Good Riddance(40)

“Yours?”

She launched into her list of favorite cakes, favorite frostings, favorite brands of boxed cake mixes and how she doctored them before I cut in with “I wouldn’t be right for the job. You want a real wedding cake, which is a whole other specialty. This is just a dessert. I don’t even have the right pans.”

Denny said, “Plus, we’re getting married in New Jersey. It’s going to have to be a rum cake.”

“He means I have three Italian grandparents,” Alissa said.

“Do you have a date yet?” I asked.

“No,” said Denny.

“Except . . . Denny? Remember? The thrombosis?” Alissa said.

“One of her grandmothers might not make it if we wait too long,” Denny said.

“Then go for it,” I said.

“I know it takes months and months of planning. The wedding dress, the venue, the caterer, the florist,” Kathi said. “Not to mention booking the church.”

“Not to mention is right,” Denny mumbled.

I sensed a sore subject.

“He may not have told you that I was married before,” Alissa said. “I was very young. It only lasted two years.”

I said, “I can top that. I was married for under one year. It was a sham from start to finish.”

My father said, “Daff—let’s not get into that.”

Kathi helped change the subject by freeing Sammi, who came bounding out from behind one of the closed doors, doing laps between the table and the door, then lying down, ecstatic to see his mistress and my father, her underbelly offered for his attention.

I said, “It looks like she enjoys Dad’s company as much as he does hers.”

Kathi said, “We’re up to five afternoons a week. She can’t believe her good luck.”

“It’s mutual,” my father said.

Sammi lifted her head and was sniffing the air with such dedicated twitching that we all laughed. “She smells the chocolate,” Kathi said. “And she’s thinking Don’t tell me you finally used the oven!?”

Once again, it struck me that I hadn’t expected to like this woman. When she’d been only a name and a concept, she was too young, too cute with her spelling of Kathi, too eager to meet me, and certainly too eager to rope in my socially na?ve father. But here she was: kind, hospitable, good-natured.

Lost in my character analysis, I wasn’t paying attention to the conversation about chocolate being toxic for dogs until I heard Denny ask my father, “So you walk dogs for a living?”

“Not exactly. I’m retired, so it seemed a good idea, to indulge my love of dogs without getting one of my own.”

“Retired from what?”

I waited for the answer that never failed to subdue any man who’d ever been assigned to detention. But what I heard from the most earnest man I knew was “Carnival barker. Why?”

Would Kathi jump in to assure her brother that her suitor had a bachelor’s in education and a master’s degree in secondary-school administration? She didn’t. “I think that’s what drew me to him in the first place,” she said. “I’d gone out with doctors and lawyers but never a carnival barker. Imagine the stories he has to tell.”

How could I resist adding, “My mother was a trapeze artist.” I closed my eyes and bit my lip. So tragic.

Denny said, “We should probably head back.”

Wouldn’t this be Kathi’s cue to say, “We were joking! Tom was a high school principal in a district consistently rated one of the top ten in the state!” But all she said was a sprightly “Thanks for coming! Thanks for the wine.”

She retrieved their coats, and we three plus Sammi walked Denny and Alissa to the industrial-size elevator. When its doors closed and we heard its lumbering descent, I said, “That was great, especially the improv.” And to Kathi: “You’re a quick one.”

“He deserved it,” she said. “No imagination. None. And no curiosity. What if your mother really had been a trapeze artist and that’s why your dad is widowed?”

I said no worries; they were nice enough.

“Good time?” my dad asked me with a glance toward our hostess.

“Can’t you tell? I’m leaving you two alone now. Oh, wait. Dishes. I should offer.”

They said no, no. You go. Have a nice evening. Thank you for the cake. Oh, that’s right—the bowl and the whisk and the pan. We’ll wash and return them next time we see you.

I said something uninspired like “Till then” or “No problem.” They both kissed me good-bye. I walked to the E train deep in daughterly contemplation. If I were a person who spoke to the dead, I’d tell my mother that her husband, who had loved her and forgiven her, who hadn’t been especially rewarded for that, was, on this cold December night, as lighthearted as I’d ever seen him.





20


When Did I Get So Mean?



It might have been a more thoughtful notification if Geneva’s update (“Oh, Daphne—hi; I have something to run by you.”) hadn’t been delivered nonchalantly when we crossed paths in the trash room.

“About . . . ?”

“The documentary. Yours and mine. It’s not going to happen.”