Marisha Pessl - Special Topics in Calamity Physics

I made my way downstairs and found Hannah dressed, reading the newspaper.

“There you are,” she said cheerfully. “Sleep well?”

She gave me clothes, old gray corduroy pants she said had shrunk in the wash, black shoes and a pale pink cardigan with tiny beads around the neck.

“Keep this stuff,” she said, smiling. “It looks adorable on you.”

Twenty minutes later, she drove behind me in her Subaru all the way to the BP gas station, where I left Larson’s truck and keys with Big Red, who had raw-carrot fingers and worked mornings.

Hannah suggested we grab a bite to eat before she drove me home, so we stopped at Pancake Haven on Orlando. A waitress took our order. The restaurant had an uncomplicated frankness: square windows, worn brown carpet that stuttered Pancake Haven Pancake Haven all the way to the bathrooms, people sitting quietly with their food. If there was Darkness or Doom in the world, it was remarkably courteous, waiting for everyone to finish breakfast.

“Is Charles…in love with you?” I asked suddenly. It shocked me, how easy it was to ask the question.

Her reaction wasn’t outrage, but amusement. “Who told you that — Jade? I thought I explained it last night — her need to exaggerate everything, pit people against each other, make everything more exotic than it is. They all do it. I have no idea why.” She sighed. “They also have me pining after some person — what’s the name… Victor. Or Venezia, something out of Braveheart . It begins with V—”

“Valerio?” I suggested quietly.

“Is that it?” She laughed, a loud flirty sound, and a man in orange flannel sitting at the table next to us looked over at her, hopeful. “Believe me, if my knight in shining armor was wandering around out there — Valerio, right? — I’d be hightailing it after him. And when I found him, I’d hit him over the head with my club, toss him over my shoulder, bring him back to my lair and have my way with him.” Still sort of giggling to herself, she unzipped her leather purse and handed me three quarters. “Now call your father.”

I used the payphone by the cigarette machine. Dad answered after the first ring.

“Hi—”

“Where in God’s name are you?”

“At a diner with Hannah Schneider.”

“Are you all right?”

(I have to admit, it was thrilling to hear the tremendous anxiety in Dad’s voice.)

“Of course. I’m having french toast.”

“Oh? We’ll I’m having a Missing Person’s Report for breakfast. Last Seen. Approximately two-thirty. Wearing. I’m not sure. Glad you called. Was that a dress you were wearing last night or a Hefty-Hefty Cinch Sak?”

“I’ll be home in an hour.”

“Delighted you’ve decided to again grace me with your presence.”

“Well, I’m not going to Fort Peck.”

“Eh — we can discuss it.”

And then it came to me, like Alfred Nobel his idea of a weapon to end all war (see Chapter 1, “Dynamite,” History’s Missteps , June, 1992).

“‘In fear, one flees,’” I said.

He hesitated, but only for a second. “A valid point. But we’ll have to see. On the other hand, I am in dire need of your assistance with these piteous student essays. If it meant putting myself at your disposal, say, trading Fort Peck for three or four hours of your time, I suppose I’d be willing to do so.”

“Dad?”

“Yes?”

I don’t know why, but I couldn’t say anything.

“Don’t tell me you’ve gotten a tattoo across your chest that reads ‘Raised in Hell,’” he said.

“No.”

“You’ve obtained a piercing.”

“No.”

“You wish to join a cult. A division of extremists who practice polygamy and call themselves Man’s Agony.“

“No.”

“You’re a lesbian and you’d like my blessing before asking out a field hockey coach.”

“No, Dad.”

“Thank God. Sapphic love, while natural and as old as the seas, is, regrettably, still considered by Middle America something of a fad, akin to the Melon Diet or Pantsuits. It wouldn’t be an easy way of life. And as we both know, having me for a father is no cakewalk. It’d be strenuous, I think, to shoulder both loads.”

“I love you, Dad.”

There was silence.

I felt ludicrous, of course, not only because when one throws out those particular words, one needs them to boomerang back without delay, not even because I realized the previous evening had turned me into a sap, a cuckoo, a walking For the Love of Benji and a living Lassie Come Home , but because I knew full well Dad couldn’t stomach those words, just as he couldn’t stomach American politicians, corporate executives who were quoted in The Wall Street Journal saying either “synergy” or “out of the box,” third-world poverty, genocide, game shows, movie stars, E.T., or for that matter, Reese’s Pieces.

“I love you too, my dear,” he said at last. “Really though, I thought you’d have figured that out by now. Yet I suppose it’s to be expected. The clearest, most palpable things in life, the elephants and white rhinos if you will, standing around quite plainly in their watering holes, chewing on leaves and twigs, they often go unnoticed. And why is that?”

It was a Van Meer Rhetorical Question followed by the Van Meer Pregnant Pause, so I simply waited, pressing the receiver against the bottom of my chin. I’d heard him use such oratorical devices before, the few times I’d gone to watch him lecture in one of the big amphitheaters with carpeted walls and buzzing light. The last time I’d heard him speak, on Civil Warfare at Cheswick College, I remember, quite distinctly, I was horrified. Without a doubt, I thought to myself, as Dad went on frowning center stage (occasionally breaking into a variety of showy gestures, as if he were a deranged Mark Antony or manic King Henry VIII), everyone could see, plain as day, Dad’s embarrassing truth: he wanted to be Richard Burton. But then I really looked around, and noticed every student (even the one on the third row who’d shaved an anarchy symbol into the back of his head) was behaving like a feeble white moth spiraling through Dad’s light.

“America is asleep,” Dad boomed. “You’ve heard it before — perhaps by a homeless man you passed on the street and he smelled like a Porta-John so you held your breath and pretended he was a mailbox. Well, is it true? Is America hibernating? Getting forty winks, a bit of shut-eye? We’re a country of boundless opportunity. Aren’t we? Well, I know the answer’s ‘yes’ if you happen to be a CEO. Last year, the average compensation for a Chief Executive Officer soared 26 percent, compared to blue-collar salaries inching up a pitiable 3 percent. And the fattest paycheck of all? Mr. Stuart Burnes, CEO of Remco Integrated Technologies. Tell him what he’s won, Bob! One-hundred-sixteen-point-four million dollars for a year’s labor.”

Here Dad crossed his arms and looked fascinated.

“What’s Stu doing to warrant such a windfall, a salary that would feed all of Sudan? Sadly, not much. Integrated missed fourth-quarter earnings. Stock prices fell 19 percent. Yet board members picked up the tab for the crew on Stu’s hundred-foot yacht, also paid the Christie’s curator fees for his fourteen-hundred-piece Impressionist art collection.”

Here Dad inclined his head as if hearing faint, far-off music.

“So this is greed. And is it good? Should we listen to a man wearing suspenders? With many of you, when you come and chat with me during office hours, I sense an air of inevitability, not of defeat, but resignation, that such iniquities are simply the way it is and they can’t be changed. This is America and what we do is grab as much cash as we can before we all die of heart disease. But do we want our lives to be a bonus round, a Money Grab? Call me an optimist, but I don’t think so. I think we hope for something more meaningful. But what do we do? Start a revolution?”