Christopher Bohjalian - The Double Bind

Now, was Bobbie’s childhood one long no-win proposition? It certainly seemed possible. Laurel began to imagine a scenario in which the son of Tom and Daisy Buchanan learns in high school what his parents had done the summer before he was born, and then all the bad behavior he has witnessed for a decade and a half-the snobbish arrogance, the marital duplicity, and, yes, the petty carelessness-becomes small change when compared with this nightmare. And so he confronts them. He asks them how much of the story is true and how much is conjecture. His father denies it all, he argues that Jay Gatsby was driving that twilight afternoon in 1922. But Bobbie sees through him, can tell he is lying.

And his mother, that woman whose voice was full of money: What of her? What does she do? Does she confess to her son? Or, like her husband, does she continue to insist that Gatsby was behind the wheel of the car? Or does she simply remain silent?

Either way, Bobbie knows the truth. And that part of his gray matter that had kept his behavior in check-that, to some degree, had kept the schizophrenia at bay-was no longer able to stem the onset of the symptoms.

It was possible, she guessed, that by then even Daisy herself had begun to believe the lie that she and Tom had been telling the world. Who could say? Perhaps Daisy Buchanan had gone to her grave in complete denial, in the end viewing the rumors that swirled about her as a mean-spirited fiction concocted by distant cousins and jealous neighbors.

Memory, after all, can be kind: If you’re not schizophrenic, she knew, sometimes a forgiving memory was the only way to get by.

THE REFERENCE DESK at the library was open all day Saturday, and so Laurel worked steadily in the darkroom through the morning and the early afternoon, subsisting on bottled water and a muffin she bought at the UVM snack bar. She was feeling weak, but she couldn’t bring herself to stop working. There was always one more picture to print. The images from the World’s Fair Bobbie shot that she recognized with certainty were of the New York State Pavilion-the 250-foot tall towers designed by Philip Johnson-and the symbol of the celebration itself, the U.S. Steel Unisphere. She had seen the towers and the Unisphere probably a thousand times from the highway in Queens, and she had had an American history teacher in ninth grade who remembered the fair well from his own childhood and once brought the whole class to Corona Park as part of a unit on the 1960s.

She didn’t emerge from the darkroom until almost two-thirty, and she left then only because there was work for her to do at the library.

Quickly, the reference librarian found for her the microfilm spool of Life magazines from 1964, and she began to move forward from January. She saw a story about Pope Paul VI becoming the first pontiff to ride in an airplane, and a profile of Secretary of Defense John McNamara. There was an article about the conviction of Jack Ruby, and another about the way some woman named Kitty Genovese was savagely murdered outside her Queens apartment one night, and how her screams for help were heard by over thirty neighbors-none of whom came to her aid.

Finally, in an issue in April, she saw the first photos from the World’s Fair in Flushing. The fair was formally opened on April 22 by President Johnson, and there were photographs of actual-sized models of rockets-surrounded by visitors clad either in jackets and ties or dresses and skirts, many of the women wearing white gloves-as well as the exhibit buildings constructed by General Motors and Chrysler and IBM. There was a half-page image of the New York State Pavilion (though not the one she had just printed herself in the UVM darkroom), as well as a picture of the monorail with a photo credit-though the photographer was neither Robert Buchanan nor Bobbie Crocker.

She was disappointed but moved on, and within moments she found herself leaning forward in the seat and squinting at a black-and-white image on the microfilm screen. There in the following week’s issue was a photograph on the second-to-last page of the magazine, the page opposite the inside back cover, of the Unisphere. The view of the orbital rings from the pedestal and the prominence of Australia reminded her of the one Bobbie had taken. She read the caption, and there he was-waiting patiently for her at the very end.

The U.S. Steel Unisphere surrounded by the Fountain of Continents, the World’s Fair, Flushing, New York. The globe stands 12 proud stories high and weighs an Atlas-straining 470 tons. At night the capitals of the world’s leading nations are lit, while high above the planet three satellites whiz by. Total cost? $2,000,000, but worth every penny given the glorious way it reminds visitors that for all our political and ethnic differences, we are truly one Earth. The Unisphere is both the symbol of the newly opened World’s Fair, and one of its most popular attractions! Photo: Robert Crocker.

Laurel was, perhaps, as satisfied as she had ever been in her life, and she considered calling David on his cell phone that very moment. But she was afraid after the way they had parted that morning that it would sound like she was gloating. Moreover, she was suddenly tired, very tired. Almost light-headed. Probably too tired to talk.

She wasn’t due to meet Leckbruge for another forty-five minutes, and so she printed out the page and then returned the spool to the reference librarian and sat down for a long moment on a reading room couch to rest. Finally, she rose, and with the little energy she had left she went to the bakery down the street from the library for a bottle of juice and a scone. She knew that she had to be on top of her game when she met with Pamela Marshfield’s attorney.

P AMELA WALKED SLOWLY along the beach behind her house late Saturday afternoon in her bare feet and a pair of khaki slacks she had rolled up into capris. The autumn light fell upon her like a wave, and for a split second she was indeed unsure of her footing, as if the sand below her were shifting. She paused for a moment to watch seagulls surround a small crab in the sand, circling it. One finally grabbed it and soared into the sky over the surf. The other bird squawked angrily and then noticed her, tilting its head quizzically, robotically in her direction, before lifting off after the seagull with the crab. In the distance, perhaps a half mile down the shore, she could see the colorful dots of the much younger people in their blue jeans and windbreakers who rented shares in the more modest homes on that stretch of beach.

She had not been completely surprised when T.J. had called with the news that the social worker had agreed to meet with him. It wasn’t that she thought her attorney was especially charming-though, in her opinion, he was-but because she knew this girl from West Egg was curious. Meddlesome. Nosy. Unwilling to leave her homeless client’s legacy alone. And, thus, unwilling to pass up an opportunity to meet with this lawyer from Manhattan.

In this regard, the girl certainly reminded her of Robert. Asked too many questions. Didn’t know when to quit.

That was, after all, precisely why Robert had finally had to leave. Or, at least, why he had decided to leave. Either way, it was hard for Pamela to imagine her father and Robert enduring another night together under the same roof after their final brawl. Of course, Robert had gotten the worst of it: Her father had been a football player. A polo player. An all-purpose brute. Had their mother been home, she would have intervened and wound up in the emergency room at the hospital in Roslyn. Fortunately, Tom and Robert Buchanan had saved their last and worst confrontation for a night when Daisy was off playing bridge. Consciously or unconsciously, Robert had probably chosen that moment because their mother was gone-though his anger at her was as deep and dogged and undiminished as the fury he had felt toward Tom. Even at the end, Daisy loved him-he would always be her mercurial little boy-but he simply could not find it in either his heart or his sadly muddled head to forgive her.