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ARTISAN REVIEW
me and Margaret over on Thursday," he gently bullied, and then
in–
structed, "After the main course we'll have small talk and you'll go
into
your study and read my story." When father snapped his fingers, I saw
him years ago moving back and forth in his makeshift office, like a
pris–
oner suddenly getting an idea and hurling himself across the room
and
fiercely dialing the phone number of some underling. And I resented
his
game plan this afternoon.
He said, "And we'll discuss the manuscript, over coffee and the
chocolate mousse cake I'll bring from Dumas."
We shook hands on it.
Laura said cautiously, ''Just be kind. Tell him writing the story
is
a
romantic gesture."
"He often told Charles and me never to bullshit a bullshitter."
"I think he'd accept praise from you."
"And I think he may be daring me not to praise his fluff. "
Before storming out of the living room, Laura asked, "Why are you
so furious, he wrote a story?"
Until Thursday I was in rotten spirits. I taught my classes indifferently
and dismissed them early. I was impatient and short-tempered at home. I
suddenly found my sons far too noisy. I resented Laura always taking the
old man's side, She had real sympathy for the primitive power broker of
my childhood. I slept poorly. I wrote a letter and sent a check to Charles
but I had no intention of flying out to Denver to be with him. And I
wondered how different was I from my father , unwilling to ever be
compassionate.
On Thursday evening he arrived punctually, bearing a bouquet of
roses for Laura and baseball gloves for the boys, who dashed around the
apartment spearing imaginary line drives. My stepmother, Margaret, sat
down on the couch and began smoking. Father had once told me sadly
that cigarettes were her only vice.
Father, in an expensive light-blue silk suit, exuded self-confidence.
This meeting was a done deal. There was predictable aimless conversation
and drinks refilled, while Margaret, eyes half-shut, grimly smoked.
Pollution was her sole contribution to any evening.
The game plan was to be appetizers, followed by prime roast beef and
Yorkshire pudding. Then intermission, until I returned with gaudy news
about father's first attempt at fiction. I felt like an aged toddler, anxious to
make awful mischief and able to contribute only negative news and
sounds. Not even brave father (Laura's phrase) would be spared for what
he dared to write. I felt distant from everyone in the living room. Tom
