Dear Edward(37)

The man across the aisle is talking to Crispin, which is an unwelcome development.

“I read your book,” the guy says. “Even saw you speak when you toured for it. You came to my college. You were a rock star, sir.”

Crispin nods. It’s amazing to him, in this body, that he used to tour the country and shout passionately from stages about hiring the right people, cutting dead weight, keeping a growing business light on its feet. There was a time when he used to have to cross picket lines to get to those speeches. Men and women pumped posterboards up and down that said things like: People Before Profit and Another World Is Possible and Human Need, Not Corporate Greed. Total claptrap, obviously. They were imbeciles incapable of seeing the big picture. Louisa used to delight in sending him slanderous press clippings in the mail. Dear Asshole, she would start every note.

This kid is staring him down with a look Crispin recognizes—hell, a look he invented. It says, I’m hungry, desperate, and smarter than you are, so get out of my way. That look exhausts him now; it punctures another hole in his leaky tire.

“How many ex-wives you got?” Crispin asks.

The kid’s eyes darken. “One. I know you have four.”

“Try to keep it at one,” he says. “One good one. Four gets expensive. Try to figure your shit out sooner rather than later.” He coughs, then lowers his voice. “I’m alone on this plane with a goddamn nurse.”

The kid looks confused and then a little sympathetic. It’s occurred to him that Crispin might be senile.

“You look like you’re doing okay,” the kid says, an obvious fucking lie.

Crispin returns the lie, even though he wants to close his eyes and rest. He’s still competitive and doesn’t want this punk kid thinking he’s past everything. “You look like you’re doing okay with that stewardess.”

The kid’s eyes light up like a Christmas tree; Crispin has rung the right bell. “You think so?”

Crispin nods. “Play your cards right, she could be ex-wife number two.”

The kid laughs, and the sound is surprisingly familiar. It’s the sound Crispin used to hear when he opened the door to his house after twelve hours at work. Peals of delight or conquest coming from the kitchen, the bedrooms, the playroom. One child or another would realize Daddy was home and throw himself at him. Soon he’d have all of them pinned to the floor, a mess of limbs and bare feet and bellies, and the laughter would be orchestral, every note of joy hit simultaneously. The Dear Asshole notes from Louisa had come later, when the house was silent every night, when he lived alone with a new wife.

Jordan watches his brother. Eddie is pressing his hand against the rain-splattered window, holding it there for a while, then pulling it away. He repeats this motion, over and over. Jordan looks at his watch. His father gave it to him for his thirteenth birthday, and it has several small squares filled with different measurements, including one that registers hundredths of seconds. Jordan times his brother for three minutes.

“What the hell?” he says.

His father is asleep in his seat. If he’d been awake, he would have complained about Jordan’s use of language. Bruce has told the boys that he doesn’t mind cursing, if it’s used to good effect. Jane had once walked into a lecture on the subject in which Bruce was saying, “If you are furious, and you’ve exhausted your reasoned argument but still want to get a powerful emotion across, then you might say, Fuck you. What I object to is the use of these impactful words as fillers, such as when people say, What the fuck are you doing? That’s lazy. How is fuck helping that particular sentence?” Jane had coughed in the doorway and said, “I’m sorry, it’s okay to say fuck you?”

Eddie looks startled. He drops his hands to his lap. “What,” he says.

“How did you do that?”

“Do what?”

“You held your hand to the pane for exactly twenty seconds, then pulled it away for ten. And then you repeated that over and over, exactly, never off by a second. It was never twenty-one or eleven.”

“Huh,” Eddie says. “I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking about it, just doing it.”

Jordan regards his brother, who looks tired. Neither of them has slept well for weeks. They’ve never been to California before and, barring a few educational vacations to Civil War battlefields and other historical sites, have never slept anywhere other than their bunk bed in their New York City bedroom.

“Must have something to do with playing the piano.”

Eddie gives a small smile. The piano is the excuse, or the example, Jordan often reaches for, probably because it bothers him that he’s not musical. His little brother, he knows, hears music during every waking hour. All of the music Jordan has composed is bombastic and irritable—railing at his own lack of aptitude. He’d been even more annoyed when he realized his father knew what he was doing. Bruce said one afternoon, looking over Jordan’s shoulder while he was writing a composition, “All motivators are valid if they produce good work, son. And frustration can be a powerful motivator.”

What he realizes now, for the first time, is that none of his compositions are any good at all. He thinks, Eddie’s the one with the talent. I’m the one with the anger.

“Your eyes look weird and shiny,” Eddie says.

“Screw you,” Jordan says.