Count them

“Count them,” Liev ordered. He supported himself on the kitchen counter with both arms locked at the elbow.

“Liev, there are thirteen spoons here,” I said. I looked across the island at Larry, who rested his head in the palm of his hand and looked up at the ceiling. A bunch of cobwebs, no doubt, because Mom and Dad’s house hadn’t been occupied since the car accident.

“And there are supposed to be fourteen silver spoons, Liam, not thirteen.” Liev huffed and puffed like a horse – appropriate, I thought, since he did have rather a long face. We’d used the Celine Dion joke on him a number of times. Just never to his face.

“Someone stole that spoon, and I want to know who,” Liev said, given Larry and me daggers in his eyes, “right now.”

“Liev, I didn’t take it.”

“Neither did I.”

“Well someone did. I was here for Dad’s eightieth birthday. That was four months ago. He had the car accident two weeks later and went into the nursing home with Mom right after that. Only the two of you were here since then. Who took the silver spoon?”

I shrugged my shoulders. I was guessing that Liev did a complete inventory of the house that first weekend in March. And would this be the first skirmish of the day? It was only 8:30 in the morning. And we had only one day to split all of Mom and Dad’s property. One day to divide up fifty-seven years. “Okay, I’m done with this. I’m going into the living room and packing up the books,” I said.

Liev pointed directly at me. “Not until I’ve picked the ones I want to keep. Don’t be in such a hurry, Liam.”

In my lifetime

They were there at the foot of the bed, standing. Carol, with her Marlo Thomas bob and the trim 40-ish figure she maintained even into her late 60s, managed to look sad and stiff-upper-lippish, even this of all possible evenings. Hank, a little stooped over, but ever resilient, stood at Carol’s side, holding her hand, his jaw tight but his eyes soft. On the other side of the bed sat George and Emil in two chairs, conversing with Duke, who stood next to them, something about New York in August and the theatre. Who cared at this point?

I looked beyond them all to John, whose white shadow stood by the window, beckoning to me. Tonight was the first cool night of the summer in the Hamptons. At long last the heat had broken. But did it have to wait for this of all nights? Couldn’t it have cooled off two weeks, even two days, ago? I heard John speaking to me. Come, Mark, please come to me. I’ve missed you these four years. I’m lost without you.

Well, I’d be coming to John in just a few short hours, and I’d be leaving Carol, Hank, George, Emil, and Duke to fend for themselves. And Jim, too – I’d miss him. He told me he’d be flying up to the Hamptons, but not until tomorrow. He’s the one I’m sorry I didn’t see one last time. I want him to know how much he meant to me these past four years, what he’d given me in John’s absence. I hope he knows what he’d done for me.

Blue

Mrs. Baker greeted me at the front door wearing a blue chiffon dress, silver-tipped and pointed glasses from the ‘50s, and blue-gray hair – that same blue hair rinse that Aunt Matilda and Aunt Hagatha used in the early ‘70s when they came for dinner on Thanksgiving.

“Won’t you come in, young man,” she said, her chins bouncing along with her smile. “My, what a handsome son Mr. and Mrs. Williams have! Aren’t you precious? How old are you, my dear?”

“I’m nineteen. I’m a sophomore at B.C.,” I said, trying to be helpful. Mother always told me to be polite with older people, especially women. Did she imply that I could be rude to men? True, men were usually shits, so why even try with them? But ladies, especially ladies with blue hair …

“And what’s your name? I met your older sister.”

I grimaced. I always hated telling people my name. “William.”

She looked down, touched her finger to her lips, and then smiled. “How clever of your parents. Do come sit down.”

I went inside and followed her into the living room – periwinkle blue wall-to-wall carpeting, pale blue walls, a dark blue tailored sofa, and two dark blue high-backed chairs. The drapes breathed a sigh of relief into the room with their blue-white floral pattern. I felt as though I’d walked into an old lady version of the whale tank at Sea World.

“Of course,” she said, “I’m taking all of the furniture with me, and the wall hangings. But you will have this lovely carpeting and draperies. Your mother has simply raved about the décor in the house.”

Mother would. But William knew that as soon as they moved in, the blue would go. She preferred rust oranges, greens, and yellows. Like a nightmare from the ‘70s, even if that was nearly fifteen years ago. Why did grown-ups like to live in the past?

A great choice

It’d been a long time coming, Alvin in Storage Testing thought. He slurped his Starbucks while chatting with Ken Melville in Product Engineering on his cellphone, walking from Building 4 to Building 5 at the Booble campus multi-plex. He’d given himself exactly eight minutes to walk from his last meeting – a one-on-one sync-up with Inga Muhlberg in Data Center Acquisitions (yes, he’d managed to catch up on his operations e-mail while getting the low-down on the data centers) – to his next one.

And the next one would be a real biggie. Alvin in Storage Testing had finally come due for his promotion to Manager of Storage Applications. He’d waited year after year at Booble, knowing full well that he’d always deserved to become a manager. A manager, finally – Sue’d let up on him at home, stop telling him he was a failure and should’ve left Booble long ago.

He’d be leading a great group, too. There’d be Scott Simpson in Persistent Storage, Wendy Wilkes in Imaging Apps, Herbie Bummlicker in Database Management Services, and Fred Finklestein in Logs. They’d all be reporting to him, just as everyone had thought for a long time when Martin McScrew in Storage Applications finally moved up the ladder himself.

Alvin in Storage Testing walked into Building 5 and up to the conference room. The whole team was there for the announcement. And the boss, too – Quing Chao, Director in Storage and Data Services. Alvin in Storage Testing took the only chair left at the table, on the right side of Quing Chao in Storage and Data Services. He’d be the right hand man, of course!

“Good afternoon, everyone,” Quing Chao in Storage and Data Services said. “I have an important organizational announcement to make, a long-overdue promotion for a well-deserved employee who’s worked long and hard for Booble. Herbie Bummlicker in Database Management Services will be promoted to Manager of Storage Applications, taking over the position vacated by Martin McScrew in Storage Applications.”

Alvin in Storage Testing spilled his Starbucks on his jeans.

Me, myself, and food

Their first afternoon back at Chautauqua, Ethel opened the refrigerator door. She grimaced at the Lower-East-Side-old-garbage-in-a-dark-alley smell that hit her in the face like a blob.

Among all the condiment jars was one with yellowed pickles -- and an oozing fluid that congealed down its side. The open box Arm and Hammer baking soda had collapsed and a cocaine-like power had stuck to the glass shelf. Several old lemons had turned into something looking like big raisins, and the package of Thomas' English muffins next to them contained a gray-brown science experiment inside. At least the bottle of Karo corn syrup could be salvaged. Ethel went to lift it off its shelf, but it stuck in place. Someone hadn't closed the lid.

"Just look at this mess, Norman," she said, giving her husband a stern look. "Someone didn't clean out the refrigerator last October before we went back to Florida."

"Well, next time, just remember to clean it up, Ethel. We could get bugs in the house."

Bats were more likely at Chautauqua, but yes -- this fall, when they left for Palm Beach, she'd clean the refrigerator herself.

A collaboration

Markel’s Fine Collectibles, their business during the day – at nighttime it became jigsaw puzzles. Tonight Mark and Michael were staring the Golden Gate Bridge.

“Three scenes, all horizontal shots,” Mark told Michael on the way home in their Jeep Wagoneer. Michael frequently asked why they didn’t get a new car, but Mark just tossed his head and told him, it’s my jaded jalopy, don’t make me give ‘er up.

“Hope they’re different. Nothing’s worse than a jigsaw where every pieces is the same color. Remember that one in Antarctica?”

“Kinda, sorta, maybe,” Mark sniffed. He didn’t think that one was so hard. After all, the icebergs, seals, clouds, and blue sky were all different, weren’t they? And they solved it in less than three weeks.

“Ugh, not another three weeks,” Michael said. How’d he do that, Mark thought, read my mind? Like we had these telekinetic powers. But he couldn’t really read his mind, could he? Mark put a silly thought in his head: let’s fuck vultures on our next trip to Florida.

“What’s up for dinner tonight? I’d love to have that yellowtail you bought yesterday,” Michael said, and smiled that way that massaged Mark’s heart. “While it’s still fresh, honey bun.”

There was a God, after all. That meant Michael didn’t know about Mark’s little dalliance with Vadim the ballet dancer. Good, because it didn’t matter. It was only sex, wasn’t it? Well, wasn’t it?

Delusional

“I know you love me,” Harvey said and telegraphed a frozen gaze of infatuation that hit Ellie like a meringue pie made of chiffon and sequins – neither one wanted by itself, he thought, and most certainly not wanted together.

Ellie thought about the dilemma Harvey had presented him for a moment. Should he chase him away from his aunt’s house, should he reason with Harvey, or should he try to murder him? It’d be so easy, Ellie thought – no one here at the house, and even if they were, no one would really be able to see him do it. It’d be so natural.

But then conscience hit Ellie hard on the head. Harvey had been so kind, so loyal, so faithful all these years they’d been together. He’d never let Ellie down, not in his worst moments, not even when he’d disappointed Harvey. The big guy deserved a lot better than having his neck wrung in Auntie Vee’s cellar.

“Harvey,” Ellie said, his mind made up. “Let’s you and me go for a walk. Outside. We have to talk.”

“Okay, but you know I’ll never, never, ever leave you.”

Outside they went, Ellie keeping his eyes on Harvey the whole time. And when they got to the street, Harvey looked left … then looked right … and then his rabbit ears jumped up and down and he hopped over to the other side in a jiffy.

Ellie didn’t see the potato chip truck barreling down the street, and it flattened him dead.

My family

I was just dreaming about riding a model train through the Sierra Nevadas when the heavy, discombobulated pings and bams jolted me out of sleep. Someone was fussing in the kitchen.

I looked over at the alarm clock, had to strain my neck. Why can’t alarm clocks be in the line of vision when you wake up? Eight o’clock, I never sleep in this late. So I dragged myself out of bed and looked in the mirror. A total train wreck. More gray in my head than red, all looked like straw going every which way. And the wrinkles on my face … every one of my fifty years staring right back at me and laughing. And the cellulite on the sides of my abdomen. I could spend a hundred hours a week at the gym, and the cottage cheese would still be there.

At least I still had a big penis. A good thing, since an older gay man needed a big one to get laid. The boys insisted on it. Hey, let’s be honest here – I’m writing in the first person, so I’m supposed to be honest.

So I put on my shorts and an East Hampton t-shirt and went out to the kitchen. They were all there. My father, my mother, my brother, his wife, their two kids – everyone bustling about the kitchen, doing something productive in making breakfast this morning after Christmas. Starting to plan the day. I think I’ll go to the gym this morning. We’re all bike riding in the afternoon and then we’ll have dinner with my sister-in-law’s family this evening.

Perhaps I can meet someone at the gym and get laid before lunch.

I am ready (or not)

Robert sat at the piano, tapping out a rough rendition of the Rondo from Mozart’s Emperor Concerto. He stopped in the middle of a measure –

“Are you ready yet, Alex? We don’t leave in the next sixty seconds, we’ll miss the movie.”

“Just one second,” he heard from the far bathroom. She must’ve been brushing her teeth, Robert thought – sounded like marbles in her mouth.

Robert went back to Mozart, but before he could get past the development section, Alex came out of the bedroom. Wearing a knee-length off-the-shoulder white dress with blue trim, she looked smashing. And he felt a jolt of electricity travel down his abdomen. Even the dog got excited, jumping up and down and barking.

“Told you I’d be ready in a second,” she said, sticking her tongue out at him. “Now let’s get going.”

April in Philadelphia had been unusually cold, so Robert got her mink stole from the closet. She put it on and fumbled in the pockets. “Just a moment. No Chapstick. Have to have Chapstick in this weather.”

Back to the bedroom she went – forty-five seconds later, back out. “Okay, all ready. But wait, Robert – that chocolate stain above your lips?”

He rubbed it out and then raised his hands. “Okay, all out!”

“No, Robert, you’ll have sticky fingers,” Alex said. “Go wash your hands.”

They went into the kitchen. Robert went over to the sink and Alex said. “Goodness, Robert, we forgot to feed Lucy. Let me put out her food …”

And three minutes later, they were ready again – and finally got to the door. It had started to rain. “Better get the umbrella,” Alex said.

“No way will we make it to the Ritz in time,” Robert said. “Let’s just stay home and watch Singin’ in the Rain.”

Impressionist Flowers

I found Mrs. Rosenthal standing over her dining room table, her stomach resting on the mahogany as she arranged the flowers – gladiolas, daisies, red roses, and baby’s breath as the base. She’d put on her best off-the-shoulder sequined gown, had teased her blonde hair into a gorgeous doo, and put on her best make-up that I picked up before I even entered the room. Every one of her eighty-four years looked smashing.

“Mrs. Rosenthal, what are you doing up like that? What if you fall? Let me arrange those for you.”

“Pure nonsense, Charley Kramer, be still. And take your sweet pretty red head and wait for the other guests in the other room,” she said. Her voice scolded but her eyes smiled. “I’ll be along in a jiffy.”

I shook my head and laughed. What would I ever do with my favorite neighbor, what would anyone everdo? She was the grande dame of the Duquesne, and whenever she got something into her head, none of her neighbors – or anyone else in New York, for that matter – could get her to budge. But we all loved her.

I went into the living room. The walls were covered with photographs from her life – the gorgeous young dish who’d wowed vaudeville audiences with her luscious gams, the young mother of two who shocked society by becoming the first Jew to live at the Duquesne, the middle-aged political activitist who’d marched alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. – and the older woman who refused to slow down, no matter what. Every time I walked into this apartment, I felt the sheer force of her life, and I felt alive.

Mrs. Rosenthal came into the room. She had a devious sparkle in her eyes. Perhaps mischievous trouble to come? “So Charley,” she said, “we’ll have a little musicale after dinner tonight. You’ll play Gershwin on the piano and I’ll sing.”

Someone to Watch Over Me – I was sure she’d want to sing that one.

Whipped cream

Agnes could feel the rough edges of Norman’s tongue caressing her lips, her teeth, her own tongue, alive and vital, pressing back against his. She felt the stubble of his chin, his square jaw, as it rubbed against her own smooth face and neck. And then she could feel the prickles of that stubble travel down her neck and into the valley between her breasts – and then to the right, and to the left. And she felt his smooth, wet tongue as he fondled her nipples, one and then the other. And all at the same time she felt the rising waves of passion between her own legs as he massaged her clitoris and her vagina with a hand she adored – at once muscular, at once soft and sensitive, his fingers thin but those hands powerful with their hairy knuckles.

Agnes had never known that passion like this could exist. And as far as they had gone here – naked to each other, nothing between them, only their shared desire for each other and for this moment – this moment came to Agnes as a surprise, a revitalizing and tantalizing jolt, one that took her to the edges of her emotions. And she could never have known that Norman, muscles tense, eyes ablaze, a bright redness in his cheeks, fully erect and pressing against her abdomen and legs – never have known that Norman desired her this much. Norman leaned into her, kissed her, his lips wandering over to her left ear, biting and licking it. And as the electricity between them kept recharging itself and she thought she’d go over the edge any second now, he whispered into her ear –

“Let me go get the whipped cream.”

Tomorrow

The clock ticked its way, unimpeded by anything, that Thursday morning. Tomorrow, Madeline thought, tomorrow she’d be facing life alone. Life alone in this monstrosity of a house she didn’t really love, but would be hers, finally and absolutely.

“Mrs. Groves,” Imelda the housekeeper said, approaching Madeline, who was sitting on a lounge by the pool, “Mr. Carter is on the telephone. Would you like to speak with him?”

Carter, Madeline thought with something like hopeful alarm – why would he be calling on this of all possible days? Did he want to call off the whole thing? Did he want to tell the lawyers, we’ve changed our minds, we don’t want to go through with it? Did he really love her, after all that had happened?

And yet she’d gotten what she wanted – a Maserati, a housekeeper and a butler, this mansion in Pacific Heights, a view of the Golden Gate Bridge, and no one she’d have to share it with. Isn’t that what she’d always wanted? But no, she suddenly knew – it’d always been Carter she wanted.

“Yes, Imelda, please bring the telephone. I’ll speak with him.”

Madeline arranged her face in smooth lines. Odd, how a facelift and here-and-there Botox injections could turn the face into silly putty, so easy to arrange whenever she wanted. She cleared her throat and blinked. She wanted her voice to sound smooth and mellifluous when she consented to Carter’s moving home again. She wanted him to think of her with dignity and grace, someone whom he could trust –

Imelda brought the extension from the house.

“Carter,” she said into the phone.

Madeline heard noise in the background, like Carter was sitting in the Pacific Diner down on Union Street. Union Street – he was only five blocks away! He could be there in ten, perhaps fifteen minutes!

“Good morning, Madeline,” he said, business-like as ever. “I called to see if you’d agree to let me have my mother’s Waterford crystal bowl.”

“But Carter, I thought maybe –“

“I’m marrying Rhoda on Saturday, and I’d like to give it to her as a wedding present.”

These are the numbers

Jack sighed like a horse – and sounded like it too. “Look, Steve,” he said, “the numbers don’t add up in Ohio.”

“We’ve still got two-thirds of Hamilton County to come in,” Steve answered. By now, beads of sweat had emerged onto his forehead, which looked like a wet cinnamon roll.

“That’ll be ten thousand at most, and ninety percent of Cuyahoga’s still got to come in. And they’ll go at least seventy-five percent for the dark side.”

“I still say we hold on, even if the networks have called Ohio.”

“They don’t even need Ohio because they got Colorado and Nevada. And he’s leading in Virginia, too, by two percent. And Prince George County hasn’t even come in. And then there’s Florida …”

“We’re going to win in Florida, no question. Rick Scott’s done his job there. No way we’re losing that state.”

“It’s time for the governor to call the president.”

“It’s time for you to shut the hell up. Get me the right numbers, Jack.”

The cashier

The door swung open and a cold wind blew into the restaurant. Thelma felt that blue icy snap that went up her skirt when January’s wind came inside. Why’d Sal have to put the cash register so close to the front door? A diner in Camden, and she had to work the cash register by the front door all year round.

“Just a minute, sweetie,” she said to the customer, not bothering to look. “We’ll get you a table in a jiffy.”

“Thelma,” baritoned the voice, somehow familiar and bringing some sort of unpleasant taste into her throat – “can it be my favorite trombone player?”

She looked up at the figure – overweight, shoulders slumped over, a big pot belly. The sun shone behind his head, so she couldn’t make out the face, but the voice, was it – no, it couldn’t be, she’d thought he’d gone to Buffalo – yes, it was, he came into focus … Herbie Ballard.

Herbie Ballard, the football jock at Cherry Hill High who’d dated Samantha Harding. She’d swooned over him two years running, just like every other teenaged girl. And here he was, forty years later, coming into her restaurant, calling her by name.

“Well, if it ain’t Herbie Ballard. And you – rememberin’ my trombone. Ain’t never did get over you leavin’ town, marryin’ that girl. What’s her name now?”

“Phyllis,” he said, lowering his voice. “Came back to town to bury her this weekend.”

I'm all alone out here!

Ice and white surrounded Martin’s eyes as he made his way up the glacier, picking at ridges, inching his way along the journey, slipping here and there, standing to look at the valley.

“Is anyone out there?” Martin said, hearing his voice echo across the frozen lake at the bottom of the mountain. “Can anyone hear me?”

Nothing answered except the boomerang of his own voice, coming back to him hollow and tinny, isolated and alone. He renewed his climb up the mountain. A sharp wind hit him on the back and he felt the stab of cold up his legs and onto his neck – what was he wearing here that allowed this kind of cold to penetrate into his bones?

And just as he reached the top, he looked forward at the frozen ocean beyond, blue sky with orange sunrise – or was it sunset? And then the snow beneath him began to settle. He could feel himself descending, reached out for a ridge, but none was there, beginning to fall, seeing the frozen, jagged edges below him –

Martin woke up in a sweat. It’d seemed so real to him, really, just like being there – and yet he woke up hot, not cold.

“Darling,” he said aloud, “you’re not going to believe the –“

And then he remembered. Savannah had moved out three nights ago.

Keeping track of something

Ralph put on his glasses and his golf visor from the Marlborough Country Club, and the he sat at the bar with his receipts stacked on the left, his calculator on the right, and his Macbook Pro in front of him. He pushed the stool into the bar as far as it would go, until it squeezed his fat tummy toward his back. And he placed his hands on the keyboard as if getting ready to play a Rachmaninoff piano concerto. Yes, number 3 – let it be the Rach 3.

Kay walked by, wrapped in nothing but a towel, ready to shower. She’d be going to her pilates class, and after that, she and Tiffany would have an afternoon by the pool at the club. Ralph wished he could keep slim and trim like Kay always had been, but age had caught up with him.

“Honey, will you get salmon for dinner this afternoon when you come back from the hardware store?” Kay said. “And be sure to get a shrimp appetizer. Oh – and I’d like you to stop at Whole Foods and pick up my special organic drinks for me. And don’t forget to call the plumber. He needs to come next week to unstop the bathroom drain …”

“It wouldn’t have stopped up if you cleaned your hair out of the sink occasionally,” Ralph replied, his attention divided between his wife and their monthly receipts. He wondered what this $275.00 at Dr. Sanjay’s office was for – ah, yes. Botox for Kay.

“Ralph, we’ve talked about this before. It isn’t healthy for us if you make me feel bad. Please don’t speak to me with that tone of voice. Oh – and after you call the plumber, be sure to call the electrician on your way home. And don’t forget vacuum cleaner bags at the store. When I come home from the club, it’d be really nice to have clean floors. You might consider doing that for me …”

Ralph chose to ignore this. “Just to warn you, Kay,” he said. “This month will be fairly expensive for us. Your share may be more than $2,500 again.”

“Not again. It must all those books you buy.”

Why didn’t he just send Kay back to her mother? Life would be so much simpler. And then Kay’s bath towel fell off her shoulders, and he saw once again the soft curves from her shoulders to her ankles. What was he asking himself?

Family Halloween

“Trick or treat,” Justin said when Mrs. Schaetzle opened the door. His parents stood behind him.

The old German woman retreated to her foyer table. She brought out three Nestle bars and dropped them in Justin’s basket.

“One for the bumblebee,” she said, her Prussian accent thick and heavy, looking at Justin’s black and yellow costume, “and one each for the Spearmint Twins.”

Leah and Martin had rented a bicycle built for two during the day and had ridden up and down Market Street on it. It’d been quite the sensation, and the ride on Castro Street had been more of a procession than anything.

“Thank you, Mrs. Schaetzle,” Martin said. “Justin, what do we say to our neighbor?”

“Thanks, ma’am.”

They walked down Sanchez. Leah looked over her shoulder at Mrs. Schaetzle’s grey house. “Living across from her gives me the creeps, Martin. She can’t be less than ninety years old. How long before she goes, do you suppose? I’d love to get my hands on that house when it goes on the market.”

“Who knows? From what I heard, she was an old Nazi who fled Germany for South America in ’45 and then came up here in the early ‘60s. She probably worked as a guard in Auschwitz or somewhere.”

“Yes, I can see her standing over a suffering child with a whip, shouting orders to clean floors with toothbrushes. The sooner we get her house, the sooner we can do a complete makeover.”

I am determined

Little Jeffy stared at the avocado green refrigerator. On a tablet posted on the lower door, Mr. McCartney had leaned down and written 4 on one row, 5 on another, and he’d put a plus sign next to the 5 and drawn a line under it.

“Tell me what the sum is, Jeffy. What are 4 plus 5?”

9, of course, Jeffy thought. So he took the pen from Mr. McCartney and wrote 9 under the line.

“That is correct, little man,” Mr. McCartney said. “I will tell your mother to give you an extra helping of ice cream.”

Chocolate chip ice cream, Jeffy hoped. It’s my bestest favorite in the world, he told Mr. McCartney. And boy, that wasn’t hard at all. A piece of cake, just like Gaddy was always saying – but this time, he’d get ice cream.

“Now, young man, I want you to do another problem.” So Mr. McCartney erased Jeffy’s 9 answer and he erased the 5. Then he wrote a 7 in its place. “Go ahead and figure this one out.”

Oh, that’s easy, too, Jeffy thought. 4 plus 7, the answer was – Hey, this isn’t fair! This is a trick! Something’s wrong here. You can’t add these two numbers and still get a number cause 9 is the biggest number! Why is Mr. McCartney laughing in that funny way?

So Jeffy took the eraser from Mr. McCartney’s hand, wiped out the 7, and put the 5 back in its place. And then he took his marker and wrote a 9 under the line again.

Mr. McCartney put his head back and laughed like a monkey at the zoo. “Oh, Jeffy, you can’t do that!”

“But can I still get my chocolate chip ice cream?”

It bores me

“You lazy bum, get your head out of that crossword puzzle,” Martha spat out. “We have to talk about yesterday.”

George was trying to find a 5-letter French word for book. Admittedly, his French had become rusty since leaving Paris back in ’79, but he still fashioned himself an expert on the language and culture. He looked up at his wife.

“What is it, my dear?” He turned his attention back to his crossword, but his reading glasses slid down his nose and onto the newspaper. He retrieved them.

“I said, get your head out of that puzzle and listen to me when I’m talking to you. You sat in the living room yesterday reading TV Guide all afternoon at my sister’s house. And you barely said two words all afternoon to Herbie. He’s starting to think you don’t like him.”

Livre, he realized – the 5-letter French word for book. “That’s silly. He’s a good enough sort for me,” George said at some point between filling in the V and the R. Next clue – a 6-letter word for avoidance.

Martha came over to his chair and stood right in front of him, hands on hips. George looked up for a second. If this were a movie, she’d be Shelley Winters and he’d be Ernest Borgnine.

“You have to promise me,” Martha said, “that the next time we spend time with my family, you pay more attention to Herbie. And to my sister, too. They’re beginning to think you don’t like them.”

“All right, Martha, whatever you say,” he said. He turned his full attention to the puzzle. The 6-letter word for avoidance popped into his head.

My brother

Alice’s phone rang at 4:30 in the afternoon, just as she and Edward were sitting down for tea and scones. Gertrude walked into the room, the noise of her housekeeper’s shoes echoing all the way up to the third floor. “We have Mr. Marcus ringing on the line.”

Edward, who’d already made himself comfortable in his leather chair by the fireplace, took his pipe out of his mouth and sighed. “Oh, Gertrude, not when we’re having our tea, please.”

Alice turned to him, “He’s my brother, Edward, I won’t be a moment.”

Alice walked across the hall with Gertrude, who disappeared into the kitchen to oversee the other servants preparing dinner. Tonight would be beef bourgignon with hollandaise asparagus.

Marcus seemed to call everyday with one trouble or another. Last week, it’d been his car accident in the Austin Healey. Monday, it’d been from the hospital, where he’d been taken after a Sunday night barroom brawl. What would it be today? It was only Thursday. He hadn’t yet made it to the weekend.

She reached the phone. Something in Alice told her to hang up the receiver and walk back to Edward and their starchy existence – but a little voice inside of her said, Go ahead, pick up the receiver. You know this is your real life. You know this is where you’d rather be.

“Marcus,” she said into the receiver. “This is Alice.”

She heard desperate crying. “Alice,” he said between sobs, “Jane has thrown me out of the house, and this time I think she might really mean it. May I come stay with you and Edward? Please, darling. I need you to hold me while I fall asleep, just like we did when we were young …”

Alice looked at the grandfather clock in the mirror’s reflection. Edward had inherited it from his grandmother.

Larger

Anthony spilled the MetRx powder all over the kitchen. Tiffany ran from the living room.

“Look what you’ve done, all over my fruit salad!” Tiffany said, straightening her blouse when she stood up. Since she’d gotten the enlargement, she’d been having difficulty with the old blouses. But they couldn’t afford new clothing anymore.

“Hey, bubbles, you clean it up for me. I have to head out to the gym,” Anthony said, leaning down gently. He didn’t want to pull a muscle today. “I’m meeting up with Rocko. Today’s pecs and glutes day.”

“Be back by five o’clock. We’re going to my mother’s for dinner this evening. And then we’ve got our massages at eight tonight.”

Anthony sighed, scratched his forehead, and looked around for a moment. “Ah, not sure I can go tonight, honey. I’ll have to do an hour recovery when I get home. Tomorrow’s biceps and lats.”

“But it’s my mother’s sixtieth birthday, and you promised.” Tiffany looked as though he’d just slapped her.

“I really need to keep my priorities straight here, Tiffany.”

A deception

After three martinis and twenty “God damn that cheating slut,” Marty smashed the Lalique vase, Waterford bowl, Royal Doulton balloon lady, and Tobacco Leaf serving platter on the kitchen floor.

William deserved no less for his decision to resume his affair with his old flame, Roberto. He knew very well how Marty felt when he and Roberto went out drinking, when his mother invited Roberto to family functions, and when his father brown-nosed him because, like him, he voted Republican.

“I need some freedom,” William had asked just two nights ago, just before they went to bed. “That doesn’t mean I want to break up. I just want to open it up a little, you know what I mean?”

Marty had sat up in bed at this remark. Things had been going so well between them – they’d had great sex twice since the past Sunday. William had never given any indication it was boring him. Marty said no, let’s take our time about this, and he put up the usual arguments you’d expect from a clingy housewife.

Marty guessed that was his role in this relationship, the clingy housewife.

And then this afternoon, William had called, saying he was going out with Roberto, and that it was a sex date. “But we agreed,” William had told him, “we could have occasional flings.”

Marty had said no, Roberto was off the table, but William insisted. “We’ll talk about this when I get home after my sex date.”

After he was done cleaning up, Marty asked himself, how’d he ever explain the broken collectibles? It’s not like that drunken time when he’d thrown all of William’s old porn away. He couldn’t explain it all away with one of his stock lies.

Moving forward

Last night I closed the laptop after surfing presidential polls and went into the bedroom.

“Let’s watch Bewitched before heading off to sleep.”

I gave Mike a back massage while we watched Uncle Arthur switch Samantha and Darrin’s voices. To great comic effect, of course, and we both laughed ourselves silly as I rubbed out the knots in Mike’s hamstrings and glutes.

When the episode was over, I said, “All right, one episode’s worth of a massage, that’s all.”

“Another episode, let’s have another episode!” Mike said, hoping I’d forget and keep on doing the massage.

We both fell asleep during the next episode … something about Mrs. Stevens forcing Samantha to hire a housekeeper so that Samantha could join social committees. I could never understand why Samantha called her mother-in-law Mrs. Stevens, but maybe that was the era.

I don’t remember how the episode ended, but I did wake up early – 4:30. Might be due to the time change, might be the early hour I went to sleep. But I really think it’s the election. I went straight for my laptop and checked out the polls. Obama’s moved forward in the past few days … good news for a Democrat like me. Washington Post had a summary of the talking heads’ predictions – 12 for an Obama win, 7 for a Romney win. Twelve for progress, seven for the reverse.

I’ll bet I know how Mrs. Stevens would’ve voted, but thank goodness – she was a fictional character. And even so, she lived in a blue state. And I’ll bet I know how Darrin would’ve voted. He’d have been a Romney man, always trying to get Samantha to conform to his way of life. But Samantha … there’s an Obama voter if ever there were one.

Now if only she could twitch her nose and settle the whole thing …

Fallen garbage can down the hill

Elliott walked down the hill on his way to the shuttle stop, but Gracie stopped at her usual place, dead in her tracks.

“Come on, Gracie, hurry on up. Five minutes to the Google shuttle.”

Gracie always chose this one house to poop in front of, I guess, because the driveway always had a nice bunch of leaves. But Elliott took another look at his watch. He’d probably miss the shuttle.v Just like he’d missed out on that windfall – the courts gave it all to Hal, who waltzed in with his mother’s lawyer (also his new boyfriend) and demanded half of Elliott’s Google stock. Hal would throw it all away on trips to Acapulco and glitzy artwork. It’d all be gone in eighteen months, just like the new boyfriend. And then what? Elliott no longer cared.

Gracie finished up and they continued their walk down 18th Street toward Dolores Park.

But Elliott did care about his parents, even if they were three thousand miles away in a nursing home. Mom with Alzheimer’s Disease. She still remembered him when he called, but she couldn’t tell him what she’d done since yesterday. And Dad – his mind still there, but the body completely disabled by the stroke. The only thing they seemed to be excited about these days – well, that would be Republican politics. And that reminded Elliott of the election – of course, given Elliott’s recent luck, if it were a tie as everyone predicted, it’d probably go to the Repulsivecans. Mom and Dad would be happy, but the rest of the world would be screwed.

Nope, Gracie and he made the shuttle. But that’s what life was like for him now – all downhill from here.

Write about giving

The grandfather clock ticked away the seconds in a jagged staccato.

“Once again,” Bobby continued, dropping his eyes to the floor throwing his baritone down, where it bounced off the hardwood floor and nailed a stake of dread in Ken’s heart. “It’s all about you, isn’t it?”

“What I’m saying is this,” Ken stammered out, aware that Bobby was doing it again, “I have a right to be angry about the paintings. We agreed –“

“This isn’t about the paintings, this is about your need to control every situation –“

“We agreed that we’d buy the wall hangings together and that they’d be something we both liked. You went ahead and bought four large paintings, and hung them all, without even asking me.”

“Do you really hate them that much? I was sure you’d love them. They’re perfect.”

The dog – Bobby’s choice, yet again – walked on over and stuck his head on Ken’s lap. “What is it, Buddy?” But Ken knew already what Buddy wanted – a walk, just like always. Bobby never walked Buddy. Somehow, over the years, that’d become Ken’s job – three times, every day.

“And I don’t hate them. That’s not the point! The point is that, once again, you made a decision without even consulting me! And we’d agreed … by your own words … that we wouldn’t hang anything that didn’t have our mutual agreement.”

“Well, just give me this one time. But why does it always have to be all about you?”

Trying again

Melba unpacked Arnold’s Limoge.

“Sweetheart,” Arnold said, an ever-so-slight hint of uneasy condescension in his graveled voice, “place those in the dining room china cabinet. You remember where we used to keep them.”

She placed a white plate on the countertop and shrugged. Since he’d gone, she’d replaced the formica with an off-white stone. He’d inherited the Limoge from his mother, but she’d gotten the house. Melba turned to face Arnold and faked a laugh.

“But Arnold, darling,” she said, wary of where this might go. They’d never managed conflicts over domestic issues very well. “You know very well I sold the china closet. We now have a credenza over there.”

Arnold paused a moment and looked down at his shoes, as if making sure he stood on his marker for a photograph. “What was I thinking. You put it where you think best, love of my life.” He said this in an even tone.

Ten minutes later Arnold came into the room with a charcoal painting of his mother as a young woman – Gertrude, the mother-in-law whose every compliment came laced with an insult to Melba’s domestic capabilities. “Honey, would you mind if we hung this in the foyer above the crystal vase?”

Melba massaged her forehead at the point where she thought the crevice between the left brain and the right brain resided. “Yes, dear. You may hang your mother anywhere you like.”

Honesty

Aaron couldn’t tell the truth to all these people depending on him.

He’d promised Mary Boleyn he’d look after Henry Fitzroy. He’d made an obligation to Caesar Claudius that he’d keep watch on Caligula. Sir Isaac Newton was counting on him to stand under the tree and wait for an apple to fall on his head. And Eleanor of Aquitaine wanted Aaron to lead an invasion of Normandy.

Why did he get himself into these messes? All these famous people, whenever Aaron saw them, all he could do is promise them this, promise them that. But he was a human being, too. He had needs and wants. And how would they feel if, one day when he visited them in that clackety-clack of a time machine, he turned the tables on them?

“Queen Eleanor,” Aaron could hear himself saying. “I’ve decided to wear some of your jewels to the king’s pig roast. Would you be a dear and hang these from my nipples?" “Sir Isaac,” Aaron would baritone, “I think we need to give that tree a little shake. Go climb up it and jump up and down on that branch. I’m in a hurry. I’ve got an appointment with Socrates.”

“Great Caesar with the stutter,” he said, knowing the old man had a sense of humor, “every time I get near Caligula he turns me around and makes sport with my behind. Would you be a dear and point your flabby little arse at the heathen and service him yourself?”

“Lady Mary,” Aaron said, a velvety tone of appreciation for her round breasts in his voice, “would you stroke me a hundred times just here? That’s right, on that spot.” But no, he had to be a star fucker and go blubbery every time someone famous asked him a favor.

In the dark

She’d put off the crystal chandelier for months. It stood there in the dining room, chiding Molly for her own laziness.

“I think I’ll clean the crystals myself,” Molly had told her husband, Geoffrey, before he headed to work that morning. Geoffrey had a business dinner that evening, he told her. He worked so hard for them – frequently late, burning the midnight oil at work he said. Plenty of evening business dinners. Don’t call me evenings, darling, he would say, I need to focus on my daily reports.

Molly got the ladder out of the broom closet to start her morning’s task, but the recyclables basket turned over when she pulled it out. She groaned, “Horsefeathers!” Not only had she let the crystals get dusty and dirty, she’d made a mess of all Geoffrey’s discarded business papers. He probably should’ve put them through the paper shredder.

She picked them up – receipts, invoices, old reports. She took a look at a few of them. One report, Accounts receivable 05.09.2009, just like any of the others. Receipts for business dinners – Top of the Triangle, the Willows, the Marmion. Odd, those were all out-of-the-way hotels, none anywhere near close to his office. Well, business. And then receipts for flowers and confectionaries – must be business entertainment. He did often entertain clients. And then Molly found it! A reservation for a week’s trip to the Cayman Islands … during that week in December he’d told her that he’d be going to Memphis for a business conference.

Everything became crystal clear to Molly. Of course! Geoffrey was planning a second honeymoon for them.