Family of Liars(36)
“That’s arbitrary,” says Yardley.
“It’s always arbitrary,” says Harris airily. “Most rules are arbitrary, but we still need them. Otherwise, we’d have anarchy.”
I drink the whole drink in four gulps, even though it tastes like fuel.
Harris Sinclair is my father. And he is not my father.
This is my porch, has always been my porch. My yard, my beach. My island.
And yet only because of my name. Not my blood.
Harris greets Pfeff and Major as they arrive. They eagerly accept cocktails and descend on the nibbles. Erin and Penny come down, wearing each other’s shirts, with wet hair. Penny looks different in a sleeveless black turtleneck.
Harris asks Major if he’s got a girl back home in New York. “I bet you do, right?”
Major looks at his shoes.
“Or maybe a couple?” Harris presses.
“No, actually.”
“Ah, well. You’ll do great at Amherst. Smart women there. They’ll give you and Pfeff a run for your money, I’ll bet.”
George touches Harris’s shoulder. “Mr. Sinclair.”
“Harris. Call me Harris.”
“Major—” He turns and asks his friend, “Can I say this?” And when Major nods, George says, “Major plays for the other team.”
“That I do,” says Major.
A shadow passes over my father’s face, so quickly I don’t think the others catch it, though Penny and I do. We are alert to his slightest displeasure, always. Harris is embarrassed to have mistaken Major, and he’s angry at George for telling him he’s wrong in front of other people. If you must correct Harris Sinclair, you do it privately.
Also, he’s not happy with Major now. My father isn’t comfortable with homosexuality. Neither is my mother. Their catchphrase on the subject is “live and let live,” but they tense up around the topic like it’s dirty. Like it’s something they don’t want us to know even exists.
“Well,” Harris says awkwardly. “Live and let live.”
He begins talking college sports with George.
I make myself a second old-fashioned and let my head spin.
I want to grab Penny and tell her about Buddy Kopelnick, but she is talking to Pfeff, and I mustn’t tell her anyway.
The pressure of my secret is behind my eyes, behind my whole face.
* * *
—
OUR FAMILY OFTEN plays Charades, Celebrities, and Dictionary—but Who Am I is a new game. Tipper, who arrived before supper looking wan and distracted, has now gone into her hostess mode. We have eaten and Luda is clearing.
Tipper guides us into the living room. She has attached thick white cards to safety pins. On each card is written the name of someone famous in royal-blue ink. She pins a card on the back of each individual. We do not know what our own cards read.
She has asked Harris to explain the rules. “Hear ye, hear ye,” he announces in a resonant voice. He is reading off a pad of paper. “We are now a group of extremely famous people,” he says. “We are so famous, even Tomkin will have heard of most of us.” Laughs all around. “But—sadly, we all have amnesia.”
“Why do we have amnesia?” calls Uncle Dean.
Harris goes off-script. “Let’s see. Traumatic brain injury? Yes. We have all hit our heads, and while we remember how to walk, talk, and eat, we none of us remember who we are.” Back to the script. “All right. Your mission for the rest of the evening is to discover your own identity. You’ll find tea and coffee on the sideboard, booze on the cart, plus chocolate-covered strawberries, orange cake, and shortbread cookies. Eat your fill. And while you’re eating, find out who you are on this great earth. Except! You must not ask. You don’t get to ask questions like Have I been president? Or Did I write a book? Instead, you’ve got to talk to people as naturally as possible, and your job is to tell your friends about themselves. Give them clues. So you might say, “?‘I hear you like jelly beans,’ if someone is President Reagan. Or ‘I loved your latest novel.’?”
“Does the president like jelly beans?” asks Tomkin.
“Yes, he does,” says my father. “Now, when you’ve figured out who you are, step to the deck and see Tipper about it. If you end up wrong, she’ll send you back in.”
* * *
—
I EAT THREE shortbread cookies and pour some Jim Beam into a teacup when the adults aren’t looking. I want to stop my thoughts circling around Buddy Kopelnick. The two old-fashioneds haven’t been enough to do it.
As the game begins, Tomkin bounds up to me, grinning. “I saw your tag!” he says.
“I saw yours,” I tell him. He is Walt Disney.
“I’m glad to meet you because I love you a lot,” Tomkin says.
“You love me?” I drink from my teacup. The straight bourbon burns the roof of my mouth.
“Oh, yeah.” He does some kind of motion with his hand that I can’t interpret. “You’re the best.”
I tell him Mary Poppins is pretty excellent, even when you’ve seen it ten thousand times.
“What?”
“Mary Poppins.”
“You’re not supposed to tell me who I am! Didn’t you listen to the rules?”