Thomas Pierce - Hall of Small Mammals - Stories

“Be down in a minute,” Laura calls from the bathroom.

The bar, Felix discovers, is empty. None of the little glass bowls have any nuts in them. Rod Stewart rains down from the overhead speakers. Felix sits down on a stool and drums on the bar’s wooden lip. “Helloooo,” he calls, but no one emerges through the door between the liquor shelves. He considers hopping the bar and grabbing a bottle of whiskey and a glass. He doesn’t require any ice.

“Felix,” Mr. Ash says. He is standing at the entrance to the bar in a dark blue suit, his red tie loose. “I thought I might find you in here.”

Felix isn’t sure if he should be offended or not. He settles on not .

“I’d offer to buy you a drink but”—Felix gestures at the bar—“it’s like The Shining in here. Do you get that vibe? Redrum.”

“I was told you were bringing someone.”

“She’s upstairs. Down in a sec.” Felix taps on the bar. Then scratches his face. Then lets his arms hang. He can’t seem to find the right thing to do with his hands. “Excited about the wedding?” The easy question.

“Of course I am. So long as Bet is happy, I’m happy.” He sits down at a table and kicks out one of the chairs for Felix. “I won’t lie. JT isn’t exactly who I had in mind for her. But then again, neither were you.”

“Please, tell me how you really feel, Nick.” Felix rarely uses Mr. Ash’s first name. Even now, after all these years, it feels indecent. He sits down across from the man. “But it did happen kind of fast, didn’t it?”

“Eight months.”

“Has it been that long? I feel like I only heard his name yesterday.”

“Selective hearing, I guess,” Mr. Ash says.

Neither of them says anything for what feels like minutes. “But the thing about Hank is,” Mr. Ash says, as if continuing some conversation that has been playing out in his head, “he’s really a sweet kid. And smart. I’ve already got him reading. It’s incredible. And he’s taking piano lessons, did Bet tell you?”

“He played ‘Baa, Baa, Black Sheep’ for me over the phone the other night. Not too shabby.” Felix knows all about the reading and the piano breakthroughs and about Hank’s recent gummy worm addiction. Bet — dependable, lovely Bet — keeps him informed. Her name for these updates: Another installment in the Adventures of Hank . Mr. Ash is a recurring and popular character in Hank’s adventures, the one who makes Hank the three-layered grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner, the one who brings home new sodas from all over the world. Though Mr. Ash had naturally been upset to discover that his daughter was pregnant by a foulmouthed comedian, one who had no intention of “doing the right thing” (not that he would have been much happier if she’d done the “right thing” with Felix), Mr. Ash fully embraced his role as a grandfather. He loves Hank, and for that Felix is of course grateful.

“How’s Susan doing?” Felix asks. Bet’s mother has rheumatoid arthritis and recently had her knee replaced. “She back on her feet yet?”

“She’s still on a cane,” he says. “You should have seen what they replaced her knee with. She’s a real bionic woman now. They’re doing the other one after the wedding. You know, I think once this wedding hoopla is over with, Susan won’t know what hit her. I don’t even think she realizes yet how different things will be once Hank and Bet are out of the house.”

Felix nods. Out of the house. Part of his anxiety about the wedding stems not from the fact that Bet and Hank are moving into JT’s house but that they are moving out of Nick and Susan Ash’s. He can’t help but wonder if this change will somehow put the boy at a disadvantage.

“How far away does JT live?”

“Little less than an hour. Just outside of town. It’s not going to be easy.” He seems more wistful than Felix has ever seen him. He uncrosses his legs. His eyes narrow. “So, Bet tells me that show of yours is really taking off. I confess, I haven’t seen it yet and I don’t claim to understand half of what they put on television. But that must feel good? Some validation after all these years?”

“Sure,” Felix says, “I suppose so.” Though he in no way considers his success on Pets! a validation of all his hard work, he doesn’t want to squelch that idea for Bet’s father, who until this moment has never offered Felix a single encouraging word regarding his career. Early on in their relationship, after too many drinks, Mr. Ash once let it slip that he thought Felix was a silly man, not at all serious, one of those types who complained about everything but never did anything. “Well,” Felix said to that, “I’ve actually considered jumping into the soda industry. I have an idea for a soda that comes in a baby bottle. Get ’em started early, right? First, though, we might have to wipe out the milk lobby.”

“Do people really think you’re funny?” Mr. Ash asked. “Because I don’t see it.”

“Honestly, I don’t either,” Felix said, which like all good jokes was grounded in truth. Throughout all of it — the club circuit, the bit parts here and there on bad television shows, the one-hour comedy special that almost happened but didn’t — Felix’s career had bumped and bounced, but it had certainly never soared. The closest he might ever come to mainstream success is as Gonuts the CGI Hamster whose most popular catchphrases are increasingly difficult to voice without feeling a little sick.

When Laura comes downstairs, finally, they leave the hotel in Mr. Ash’s car. Laura sits in the front passenger seat. With the air-conditioning on full blast, Felix can’t hear their conversation, but Laura is smiling and nodding quite a bit, her hands prim in her lap. Prim is not an adjective Felix frequently associates with Laura. Vivacious , maybe. Vital. Voluptuous. Felix is stuck on v ’s. For the dinner she has changed into a conservative blue dress that falls just below the knee, but she still has on her giant white sunglasses.

The Ashes live in a three-story house with dark colonial shutters on all the windows and squat dome lights planted in the mulched beds on either side of a brick sidewalk that connects the circle driveway to the front door. Susan comes out first on her metal cane and gives Felix a frail hug, then hugs Laura. Bet comes outside next, a new pixie haircut, eyes bright and blue. Felix has been slightly uneasy about this moment, about introducing these two women, Bet and Laura, past and present, and he watches them examine each other surreptitiously while they make small talk, moving toward the house. Hanging behind the group for a brief moment just outside the door, Laura squeezes Felix’s arm and mouths the words, She’s very young, before moving ahead of him into the foyer.

• • •

Describing his relationship with Bet to others — particularly to women his own age — Felix has learned over the last few years to omit certain details. For instance, that Bet was a sophomore art history major when he impregnated her. Why mention such a thing? There is no need to vilify himself unnecessarily. She looked young then too, yes, but not that young, and he certainly didn’t need to convince her of anything. She was a more-than-willing participant.

But there are other details he omits. For instance: He has not told Laura about what happened the winter after Hank was born — when he flew down to Atlanta for a two-week visit with his new son. He was staying in a room at the Commodore but after the first two nights, since he was already spending so much time at the house, Mrs. Ash insisted that he stay in one of their guest rooms. That way Felix could find out what it was like to rock a six-month-old back to sleep at three a.m. — a gift, she said, that no new parent should be denied. Mr. Ash, in particular, seemed giddy setting up the baby monitor in Felix’s room.