John Kenney - Talk to Me

“Hi,” Franny had said.

And in one word Claire knew something was wrong.

“Hi,” Claire had said, trying to counter Franny’s tone and mood with lightness, motherly cheerfulness. “How are you?”

“Fine.”

Silence.

Claire was pouring pine nuts into the Cuisinart. She was making pesto.

“Oh hey. You know who I saw recently?” Claire asked, not waiting for an answer. “Claudia Paine.”

Franny hadn’t thought of that name in years. A junior high school friend. Sleepovers. Summer camp three years in a row, a place in New Hampshire on a deep lake. The name made Franny smile.

“Really,” Franny said. “How is she? Where is she?”

“She’s good. Lives in Los Angeles. Makes documentaries. She’s married. Has two little girls.”

She has my life, Franny thought. The life I want. I’m almost twenty-eight years old and I am nowhere. These thoughts pulled Franny down into her dark place. It was 8:30 on a Tuesday night and she was drinking a glass of white wine and pacing her apartment and realized she hadn’t eaten any dinner.

“She said to say hello. Gave me her email address to give to you.”

“Oh. That would be great.” Which was, of course, a lie. It wouldn’t be remotely great. She wouldn’t email.

Claire started to say I’ll send it to you , but Franny cut her off.

“They want me to write a story about Dad.”

Claire paused, looked at a block of Parmesan cheese on the counter.

Please tell me you’re calling to say you’re not going to do that, Claire thought.

“Oh,” Claire said instead. “Is that a good idea?”

“Probably not. But I’m doing it.”

The place was Franny’s choice. Breakfast at Noho Star. It was Franny’s go-to spot. Ted had wanted to do it at his apartment. The network didn’t want him out, but they discussed it and being seen with his daughter, they felt, was a plus.

Ted arrived early and was seated with his back to the room. He’d brought a newspaper but found he couldn’t concentrate. He was nervous to meet his own daughter.

He scanned the paper—stories the broadcast would reference that evening. Afghanistan. Iraq. Syria. NFL concussions. Ted read the first paragraph of many of the stories and then moved on, drifted, got bored. All of it—the news stories, the editorials and op-eds, the movie reviews, the local news horror and accidents and subway shutdowns—felt like something he’d read before, heard before, seen before. Nothing felt new.

Ted put the paper down when he saw his own photo and a small story that he chose not to read. He drank more coffee, even though he didn’t want any.

Franny stood on the corner of Bleecker and Crosby smoking a Marlboro Light. She hadn’t smoked since before New Year’s Eve and was mad at herself for stopping and bumming one off a construction worker who wanted to give her two and kept smiling at her.

She just needed a moment. More and more she found that she just needed space, mental space, a little time to think and be quiet. She couldn’t seem to find it, though. The phone buzzed and pinged and never seemed to stop. She couldn’t turn it off. The smoke felt filthy and delicious and soothing. Her palms were sweaty even though it was chilly out, a wind tunnel on this corner.

In the window of the Bleecker Street Bar, a lone man sat drinking a glass of beer. He was wearing a fuzzy red suit. On the bar next to him was a large Elmo head. It was a little after 9:00 a.m.

She dropped the cigarette, stubbed it out, and took a deep breath.

“For fuck’s sake, Franny,” she said in a whisper.

She reached for her phone and walked around the corner to the restaurant.

Franny was fifteen minutes late, her cell phone on her ear as she walked in. She looked at Ted like she might look at opposing counsel at a deposition.

“What does it matter?” she said into the phone. She looked like Claire. “It’s Gisele. Run it. Use the line.”

She sat, put her phone down, and looked at Ted.

“Hi,” Ted said.

“Hello.”

Franny took off her coat.

“Work call?”

She nodded. “We have a video of Gisele Bündchen kissing another guy.”

“Isn’t she married to Tom Brady?”

“Yeah.”

“So she’s cheating on him?”

“We’re not sure. The guy she’s kissing… we can’t tell if it’s on the lips or on the cheek. Also, it might be her personal trainer. Or her brother-in-law. Or a cancer survivor from a benefit she did. But we think it’s a model.”

“Huh. So, wait. Was she cheating?”

“She might have been. But it doesn’t matter. It’ll be viewed fifty thousand times by lunch. Tweeted and retweeted twice that. And we’ll have attached five different ads to it that make you watch them before you watch Giselle suck face with a guy who’s not Tom Brady. It’ll be picked up by every tabloid and blogger in the Western Hemisphere, every fashion blog, sports site, every twenty-four-hour news show. We paid ten grand for the footage and will make twenty times that. That’s the news business today.”

It was the way she said it. The little girl trying to sound confident.

Ted did his slow Ted nod, leaning forward, elbow propped on the table, index finger across his upper lip, eyes squinted. The look millions of Americans knew and trusted. It was a thing Franny had always hated. She felt condescended to.

The waitress appeared.

“Can I start you out with coffee?”

Franny checked her phone.

“No-foam, nonfat latte,” Franny said to her phone. Then a quick fake smile to the waitress and back to the screen.

We spoiled her, Ted thought. We spoiled her and loved her too much. Or not enough. We did this. We made this. But then Ted was part of a generation where it was impolite to look at a cell phone while you were talking with someone. For Franny’s generation, it wasn’t. And it didn’t seem to bother the waitress one bit.

The waitress said, “Do you need more time or are you ready to order?”

“I am,” Ted said. “But do you need more time, Fran?”

Franny looked up at her father. A couple of beats. Fran . Don’t call me Fran. You’ve lost the right to call me that. But she said nothing.

Then to the waitress. “Egg-white omelet with mushrooms and asparagus. Thank you.” Back to the phone.

Ted said, “Scrambled eggs and bacon for me, please. White toast, dry. Thanks.”

The waitress collected the menus and left. Franny put her phone down and sighed.

Who is this person? Ted wondered. This stranger.

The morning she was born. Claire’s water had broken at midnight the night before and she had a fairly easy labor. When the doctor pulled the baby’s head from Claire, she gently turned Franny and Ted saw his daughter’s profile for the first time, a perfect little Botticelli cherub face, fully formed. My God, Ted thought now, wanting to reach over and touch her. Ted hadn’t realized that he had a mildly idiotic smile on his face at the memory.

Franny mistook Ted’s smile for sarcasm and drew on a deep well of hatred for her father. Her phone buzzed and she picked it up with an urgency that suggested she was awaiting test results. For just a moment Ted was tempted to take it from her, as if she were a teenager. As she listened to the person on the other end of the phone, she held up an index finger to her father. She got up and walked out of the restaurant. Ted watched her out the large plate-glass window.

The food had arrived but Ted hadn’t touched it. He wanted to wait for Franny, who was still on the phone outside. He also found he wasn’t hungry.