Chang-Rae Lee - Aloft

Theresa, I wish to and should mention now, is in no imminent danger, at least as she characterizes the situation. Although of course I'm relieved, even thrilled, I'm not sure 1100

percent believe her, as she isn't at all willing to go into the same ornate levels of jargony detail that typically mark much of her and Paul's talk, their specialized language whose multihorned relativistic meanings I feel I should but don't much understand.

Thus it worries me that all she'll say to me now, in referring to the neoplasms perhaps growing right along beside her developing child, is that "the whole thing" is "totally manageable," exactly the sort of linguistically lame and conversation-ending phrasing I myself instinctively revert to whenever I'm in a pinch.

Even more unsettling than this is that she has already named the baby (Barthes, after a famous literary critic), a step that clearly signifies her rather strict intention to push through, and to whatever end. Naturally I've tried to extract more detailed information out of Paul, but he, too, has been frustratingly vague and blocking. But I know something is askew. For instance: for the past month now that Theresa and Paul have been back at home I've found their company, though always a pleasure, oddly unstimulating (a modifier I never imagined applying to them), as they've been unusually antic and adolescent when together. When I got home from Parade Travel the other day they were actually wrestling in the family room (fully clothed and nonsexually, thank goodness), and when I wondered aloud whether such activity was advisable they paused for a second and then burst out laughing, as if they'd been smoking weed all afternoon.

But there's a deep seam of mopiness there, too, which becomes apparent whenever one of them is out, the other just heading for their bedroom and the stacks of novels and texts of literary criticism they've brought along and also buy almost daily, this play-fort made of other people's words. I've tried to remain on the periphery, not forcing any issues or criticizing, consciously conducting myself like any other happy soon-to-be-grandfather sporting a solicitous and mild demeanor, though I'm beginning to wonder if I'm doing us any good service, while we all let the time pass, and pass some more, everything swelling unseen. If nothing else I assumed that I would always be included, in the big matters at least, and not simply contracted to wait for my bit part to come up, a small supporting role that I've depended upon over the years for easy entrances and exits but seems awfully skimpy to me now.

Another odd happening is that Paul is cooking up a storm.

Though I'm not complaining here. I never knew him to be a cook, at least not a fancy one. He could always throw together a decent pasta dish or some baked stuffed trout when I once visited them out in their ever-misty coastal Oregon town, but his tastes and skills have evolved impressively in these past few years he's been in the academic world with Theresa (lots of free time, enough money, discerning, always ravenous colleagues).

Theresa, I should mention, has been eating like a grizzly bear during a salmon spawn, being absolutely insatiable whenever she's awake, though lately her hunger seems to have subsided.

This is the one clue that makes me think she's all right, and so okay to be doing what they're doing. Each morning after a huge breakfast of oatmeal and eggs and fruit and pastries, she and Paul will roll out the Ferrari (why the hell not, as I don't like to drive it anyway; the sitting position is a bit too squat for my longish legs and it revs too hotly such that I can't make it do anything but jerk forward in ten-yard bursts) and lay down that fourteen-inch-wide rubber around the county in search of or-ganic meats and vegetables and craft cheeses and breads, foodstuffs Eunice of course has FedExed in daily but that I had no idea could be had out here in Super Shopper land, where there are always nine brands of hot dogs available but only one kind of lettuce (guess which). They only buy what we'll be eating that evening, which works out because the Testarossa doesn't have any trunk space to speak of, only a tiny nook behind the two seats (which, by the way, is just enough room for a couple of tennis racquets). My sole complaint is the might-as-well-eat-at-a-restaurant cost of the supplies, not to mention the premium gasoline they're burning at the rate of a gallon every seven miles, but once you've had seared foie gras with caramelized-shallot-and-Calvados-glace, or wild salmon tartare on homemade wasabi Ry-Krisps, and eaten it right at your own dreary suburban kitchen table where you've probably opened more bottles of ketchup than imported beer, you happily fan out the fresh twenties each morning and utter nary a word, counting yourself lucky that you can tag along, and in an odd way I feel as if we three are moving quite fast through the world, consuming whatever we can.

And yet the trouble pools on our plates. The other morning, while sitting at the kitchen table, with Theresa sleeping in, Paul at the counter mixing a whole-grain batter for pancakes with raspberries, I let down my mug with enough oomph to make the coffee splash up and over onto my Newsday, to which Paul said, "Just another minute, Jerry."

"It's not about the chow," I said.

Paul pretended not to hear me, decanting the oil into the skillet and lighting the burner beneath it.

Since they've moved in and Paul's been cooking with high heat like a pro, the house gets heavy with a savory smoke that makes me think Rita's been around, a redolence all the more dear and confusing and depressing at present, as she's not returned any of my phone messages since the brunch at Richie's two weeks ago. Maybe a guy like me has to figure he's got just a couple chances in this life for full-on love with a woman he's respected every bit as much as physically desired, and if I've really squandered my allotment I probably ought to be hauled off to the woods in back and shot in the name of every woman who was surely meant to enjoy more loving than she got but didn't, mostly because of some yea-saying bobblehead, who semi-tried as hard as he could but always came up short.

"Look, Paul," I said, "it's time to start clueing me in."

"I agree," he answered, carefully ladling in three pancakes.

He put a ramekin of maple syrup in the above-range microwave to warm. "But you know, Jerry, I really don't know anything either."

"Gimme a break, huh?"

"I'm not kidding you," he said.

"Now you're pissing me off."

"Well that's goddamn tough," he said, bang-banging his ladle against the edge of the mixing bowl. The microwave stopped beeping and he popped the door button too hard and it flung open, hitting him in the face. He plucked out the syrup and slammed the door, which popped back out, and so he slammed it again. For a second I thought he might come over and jump me, as I could see him gripping and regripping the spatula; and to tell you the truth I would have been fine with it, not because I wanted a fight but simply to initiate something. I thought maybe his plonking me might loosen the clamps of all this goddamn Eastern restraint ratcheting in on us, which is no doubt an easy lazy pleasure to abide most of the time but is, of late, becoming a kind of torture to me.

But he didn't jump me, and I said, "You must have talked to the doctor, at least."

"Of course I have. A dozen times. But she's only telling me what Theresa allows her to."

"But you're her fiance! It's your baby. This definitely can't be ethical, or Hippocratical, or whatever."

"It's Theresa's call, Jerry, whether I like it or not."

"Well, you can't just sit by. Don't you have rights?"

"What would you have me do, take her to court?"