Jan Burke - Remember Me, Irene

“You mean you’ll be at Las Piernas College if you can find a parking space,” she said. “Want me to call ahead and try to get one for you?”

“No, thanks. Some of the members of the administration get a little antsy when they know the local press is around. I’d rather not have anyone announce my arrival.”

“OH,FORGIVE ME,” Jerry Selman said, finally stepping back to allow me to walk into his office. “I guess I wasn’t expecting you to go to so much trouble. The campus isn’t very accessible to the public, I’m afraid.”

Only a moat full of piranhas would make it less accessible, I thought, having hiked up a steep hill from a distant parking lot.

“I should have called,” I said, “but I was going to come up to the campus anyway, so I thought I might be able to catch you in your office.” As I said it, I told myself that wasn’t a lie. I didn’t have any appointments, but I did plan on trying to corner Booter Hodges after I saw Jerry.

“Let me take your coat,” he said. “Have a seat-the chair by the windows is the best of the three. And let me get you a cup of coffee. How do you drink it?”

“Just black is fine, thanks. Oh-this isn’t from-”

“The vending machines? Never.” His smile was contagious. “But you’ve just proven that you truly were a student on this campus. The coffee out of those machines is noxious.”

“We used to say that if you saw someone buying a cup of it, he just wanted something to pour on the cockroaches under the sandwich machines.”

He laughed and went down the hallway to another room and soon emerged with two cups of office-brewed coffee. He carefully set mine on a corner of his desk and seated himself, holding but not drinking from his own cup. This opening round of hospitality completed, he seemed at a loss, his expression solemn.

Serious, he was hardly less attractive than he was when he had smiled. Andre had been pleasant-looking but no knockout. Even as a younger man, Andre wouldn’t have received a second glance if you could have placed him next to his adult son. Jerry’s hair and eyes were dark brown, like his mother’s, but his other features were Andre’s-Andre’s, but somehow improved upon. Long fingers, thick eyelashes, a mouth a woman might want to coax into a smile or a kiss. It would be easy for this Selman male to surround himself with women. If he was half the manipulator his father was, he probably had a list of ex-lovers that would take longer to read off than roll call in a sultan’s seraglio.

“I cannot tell you how grateful I am to you and your husband,” he said in a broken voice, snapping me out of my sins-of-the-father attitude.

“It was truly nothing on my part,” I said. “You and my husband did all the work. Lisa tells me that your father is in stable condition?”

He nodded, setting his coffee down. “He’s still in intensive care. There’s talk of surgery. I don’t know. He doesn’t take care of himself. Out last night without his medication! With a heart condition! And I kept telling him that he can’t let things get to him. The past few days-I think it was all too much. Ben Watterson’s suicide, Allan’s resignation, problems here at the campus, that old photograph-he let himself get too worked up.”

“Photograph?”

He waved a hand in dismissal. “Someone sent a photograph of Dad and an old girlfriend to Dad’s house. Actually, it wasn’t a photograph, but a color photocopy of a photograph-as if to say ‘There are plenty more where this came from.’ Maureen saw it and was understandably upset. She asked him to explain it to her, and he lost his temper. You know how he can be.”

“Yes.”

He turned red. “Well, yes. So…he said some hurtful things to Maureen. They patched things up, but it was just one more episode of stress. I can’t help but think that whoever sent that photocopy to him had to know he had a heart condition. It was a despicable thing to do. Not that he takes care of himself anyway. He had no business being out alone last night without his medication.”

“The dinner meeting-do you know what that was about?”

He looked away. “No, I’m sorry, I don’t. I didn’t even know where he was until I came home and got his message on my machine. It’s lucky I came home when I did-and that I know enough to carry a few of his pills with me. Not that there was time for that last night.”

“You weren’t home when he called?”

He shook his head. “Neither of us were home. Lisa was out with one of her friends and I was here, grading papers. I had a fierce headache, so I went home.”

“I saw him go to the phones. He didn’t look well.”

“He was such a fool! He should have called an ambulance, or had one of those men take him to the hospital. Didn’t he learn anything the last time?”

“You were able to save him. That’s what matters.”

He took a deep breath and exhaled on a sigh. “I hope so. I wish I could be more certain of his recovery. When I saw him last night, hooked up to all those tubes and machines…”

“Not easy on you, I know. You look like you could use a few hours’ sleep.”

“Impossible. I thought I might be able to work, but I can’t concentrate.”

“Your sister’s worried about you, you know.”

“Yes,” he said, smiling faintly. “She’s not likely to worry about Dad. Not that I blame her. He made her so miserable as a kid.”

“She hasn’t done bad as an adult. And she seems happy with her life in San Diego.”

“Probably because she got away from Dad. She was smart there.” His cheeks colored. “I suppose I’m destined to remain under his thumb.”

“Destined?”

“Perhaps that’s not a good way of speaking about it. But I’m trapped, in any case.”

“You’re not trapped. Just leave. Do what Lisa did. Live somewhere else.”

“No, no, I can’t. There aren’t many teaching positions available these days. Even if I were willing to throw away all my years of study and look for some other kind of work, there’s Dad’s health. He needs someone to take care of him. I’m the only one who’ll do that now.”

“What about his wife?”

“Maureen? She’s good to him. But then, all of Dad’s wives were good to him, right? And taking his…” He paused, turning slightly red again. “Well, let’s call it his romantic history. Taking his romantic history into account, I can’t expect Dad to be cared for by any woman. It’s his own fault. He’s failed at marriage four times and seldom stays with anyone more than a few months. He’s a hopeless cad, I’m afraid.”

A strange analysis from someone who-if the rumors had any foundation-was supposedly something of a cad himself.

He glanced over at me. “I’m not being entirely honest.”

“Oh?”

“Let’s face it. I’m afraid. My worst fear is that he’ll have another heart attack and I won’t be there with him. I was with him when he had his first heart attack. He complained of chest pains, and over his protests, I drove him to the hospital. By the time we got there, the pains were much worse. That one wasn’t so bad, but still, it scared the hell out of me.

“All the way to the hospital, and for days afterward, I found myself saying three words over and over: Please don’t die, please don’t die, please don’t die. ”

He paused, shaking his head, then went on. “This from someone who has wished him dead countless times. As much as I’ve hated how he treated my mother, Lisa, all the women in his life-as angry as I’ve been with him for trying to control my life-knowing he’s a real bastard, I still wanted him to live.” He let out a long sigh.

“I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this,” he said suddenly. “I guess it’s because none of the other women from SOS-yes, I know the inside joke-has ever tried to talk to me. Maybe I’m jealous of Lisa, because the members of SOS are so taken with her, while they all seem to assume I’m my father’s clone.”