take a three-bite portion of salmon, a small helping of salad, and a crust of bread. The size of each was a reproach to the size of each of Enid’s. Now Denise’s plate was empty and she hadn’t taken seconds of anything.
“Is that all you’re going to eat?” Enid said.
“Yes. That was my lunch.”
“You’ve lost weight.”
“In fact not.”
“Well, don’t lose any more,” Enid said with the skimpy laugh with which she tried to hide large feelings.
Alfred was guiding a forkful of salmon and sorrel sauce to his mouth. The food dropped off his fork and broke into violently shaped pieces.
“I think Chip did a good job with this,” Enid said. “Don’t you think? The salmon is very tender and good.”
“Chip has always been a good cook,” Denise said.
“Al, are you enjoying this? Al?”
Alfred’s grip on his fork had slackened. There was a sag in his lower lip, a sullen suspicion in his eyes.
“Are you enjoying the lunch?” Enid said.
He took his left hand in his right and squeezed it. The mated hands continued their oscillation together while he stared at the sunflowers in the middle of the table. He seemed to swallow the sour set of his mouth, to choke back the paranoia.
“Chip made all this?” he said.
“Yes.”
He shook his head as though Chip’s having cooked, Chip’s absence now, overwhelmed him. “I am increasingly bothered by my affliction,” he said.
“What you have is very mild,” Enid said. “We just need to get the medication adjusted.”
He shook his head. “Hedgpeth said it’s unpredictable.”
“The important thing is to keep doing things,” Enid said, “to keep active, to always just go.”
“No. You were not listening. Hedgpeth was very careful not to promise anything.”
“According to what I read—”
“I don’t give a damn what your magazine article said. I am not well, and Hedgpeth admitted as much.”
Denise set her wine down with a stiff, fully extended arm.
“So what do you think about Chip’s new job?” Enid asked her brightly.
“His—?”
“Well, at the Wall Street Journal.”
Denise studied the tabletop. “I have no opinion about it.”
“It’s exciting, don’t you think?”
“I have no opinion about it.”
“Do you think he works there full-time?”
“No.”
“I don’t understand what kind of job it is.”
“Mother, I know nothing about it.”
“Is he still doing law?”
“You mean proofreading? Yes.”
“So he’s still at the firm.”
“He’s not a lawyer, Mother.”
“I know he’s not a lawyer.”
“Well, when you say, ‘doing law,’ or ‘at the firm’—is that what you tell your friends?”
“I say he works at a law firm. That’s all I say. A New York City law firm. And it’s the truth. He does work there.”
“It’s misleading and you know it,” Alfred said.
“I guess I should just never say anything.”
“Just say things that are true,” Denise said.
“Well, I think he should be in law,” Enid said. “I think the law would be perfect for Chip. He needs the stability of a profession. He needs structure in his life. Dad always thought he’d make an excellent lawyer. I used to think doctor, because he was interested in science, but Dad always saw him as a lawyer. Didn’t you, Al? Didn’t you think Chip could be an excellent lawyer? He’s so quick with words.”
“Enid, it’s too late.”
“I thought maybe working for the firm he’d get interested and go back to school.”
“Far too late.”
“The thing is, Denise, there are so many things you can do with law. You can be a company president. You can be a judge! You can teach. You can be a journalist. There are so many directions Chip could go in.”
“Chip will do what he wants to do,” Alfred said. “I’ve never understood it, but he is not going to change now.”
He marched two blocks in the rain before he found a dial tone. At the first twin phone bank he came to, one instrument was castrated, with colored tassels at the end of its cord, and all that remained of the other was four bolt holes. The phone at the next intersection had chewing gum in its coin slot, and the line of its companion was completely dead. The standard way for a man in Chip’s position to vent his rage was to smash the handset on the box and leave the plastic shards in the gutter, but Chip was in too much of a hurry for this. At the corner of Fifth Avenue, he tried a phone that had a dial tone but did not respond when he touched the keypad and did not return his quarter when he hung up nicely or when he picked the handset up and slammed it down. The other phone had a dial tone and took his money, but a Baby Bell voice claimed not to understand what he’d dialed and did not return the money. He tried a second time and lost his last quarter.
He smiled at the SUVs crawling by in ready-to-brake bad-weather automotive postures. The doormen in this neighborhood hosed the sidewalks twice a day, and sanitation trucks with brushes like the mustaches of city cops scoured the streets three times a week, but in New York City you never had to go far to find filth and rage. A nearby street sign seemed to read Filth Avenue. Things cellular were killing public phones. But unlike Denise, who considered cell phones the vulgar accessories of vulgar people, and unlike Gary, who not only didn’t hate them but had bought one for each of his three boys, Chip hated cell phones mainly because he didn’t have one.
Under the scant protection of Denise’s umbrella, he crossed back to a deli on University Place. Brown cardboard had been laid over the scuff rug at the door for traction, but the cardboard was soaked and trampled, its shreds resembling washed-up kelp. Headlines in wire baskets by the door reported yesterday’s tanking of two more economies in South America and fresh plunges in key Far Eastern markets. Behind the cash register was a lottery poster: It’s not about winning. It’s about fun.™
With two of the four dollars in his wallet Chip bought some of the all-natural licorice that he liked. For his third dollar the deli clerk gave him four quarters in change. “I’ll take a Lucky Leprechaun, too,” Chip said.
The three-leaf clover, wooden harp, and pot of gold that he uncovered weren’t a winning, or fun, combination.
“Is there a pay phone around here that works?”
“No pay phone,” the clerk said.
“I’m saying, is there one close to here that works?”
“No pay phone!” The clerk reached under the counter and held up a cell phone. “This phone!”
“Can I make one quick call with that?”
“Too late for broker now. Should have call yesterday. Should have buy American.”
The clerk laughed in a way that was the more insulting for being good-humored. But then, Chip had reason to be sensitive. Since D—— College had fired him, the market capitalization