Good Riddance(12)

“You didn’t answer. Is it going to get made or not?”

Wincing, I said, “I get the impression she can do it without our permission. Finders keepers.”

He put the roller back in the tray and slipped the bandanna off his head. “I’ll save you a call. Where’s my phone? I’m sure I have Julian’s number”—his first cousin, the family one-stop lawyer.

“I know what he’ll say about a potential movie: ‘The odds are it’ll never see the light of day.’ She’s only had one documentary made . . . and it was about matzo.”

Not a good sign: that “matzo” failed to deescalate the conversation. “Will it be about the class of nineteen sixty-eight or about your mother?”

“Both, I think. But remember—”

“Even though she’s not here to defend herself? Those comments she wrote? Fat, rude, gay, felon. How do we know they don’t constitute slander? And some members of that class, believe me, could come forward and say things that would slander her.”

About what? I chose to believe nothing more than her overwrought devotion to a class full of ingrates.





7


Holiday with Strangers



“Where should I start?” asked Geneva’s subject line. The body of her email was blank except for her closing, a six-line signature/contact info/credential overload.

The haplessness annoyed me out of proportion to its innocent-enough four words. I wasn’t going to answer, but then couldn’t help myself. “It’s your project. You’re the filmmaker. And”—the drum I was constantly beating—“without the yearbook in my possession, I have nothing to go on.”

She wrote back. “That sounded hostile.”

Now it was my turn to pick up the phone. As soon as she answered, without preliminaries, I said, “You the professional are asking me for advice?”

“I thought you were in the business.”

“What business?”

“Acting. Isn’t that how you know Timmy?”

Really? Do I even correct this? “Timmy’s his character. You mean Jeremy. I know him because he lives across the hall.”

“Never mind. Listen, can you come with me to the next reunion? They have a whole website for the fiftieth. All we do is sign up, send a check to the class treasurer, Roland somebody—his address is on there—and show up!”

“Wild horses couldn’t drag me.”

Undaunted, Geneva asked how one gets to Pickering. Was there a train?

“You fly to Manchester and rent a car.”

“Do you think anyone else would be attending from Manhattan?”

“So you could hitch a ride? Unlikely.”

There was a pause. “Do you drive?”

“I drive, but I don’t have a car. Plus, I’m not going.”

“May I say something?” she asked.

I waited.

“If it was my mother who had some lifelong draw to this class—correction, lifelong obsession—I’m damn sure I’d be running up there to find out the who, what, and why of it.”

“There is no who-what-why. Obviously, she considered the yearbook dedication a huge honor. And this is a town where there’s nothing to do—no clubs or movies or theater unless you count the high school musical every May. This is what she looked forward to, what she bought a new dress for every five years.”

“There has to be more. That’s all I’m saying. There. Has. To. Be. More.”

“If that’s what you’re counting on, some can of worms, you’re in for a long, boring night.”

“I’ll pay for your ticket,” she wheedled.

I didn’t think I was agreeing to attend by asking, “Are you sure any random person can go?”

“Absolutely. There’s a box you check that says spouse, partner, sibling—”

“I’m not going to go there under false pretenses.”

“Wait. And one that says ‘other.’ We’d certainly qualify as ‘other.’”

I tried to sound as grudging as possible when I asked, “When is it?”

“Oh, wait. Let me get the info in front of me . . . Okay. November 30. Thanksgiving weekend, which means you’re probably going up there anyway to have Thanksgiving dinner with family.”

What was I doing Thanksgiving weekend? Except eating the actual meal with my father, I didn’t have a plan, let alone for the dead days that followed. I gave this scenario a few seconds’ thought: Dad over for turkey; no, just the breast cooked in my apartment-size oven. I’d buy or borrow a roasting pan. I said, “I don’t have family up there. My dad’s in the city now.”

“That settles it,” Geneva said.

“Settles what?”

“He’ll come with us.”

“He never went to reunions with my mother. He’s certainly not going to start now. He and I will have a quiet Thanksgiving dinner. Just us two, but that’s fine.”

“No, it’s not fine. Thanksgiving dinner has to be a party. You’ll bring him to mine.”

“Party? I don’t think so.”

“I call it that, but it’s just dinner. I round up my friends who have no place to go, the ones who eat out or volunteer at soup kitchens. I can fit a dozen around my table with both leaves in it.”