began weeping. How had I ended up so alone? I wanted everything to be rewound. Immediately I got up from the armchair and knelt in front of Jayne, my head bowed down. She tried pushing me away but I held her arms firmly. And I started to make promises. I spoke uninterrupted, my voice raw. I told her that I was going to be there for him and that things were changing and that I'd realized over the last week that I have to be there for him and that it was time for me to be the father. I had never spoken these words with such force and in that moment I made a decision to let the tide of narrative take me where it wanted to, which I believed at the time was toward Robby, and I kept talking while I wept. I was going to concentrate only on our family now. It was the only thing that meant anything to me. And when I was finished and finally looked up into Jayne's face it was fractured, distorted, and then something pa.s.sed between us that was distinct and clear, and in the most dreamlike way, her head slowly tilted, and in that movement I felt something ascend and then her face composed itself as she stared back at me and her tears stopped along with mine, and this new expression was in such a contrast to the harshness that had scattered it before that a stillness overtook the room, transporting it to someplace else. She had been paralyzed, transfixed, by my admission. I remained kneeling, our hands still curled together. We were drawing each other inward. It was a faint movement toward countervision, toward comfort. It felt as if I had crossed a world to arrive at this point. Something unclenched in me, and her remorseful gaze suggested a future. But-and I tried to block this thought-were we really looking at each other, or were we looking at who we wanted to be?

18. spago

A Spago had appeared off Main Street last April, almost twenty years to the day after the original had opened above Sunset Boulevard in L.A., and where I first took Blair in the cream-colored 450 SL after an Elvis Costello concert at the Greek Theatre, and at a window table overlooking the city I told her that I'd been accepted by Camden and that I was leaving for New Hampshire at the end of August and she fell silent for the rest of dinner. (Blair, a girl from Laurel Canyon, had actually quoted Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide" on her senior page in the Buckley yearbook, which made me silently cringe at the time, but now, twenty years later, the couplet she chose moved me to tears.) When Jayne and I entered the restaurant it was already half-empty. We were seated at a window table and our waiter had shiny hair and was midway through reciting the specials when he recognized Jayne, at which point his drone became falsely chipper, his timidity activated by her presence. I noticed this. Jayne did not, because she was staring at me sadly, and her expression didn't change when I ordered a Stoli and grapefruit juice. She accepted this and ordered a gla.s.s of the house Viognier. We touched hands across the table. Her eyes wandered away and out the window; it was cold and Main Street's storefronts were darkened and a traffic light swung above an empty intersection, flashing a yellow light. We were both less stern. We'd become simplified, anch.o.r.ed, nothing was shifting or panicked here between the two of us, and we wanted to be tender with each other. Spago had appeared off Main Street last April, almost twenty years to the day after the original had opened above Sunset Boulevard in L.A., and where I first took Blair in the cream-colored 450 SL after an Elvis Costello concert at the Greek Theatre, and at a window table overlooking the city I told her that I'd been accepted by Camden and that I was leaving for New Hampshire at the end of August and she fell silent for the rest of dinner. (Blair, a girl from Laurel Canyon, had actually quoted Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide" on her senior page in the Buckley yearbook, which made me silently cringe at the time, but now, twenty years later, the couplet she chose moved me to tears.) When Jayne and I entered the restaurant it was already half-empty. We were seated at a window table and our waiter had shiny hair and was midway through reciting the specials when he recognized Jayne, at which point his drone became falsely chipper, his timidity activated by her presence. I noticed this. Jayne did not, because she was staring at me sadly, and her expression didn't change when I ordered a Stoli and grapefruit juice. She accepted this and ordered a gla.s.s of the house Viognier. We touched hands across the table. Her eyes wandered away and out the window; it was cold and Main Street's storefronts were darkened and a traffic light swung above an empty intersection, flashing a yellow light. We were both less stern. We'd become simplified, anch.o.r.ed, nothing was shifting or panicked here between the two of us, and we wanted to be tender with each other.

"First the man takes a drink, then the drink takes a drink, and then the drink takes the man," she was murmuring.

I smiled apologetically. Ordering a c.o.c.ktail had been so natural an act that I hadn't even thought about it. It had been involuntary. "I'm sorry . . ."

"Why are you having a drink?" she asked.

"It'll be my reward vodka?"

"How did I know you'd say something s.h.i.tty like that?" But there was no rancor in her voice, and we were still holding hands in the dimness of the restaurant.

"Do you really want to be here this week?" Jayne asked.

It was as if the intensity of the heartfelt plea-on my knees, with my head bowed-in Dr. Faheida's office had vanished from memory. But then I thought, During that impa.s.sioned speech, were you thinking only of yourself? "What do you mean? Where else would I want to be?"

"Well, I thought maybe you'd want to take a week off." She shrugged. "Marta will be there. And Rosa."

"Jayne-"

"Or you could come to Toronto with me."

"Hey," I said, leaning forward. "You know that would definitely not work out."

"You're right, you're right." She shook her head. "That was a dumb idea."

"It wasn't a dumb idea."

"I just thought maybe you'd like to go someplace. Have a vacation."

"I've got nowhere else to go." I was doing my Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman An Officer and a Gentleman impersonation. "I've got nowhere else to go . . ." impersonation. "I've got nowhere else to go . . ."

She laughed lightly, and it didn't seem faked, and we squeezed hands again.

Then I decided to tell her. "Well, I'm up for this Harrison Ford thing and they might want to meet this week." I paused. "In L.A."

"I think that's great," Jayne said.

Though I wasn't surprised by her enthusiasm, I said, "Really?"

"Yeah. You should definitely think about it."

"It would only be for a day or two," I said.

"Good. I hope you do it."

Suddenly I asked, "Why do you stay with me?"

"Because . . ." She sighed. "Because . . . I get you, I guess."

"Yet all I do is disappoint you," I muttered guiltily. "All I do is disappoint everybody."

"You have potential." She stopped. The unspecific comment was transformed into something else by her tenderness. "There was a time when you made me laugh and you were . . . kind . . ." She paused again. "And I believe that will happen again." She lowered her head and didn't look up for a long time.

"You're acting like this is the end of the world," I said softly.

The waiter came with our drinks. He pretended to recognize Jayne only now and grinned widely at her. She acknowledged this and offered a sad smile. He warned us that the kitchen would be closing soon, but this didn't really register. I noticed people slipping away from the bar. There was a whirlpool in the center of the dining room. After Jayne sipped her wine she let go of my hand and asked, "Why didn't we work on this more?" Pause. "I mean in the beginning . . ." Another pause. "Before we broke up."

"I don't know." It was the only answer I could come up with. "We were too young?" I guessed. "Could that have been it?"

"You never trusted my feelings," she murmured to herself. "I don't think you ever really believed I liked you."

"That's not true at all," I said. "I did. I did know that. I just . . . wasn't ready."

"And you are now? After one particularly volatile session?"