Wolf at the Table, page 12
Denny explains that he was on the track-and-field team and messed up his knee in the triple jump, tearing his meniscus. “After surgery,” he says, “they put me on crutches and I had to join the walking wounded. That’s a detail of cadets who can’t march or participate in drill. It’s the last thing you want to happen to you at West Point, especially as an underclassman. Things went downhill pretty quickly after that.”
“You dropped out?” Fiona presses.
“I was discharged,” Denny says matter-of-factly. “That’s the official term for it.”
Myra senses something underneath his composed report. Is it disappointment? Grief? Bitterness? She shoots a look at Fiona and shakes her head sharply, once, a blunt exhortation to cease this line of questioning. Fiona smiles demurely and drinks her wine.
“Mickey Mantle also had bad knees,” Myra says. She exits to the living room and returns with a baseball card secured in Lucite, which she hands to Denny. “That’s his rookie card. My father gave me that for my sixteenth birthday,” she says. “Mantle is his favorite player.”
“He’s a great player,” Denny says, and passes back the collector card.
Myra returns it to the living room, then comes back to the kitchen table and begins serving the lemon chicken and rice.
“What were you doing in New York?” Denny asks Fiona.
“She was acting,” Myra says.
“Actually I wasn’t acting,” Fiona says. “I was mostly mending costumes and handing out mimeographed programs at the front of house. I was supposed to be acting.”
“She was involved with an experimental theater company,” Myra explains. “And she was starting to perform in their shows.”
“If you count playing a pair of walrus tusks.”
“But bigger roles were coming,” Myra says. “Please help yourself,” she urges Denny, pointing to the asparagus.
Denny serves himself as Fiona tops off his wine, then hers, then Myra’s. Fiona playfully nods toward Myra’s wineglass, encouraging her to drink. Myra takes a modest mouthful, swallows. She’s never been much of a drinker and she can already feel it going to her head.
Fiona pushes away from the table, pads in bare feet over to Myra’s phonograph, and puts a record on. Moments later, Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence” plays.
Hello darkness, my old friend…
“Music to eat to,” Fiona says, returning to the table. “It was either Simon and Garfunkel or that god-awful John Denver.”
“Hey, I like John Denver,” Denny says.
“Yikes,” Fiona says, cutting into a piece of chicken.
“What’s wrong with John Denver?” Myra asks.
“Nothing, if you like sexless boobs.”
“I don’t think he’s sexless,” Myra says.
“That box of Quaker Oats over there has more sex appeal than John Denver,” Fiona says. And then to Denny: “Isn’t he sexless?”
“I wouldn’t be the one to ask.”
“Practically all of his songs are about women,” Myra says.
“That’s true,” Denny says. “There’s that song ‘Ann.’ And ‘Darcy Farrow.’”
“And what about ‘Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives to Me’?” Myra adds. “If that song doesn’t have sex appeal I don’t know what does.”
Fiona shakes her head. “If you pulled his pants down you’d probably find a weird light switch or some such thing.”
Myra laughs, and Denny follows. His smile is bright and brings out his cheekbones, as well as a pair of surprising dimples.
“A light switch,” Fiona says, in love with her own humor, “or what do you call those things on a radio?”
“An antenna?” Myra says.
“A dial,” Denny says, still laughing.
“A goddamn dick dial!” Fiona cries.
They all laugh for a solid minute. Myra has the sensation that her face is expanding. Her teeth feel huge.
During “Leaves That Are Green” Myra realizes that she’s eaten nearly half her plate. She needs to slow down. She breathes, takes another gulp of wine.
“What singers do you like?” Denny asks Fiona, who is holding a stalk of asparagus between her fingers as if she might use it to conduct a children’s choir.
“I like the Association,” Fiona says, biting into the asparagus, chewing. “The Rolling Stones. The Kinks. Dirty rock-and-roll. And you?” she asks, swallowing. “Beyond the sexless genius of John Denver, of course.”
“I like lots of stuff,” Denny says. “The Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Byrds.”
“Just to name the Bs,” Fiona says with a smirk. “But who’s weird that you like? I want weird.”
“The Beach Boys are pretty weird,” Denny says.
“I think they’re weird, too,” Myra says. “All those spooky harmonies.”
“But the Beach Boys sound exactly how you expect them to sound,” Fiona says, grabbing another stalk of asparagus with her fingers. “What about someone like Crispian St. Peters? He looks normal with the haircut and all, but he’s weird. And he sings weird.”
“My sister likes it when you can’t judge a book by its cover,” Myra says.
“Oh, you’re a weirdo, too,” Fiona retorts, chewing, swallowing, gulping wine in a flurry of effortless movements.
Her thin pale hands are beautiful, Myra thinks, even with their bitten-down nails. Fiona got the hands of a pianist, whereas her own hands are knobby and mannish, like the hands of a plumber.
“She’s just more organized than all the other weirdos,” Fiona continues to Denny. “This chicken is really good, by the way. Might even be better than Mom’s.”
“That’s rare high praise,” Myra says to Denny.
“The chicken really is very good,” Denny agrees, holding up a forkful. “The sauce is delicious.”
During a lull in the conversation, “Blessed” plays. Myra can feel herself bobbing to the rollicking drums. She takes pleasure in watching Denny eat. He is well-mannered, dutiful with his napkin. He cuts his chicken with his knife and then sets it down and passes his fork from his left to right hand before skewering it and delivering it evenly to his mouth. His movements are agile, noiseless. He never scrapes his plate or bangs his utensils on the table. They obviously taught him well at West Point. As he chews with his mouth closed his jaw pulses and his nostrils flare just a bit. His face thrills Myra. She wants to nudge her chair closer to his, to refold his napkin or serve him another helping of chicken, but she knows this would be too forward. Instead she swallows another mouthful of wine.
Fiona says something about how “Blessed” is an anti-faith song, how “god” with a small g is the same as “man” with a small m, how in her opinion Jesus was nothing more than the equivalent of a really talented electric guitarist with salon-fresh hair. Like a white Jimi Hendrix, if he actually was white, he meaning Jesus, who was probably a lot darker-skinned than they’d have us believe. “It’s a song for all the fallen Catholics,” she adds.
During the warbling guitar intro to “Kathy’s Song” Myra imagines walking with Denny hand in hand down Michigan Avenue. Ontario Street… Ohio Street… Grand Avenue. She pictures them stopping along the storefronts and picking out things they might buy. Clothes for the colder seasons. Matching wool coats to help them survive the Chicago winter; scarves to guard them against the brutal Lake Michigan winds. Paul Simon’s voice carries so much promise.
“Would you like more chicken?” Myra asks Denny, and before he can answer, she serves him the remaining breast, smothering it with rice and sauce.
“I hear it’s expensive to live in New York City,” Denny says to Fiona.
“You’re telling me,” Fiona says. “Most of the girls in the theater company were living on Mommy and Daddy’s dime.”
And here you are living off me, Myra thinks. You little freeloader. You charmer. But she pushes the thoughts from her head.
“They just raised the subway fare from fifteen to twenty cents,” Fiona continues. “Twenty cents to ride the fucking subway.”
“Hey,” Myra says.
“Hey, what?” Fiona says.
“Language.”
“Language, my ass. I’m twenty-six years old.” Fiona takes a drink of wine, which spills onto her chin. She wipes it away and, without the least bit of self-consciousness, sucks it off her fingers. Her manners have gotten even worse than they were at Christmas. “All I’m saying is New York’s too expensive for regular people,” she adds.
“Maybe you’re not regular,” Myra says.
“Oh, I’m regular. Apparently I’m as regular as a bowl of cornflakes. That’s why I couldn’t get any of the good roles.”
“She’s a beautiful girl,” Myra tells Denny. “I keep telling her all she has to do is get a decent haircut.”
“And meet a man from Des Moines and get married and have babies and get our initials stenciled on the garage door? Fun.”
“Is it just the two of you?” Denny asks.
“We have two other sisters and a brother,” Myra says.
“Myra, Fiona, Alec, Joan, and Lexy.” Fiona fires off the names as though spitting watermelon seeds into a jar. “There was also Archie but he died when he was a baby.”
“Rheumatic fever,” Myra adds. “He was only two months old.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Denny says.
“Are you from a large family?” Fiona asks.
“I have two half siblings. A brother and a sister. They’re both much older. They live in Skokie.”
“So you were alone a lot,” Fiona says.
“You could say that.”
“I’m a big fan of the lone wolf,” Fiona says.
During another silence, Denny seems to contract within himself. Myra fears he is losing interest. Of what she thinks of as the three normal Larkin sisters, she’s always considered herself the ugly one. There’s Lexy with her height and her blond hair and blue eyes and perfect skin, and Fiona with her striking green eyes and red hair and provocative personality. Myra sees herself as so plain, with her brown hair and unremarkable face, her hazel eyes always hidden behind her glasses, her average figure, her large hands.
The phonograph needle crackles in the dead wax of the record, and Myra realizes that the first side of Sounds of Silence has ended. She excuses herself to the living room to flip the record. She hears her sister ask Denny how long he’s lived in the building.
“Just a few days,” he replies.
“He lives on the second floor,” Myra says from the living room, setting the needle on the side B lead-in.
“Down the hall from the laundry room,” Denny adds.
“He’s getting his degree from Illinois Teachers College,” Myra says as she returns to the table, happy to dispense this knowledge Fiona doesn’t possess.
“I start in the fall.”
“Where’d you go to high school?” Myra asks.
“Senn,” he says. “Here in Chicago.”
“That’s up on the North Side,” Myra says. “Sometimes I pass it on my way to work.”
Denny asks Myra where she works and she tells him she’s a pediatrics nurse at Saint Francis Hospital in Evanston.
“A pediatrics nurse,” he says, “I’m impressed.”
“Anyone ever tell you that you look like Robert Redford?” Fiona says. She’s sitting higher on her chair now, directly facing Denny, her legs tucked under her. “You could be his brother,” she adds.
“I’m afraid I don’t know who Robert Redford is,” Denny replies.
Fiona’s pupils are like a rabbit’s, overwhelming their green irises. My sister, the beautiful unkempt bunny, Myra thinks. Is she drunk? Or has her shift away from lethargy this evening been inspired by the simple fact that she has an audience? Only an hour ago she was shuffling around the apartment half naked, drifty and hopeless, flaunting her unshaved armpits.
“He stars in that film Inside Daisy Clover,” Fiona tells Denny.
“He’s very handsome,” Myra adds, which causes Denny to smile, revealing those dimples again. But the smile is quickly overtaken by surprising color in his cheeks; the flattery is making him uncomfortable.
“You really could be his brother,” Fiona insists.
Ironically, during “A Most Peculiar Man,” the subject turns to their father, who Fiona also thinks bears a resemblance to Redford.
“Dad’s the lost, sad, old, unsmiling version of him,” Fiona says. “With darker hair.”
“Donald Larkin is the last man in the world who would think he’s handsome,” Myra adds. She goes on to tell Denny about her father: the young soldier who survived the Hürtgen Forest, the quiet World War II veteran turned machinist, the devoted Yankees fan, the dutiful, churchgoing husband.
“You know he voted for Goldwater?” Fiona says.
“But Dad’s always been a Republican,” Myra says.
“But he doesn’t even think about the candidates. He just votes along party lines.”
“And you don’t do that?” Myra says to her sister, pouring more wine into Denny’s glass.
“If there was a worthy Republican candidate I’d vote for him,” Fiona says, seizing the wine bottle from her sister. She fills her glass nearly to the rim, then tops off Myra’s, finishing the bottle. “Or her.”
“And who did you vote for in this last election?” Myra asks Fiona.
“I couldn’t bear the thought of Johnson coming back.”
“So what’d you do?” Denny chimes in.
“I wrote someone in.”
“Who?” Myra asks.
“Burt Lancaster.”
Denny releases a sound that could be construed as scorn.
“Are you scoffing at me?” Fiona says playfully. “Burt Lancaster played a general in Seven Days in May. He probably knows more about leadership than LBJ and Barry Goldwater combined.”
“Playing a general doesn’t qualify a person to be president,” Myra says. “It doesn’t even qualify that person to be a general.”
“What is anybody really qualified to do?” Fiona counters. “I’m no pastry chef but I can bake a cake. You read the directions, mix some stuff in a bowl, preheat the oven, and pop it in—what’s so hard about that?”
Fiona, forever the contrarian. Is she just saying these things or does she really believe them? Myra wonders. Is this the same girl who used to sing all the hymns in church? The same girl who believed in Santa Claus until she was thirteen? The same girl who was so afraid of thunderstorms that she’d hide in her bedroom closet?
“Roy Orbison would’ve been a great president too,” Fiona adds. “He could just sing all of our country’s problems away.” She turns to her sister. “Myra’s a Democrat but she keeps her apartment like a Republican.”
To prevent herself from saying anything, Myra drinks a mouthful of wine.
“And what about you?” Fiona says to Denny. “Who did you vote for?”
“I didn’t vote in the last election,” he says.
“Why not?”
“I was in the hospital,” Denny offers, setting his fork down and looking at his plate.
“The knee again?” Myra says.
“No, it wasn’t the knee,” he says. “My knee was fine.”
His right hand gathers into a fist. For the first time Myra notices his high school class ring, its bright blue stone. She can make out the word “SENN” engraved along the setting. Little blond hairs sprout across the tops of his fingers, his wrist.
“The handsome hospital,” Fiona says mischievously.
The air around the small table seems to have thickened. The storm should have cooled off the apartment by now, but it simply hasn’t. And the fan is useless. The wine bottle is empty. “April Come She Will,” Myra’s favorite song on the album, has come and gone. She can hardly recall a verse. Denny continues looking down. A blue vein, faint as faded ink, pulses near his temple.
“Should I go get the other bottle of wine?” Myra says. She has to be at work at seven a.m. tomorrow and doesn’t even want to think about how early she’ll have to get up to shower and iron her uniform and clean her white shoes and make breakfast and take the bus to the elevated train and then walk several blocks to Saint Francis Hospital in Evanston. But she won’t be able to sleep much anyway because of the heat. Another glass of wine or two will likely help her doze off.
“Definitely get more wine,” Fiona says.
Myra takes the corkscrew into the bathroom and opens the other bottle of chardonnay, which has been soaking in what is now lukewarm bathwater. The cork breaks and it takes her far too long to wrest the last quarter inch or so from the neck of the bottle.
When Myra reenters the kitchen, Fiona is sitting in Denny’s lap. The Simon and Garfunkel record is skipping in the gutter, faintly popping with each revolution. A cool current of rage rises in her throat but she swallows hard and places the wine bottle on the table. She thinks she might be sick. Fiona is peeling one of the oranges that Denny brought to dinner. She dotes on him as if he were a king. Myra fills her sister’s glass and passes it to her. Fiona sets the half-peeled orange on the table, takes a healthy slug of wine, and then offers her glass to Denny.
“No, thanks,” he says. “I better not.”
Myra fills her own glass, takes a mouthful, forces it down.
Still on his lap, Fiona tries to get Denny to drink from her glass.
He turns away, smiling. “I’ve had too much already, I really have,” he says.
His eyes are blue and large and sad. Myra can feel the ache he carries, like a suitcase of unwanted books. She longs to unburden him, to hold his face in her hands.
He gently nudges Fiona off his lap and stands. “I should go,” he says. “Tomorrow’s Thursday. I have so much to get done. Myra, thank you for dinner.”
“It was my pleasure,” she says.
Denny stands there another moment, meeting Myra’s eyes, then exits. The door closes behind him. Gone, just like that. A pair of unpeeled oranges sits at the edge of the kitchen table.
Myra walks over to the skipping record player, finally lifts the needle, and turns it off. From the living room she glares at Fiona.
“What?” Fiona says.
“After everything I’ve done for you,” Myra says. She can’t think of a time she’s ever been angrier with her sister.
