“Have you considered turning it into a movie that no one will see?”
“No,” I say quietly, and think to myself that John Deveril is a hateful man.
Part of me wants to take this up with Q, to have her validate my view and side with me in this incipient in-law struggle. But I know she is utterly devoted to him. This has been demonstrated in innumerable ways—by the look on her face when she sees him, by the reverence with which she speaks of his work, by the way she includes him in every detail of the wedding preparations.
I wonder how this can be so. As far as I can tell, they share no values. He is on the far right of the political spectrum; she is on the left. He is a business tycoon; she tills the soil. He lives a material life; she lives a life of ideas. And, more potentially divisive than any of that, at his core, John Deveril is a nasty, bitter man. How can father and daughter be so close?
No sooner do I wonder this than I have my answer. Joan and Q walk into the bar and he is transformed. He pops out of his seat. The whiskey is forgotten. His visage, which has been a knot of tension and anger, relaxes. Q glows when she sees him, and it is as if her energy beams its way through his body, bouncing its way off this muscle and that organ, and now he is himself aglow. I barely recognize him.
“How did it go?” he asks, full of hope.
“Great,” says Q. “Simply great. We found just the right fern for the topiaries.”
“Magnificent,” says John. “Simply magnificent.”
“And what have you boys been up to?” asks Q mischievously.
John grasps my shoulder with a warm, firm hand. “Your brilliant fiancé has just been telling me about his new short story.” This sentiment cannot possibly be genuine, but it sounds as if it is, each and every word.
“It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” asks Q. Her sincerity, of course, is beyond question.
“It’s genius,” says John. “Simply genius.” He supportively kneads my shoulder. This gesture cannot be sincere, and yet it also appears to be so. I detect no derision from him, nor any suspicion of sarcasm from Q. I see no indication of winks or nods or tacit understandings of any kind. It all appears to be real.
Only two plausible hypotheses can be stated. One is that she does not see him for who he is. This is possible. Perhaps John’s kind treatment of me is part of his ruse. Perhaps he is deceiving Q. Perhaps he understands that it will not do to openly disapprove of the man who will marry his daughter. He will think of me what he likes and treat me as he will in private, but for the sake of appearances, he will maintain the pretense of affection for me. This could be true.
But I think the second possibility is more likely: she makes him a better man. If anyone could do it, surely Q could. Basking in the effulgence of her approval would warm even the coldest soul, and she has a special radiance for John Deveril. No man could resist that. No man could dare to disappoint that creature.
Indeed, as they speak with one another I see that she does not regard him as loathsome in any way. She does not treat him gingerly, placate him, or dance around his temper. She treats him like a dear father, one whom she loves beyond words. Watching their interaction, I conclusively reject the first hypothesis. She is not deceived. She has not blinded herself to the true nature of her father. She does not see it because he is not this person with her.
Whether I am right or wrong, no good could come of standing between these two. If it is a deception, then she will resent me for exposing it. If it is reality, then I am lucky to be permitted into her life, because this bond is special and strong.
Q and I are heading back to New York and we say our good-byes. Joan kisses us each on the cheek. John gives his daughter a kiss and a bear hug. He shakes my hand and wishes me a safe trip. Q kisses me and whispers, “Let’s get ice cream for the road.”
I feel my anger slip away.
The truth is, none of it matters. Not John Deveril’s judgment of me, not the prohibition against Neil Diamond, not the allergic flowers. None of it.
Only her love.
Chapter FIVE
After the ominous admonition that I must not wed Q, I pepper myself with questions—why? what goes wrong? how could this possibly happen?—but I am unwilling to pursue the conversation. I insist that these answers must wait, that it is enough for one evening to learn that time travel is possible, that a glass of lemonade costs more than six dollars, and that Roth has written yet another Zuckerman novel. I suggest that we meet again two nights later and, for our second tête-à-tête, propose Chef David Bouley’s legendary eponymous eatery in TriBeCa.
Now when I say that “I” propose that we meet at Bouley, I mean specifically that my future self proposes that we meet at Bouley. I—the real-time me—would much rather eat at a diner. The nomenclature has become confusing, even in my own mind. Sometimes I think of the visitor as “I,” other times as “older me,” other times as an utter stranger. It appears to depend on whether I am finding him sympathetic or annoying. I am utterly inconsistent.
To avoid further confusion, I propose hereafter to reserve the use of the simple pronoun “I” for references to myself in the present moment (which, of course, is long past by the time you are reading this) and to designate the future version of myself as I-60. As occasions present where additional pronouns are required, I shall refer to I-60 as “he,” unless the story takes a substantial and unexpected twist.
I adopt these conventions with two reservations. The first is whether this nomenclature embraces a meaningful conception of self. In the past, I jointly taught a class on the history of justice with Phil Arnowitz, a former attorney who used to litigate death penalty cases before becoming an academic. On the first day of class, he would present to students the curious case of Hugo, a heartless serial killer who, while being escorted to the electric chair, is struck on the head by a falling brick. Hugo is taken to the hospital and lapses into a coma. When he wakes up—forty years later—Hugo is a changed man. He is sweet and docile and has no recollection of his murderous rampage. When told of his crimes, Hugo is incredulous and apologetic. A team of neurologists examine Hugo and determine that he has suffered damage to the frontal lobe of his brain, which has caused his amnesia and permanently changed his formerly aggressive personality. The doctors unanimously agree that Hugo now poses no threat to society. Professor Arnowitz dramatically asks, “Should Hugo still be electrocuted?”
Most of the students say yes: he committed the crime, he should pay. This was originally my answer too. But who is “he”? asks Arnowitz. The man society proposes to execute is forty years older than the man who committed the crime. Hugo is organically different, has a changed disposition, and is genuinely contrite. How does it make sense to think of him as the same person who committed the crime?
I ask the same question here. I-60 is not exactly I, and I am not exactly I-60, but we do have the same name and occupy the same corporeal space, which, as in the case of Hugo, makes things more than a little bit confusing.
The second reservation is that the convention may cause substantial confusion with references to certain highways. Hereafter, where major freeways are involved in the story, I shall refer to these routes by their full Christian names, thus avoiding confusion between, for example, the road from Florida to Maine, Interstate 95, and my ninety-five-year-old self.
Whether we are the same person or not, I-60 has developed some expensive tastes. My friend Ard again pulls some strings and is able to arrange a table at Bouley. I-60 arrives precisely on time, as I do, and is wearing a checkered oxford shirt and khaki pants, as am I. He orders chicken consommé and a seltzer with lime, which would be free at the diner, but at Bouley costs an astonishing $7.50.
“So no doubt you want to know what happened,” he says, “or from your perspective, what is going to happen.”
“Of course,” I say. My heart is racing.
“Well, then, I should