and Jack had reared these urban creatures, so different from themselves, a southern boy and a suburban girl. Art and dance had carried them to the city, but what kept them—kept Deb, at least—was the sense that it all was happening there for the first time, would ripple out in lesser versions across the country, like touring companies of a Broadway show, like everything everywhere else was an echo of something that had happened there. She never took New York for granted, but it had never belonged to her like it did to her kids, and there was still that pane of glass between herself and where she lived, showing her her reflection, in the darker places, where she was afraid. How could she guess at what her children were afraid of, then? Were they afraid of anything?
Simon had started down the subway stairs when Deb called him back. “Listen.” Pressing her palm against the strap of his bag. “I don’t know about Donald’s parents. I know that your dad is sorry, and I know that this takes time to figure out. And he knows that too.”
“So, what, he’s going to be sleeping on the couch?”
“Does that bother you guys?”
“It’s just Donald is coming over tonight.” He telescoped and untelescoped his
Post.
It is so hard to know the right thing and so important to make it seem easy. “Your father will be in our bedroom, then.”
That, as far as Simon was concerned, settled it, and Jack was permitted back into Deb’s bed to steel the family from judgment by a fifteen-year-old boy named Donald.
(Though Simon would keep Donald out of it, he’d also managed a way of inviting the rest of the world in, with that stuff he’d said in the elevator, and now several of the building people, moms mostly, had begun to look at him funny. They looked at his parents that way too, and at Kay, though his family, surprise, hardly noticed.
The moms looked at him on afternoons in the elevator, where he felt himself cornered by their grocery bags and laundry baskets. He stared out the little round window with wire netting as the floors fell away behind it. Swallowing hard.
They looked at him and thought, Poor kid.
They looked at each other and thought, With a husband like that, might have guessed. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist, no. Doesn’t take a Freud.
They looked at their watches and thought, Two-thirty, what are you doing home from school?
16B was the only one to ask him questions. Like their medium, if he were a ghost.
She asked: “How are we doing?”
We.
And then not just questions but mottoes, like, “One day at a time.” This she said to no one, to the air.
Well wasn’t it what he wanted, attention? Yes, in a way it was. But just as important now was to show how much he didn’t need any. That he was handling it, without his too-young sister and too-dumb mother and his father who was the problem. And without 16B. Because he’d seen this story before, on night soaps and in his friends’ parents’ living rooms. He knew what came next, and he wanted to show the world and the building people, everyone, that he was ready. Divorce!)
Jerry and Elaine are married and living in Jerry’s apartment with George next door instead of Kramer. George gets a letter by mistake from a woman who is having an affair with Jerry. He goes to Monk’s to tell Elaine, and she is like, So? George says: “But she said she is sleeping with your husband! Jerry!” And Elaine’s still like, Yeah, so? LAUGHS. George says: “She said she wanted him to lick her on the nipples!” Elaine puts her hand on the table like she’s about to leave and says: “Listen, Peterman has me writing about urban riding crops. I don’t have time for this.” And George shouts: “She said she was going to suck him off until he came and that she would swallow it and that he tasted good and then that he should fuck her hard against the wall!” Everyone at Monk’s is staring at them. Elaine says: “George, I don’t know why you are shouting.”
Simon had started down the subway stairs when Deb called him back. “Listen.” Pressing her palm against the strap of his bag. “I don’t know about Donald’s parents. I know that your dad is sorry, and I know that this takes time to figure out. And he knows that too.”
“So, what, he’s going to be sleeping on the couch?”
“Does that bother you guys?”
“It’s just Donald is coming over tonight.” He telescoped and untelescoped his
Post.
It is so hard to know the right thing and so important to make it seem easy. “Your father will be in our bedroom, then.”
That, as far as Simon was concerned, settled it, and Jack was permitted back into Deb’s bed to steel the family from judgment by a fifteen-year-old boy named Donald.
(Though Simon would keep Donald out of it, he’d also managed a way of inviting the rest of the world in, with that stuff he’d said in the elevator, and now several of the building people, moms mostly, had begun to look at him funny. They looked at his parents that way too, and at Kay, though his family, surprise, hardly noticed.
The moms looked at him on afternoons in the elevator, where he felt himself cornered by their grocery bags and laundry baskets. He stared out the little round window with wire netting as the floors fell away behind it. Swallowing hard.
They looked at him and thought, Poor kid.
They looked at each other and thought, With a husband like that, might have guessed. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist, no. Doesn’t take a Freud.
They looked at their watches and thought, Two-thirty, what are you doing home from school?
16B was the only one to ask him questions. Like their medium, if he were a ghost.
She asked: “How are we doing?”
We.
And then not just questions but mottoes, like, “One day at a time.” This she said to no one, to the air.
Well wasn’t it what he wanted, attention? Yes, in a way it was. But just as important now was to show how much he didn’t need any. That he was handling it, without his too-young sister and too-dumb mother and his father who was the problem. And without 16B. Because he’d seen this story before, on night soaps and in his friends’ parents’ living rooms. He knew what came next, and he wanted to show the world and the building people, everyone, that he was ready. Divorce!)
Jerry and Elaine are married and living in Jerry’s apartment with George next door instead of Kramer. George gets a letter by mistake from a woman who is having an affair with Jerry. He goes to Monk’s to tell Elaine, and she is like, So? George says: “But she said she is sleeping with your husband! Jerry!” And Elaine’s still like, Yeah, so? LAUGHS. George says: “She said she wanted him to lick her on the nipples!” Elaine puts her hand on the table like she’s about to leave and says: “Listen, Peterman has me writing about urban riding crops. I don’t have time for this.” And George shouts: “She said she was going to suck him off until he came and that she would swallow it and that he tasted good and then that he should fuck her hard against the wall!” Everyone at Monk’s is staring at them. Elaine says: “George, I don’t know why you are shouting.”
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