White Man's Problems Part 5

He was right-sort of. It fit, but the angle of the jack's opening only allowed him to turn the wrench less than an inch at a time. He had to take it out, adjust, and turn down again, repeatedly, to get any kind of progress. He could not tell if it was taking. Maybe this is ridiculous, he thought. But he was out of ideas, so he kept up his attack, cranking the Allen wrench an inch, reinserting it, and then turning it another inch. He felt a wave of failure. This is not the way it was supposed to work. His knuckles became raw and then b.l.o.o.d.y, and his blood mixed with the gravel of the driveway until his fingernails were outlined in black.

He pushed back the panic. "That's a good boy in there, Henry," Mulligan said, continuing to crank frantically but now making eye contact. The bruise on Henry's face was starting to darken. "I'm getting you out, buddy...getting you out of there. That's a goot boy, King Henry. Yes, sir." At the edge of his vision, he sensed a fractional movement-did the lower edge of the Mercedes' cha.s.sis rise just a hair? He could not tell for sure, like one could not tell whether it was raining upon feeling a first raindrop. Then it happened again and in definite rhythm with his turning motion. It was working. It's working. The jack's interlaced support beams began to extend, like lowercase xs becoming capitals. He cranked faster. The car's suspension system lifted and the cha.s.sis followed. Beneath the car, Henry became newly calm, and, after a few moments, began to wriggle his front paw with more range. Next, he moved his shoulder, and then half his torso, and then he was out, limping slightly, into the open air of the driveway.

Mulligan sat by the pool in a lounge chair. His hands were bandaged, which made it difficult-but not impossible-to hold a cigar. After freeing Henry, Mulligan had carefully put him on his big doggy pillow in the den, made sure that all the doors were shut, and downed a Valium. He showered and waited for the girls, who rushed home from the restaurant to find both Mulligan and Henry bruised and shaken, but ok. A quick trip to the pet clinic verified there was nothing broken. They were lucky, the vet said-a less muscular breed of dog would have died. Rita came out with drinks. Mulligan had a Heineken, and the girls had lemonade from a carton with Paul Newman's picture. Bella lay next to Henry, who lay in his bed snoring. Mulligan's head swam in a swirl of exhaustion, alcohol, anxiety medication, and nicotine. He felt almost perfect.

"I can't believe I left that s.h.i.+rt back in the hotel," he said.

"Just a s.h.i.+rt," said Bella.

Rita did not look up from her magazine. "I'll go online and find the exact same one."

Bella stroked Henry's neck and cracked a grin. "Yeah, like a do-over."

"Very funny," he said and took a sip of beer.

"I like the s.h.i.+rt you have on now," Bella said, pointing to his tattered UCLA football T-s.h.i.+rt.

"Yeah, I love this one, too," he said, touching its fabric. He considered his cigar and then looked up for the girls. "Tell you what. I'll make dinner."

"Right," Bella said. She rolled onto her stomach and smiled at him, enjoying this. "I wish Mariana heard that."

"Are those braces?" Mulligan said to Bella. "They're very attractive."

She stuck her tongue out at her father. Finding nothing in reach to throw at him, she said, "Whatever you make would be so gross. I so wish Mariana was here."

"C'mon. What should I make?"

"Forget it, Mulligan," said Rita. "We ain't taking the bait." She gathered up the gla.s.ses and headed for the kitchen. "I'll look at what Sondra bought. I told Mariana to tell her to get steaks." Pa.s.sing him with her hands full, she b.u.mped the lounge chair with her hip and said, "Relax."

"I am relaxed," he said. "I'm totally relaxed."

"Better to lose your s.h.i.+rt than kill the dog," she said and then disappeared inside. Bella put her earphones in to listen to music.

"Both of you," he said. "A couple of comedians."

He sat back and felt the sunlight, beer in hand. The MexiCloud attachments remained unopened, and he had not left the house all day. Rita was right about not telling Mariana-Henry's bruise was the sole strand of memory left from the day, and it, like the shock of the moment, was lessening as the hours pa.s.sed by. The dog slept, Bella drummed her fingers to her song, and Mulligan tried once more to relax.

Rain Come Down.

The worst torments the pessimists of the world inflict on its optimists are their instinctual opposition to eating outside on the first mild evening in April; to going with no warning to Atlantic City; letting a snuggly grandchild stow away for the rest of the night; calling for a pizza; voting for Obama; taking a home-equity line to pay for new kitchen cabinets; refusing to honor the nowadays-common custom of ignoring people right there next to you on the plane, saying hi to the nice couple, finding out where they live, how old grandkids are, laughing at the ain't-it-the-truth stuff. Given enough time, the optimists win out, and the pessimists can be found getting into the b.u.mper car; tagging along to the nursing home to visit Aunt Helen; using the MasterCard that's for a rainy day; drinking a b.l.o.o.d.y Mary at the tailgate party for the fiftieth high-school reunion (and going in the first place to see all those fat, old people); risking the traffic on 95 into Philadelphia; taking the littlest grandkid out to the pool because she's about to cry; and starting over to the Performing Arts Center even though it's coming down pretty good.

John Collier shut the Volvo door, and for a moment the noise stopped. Like most men who came of age in a less regulated time-in his case, one who rode around in a jeep for two years in Korea-he didn't reach for the seat belt, and the dinging spoiled the silence. Once he buckled, the quiet reigned again, and as the rain fell on the winds.h.i.+eld, he felt like he was watching it at the movies, the patter more a sound effect than wet and physical. Imaginative moments like this were more common since he began living with Ann's condition; he wondered if it was how he compensated for the lack of conversation, one of the many adjustments that came with going from partner to caretaker. Collier pulled the car a few yards to the front door, where she stood under the big red and white t.i.tleist umbrella. She turned to ease her too-skinny frame down the Astroturf steps. He made it as quickly as he could around the front of the car and gently helped her in, placing her feet so she sat straight ahead.

Ann smiled as he settled behind the wheel. "d.a.m.ned if it's not turning to hail," he said. Her teeth were chattering a little, so he turned on the heat, holding his hand up to the air until he was sure it was getting warm. "Ok, then, whadd'ya say, Annie? Let's get on the road." She smiled at him again and faced forward, tugging the tuck of her scarf. To Collier's amazement, with enough time in the morning, Ann could still manage her hair, makeup, and lipstick. She did not know what day it was, yet she maintained the deep patterns of femininity and the pride in her appearance as a beautiful woman. She had chosen the pearls he bought her at Tiffany's in New York many years ago on a weekend trip for their twenty-fifth. "Emily's very excited about this," he said and hit the right turn signal even though he was just going out of the driveway and then out onto the road. "Cla.s.sical music. You like that, honey. They've brought in a little j.a.panese girl to play the piano."

Today is a special day Annie we are going for a ride. I can't make the breakfast John brings me tea and the waffles from the microwave and the b.u.t.ter and the syrup he puts on for me and Emily called Mom Daddy's going to bring you and hear a concert at the PAC so rainy today honey. John by doorstop red umbrella for golfing brings around the car a safe car much safer these days you can hit a brick wall with that car hon he knows that kind of things I told Nicholas they made gigantic engines where your Pop Pop works in Philadelphia gigantic GE engines for machines worldwide things kids don't think about Emily never did that's for sure. John drives the beat and slide winds.h.i.+eld wipers wind s.h.i.+eld from strokes of rain against window. Outside all the roads of Middletown I've been riding on these roads in rain all my life they were narrower even some dirt the wind sure does whirl by not too cold getting to be summer we drive Darlington Road mother's house by gravel shoulders of the roads we walked when there were no cars. Look in front look straight at the road my father said don't take your eyes off the road and around John driving talking to me really talking keeping the conversation up everywhere dark green wet trees and gray dry streets now wet and made darker bright yellow from the PENNDOT men paint bright yellow lines with machine rollers these days and the PENNDOT guys so lovely to me always for a stop h.e.l.lo see them talk to them looking up under red emergency helmets and orange raincoats safety was their main concern. More rain sheets of rain beat s.h.i.+elds of rain in front see yellowing fields of Jensen's dairy and its 352 where Margie and Bunny died. Oh my these roads that's a long long time ago that '52 Oldsmobile that boy from Haverford whatchamacallit Kretchley or something had that accident when both Margie and Bunny were in it I was their best friend Daddy had to go to the hospital for the body and we cried. John says up this hill and just get over to the left lane here Annie drive and we'll be at the pack that's what Nicholas called it the pack like it was a pack of gum or wolves Nicholas would say when he was much littler. Emily needs to bring him by I have that present for him oh shoot shoot shoot I can't remember a G.o.dd.a.m.n thing it is still sitting in that closet Chandler's and Megan's too Nicholas is eight Chandler is six Megan is four Emily needs to get me the new school pictures. Dry inside this car-truck-car are you in a truck or a car you're up high like a car. Fresh air little nip in it but nice riding with warm John good John waking me up with breakfast helping me to go and the was.h.i.+ng. Feel him there good John not one bit different than I expected between two people for fifty years the radio station oh Annie it's Frank Sinatra you remember this the summer wind can you believe it's the oldies radio songs. It's clearing up that's good Annie.

"Hi, Mommy," Emily said as she helped Ann out of the car, ignoring her father. "Don't you look sweet?" She took an inventory of Ann's outfit, making sure there were no disasters. Collier was hovering over the wheel, confused, and Emily realized he didn't know where to park. "Follow the guys with the orange things, Dad. They'll wave you to a spot." She heard his m.u.f.fled holler through the door and for a moment regretted her decision not to make him stay at home; she sure as h.e.l.l didn't need whatever instruction he was about to give her. Then she remembered he would need his ticket, which explained his agitation. Emily fished it out of her bag and handed it to him.

She held her mother's arm through the doorway, had their pa.s.ses scanned, and headed through the lobby, which had the carpeted feel and paneled walls of a well-funded suburban theater. She talked in Ann's ear as they walked. She knew that her mother could hear very little, but the cognitive specialist had told her it couldn't hurt. They flowed with the crowd of locals, their steps syncopating the excitement that precedes all shows.

West Chester Performing Arts Center presented a full season of music and theater, and its schedule was, by all accounts in the major papers, at the level of most urban venues. Its members sought for it the feel of a Tanglewood or a Saratoga. Last season they'd scored an RSC traveling production of Twelfth Night and a Special Evening with James Taylor. For the summer, the board of directors voted to sprout an impromptu side venue, a smaller and more intimate setting for a series of special events. It was a coup to land a performance by Nyoto Kanata, the prodigy pianist. A three-day break between her performances at the Philadelphia Museum of Art had afforded WCPAC the opportunity to slot in a culturally important afternoon recital; the only minor gamble was that it would have to be the first Sunday in May. Risky weather. Though it was not her idea, Emily, who was on the programming committee, had been in favor of going to the extra expense of erecting the tent; she saw how a small program of more experimental works would give the center a boost. She had taken increasing owners.h.i.+p of the effort and even found a friend in the catering business, who found a wedding planner, who found a construction guy, who put up the tent and got 250 seats comfortably inside. The board found enough dollars in the budget to allow for orchids and a small rock path. The stage area had the simple feel of a j.a.panese garden.

"Nyoto's adorable," Emily said. She was holding Ann's hand, sitting to her left. Her father reappeared, taking the empty chair on the other side.

"It doesn't look good out there," said Collier.

"We'll be fine," said Emily.

Ann said, "I don't need any water." Collier and Emily shared quick, pleased looks. Her split seconds of lucidity often presented like this: situational responses and statements completely in rhythm with the commonplace. The moments were like wine at a church party, welcome and rare.

"Nyoto spent the night at the Hilton," said Emily. "We had a little dinner at Tom Benton's. She's really very lovely, and completely polite." She leaned closer to make sure no one could hear. "She didn't say a word."

"Probably doesn't speak English," Collier said, trawling for reading gla.s.ses in his sport coat. Emily hated that jacket, a brown plaid weave with a dreadful light-blue st.i.tch throughout. It was what he wore for years to anything he did not really want to go to; it was his way of signaling that a visit to Phil's parents' house or attending a school play was against his plans. He stuck his head in the program, making Emily feel like a gossip for commenting on Nyoto. She was only trying to keep her mother's mind focused by narrating things.

Emily my dear sweet girl she doesn't mean to be so hard on people my full love black-haired girl just like my father so much she pulls me down from the truck car touches my pearls and my sweater. No more rain mommy don't you look sweet let me take your pocketbook, there come down easy John says oop de doop and I'm out of car good John helping me hero john put his nice coat Emily walking through hallways carpet talking at me where's Johnny he's parking the car don't worry mom she is so worried heavy with worry she holds my arms and shows me where how to keep her from being a gloomy I always say to John I'll never know pa.s.s by the faces and pus.h.i.+ng to seats Emily so anxious not stopping when we see the Butlers stop Big Ted says hi Annie how ya feelin' and Helen whispering to Emily on my side smile at Teddy always such a lovely fella looked like Fred MacMurray. It's a tent how about that a tent a big top everyone is tromping their wet inside the gra.s.s is patted into paths under the feet and plastic to walk through we've got seats right near the front mom Emily pushes my elbow. Her father is a complicated man that men are complicated we can't know that so poor thing she two-times can't know she can't know like a parent she doesn't think right about men like her father or the others. Here we go Mom John is back with us you know my John looks like Jimmy Stewart I'd tell him and he'd say bah honey you're full of soup I set down with them on my either side and they talk to people but not each other save a few words like I am not there what's the matter sweetheart he says but he knows I know when they talk like I'm not there and he knows that he tangles his arm through my arm and holds my hand.

"She speaks perfectly fine English, Dad," said Emily.

"Well, good," Collier said, dropping it. He was happy he had gotten Ann and himself there on time and in one piece. He had promised himself he would be sweet to Emily today, but she was putting him to the test.

Now she was whispering a rundown of the names of the people pa.s.sing through the aisles. "Mr. and Mrs. Butler said hi," she said, trying to make up for snapping at him. He grunted. Emily knew d.a.m.n well Ann could not follow what she was saying and would not have a clue who the people were anyway. He looked up toward the front of the tent and surveyed the concert apparatus before him to try to get a sense of exactly what his daughter had conjured up. The folding chairs were arranged amphitheatrically, and the piano, s.h.i.+ny as patent-leather Sunday shoes, stood on a square section of hardwood that had been put down to serve as a stage. He squinted to see if it was just a caterer's rental. He supposed a really professional outfit would have its own floor. The light in the room-if the inside of a tent could be called a room-was gauzy and yellow. The painted pine of the folding chairs, the gra.s.s ruined beneath all the loafers and pumps, and the sound of the plastic tarp doors zipping closed created the mood of a wedding crossed with a town-hall meeting. It had the same air as all local events striving to be fancy, and that, he thought to himself as Emily bent her mother's ear, was just the problem with everything the WCPAC put on.

Taking care of Ann since the stroke should not have been such a tug-of-war, such a contest of wills. It began before they had even left the hospital, with Emily speaking to the doctors alone, the nurses smiling at Collier and making small talk, only discussing how Ann slept and the changes in medication when his daughter arrived. He wondered how it had come to be that his child distrusted him so when it came to her mother. Before the thought got away, it was replaced with the reply that Emily had never forgiven him for years of inattentiveness. The day that Ann fell and the ambulance had to rush her in to Saint Joseph's, Emily took to the hospital room, sized up her mother, and shot her father a look that told him he could no longer pretend he had not ignored everything that ever mattered. He had no one to tell the way he felt since that moment: that his own little girl could reach that point was a h.e.l.luva thing.

Regardless of the hurt, he worried again about rain for Emily's sake. Collier knew she'd be disappointed about the music, but he could also tell she had made the event personal, its success essential to her self-esteem in this moment. Emily rode the fence between risk and hope, which she got, respectively, from him and from her mother. In pus.h.i.+ng all the special programs-here, take this j.a.panese kid playing cla.s.sical piano in a tent in early May-his daughter was surely being hopeful, having faith that the needle could be threaded. But, unlike her mother, Emily was simultaneously burdened with Collier's gloomy foreboding. He saw that she had picked up his ability to disguise a punis.h.i.+ng sense of doom with patronizing precautions, and he listened silently to her explaining to her uncomprehending mother how she had hedged the upside of pulling something special off with contingency plans full of shuttle buses and breakdown crews.

Emily had offered to pick Ann up, hinting, not in a nice way, that Collier would prefer skipping the concert, as though the pressure of the show combined with the weight of having him along, bored and crotchety, was too much for her. He couldn't be too angry. Truth be told, he had a long record of avoiding this type of thing. While he had always had a feel for music-with a bit of gin, he could move away from any day with Sinatra-he just couldn't appreciate cla.s.sical music. It had nothing to do with being unbending. He had done that bit, obligingly playing the part for two generations of the square old guy who didn't have the capacity for Bruce Springsteen or Eminem. His lack of feeling for refined music, like symphonies and string quartets and so forth-this was different. It was a door he could never open. Collier remembered trying over the years, remembered wanting to get what all the interest in Van Cliburn was over or what it was that made people cry at operas. He had never found a way to be inside the pounding chords of Beethoven, had felt doubly insensitive agonizing at the flinty twinkling high notes of Chopin that Emily had played at her recitals. He'd gone with Ann to the symphony in Philadelphia-gone to the trouble of putting in for the corporate tickets-and watched the devoting heads and tuxedoed torsos of a visiting European orchestra. Like a Pica.s.so-or mesclun salad-he just didn't get it and felt like it was wasted on him. He wondered if it was genetic in nature or if it had to do with his engineer's training or if maybe he had just had some level of sensitivity beaten out of him in the army and over thirty years at GE.

One of the burning fires he had with Emily was how narrow-minded she thought he was. He didn't bother to tell her that when he went to school, even if it was for engineering in the fifties, they studied the cla.s.sics a lot more than her crowd of compet.i.tive art-community types did. The generation in the middle-that era of people Emily's age-was so self-righteous about their schooling, as though the bright-line wrongs, the Jim Crow laws, and the pigeonholing of women in the house disqualified the entire edifice of their parents' education. Yet Collier was sure he'd learned more in college about concertos and intermezzos and Wagner and Liszt-or at least it had certainly been stressed more-than she had picked up in the s.p.a.ces between gender studies, Native American history, and all the boyfriends.

Interviewer: You've been performing since you were a very small girl. Do you still get nervous?

Interpreter: (There is a pause while the interpreter listens to Nyoto speak in j.a.panese.) She says that when she was a young child, she was very frightened. Also she says that the first time she was away from her parents-it was on a trip to Europe when she was nine years old-she was very anxious each time she went to the stage. It was especially scary in Vienna, she says. Because the music is of so many composers of that place.

Interviewer: Is she...Nyoto, are you enjoying your time in the United States?

Interpreter: (Pause.) Yes, very much. (Pause.) She says she feels very happy to be able to bring her music to this place.

Interviewer: How do you feel when you go on stage before a big crowd? And is it different for her when the audiences vary in musical knowledge?

Interpreter: (Pause.) Could you repeat the question?

Interviewer: Yes. I'm sorry. I guess what I'm asking is if she knows the difference between a crowd at the Philharmonic, for example, and an audience that may not be familiar with the music she plays?

Interpreter: (There is a long delay while Nyoto speaks this time.) She says there is a sound that a crowd makes when it s.h.i.+fts to quiet. It is like the hum of minds overtaking the noise of bodies. It is into this sound that musicians play. It may seem in this way that the music is like water filling an empty cup. Only this picture is wrong-the emptiness of the cup is an illusion. A cup is never empty. It is full of the air; other times it may be full of water, but it is not full of nothingness. Even the air is something. The air may be pushed out by the water-and it will appear like something is replacing nothing. But it is not that way. The cup, which seemed empty, in truth had air all around, inside and out. When I begin to play for an audience, I think I am adding to the air. Nothing more. (Pause, while Nyoto says one last thing.) And, of course, I am hoping it will be beautiful.

Interviewer: Well, it is quite a treat for us to have you here. Thank you very much.

The lights, which had been intended for the recital's conclusion at twilight but were turned on early because of the darkness of the storm, came down. Emily shook her head in mock disbelief. "Everyone has worked so hard," she whispered to Ann. "I'm just so proud of them." It felt great to say the sweet things, to fill up the s.p.a.ces between moments with happy, positive small talk, as her mother had always been the first to do. And she knew they were being watched by all of them, all the busybodies who had nothing better to do but gauge how bad Ann was since they'd seen her last. Emily looked at her father, who stared at the stage, abdicating the role of custodian now that he was not the only one to whom Ann was entrusted. It was just like him to beg off and go into a coc.o.o.n as soon as Emily arrived. He couldn't dump Ann quickly enough and get back to his subterranean preoccupations, whatever they were.

Emily had long since stopped feeling sorry for Collier, but she did get wistful for them both. When she was a girl, he was so distinct and memorable, telling her elephants were blue and going into great detail about a special planet just for alligators. She remembered the mornings when Ann's job at the hospital required her to leave before breakfast so her dad would sneak out and bring home a half dozen Dunkin' Donuts and they would try to eat three each. He came to Emily's room every night at bedtime and read a story, often shutting the book to talk about the events of the day and then waiting for her to fall asleep. But that man had not been around for a very long time.

It was not that he had changed suddenly; he had never been carefree or light. That was Ann. But he had worsened; after he retired it was as though his excitement to do things-to go to the park, to drive to the sh.o.r.e, or to go to the movies-had drained away. Where her mother would take a watercolor cla.s.s or announce that she was going to make tacos, her father shrank into a smaller and smaller set of patterns, not telling stories or gossiping about corporate shuttling at GE and giving up golf. He was like a painting that became less interesting and more faded as it aged. Her father was the one person she could think of who became more of a type and less of a distinct character as time wore on, disappearing into a cheap brown sport coat and withdrawing into an ever less interesting and reductive world.

It was against this backdrop of Collier's fading distinctness, four years before Ann's stroke, that Emily decided to leave her husband, Phil. "Men are just built that way," Ann had said in a last-ditch effort to talk Emily out of it. The way her mother's lower lip had quivered-just for a fraction of an instant-was enough for Emily to know there had been some tough water somewhere in her parents' marriage that had not leaked out to her. The divorce with Phil was brutal, especially with three little kids involved, but Emily was determined not to leave her life to hope.

Once it was clear her daughter would not change her mind about the breakup, Ann, in cla.s.sic Ann fas.h.i.+on, simply showed up for her grandkids more often, making it a custom to stop by every day with such a supply of calm, direct, predictable affection that Emily was able to take the time-moments, days, weekends-needed to mourn her marriage and heal. Yet no matter how amazing Ann proved to be, Emily knew she didn't want her mother's life: putting up with a distant man falling further down a hole as the years went by.

There was a murmur at the left of the stage, and the tiniest little thing in a black fitted dress entered Emily's depth of field. Nyoto Kanata walked to the piano and sat down at the bench. Catching herself, like an actor who had forgotten a line, Nyoto stood back up and took a step toward the crowd. She bent her head and gave a quick wave, head and hand going in opposite directions. Then she smiled, and several pops of light went off. Emily growled to herself, angry that a few bad apples had ignored the rule against flash photography.

"Rolla alla turtunda," said Nyoto, and she turned back to the piano.

Just as Emily feared, her father leaned across her mother and said, too loudly, "What'd she say?"

Would ya feel the queer browning light under this bigtop sky there is still sunlight from the openings and peeking in under the sides where the straps haven't held the canvas down hope we don't blow away I say I tell them I don't need water. There she is Emily points and a teeny tiny little girl, a little oriental girl walks up to the piano they have sitting in the front of the folding chairs and the people start clapping and the claps thud into the sides of the folding walls and it goes hush just as fast John squeezes my hand and sits up straight like he does when he pays attention and his mind clears from all side cloudy points and gets about thinking of that only one thing.

When Nyoto touched the piano for the first time, nothing happened. Collier looked at Emily, who tensed up like a bird dog. Both relaxed as a sound came though the tent. It was a simple musical phrase, to be sure, but unlike anything Collier had heard before. It was a curved noise without edges; it was not the sharp and disinviting tincture he a.s.sociated with the angry piano of cla.s.sical concerts. His range of vision narrowed to the one focal point the stage allowed: a pink rose next to the root of Nyoto's column of hair. It formed the top of a right triangle, with her waist and the keyboard sitting at the other points. For an instant, Nyoto withdrew her hands as though they'd almost been s.n.a.t.c.hed by a closing jewelry box, and this time Collier's worry was not just that the WCPAC crew had small-timed it but also that something profound was in motion that he did not want to stop. Nyoto's pullback was just a flourish, and for a second time her fingers made contact with the keys to issue a soothing and dulcet combination of notes. Everything-every thought and every light-began to vanish, like the moment of anesthesia when anxieties begin to melt away.

Collier's engineer's mind pushed back. What the little girl was playing couldn't have been a high-quality piece: it was too accessible to him. Maybe this was a B version of cla.s.sical music. Emily had said it was going to be Mozart, and he suddenly wondered if Mozart had become too popularized and-with things like the Baby Mozart books and DVDs-the music had become commoditized such that the great heights of intelligence one had to possess to appreciate it had been reduced. Quickly, though, his mind's eye closed down and the rest of him gave over to the emotion of the sound, the way random thoughts about the level of the light or the need for mood or more wine recede as lovemaking begins. He looked at Ann, who stared straight ahead. Nyoto's shoulders swayed as her hands glided over the keys. Ann squeezed Collier's hand much the way she might have twenty years before. He bit his lip lightly-his way of fending off emotion. Ann could not hear the music-he knew that. She was going on things unheard: instinct, the feeling of the crowd, and the spirit of the faces. Her smile widened as she looked back at him now and picked up on his gaze. She was the most kind, the most happy, the most steadily happy girl in the world.

The first canvasy tap from above hit unmistakably, and his heart dipped. He tried to ignore it, the way a six-year-old left fielder ignores the first raindrop at a Sat.u.r.day ball game. The afternoon's storm was back. He knew it would now hit them hard, and he knew it with the same surety that he knew his beautiful, thinning, deteriorating, and nearly deaf wife was dying. The big top popped with noise now, and the crowd could be felt resisting the urge to look up. Its kindly effort-not that of the big city-to suspend disbelief and forestall the storm gave way as the rattle became louder and louder yet, until it was all the a.s.sembly could hear. Wind from outside blew the plastic tarp doors against their zippers and away from their ties. Collier saw Emily put her hands on her knees and look to the left and right, searching for other committee members with whom she could make eye contact, telegraphing the question of whether something had to be done and whether someone had to call off the fun.

Nyoto continued playing undaunted. Collier felt her interweaving the different storylines of the piece, momentum building. Her head rose and her eyes closed with the movement of the arrangement; just as quickly she brought her forehead back down, and her gaze returned to the keys. To his amazement, the chaotic and insistent noise of the rain was countermanded by a new surge of harmony. Ann, the gathering's other undisturbed soul, was beaming now, still staring straight ahead. The rain and the notes fused together in a blend of color and vibration and light.

Emily began to make her way toward the aisle in the other direction, leaving them alone. Soon others, bent politely at the waist, started heading to the exits, thinking about shuttle buses and traffic and getting out of the lot, of postponements and theater series make-goods, of what a bad idea it was to throw this tent up in the first place, especially this early in the year. And, still, Ann looked forward, connected to Nyoto, who played on. Collier focused on his wife's eyes. The rain was unstoppable, not slowing enough even to divide into drops. Nyoto swayed more heavily. Collier believed for the first time since Ann had left him that he was with her: in her thoughts, her feelings, her interpretation of this world and the next. It was all wrapped together. He heard nothing and everything all at once. Whatever he had failed to understand before-stupidly and selfishly-he understood now.

Starting Out.

On a Monday morning in November 1988, Oscar Rothbart pointed at a yellow Post-it note stuck to my faux-leather, semi reclining, office-grade chair on the twenty-first floor of the Citibank Tower in downtown Los Angeles. I was unfocused. It was 10:13 a.m., and I was just getting into my office. Or I was getting into "our office," since this particular eight-by-ten-foot "junior executive exterior" was also occupied by Rothbart, a French Canadian who started at the firm with me on the same day.

For the first time anyone could remember, through some mistake in planning, some HR f.u.c.kup, the twenty-odd new lawyers were paired together in offices. It was April, and we had been sharing since we'd started in the fall. Beginning work at a major law firm seemed strikingly similar to other education cycles: the randomly a.s.signed roommate, the orientation meetings, the new cla.s.s of people, and the older guys who talked about how great everything used to be. It was like school in these ways but different. This was the mystical real world we'd all been warned about, and, bit-by-bit, it sunk in that the fun of college and the dress rehearsal of law school were done. Some embraced it, and some recoiled. The ones who had been forty years old their whole lives settled in; the eight-year-olds panicked. Playtime was over.

Rothbart looked up. "Hank came here himself looking for you." He had been named after Oscar Wilde by anthropologist parents in Montreal. "And your phone rang twice."

Our crowded office struck a contrast to the venerable solitude of the firm. Green carpets and dark walnut trim defined the corridors and lobbies, along with bra.s.s lamps, framed clipper s.h.i.+ps, and old-time Vanity Fair portraits of solicitors. Rothbart's side was minimalist, as he was extremely anticlutter. He had a gla.s.s desk, and it smelled of antiseptic, which smelled to me like work. The only thing on it was draft interrogatory responses he'd been marking up since he arrived, as he did on all days, at seven. By the time I stumbled in, he'd done as much as I would do in a week. He was a machine, cranking out the mindless work product of a first-year a.s.sociate. Rumor had it he was already doing footnotes on one of Dave Van Wyck's appellate briefs. He was, by all accounts, going places.

He was postmodern and sarcastic, and he liked right angles. He was one of those people always chewing gum but not a full piece-just a tiny speck of gray momentarily visible between his molars. He looked the part: average height, good looks, striking designer eyewear. His body was in great shape, as befits the disciplined barrister on the ladder of success. He was natty, treading the line between downtown boring and Westside stylish. He knew to get one-inch cuffs on his pants. His s.h.i.+rts were crisp, he had good ties, and, following a maxim he'd read in Vogue ("If you want to know if a man is well dressed...look down"), he had great shoes.

"Thanks," I said.

"Busy night?"

"Nothing special," I said, which was true. This was my first nonhourly job, and I was drunk with the power of being on my own time. I had stayed out till the bars were almost closed and then ran to the convenience store in time to get a six-pack and cigarettes, which I finished off on the patio of my place in west LA. I liked to drink and read late. It was 9:08 when I woke, and, like all days, I rushed to take a shower and made it downtown by quarter after ten, which I thought was the latest I could arrive without making someone in a position of power notice.

"What do you think Hank wants?" asked Rothbart.

"I don't know, Oscar. He wants to see me, as you know from reading my note. You tell me what he wants."

"I think he's going to fire your a.s.s."

This was typical s.h.i.+t for Oscar. It is amazing how well you get to know a roommate, even in a few months and even if he's just an officemate in the Torts, Insurance, and Business Litigation Group at the LA office of a 2,100-lawyer global powerhouse. But I had the same thought. The yellow Post-it note was a death warrant. Rothbart knew instinctively I was scared well beyond the usual yips of a low-grade beer-vodka, rocks-cigarette hangover. He spun in his semi reclining, office-grade chair and took aim between my eyes.

"You know, Yates, you really need to bring some maturity to bear. We make one hundred seventy-five thousand dollars a year, and they're not going to put up with it much longer." He paused and then smirked. "And frankly, I don't think they should. Hank and Rusty are pulling a discovery team together for TCE, and it's going to change from there. It's being fast-tracked, and I'm hearing we are going with a way, way scaled-back approach. It's smart: this way Anderson and the other plaintiffs' lawyers can't jam Hank and TCE's general counsel on fees. Rusty told me we'll be doing three simultaneous depo tiers in Sacramento, and they have a deal on corporate housing-three apartments in a nice complex. Should be all summer. Totally sweet billables."

"Did you just say 'totally sweet billables'?" I said.

"Laugh all you want, chief." He said "chief" like a regular Canadian, but it was affected. Then, not being able to help himself, he continued, "By the way, in case you didn't know, I have this complete piece of a.s.s from Newport who's up there doing an interns.h.i.+p, so I will be getting f.u.c.ked, too." He was proud of himself for this; he talked about his prowess with girls a little too much. "What about you? You're out in the cold. Doesn't that scare you?"

"I have the Lifetime Fund case with Amy and Andy," I said, referring to two young partners who had me on a case so big they couldn't keep tabs on what I was doing.

"Ha," he snorted. "Take it from me: Amy and Andy are getting canned any day."

"How the f.u.c.k do you know that?"

"Because I get information, f.u.c.k face. Because I get here at seven and do whatever anyone tells me to do. Because I don't get drunk every night and read novels till three in the morning." He squinted and lifted his palms. "Do you ever get, like, past anything? You're so stuck."

Perhaps the only thing that made our relations.h.i.+p interesting is that we were both English majors in college and would kill time talking about books and movies and art and music. He went to Yale and Yale Law School, facts that solidified my disposition toward him. He did his college thesis on Phillip Gla.s.s and abstract art and his law-review comment on critical legal studies. I really didn't like anything about him, but I ended up spending so much time in his presence I felt like I was stuck to him. He annoyed me and made me feel insufficient, but I sat there and took it. He told me once I was ba.n.a.l, putting the accent on the second syllable. I'd never heard it p.r.o.nounced that way before. When I fought back, defending the inherent truth of a movie or novel or record, he'd mock me for so much "pathos." I usually just gave in to his confidence.