Love, Dad

19

“The thing of it,” Lissie says, “is that I was there, I was actually there! So when I see the television pictures of all these Iranians shaking their fists outside the American Embassy, all I can think of is that man at the border, the one who wanted to do an internal search.”

The two women are sitting at a table in an Italian restaurant called II Menestrello on East Fifty-second Street. Barbara Duggan is the one who suggested the place; until this past September, she was working as an editor at Harper & Row across the street, and sometimes dined here with writers she hoped to impress. Today is the Friday before Christmas, and Barbara has been invited by her former boss to the company’s annual Christmas party. She has asked Lissie to join her for lunch first.

Both women are dressed for their pregnancies and for the unusually mild weather that has wafted into New York for the holiday season. Barbara, in her eighth month and rather larger than Lissie who is in her sixth, is wearing dressy black slacks with medium-heeled black pumps, a white silk blouse with a Peter Pan collar open at the throat and long sleeves cuffed at the wrist. A massive turquoise-and-silver pendant is hanging between her breasts. Her thick black hair is swept up severely onto the crown of her head and fastened there in a small neat knot. Her slanting brown eyes (she still looks marvelously and inscrutably Oriental to Lissie) are touched with fawn-brown shadow and a darker liner. Her lips are tinted with a berry-colored gloss.

Lissie is wearing a navy blue wool jersey dress with an Empire waist, its drawstring tied in a bow just below her breasts, the pleated front cascading over her belly. A flamboyantly patterned Gucci scarf is knotted at her throat, and her straight blond hair is styled in a blunt shoulder-length cut, somewhat longer in the front, and parted in the middle. She wears a frosted peach-colored lipstick and smoke-gray shadow with no liner.

“I know it’s chic to hate Iran these days,” she says, “but I hated it even then. I couldn’t wait to get out of that country, Barb. They had these ditches, you know? These little drainage canals, whatever you call them? Running through the gutters? And the people would wash their food in those ditches, and throw garbage in them, and spit in them, and—” her voice lowers — “pee in them, you know? And then they’d wash their hands and faces in the same water, you had to see it to...”

“Please, not while I’m eating,” Barbara says, and grins.

“What is that, anyway?” Lissie asks.

“Sausage with mushrooms. It’s delicious. How’s yours?”

“Marvelous.”

“This used to be Le Mistral, you know.”

“Ah, right. I thought I recognized it.”

“The murals are still the same. The French Riviera.”

“Is that what it means? Menestrello? Is it Mistral in Italian?”

“I don’t think so. I think it means ‘minstrel.’ You should know, you spent much more time in Italy than I did.”

“No, we just passed through, actually. God, that seems like a million years ago. When I was traveling with Paul, I mean,” she says, and shakes her head. “I don’t even know now if I was truly in love with him. But I felt something with him I’d never felt with anyone else. I just wanted to be with him all the time, near him all the time.”

“I know just what you mean,” Barbara says.

“We never budged from that bed all the while we were in Amsterdam.”

“Heavenly,” Barbara says, and rolls her eyes.

“On the train to Paris, and later on the Orient Express to the Swiss border... do you know what he said just before we got on the train?”

“What?”

“He said, ‘It was five o’clock on a winter’s morning in Syria.’ That’s the first line of the Agatha Christie novel. He used to quote first lines all the time. But all the way across Switzerland to Milan and Venice, I couldn’t keep my hands off him. I guess even before we left Paris, I’d already given up any thought of going back to school. It was craziness, I know. But it was so damn exciting.”

“All of it,” Barbara says, nodding.

“Even the trouble at the border. Even those fucking dogs trying to kill us.”

She glances immediately at the table nearby, to make certain the matron there hasn’t overheard her obscenity. She turns back to Barbara, and wiggles her eyebrows at her. Both women begin giggling like teenagers. Now the matron does look at them. They sober immediately.

“What are you hoping for this time?” Lissie asks.

“Another girl. How about you?”

“A boy, I think.”

“Boys are a handful.”

“Yes, but you have to worry more about girls,” Lissie says. “Besides, I think Matthew would like a boy.”

“Matthew won’t have to take care of him.”

“Neither will I, for that matter. Not after the first year, anyway. We’ve already discussed it. I’ll be going back to work again after the first year. You should see him, Barb, it’s miraculous! He weighed three thousand pounds when I met him in that Cambridge head shop...”

“Just like us,” Barbara said.

“Exactly! But he’s been on a diet, and I can’t believe it’s the same man. He keeps looking at himself in the mirror. So do I, as a matter of fact. Looking at myself, I mean. I feel like a horse by comparison!”

“Do you plan on having any others?”

“I don’t think so. I really had the agency going pretty well, you know, when this happened. I’m not sure how I’d feel about leaving it again. I’m not even sure if taking a year’s leave now won’t, you know, ruin everything I’ve been trying to build for the past three years.”

“Sure, the personal...”

“That’s right.”

“Especially with travel.”

“That’s exactly right. Where they have to, you know, trust the agent’s taste and judgment.”

“Your personal taste.”

“And judgment, right. So I hope Matthew doesn’t get any more romantic ideas like he had last July on Fire Island.”

“Is that when it happened?”

“That’s when I figure it happened.” She lowers her voice again. “Did you ever do it by starlight on a sandy beach?”

“In Greece I did,” Barbara says.

“Yeah, well, the sand is finer there,” Lissie says, and both women burst out laughing. The matron looks at them again, and then signals for a check.

“Do your parents know you’re pregnant?” Barbara asks.

“Well, my mother does, naturally.”

“Is she still living in New York?”

“No, no. She went to Paris almost immediately after the wedding.”

“What’s he do?”

“My stepfather? He has a perfume company over there.”

“And she lives there full-time now?”

“Well, she comes to New York for a few weeks every fall.”

“How’d she meet him?”

“Skiing. In Switzerland.”

“Where?”

“Davos.”

“Never been there.”

“Me neither.”

“It sounds romantic.”

“Davos?”

“No, meeting a man on the slopes.”

“Yeah. Actually, he’s very nice.”

“What about your father?”

“What about him?”

“Does he know?”

“That I’m pregnant, you mean? How would he know?”

“I thought you might have...”

“I haven’t heard a word from him in more than eight years,” Lissie says, and hesitates. “It was eight years in October.”

“Since you’ve seen him?”

“Or talked to him. Or heard much about him, in fact. I don’t mean his professional life, I guess he’s busier than he ever was, I see his stuff all over the place. But otherwise... well, my mother used to fill me in every now and then, but that was when she was still living in New York.”

“He had a child with her, didn’t he?”

“Mm-huh.”

“A girl, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, mm-huh.”

“How old is she now?”

“Who?”

“Your sister.”

“My sister? Hey, come on, Barb.”

“Well, she... I mean, she’s your half-sister, anyway.”

“Mm-huh.”

“So how old is she?”

“I don’t know. Five or six, who knows?”

“What’s her name?”

“I don’t know.”

“Ever try to look her up?”

“What for?”

“Well... I think if I were in a similar situation... well, I’d be curious to see what she looked like.”

“Mm, well.”

“Anyway,” Barbara says and grins. “Would you like some dessert?”

“What time is it?”

“Almost two-thirty.”

“What time are you due up there?”

“Three.”

“Maybe we ought to skip it then. I’ve still got to pick up a few more things for Matthew, none of his clothes fit him now that he’s lost so much weight.”

“Where are you heading?”

“Saks.”

“Don’t you miss Bonwit’s not being here anymore?”

“Desperately,” Lissie says, and rolls her eyes.

They say goodbye to each other outside the restaurant and promise faithfully to keep in touch and to try to see more of each other in the new year. Barbara wishes her luck with the baby. Lissie hugs her tight and says, “Oh, yes, Barb, and you, too.”

She watches as her friend waddles across the street to enter the Harper & Row building, and suddenly visualizes her as she looked nine years ago in San Francisco when they strolled along Castro Street, Barbara wearing a brightly colored caftan, her thick black hair falling in a cascade to the middle of her back — I remember once, when I was in L.A., I went to meet this guy in Mac Arthur Park, he had an ounce of good pot I wanted to buy. And this pregnant lady was walking toward me in the park...

She smiles and begins walking toward Fifth Avenue.

On the corner of Fifty-second and Fifth, there is a Salvation Army band playing “Silent Night.” Lissie drops a quarter in the kettle. The air is not quite balmy, but after Wednesday’s snow and wind, it seems almost springlike today. She heads downtown with her big belly jutting, listening to the carols coming from someplace across the street, hearing the jingling of Santa Claus bells, savoring the feel of this city at Christmas time, the pace of it, the sheer momentum of it even when it’s springtime in December and there is no need to rush against the brittle cold. She surveys the windows of Saks, and then walks into the store through one of the Fifth Avenue entrances.

She isn’t quite sure what she hopes to buy for Matthew in addition to the mountain of gifts she’s already purchased. She thinks it odd that he’s begun losing weight in direct ratio to the speed with which she’s been gaining weight, and isn’t certain she enjoys him looking so slender and trim while she herself is beginning to resemble, more and more each day, the entire state of Rhode Island. She loved him when he was fat, so why the doublecross now? Idly, she wonders if the baby will indeed be a boy. If it’s a boy, they’ve already decided to name him Jeremiah, after Matthew’s father, Jeremiah Hobbs, D.D.S.

She wanders the first floor of the store, casually shopping the counters, hoping to find something spectacularly smashing to reward Matthew for his damn perseverance in pursuing his latest diet so conscientiously, twenty pounds in two months, that is a lot of fat down the drain while old Melissa Hobbs is ballooning. She stops at the sweater counter, remembering that Matthew’s sweaters are getting a bit threadbare, recalling in fact that he dropped a hint only last Wednesday, his day off, about coming through the elbows of his favorite cardigan. There is a cardigan on the countertop, green, with a lovely shawl collar. She checks the label, sees that it’s a medium, and wonders if a medium will be too small for Matthew, even in his trimmed-down reincarnation. “Excuse me,” she says, signaling to the salesclerk, who rushes past breathlessly and says over his shoulder, “In a minute, miss.”

“Shit,” she mutters, and the man standing beside her turns to her, smiles, starts to say, “It’s always this way at...” and then abruptly stops talking.

He is a man in his early fifties, she supposes, with brown eyes and a full head of dark brown hair, worn rather long. A thick beard covers his jowls and his chin. The beard is partially the color of the hair on his head and partially white. A hooded green loden coat hangs open over wide-waled tan corduroy pants and a plaid flannel shirt. A camera is hanging around his neck.

He is, she realizes, her father.

Neither of them speaks at first.

They simply stare at each other.

He is seeing a well-groomed and obviously pregnant young woman wearing a smart cloth coat over an expensive maternity dress, he is seeing his daughter as he has never been privileged to view her before. She is seeing a bearded, casually dressed man who seems very much at ease with himself, more relaxed than she’s ever known him.

Still, they say nothing.

“It is Lissie?” he ventures.

“Yes,” she says. She almost adds the word “Dad.” She does not.

“How are you, Lissie?”

“Fine, thanks. And you?”

“Living in New York now, are you?”

“Yes.”

“Me, too,” he says. “Joanna and I are down in the Village now. Where are...?”

“Well, not actually the city,” she says. “Larchmont. My husband has his practice in Larchmont.”

“Ah. Nice there.”

“Yes.”

“So,” he says.

“So,” she says.

“You’re married and everything now, huh?”

“Yes.”

“I see you’re...”

“Yes.”

“When are you expecting?”

“April sometime.”

“Ah.” He pauses. “You look wonderful, Lissie.”

“Thank you.”

“So,” he says again. “It’s been a long time.”

“Eight years.”

He hesitates. Then he says, “You broke my heart.”

The words pierce her to the core. She feels herself crumbling inside, and thinks for a moment that these are the first honest words he’s ever spoken to her in as long as she’s known him, and answers with equal honesty, “And you broke mine.”

He nods. He says nothing. It almost seems the conversation will end with this brief exchange. Everywhere around them, shoppers are rushing past.

“You shouldn’t have written that letter,” she says, and her eyes seek his. Clear-eyed, they face each other. In her heels, Lissie is almost as tall as he is; their eyes meet at almost the same level. While everywhere around them shoppers hurry past, and clerks ring up sales or reach for ringing telephones, they search each other’s eyes.

Gently, he says, “You left me no choice, Liss.”

She hesitates. She takes a deep breath, and at last says, “Maybe I didn’t.” It is a fierce admission; it is almost a beginning. The clerk suddenly appears behind the counter. “Yes, miss,” he says, “I can help you now.”

She turns away from her father. “Would you gift-wrap this for me, please?” she says.

“The cardigan, miss?”

“Yes, please.”

“Will this be cash or charge?”

“Charge,” she says and opens her handbag and then her wallet and begins searching for her Saks card. Her father is watching her. She is aware of his eyes on her.

“Well,” he says, “it was good seeing you again.”

“Yes, here, too,” she says, searching for the card.

“Have a merry Christmas, Liss...”

“You, too,” she says quickly.

“And if you ever find yourself in the city...”

“Yes, Dad?” she says, and looks up from the handbag.

He hesitates. “I’m in the book,” he says, and extends his hand to her.

She takes it.

They shake hands politely, like strangers.

He continues holding her hand.

She feels her eyes beginning to dissolve, and releases his hand at once, and hurries off into the milling crowd of shoppers before she can find the courage to ask him how her little sister is coming along.