Michael Chabon - The Mysteries Of Pittsburgh

"All Jewish comedians are serious guys."

"What about the Marx Brothers?"

"The Marx Brothers were very serious guys."

"You're not a serious guy."

"Well, I'm not funny," I said. I swallowed. "I'm nervous."

She laid her fingers against my sleeve. We were to meet at my father's favorite Italian restaurant. I'd listened for a hint of wariness in his voice when I asked if I might bring Phlox along, but he said "Of course," very gamely. Phlox would be the first acquaintance of mine since Claire actually to meet my father-and Claire had met him just twice, the first time bravely and miserably, and the second time miserably. I could hardly recall what eating in a restaurant with my father and a third person was like, but I had vague, sweet memories, from years before, of my father being hugely entertaining at birthday parties in pizza parlors and on miniature golf courses. I might have been even more nervous than I was (I certainly had the capacity), but we ate in this restaurant together so often, my father and I, that I knew it would be a comfort at least to be there, in the old red darkness. An unfamiliar restaurant can be a very disorienting thing.

Phlox and I arrived only two minutes late, and came with a sigh into the cool and the garlic. I spotted my father at the table-halfway back, toward the toilets and the cigarette machine-that we had come, over the years, to think of as our table. The first thing I noticed was that his heavy face was even more pink than usual, almost red, and I remembered his saying that he'd lately begun to reclaim the garden gone wild in my grandmother's backyard. He had on a beautiful beige summer suit, with a salmon tie. I knew that Phlox would find him good-looking. "Tsk," I said; he looked so handsome and large.

My father stood for her and took her hand, the gleam in his eye growing more distinct as he pronounced her floral name, which amused him, I could see, as much as it once had me; he admired her dress (the blue-and-white flowered one she'd worn on our first night together) and smiled a delighted, paternal smile; he said something that made her laugh, right off. All this civility meant nothing, of course. He was an extremely civil man. I wouldn't know what he thought of her until tomorrow. We lifted our menus and complained over their gilt tops about the hot weather. My eyes flitted blindly across the cirrate names of pastas; I have never been able to read a menu and talk at the same time. I managed to maneuver my father and Phlox into a conversation about the library, and took advantage of these thirty seconds to select ravioli filled with sausage. My father ordered the same.

He turned to Phlox and made a grave face. "Is Art polite with you?"

"Hmm. Oh, yes, unfailingly."

My father lifted his eyebrows, smiled, and turned bright red. "Ah," he said.

We ordered, and the waiter expertly spilled a little red wine into each of our glasses, and my father talked, and the food came, and my father talked some more. Over the minestrone and salads, he put me through one long moment of heartbreak, by telling Phlox about a memorable Sunday at Forbes Field with my mother and my infant self-a very old, very pretty story that raised goose bumps along my arms. Phlox didn't take her eyes off him. She asked, short, tactful, and very basic questions about my mother. What was her hair color? Did I look like her? What were her virtues and rewards? Didn't she just love her boy? After each question my father would look at me, puzzled, and I would watch my food. You idiot, I thought, you should have known this would happen.

"She was a very beautiful woman, " said my father. "She looked like Jennifer Jones. I don't suppose you know who she is?"

"Jennifer Jones!" said Phlox. "Of course I know who she is! Portrait of Jenny is my favorite movie in the whole world!" She tossed her head, pretending to have been insulted.

"Indeed? My apologies," said my father, and he pursed his lips and lifted one eyebrow, pretending to have gained new respect for her, or perhaps her admiration for Jennifer Jones really did impress him.

"I can see it in Art," she said, turning to run a slender finger along the ridge over my left eye, and I thought: Oh, no. "He has Jennifer Jones eyebrows."

"And you," said my father, mocking and flirtatious, "have the eyebrows and the nose of the young Joan Crawford. In, say, Grand Hotel."

"That's my ninth-favorite movie in the whole world," said Phlox.

"She ranks everything," I said. "She has it all figured out."

"I can see that," said my father, and from his tone one knew that he thought her either delightful or the most frivolous young woman he had ever met. Then he glared at me again, for one instant.

Over the main course he explained the Diaspora and carbon I4 dating (which Phlox just as easily could have explained to him) and gave a short history of Swiss banking. Cannoli were accompanied by coffee and an embarrassing account of my first visit, as a small child, to the ocean, which I had mistaken for a vast expanse of fruit juice. My father was wonderful. We laughed and laughed. Everything was exactly as it had not been when I first presented Claire. Phlox kept administering gentle squeezes of delight to my thigh, under the table.

At last she rose and excused herself, with a downward look of modesty which seemed to suggest that we shouldn't hesitate to discuss her while she was away. And although I was in terrible doubt about my father's feelings just then, and although I knew better than to expect him, even under the best circumstances, to comment on her before he'd passed a night of careful and jovian consideration, her blush, her murmured farewell-for-now, her lowered eyelids, all seemed so confident that nothing ill would be said about her in her absence that I risked it.

"Isn't she nice?" I said.

"Mm." My father stared at me, his big eyebrows knotted over the pink top of his nose, and I saw the muscles gathering along his jaw. I began to recoil even before he spoke.

"What's wrong with you? I don't understand you." He pitched his voice high and spoke quickly, but not very loud. I knew that it wasn't Phlox who had upset him. My father was hurt, and extremely hurt, or this, too, would have waited until the next day.

"I'm sorry, Dad."

"Don't you remember your mother? You were almost thirteen years old when she passed away." He wiped his fingers angrily on his napkin and threw it down.

"Of course I remember her, Dad, Of course I do. Dad, can we please not talk about this now? I don't care if you make me cry again, but I'd rather not do it in front of Phlox."

"Don't you tell her anything about your mother? Obviously she must have asked you; she practically interviewed me." I hoped this wasn't some kind of insult. "What did you say when she asked you all those things she just asked me?"

"I-" My chin shook. I watched the red light of the restaurant wink across my water glass. "I don't know. I told her… I didn't feel like… going into it. She understood. And… you and I never… talk about it, do we? So why… Tomorrow, Dad, please."

I felt as though I were attempting to hold down all the blind pale things that lived in the black waters of my gut, and that if he asked me one more plaintive question in that wounded tone of voice it would all be over. I studied as deeply as I could the drops of condensation on the glittering sides of my glass. Then I heard feet along the thick carpet behind me, and my father made an odd sound, a short cluck. I let go my breath and turned to face Phlox and comfort. Instead there was a fat stomach.

"Art!" said Uncle Lenny Stern. "Joe! Art and Joe, father and son, man to man, hey? Hee hee. Man to man!"

"Uncle Lenny," I said, managing to remember to take his hand, which was sweaty as ever. It didn't occur to me that perhaps I was still expected to kiss his scratchy cheek. He wasn't really my uncle, after all. "I must be dreaming."