The Forgotten Hours(8)
It would be time to head back for Zev’s opening party soon, and she pulled a short black dress over her head. Green boots with sharp toes and cowboy heels. In the mirror, she saw hints of purple under her eyes. She applied concealer, pulled her hair up in a spiky blonde bun, and slipped on a pair of hoops. Tonight was important. The gallery owner, Hans, had invited some big collectors to view Zev’s work. No one would be paying any attention to Katie, but she wanted to be there to share in Zev’s accomplishment, to see the happiness spread over his face, to watch him work the crowd. Yet what she really wanted to do was retreat, curl up in bed again, turn her head into the fusty pillow, and dream herself into a different life. Could she pretend to be all right? Could she do it for him?
It was 6:33 p.m. when the phone rang. Katie waited for the recording to end and answered yes, she would accept the charges. The crackle on the line changed tone: the line was live.
“Sweetheart!” John Gregory said.
“Hi, Dad.” Her throat was dry. “How’s it going?”
As usual, they made small talk. The weather in New York (always a little different than upstate), her boss, a new book on neuroscience her father had just finished. He had been on a jag recently, reading everything he could get his hands on to do with brain science. This followed his Shakespeare period (every play the man had ever written, including Cymbeline and King John), his Norman Mailer obsession (“What a pig!”), and his earlier James Baldwin period. He was on good terms with the librarian, who let him order books from other library systems and take out as many as five at once. “But it’s the last time I’ll be going to this library,” he told her, sucking in his breath. “Last time ever. Can’t even finish the books I’ve already got before I’m out of here. Can you believe it, honey?”
“You know the exact time and everything? June 23, right?”
“Don’t know about the ‘and everything’ part, but yes. Had my SORA meeting—”
“What’s that?”
“Nothing, just means I’m all set to go.”
She wanted to know what he meant, but this was like a game they’d been playing all her life, and she didn’t know how to change the rules. The way it worked was that she’d be told whatever it was her parents wanted her to know, and she wasn’t supposed to press for more. She thought then of the reporters and how they knew her father was being released soon. Could you look that sort of stuff up? Would they hound him, too, now that he was getting out, or would they have already crucified him in the press by then?
“You’ll come pick me up, right? Would so love to see the Falcon out there, idling at the curb, waiting for me by the pearly gates of Wallkill Penitentiary,” he said. He cleared his throat. “You think your mother might come too—just to say hello?”
“Oh, Daddy,” she said. Something inside her slipped, a shifting of organs that hurt. Most often they talked about day-to-day things, what he ate, what he was reading, and he asked her about every detail of her week—but when he talked like this, as hopeful as a child, her thoughts always returned to when their roles had been reversed, when he’d been in charge and she’d been the kid. His voice as he read to her when she was little, her hand clutching his forearm, riveted. Conjuring up entire worlds that seemed so real to her. Now she had to be the one to guide him, to nudge him back into reality. “Mum’s not going to come see you. You know that.”
“No, Katie, listen. You never know. It’s been a long time. Seeing someone in the flesh”—he hesitated—“I mean, no bars, no Perspex between us? She might be curious. If she still feels something. You know?”
Her parents had been divorced since her second year of college. While she and her father didn’t discuss it, Katie assumed it had been that long since he’d actually seen or spoken to her mother. “She remarried, Dad. Come on, you know that. She’s married to another guy.”
He made a dismissive noise on the other end of the line. “Whatever that means these days.”
“So the plan, Dad. The Falcon? I don’t know how that’s going to be possible.”
“I’ll need a car. Figured you could haul it out of storage for me, make sure it runs.”
She smiled; this was just like him. “Because I’m such an awesome mechanic?”
“Ask your brother for help.”
“Because he’s such an awesome mechanic?” They both laughed.
“No, seriously, why not dust off the old lady and give her some respect?”
“And you’ll stay with that friend—Alden what’s-his-name?”
“Such a great guy, really solid,” John said. “But he’s got some sort of crisis; it’s just one of those things. I don’t want to be a burden. I told him it was no problem at all. I’m lucky to have two great kids, right? A whole backup team. Maybe I can stay with you a night or two, honey? Now your roommate’s gone?”
She tipped her head to one side. He’d talked about staying with an old friend from West Mills, where she’d grown up. It had seemed like a decent-enough plan—after all, where else was he supposed to go? David was an acting student living in a dodgy rental in lower Brooklyn, and Katie lived in a one-bedroom with almost no privacy. And while her father knew about Zev, she hadn’t told him yet that they were romantically involved. He’d gotten into the habit of calling Zev “the Israeli.” He meant it playfully, but there was an undertone of suspicion to it, an intimation that there was no way a man with an artsy job and a background like Zev’s could be entirely savory. Katie knew who her father wanted for her: a prep school boy her age, with a job at Goldman Sachs. John had been a commercial banker for Citigroup; he believed in careers that came with job specs and salaries, paid vacations and a decent-sounding title, something that had cachet. A career in which you could work your way up, slowly but surely, to the top. It was because of him that she’d chosen to go into consulting.