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.Great, well, then came the overdose.On Tylenol.My mother found him, she called the ambulance, they got him to the hospital, he came out okay.But now my parents were terrified, we all were.Eric especially.He called me into his room one night.He was really skinny by that point, and pale, like I could see through his arm.And he was so angry, but embarrassed more than anything.He tried to explain to me how he carried this burden not only of failing in life, but now with the suicide attempt, he’d failed at being a failure, so there was a double humiliation.Now he was nobody.We listened to Radiohead; he fell asleep with his head in my lap.So we started talking three times a day.I’d call him from the pay phone at the school gym.At night we smoked pot and watched Frank Capra movies.But nothing was improving.Then my parents decided Eric needed to go away, on their terms.“They used me as bait, basically,” said Regina.“What does that mean?”“I was the only person in Eric’s world, besides Thom Yorke, he believed was on his side.They found this home outside Chicago where he was supposed to go stay for a year, a psych ward with nice landscaping, like a schizophrenic summer camp.First they had to get him there, though, so my parents pitched a trip: we would take a family vacation to the Art Institute.”“In Chicago.”“I’d been pleading for months how I badly wanted to see this Viennese show they’d just opened, but we had to go as a family, they said.Eric couldn’t stay home alone.So I worked on my brother: needling him, goading him.It took every chit I had, but one morning we got in the van and drove to Illinois, even stayed the night in a schmancy hotel near Michigan Avenue, which definitely was not our style.I mean, my parents don’t even like beds.But the next morning, I’m twitching I’m so thrilled, and my brother has caught my excitement; they had this big breakfast buffet at the hotel with salmon and bagels and an omelet bar.Then we come out on the sidewalk, and there’s these two big dudes and some woman, the three of them are talking to my parents, and Eric and I are only just at that point sensing something’s up when the guys appear, take up either side of my brother, carry him into a Suburban and Eric’s screaming, staring at me, yelling at me to help him, stop them, so then I start screaming, but then they’re gone.The Suburban drives away.Everyone’s crying, my parents included, my dad later thanks me ‘for playing my part.’ He says this, you know, for playing the role I would never have agreed to perform had I been apprised of the plan, as I’m sure they knew.That was our last family vacation.My brother stayed eighteen months, got on phenelzine, now he’s a reasonably functioning mattress salesman and proto-rocker.He doesn’t speak to my parents, though, and I don’t have much reason to, either.They tried taking me to the museum that afternoon as a reward.”I fell asleep listening to Radu Lupu play Schubert.In my dream, Regina was a projection dancing far away in a forest.I shouted at her to leave me alone.A fog came up from the ground, so I couldn’t see where I was going, and I ran straight into a tree, sticking up in the middle of a highway.The tree was coated with tar.I couldn’t move.Headlights from a car pinpointed me and flashed Morse code.Then the forest became a desert in New Mexico: infinite yellow sand, infinite black sky.But no stars.The driver in the car was a girl I’d dreamed about going down on when I was in the eleventh grade.I could see her face above the steering wheel, and I imagined her vagina as I used to in class, trapped between her legs, yearning to be exposed and kissed.I was filled with the certainty that she’d run me over with her car and keep driving, leaving me to die.The girl spoke through ESP.She informed me she’d crash into me soon, and then go after Regina, Regina who was starring in a drive-in movie projected onto the side of a mesa.But there’s a condition, the ghost said.“Victor, you’re an awful boy.”“I can’t say how sorry I am.”The windows dripped with rain.Her voice crackling: “A nuisance.A pain to me.”“Betsy, I am very sorry.”“And you’ll never do it again, say that, Victor.”“I’ll never do it again,” I said, coddling the phone.“That’s right, you’ll never stand me up again.Why, Joel has never been so awful, Victor, leaving a woman stranded when it was freezing wet last night, you remember? And I cooked both steaks, and not cheap, mind you.The potatoes the way you like.I made a pound cake for dessert, I baked an extra so you could have something nice around that empty house of yours, but now it’s dry, Victor, in the trash.You know how much they charge for filet these days at Pine Tree? Do you?”Sara would have pointed out that this was very true to Betsy’s character, to call early in the morning to own the slight.“How can I make it up to you?”“Too late, I’m going out to Cranberry.”“Betsy—”“Next Friday, you’ll take me to dinner.”“There we go.Of course.”“Well, don’t sit too comfortable,” Betsy snapped.“You pick up the check.And no whining about what I drink.”“Dear, I am truthfully very sorry.”“And we’ll go to Blue Sea.”There was a second’s pause and I could hear her considering how I would react.Blue Sea was her son Joel’s restaurant, in Southwest Harbor.It was the island’s best restaurant, not inexpensive but worth the price.It was also open year-round, a rarity come January.Everyone raved about Joel and his cooking.Gourmet had published an article the previous year about contemporary cuisine in New England, singling out Joel in a sidebar: “Organic Prophet Hidden in Tourists’ Mecca.” I found the clipping one day buried inside a book on Betsy’s coffee table, though I don’t think she’d ever set foot in the restaurant.In the breezeway came a bang from the door.Russell appeared wearing running shorts and sneakers.He opened the refrigerator and finished off the orange juice.“All right, Blue Sea, sounds good,” I said.“You eat there all the time, as though I don’t know.They must have something I can stomach.Is there a smoking section?”“Next Friday, seven o’clock.I’ll get a reservation, okay?”“In fact,” she said, dawdling, “I’ve wondered if I wouldn’t rather begin seeing Joel more often.Make it six-thirty.And that’s right, you will pick me up, and if you don’t then forget it, Victor, you’ll never see me again.”At eleven years old, Joel had been shipped off to Uncle Bill’s prep school alma mater in Massachusetts.During the summers, they enrolled him at a boys’ camp in Vermont.Joel had told me about it one evening at the Blue Sea bar: that if his parents ever did see him as a boy, it had been at Christmastime, when Cape Near would be full of people, adults banging on the piano and philandering, a party every night.No wonder, I thought, Joel set fire to his dormitory.A great big burning plea for attention.Then he ran away and disappeared for two years.The Pinkertons and FBI were enlisted, to no avail.Betsy once told me she and Bill were devastated at the time, feeling betrayed.“And just when I was becoming interested in him,” she’d said.She chirped, “Ta, Victor dear,” before slamming down the phone.I remembered Sara’s play going up on Broadway.I remembered opening night on Forty-sixth Street, applauding from backstage amid the support staff [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]