38
THE FATHERLY thrill that came with seeing both his daughters in his house at the same time quickly faded. The same tension that used to take hours to surface arose immediately with Nicole’s forearms-only embrace in exchange for Maddy’s bear hug. Meanwhile, her mannequin husband arrived with the wincing smile of someone serving soup at the Salvation Army for the very first time. Wayne’s friends, Lenny and Rocco, acted subdued from the beginning, nibbling around the kitchen, peeking at him to see if he was missing the undercurrents. Nicole dominated the dinner conversation, as if afraid where it might lead without her guidance, rattling on about neighborhoods getting renovated in Vancouver. Wayne resisted pointing out that gentrification is hardly a synonym for progress. He winked, smiled and passed the curried vegetables Maddy had cooked, which Rocco and Lenny praised, and Nicole and Mitchell picked through.
It irritated Wayne that Nicole hadn’t said a word about his cameo in Maclean’s. He hadn’t received so much praise since his retirement party, which allowed him to indulge the daydream that he might ultimately be remembered for his ability to elucidate American hubris and hypocrisy. Who knows? Maybe relations would hit such a flashpoint there’d be a CBC retrospective on him, with producers scrambling for footage of incisive lectures or tracking down bootleg videos like Sophie Winslow’s doozy of his impromptu jousting with Congress. He’d stayed up the night before making notes on future essays, just the fearless ideas themselves, each more provocative than the last. People would want to hear his thoughts. It didn’t matter when or even if he published them. They wanted to hear! So he wrote and wrote, but the pot wore thin and he went from feeling like a modern Mencken to a washed-up simpleton. His comments in Maclean’s, he noticed for the first time, in fact, weren’t exactly what he’d said and suddenly sounded like arrogant cheap shots.
That, no doubt, was what Nicole thought. He told himself to let it go, but how could they not even mention it? He waited patiently for the mannequin to quit chewing. “So, Mitchell, what do you make of that scary Canadian terrorist turning out to be a wayward American?”
“Well, Wayne,” he began in his affected baritone, “it doesn’t change the fact that we’ve got problems of our own, that our asylum policies are the most generous and foolish in the world.”
“That’s your reaction?” Wayne tried to control his voice. “Blame Canada anyway?”
“I think we just look at this sort of thing differently, Wayne. We don’t have to agree on everything, do we?”
Wayne caught Nicole’s glare and took another bite.
Lenny shifted the conversation to real estate and the crazy prices for Zero Ave. properties. “Even trailer lots are double what they were three years ago.”
“Location, location, location,” Nicole said. “If your business is drug smuggling what better place to be?” She glanced at her sister, then began lecturing everyone about the benefits of foreign index funds, hinting that Wayne desperately needed to finally get smart with what little money he had.
So there will be more for you? he wanted to ask.
“I think she may be right on this one, Wayne,” Mitchell added dulcetly “You seriously might want to get some guidance on some of this stuff, given that it’s not your primary area of interest or expertise.”
Money had never mattered to Wayne, even before he was dying. “Perhaps I’ll find someone,” he said through his teeth.
“Well, I am a broker,” Nicole blurted, rolling her eyes. “Earth to Dad! Your daughter’s a broker with Kunkel and Bradford.”
Madeline smiled at Lenny. “Welcome to our family dynamics. If you stick around long enough, you might get the impression that my sister isn’t bashful with her advice.”
Nicole dropped her fork. “Yeah, Larry, stick around and you’ll figure out that my sister’s a drug dealer.”
“Lenny,” Madeline corrected.
“What?” Nicole snapped.
“And FYI, I don’t deal drugs, but I’d rather sell them than whatever it is you’re pushing.”
“And what, exactly, do you know—”
“Stop,” Wayne scolded. “Both of you.”
“It is a birthday party,” Rocco added with a smile.
Nicole cut a chicken breast into pieces so small there was nothing left to slice. “You’re not the least bit curious how she could afford to rent the Damant house?” she asked Wayne. “Didn’t that strike you as a bit odd? Hmmm, why would she want to live there?”
“To be near her father?” His eyes flickered between the two of them, his wife alive in both of their faces. “To get more space?”
“Smoke some more medicine, Dad. What about her Nissan? Pretty nice car for someone who quit her job at the nursery, eh? Oh, I’m sorry. You didn’t know she quit, did you?”
“Refresh my memory,” Wayne said, “exactly how many kids have you raised?”
“That’s your reaction?” She tugged at the neck of her blouse. “So happens that a doctor and a broker don’t have a whole lot of time left over to overpopulate the planet. But of course sixty-hour workweeks aren’t something you’d know a whole lot about.”
Wayne looked at Lenny. “Who would’ve thought a daughter of mine would end up living the American dream?”
“That wasn’t funny the first ten times you said it, Dad.”
“A broker and an anesthesiologist,” he said, without looking up from his food.
“What?”
“You always call him a doctor.” He took another gulp of wine.
“Dad, that is so ignorant.”
Wayne couldn’t stop himself. “Guess he’ll come in handy if you need to put a dog down. But wait, that’s right, you two don’t have any time for dogs either.”
Nicole’s chair fell backwards as she shot upright. “Enjoy your gift, Dad.” Then, to Madeline, “Don’t expect me to visit you in jail or rehab.”
Madeline exhaled melodramatically. “Thank God.”
Nicole picked up her chair. “You’re changing, Dad, and she’s an addict.”
“And you’ve already said twice as much as you needed to say.”
“But you haven’t?”
Wayne muscled a smile. “Please, let’s just try to start over here. Please.”
Mitchell rose, white-faced, his jaw tendons popping. “Think it’s a bit late for that.”
They collected their bags and coats as if the house were on fire, dumping the angel cake onto a plate so Nicole could take her pan, and left with a whomp of the screen door.
Wayne realized the next time they came to the house he’d be dead. He went to the kitchen window to watch them pull out, but instead saw Norm Vanderkool hobbling to his mailbox with a look of dread. He apologized to his wife in his head, then aloud to Rocco and Lenny. He sighed and reluctantly turned to Maddy, chewing the corner of his lip. “Please tell me,” he said softly, “you didn’t quit the nursery.”