T. Boyle - Talk Talk

In the heat of the moment-pans sizzling, aromas rising-he didn't hear her come in the door. There was Madison, pouting at the table, there was the deck and the empty chaise, and here she was, Natalia, slipping her arms round his waist. “So what is this surprise?” she cooed, her lips at his ear. “Tell me. I can hardly stand to know.”

Flipping off the gas under the burners, he gave the zucchini pan a precautionary shake and then swiveled round in her embrace. Both his hands climbed to her shoulders and he took her to him for a lingering kiss while Madison looked on in mock disgust. “You'll see,” he murmured, and in that moment he was sure of her, sure of the feel and the taste and the smell of her, his partner, his lover, the dark venereal presence in his bed. “As soon as we eat.”

“Ohhh,” she said, drawing it out, “so long?” And then, to her daughter: “It is a surprise, Madison. For Mommy. Do you like a surprise?”

After dinner-Madison managed to get down two forkfuls of gnocchi and half a slice of the veal, though she just stared right through the vegetables-he took them down the front steps to the gravel walkway along the bay. They were holding hands, Natalia on his right, Madison on his left. Madison bunched her fingers in the way Sukie used to, not quite ready to interlock them with his because she was still in a mood and that would have been too conciliatory under the circumstances-the surprise wasn't for her, after all, or not primarily. “What is it, Dana?” she kept saying in a high taunting schoolyard voice. “Huh? Aren't you going to tell?”

“Yes, Da-na,” Natalia chimed in. “I am in suspense. It is out here, outside? Something outside?”

He didn't answer right away. He was thinking of Sukie, the last time he'd seen her. It was the week he'd been released. They were at McDonald's, same place, same time, but she wasn't the girl he knew. It wasn't just the physical changes-a year older, a year taller, two teeth missing in front, her hair pinned up with a tortoiseshell barrette so that she seemed like an adult in miniature-but the way she looked at him. Her eyes, fawn-colored, round as quarters, eyes that had given themselves up to him without stint, were wary now, slit against the glare of the sun, against him. He could see the poison Gina had poured into them and see too that there was no antidote-there was nothing he could do to win her back, no amount of fudge on the sundae, not the desperation of his hug or the prattle of the old stories and routines. She was lost to him. He didn't even remember her birthday anymore. “No,” he said finally, bending low against the tug of Natalia's hand to bring his face level with her daughter's, “it's inside.”

All three of them had halted. Madison's nose twitched. “Then why are we out here?”

“Because this is an alternate way to our garage, isn't it? An acceptable way? A nice way, out here, breathing nice clean air after dinner?” He straightened up even as she let go of his hand and flew across the grass; just as she reached the garage door-unfinished wood gone gray with the sun and sea for the natural look-he clicked the remote and the door swung up as if by magic.

“It is a car?” Natalia said, catching the glint of chrome as they strode across the grass hand in hand.

When they were there, when he'd let Madison in to scramble over the seats and Natalia, her mouth slack, had pulled back the driver's side door to peer inside at the dash, he said, “Top of the line. Or nearly.” He paused, watching her run a hand over the upholstery. “I could have gone for the S600, but it's such a gas hog-four hundred ninety-three horses. I mean, think of the environment.”

Natalia was giving him a puzzled look. “But where,” she said, “is my car?”

“Mommy, Mommy!” Madison shouted, bouncing so high on the rear seat her head brushed the roof.

“I traded it on this,” he said, trying to keep his voice even. “For you. For Madison. You can't have her on your lap all the time, I mean, she's growing up-look at the size of her.”

“But I love my Z-car.” Natalia's lips were clenched. Her eyes hardened.

“I know, baby,” he said, “I know. When we get to New York I'll get you another one, I promise.”

Her head came up now, up out of the dark den of the interior, with its rich new smell and the shining screen of the GPS system. “New York? What are you talking about?”

Later, after they'd put Madison to bed, they had a talk. It was the kind of talk he hated, the kind where you were up against the wall, no place to hide, and everything was going to come out sooner or later. He felt vulnerable. Irritated. Felt as if he was standing before the judge all over again, the lawyer, his probation officer.

Natalia had made coffee and they sat across from each other in the living room, holding on to their mugs as if they were weighted against a hurricane wind. She was watching him closely, her eyebrows lifted, both hands clenched round the mug in her lap. “So, you are going now to tell me what this is all about? That I should have to leave my home and tear up-is that how you say it? — tear up my daughter when she is just to start in school?”

“You love me, right?” he countered, leaning forward to set his mug on the coffee table. “You've told me that a thousand times. Did you mean it?”

She didn't respond. Outside, a pair of blue lights drifted across the bay.

“Did you?”

In a reduced voice, she said that she did. One hand went to the throat of her silk blouse; she fingered the necklace there, pearls he'd given her. Or paid for, anyway.

“All right, good. You're just going to have to trust me, that's all”-he held up a hand to forestall her. “Haven't I given you everything you could possibly want? Well,” he said, without waiting for an answer to the obvious, “I'm going to continue to do that. No, I'm going to give you more. Much more. Private school for Madison, the best money can buy, and you know the best schools are on the East Coast. You know that, don't you?”

Her face was ironed sober, no trace of theatrics or antipathy. She was trying hard to comprehend. “But why?”

“It's complicated,” he said, and he glanced up at a movement beyond the window, a flash of white, the beat of wings, something settling there on the rail-an egret. Was that an egret?

“Yes?” she said, leaning into the table herself now, her eyes probing his.

“Okay,” he said. “You just have to-listen, my name isn't really Dana.”

“Not Dana? What do you mean? This is a joke?”

“No,” he said, slowly shaking his head, “no joke. I–I “adopted” the name. Because I was in trouble. It was-”

She cut him off. “Then you are not a doctor?”

He shook his head. There was the shadow of the bird there, faintly luminous, and he couldn't help wondering if it was a sign, and if it was, whether it was a good sign or bad.

“And all this”-her gesture was sudden, a wild unhinged sweep of her hand-“is a lie? This condo, this coffee table and the dining set? A lie? All a lie?”

“I don't know. Not a lie. Everything's real-the new car, the earrings, the way I feel about you and Madison.” He glanced away and saw that the bird was gone, chased by her gesture, by the violence of her voice. “It's just a name.”

There was a long moment of silence during which he became aware of the distant murmur of the neighbor's TV, a sound that could have been the wash of the surf or the music of the whales. But it wasn't. It was only the sound of a TV. Then she said, “So, if you are not Da-na, then who are you?”

He never hesitated. He looked right at her. “Bridger,” he said. “Bridger Martin.”