“You want me to meet Sarah?” I ask in wonder.
“I just want you to come with me to see her,” he says carefully. “It could get ugly.”
I’m engulfed by a gulpy warmth. My son needs me with him. He needs me!
“Let’s brush our teeth before we go,” I suggest. “The last thing you need in a situation like this is beer breath. Where are we meeting her?”
“Just leave that to me,” Jake says, flipping open his cell phone and hitting a speed-dial button. “I appreciate this, Dad, I really do. Hey, one other thing. Give me my essay, would you? I may need it.”
CHAPTER SIX
We ride the crosstown bus through the park to the East Side, our teeth freshly brushed, our breaths minty from the Life Savers we’ve been sucking on. The bus we’re on is a double bus, and we sit right at the axis, which creaks and shifts beneath our feet with every turn. We’ve always sat at the axis on crosstown buses, ever since Jake was a little kid. When the bus made sharp turns in those days I’d say, “Look, Jakey, the bus is breaking in half!” and he’d squeal with delight.
I turn to him. “Hey, Jake, do you remember—”
“You’d tell me the bus was breaking in half. Yeah, Dad, I remember.”
“Oh.”
He’s a little too preoccupied for tender memories.
We’re meeting Sarah at a Starbucks on Lexington Avenue. He’s told her he has something important to talk about, but he hasn’t told her about me coming along. He’s remarkably calm, considering what may soon be happening.
I’m the one who’s nervous. I’m actually jumpier now than I was a few hours ago, when I was losing my livelihood.
“You okay, Dad? You don’t look so good.”
“What are you going to say to this girl?”
“I’m just going to tell her about what happened today.”
“And I’m coming with you because…”
“Because I asked you to. I don’t think I’ve asked you to do too many things. If you don’t want to do it, you can bail.”
I’m a little stunned by this attack. “Hey. Nobody’s bailing.”
“All right, then, thank you.”
“Know why you haven’t asked me for things? Because I always took care of things before you had a chance to ask.”
He nods. “There may be some truth to that.”
“You’re goddamn right there’s some truth to that. Private school, summer vacations, cello lessons—”
“Dad, be fair. I didn’t ask for any of it, and I didn’t create the structure. I was born into it.”
“At least you had a structure!”
Everybody on the bus is looking at me. I’m shouting without even realizing it. Jake is shocked, but not embarrassed.
“Dad. Chill.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What are you saying, that you didn’t have a structure when you were a kid?”
“Oh, I had a structure all right. A fucking crazy structure.”
His eyes widen. “Tell me about it.”
“Not here, not now.”
We ride in silence for a few moments. “Look, Dad, I need you to be calm for me. If you can’t be calm, let me go by myself.”
“I’ll be calm. I promise. Whatever happens, I’ll be calm.”
We get off the bus and walk to the Starbucks. Jake sees her through the window and says, “She’s early. That’s funny, she’s never early.”
He waves to a girl in a pink blouse, seated alone at a window table for two. She’s got blond hair braided into a pigtail that reaches to the center of her back. Her posture is perfect—spine straight and shoulders squared, as if she’s ready to attempt a back dive off the high board. And when she sees Jake, her face lights up in what appears to be genuine delight. She blows him a kiss.
“Want me to wait out here?” I ask. Jake looks at me as if I’m an idiot partner in a robbery who’s bungling the well-rehearsed caper before it even begins.
“We’re going in together, Dad. Please, just play along.”
I follow him inside. He plants a kiss on her cheek.
She’s so beautiful it’s almost painful to look at her. Her eyes are big and blue, and she’s got a button nose and cheekbones that could cut diamonds. She rubs her face and says, “Ooh, Jake, that beard really scratches!”
“Sarah, I’d like you to meet my father.”
She extends a hand. As we shake she says, “It’s so good to meet you, sir.”
“Call me Sammy.”
I’m trying to appear both hip and fatherly, thinking hard of something to say, and the best I can do is, “What can I get for you guys?”
They both want lattes. For once I’m actually glad to be at Starbucks, glad to be someplace where the help moves as if they’ve been hit with tranquilizer darts. It’ll give Jake and his girl a little private time. I don’t get back to the table for a good five minutes, with lattes for them and a coffee for myself.
With surprising consideration, they’ve dragged a third chair over to this table meant for two. I sit down and see that they both seem relaxed. Obviously, the news of the day has not yet been reported. Sarah thanks me profusely, sips the latte, and lets out a small moan of pleasure.
“Ohhh, that just hits the spot,” she says in a voice both girly and gravelly.
A funny thing is going on in the midst of everything else—I realize that I am jealous of my son. Never in my life have I ever been involved with anyone even remotely as beautiful as Sarah. This is model beauty, but it’s beyond that—she’s also smart, and she seems to be crazy about my son.
No woman was ever crazy about me. All my life I’ve been involved with women I’ve known were wrong for me, women who looked wrong or moved wrong or even smelled wrong, in terms of their very scent—and all because I didn’t have the patience or the whatever it is a person needs to persevere in that search for someone who’ll knock your socks off simply by existing. You stop believing she’s out there, and the cynicism that seeps into your soul after a lifetime in the tabloid newspaper game doesn’t help, and half the time you’ve got a load on, so you learn to shut your eyes and just fuck what’s in front of you, and be grateful for that.
And then one day your seventeen-year-old son shows you exactly how it’s done, his very first time out of the gate. I can imagine them getting married one day, in a simple sunset ceremony at the edge of a lake, close friends and family only, and a barefoot girl playing the flute as Jake and Sarah read the vows they’ve written themselves…
Then Jake snaps me out of my totally ridiculous daydream by going ahead and pulling the trigger.
“Sarah,” he casually begins, “I got kicked out of school today.”
Sarah sits up even straighter than she’d already been sitting, which I wouldn’t have thought was possible. “Jake. Is this a joke?”
“It’s no joke. I’m out.”
“Drugs?”
He laughs. “Come on. You know I don’t do drugs.”
This is a relief for me to hear. I figure it has to be the truth, if he’s telling his girlfriend. But she