Very Nice Read online

  “It was long,” I said. “I wanted to like it. Even the sentences were long.”

  “I know. It’s supposed to be a masterpiece. I read review after review and no one complained about the sentences. I think there is something wrong with both of us.”

  This often happened. We did not stay mad at each other for long. I wanted to chew my daughter out about this dog and instead I was talking about her professor’s overwritten novel.

  “No,” I said. “We appreciate short sentences. His book might just not be for us.”

  The poodle was panting. It was a hot day. Ninety degrees in June, too hot for June. Global warming was here. Life went on. As humans, would we learn to adapt? Here I was. Adapting. I wondered how Rachel felt about her father leaving. She had said she was no longer a child, that her feelings on the subject were inconsequential. Whereas my feelings had been hurt. Our perfect family had come apart and my daughter did not care. She was just like Pierre from that Maurice Sendak book. I would have fed her to a hungry lion if I could. I knelt down and petted the beautiful dog she had brought home. I scratched the poodle under her chin. It was ridiculous. Could I fall in love with a dog that quickly?

  “It is going to be fine, Mom,” my daughter said. “I’m going to walk her. I will feed her. It’s a big house.”

  I heard echoes of my seven-year-old girl, begging me for a bunny. Telling me that she would feed her, that she would clean her cage. The same little girl who quickly lost interest in that same bunny, who became my responsibility, another household chore, until the bunny escaped from her cage and was cornered by Posey in the living room. That poor little bunny died of a heart attack.

  “My professor was leaving and I offered to take her. He was going to let his subletter take care of her. A stranger who works twelve-hour days.”

  I sighed. It didn’t matter that I was not ready to have another dog in the house. I wouldn’t want this wonderful dog inside, alone, in an apartment all day. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted my daughter home, but here she was, standing in my yard.

  “Bring her inside,” I said. “Let me get her some water. She must be thirsty.”

  “Why don’t you ask me if I am thirsty? If I am hungry?”

  “You’re a big girl,” I said. “You can take care of yourself.”

  “I can’t,” Rachel said. “I am desperately unhappy.”

  I looked at my daughter. I didn’t know if she was telling the truth. I didn’t know if I was supposed to hug her. If that was what she wanted. I could, of course, go ahead and hug her, but there was the chance that she would just stand there, stiff as a board, and I wasn’t up for that kind of rejection so early in the day. She did not look desperately unhappy.

  But what if it was true? Was I supposed to take care of her all summer? She had told me last week that she was thinking about not coming home, that she would stay in her college town and find a job there, and I’d told her that would be fine. I had sort of liked the idea.

  Rachel already had a job at the day camp, her third summer in a row. I’d seen the director at the farmers’ market and she’d told me that she couldn’t wait for the summer season to start, that my daughter was such a good counselor. The kids always loved her. I loved her.

  Fuck it, I was glad that she was home.

  “Let’s get you both something to drink,” I said.

  I opened the back door and she followed me inside, bringing the dog with her. “Is her name really Princess?” I asked Rachel.

  “It’s supposed to be ironic.”

  It didn’t suit this big dog, who followed us into the house, seemingly unconcerned about her change of scenery. I got out the water bowl and the food bowl, and I filled it with dry food, because I hadn’t thrown away Posey’s last twenty-five-pound bag, still half full. I sat at my kitchen table and I watched Princess eat and I wondered what I would call her instead. She could be Posey for right now. I did not see the harm. She was just a summer dog, after all.

  I wondered about the famous writer who would leave this beautiful dog with strangers. I remembered the trip to Paris this spring I had refused to take, unwilling to leave Posey. She could barely walk up the stairs. Jonathan wanted to go anyway. He wanted to leave Posey at the kennel.

  Jonathan had been looking forward to Paris, a trip he had planned for us. He accused me of loving the dog more than him. “Do you know how wrong that is?” he said.

  I was unable to deny it.

  And that was when he told me about Mandy. He had gone to Paris with Mandy instead. They slept in the hotel room he had reserved for us.

  “That is a ridiculous name,” I told him.

  It was the best I had. I was never good at winning arguments. I didn’t go on our romantic trip, which was a victory of sorts, to stay home with my dying dog.

  And now Rachel was home, opening the refrigerator, searching for food. She took out the farmers’ market strawberries, a container of plain yogurt, a bottle of seltzer. She took all of these things like she was entitled to them, and of course, she was. She was my daughter. This was her home. I was glad that she had come home. I told myself that again, as if I needed convincing.

  What was I going to do otherwise?

  Summers off were supposedly one of the good things about being a teacher, and yet. I wished I had made actual plans. I had not counted on my dog dying. Or my husband leaving me. He hadn’t even come home to open the swimming pool. I missed the pool, swimming laps. I missed walking my dog. I missed my dog. Rachel had brought me a dog.

  I took two bowls from the cabinet and scooped out the yogurt. It occurred to me that I wanted some more coffee.

  “Coffee?” I asked Rachel and she nodded her head, yes. I wasn’t used to her drinking coffee. I did not know what she did at college and I liked it that way. I had trouble accepting her as a grown-up. She wasn’t a grown-up. Nineteen. She was borderline. She wasn’t a child. Her T-shirt, I noticed, was on inside out and I found that reassuring.

  “Do you know how long we have her for?”

  “Six weeks, I think,” Rachel said. “I’m not sure. My professor was going home to see his dying grandmother. He didn’t know when he was coming back. When you go visit dying people, how do you know if they will actually die?”

  I couldn’t help myself. I laughed.

  “What?”

  “His dying grandmother.”

  “Do you think he’s lying?”

  “Yes,” I said, still laughing.

  Why did this story strike me as a load of shit? Maybe because of all of the lies Jonathan told me before he finally came clean about Mandy. One of them was that his mother was sick. Edith, my mother-in-law, was perfectly fine. She called on a night he’d supposedly left to see her, clearly not part of his poorly executed lie.

  My husband’s girlfriend worked for an airline, but she was not a flight attendant, like I’d first assumed. She was an actual pilot. I supposed that made it better.

  “It sounds like a lie, sweetheart. His dying grandmother. Why not pull on the heart strings a little harder?”

  “He wouldn’t lie,” Rachel said.

  That was the moment I realized that I should worry. Who was this professor, taking advantage of my daughter? I was glad I had not bought his book. It had been a library book. I had to renew it twice. But I read the novel to the end and felt proud of myself for having done so.

  “How was the class?” I asked her.

  “I didn’t turn in my final story,” she said.

  “Oh, honey. Why not?”

  Rachel had always wanted to be a writer. She wrote her first short story in the second grade, eleven pages about an African elephant in the zoo who wanted a friend.

  Neither of us talked while I ground the beans for the coffee and Rachel sliced the strawberries. Of course, it would be nice to have her home. Last summer, we had f
allen into a nice rhythm. I had the day to myself when she was at camp. Her father was almost never home, long days at work and business trips, too. Now I wondered if he already was with Mandy, but it had been nice anyway, just me and Rachel and the dog. Sometimes she would bring her friends out to the swimming pool. I missed her when she left for college. She went off and forgot about me, returned on holidays with a suitcase full of dirty laundry.

  “Why didn’t you turn in a story?” I asked.

  “I actually wrote it,” Rachel said. “But I was afraid he wouldn’t like it.”

  “Isn’t this worse? Will you pass the class?”

  “He said he would pass me in exchange for taking care of his dog.”

  “Huh,” I said. “That doesn’t sound like an ethical exchange.”

  “It doesn’t to me, either,” Rachel said. “But it’s cool. It’s like we have an understanding.”

  “Rachel,” I said.

  “Mom,” Rachel said. “His contract ended and he isn’t coming back to the college, so I guess he doesn’t give a shit. It’s better than getting an incomplete.”

  “That doesn’t make it right.”

  “Mom,” Rachel repeated. She stopped cutting strawberries. She was holding the big kitchen knife. I found it unnerving. “Don’t you dare contact the school.”

  I hadn’t said a word about contacting the school. The idea had not occurred to me, but suddenly it was beginning to make sense. Something had gone on between them. My impressionable daughter and her writing professor. You did not leave your poodle with just anybody.

  “I don’t want to get him in trouble. I was being kind, Mom, offering to take care of his dog. I thought you might like it. I was thinking of you.”

  “You weren’t thinking of me,” I said.

  I wished it were true.

  It wasn’t true.

  My daughter, the girl who had perfected the skill of perfect flatness, looked upset. I felt relieved. She was still in there, somewhere. I thought she might even want to tell me something. But then I saw that cloud fall over her face. Already I had blown it.

  “You shouldn’t pass a class if you haven’t turned in the assignments,” I said.

  “I will let you read my story if that will make you feel better,” Rachel said. “I did the work. I deserve to pass.”

  I still had a moral responsibility to this girl, my child, to be a role model of sorts, to comment on the things she did, to shape who she would become. I could also tell her that her T-shirt was inside out, but it seemed better not to mention it.

  “It’s not like you want me to fail,” Rachel said. “I mean, that would be ridiculous, wouldn’t it, failing creative writing? You can read my story if you want to. It’s a good story. I know my opinion doesn’t count, but I actually think it’s really good.”

  “I want to read it,” I said. “Why do you think he wouldn’t have liked it?”

  “I don’t know. He liked everyone else’s stories. He liked all of these terrible, terrible stories, which made me think he couldn’t like mine, because it isn’t terrible. I have it printed out,” Rachel said. “I’ll let you read it.”

  I poured our coffee and we drank it. We sat at the kitchen table and ate our berries and our yogurt. It felt like there was nothing left to say. I did not want to say one more wrong thing.

  The dog had finished eating. From the corner of my eye, I watched her wander around the kitchen, sniffing the cupboards. She came over, putting her long snout in my lap, and I petted her soft orange poodle fur. Such a special color. A temporary dog was a terrible idea. I would not want to give her back.

  “I am glad you are home, sweet pie,” I said to my daughter.

  And she then came to me. Rachel gently pushed Posey aside and sat on my lap, still my little girl.

  * * *

  —

  Later that night, I read my daughter’s short story. It was about an airline attendant. Her name was Amanda. I had to laugh out loud. There was not a side to take, that was what Jonathan and I had told her, but clearly Rachel had taken my side.

  In the story, Amanda contracts a venereal disease, one she is not aware of. She meets a new man in every town. She takes each one back to her hotel and has sex with him. One of her lovers has a job in finance. He has a wife who is a teacher at an elementary school. The man comes home from his trip to Paris, guilty, and wants to make love to his wife, but she is tired. She turns him away.

  At the end of the story, Amanda, the flight attendant, discovers her condition. She thinks about all of the men she had fucked, one in every town.

  “What can you do?” she says to herself, downing her penicillin with a slug of vodka. “Life is a bitch.”

  It was a mean story. She was a good writer, my daughter, and I wished that she had turned it in.

  Zahid

  “Now what?” Khloe asked me.

  “Another shot?” I suggested.

  “Aren’t we drunk?”

  “Not enough,” I said.

  Khloe got up, ordered two more shots, brought them back to our table. Of course, I was the man. It was my job to get the shots, but I was too drunk. And in this ever-changing time, gender roles did not matter. I loved hanging out with lesbians. I did not feel required to fuck them. Since my book came out, it sometimes seemed as if all women wanted to fuck me. It was exhausting. I had gotten a venereal disease. I had given it to my fiancée. She had not forgiven me. I wouldn’t have told her, but because of the disease, I had to tell her the truth.

  Khloe was the identical twin sister of my best friend, Kristi. My fiancée had resented Kristi, jealous of how we always talked on the phone. The twins were gorgeous, could have been models. They looked white, but not quite. They were almost six feet tall. It was hard to place the curl in their hair. Their mother was black and so that made them minorities. Kristi was always talking about race, blackness. Identity politics. Her closest friends were other writers of various minority groups. Khloe had gone into business. She had just finished her MBA. She had gotten a big job in New York and was subletting my apartment in Brooklyn for the summer. I had not figured her out. She wore short skirts and high heels but was not interested in men. She was a little bit scary, honestly.

  I had come back early, but I wanted Khloe to stay because she was paying my rent. She would keep the bedroom and I could sleep on my couch. It was a quality couch. I had bought it with money from my advance. In retrospect, I should have bought a house with my book money. I could have afforded a nice one if I had been willing to leave New York. This was what Kristi told me to do. Instead I blew the money, pissed it away like water. I got a couple of nice suits, some nice pieces of furniture. I went on some very nice trips with my fiancée. We had eaten at the very best restaurants, drunk very expensive wine.

  Now I was home from Pakistan, a trip my mother had insisted on, a trip she had paid for because I could not afford it on my own. “Do not continue to be the spoiled brat that you have become,” she told me.

  The words stung.

  My grandmother had held my hand. The doctors said she was not in pain, but to me, she was the very definition of pain. Instead of saying hello, my grandmother squeezed my hand, so tightly, that tiny bony hand, and then she died. Holding my hand.

  It didn’t seem fair. She had laid such a burden on me. So much misplaced love. We had left Pakistan when I was twelve. I hated America at first. My parents and I lived in North Carolina, my father worked at a hospital, in a lab doing work beneath him, and we stood out, the only brown-skinned people in a small town, but eventually, I did the only thing available to me. I became American. I made friends with the other white boys. People liked me, the only Pakistani kid. I did well in school. I was polite. I listened to whatever music everyone else was listening to. I had white girlfriends. I almost always had sex with these girls, early, I was fourteen my first time,
and yet these white girls never fell in love with me. Because I was Pakistani. I was practice. I knew this. I didn’t love them, either.

  Once a year, we visited family in Pakistan, and then it became every two years. And then, for me, three years, and then four years. I did not want to return. I did not belong. God, it was hot and it was crowded and it felt foreign. It felt awful to feel foreign in my own country. I felt grateful to be back in New York. It was just as hot, but there was also air-conditioning. Cool bars. Summer drinks.

  Khloe came back to the table with the shots. I loved tequila. The salt, the lime. It tasted so good. Khloe stared at me. It occurred to me that this look was not affectionate. All night, I had sensed a growing irritation from my tenant. I should know. I was a writer. I understood people, how their minds worked. Suddenly, I did not feel so good. Jet lag, maybe. Or tequila. I looked down at my hands, placed flat on the table, and I pictured my grandmother’s hand. The bones that made her knuckles, practically breaking through the skin. She was so thin. Her eyes so big.

  “Will you take me home?” I asked Khloe. “I don’t feel that well.”

  “You are a pussy,” Khloe said.

  This was my turn to come up with something clever to say, but instead, I draped my arm over Khloe’s shoulders, we were the same height, and we left the cool, air-conditioned Brooklyn bar together and walked back to my apartment. First, I threw up on the street in front of my building. Then I threw up in the hall in front of my door. I threw up on the wood floor of my apartment, before I could make it to the bathroom.

  It was cool in my apartment. We had left the air-conditioning on.

  “Zahid,” Khloe said. “You are a motherfucking mess.”

  I had nothing clever to say to that, either.

  I lay down on the hardwood floor, not far from my vomit.

  I woke up on the floor, a pillow under my head, a blanket covering me, the floor clean. I woke up terrified, because I could not remember who was taking care of my dog. Where was Princess? I was afraid that she was here in the apartment, under my desk, starving, and I wondered why she did not bark, why she did not come out and lick my face. Khloe was a bitch, letting me sleep on the floor, but she wouldn’t let my dog starve. Would she?