Chapter 25
The forty-minute car ride was a mostly silent one, Rob’s face turned toward the window, Natalie keeping to the speed limit, putting her Los Angeles driving training to good use.
She could tell herself a lot of stories about why she was here with Rob right now. She was trying to be a good citizen of the world. Rob had been kind enough to her a couple of times, so this was a quid pro quo. Alternatively, Rob had been a real dick to her a couple of times, and she was showing him how far above it all she was. Still, she clenched the steering wheel tight, anxiety thrumming in her over the feeling that she was transporting precious cargo.
When they were a few minutes away from their destination, Rob’s phone rang, and he snapped out of his catatonia to answer faster than Natalie had ever seen him move. “Mom? Where are you? Are you okay?”
Natalie could hear a woman’s voice, low and panicked, on the other end of the line. “New York? What are you doing there?” Rob asked. Another pause from Rob as his mother spoke. “Right.” His voice was bitter. “Well, Dad’s wandering around in the cold.” He shook his head. “How could you leave him? How could you not tell me—” He cut himself off with a glance at Natalie, suddenly brusque. “Never mind. I’ll be there soon, and we’ll talk when you get home.”
He hung up and dropped the phone into his lap. After a moment of dazed silence, he said, “She decided to go see a show. Didn’t check her phone until intermission.”
“And your dad is…?” Natalie began, turning on to Rob’s street.
He leaned toward her and spoke urgently. “It’s dementia, I think. I don’t know what he’ll be like. I only just realized that he even…Well, I’ve thought maybe, a few times, but I’d written it off, and my mom didn’t tell me anything.” He took a deep breath. “This isn’t important to you. Sorry. You can wait in the car if you want. Or go back to the party. I don’t want to ruin your night.”
He seemed so at loose ends, so unlike his usual self, that she couldn’t help herself. She placed a hand gently on top of his. “I’ll stay. I’m here for whatever you need.”
He blinked quickly, his eyes shining in the dim light, and she realized that she needed to pay more attention to the final stretch of road.
As she turned into the driveway and parked the car, they spotted Rob’s father, agitated and pacing on the front porch, his breath making puffs of white in the chilly evening. An imposing man, wearing a blazer as if on his way to teach a course. He must have been freezing. Had he locked himself out, or was he staying in the cold out of stubbornness?
Rob peeled out of the car, taking the porch steps two at a time with his long legs as Natalie followed.
“Robert!” Professor Kapinsky said, as soon as he spotted his son. “This is an outrage!”
“Why don’t we go inside, Dad?” Rob said as he located his old house key on his key ring. “I bet we can find your wallet in there.”
“No, I know where it is. It’s with Bow Tie Bill!” He gestured across the street to where a round-faced man was peeking out his front door, a red plaid bow tie tight around his neck. The neighbor gave Rob a relieved wave, then disappeared back into his home.
“He doesn’t have it, Dad,” Rob said, unlocking the door and attempting to shepherd his father indoors.
“He told you that? He’s probably lying,” Rob’s father went on, still not having registered Natalie’s presence. Hesitant, she followed the two of them inside. The house was nice, historic-feeling, with dark wood walls and more bookshelves than Natalie had ever seen in one place outside of a library.
“Well,” Rob said, “why don’t we have a cup of tea to warm up, and then we can figure it out.” Rob turned the kettle on and his father continued to pace, shivering, his hands shaking and drained of color. Thank God they’d gotten there when they did, before he stayed outside longer and the temperature grew colder. Thank God he hadn’t wandered farther afield. “And here, let’s find you a blanket.”
“I don’t need a blanket. I need my damn wallet!”
As Rob grabbed a throw blanket from a nearby couch, Natalie hung back, an interloper. The expression on Rob’s face as he stared at his father was so vulnerable, so private, that Natalie looked away and around the kitchen instead. Cheery tiled walls, a six-burner stovetop. Everything was neat in the way that suggested it was cleaned fairly often—no layers of grime or built-up clutter. Yet at the same time, little splatters of sauce on the counter and a smell of rotting bananas suggested neglect over the past day or two.
Rob breathed in and then in a calm voice said, “Take a seat, Dad. You should relax.”
Professor Kapinsky curled his hands into fists. “I can’t, when Bill is probably gloating—”
Still unnoticed, Natalie scanned the room for the overripe banana. There it was in the fruit bowl. Right next to a brown leather wallet.
She stood frozen for a moment, considering, then quietly grabbed the wallet. She walked back outside, then reentered the house, closing the door with a clatter. “Found it!” she called.
In the kitchen, the two men froze in a strange tableau, Rob holding out a blanket, his father pushing it away as they both turned their heads toward her entrance. Rob’s father peered at her, startled, then looked back and forth between her and Rob. He was trying to figure out if he was supposed to know her, she realized. If he needed to pretend. “I’m Rob’s friend Natalie,” she said, and handed the wallet to him. “So nice to see you. And here’s your wallet back.”
“Thank you,” Professor Kapinsky said, and then, “How did you find it? It was with Bill, wasn’t it?” He worried at the leather of the wallet with his fingers, turning it over in his hands, his shoulders hunched defensively.
Natalie glanced at Rob and then said, “Yes.” Rob furrowed his eyebrows at her, and she soldiered on, hoping she was doing the right thing. “I just talked to him and it was a misunderstanding.”
At that, Rob’s father came alive, straightening up to his full height, a vindicated smile spreading over his face. “I knew it.”
“He’s so sorry. He didn’t mean to take it, he just thought it was his.”
Professor Kapinsky shook his head and finally sat down in the chair Rob had pulled out for him, taking the proffered blanket and throwing it across his shoulders, almost rakishly. “Of course. Not the brightest bulb, that Bill.”
Natalie sat across from him. “So, what is the story with this bow tie?” she asked, leaning in confidentially. “He’s just hanging out at home!”
Rob’s father chuckled. He was still shivering a bit, but the blanket and the warmth of the kitchen seemed to be helping. “Let me tell you something about Bill. That old idiom about dressing for the job you want? He’s been trying that for years, yet he still hasn’t gotten tenure.”
“Time for a new tactic, it seems,” Natalie said. She glanced over at Rob, who was standing at the stovetop watching her, seemingly at a loss for words. Like he wasn’t sure how she had gotten here or, just maybe, how to keep her from going away.
“He’s never liked me,” Professor Kapinsky said, and Natalie managed to pull her gaze away from Rob’s. “Jealousy. I bet that’s why he keeps bothering…” He trailed off. “Well, my boy is on track, isn’t he? Rob won’t have any problems getting tenure, I can tell you that.”
Rob gave him a weak smile. “Thanks, Dad. Would you like tea too, Natalie?”
“Sure,” she said. “Thank you.”
As he put her mug down on the table, his arm brushed against hers. He swallowed hard, then straightened back up. “Dad, do you want some dinner?”
Professor Kapinsky gave a cursory nod, then sat back, continuing to talk to Natalie. “Of course, much of it comes down to the examples you have set for you. Rob grew up in academia, so he’s lucky in that way. I don’t mean to be uncharitable to Bill. I remember how disorienting it was to enter the Ivory Tower when I was first starting out.” He was in his element now, all traces of his earlier agitation gone, speaking with enough authority to hypnotize a lecture hall. “You know, my father was an immigrant who had never even graduated high school, and I had to make my own way.”
Rob began to boil water for pasta on the stovetop, raising an eyebrow at Natalie as he indicated the pot. She nodded, then continued to let his father regale her while Rob made them all spaghetti.
And regale her he did, unceasingly, with the confidence of a man who felt he was giving her a gift. After all, people paid good money to listen to his opinions, and here she was, getting them for free. How strange, how impossible, it must have been to grow up under this all-consuming presence. Natalie made the appropriate expressions of awe and interest (and it was interesting, hearing him speak). Over at the stove, Rob poked at the pasta, then served it to his father with a tenderness she wouldn’t have expected from him.
They all sat around the table and dug in, and as his father paused his talking to chew, Rob said, “You know, Dad, Natalie is a writer.”
“Ah. What MFA program did you attend?”
Rob and Natalie caught each other’s eyes. Without thinking it through, she winked at him. Rob seemed startled, momentarily lost for words, then said to his father, “She didn’t attend an MFA program, but she’s very successful.”
“Hmph,” Rob’s father said. “Well, I always think it’s good to have the educational underpinnings, but good for you. Nonfiction?”
“No, fiction, mostly,” Natalie said.
“When’s your next novel coming? I’ll buy it for Rob’s mother.”
“I’m actually in TV now. I think I’m done with novels.” Writing a novel took so much from a person. You had to pour your heart out for hundreds of pages, and she didn’t know if she could ever bear the vulnerability of that again, not after how badly it had gone before.
“Really? Done forever?” Rob asked, with a strange expression on his face. If she hadn’t known better, she’d think it was disappointment.
She swallowed, a confusing swirl of feelings inside her. Making her tone bright, she continued, “Rob here is one of my most regular readers, even if he doesn’t always enjoy the work.”
Rob cleared his throat. “I do always find it…interesting.”
Rob’s father had been looking back and forth between them. Now, he put his fork down. “The maid of honor!” he said, pounding the table. “That’s how I know you!” He chortled, then indicated Rob. “Oh, you smoked him with your toast, didn’t you?”
Rob raised his eyebrows in outrage.
“Hey now,” Natalie said, “Rob’s toast was nice too.”
“Thank you,” Rob said.
“But, yes, I did smoke him.”
Rob shook his head, but a small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “I’m not the professional writer. You had an unfair advantage.”
“Well, not a competition,” Natalie said, then grinned. “So what if people are still talking about your defeat all these years later?”
Rob’s father laughed, and Rob sighed. “You two. I go to all this trouble of making you dinner, and this is how you repay me.”
“You’re right,” Natalie said. “We should be grateful. You boiled water.”
“I am nourishing you,” Rob said.
“Thank you,” Natalie said, and the two of them held each other’s gaze. Somewhere in the recesses of her mind lay the ghost of the night she was supposed to be having: sparkling and mingling at a party, accepting well-deserved praise for all her success, friends pulling her aside to ask what was really going on with her and Tyler. Despite the circumstances, it seemed more right, more natural, to be here at Rob’s old kitchen table.
After dinner was done, Natalie cleared their plates as Rob helped his father up to bed. The dish soap had run out, so after looking in the nearby cabinets, Natalie walked upstairs to ask Rob if he knew where the extra was.
The primary bedroom was at the top of the stairwell, the door open a crack. Natalie peered in silently, not wanting to interrupt. Rob was flipping through channels on the TV as his dad settled into bed.
“And remind me when the wedding is?” Rob’s father was saying. “She’s a good match for you.”
“The wedding. You mean with Zuri?”
“No, you and the maid of honor.” He paused for a moment at Rob’s expression, rubbed his forehead. “I’m sorry. Something…something is wrong, Robert.” His voice was leached free of bravado, of anger, of charm.
“I know, Dad,” Rob said, his own voice so gentle. So full of grace for a man who had given him so little of it.
At that, Natalie walked farther down the hall out of earshot, swallowing a lump in her throat. She looked through another open doorway, then couldn’t stop herself from going inside. Because this must have been Rob’s childhood bedroom, unless he had a sibling she didn’t know about who also hated fun. She turned the switch on a lamp, revealing dark green walls and a twin bed. A big framed poster of Einstein dominated one wall, a display shelf of fancy dictionaries on another. As if Rob hadn’t been allowed to be a fan of anything that didn’t further his education. There didn’t seem to have been any updates to the room since high school, except for some framed diplomas hanging on the walls, heralding Rob’s impressive degrees.
His footsteps sounded in the doorway and she turned.
“Ah. You found the most important and most embarrassing room in the house,” he said quietly, not wanting to disturb his father’s rest.
“Where are the sports posters? The movie stars?” she asked, indicating his walls.
“I didn’t really go in for all that.”
“I bet that made you very popular in high school. ‘No, I won’t be watching the game this weekend, I’ve got a fascinating biography of Kierkegaard on my nightstand instead.’?”
“You’re forgetting the Ken Burns documentaries,” he said. “Strange how people never wanted to come over for movie nights of those.”
They smiled, then circled each other warily.
“Thank you for helping,” Rob said, cocking his head in the direction of his father’s bedroom. “He loves you.”
“I think he probably loves anyone who listens to him,” she said, then cringed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“No, you’re right. My father has always needed admirers to come alive.”
“I understand that. Admiration can be intoxicating. Now that I’ve finally got some…well, I can see how it changes you. How you could start needing the adulation.”
“From the TV show, you mean?”
“Yeah,” she said. “The one you think you’ve seen on the billboards.”
“I know it from more than the billboards.”
She’d thought he might have been bluffing earlier with Tyler, when he’d pretended not to know about the show. Although, why would he have felt such a need to one-up Tyler, unless…
Her heart was pounding. “What would you rate it?” she asked, though she didn’t know if she could handle hearing the answer. She didn’t look at him, studying the dictionaries instead, his silhouette in the corner of her eye.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m sorry, I’ve only watched one episode. It’s been an eventful fall. It’s not you.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Well, it is you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was worried about Angus, and then I was watching the show and I couldn’t concentrate on it.” His voice grew quiet, and she turned toward him right as he said, “I kept thinking about you. The way I handled things at the wedding…”
The lamp Natalie had turned on cast the room in a low light. In the shadows, the scruff on his face darkened his cheeks. Since when had Rob been a man who allowed the existence of scruff? It suited him, this hint of wildness. She stared at his cheeks. Then she was staring at his lips, slightly parted. Then she was moving toward him.
Downstairs, the front door creaked open. Rob stepped back. “My mother.” He turned and quickly walked out of the room. Natalie stood frozen for a moment, then followed him.
In the front hallway, a woman in her late fifties wearily brushed off the flakes of snow that had started to fall outside. Natalie glanced at Rob, halfway down the stairs. His mouth was set in a hard line. He’d said his mother had been keeping his father’s condition from him. Was he furious? How unforgiving would he be? She pictured him at the wedding, his moral outrage and complete certainty that he was correct.
“He’s all right?” Rob’s mother asked.
Rob nodded.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice breaking on the second word. Her eyes were red, her nose swollen, as if she’d spent the whole journey home crying.
The step creaked under Natalie’s foot, and Rob’s mother registered her presence. “Oh goodness, hello.”
“My friend Natalie,” Rob said, with a barely imperceptible pause between “my” and “friend.”
“Hi,” Natalie said.
Rob’s mom touched her chest. “Carol. I’m so sorry for interrupting your night. You two should go back to your party.”
“Natalie, I’ll meet you in the car,” Rob said, voice tight. “My mom and I need a few minutes to talk.”